Science

ALMATY (Reuters) – NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir will take an unusual – and more exhausting – route home after safely landing in the Kazakh steppe on Friday, a Russian healthcare official said, because of lockdowns caused by the novel coronavirus. A capsule carrying Morgan, Meir and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka touched down

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – For human beings, “stink flirting” may not sound like a prudent dating strategy. For ring-tailed lemurs, it is the way to go. FILE PHOTO: Ring-tailed lemurs stand together at the Haifa zoo in northern Israel March 27, 2010. REUTERS/Baz Ratner/File Photo Scientists on Thursday described the results of a comprehensive study of

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have observed the biggest supernova – stellar explosion – ever detected, the violent death of a huge star up to 100 times more massive than our sun in a faraway galaxy. FILE PHOTO: An artist’s impression of supernova SN2016aps, provided by Northwestern University April 13, 2020. Aaron Geller/Northwestern University/Handout via REUTERS.

TOULOUSE, France (Reuters) – French space scientists are using the COVID-19 lockdown as a dry run for what it will be like to be cooped up inside a space craft on a mission to Mars. The guinea pigs in the experiment are 60 students who are confined to their dormitory rooms in the southern city

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A reddish-colored cigar-shaped interstellar object called ‘Oumuamua that is tumbling through our solar system may be wreckage from a planet ripped apart when it roamed too close to the faraway star it once orbited, according to researchers. A tidal disruption process that can give rise to ‘Oumuamua-like objects is seen in an

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Neanderthals used plant fibers to create string more than 40,000 years ago at a site in France where they hunted reindeer, further evidence according to scientists of the ingenuity and cognitive capabilities of our closest extinct human relatives. FILE PHOTO: Hyperrealistic face of a Neanderthal male is displayed in a cave in

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have figured out how to calculate the age of whale sharks – Earth’s largest fish – with some guidance from the radioactive fallout spawned by Cold War-era atomic bomb testing. FILE PHOTO: Visitors watch a whale shark at the Whale Shark Aquarium of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom in Zhuhai, China September 4,

FILE PHOTO: NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity tracks on planet Mars are visible in this August 4, 2010 image released on February 13, 2019. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, accused Donald Trump on Tuesday of creating a basis to take over other planets by signing an executive order

(Reuters) – Boeing Co said on Monday it would send its Starliner astronaut spacecraft on another unmanned mission to the International Space Station, months after its last flight was cut short because of a software bug. During the December test, a series of software glitches and an issue with the spacecraft’s automated timer resulted in

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have extracted from dental enamel the oldest human genetic material ever obtained, helping clarify the pivotal place in the human evolutionary lineage of a mysterious extinct species called Homo antecessor known from Spanish cave fossils. Skeletal remains unearthed at the Gran Dolina site in Spain of the extinct human species Homo

BERLIN (Reuters) – ResearchGate, a social network site for scientists and researchers, has launched a new forum to facilitate collaboration between COVID-19 experts on research into beating the flu-like disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The site here developed in 10 days and launched late last week, boosts the visibility of articles, pre-prints and research

LONDON (Reuters) – Face masks could help limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to researchers who studied the effect of surgical masks on the transmission of other corona and flu viruses. A Spanish National Police officer is seen wearing two protective masks, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Ronda, southern Spain, April

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chilean telescopes that comb the skies seeking answers about some of the universe´s most fundamental questions have confirmed they, too, have fallen victim to the mass disruption brought about by the new coronavirus. FILE PHOTO: Workers of Atacama Large Millimetre/Submillimetre Array (ALMA) and visitors gather around a special vehicle as it loads

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have detected a mid-size black hole – considered the “missing link” in the understanding of these celestial brutes – eviscerating an unfortunate star that strayed too close. A cosmic homicide in action, with a wayward star being shredded by the intense gravitational pull of a black hole that contains tens of

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Antarctica is now a harsh land of ice and snow, but has not always been that way. FILE PHOTO: A glacier is seen in Half Moon Bay, Antarctica, February 18, 2018. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini Earth’s southernmost continent long ago was home to temperate, swampy rainforests teeming with life, scientists said on Wednesday based

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have solved a longstanding mystery over the age of a landmark skull found in 1921 in Zambia – the first fossil of an extinct human species discovered in Africa – in research with big implications for deciphering the origin of our own species. The Natural History Museum’s Professor Chris Stringer is