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'Absolutely amazing footage' from the hadal depths
An international team of marine scientists has obtained "absolutely amazing footage" of fish feeding at a hadal 7,700 metres down in the Pacific Ocean's Japan Trench.…
Hi-tech survey gig for Chandrayaan-1
India is all set to launch its first unmanned Moon mission on 22 October - the Chandrayaan-1 probe, which will over two years survey our satellite's surface with a rack of hi-res kit.…
Looking beyond the termination shock
NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, aka IBEX, will on 19 October lift off from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands on a mission to probe the interstellar boundary beyond our heliosphere's termination shock1 - a region where "the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space", as NASA nicely puts it.…
Laser rock-crushing droid tank attack for '11?
NASA's plans for a huge, nuclear powered laser-toting robot tank to succeed the present rovers on the surface of Mars have hit budget problems, according to reports.…
mp3 charger name forecast: iSingTheBodyElectric™
US scientists believe it could be possible to use artificial electric eel cells grafted into the human body to generate power for cybernetic implant devices. The pseudo-electrocytes would harvest the necessary energy from body fats and sugars.…
The takeaways from rogue Chinese food additives
As melamine alerts reverberate around the world in the wake of China's dairy export industry, it affords us an opportunity to look at bad chemistry while considering the scale of the global food market. And how vulnerable consumers are when garden-variety greed, not terrorism, is the driver in mass poisonings.…
NEW-HOTNESS to replace OLD&BUSTED
It's been a busy few days for the renowned US military crazytech research bureau, DARPA*. The Pentagon wack-profs have announced plans to develop a new drug which will acclimatise troops to thin mountain air very fast, and unveiled plans to make small, portable magnetic-resonance Tricorder-style scan gizmos. They have also committed an extremely serious acronym crime.…
Crackly space earful imminent
What would you hear if you were on Mars? A slight hiss from whatever wind there might be and then your own death rattle, probably - but the Phoenix Mars Lander is aiming to find out what other sounds the red planet has to offer.…
'Let life imitate Mountain View'
And we thought Google's work with NASA and private space entrepreneurs was part of a secret plan to escape the Earth before it's too late.…
Cameras at the ready...
NASA's Messenger spacecraft is closing on Mercury for a second fly-by, during which it will snap 1,200 images of the planet's remaining unseen surface.…
Not enough boffins at the top, says top boffin
An authoritative review into the management of physics in the UK has concluded that overall things are in good order. However, the panel led by Professor Bill Wakeham also identified "weaknesses" in the present physics setup, and said that "significant damage" had been caused by recent funding decisions.…
'Deep Bleeder' sonar medicuff deal inked
US researchers intend to develop an automated ultrasonic cuff which could be fitted to the arms or legs of wounded troops to stop blood loss and so save the limb - or indeed the whole soldier.…
Beak bins botanist's bid to bust boson-botherers
Famous eccentric American botanist, lawyer and soi-disant physicist Walter L Wagner has failed in his bid to have the US courts close down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Hawaiian federal judges reportedly felt that the enormous 27-km proton deathrace track lay somewhat outside their jurisdiction, located as it is beneath the Franco-Swiss border and funded mainly by other governments.…
Keeping up with the Googlers
One trouble with conducting global atmospheric research is the distinct lack of flashy suborbital rocketplanes available.…
Boffins dreaming of white Xmas at Martian North Pole
NASA's Phoenix lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds, hinting that liquid water may once have been common on the surface of the Red Planet. However, the snow seen by the explorer robot didn't merely turn to rain as it fell - it vapourised, never even reaching the ground at all.…
Backup a bit dusty
The Hubble space telescope has stopped transmitting data to Earth after a data formatting computer failed. A Shuttle service mission to the telescope has been delayed for four to six months while a replacement formatter and its installation procedures are prepared.…
Branson's economy-class rocketships not quite ready
The "mothership" jet aboard which Richard Branson's planned space-tourism rocketplanes will ride piggyback has had its first flight delayed, according to reports. The WhiteKnight Two carrier craft had been expected to fly this month.…
Fourth time's the charm
Multimillionaire tech visionary Elon Musk has finally achieved a long-sought goal on the fourth attempt, as his privately-funded SpaceX Falcon 1 is now circling the Earth. The rocket, launched from Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific, reached orbital velocity at 00:26 UK time.…
Barmy backpack birdman does a Blériot
Renowned Swiss birdman Yves Rossy has, after several weather-related setbacks, finally flown over the English Channel using his unique backpack jetplane.…
Pimp my parafoil
Airborne Systems, maker of automatic parachute systems to the likes of Elon Musk's SpaceX private rocket firm, has announced successful tests of the "World's Largest Autonomously Guided Ram-Air Parachute".…
NRA operative survives TX4 ambush
RoTM Our recent shock piece on an attempted incendiary uprising by the TX4-type cab prompted the neoLuddite Resistance Army to place all London cadres on Defcon Laguna.…
DARPA, NASA chuffed to bits blown away cautiously pleased
US jet-engines'n'rockets colossus Pratt & Whitney says it has successfully completed ground testing of its new hypersonic scramjet engine prototype, which can run on ordinary hydrocarbon fuel at Mach 6. The company believes that the radical hyperjet is now ready to fly on the X-51 "WaveRider" test flights planned to begin next year.…
It's the price of 'one planet living'
Britons should be subjected to random carbon spotchecks and intensive surveillance of their diets, transport and waste disposal habits, says the Government's architecture and design quango in a new report today.…
One day, the asteroids will come
Asteroid impacts on Earth are an unfortunate inevitability. And while devastating impacts are extremely rare in terms of a human lifespan, the destruction they can potentially cause is far greater than more familiar natural disasters.…
Hurricane Ike provokes Hubble mission delay
The provisional launch date of space shuttle Atlantis on its STS-125 mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope has been postponed from 10 to 14 October due to the knock-on effects of Hurricane Ike.…
Third manned mission blasts off
China's Shenzhou VII spacecraft blasted off today at 13:10 GMT from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern Gansu Province atop a Long-March II-F rocket. The mission marks the communist state's third manned space jaunt, and the first to include a spacewalk - if all goes according to plan.…
'Pay extra for more shuttle flights or go with Russia'
US Presidential contender Barack Obama has outlined his views on the near-term direction to be taken by the US space programme, according to reports.…
For it's work all day for the sugar in your tay
In case you've been living under a rock on some distant planet, NASA apologizes for the intrusion.…
'Our protective shields are failing, captain'
The Sun's solar wind output has fallen to the lowest level since "accurate readings" became available, and the drop may have an effect on the natural shielding which protects the solar system from cosmic rays, NASA reports.…
Extracts yeast from amber-clad ancient weevil
A scientist at California Polytechnic State University has answered that most pressing of questions for would-be time travellers - assuming you survive the journey through the wormhole vortex back to the Eocene epoch, what's the beer going to be like when you get there?…
Atomsmash off season delays Higgs-Hawking deathmatch
Proton-punishing boffins at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have confirmed that a recent technical mishap will down the colossal particle-masher until well into next year. The various treats promised once the LHC began living up to its name will not, now, arrive in time for Christmas.…
Recent chill just a blip, insist weather prophets
The UK Met Office climate change bureau has issued a stinging attack on the idea that recent falls in global temperature might mean that global warming is over or has been exaggerated.…
Natural history without the formaldehyde
The grand dame of natural history museums in the American west gave a sneak peak to the press last week, after a multi-year green reconstruction and all-around face lift. The results are impressive: One of the ten largest natural science museums in the world, San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences has - for the second time since its founding in 1853 - escaped the ruin of a major earthquake and is all the better for it.…
Hot new technology
The US air force and NASA have launched a joint research push to advance hypersonic flight technology. The air force research lab and space agency are seeking university and industry partners, and are offering $30m in funding.…
Opportunity off for 7-mile, possibly final, jaunt
NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity is about to set off on what may be its final odyssey - a seven-mile (11.3 km) jaunt to a crater around 20 times larger than the Victoria Crater from which it extricated itself earlier this month.…
Let us use Russians instead of Shuttle, pleads Griffin
Russian engineers believe they have rectified snags which have seen Soyuz spacecraft returning from orbit take up dangerous "ballistic" trajectories recently. The Soyuz is likely to be the only craft capable of carrying humans into space for the first half of the next decade.…
Doing the maths
Analysis Let us assume global warming is happening. Let us assume too that it is doing so at a rapid pace. What should we do about it?…
Bored boffin mischief disasters now inevitable
Bad news broke at the weekend for fans of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the titanic underground magno-doughnut proton punisher located outside Geneva. Technical mishaps will mean at least a two-month delay before the inaugural hadron headbang.…
TX4 uprising contained - for now
RoTM Transport for London last week announced the temporary withdrawal of 500 black cabs following eight spontaneous combustion events in three months - the first incendiary transportation incidents in the capital since Red Ken Livingstone's removal from office apparently contained the fire-breathing vehicle menace.…
Glowing future foretold
French energy giant EDF will have some competition in the new British nuclear sector, according to reports. It appears that certain UK sites belonging to British Energy and the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will see new plants built by EDF's rivals.…
Designer claims to have cracked century-old snag
A Ukrainian airship visionary based in California has won further US military funding to develop his miraculous "Aeroscraft" sky-leviathan design. However, some question marks remain over the craft's unique - almost miraculous - buoyancy-control technology.…
Mr Schmidt goes to Washington
Advertising colossus Google has announced a partnership with engineering titan GE, aimed at introducing "a combination of technologies that could be known as the 'smart grid'."…
Science triumphs over common sense
An Israeli city hopes to use DNA analysis in the fight against dog poop littering its footpaths.…
Bot probe sniffs out glowing ring
Flying robots are now able to do many tasks which formerly required assistance from a human pilot. They can land, take off, copy aerobatic manoeuvres and dock a manned jet to another one for air-to-air refuelling - hands off.…
'Bizarre' trans-Neptunian object honours Hawaiian goddess
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decreed that the object formerly known as 2003 EL61 will henceforth be addressed as "Haumea", and joins Ceres, Eris, Makemake and Pluto in the solar system's league of dwarf planets.…
'Assurances' needed over intended use
An Australian parliamentary committee has said that an AU$800m deal to supply Russia with uranium should be put on hold until the latter was able to "assuaged doubts" regarding how it intended to use the material.…
Manga mechanisms made real
The Director of Jiuquan Launch Center claims that China is set to build a space station by snapping together four spaceships (Shenzhou 7, 8, 9, and 10), to be launched sequentially, according to a report by Hong Kong newspaper the Ming Pao Daily News.…
Ducted-fan skyhog would be just 23 feet long
A noted US air'n'space crazytechware firm, engaged in building a comparatively humdrum hover killbot, has strongly suggested that their machine could in fact function as the long-yearned-for flying car - or flying bike anyway.…
Carbon auto has half CO2 emissions
It's just a car. it's called Axon, and it's just a car. It has a petrol engine, four wheels. So why is it supposed to be the greenest breakthrough in the automotive sector?…
Chalk out, fingertips in
Durham University researchers have received £1.5m in funding for a project that aims to replace classroom desks with interactive tables.…