Science

At 1:31 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover completed its eight-and-a-half-month journey from Earth to land on the surface of Mars. The Times is reporting the news as it unfolds directly from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and covering events and reaction from people tuning in around the globe. There are several transmitters on Continue Reading →

Do you want legs that let you jump 10 feet high? Or a body that “impresses chicks”? Or a brain that can be electronically pulled back from extreme depression? Computer experts of today think that the day will be coming when human cyborgs will be possible? Two computer-savvy medical students, who noted they were not Continue Reading →

Scientists at Stanford University and the J. Craig Venter Institute have developed the first software simulation of an entire organism, a humble single-cell bacterium that lives in the human genital and respiratory tracts. – NY Times article 7/20/2012 When you are done reading below, take a minute or two to read the NY Times article on Continue Reading →

An artificial “brain” built by a 17-year-old whiz kid from Florida is able to accurately assess tissue samples for signs of breast cancer, providing more confidence to a minimally invasive procedure. The cloud-based neural network took top prize in this year’s Google Science Fair. “I taught the computer how to diagnose breast cancer,” Brittany Wenger, Continue Reading →

Looking at her picture, you may think that Earth is a water world. But the fact is that she is 99-percent dry rock. According to our current solar system formation model, this is impossible—a mystery that has puzzled scientists until now. Rebecca Martin and Mario Livio—of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland—may have Continue Reading →

NASA has already made it clear that the Curiosity’s touchdown on Mars is a nerve-wracking experience, what with the seven minutes of radio silence, zero margin of error and all. To drive that point home, the organization partnered with Microsoft to offer Xbox Live players the experience of controlling the nerve-wracking descent. Starting Monday, you’ll Continue Reading →

Sci-fi fantasies have long predicted that we might live on the moon. But while the lack of atmosphere poses a problem for lunar living, there may be an even bigger sticking point: new research suggests that the moon’s surface is itself toxic to humans. For obvious reasons, long-term human exposure to the moon’s environment has Continue Reading →

It’s taken more than six years of development, but a new imaging system for the Palomar Observatory’s 200-inch Hale Telescope finally started capturing images last month, and promises to aid significantly in the search for planets outside our solar system (otherwise known as exoplanets). With the suitably mysterious name of “Project 1640,” the new instrument Continue Reading →

After spending 3 years at sea and traveling up to 300 kilometers away from home, a rainbow trout can swim straight back to its original hatching ground, following freshwater streams inland and rarely heading in the wrong direction. This remarkable feat of navigation likely relies on many senses; the fish have superb eyesight and smell. Continue Reading →

Scientists at CERN have today announced that they’re 99.99% sure that they’ve found a new sub-atomic particle, and that it is likely to be the elusive Higgs boson – often referred to as the “God Particle”. That’s all well and good, but what does it all mean? Let’s break it down. What is the Higgs Continue Reading →