Anthropologists to examine mummified body found in Detroit garage

DETROIT (Reuters) - A body that had decomposed to the point of mummification was found in a car in the garage of a Detroit home, and medical examiners have called for an anthropologist to conduct a special autopsy of the remains, authorities said on Friday.

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Bite the dust: meek dinosaur lost its teeth as it hit adulthood

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A modest little dinosaur that scampered across northwestern China 160 million years ago boasted a unique trait not seen in any other dinosaur or other prehistoric creature yet unearthed: it was born with teeth but became toothless by adulthood.

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Vera Rubin, pioneering U.S. dark matter astronomer, dies at 88

(Reuters) - Vera Rubin, a U.S. astronomer who pioneered work on invisible dark matter in the universe and who some colleagues felt was overlooked for a Nobel Prize, has died at 88, her son said on Monday.

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Artificial leaf copies nature to manufacture medicine

(Reuters) - Dutch scientists have developed an artificial leaf that can act as a mini-factory for producing drugs, an advance that could allow medicines to be produced anywhere there is sunlight.

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Swat team: scientists track humongous number of flying bugs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Counting the number of bugs whizzing high overhead annually may seem all but impossible, but researchers in Britain have completed the most comprehensive tally ever conducted. And the headcount they came up with was almost un-bee-lievable.

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China launches carbon-tracking satellite into space: Xinhua

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China launched a satellite to monitor its greenhouse gas emissions early on Thursday, the latest step in efforts to cut its carbon footprint, the official Xinhua news agency said.

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Japan successfully launches solid fuel rocket

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's space agency said on Tuesday it had successfully launched a solid fuel rocket named Epsilon-2, the latest in Tokyo's effort to stay competitive in an industry that has robust growth potential and strong security implications.

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Israel's Spacecom buys Boeing satellite for $161 million, to launch in 2019

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli satellite operator Space Communications said on Wednesday it would launch a new telecommunications satellite in 2019 after losing a prior one in an explosion.

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Undersea mystery: seahorse genetic secrets unveiled

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have unlocked some of the genetic secrets of the weird and wondrous seahorse including its exotic eccentricity of male pregnancy.

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Dwarf planet Ceres is flush with ice, NASA studies show

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The dwarf planet Ceres, an enigmatic rocky body inhabiting the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is rich with ice just beneath its dark surface, scientists said on Thursday in research that may shed light on the early history of the solar system.

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Launch of mini-satellites gives forecasters eye into hurricanes

(Reuters) - Eight small satellites, designed to improve hurricane forecasts by detecting the wind speeds within storms, blasted off on Thursday aboard an air-launched Pegasus rocket, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

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Exclusive: If Trump skews science, researchers must raise the alarm - Obama official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists must confront climate change deniers and speak up if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump tries to sideline climate research, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is due to say on Wednesday.

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NASA troubleshooting problem with Mars rover drill

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has halted its trek up a mountain filled with potentially habitable niches for life while engineers troubleshoot a problem with one of its key instruments, scientists said on Tuesday.

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Remarkable feathered dinosaur tail found in chunk of amber

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some 99 million years ago, a juvenile dinosaur got its feathery tail stuck in tree resin, a death trap for the small creature. But its misfortune is now giving scientists unique insight into feathered dinosaurs that prospered during the Cretaceous Period.

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Japanese cargo ship blasts off for space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - An unmanned H-2B rocket blasted off from Tanegashima island in southern Japan on Friday to send a cargo ship to the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

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In fossil rarity, tumor found in 255-million-year-old beast

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists examining the jawbone of a saber-toothed, mammal-like beast that prowled Tanzania 255 million years ago have come across a remarkable fossil rarity: one of the oldest-known tumors.

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Inmarsat switches to Arianespace for satellite launch after SpaceX delays

LONDON (Reuters) - British satellite company Inmarsat will switch to using Arianespace from rival SpaceX to launch a new satellite to provide broadband connectivity to air passengers, it said on Thursday.

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Former U.S. astronaut, Senator John Glenn dies in Ohio at 95

(Reuters) - John Glenn, who became one of the 20th century's greatest explorers as the first American to orbit Earth and later as the world's oldest astronaut, in addition to a long career as a U.S. senator, died on Thursday at age of 95.

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Musk's SpaceX says rockets to remain grounded until January

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – - Elon Musk's SpaceX has been forced to delay the return of its rockets to flight until January as an investigation continues into a launch pad explosion earlier this year, the tech billionaire' s company said on Wednesday.

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Little African primate's talents inspire leaping robot

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Inspired by the remarkable jumping ability of an African primate called a galago, scientists have fashioned a small robot with unique leaping capabilities they hope can someday be used in tricky search-and-rescue situations.

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European Mars mission funding approved even after test lander's crash

LUCERNE, Switzerland (Reuters) - European space agency (ESA) member states have approved another 450 million euros ($479 million) in funding for the ExoMars mission to the Red Planet, even after a test lander that was part of the program crashed in October, ESA said on Friday.

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U.S. patent agency to weigh rival claims on gene-editing technology

(Reuters) - The U.S. patent agency on Tuesday will hear arguments in a heated dispute over who was first to invent a revolutionary gene-editing technology known as CRISPR.

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Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin recovering well after Antarctic evacuation

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, posted photos on Saturday of his recovery in a New Zealand hospital after he was evacuated from the South Pole due to illness.

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Facebook developing artificial intelligence to flag offensive live videos

MENLO PARK, Calif. (Reuters) - Facebook Inc is working on automatically flagging offensive material in live video streams, building on a growing effort to use artificial intelligence to monitor content, said Joaquin Candela, the company’s director of applied machine learning.

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Fate of Russian space cargo ship uncertain after launch

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Russian flight controllers were assessing whether a cargo ship that blasted off on Thursday with more than 2-1/2 tons of food and supplies for the International Space Station reached its intended orbit, NASA said.

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Human ancestor 'Lucy' adept at tree climbing as well as walking

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Scientists using sophisticated scanning technology on the fossil bones of the ancient human ancestor from Ethiopia dubbed "Lucy" have determined that she was adept at climbing trees as well as walking, an ability that in her case may have proven fatal.

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SpaceX aims for December 16 return to flight, customer Iridium says

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX hopes to return its Falcon 9 rocket to flight on Dec. 16, said Iridium Communications Inc, which plans to have 10 of its satellites on board for launching.

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