U.S. spacecraft shares first view from inside Saturn's rings

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA's Cassini spacecraft sent the closest-ever images of Saturn on Thursday after surviving its first plunge inside the planet's rings, the U.S. space agency said.

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California fossils, stone tools may rewrite New World human history

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In what may be one of the most significant discoveries ever in archeology in the Americas, researchers on Wednesday said stone tools and broken mastodon bones unearthed in California show humans had reached the Americas by about 130,000 years ago, far earlier than previously known.

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Eighth time lucky: NASA launches super balloon to collect near space data

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A stadium-sized pressure balloon launched by NASA in New Zealand began collecting data in near space on Wednesday, beginning a 100-day planned journey after several launch attempts were thwarted by storms and cyclones.

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Scientists develop fluid-filled artificial womb to help premature babies

LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - Scientists in the United States have developed a fluid-filled womb-like bag known as an extra-uterine support device that could transform care for extremely premature babies, significantly improving chances of survival.

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Trump talks about Mars mission on call with record-breaking astronaut

(Reuters) - U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson broke the 534-day U.S. record for cumulative time in space on Monday and marked the occasion by speaking with President Donald Trump about plans for human trips to Mars.

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U.S. spacecraft to take slingshot dive inside Saturn’s rings

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA's Cassini spacecraft soared past Saturn's biggest moon for the last time on Saturday, tapping its gravity to slingshot into a series of exploratory dives inside the planet's rings, followed by a final fatal plunge into the gas giant.

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China's first cargo spacecraft docks with orbiting space lab

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's first cargo spacecraft docked successfully with the Tiangong-2 space lab on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency reported, marking a major step toward Beijing's goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022.

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'Genius' TV series shows drama of Albert Einstein's life

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Philosopher, humanitarian and physicist Albert Einstein is the subject of new TV series "Genius," which delves into the drama and passion of the man who developed the theory of relativity and helped initiate the U.S. effort to build an atomic bomb.

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Elon Musk on mission to link human brains with computers in four years: report

(Reuters) - Tesla Inc founder and Chief Executive Elon Musk said his latest company Neuralink Corp is working to link the human brain with a machine interface by creating micron-sized devices.

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Robots, chefs hope to bring invasive lion fish to restaurants near you

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - As it turns out, some of the best cooks in the world think lionfish, a venomous predatory fish which is breeding out of control and destroying marine ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, is delicious.

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China launches first cargo spacecraft as part of space station goal

BEIJING (Reuters) - China launched its first cargo spacecraft on Thursday, taking another step towards its goal of establishing a permanently manned space station by 2022.

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Wily bald underground critter uses plant-like survival strategy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They are homely, buck-toothed, pink, nearly hairless and just plain weird, but one of the many odd traits of rodents called naked mole-rats that live in subterranean bliss in the deserts of East Africa could someday be of great benefit to people.

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U.S.-Russian crew blasts off for space station with one empty seat

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A scaled-down, two-man U.S.-Russian crew blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday for a six-hour ride to the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

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Mongolia launches its first satellite

ULAANBAATAR (Reuters) - Mongolia launched its first satellite on Wednesday, part of its efforts to make use of new technology to diversify its resource-dependent economy.

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U.S. cargo ship blasts off for space station with supplies, experiments

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Florida on Tuesday, propelling a cargo capsule filled with supplies and science experiments toward the International Space Station.

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Large asteroid to pass close to Earth on Wednesday: NASA

(Reuters) - An asteroid more than a quarter mile (400 meters) wide will pass close to Earth on Wednesday, zooming by at a distance of just over a million miles (1.8 million km), but with no chance of impact, according to NASA scientists.

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Hydrogen in Saturn moon's ice plumes may support microbial life

(Reuters) - Ice plumes shooting into space from Saturn's ocean-bearing moon Enceladus contain hydrogen from hydrothermal vents, an environment that some scientists believe led to the rise of life on Earth, research published on Thursday showed.

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UK-based start-up hopes to cut plastic waste with innovative water balls

LONDON (Reuters) - Small transparent spheres filled with natural or flavored water could help provide a solution to London's plastic waste problem, according to the start-up company based in the British capital that manufactures them.

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Ants march into battle and rescue their wounded comrades

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Much like human soldiers in combat, members of a large, black, termite-eating ant species found in sub-Saharan Africa march in formation into battle and afterward retrieve wounded comrades and carry them back home to recover.

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All in the family: dinosaur cousin's look is quite a surprise

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists have identified the oldest-known forerunner of the dinosaurs and are expressing surprise at how little it actually resembled one.

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Fish tracked from DNA 'finprints' left in waters off New York

OSLO (Reuters) - Scientists have tracked fish off New York by following the traces of DNA left in the water, a technique that could help gauge life in rivers, lakes and the oceans around the world, a study showed on Wednesday.

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Japan automakers look to robots to keep elderly on the move

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese automakers are looking beyond the industry trend to develop self-driving cars and turning their attention to robots to help keep the country's rapidly graying society on the move.

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Smithfield makes move on market for pig-human transplants

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, has established a separate bioscience unit to expand its role in supplying pig parts for medical uses, with the ultimate goal of selling pig organs for transplantation into humans.

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Researchers give voice to historic sounds of Stonehenge

STONEHENGE (Reuters) - If you listen carefully - and with the right app - you can still hear the prehistoric acoustics that swirled around Britain's ancient monument Stonehenge over the last 5,000 years.

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U.S., Russian crew lands after six-month stay on space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts made a parachute landing in Kazakhstan on Monday, wrapping up a nearly six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

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Iceland magma drilling project may revive giant UK power cable link

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists will study the possibility of producing geothermal energy from magma for the first time, in a $100 million project in Iceland, which if successful could produce up to 10 times more energy than from a conventional well.

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NASA's Peggy Whitson takes command of space station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA's Peggy Whitson, soon to become the most experienced U.S. astronaut in terms of time spent in space, assumed command of the International Space Station on Sunday as two Russian crew members and an American prepared to fly back to Earth.

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Air Force space chief open to flying on recycled SpaceX rockets

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force is open to buying rides on previously flown SpaceX rockets to put military satellites into orbit, a move expected to cut launch costs for the Pentagon, the head of the Air Force Space Command said on Thursday.

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How artificial life spawned a billion-dollar industry

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists are getting closer to building life from scratch and technology pioneers are taking notice, with record sums moving into a field that could deliver novel drugs, materials, chemicals and even perfumes.

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Bezos is selling $1 billion of Amazon stock a year to fund rocket venture

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos said on Wednesday he is selling about $1 billion worth of the internet retailer's stock annually to fund his Blue Origin rocket company, which aims to launch paying passengers on 11-minute space rides starting next year.

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Destructive weed threatens U.S. corn fields

WINTERSET, IOWA (Reuters) - A U.S. government program designed to convert farmland to wildlife habitat has triggered the spread of a fast-growing weed that threatens to strangle crops in America's rural heartland.

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European history on repeat: Study finds evidence of 'Brexit 1.0'

LONDON, (Reuters) - Scientists have found evidence of how ancient Britain separated from Europe in what they are dubbing "Brexit 1.0" - a flooding event that happened in two stages thousands of years ago.

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United Launch Alliance cuts Atlas rocket price amid competition

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - United Launch Alliance has dropped the price of its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket flights by about one-third in response to mounting competition from rival SpaceX and others, the company’s chief executive said on Tuesday.

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Russia open to extending international space station partnership: agency chief

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (Reuters) - Russia is open to extending its partnership in the International Space Station with the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada beyond the currently planned end of the program in 2024, the head of the Russian space agency said on Tuesday.

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Cassini spacecraft to dive inside Saturn's rings for mission finale

(Reuters) - NASA is preparing to send its long-lived Cassini probe into the unexplored region between Saturn and its rings for a scientific grand finale before the spacecraft's suicidal plunge into the planet, space officials said on Tuesday.

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Extra portion of SpaceX rocket recovered from launch, Musk says

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday salvaged half of the $6 million nosecone of its rocket, in what the space entrepreneur deemed an important feat in the drive to recover more of its launch hardware and cut the cost of space flights.

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