Tag Archives: science

  Brazil mutant mosquitoes to breed out diseases Piracicaba, Brazil | AFP |  Scientists in Brazil are preparing to release millions of factory-bred mosquitoes in an attempt to wipe out their distant cousins that carry tropical diseases. The insects’ method: have sex and then die. British firm Oxitec says its …

Miami, United States | AFP |  A small, dark-feathered bird known as the common swift flies for 10 months on end without ever landing, the longest time spent aloft of any known bird, scientists said Thursday. The findings in the US journal Current Biology confirmed a 46-year-old hypothesis, first offered …

Paris, France | AFP | A labelling error and reckless media hype in the 1980s led to unjustly branding a gay airline employee as “Patient Zero” in the US AIDS epidemic, scientific and historical sleuthing detailed Wednesday. The deadly virus, which has claimed more than 650,000 lives in the United …

Slippery slope: the more we lie, the easier it gets Paris, France | AFP | Whether cheating on taxes or one’s lover, the little lies we tell can quickly escalate into big ones, according to a study released Monday that describes dishonesty as a “slippery slope”. Serial untruths, moreover, register …

Paris, France | AFP | Europe’s second attempt to reach Mars’ surface appeared in peril Thursday as initial analysis suggested the latest lander may have plummeted to its demise. While holding out faint hope, ground controllers said it seemed the paddling pool-sized lander’s parachute may have been discarded too early, …

London, United Kingdom | AFP | More than 50 researchers from 30 countries are to carry out the first scientific full circumnavigation of Antarctica in an attempt to measure pollution and climate change, with the official launch held on Monday. The international team will cruise on Russian research vessel Akademik …

Darmstadt, Germany | AFP | Europe’s ground-breaking quest to unravel the Solar System’s mysteries concludes Friday with the Rosetta comet chaser crashlanding onto the cosmic wanderer’s rocky surface. The mission, summarised in numbers: 1: Rosetta became the first spacecraft, in August 2014, to enter the orbit of a comet. In …

Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | It’s serendipity: from America to Viagra, history is full of great discoveries helped along by chance, as more than a century of Nobel prizes can attest. Among the chance discoveries that have been honoured with the prestigious prize are X-rays (physics, 1901), penicillin (medicine, 1945), …

Beijing, China | AFP |  The world’s largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project which Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official …

San Francisco, United States | AFP |  Mark Zuckerberg and his wife on Wednesday pledged $3 billion over the next decade to efforts to prevent, cure or manage disease, aiming to use the Facebook founder’s fortune for innovative research. “This is a big goal,” Zuckerberg said at a San Francisco …