Science news

• Virgin Galactic Ends 2016 with Second SpaceShipTwo Glide Flight

  24-12-2016 14:39
  
  Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane performed its second free flight Dec. 22 as the company prepares to enter a critical year in the vehicle's long-delayed development. The suborbital vehicle, named VSS Unity, took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California around 4:20 p.m. Eastern attached to its WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft, according to updates provided by the company on Twitter. SpaceShipTwo was released from WhiteKnightTwo about 40 minutes lat
  
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• Piers Sellers, Space Shuttle Astronaut and NASA Climate Scientist, Dies at 61

  24-12-2016 14:39
  
  Piers Sellers, a British-American climate scientist and former NASA astronaut who launched on three space shuttle missions to the International Space Station, died on Friday (Dec. 23). In the column, Sellers wrote about how his prognosis added a sense of urgency to his work on climate change. "I was forced to decide how to spend my remaining time," Sellers explained in the editorial.
  
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• Make Christmas Cosmic with NORAD's Track Santa & Space Holiday Cards

  24-12-2016 14:00
  
  When Christmas Eve rolls around, many people will turn their eyes to the sky to try and catch a glimpse of Santa's sleigh, but we recommend taking a more high-tech approach and heading over to the NORAD Tracks Santa website. NORAD will begin tracking Santa at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) on Dec. 24. And since you'll already be tracking flying objects as they soar overhead, why not follow the location of the International Space Station as well?
  
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• How Realistic Is the Interstellar Ship from 'Passengers'?

  24-12-2016 14:00
  
  Travelling at half the speed of light, the crew and passengers are expected to hibernate for 120 years before arriving. Space.com posed that question to several space travel experts, as well as Guy Hendrix Dyas, the film's production designer. Dyas looked at the history of movie spaceships (including the vehicles from the "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" universes) in his quest to come up with something unique for the new film.
  
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• Christmas Stargazing: What to Look for in the Yuletide Sky

  24-12-2016 14:00
  
  Christmas week is here, and the night sky obliges by presenting a beautiful display of celestial sights, perfectly timed to coincide with the holiday. In ancient times, Dec. 25 was the date of the lavish Roman festival of Saturnalia, a sort of bacchanalian thanksgiving to the god of agriculture, for whom the slowest moving of the then-known planets was named. It has been said that early Christians chose to celebrate Christmas on Saturnalia in order to avoid attention and thus escape persecution.
  
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• Piers Sellers: UK-born astronaut dies aged 61

  24-12-2016 11:41 via bbc.co.uk
  
  British-born astronaut Piers Sellers has died of pancreatic cancer, aged 61, Nasa says.
  
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• Beyond entertainment: VR for anxiety relief

  24-12-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  A psychology professor and students are working on a project to help people escape the stress of day-to-day life or traumatic situations by throwing on a pair of VR goggles.
  
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• Beyond entertainment: Virtual reality to ease anxiety no longer just sci-fi stuff

  24-12-2016 11:00 via cbc.ca
  
  A psychology professor and students are working on a project to help people escape the stress of day-to-day life or traumatic situations by throwing on a pair of VR goggles.
  
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• When will our electricity come from the sea?

  24-12-2016 10:18 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Could wave energy ever power the world?
  
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• 6 surprising ways Christmas is actually good for your health

  24-12-2016 08:03
  
  Don’t worry, it’s not all bad.
  
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• UK designer launches 30-year Christmas jumper

  24-12-2016 06:07 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A UK designer launches the "30-year Christmas sweatshirt" to question the ethics of the "fast fashion" industry.
  
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• Space cucumbers reveal secrets of plant survival

  24-12-2016 06:04
  Researchers have examined cucumber seedlings germinated under the very weak gravity - or microgravity - conditions of the International Space Station.
  
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• Hack-proofing our devices

  24-12-2016 06:04
  A researcher is building better safeguards into the everyday technologies of radio-frequency identification (RFID) and mobile phones.
  
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• Close friendships between children can influence responses to fear

  24-12-2016 06:03
  Close friends may influence how school-aged children think about danger, new research has concluded.
  
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• Arctic heatwave could break records

  24-12-2016 02:45 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Temperatures at the North Pole could be up to 20 degrees higher than average this Christmas Eve.
  
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• Fungus-infecting virus could help track spread of white-nose syndrome in bats

  24-12-2016 00:15
  A newly discovered virus infecting the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in bats could help scientists and wildlife agencies track the spread of the disease that is decimating bat populations in the United States, a new study suggests.
  
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