Science

FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk attends a post-launch news conference to discuss the SpaceX Crew Dragon astronaut capsule in-flight abort test at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Steve Nesius (Reuters) – NASA on Friday picked a new space capsule from Elon Musk’s SpaceX to

FILE PHOTO: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Crew Dragon astronaut capsule, lifts off on an in-flight abort test , a key milestone before flying humans in 2020 under NASA’s commercial crew program, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper (Reuters) – Private rocket company SpaceX

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Scientists in Singapore say they have developed a way to track genetic changes that speeds testing of vaccines against a coronavirus that has killed more than 16,000 people worldwide. FILE PHOTO: The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause of an outbreak of respiratory

FILE PHOTO: A Gilead Sciences, Inc. office is shown in Foster City, California, U.S. May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Stephen Lam (Reuters) – Gilead Sciences Inc’s experimental drug remdesivir, seen as one of the more promising potential treatments for the coronavirus, on Monday received the orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The announcement

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s central military hospital, which for decades was inundated with victims of landmines and other casualties of the country’s internal conflict, is being outfitted to battle a new enemy: coronavirus. A Colombian soldier stands outside one of the tents being built in a parking lot of the Military Hospital for patients with

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A worm-like creature smaller than a grain of rice that burrowed on the sea floor in search of meals like dead organic matter about 555 million years ago may be the evolutionary forerunner of most animals living today – including people. The primitive worm-like animal Ikaria wariootia that lived 555 million years

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Inside the stout fins of a fish that prowled the shallow waters of an estuary in what is now eastern Canada about 380 million years ago, scientists have found what they call the evolutionary origins of the human hand. FILE PHOTO: An artist’s reconstruction of the extinct fish Elpistostege watsoni, which lived

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian researchers said on Tuesday they have mapped the immune responses from one of country’s first coronavirus patients, findings that the health minister said were an important step in developing a vaccine and treatment. FILE PHOTO: The ultrastructural morphology exhibited by the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), which was identified as the cause

(Reuters) – Drugs used for treating arthritis are being tested as treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus, as researchers rush to find ways of helping patients and slowing the number of infections. FILE PHOTO: A Sanofi sign outside the French drugmaker’s Paris headquarters, October 30, 2014. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann//File Photo Sanofi and

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Valentina Tereshkova was hailed as a hero when she became the first woman in space in 1963. FILE PHOTO: Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut, attends a news conference in Star City outside Moscow, June 7, 2013. REUTERS/Sergei Remezov/File Photo Now 83, she has became a hate figure for some

FILE PHOTO: A full-size model of the ExoMars entry, descent and landing module, Schiaparell is seen during a press conference at the European Space Agency (ESA) Headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany October 20, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo MOSCOW/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A joint Russian-European mission to send a rover to Mars has been postponed by two years

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On a crag of rock called Brother’s Point on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, scientists have identified two bustling footprint sites that reveal an abundance of dinosaurs that thrived 170 million years ago including an early member of a celebrated group. University of Edinburgh scientists Steve Brusatte and Paige dePolo pose at a

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Today’s artificial limbs can look very natural, and now an innovative process makes prosthetic hands move more naturally as well. Paul Cederna (foreground), the Robert Oneal Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Michigan, shifts his attention as Daniel Lyons, a resident of plastic surgery, stitches up the arm of

Kosza, the 2,5 year-old Belgian shepherd and Fuge, the 6 year-old golden retriever are seen before a test at the Ethology Department of the ELTE University in Budapest, Hungary, March 2, 2020. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Dogs have a type of infrared sensor in the tip of their nose which enables them to detect

Dr. Daylan Tzompa Sosa holds a handful of crickets at Ghent University, Belgium February 27, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir GHENT, Belgium (Reuters) – Belgian waffles may be about to become more environmentally friendly. Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium are experimenting with larva fat to replace butter in waffles, cakes and cookies, saying using grease from

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Red pandas, the bushy-tailed and russet-furred bamboo munchers that dwell in Asian high forests, are not a single species but rather two distinct ones, according to the most comprehensive genetic study to date on these endangered mammals. FILE PHOTO: A one year old Red Panda sits in the trees having only recently

(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) on Tuesday largely maintained its key profit goals for the medium term, while the largest U.S. bank also raised its financial commitment for clean-energy initiatives, after years of pressure from environmental activists. FILE PHOTO: The J.P.Morgan logo is seen at Canary Wharf financial district in London, Britain, March

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have spotted in rocks from northern China what may be the oldest fossils of a green plant ever found, tiny seaweed that carpeted areas of the seafloor roughly a billion years ago and were part of a primordial revolution among life on Earth. A green seaweed fossil from China dating back

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA’s robotic InSight lander has for the first time established that Mars is seismically active, but do not call the shaking, rattling and rolling taking place on the Red Planet earthquakes. The proper term, fittingly, is marsquakes. FILE PHOTO: A life-size model of the spaceship Insight, NASA’s first robotic lander dedicated to

TOKYO (Reuters) – Newly released data from a Japanese research institute appears to back the government’s case that its quarantine strategy for the Diamond Princess cruise ship was successful in stemming contagion of the coronavirus among passengers. Japan has been criticised for its handling of the quarantine, as more than 620 people on board have

LONDON (Reuters) – One scientific post suggests links between the new coronavirus and AIDS, a second says it may have passed to people via snakes, while a third claims it is a pathogen from outer space. The emergence in China of a new human coronavirus that is causing an epidemic of flu-like disease has sparked

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave already famous for fossils of these extinct cousins of our species is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead – and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such rituals. A view of the entrance to Shanidar Cave in the foothills

ATHENS (Reuters) – A humanoid figure dressed as a maid holds a jug in its right hand and, as hidden gears click and whirr, lifts it and pours wine into a cup a bystander has placed into the palm of its left. The automatic servant of Philon from the 3rd century BC, is seen at

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind’s complicated genetic ancestry. FILE PHOTO: Yinka Sotomi stands atop Oluma Rock, a spiritual site for the Yoruba tribe,

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – One of the largest turtles that ever lived prowled the lakes and rivers of northern South America from about 13 million years ago to 7 million years ago – and this car-sized freshwater beast was built for battle. The huge extinct freshwater turtle Stupendemys geographicus, that lived in lakes and rivers in

PARIS (Reuters) – Franco-British biotech company Novacyt (ALNOV.PA) says it can offer a coronavirus test that is faster than rival methods by focusing on a narrow sequence of DNA coding, as it fights stiff competition to turn the outbreak into a business opportunity. Police in protective gear wait to evacuate residents from a public housing

U.S. President Donald Trump makes remarks during the White House Business Session with the nation’s governors in the State Dining Room of the White House, Washington, DC, U.S., February 10, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Theiler WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Monday asked Congress for $25.2 billion for NASA in 2021, the agency’s biggest budget in

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new spacecraft built jointly by U.S. and European space agencies is ready for a blazing journey to the sun to capture an unprecedented view of its two poles, an angle that could help researchers understand how the star’s vast bubble of magnetic energy affects Earth. European Space Agency Solar Orbiter Project

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The world’s last woolly mammoths, sequestered on an Arctic Ocean island outpost, suffered from serious genetic defects caused by generations of inbreeding that may have hampered traits such as sense of smell and male fertility in the doomed population. FILE PHOTO: A visitor looks at a complete mammoth skeleton that is displayed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fireflies are under threat globally, with familiar hazards such as habitat loss and pesticides compounded by another peril: humankind’s ubiquitous nighttime artificial light that plays havoc with their balletic nocturnal courtship, scientists said. FILE PHOTO: Fireflies seeking mates light up in synchronized bursts inside a forest at Santa Clara sanctuary near the