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Malaysian researchers have developed a method to transform the fibre found in normally discarded pineapple leaves to make a strong material that can be used to build the frames for unmanned aircraft, or drones. The project, headed by Professor Mohamed Thariq Hameed Sultan at Malaysia’s Putra University, has been trying to find sustainable uses for

OpenAI has unveiled DALL-E and CLIP, two new generative AI models that can generate images from your text and classify your images into categories respectively. DALL·E is a neural network that can generate images from the wildest text and image descriptions fed to it, such as “as an armchair in the shape of an avocado”,

A new breakthrough could help reduced the carbon footprint of air travel, with the aim to bring emissions by jets to net zero. A team of researchers from Oxford University has successfully managed to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into jet fuel, though as of now the experiment was performed at a very small scale. As

In an article in Cell, National Institutes of Health-funded researchers described how they used advanced genetic engineering techniques to transform a bacterial protein into a new research tool that may help monitor serotonin transmission with greater fidelity than current methods. Preclinical experiments, primarily in mice, showed that the sensor could detect subtle, real-time changes in

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday said it has released the first set of data from the country”s second mission to the Moon, the Chandrayaan-2, for the general public. Chandrayaan-2 was launched on July 22, 2019 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The Orbiter which was injected into a

Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on Saturday called on governments and businesses to implement stronger climate targets starting next year, during remarks at the United Nations’ Climate Ambition Summit. “We call on companies and governments around the world to do all we can to make 2021 the year we turn the corner for good,” Cook

A new Chinese carrier rocket made its first flight on Tuesday under a long-term plan to develop reusable launch vehicles aimed at reducing mission costs and speed up launch schedules for commercial clients. The medium-lift Long March 8 Y-1 blasted off at 12:37pm (10:07am IST) from the southern Chinese island of Hainan carrying five satellites,

Winter Solstice this year will see a rare astronomical event – the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. True to the saying that ‘every cloud has a silver lining,’ the pandemic-ridden 2020 is bringing a year-end treat for all of us. Google is also celebrating the Winter Solstice and the Great Conjunction with its latest

An unmanned Chinese spacecraft carrying rocks and soil from the Moon returned safely to Earth early Thursday in the first mission in four decades to collect lunar samples, the Xinhua news agency said. The return module of the space probe known as Chang’e-5 landed in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, Xinhua said, quoting the China

A Canadian astronaut will take part in a lunar mission for the first time in 2023, as part of the NASA-led Artemis project, the minister for innovation, science and industry announced Wednesday. “I am proud to announce another first: Canada will join the US on the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo

China will share data and samples from the moon obtained by its Chang’e 5 probe on the basis of international conventions though “unfortunate” US restrictions on cooperation might prevent it getting any, the deputy head of its space agency said. The probe landed in the northern region of Inner Mongolia in the early hours of

India successfully launched its latest communication satellite CMS-01 on board its Polar rocket from the spaceport here on Thursday, the second and last launch this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic. ISRO’s trusted polar satellite launch vehicle, PSLV-C50, injected the satellite into the predefined orbit around 20 minutes after the lift-off from the second launch pad

 Chinese ground crews are standing by for the return of a lunar probe bringing back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from the moon in more than 45 years. The Chang’e probe is expected to land in the Siziwang district of the vast Inner Mongolia region late Wednesday or early Thursday. It fired

Russia on Monday successfully test-launched its heavy lift Angara A5 space rocket for the second time, the country’s military and space officials said. The rocket lifted off Monday morning from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia. “It flies, damn it!” Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, tweeted after the launch. Еще больше видео!

UK engineers will soon begin work on a comet-chasing spacecraft that will track down and map one of the celestial objects in three dimensions. Thales Alenia Space, with three sites in the UK, have won the contract to design and build the mother ship for the European Space Agency’s EUR 150 million (roughly Rs. 1,300 crores)

Hyundai Motor Group and its chairman have agreed to buy a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group in a deal that values the US-based robot maker at $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,111 crores). The South Korean automaker group said on Friday the purchase would help it expand automation in its vehicle factories and

A Chinese space probe sent to gather material from a previously unexplored part of the moon has completed its mission and is preparing to send back the world’s first lunar samples in four decades, Beijing said Thursday. China has poured billions into its military-run space programme, with hopes of having a crewed space station by

SpaceX’s Starship prototype exploded while attempting to land on Wednesday after an otherwise successful test launch from the company’s rocket facility in Boca Chica, Texas, live video of the flight showed. The Starship rocket destroyed in the accident was a 16-story-tall prototype for the heavy-lift launch vehicle being developed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s private

A Chinese space probe has lifted off from the surface of the Moon to return to Earth, an ambitious effort to bring back the first lunar samples in four decades. Beijing is looking to catch up with the US and Russia after taking decades to match its rivals’ achievements and has poured billions into its

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin will take the first woman to the moon’s surface, the billionaire said on Friday as NASA nears a decision to pick its first privately built lunar landers capable of sending astronauts to the moon by 2024. “This (BE-7) is the engine that will take the first woman to the

Japan space agency officials on Sunday hailed the arrival of rare asteroid samples on Earth after they were collected by space probe Hayabusa2 during an unprecedented mission. In a streak of light across the night sky, a capsule containing the precious specimens taken from a distant asteroid arrived on Earth after being dropped off by

Puerto Rico’s Arecibo Observatory could still have a future after its vast telescope dramatically collapsed this week, US officials said Thursday. The structure was destroyed on Tuesday when its 900-ton receiver platform, which was suspended 450 feet (140 metres) in the air, fell loose and plunged onto the radio dish below. Ralph Gaume, director of

Call it a special delivery: after six years in space, Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe is heading home, but only to drop off its rare asteroid samples before starting a new mission. The fridge-sized probe, launched in December 2014, has already thrilled scientists by landing on and gathering material from an asteroid some 300 million kilometres (185

Chinese scientists claim to have built a quantum computer that is able to perform certain computations nearly 100 trillion times faster than the world’s most advanced supercomputer, representing the first milestone in the country’s efforts to develop the technology. The researchers have built a quantum computer prototype that is able to detect up to 76

Singapore has given US start-up Eat Just the greenlight to sell its lab-grown chicken meat, in what the firm says is the world’s first regulatory approval for so-called clean meat that does not come from slaughtered animals. The meat, to be sold as nuggets, will be priced at premium chicken prices when it first launches

In a corner of the campus at Riga Technical University, a team of scientists is working on technology that could one day stop asteroids from smashing into Earth. The high-precision timers being built by hand in the lab of Latvian start-up Eventech are currently being used to track satellites. This year, the company won a

Lunar eclipse or Chandra Grahan is appearing in the skies today. It will be the fourth and the last eclipse of 2020. The latest lunar eclipse is not likely to be visible in India. However, it will be seen in many parts of Europe as well as Australia, North America, South America, Pacific, Atlantic, and

China plans to launch an unmanned spacecraft to the moon this week to bring back lunar rocks in the first attempt by any nation to retrieve samples from Earth’s natural satellite since the 1970s. The Chang’e-5 probe, named after the ancient Chinese goddess of the moon, will seek to collect material that can help scientists

A material that mimics human skin in strength, stretchability, and sensitivity could be used to collect biological data in real-time. Electronic skin, or e-skin, may play an important role in next-generation prosthetics, personalized medicine, soft robotics, and artificial intelligence. “The ideal e-skin will mimic the many natural functions of human skin, such as sensing temperature

Sweden is getting on board India’s Venus orbiter mission ”Shukrayaan” with a scientific instrument to explore the planet. Ambassador of Sweden to India, Klas Molin said Swedish Institute of Space Physics (IRF) is engaged in the venture, its second collaborative project with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). “IRF’s satellite instrument Venusian Neutrals Analyzer (VNA)

SpaceX will continue beta testing its satellite-based broadband service Starlink into next year, the company said late Tuesday, indicating commercial service would not likely be offered in 2020 as previously planned. Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private space exploration company, has launched nearly 900 Starlink satellites to orbit since 2019 with the goal of offering

The Expand will end its run with a sixth and final season on Amazon Prime Video. Amazon Studios has renewed The Expanse — the sci-fi series based on James S.A. Corey’s novel series of the same name — for season 6, three weeks before The Expanse season 5 releases on Prime Video globally. But The

China on Tuesday launched an unmanned spacecraft to bring back lunar rocks, the first attempt by any nation to retrieve samples from the Moon in four decades. A Long March 5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-5 probe, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, blasted off from the Wenchang Space Center on the southern island province of

Giant flash floods once washed through Gale Crater on Mars’ equator around four billion years ago, according to a study which hints at the possibility that life may have existed on the Red Planet. The research, published recently in the journal Scientific Reports, assessed data collected by NASA’s Curiosity rover, launched in November 2011, and found

The renowned Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico will be dismantled after 57 years of service due to the rupture of cables that have led to the threat of collapse, the US National Science Foundation announced Thursday. Two cables supporting the 900-ton instruments for the telescope above a radio dish 1,000 feet (305 metres) in diameter

SpaceX, an American aerospace company owned by entrepreneur Elon Musk, has urged the Indian government to kick off approvals for satellite broadband technologies. The move is aimed at expanding SpaceX’s satellite Internet constellation Starlink to the country. SpaceX has expressed its interest in launching Starlink in India in a filing submitted with the Telecom Regulatory

NASA’s inspector general and the US justice department have launched investigations into allegations that Boeing may have benefited from internal information provided by the space agency during a contract bidding process, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. The affair led to the abrupt resignation of Doug Loverro, then the head of NASA’s human exploration directorate, in

Four astronauts riding a newly designed spacecraft from Elon Musk’s SpaceX docked with the International Space Station Monday night, in the first crewed mission on a privately built space capsule purchased by NASA. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, dubbed Resilience by its crew of three Americans and one Japanese astronaut, docked at 11:01pm EST (9:31am Tuesday IST), 27 hours

Four astronauts were successfully launched on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience to the International Space Station on Sunday, the first of what the US hopes will be many routine missions following a successful test flight in late spring. Three Americans, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi blasted off at 7:27pm

NASA and high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s rocket company SpaceX announced on Friday a 24-hour weather delay of their planned launch of four astronauts into orbit for NASA’s first full-fledged human mission using a privately owned spacecraft. The liftoff time slipped from Saturday to Sunday evening due to forecasts of gusty, onshore winds over Florida –

NASA is underestimating the amount of time and money it will take to bring Mars rocks back to Earth in the coming decade, an independent panel said Tuesday. The review board suggested that NASA and the European Space Agency consider bumping the next launches in the sample-return effort from 2026 to 2028, given all the

Three NASA crew and one Japanese astronaut are set for launch aboard a SpaceX rocket Saturday, bound for the International Space Station in the program’s first six-month routine mission since the United States resumed crewed space flight in May after nine years of reliance on Russia.   NASA on Tuesday officially certified as safe the

India’s PSLV-C49 carrying its latest earth observation satellite EOS-01 and nine customer satellites lifted off from the spaceport here on Saturday. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C49/EOS-01) blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota at 3:12pm at the end of a 26-hour countdown. The lift off was originally scheduled for 3:02pm but

Astrophysicists have detected a burst of cosmic radio waves within our solar system for the first time and identified its source, according to research published Wednesday that sheds new light on one of the mysteries of the Universe.  The origin of powerful fast radio bursts (FRBs), intense flashes of radio emission that only last a few

NASA’s robotic spacecraft Osiris-Rex is set to begin on Tuesday a delicate operation to store the precious particles it scooped up from the asteroid Bennu, but which were leaking into space when a flap got wedged open. The probe is on a mission to collect fragments that scientists hope will help unravel the origins of

A Chinese spacecraft is expected to land on Mars in May, state-run media reported on Thursday, citing a space agency official. The spacecraft, which left Earth in July, is set to land in Utopia Planitia, a plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars, the China News Service reported, citing Liu Tongjie, spokesman for the Mars

Scientists have detected 39 gravitational-wave events that they say will further help them understand the universe, as well as explore its population of black holes and neutron stars. The latest events add to the 11 already confirmed events, taking the total number of events to 50. According to astrophysicists, this has been possible due to

On Halloween, a rare Blue Moon will appear in the sky for the first time since 2001. A Blue Moon occurs when there is more than one full moon during a month. NASA says that it coincides with Halloween every 19 years. The Moon isn’t really blue, but will be in full bloom to make