Astronomers have discovered a planet the size of Jupiter closely orbiting the smouldering remains of a dead star, the first time that an intact exoplanet has been discovered travelling around a white dwarf, according to research published Wednesday. Researchers said the fate of this giant planet, called WD 1586 b, offers a potential vision of
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Scientists have created first gene-edited livestock that can serve as viable “surrogate sires”, males that produce sperm carrying only the genetic traits of donor animals, an advance that they say could improve food production for a growing global population. The research, published in the journal PNAS, could speed the spread of desirable characteristics in livestock,
China has successfully sent nine satellites into orbit in its first commercial launch of a rocket from a platform at sea, state media reported on Wednesday. The satellites, one of which belonged to video-sharing platform Bilibili, were deployed by a Long March 11 rocket from the Yellow Sea on Tuesday, media reported. The Long March
The atmosphere of Venus contains traces of phosphine gas, which on Earth can be attributed to living organisms, scientists said on Monday, in a fresh insight into conditions on our nearest planetary neighbour. Conditions on Venus are often described as hellish with daytime temperatures hot enough to melt lead and an atmosphere comprised almost
Fulcrum is an app that allows scientists to gather data and maintain entries generated in the field when carrying out their research and it has helped prevent the loss of data to random accidents. In today’s age, mobile applications are very valuable and useful tools for us that enable us to carry out a variety
Dark matter, mysterious invisible stuff that makes up most of the mass of galaxies including our own Milky Way, is confounding scientists again, with new observations of distant galaxies conflicting with the current understanding of its nature. Research published this week revealed an unexpected discrepancy between observations of dark matter concentrations in three massive clusters
Engineers have developed a robot that can detect whether people are wearing a mask to guard against COVID-19 and, if not, politely remind them to put one on. The feature is an upgrade of Pepper, a 120 centimetre (47 inch) high robot with human-like features that is already in operation in some countries welcoming visitors to
NASA on Thursday announced it was in the market for Moon rocks, and wants to pay companies to scoop out the dirt, take a photo, and then have it ready for collection by a future mission. The contract doesn’t actually involve getting to the Moon itself, a feat only achieved by the national space agencies
Asteroid 2020 QL2 that could be up to 120 meters (394 feet) in diameter is expected to safely fly past Earth on September 14, as per NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The asteroid is expected to fly past at a speed of nearly 38,620 kmph (24,000 mph) and come within a distance of
Apple has developed masks that the company is beginning to distribute to corporate and retail employees to limit the spread of COVID-19. The Apple Face Mask is the first created in-house by the Cupertino, California-technology giant for its staff. The other, called ClearMask, was sourced elsewhere. Apple previously made a different face shield for medical workers
Russian research and development enterprise Zvezda has started manufacturing of space suits and personal flight equipment for Indian cosmonauts undergoing training in Russia to be part of India’s first manned space mission Gaganyaan, Glavkosmos said on Monday. Glavkosmos is a subsidiary of Roscosmos with which the Human Spaceflight Center (HSC) of the city-based Indian Space
An experimental reusable spacecraft launched into orbit two days ago by China has successfully returned to a designated site on Sunday, marking a breakthrough that could lead to cheaper round-trips to space, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The mission had been kept low-key, and state media had yet to publish photographs or video footage
Techniques to genetically-edit human embryos should not be used until they are proved to be reliable and safe, an international commission said Thursday, in the wake of a scandal over gene-modified babies in China two years ago. Experts from the commission of US National Academy of Medicine, US National Academy of Sciences, and Britain’s Royal Society
Scientists announced Wednesday the discovery of a black hole, the oldest ever detected, that shouldn’t even exist according to the current understanding of cosmic monsters so dense not even light can escape their gravitational pull. Born of a merger between two other black holes, GW190521 weighs in at 142 times the mass of our Sun
As every new parent knows, sleep can go out the window after the arrival of a newborn. That was certainly the case for parents Radhika and Bharath Patil, who seeking relief for their own disrupted sleep patterns, put their electronic engineering backgrounds together to create a “smart crib”. Their crib, powered by artificial intelligence, combines
Have you ever lost something and never found it again? I just sometimes wish that everything should have some sort of a GPS device attached to it so that we know its location always. Might sound pretty impractical but then just imagine, I could have found my favorite jacket that was left behind on a