Science

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have observed what appears to be the aftermath of a violent collision between two planetary building blocks orbiting a large and luminous star, a glimpse of the type of carnage that may have been commonplace early in our solar system’s history. The apparent crash between two icy bodies each about 125

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A wondrous lineage of crocodile relatives that developed into fast-swimming seagoing predators at a time when dinosaurs dominated the land adapted to life in the open ocean with a pivotal evolutionary modification also present in whales. A life reconstruction of the Jurassic Period marine crocodile relative Cricosaurus is seen in this image

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have discovered that a comet called 2I/Borisov – only the second interstellar object ever detected passing through the solar system – is surprisingly different in its composition from comets hailing from our celestial neighborhood. The interstellar comet 2I/Borisov travels through our solar system in an artist’s impression obtained by Reuters April

(Reuters) – NASA on Friday set a launch date of May 27 for its first astronaut mission from U.S. soil in nearly ten years.  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

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