The Russian Soyuz launcher reentered service today as the unmanned Roscosmos Progress 71 cargo ship lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1:14 pm EST (12:14 am Saturday, November 17, Baikonur time zone).
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Whether they're in airplane wings, bridges or other critical structures, cracks can cause catastrophic failure before they're large enough to be noticed by the human eye. A strain-sensing "skin" applied to such objects could help, though, by lighting up when exposed to laser light.
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After nine years, NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler mission came to a final end Thursday as the space agency sent the radio commands ordering the onboard computer to shut down the unmanned space telescope's systems.
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Taking one or more pills every day can be a hassle, with many people either forgetting or just not bothering. There could soon be an alternative, however. An experimental system that packs a week's worth of timed-release doses into one capsule has shown promising results in its first clinical study.
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The drinking straw seems pretty simple and unassuming, but it’s contributing to one of the most pressing environmental problems today. To help cut back on that, a start-up in Singapore is getting ready to launch the Chew, a reusable straw with a “chewable” rubber tip and a spin-dry mechanism.
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The galaxy W2246-0526 sits 12.4 billion light-years from Earth – almost the entire radius of the observable universe – and is the most luminous galaxy ever discovered, with the brightness of 350 trillion Suns. Now, astronomers have found that W2246-0526 is cannibalizing three neighboring galaxies.
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Studying the effects of once-in-a-century rainfall in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert in Chile, a team of astrobiologists found that instead of causing a bloom of growth, the unexpected abundance of water killed off three quarters to seven/eighths of the microbe species present.
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Research has revealed that people with a preference for drinking coffee over tea tend to display a genetic variant that signals a higher sensitivity to tasting bitterness in caffeine. This counter-intuitive finding suggests the bitterness of caffeine reinforces an attraction to the beverage.
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A new study has revealed a possible association between intellectual disability and some specific forms of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Experts are urging caution when interpreting these results as it is unclear exactly what may be causing the increased rates of intellectual disability.
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Scientists have found an ancient meteor crater under the Greenland ice cap that's larger than Paris. Discovered using ground-penetrating radar, the possibly three-million-year-old impact crater is 19 miles in diameter, about 1,000 ft deep, and is buried under 3,200 ft of glacial ice.
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