Sci-Tech

Robotic rehab platform helps predict injury risk

Italian engineers have developed a robotic rehabilitation platform that can analyze a patient’s biometrics to predict their risk of injury, and then guide them through exercises designed to counter that risk. Designed at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT), the device, called Hunova, has received CE certification for Europe and is seeking approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was developed over five years and is now being marketed by spin-off […]

NASA Mars satellite moves to avoid hitting planet’s moon

Reuters — A NASA science satellite circling Mars had to maneuver this week to avoid crashing into one of the planet’s two small moons, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday (March 2). The MAVEN spacecraft, which is studying Mars’ vanishing atmosphere, fired up its engine on Tuesday to boost its speed by about 1.3 feet per second (0.4 meters per second) so it could steer clear of the Martian moon Phobos, the National Aeronautics […]

Atlas 5 rocket blasts off carrying military satellite

CALIFORNIA, United States (Reuters) — A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket lifted off successfully from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday morning carrying a military satellite. The rocket is carrying the NROL-79 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office, the ULA said in a statement. The rocket lifted off in favorable conditions. The rocket launch marks the 70th Atlas 5 launch, the ULA said.

Moon tourists in for a rough ride, experts say

by Laurence COUSTAL / Mariëtte Le Roux Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Non-stop vomiting, a puffy face and the constant need to pee: Volunteers for a week-long loop around the Moon may be in for a rough ride even if all goes to plan. In the week that SpaceX announced it would launch two tourists to skirt Earth’s satellite in 2018, experts agreed the health effects would chiefly be minor and short-lived. These […]

Oldest fossils ‘direct evidence’ of life on Earth some 4 billion years ago

by Marlowe HOOD Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — The oldest fossils ever found are “direct evidence” of life on Earth 3.8 to 4.3 billion years ago, when our planet was still in its infancy, researchers reported Wednesday. Even at the lower end of the spectrum, “the microfossils we discovered are about 300 million years older” than any runners-up, said Dominic Papineau, a professor at University College London who made the discovery. The dating […]

Robocar – a self-driving electric AI car – wows MWC crowds

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) — The team behind the world’s first driver less electric racing series unveiled its first real autonomous car at the World Mobile Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Monday (February 27). The sleek Roborace vehicle is around five meters long, two meters wide, and weighs in at 975 kilograms. It is entirely driver less, with a computer “brain” using information from sensors to direct the Robocar. It has four motors of 300kW each, […]

Solar eclipse wows onlookers in Latin America

Onlookers in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina were treated to a special sight early on Sunday (February 26) when they witnessed the first solar eclipse of 2017. The phenomenon is known as a ring eclipse, where the moon is smaller than the sun, so a ring of light is visible when the moon passes over the sun. Observers donned sunglasses with special filters, heeding experts’ warnings that viewers should not look directly at the eclipse without […]

SpaceX to send two tourists around moon in 2018

MIAMI, United States (AFP) — SpaceX said Monday two private citizens have paid money to be sent around the moon late next year, in what would mark the furthest humans have ever traveled to deep space. The United States has not sent astronauts to the moon since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s. “We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens […]

Phone makers take aim at ailing Samsung with new handsets

by Daniel SILVA / Erwan LUCAS Agence France-Presse China’s Huawei, LG and other phone firms unveiled new smartphones on Sunday as they tried to capitalize on Samsung’s withdrawal of its flagship device after faulty batteries led several of the handsets to catch fire. Samsung, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, had no device of its own to show at the week-long Mobile World Congress, the phone industry’s largest annual trade fair, in Barcelona in northeastern […]

Huawei takes aim at ailing Samsung with new smartphone

BARCELONA, Spain (AFP) — China’s Huawei unveiled a new smartphone with a better camera on Sunday as it tries to fill the void left by Samsung’s withdrawal of its flagship device due to problems with the battery. Huawei’s P10 and the larger P10 Plus, launched on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the world’s biggest annual phone expo, feature dual Leica rear camera lenses, a longer-lasting battery and fingerprint sensor system. “The […]

‘Ring of fire’ eclipse delights Africa, South America

by Leo RAMIREZ Agence France Presse SARMIENTO, Argentina (AFP) — Stargazers applauded as they were plunged into darkness Sunday when the moon passed in front of the sun in a spectacular “ring of fire” eclipse. Astronomers and enthusiasts in Argentina were among the first to see the so-called annular eclipse as it crossed South America shortly after 1200 GMT, on course for Africa. Staring up through special telescopes, protective glasses or homemade cardboard pinhole devices, […]