University of Adelaide applied mathematicians have extended Einstein’s theory of special relativity to work beyond the speed of light. Einstein’s theory holds that nothing could move faster than the speed of light, but Professor Jim Hill and Dr Barry Cox in the University’s School of Mathematical Sciences have developed new formulas that allow for travel…
Two U.S. scientists shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for learning how cells respond to the world around them, a finding that underpins many prescription drugs on the market today, from beta blockers and antihistamines to various kinds of psychiatric medications. Brian Kobilka, 57, of Stanford University Medical School, and 69-year-old Robert Lefkowitz, of the…
Typically, when we talk about pollution, including carbon emissions, the numbers are talking about entire areas rather than specific locations. Researchers in the US have developed a new software system that is able to accurately map carbon emissions at the street level. The new system allows you to see each individual building, and the carbon…
Much like a toddler in a sandbox, the Curiosity rover has been busy scooping up the Martian soil lately. All that digging around was brought to a halt by the discovery of a small, bright object. NASA is currently trying to sort out what it is. NASA is attempting to identify the bit of mystery…
If we’re going to get science policy right, it’s really important for us to study the economic benefit of open access and not accept the arguments of incumbents. Existing media companies claim that they need ever stronger and longer copyright protection and new, draconian laws to protect them, and meanwhile, new free ecosystems, like the…
Serge Haroche of France and David J. Wineland of the U.S. shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for devising clever laboratory experiments that made it possible to control ghostly quantum particles, an achievement that many theoretical physicists believed could never be done. The work has already led to the creation of clocks more than 100…
John B. Gurdon of the U.K. and Shinya Yamanaka of Japan shared this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in so-called cellular reprogramming, which has unleashed a wave of advances in everything from cloning to the possible treatment of diseases using stem cells. The researchers’ experiments showed how specialized, mature cells…
‘Extremely’ is the answer. Being hit by a ‘sugar-cube’ of space debris is the equivalent of standing next to an exploding hand-grenade. And the problem is only getting worse
President Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney, each responded at length to a question posed by ScienceDebate 2012 about the nation’s goals in space. But while both emphasized the importance of space exploration, with Mr. Obama briefly mentioning the need for monitoring the Earth, neither candidate, and neither party, has addressed the scientific question of…
Should we build a supercomputer on the moon? It would be a mammoth technical undertaking, but a University of Southern California graduate student thinks there’s a very good reason for doing this: It would help alleviate a coming deep-space network traffic jam that’s had NASA scientists worried for several years now. Ouliang Chang floated his…