Science

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white overnight, according to folklore, before she was executed by guillotine in 1793 during the French Revolution. The ill-fated queen embodied an extreme example of the phenomenon of stress-induced graying of the hair. FILE PHOTO: A woman dressed as Marie Antoinette from the video game “Assassin’s Creed: Unity”

HERMITAGE, England (Reuters) – A specialist care facility in England is using virtual reality (VR) headsets and data mining to help children with autism to acclimatize to scenarios they are likely to encounter outside of school. FILE PHOTO: People wear VR glasses at a new permanent Timeride exhibition about the divided city in Berlin, Germany,

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Crew Dragon astronaut capsule, lifts off on an in-flight abort test , a key milestone before flying humans in 2020 under NASA’s commercial crew program, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX simulated

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX simulated a successful emergency landing on Sunday in a dramatic test of a crucial abort system on an unmanned astronaut capsule, a big step its mission to fly NASA astronauts for the first time as soon as this spring. A Crew Dragon astronaut capsule launched at 10:30

New construction surrounds the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 booster rocket on historic Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 18, 2020. REUTERS/Steve Nesius CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s SpaceX will try again on Sunday to destroy one of its own rockets in a test of

CAPE CANAVERAL (Reuters) – Bad weather forced Elon Musk’s SpaceX to delay until Sunday a test in which it will destroy one of its own rockets in a trial of a crucial emergency abort system on an unmanned astronaut capsule. The SpaceX Crew Dragon sits atop a Falcon 9 booster rocket on Pad 39A at

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A microorganism scooped up in deep-sea mud off Japan’s coast has helped scientists unlock the mystery of one of the watershed evolutionary events for life on Earth: the transition from the simple cells that first colonized the planet to complex cellular life – fungi, plants and animals including people. A scanning electron

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A climate research organization will offer access to a risk model that predicts the probability of flooding for homes across the United States, giving the public a look at the data institutional investors use to gauge risk.  FILE PHOTO: A neighborhood engulfed in the flood waters of the Arkansas River is

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A meteorite that crashed into rural southeastern Australia in a fireball in 1969 contained the oldest material ever found on Earth, stardust that predated the formation of our solar system by billions of years, scientists said on Monday. A scanning electron micrograph of a presolar silicon carbide grain, about 8 micrometers in

LONDON (Reuters) – A new type of therapy using feces and fake rubber hands may be able to help patients with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) overcome their fears of touching contaminated surfaces, according to new research. A fake rubber hand used to help people who suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is seen in San

(Reuters) – NASA is opening an independent investigation with Boeing over a software glitch that prevented its unmanned astronaut capsule from reaching the International Space Station in December, the agency said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: One of Boeing Co’s CST-100 Starliner astronaut capsules is seen at a production facility in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., January

FILE PHOTO: The logo of state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the country’s biggest defence contractor, is seen at their offices next to Ben Gurion International airport, near Or Yehuda, Israel February 27, 2017. REUTERS/Baz Ratner JERUSALEM (Reuters) – State-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) [ISRAI.UL] said on Thursday it signed with the Israeli government to build

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A cousin of the starfish that resides in the coral reefs of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico lacks eyes, but can still see, according to scientists who studied this creature that expands the boundaries of the sense of sight in the animal kingdom. A red brittle star, Ophiocoma wendtii, is seen

BENGALURU (Reuters) – India has approved its third lunar mission months after its last one failed to successfully land on the moon, its space agency said on Wednesday, the latest effort in its ambitions to become a low-cost space power. FILE PHOTO: India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III-M1 blasts off carrying Chandrayaan-2, from the

FILE PHOTO: Engineers and technicians install the remote sensing mast to the Mars 2020 rover in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, U.S., June 5, 2019. Photo taken June 5, 2019. NASA-JPL-Caltech/Handout via REUTERS PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters) – A NASA robotic rover is nearing completion ahead of a journey

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Can you make an egg stand on its narrow side during a solar eclipse? An egg is seen on the ground in Shah Alam, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia December 26, 2019 in this screen grab obtained from a social media video. HAKEEM MAAROF via REUTERS. According to a popular scientific theory, an