Science: What Geeks are talking about from Reuters News

ITER nuclear fusion project faces new delay, cost overrun: Les Echos
PARIS (Reuters) – The international ITER project to build a prototype nuclear fusion reactor will be delayed by more than a decade and faces another 4 billion euros of cost overruns, its director told French daily Les Echos.

Africa’s giant eye in the sky proving worth its SALT
SUTHERLAND, South Africa (Reuters) – South Africa’s SALT telescope has helped detect the first white dwarf pulsar, the latest co-discovery that has astronomers eager to use the largest optical telescope in the southern hemisphere to unlock the galaxy’s secrets.

Astronomers find a tailless comet, first of its kind
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Astronomers have found a first-of-its-kind tailless comet whose composition may offer clues into long-standing questions about the solar system’s formation and evolution, according to research published on Friday in the journal Science Advances.

Simulating Mars exploration, British astronaut guides rover from space
LONDON (Reuters) – British astronaut Tim Peake drove a rover on Mars on Friday — or at least pretended to by test-driving the exploration vehicle on earth remotely from space.

Repairs to keep ULA rocket grounded until summer, company says
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – United Launch Alliance’s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket will remain grounded until this summer while engineers fix a problem that triggered an early engine shutdown during its last flight, the space venture said on Friday.

China aims for manned moon landing by 2036
BEIJING (Reuters) – China wants to put astronauts on the moon by 2036, a senior space official said, the latest goal in China’s ambitious lunar exploration program.

Slumber party: reptiles, like us, have REM sleep and may dream
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Research in a German laboratory involving five lizards called Australian bearded dragons indicates that these reptiles may dream and could prompt a fundamental reassessment of the evolution of sleep.

SpaceX undercut ULA rocket launch pricing by 40 percent: U.S. Air Force
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force will save 40 percent by buying a GPS satellite launch from Elon Musk’s SpaceX compared with what United Launch Alliance has been charging, the head of the Space and Missile Systems Center said on Thursday.

In risks to bees, study finds not all neonicotinoids are equal
LONDON (Reuters) – A group of chemical insecticides known as neonicotinoids that have been banned in Europe due to fears about potential harm to bees have been found in new research to have very differential risks for bumblebees.

SpaceX breaks Boeing-Lockheed monopoly on military space launches
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch a GPS satellite, breaking the monopoly that Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co have held on military space launches for more than a decade.

SpaceX targets 2018 for first Mars mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – SpaceX plans to send an unmanned Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018, the company said on Wednesday, a first step in achieving founder Elon Musk’s goal to fly people to another planet.

Russia’s Putin orders space program shake-up after launch delayed
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin told his space officials to raise their game on Wednesday after he flew thousands of kilometers to watch the inaugural launch of a rocket from a new spaceport, only for it to be called off.

Glitch postpones first space flight from Russia’s new launch-pad
MOSCOW (Reuters) – A technical fault forced Russia’s space agency on Wednesday to postpone at the last minute the inaugural launch of a rocket into space from its new Vostochny launch-pad, Russian media reported.

Concentration counts in mind controlled drone race
GAINESVILLE, Fl – It was a test of concentration and brainwaves for students at the University of Florida during what was billed as the first mind controlled drone race.

Heads up: intact skull sheds light on big, long-necked dinosaurs
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A beautifully preserved fossil skull unearthed in Argentina is giving scientists unparalleled insight into the sensory capabilities and behavior of a group of dinosaurs that were the largest land animals in Earth’s history.

Battling cancer with light
(Reuters) – Researchers have for the first time used a technique called optogenetics to prevent and reverse cancer by manipulating electrical signals in cells.

Blaze guts Delhi museum housing dinosaur fossil
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A fire on Tuesday damaged a museum of natural history in the Indian capital that had scores of exhibits of plants and animals, among them a 160-million-year-old dinosaur fossil.

Wind energy converter inspired by ancient boats
A bladeless wind energy convertor inspired by the sailing boats of Ancient Carthage is set to breeze past traditional turbines in terms of efficiency, according to its Tunisian developers.

Astronaut runs marathon in space — but slower than on earth
(Reuters) – British astronaut Tim Peake became the first man to complete a marathon in space on Sunday, running the classic 26.2 mile distance while strapped to a treadmill aboard the International Space Station.

Dutch fountain runs on sunshine and air
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A Dutch sculpture presented on Earth Day spouts water 6 meters high without using conventional water or power sources in what creators hope will inspire new ways to ease resource shortages in drought-prone climates.

AstraZeneca taps gene pioneer Venter for huge drug-hunting sweep
CAMBRIDGE, England (Reuters) – AstraZeneca, working with genome pioneer Craig Venter, is launching a massive gene hunt in the most comprehensive bet yet by a pharmaceutical firm on the potential of genetic variations to unlock routes to new medicines.

Huge long-necked dinosaurs had big, precocious babies
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The babies of a huge, long-necked dinosaur called Rapetosaurus that lived on the island of Madagascar did not just sit in a nest and look cute. They were born ready for action.

South Africa boosts crop forecast accuracy with satellite imagery
PRETORIA (Reuters) – South Africa’s estimates for key crops such as maize have become increasingly accurate thanks to satellite imagery and as farmers’ often biased input has been cut out of the picture, a conference was told on Thursday.

China to launch ‘core module’ for space station around 2018
BEIJING (Reuters) – China will launch a “core module” for its first space station some time around 2018, a senior official told the state-run Xinhua news agency on Thursday, part of a plan to have a permanent manned space station in service around 2022.

Monkey mariners made monumental migration 21 million years ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Monkeys resembling today’s capuchins accomplished the astonishing feat of crossing at least 100 miles (160 km) of open ocean 21 million years ago to get from South America to North America eons before the two continents joined together.

Speedy eye-tracking device seeks to detect concussions
BOSTON (Reuters) – A newly-approved device using infrared cameras to track eye movements promises to help detect concussions in one minute, offering a speedy insight into whether athletes have sustained the injury.

Half Australia’s Great Barrier Reef coral ‘dead or dying’: scientists
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists said on Wednesday that just seven percent of the Great Barrier Reef, which attracts around A$5 billion ($3.90 billion) in tourism every year, has been untouched by mass bleaching that is likely to destroy half the coral.

A robot to teach kids coding
Cambridge, MASS (Reuters) – A robot named Root has been developed to expose kids of all ages to coding in a way that brings the often daunting world of computer science to life.

Exclusive: Florida wins contest for OneWeb satellite manufacturing facility – sources
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – OneWeb Ltd, a privately owned startup bankrolled by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and other well-known firms, will build a factory to mass produce small satellites near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, two sources involved in the project told Reuters.

Solar powered bid to bring modernity to developing world
A 40 meter long photovoltaic computer which provides clean water, while generating electricity to recharge external devices, has been designed by an Italian company for use in the developing world. Watly, set up by entrepreneur Marco Attisani, has started an Indiegogo campaign to fund the third version of its solar technology. “What you are looking at is a big machine, it’s an infrastructural machine. It’s 40 meters long, 15 meters wide, and 15 tonnes,” Attisani told Reuters. “Primarily i

Experimental inflatable module attached to space station
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla (Reuters) – A NASA ground-control team on Saturday used a robot arm to unpack an expandable module and attach it to the International Space Station, setting the stage for a novel test of a habitat for astronauts, researchers and even tourists.

DNA analysis could help improve your workout: study
LONDON (Reuters) – A new study suggests that athletes using DNA-matched training improved their performance almost three times more than those on mismatched programs.

Beer brewers toast Australian gluten-free barley
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian scientists say they have developed the world’s first WHO-approved “gluten-free” barley, a breakthrough for global beer manufacturers which have had to use alternatives to barley such as rice and sorghum to brew gluten-free beer.

Search begins for clues in prehistoric crater linked to demise of dinosaurs
MEXICO CITY – Scientists have begun drilling for core samples, nearly 5,000 feet below the seabed, of a prehistoric crater caused by an asteroid collision that is linked to the extinction of dinosaurs.

Device harnessing thoughts allows quadriplegic to use his hands
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An Ohio man paralyzed in an accident while diving in waves can now pick up a bottle or play the video game Guitar Hero thanks to a small computer chip in his brain that lets his mind guide his hands and fingers, bypassing his damaged spinal cord.

United Launch Alliance suspends Atlas 5 flights
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) – United Launch Alliance said on Wednesday its Atlas 5 rocket will need to be repaired before flights resume following an early engine shutdown on its last mission.

No more curtains thanks to next generation window technology
Cambridge, MASS (Reuters) – – Curtains and blinds may soon be a design choice as opposed as to a tool for privacy. Windows that can transition between clear and cloudy in a second may soon be a reality thanks to technology under development at Harvard University’s School of Engineering.

Swiss group buys Airbus jet for zero-gravity flights
ZURICH (Reuters) – A Swiss aerospace group plans to offer zero-gravity flights this year in an airliner that will expose thrill-seekers with strong stomachs to repeated bouts of weightlessness.

Orbital presses U.S. lawmakers to end ban on retired missiles
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Orbital ATK is pressing U.S. lawmakers to end a 20-year ban on using decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) for launching commercial satellites and the effort has raised concern among companies that have invested millions of dollars in potential rival rockets.

GM adenovirus used by doctors to attack tumor cells
Researchers in Argentina say they have genetically modified an adenovirus – which can cause colds, conjunctivitis and bronchitis – to home in on cancer, killing tumor cells in patients without harming healthy tissue.

South America’s prehistoric people spread like ‘invasive species’
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When the first prehistoric people trekked into South America toward the end of the Ice Age, they found a wondrous, lush continent inhabited by all manner of strange creatures like giant ground sloths and car-sized armadillos.

Suit that mimics life at age 85 has no creases, just creaks
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (Reuters) – With the push of a button, a perfectly healthy 34-year-old museum-goer named Ugo Dumont was transformed into a confused 85-year-old man with cataracts, glaucoma and a ringing in his ears known as tinnitus.

U.S. needs up to 18 more Russian rocket engines: Pentagon
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon will need to buy up to 18 more Russian-built RD-180 engines to power rockets carrying U.S. military satellites into space over the next six years or so, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said in an interview on Friday.

Genes used to extend banana lifespan
Bananas never last very long — within a few days of buying them, the rot sets in. But now Israeli scientists have found a way to significantly slow the decomposition down by altering the genes of the fruit.

SpaceX rocket booster makes breakthrough landing at sea
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on a NASA cargo run to the International Space Station on Friday, and its reusable main-stage booster landed on an ocean platform minutes later in a dramatic spaceflight first.