Bottle deposit schemes were launched in some countries decades ago GETTY IMAGES Large retailers have been accused of trying to water down a proposed scheme to improve rates of bottle recycling. Environmentalists say large and small drinks containers alike should carry a catch-all deposit of more than 15p. But retailers […]

This decades-old Murray cod was among millions of fish which died in mass kills in December and January in the Darling river The viability of a key river that feeds into Australia’s biggest water system is under threat if poor conditions that killed millions of fish are not improved within […]

NASA’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer or SPHEREx spacecraft is currently slated for a 2023 liftoff. It is hoped that SPHEREx will help astronomers how common the elements of life are throughout the universe. Image Credit: Caltech A new space probe designed to observe […]

Space suits from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey on display at the Stanley Kubrick exhibition in LA. Matthew J. Cotter, Uningdomited K, CC BY-NC-SA Of all the fictional virtual assistants we know from pop culture, few stand up to the original and perhaps most famous: the HAL 9000 from the […]

The Northwestern researchers have been culling data from the Human Experimentation Research Analog (HERA) at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. HERA’s capsule simulator houses crews for up to 45 days; a mock mission control outside the capsule augments the realism with sound effects, vibrations and communication delays. Those on the inside […]

Astronomy is one of the many areas of science in which machine learning is used to make discoveries REUTERS Machine-learning techniques used by thousands of scientists to analyse data are producing results that are misleading and often completely wrong. Dr Genevera Allen from Rice University in Houston said that the […]

Since 2011, NASA has relied on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Photo Credit: NASA While the first Commercial Crew flights are just around the corner, NASA is looking to buy a little more buffer time in order to ensure uninterrupted access […]

This is not about terminator robots but “conventional weapons systems with autonomy” GETTY IMAGES A group of scientists has called for a ban on the development of weapons controlled by artificial intelligence (AI). It says that autonomous weapons may malfunction in unpredictable ways and kill innocent people. Ethics experts also […]

Astronomers have used Chandra to possibly identify the location of a third of the hydrogen, helium, and other elements that were created after the Big Bang, but has so far been unaccounted for in the present-day Universe. This “missing mass” may be in large filaments of warm and hot gas […]

In the coming decades, a number of missions are planned for Mars, which include proposals to send astronauts there for the first time. This presents numerous logistical and technical challenges, ranging from the sheer distance to the need for increased protection against radiation. At the same time, there is also […]