Life

Oh my stars! Stage set for ‘spectacular’ meteor show

PARIS, France (AFP) — A thin, waning moon should allow for uninterrupted views Wednesday night of the annual Geminid shooting star show, set to be “spectacular” this year, astronomers say. At its height, the meteor shower should yield a shooting star every minute, offering plenty of opportunity for wish-making, they said. Peaking on Wednesday night, it will be “particularly rich in bright meteors, or fireballs,” the Irish Astronomical Association (IAA) said. “There will be no […]

Will Trump send Americans to the Moon? Money talks: experts

by Kerry Sheridan Agence France-Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump’s decision this week to return Americans to the Moon makes sense as a way to develop technology to one day reach Mars, but only if Congress allocates the money, experts say. Reviving an American program to explore the Moon is seen as a way to boost jobs and morale at home, while encouraging international collaboration with Europe, Japan, China and India […]

‘Blade runner’ legs give maimed Thai dog new lease on life

PHUKET, Thailand (AFP) — Just over a year after he was maimed for gnawing on someone’s shoes, Cola is romping across a beach on new sleek paws: curved “blade runner” prosthetics modeled on those used by Paralympian sprinters. The former street pup nearly lost his life last year after a Bangkok man hacked off his front legs with a sword in revenge for chewing up his boots. A quick trip to the vet saved Cola […]

Shark-spotting drones on patrol at Australian beaches

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — High-tech shark-spotting drones are patrolling dozens of Australian beaches this summer to quickly identify underwater predators and deliver safety devices to swimmers and surfers faster than traditional lifesavers. As hundreds of people lined up in the early morning sun to take part in a recent ocean swimming race at Bilgola beach north of Sydney, they did so in the knowledge the ocean had been scanned to keep them safe. “I think […]

New island offers clues in search for life on Mars: NASA

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — The world’s newest island — formed during a volcanic eruption in the remote Pacific four years ago — may offer clues to how life potentially developed on Mars, NASA said Wednesday. The island of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai rose from the seabed about 65 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa in late 2014-early 2015. Scientists initially expected the island — created when vast quantities of rock and […]

Russian space agency blames satellite loss on programming error

MOSCOW, Russia (AFP) — Russia’s space agency on Tuesday blamed a failed satellite launch from its new cosmodrome on a programming error, prompting an angry response from the deputy prime minister in charge of space. On November 28 Russia lost contact with its Meteor-M weather satellite after its launch from the new Vostochny cosmodrome — only the second such launch since the facility opened in the country’s far east last year. The failure “exposed a […]

Tokyo airport to be ‘scattered’ with robots for 2020 Olympics

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Visitors to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can expect to arrive at an airport “scattered” with robots to help them, an official said Tuesday as he unveiled seven new machines to perform tasks from helping with luggage to language assistance. Among the seven robots on show was a fluffy cat mascot that can carry out simultaneous interpretation in four different languages. Visitors speak into a furry microphone, and translations appear instantly on […]

20 Bosnian hands on one piano set new world record

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (AFP) — Some were on their knees, others lay flat on their fronts, but somehow 18 Bosnia children and their two music teachers managed to play a tune on just one piano on Tuesday to create a new world record. The participants trained for three months for their joint performance of French composer Albert Lavignac’s late-19th-century oddity “Galop-Marche” which he wrote originally for eight hands. The event took place in the Sarajevo City […]

Twitter makes ‘tweetstorms’ easier with ‘threads’

SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Twitter said Tuesday said it would make it easier for users to build “tweetstorms” by linking together posts in “threads” to expound at length at the famously short-form messaging service. The move comes just a month after Twitter rattled the twitterverse by doubling the limit for tweets in most languages to 280 characters, in a bid to draw in more users and boost engagement. It was the first time […]

Warming Arctic is ‘new normal,’ will affect us all: report

by Kerry SHERIDAN Agence France Presse MIAMI, United States (AFP) — A rapidly warming Arctic, where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet, is the “new normal,” and the melting ice is triggering environmental changes that will affect the whole world, warned a global scientific report Tuesday. The Arctic is going through “an unprecedented transition in human history,” that will accelerate sea level rise and boost the frequency of extreme […]

Ariane 5 rocket takes off with European GPS satellites

KOUROU, France (AFP) — An Ariane 5 rocket took off from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana on Tuesday, taking with it four satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation project, Arianespace said. The European space workhorse took off at 1836 GMT and was scheduled to deploy its cargo four hours after launch. The Galileo programme, when complete, will have 30 satellites in three orbital planes by 2020. If all goes according to plan the system […]

Pregnant woman wants seat on Tokyo metro: there’s an app for that

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Pregnant women struggling to bag a seat on the famously packed Tokyo subway could find their salvation in a new app connecting them with nearby passengers willing to give up their coveted perch. The digital match-making app being trialled this week on the metro aims to overcome two problems especially prevalent in Japan: passengers generally have their nose buried in their phones and talking is strictly frowned upon. The service allows […]