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122 articles from Yahoo!

Happy Asteroid Day! Why we’re going out to space rocks before they come for us

Today's 112th anniversary of a close brush with a cosmic catastrophe serves as a teachable moment about the perils and prospects posed by near-Earth asteroids. Asteroid Day is timed to commemorate a blast from space that occurred over a Siberian forest back on June 30, 1908. The explosion, thought to have been caused by the breakup of an asteroid or comet, wiped out millions of acres of trees...

Egg freezing rises five-fold in part thanks to 'revolutionary' technology, experts say

The number of women freezing their eggs has risen five-fold since 2013, official figures show, in part thanks to "revolutionary" technology which has boosted success rates. Health officials have documented a surge in the number of IVF "storage cycles" where people undergo fertility treatment and store their eggs or embryos until a later date. Data from the Human Fertilisation...

Covid-19 Shows That Scientific Journals Need to Open Up

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- One big change brought on by Covid-19 is that virtually all the scientific research being produced about it is free to read. Anyone can access the many preliminary findings that scholars are posting on “preprint servers.” Data are shared openly via a multitude of different channels. Scientific journals that normally keep their articles behind formidable paywalls have...

New swine flu found in China has pandemic potential

Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the US science journal PNAS. It possesses "all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans," say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2011 to 2018, researchers...


MONDAY 29. JUNE 2020


With Flights Banned, Son Sails Solo Across Atlantic to Reach Father, 90

BUENOS AIRES -- Days after Argentina canceled all international passenger flights to shield the country from the new coronavirus, Juan Manuel Ballestero began his journey home the only way possible: He stepped aboard his small sailboat for what turned out to be an 85-day odyssey across the Atlantic.The 47-year-old sailor could have stayed put on the tiny Portuguese island of Porto Santo, to ride...


SATURDAY 27. JUNE 2020



FRIDAY 26. JUNE 2020


NASA looks to the public to help design next space toilet

To prepare for the next human moonwalk slated to take place in 2024, NASA announced on Thursday the "Lunar Loo Challenge" asking the public to submit designs for a zero gravity-friendly space toilet. Of course, some space toilets already exist like that of the one in the International Space Station, but NASA wants this next one to be "smaller, more efficient and capable of working in both...

Spacewalking astronaut loses mirror, newest space junk

A spacewalking astronaut added to the pieces of junk orbiting the Earth on Friday, losing a small mirror as soon as he stepped out of the International Space Station for battery work. Commander Chris Cassidy said the mirror floated away at about a foot per second. Mission Control said the mirror somehow became detached from Cassidy's...

Siberia heatwave: Fears of 'irreversible' permafrost melt as Russian village sees record temperatures

The northernmost town in the Arctic, Verkhoyansk is one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth and regularly records some of the world’s lowest temperatures. However, this week it made headlines when it reached a sweltering 38C, the highest temperature since records began 150 years ago. Locals are used to swinging between extreme temperatures, with summers regularly reaching 30C, but this was...


THURSDAY 25. JUNE 2020


Russian space officials say Space Adventures has struck a deal to let a customer do a spacewalk

Russian space officials say that they've signed off on a commercial deal with Virginia-based Space Adventures to fly two customers to the International Space Station in 2023 — and that one of the customers will get to do a spacewalk. In a news release, Roscosmos said the contract between Space Adventures and Russia's main space company, Energia, calls for one of the spaceflight...

Allen Institute will host $40.5M brain research center to map the effects of Alzheimer’s disease

A $40.5 million collaborative research center headquartered at Seattle's Allen Institute aims to create high-resolution maps of brains ravaged by Alzheimer's disease, to trace new paths to early diagnosis and treatment. The center will draw upon expertise not only at the institute, but also at UW Medicine and Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute. Funding for the next five...


WEDNESDAY 24. JUNE 2020


Relativity makes deals with Vandenberg AFB and Iridium for California launches

Relativity Space, a startup that was born in Seattle but grew up in Los Angeles, says it has signed an agreement to develop launch facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and a contract with Iridium to launch satellites from those facilities. The flurry of announcements marks a significant expansion for a company that barely existed five years ago but has raised $185 million since...

Black hole or neutron star? Gravitational waves bring a cosmic conundrum to light

Telltale ripples in the fabric of spacetime have revealed the existence of a cosmic object that scientists can't definitively classify. Whatever it is, the object was engulfed suddenly by a black hole weighing 23.2 times the mass of our sun, 800 million light-years away. The gravitational waves thrown off by that violent merger were picked up last August by the twin detectors of the Laser...


TUESDAY 23. JUNE 2020


NASA lays out a plan to qualify suborbital spacecraft for its astronauts and scientists

NASA says it'll formulate a plan to assess the safety of suborbital spacecraft — such as Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship or Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane — so that astronauts, researchers and other space agency personnel can be cleared for takeoff. Today's announcement, and the release of an official request for information, follows through on hints about...

Huge volcanic eruption in Alaska led to rise of the Roman Empire, scientists claim

The rise of the Roman Empire was due in part to a gigantic volcanic eruption 6,000 miles away in Alaska, an international team of scientists claims. The eruption of the Okmok volcano in the Aleutian islands of Alaska more than 2,000 years ago caused a severe cold spell in Europe that led to crop failures, food shortages and political and social unrest, they argue. That hastened the demise of the...

LeoStella confirms delivery of BlackSky’s Earth observation satellites for SpaceX launch

Tukwila, Wash.-based LeoStella cast a spotlight today on the delivery of its first two built-from-scratch satellites for the BlackSky Earth-watching constellation ⁠— with their launch on a SpaceX rocket set for Thursday. In a news release, LeoStella said the two 110-pound satellites were delivered to Florida on June 1 in preparation for liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. They'll...


MONDAY 22. JUNE 2020


Virgin Galactic and NASA make a deal on services for private orbital astronauts

Virgin Galactic says it has signed an agreement with NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas to develop a new readiness program for private-sector astronauts heading to the International Space Station. Theoretically, such astronauts could include the likes of Tom Cruise, who is looking into making a movie at the space station, according to NASA. "I'm all for that," NASA...