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by Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Dinosaurs, the most fearsome creatures ever to walk the Earth, were bugged already 100 million years ago by a paltry pest that still plagues animals today: the bloodsucking tick, scientists have discovered. Preserved for eternity in amber, fossilised tree resin, researchers have found a hard tick — uncannily similar to those we know — clinging to a 99-million-year-old dinosaur feather, a team wrote in the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump directed NASA on Monday to send Americans to the Moon for the first time in decades, a move he said would help prepare for a future Mars trip. “This time we will not only plant our flag and leave our footprint,” Trump said at the White House as he signed the new space policy directive. “We will establish a foundation for an eventual mission to Mars and perhaps […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — The heads of several of the world’s space agencies have proposed the creation of a climate observatory to pool acquired data and share it with scientists around the globe, according to a declaration adopted Monday in Paris. On the eve of the One Planet Summit organised in the French capital, the space agencies’ chiefs met to discuss climate monitoring from space, including such areas as greenhouse gases, water resource management and the use […]
by Richard CARTER Agence France-Presse TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Virtual currency Bitcoin — or “digital gold” to its fans — has enjoyed a gravity-defying rise along with wild price swings, sparking fears it could be the latest financial market “bubble.” Bitcoin was worth just a few US cents when it began life in 2009 and last week changed hands for a staggering $17,000 despite having no central bank backing and no legal exchange rate. Here […]
