Thursday, May 4, 2017

Lion cubs born in Chile after world first veterinary procedure

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Two baby lion cubs were presented to the public at a zoo in Chile on Thursday, born after a pioneering veterinary procedure that involved a reversed vasectomy of their father.

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Europe's Most Innovative Universities - 2017

(Reuters) - Europe’s top tech hubs tend to radiate from massive capital cities like London, Berlin and Paris. But the heart of European innovation isn’t a major metropolis –it’s a small city in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. That’s the conclusion of Reuters’ second annual ranking of Europe’s Most Innovative Universities, a list that identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies, and help drive the global economy.

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De Beers pilots plan to store carbon dioxide in diamond-bearing rock

KROONSTAD, South Africa (Reuters) - Anglo American's diamond unit De Beers is piloting a project to capture carbon in the rock from which diamonds are extracted to offset harmful emissions, the company said. As planet-warming carbon emissions rise globally, many countries have adopted or proposed a form of tax on emissions and companies in the mining and manufacturing sector are concerned that this will hit their future profits.

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U.S. wind industry has biggest first-quarter installs in eight years

(Reuters) - The U.S. wind industry installed 2,000 megawatts of capacity in the first quarter, nearly four times the amount installed in the same period last year, as developers race to capture a lucrative federal tax credit that is gradually being phased out.

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Tuesday, May 2, 2017

SpaceX rocket lifts off on first launch for U.S. military

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, carrying the company's first satellite for the U.S. military, and breaking a 10-year monopoly held by a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

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Monday, May 1, 2017

German project looks to home photovoltaic systems to help grid

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Grid operator Tennet and solar panel maker Sonnen GmbH have launched a pilot project that will tap home photovoltaic (PV) systems to help iron out imbalances on Germany's power network.

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China to begin construction of manned space station in 2019

BEIJING (Reuters) - China will begin construction of a permanent manned space station in 2019 after carrying out a successful in-orbit refueling from its Tianzhou-1 cargo spacecraft, officials leading the project said on Friday.

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Thursday, April 27, 2017

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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Wednesday, April 26, 2017

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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Tuesday, April 25, 2017

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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Monday, April 24, 2017

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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Saturday, April 22, 2017

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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Friday, April 21, 2017

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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Thursday, April 20, 2017

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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