Inter-satellite communications system on way
Herndon, Va. (UPI) May 11, 2016 -
Prototype optical communication terminals for light-based communication between micro-satellites in low-Earth orbit are being developed by LGS Innovations.
The two lightweight, low-power terminals were ordered by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which plans to launch them on satellites weighing less than 100 pounds.
"Small satellites represent the next generati ...
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SES Enables Danish Defence Wideband Global Satcom System Connectivity
Luxembourg (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
SES S.A. reports it will provide two anchor stations for the Danish Defence Acquisition and Logistics Organisation (DALO). Under the agreement, SES Techcom Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES, will provision and maintain two Wideband Global Satcom system (WGS) anchor stations - one in X-band and one in Ka-band.
This will enable the Danish armed forces to communicate through the syst ...
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US missile shield in Romania goes live to Russian fury
Deveselu, Romania (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
A US anti-missile defence system in Romania aimed at protecting NATO members from threats by "rogue" nations became operational Thursday, triggering Russian fury despite US insistence it does not target Moscow.
Located in Deveselu in southern Romania, the missile interceptor station will help defend NATO members against the threat of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, particularly f ...
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Obama weighs lifting Vietnam arms embargo
Washington (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
The White House is considering lifting a decades-old arms embargo against Vietnam in time for President Barack Obama's visit to the booming Southeast Asian nation this month.
As both countries warily eye China's military build-up in the disputed South China Sea, officials said Obama is weighing an end to the Cold War-era ban on lethal weapons exports.
Obama begins his first visit to Viet ...
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British 'barbarians' need manners lesson, says China paper in rudeness row
Beijing (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
The British media is riddled with "barbarians" who would benefit from a lesson in manners from China's ancient civilisation, a state-run newspaper said Thursday after Queen Elizabeth II called some Chinese officials "very rude".
In a rare diplomatic gaffe, the British monarch was caught on camera at a Buckingham Palace garden party making unguarded comments about a state visit last year by P ...
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How the Marriage of Third Offset, Better Buying Power Affects Industry
McLean, VA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
The value the U.S. Department of Defense places on space was apparent last year in standing up the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center (JICSpOC) as the first working element of the department's Third Offset Strategy.
After all, much of the Third Offset is being driven by the Pentagon's Better Buying Power 3.0, according to John McNellis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Space, ...
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Industry Wants to Ensure the Warfighter Is Always Supported
McLean, VA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
On April 12th in a darkened room at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., Gen. John Hyten prefaced his talk to the 32nd Space Symposium with a short, stark video. Its theme: This is how much the warfighter depends on U.S. assets in space.
The conclusion: What if our soldiers couldn't depend on the ISR superiority they have come to expect?
"We have been given the greatest gift by the Americ ...
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Canada wildfires in 'bullseye' of warming planet trends
Miami (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
Experts say climate change is contributing to the wildfires raging across Canada, and the increasing frequency of such fires may overwhelm one of Earth's most important ecosystems, the boreal forest.
In just over a week, an out of control blaze has charred more than 2,290 square kilometers (884 square miles) of land and forced the evacuation of 100,000 people from Fort McMurray in Alberta, C ...
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80 percent of world's city dwellers breathing bad air: UN
Geneva (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
Over 80 percent of the world's city dwellers breathe poor quality air, increasing their risk of lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, a new World Health Organization (WHO) report warned Thursday.
Urban residents in poor countries are by far the worst affected, WHO said, noting that nearly every city (98 percent) in low- and middle-income countries has air which fails to meet the U ...
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Drought forces Coca-Cola to halt canned drinks in Namibia
Windhoek (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
Coca-Cola will stop production of all canned drinks in Namibia and has warned consumers of possible shortages, the company said Thursday, as a regional drought worsens across southern Africa.
Businesses in Windhoek, the Namibian capital, have been ordered by city authorities to cut water consumption by 30 percent - underlining the impact of a drought that has also gripped Zimbabwe, Mozambiq ...
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32 million face hunger in drought-hit southern Africa: UN
Johannesburg (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
About 32 million people in southern Africa face hunger after a crippling drought worsened by the El Nino weather phenomenon devastated crops across the region, the UN's food agency said Thursday.
Zimbabwe, Malawi and Mozambique have all issued drought alerts in recent months, as thousands of cattle die, reservoirs are depleted and harvests fail.
South Africa describes the drought as its ...
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Five questions about China's Cultural Revolution
Beijing (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
May 16 marks 50 years since the declaration of China's Cultural Revolution, a decade that plunged the country into chaos, leaving millions dead and transforming its political landscape.
Here is the background to this critical period in Chinese history.
-- What was the Cultural Revolution? -
It was partly a political power struggle. In the early 1960s, China's paramount leader Mao Ze ...
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Storms kill at least 33 in Bangladesh
Dhaka (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
Fierce tropical storms wreaked havoc across Bangladesh on Thursday, killing more than 30 people, with police attributing many of the deaths to lightning strikes.
The death toll from the 10 worst-hit districts stood at 33, police told AFP, with reports of an unconfirmed number of casualties in more remote regions.
The northwest of the country was the worst hit, with at least 19 people kil ...
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Nepal's quake recovery costs up by a quarter
Kathmandu (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
Quake-hit Nepal announced Thursday that its long-delayed reconstruction programme would cost 25 percent more than earlier estimated, as millions continue to live in temporary shelters a year after the disaster.
Nearly 9,000 people lost their lives when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake ripped through the Himalayan nation in April 2015, destroying more than half a million homes and prompting the gov ...
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Rare Sumatran rhino born in Indonesia
Jakarta (AFP) May 12, 2016 -
A Sumatran rhino gave birth to a female calf at a sanctuary in Indonesia on Thursday, taking the critically endangered species a step further away from extinction.
The baby was born at 5:40 am on western Sumatra island, and within hours was walking around and feeding from its mother, authorities said.
It was the second baby born to rhino Ratu. Her previous birth four years ago marked the ...
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UCI sleuths search the seas for soot
Irvine CA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
Earth system scientists from the University of California, Irvine have taken water samples from the north Pacific, north and south Atlantic, and Arctic oceans in search of repositories of black carbon, soot from burning biomass and diesel engines, among other sources.
They've found considerably less of the material than expected, and they've discovered that it exists in at least two variet ...
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Antarctic whales and the krill they eat
Washington DC (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
The Western Antarctic sector of the Southern Ocean is the regular feeding ground of a large number of fin and humpback whales of the Southern Hemisphere. Around 5,000 fin whales likely migrate to its ice-free waters during summer, along with at least 3,000 humpback whales.
These estimates follow a ship-based helicopter survey of whales in Antarctic waters. A net trawl survey for krill* was ...
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Biofeedback system designed to control photosynthetic lighting
Athens GA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
Controlled environment agriculture is rapidly becoming an important part of the global food system. For example, there has been much interest in the potential of large-scale, indoor agricultural production - often referred to as vertical farming - as a means to produce high quantities of produce. These "plant factories" are expensive to operate, however, in part because of the large power requir ...
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Study offers clues to better rainfall predictions
Cape Cod MA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
The saltiness, or salinity, of seawater depends largely on how much moisture is pulled into the air as evaporative winds sweep over the ocean. But pinpointing where the moisture rains back down is a complicated question scientists have long contended with.
Now, scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found a potential path to better seasonal rainfall predictions. ...
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Saharan dust makes big impact on Caribbean waters
Tallahassee FL (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
Dust from the Saharan desert is bringing needed iron and other nutrients to underwater plants in the Caribbean, but bacteria may be the first thing to prosper from that dust. The dust is causing the bacteria to bloom and also become more toxic to humans and marine organisms.
"This has been going on for a long time, but nobody understood it," said Florida State University Professor of Chemi ...
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Scientists track Greenland's ice melt with seismic waves
Boston MA (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
Researchers from MIT, Princeton University, and elsewhere have developed a new technique to monitor the seasonal changes in Greenland's ice sheet, using seismic vibrations generated by crashing ocean waves. The results, which will be published in the journal Science Advances, may help scientists pinpoint regions of the ice sheet that are most vulnerable to melting. The technique may also set bet ...
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Study finds declining sulfur levels
Urbana IL (SPX) May 13, 2016 -
Air pollution legislation to control fossil fuel emissions and the associated acid rain has worked - perhaps leading to the need for sulfur fertilizers for crop production. A University of Illinois study drawing from over 20 years of data shows that sulfur levels in Midwest watersheds and rivers have steadily declined, so much so that farmers may need to consider applying sulfur in the not too d ...
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Study: Cooperation, not struggle for survival, drives speciation, evolution
Bern, Switzerland (UPI) May 12, 2016 -
New empirical evidence supports theoretical research that suggests cooperation - not competition - is the main driver of speciation and evolution.
The theory was developed by Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, an associate professor of ecology and biodiversity at Tomsk State University in Russia. It was inspired by the failure of Gause's principle of competitive exclusion to explain what was act ...
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Spotlight on our living planet
Paris (ESA) May 12, 2016 -
One of the biggest Earth observation conferences in the world got off to a flying start today as thousands of scientists from around the world gathered in the Czech Republic to present their latest findings on our changing planet. Reflecting the increasing relevance that Earth observation plays in advancing our understanding of our home and in everyday applications, ESA's fifth Living Planet Sym ...
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Earth's magnetic heartbeat
Paris (ESA) May 12, 2016 -
With more than two years of measurements by ESA's Swarm satellite trio, changes in the strength of Earth's magnetic field are being mapped in detail. Launched at the end of 2013, Swarm is measuring and untangling the different magnetic signals from Earth's core, mantle, crust, oceans, ionosphere and magnetosphere - an undertaking that will take several years to complete.
Although invisible ...
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