An ocean mystery – how the blackest fish in the deep sea are so extremely black – has been solved in a study that began with a very bad photograph. “I couldn’t get a good shot – just fish silhouettes,” said Dr Karen Osborn from the Smithsonian Institution. Her detailed […]
Science & Technology
Millions of people around the world could be exposed to dangerous levels of heat stress – a dangerous condition which can cause organs to shut down. Many live in developing countries, and do jobs that expose them to potentially life threatening conditions. These include being out in the open […]
New pictures of the Sun taken just 77 million km (48 million miles) from its surface are the closest ever acquired by cameras. They come from the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) probe, which was launched earlier this year. Among the UK-assembled craft’s novel insights are views of mini-flares […]
PARIS: Emissions of methane – a planet-warming gas several times more potent than carbon dioxide – have risen by nine per cent in a decade driven by mankind’s insatiable hunger for energy and food, a major international study concluded Wednesday (Jul 15). Methane (CH4) has a warming potential 28 times […]
WASHINGTON: US biotech firm Moderna said on Tuesday (Jul 14) it would enter the final stage of human trials for its COVID-19 vaccine on Jul 27, after promising early results were published in an influential journal. Moderna was the first to start human testing of a vaccine for the novel […]
The United Arab Emirates will despatch a satellite to Mars to study its weather and climate this week. Hope, as the 1.3-tonne probe is called, is launching on an H-2A rocket from Japan’s remote Tanegashima spaceport. The 500-million-km journey should see the robotic craft arrive in February 2021 – in […]
As Fifi the llama munches on grass on a pasture in Reading, her immune system has provided the template for a coronavirus treatment breakthrough. Scientists from the UK’s Rosalind Franklin Institute have used Fifi’s specially evolved antibodies to make an immune-boosting therapy. The resulting llama-based, Covid-specific “antibody cocktail” could enter […]
Ubisoft shares dropped 9per cent on Monday after the French video games group said over the weekend that three senior managers were leaving the company following a review into allegations of inappropriate behaviour. PARIS: Ubisoft shares dropped 9per cent on Monday after the French video games group said over the […]
TEHRAN: Iran said that the misalignment of an air defence unit’s radar system was the key “human error” that led to the accidental downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane in January. “A failure occurred due to a human error in following the procedure” for aligning the radar, causing a “107-degree […]
The sale of the failed satellite company OneWeb to Bharti Global Ltd of India and the UK government has been approved by a US bankruptcy court. The two parties’ joint bid of $1bn (£800m) secures them the firm’s assets. It means OneWeb will soon be able to resume building a […]