23073848
submission
thebchuckster writes:
The darkest alien world ever spotted by astronomers has been discovered in the outskirts of our galaxy.
"It's darker than the blackest lump of coal, than dark acrylic paint you might paint with. It's bizarre how this huge planet became so absorbent of all the light that hits it," David Kipping, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
23070830
submission
thebchuckster writes:
Scientists say they have found the first evidence that giant sea reptiles — which lived at the same time as dinosaurs — gave birth to live young rather than laying eggs.
They say a 78 million-year-old fossil of a pregnant plesiosaur suggests they gave birth to single, large young.
22880756
submission
thebchuckster writes:
The African crested rat has been known to kill local dogs, but researchers have just figured out how. After eating the "poison-arrow plant," the oversized rodent stores its poison-laced spit in special hollow hairs in its mohawk. Then, when a predator grabs the rat, the animal gets stung with the poison and spit-tipped hairs which can sicken and kill.
22524252
submission
thebchuckster writes:
The building block of the Caltech neural network is double-stranded DNA molecules with loose ends. These loose ends then receive the input of single-stranded DNA, which, through DNA strand replacement, releases an output DNA strand.
Using this input-output mechanism, the Caltech team assembled four neurons that give out specific DNA strand outputs that serve as both 'yes' or 'no' indicators in themselves and also inputs strands into other neurons.
22515842
submission
thebchuckster writes:
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 — was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.
The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).
22469262
submission
thebchuckster writes:
NASA's Dawn, locked in orbit around Vesta, has sent back the first ever close-up image of the asteroid (photos below).
"So far, the images received to date reveal a complex surface that seems to have preserved some of the earliest events in Vesta's history, as well as logging the onslaught that Vesta has suffered in the intervening eons," said Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell
22415506
submission
thebchuckster writes:
Scientists are seeking the help of the Australian and US navies to repel Somali pirates who are threatening one of the world's key climate monitoring programmes.
They hope to deploy about 20 robotic instruments in a no-go area north of Mauritius. The instruments, which record ocean heat and salinity patterns, are programmed to submerge and eventually resurface to upload their data to satellites
22388438
submission
thebchuckster writes:
The sphere is 17-inches, features eight movable rudders, and can hover in the air for at least eight minutes. While reaching speeds of up to 37 miles per hour, the sphere deftly moves through the air without much effort. It doesn't take much to get it up in the air and moving, and will be adept at going into tight areas.
