Mark Hoffman : Science World Report

Feb 16, 2013 02:07 PM EST

Bird Flu False Alarm on German Farm Final Test Shows

Identifying specific flu viruses is technically difficult and can only be done in highly advanced laboratories - this explains today's false alarm for a--correctly described as suspected--case of H5N1 bird flu that had been discovered during initial tests on a poultry farm in the eastern state of Ge...

Feb 16, 2013 02:05 AM EST

Second Asteroid Mining Company Wants to Build Defense System As Well

Today's impact in Russia and the near miss by asteroid 2012 DA14 should shock the world enough to finally act with determination to create an appropriate defense system. Since we didn't even see the comet coming that exploded yesterday over Russia injuring over 1200 people and damaging buildings, a ...

Feb 15, 2013 05:32 PM EST

Inner Structure of Asteroid Revealed by Simulation

Models are regularly used to boost the significance of image and measurement data from space missions and help to understand our solar system. The simulation of a double impact that occurred on the proto-planet Vesta one billion years ago enabled scientists to describe the inner structure of the ast...

Feb 15, 2013 04:32 PM EST

Galactic Core Black Holes Grow Faster Than Expected

Black holes are growing faster than previously thought possible, which includes the black hole in our own Milky Way Galaxy, according to an astronomical study published this week in the Astrophysical Journal.

Feb 15, 2013 03:15 PM EST

Sun's Surface Capture Just Before Massive CME Explosion

A new refined image of magnetic loops on the sun's surface, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was released by the Space Agency. It has been processed to highlight the edges of each loop to make the structure more clear.

Feb 15, 2013 11:42 AM EST

Missile Defense Test Sets Milestone With First Space-Based Tracking Intercept

The US Ballistic Missile Defense system had another successful test this week, which set the noteworthy milestone of being the first time that space-based tracking data was used to guide an interceptor missile destroying a medium-range ballistic missile target.

Feb 15, 2013 01:36 AM EST

Asteroid Mining Company Will Help to Detect and Deflect Them

Nascent asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, Inc. (PRI) announced, on the eve of 2012 DA14's close pass of Earth, that it will provide the capability to aid the deflection of potentially hazardous objects near Earth. The company is currently testing prototypes of its Arkyd-100 space telescop...

Feb 14, 2013 04:43 PM EST

LHC Collider Recorded Over 75 Petabyte Until Today's Shutdown

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has generated the enormous amount of 75 petabytes of physics data during the past three years, until today's February 14 maintenance shutdown. Computer engineers at CERN, the location of the world's very first web server, today announced that the CERN Data Centre has ...

Feb 14, 2013 03:46 PM EST

Cure for Type 1 Diabetes With Gene Therapy Demonstrated

With a single session of gene therapy, researchers at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) have completely cured type 1 diabetes in dogs, involving the introduction of a “glucose sensor” into a muscle. Gene therapies seems to be on track to be the cure that didn't exist before for comple...

Feb 14, 2013 01:00 PM EST

New World-Record for Low-Cost Thin-Film Solar Cell Efficiency

Photovoltaic modules will be the same price as ordinary roof tiles now with the EPFL’s Institute of Microengineering reaching a remarkable 10.7% efficiency for a single-junction micro-crystalline silicon solar cell, surpassing the previous world record of 10.1% held by the Japanese company Kaneka ...

Feb 14, 2013 11:16 AM EST

Dark Nebula Contrasts in Front of Milky Way's Bright Core

The full splendor of the billions of stars crammed together in the core region of our galaxy is illustrated by a small dark nebula contrasting in front of it, featured in this new image shot by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

Feb 13, 2013 06:11 PM EST

Ulm's Lion Man Figurine Found to be World's Oldest With New Pieces Found

With recent new finds of the oldest human bones, and genetic analysis of early homo sapiens and neanderthal finds, it is interesting that the last months also saw the archaeological sensation of the oldest sculpture being reconstructed, with the new pieces found to be much older than originally thou...