
Engineers inspect the James Webb Space Telescope’s ‘pathfinder telescope’ after its second super-cold optical test in Chamber A at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Credit: NASA/ Chris Gunn Enlarge Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope’s “pathfinder telescope,” or “Pathfinder” completed its second super-cold optical test that resulted in the first checkout […]

In this Nov. 4, 2015 photo, Dr. Salvador Arias is seen past a cluster of endangered echinocactus grusonii cacti, also known as Biznaga, as he looks at other species inside the botanical gardens of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. (Rebecca Blackwell / AP Photo) MEXICO CITY […]

The Antarctic ice sheet. Credit: Stephen Hudson / Wikipedia Massive volcanic eruptions could cause localised warming that might destabilise some of the world’s biggest ice sheets, according to new research from Durham University. Scientists investigated links between very large volcanic eruptions and polar temperatures during the last Ice Age. Their […]

A supercomputer visualization of the toroidal magnetic field in a collapsed, massive star, showing how in a span of 10 milliseconds the rapid differential rotation revs up the stars magnetic field to a million billion times that of our sun (yellow is positive, light blue is negative). Red and blue […]

The rendering of the James Webb Space Telescope in space. Image credit: Northrop Grumman. Enlarge NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), often touted as Hubble’s successor, is slated to be launched in 2018 to study every phase of cosmic history, mainly by observing the most distant objects in the universe. […]

Sometimes the most useful strategy is to avoid exposure in the first place. www.shutterstock.com The recent attacks in Paris are the latest in a long list of events whose blanket coverage on TV has had a strong influence on the thoughts, feelings and behaviours of many children. Footage of wars, […]

Kelly tweets a picture of the US Orbital Segment. He took the image from the Cupola window in the Tranquility module. Kelly is now less than 100 days away from returning home on his year-long mission. Photo Credit: Scott Kelly / NASA After a few weeks of no visiting vehicle […]

Chen Jian, 33, son of peach farmers, poses for a photo in Shanghai The son of peach farmers, Chen Jian relishes the fruits of his middle class life, driving to work and flying on holiday, epitomising how China’s carbon footprint has grown alongside the prosperity of its nearly 1.4 billion […]

Fritz Mondl, co-president of Austrian manufacturer of river turbines Aqua Libre. (Joe Klamar / AFP Photo) SPITZ, Austria — The Wachau, a picture-postcard river valley in Austria, makes a lot of wine. Soon it could be producing its own electricity too, and in a way that will not spoil the […]

In a Thursday, Nov. 22, 2012 file photo, a tourist takes photos of inscriptions on the walls of King Merenptah’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. (AP / Nariman El-Mofty) CAIRO — Egypt on Saturday said there is a 90 per cent chance that hidden chambers […]