Kitt Peak National Observatory, home to the new Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. (Credit: NOAOAURA/NSF)
A powerful new astronomical instrument got its first view of the sky from an Arizona mountaintop two weeks ago. Once the device officially gets to work in early 2020, it will capture the light from thousands of galaxies each night — up to 5,000 galaxies every 20 minutes, in ideal conditions. With this instrument, researchers will make a deep-space map of where galaxies lie to stu ...read more
(Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Bellini et al.)
The universe is vast, with galaxies containing gas, dust, stars, and planets sprinkled throughout. But this sprinkling isn’t random; although some galaxies are indeed truly alone, most are not congregating through gravity.
NGC 1706, captured in this stunning Hubble Space Telescope image, is one of about 50 galaxies bound together in a group that lies in the direction of the southern constellation Dorado the Swordfish. The brilliant, ...read more
Boeing's Starliner performing the abort pad test on November 4. (Credit: NASA)
Boeing and SpaceX, both leaders in the aerospace industry, have completed crucial tests of their crew capsules, which the companies hope will bring American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) in the near future.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner completed a pad abort test on November 4. The test is intended to verify astronauts can get away from the launch site if there’s an emergency prior ...read more
A young child wearing the MEG scanner, created using a modified bike helmet and several sensors. Credit: Rebeccah Slater, University of Oxford
A simple bike helmet may be the answer for researchers looking to study the brains of fidgety kids. With a few extra holes drilled in the top and a pile of chunky cables ballooning outward, the common piece of headgear could offer an alternative to stationary brain scans.
With a few tweaks, researchers from the U.K. equipped a commercial bike helme ...read more
A young lionfish photographed during a dive in Palm Beach, Florida. (Credit: Steven Kovacs)
Descending into pitch-black open ocean under the cover of inky skies can unnerve even experienced divers, but for underwater photographer Steven Kovacs, it’s a surprisingly addictive activity. “It’s like a treasure hunt. You never know what amazing creature will drift by or come up from the depths.”
While Kovacs has documented the strange and beautiful larval forms of many s ...read more
(Credit: Alex Brylov/Shutterstock)
Ageing is inevitable and is influenced by many things – but keeping active can slow aging and increase life expectancy. Evidence shows that ageing alone is not a cause of major problems until you are in your mid-90s. And strength, power and muscle mass can be increased, even at this advanced age.
So here are my top exercise tips for people in their 60s and older, at different levels of fitness.
For Lifetime Fitness Fanatics
If you fall in ...read more
Crystals of a lysozyme. Similar compounds could be used to kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA. (Credit: Zanecrc/Wikimedia Commons)
A new way to destroy MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant pathogen, might offer clue to alleviating the antibiotic crisis. In a new study, researchers have found how a bacterial toxin capable of destroying the pathogen does its job.
The compound can punch holes in the cell walls of pathogens like MRSA, killing the cells without the need for traditional anti ...read more
Voyager 2 passes into interstellar space in this artist's illustration. (Credit: NASA)
NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft crossed into interstellar space last November. Now, one year later, scientists have published the first results from the data Voyager 2 gathered as it passed from the sun’s sphere of influence and into interstellar space.
In some ways, what Voyager 2 experienced was surprisingly different from what Voyager 1 found when it passed into interstellar space in 2012. These la ...read more
Please click on this animation of satellite images to see an overview of California wildfires from Oct. 23 to Nov. 1, 2019. Look for bluish smoke plumes as well as red dots marking areas where the satellites detected fire. The Kincade fire erupts in the north on Oct. 24th, as does the Tick Fire near Los Angeles, at lower right. Later in the sequence, five other blazes ignite in the L.A. area. (Images: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman)
The Kincade Fire has been the most destructive of C ...read more
The site of Monte Verde in Chile today. Credit: (Geología Valdivia/Wikimedia Commons)
As the Ice Age began to wane, people from northeastern Asia spread to the Americas, some of the last uninhabited continents on Earth. The pioneers traveled south of mile-high ice sheets covering Canada and found vast lands, abounding with mammoth, giant sloth and other now-extinct megafauna.
This much has been known for decades. But when it comes to the details, debates have raged over precisely wh ...read more
