First pictures of rare wetland spider in Cambridgeshire
A spider that was feared extinct in the UK has been photographed for the first time after a new colony of the species was found
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Light goes out on solar mission
After more than 18 years studying the Sun, the plug is finally being pulled on the ailing spacecraft Ulysses. Final communication with the joint European-US satellite will take place on 30 June. The long-serving craft, launched in October 1990, has already served four times its expected design life. The Esa-Nasa mission was the first to [...]
Internet Explorer security alert
Users of the world’s most common web browser have been advised to switch to another browser until a serious security flaw has been fixed. The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say. Microsoft is investigating the problem and preparing an emergency [...]
e=mc2: 103 years later, Einstein’s proven right
It’s taken more than a century, but Einstein’s celebrated formula e=mc2 has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists. A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the [...]
Bullies may get kick out of seeing others in pain
Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, U.S. researchers said on Friday. While this may come as little surprise to those who have been victimized by bullies, it is not what the researchers expected, Benjamin Lahey of [...]
Simulation may help solve mystery of dark matter
A computer simulation showing the formation and evolution of a galaxy like the Milky Way points to where scientists should look to spot dark matter, international researchers reported on Wednesday. The findings published in the journal Nature move researchers a step closer to unraveling the mystery of the substance that makes up most of the [...]
Pope sees physicist Hawking at evolution gathering
Pope Benedict told a gathering of scientists including the British cosmologist Stephen Hawking on Friday that there was no contradiction between believing in God and empirical science. Benedict, who briefly met the wheelchair-bound physicist at an event hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, described science as the pursuit of knowledge about God’s creation. "There [...]
Space shuttle crew practices for next launch
Seven astronauts climbed aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday in a practice run for a mission to deliver equipment needed to prepare the International Space Station for a larger crew. Endeavour is tentatively scheduled for launch on November 14 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA managers will review flight preparations and [...]
Humans made fire 790,000 years ago
A new study shows that humans had the ability to make fire nearly 790,000 years ago, a skill that helped them migrate from Africa to Europe. By analyzing flints at an archaeological site on the bank of the river Jordan, researchers at Israel’s Hebrew University discovered that early civilizations had learned to light fires, a [...]
Goce gravity flight slips to 2009
Europe’s gravity mission has been bumped to next year because of ongoing technical problems with its launcher. The arrow-shaped Goce satellite will map tiny variations in the pull of gravity experienced across the world. The information will give scientists a clearer insight into how the oceans move, and provide a universal reference to measure height [...]
America’s ‘most dangerous fault’
It’s a big white building on Mission Boulevard. You can’t miss it; the Art Deco style is really striking. The grass is trimmed and it all looks perfectly inviting, except this is a lock-out. The first Hayward City Hall in California has long been off-limits to occupants because its foundations sit right atop an earthquake [...]
Three Chemists Win Nobel Prize
One Japanese and two American scientists have won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for taking the ability of some jellyfish to glow and transforming it into a ubiquitous tool of molecular biology for watching the dance of living cells and the proteins within them. The fluorescent proteins are now routinely used for observing the [...]