Analysis of large amounts of dinosaur and bird fossils has suggested that the evolution of primitive birds was slow and the diversity of body shapes dropped, which is opposite to the common belief that quick and major changes occur when a new species is taking shape. The discovery was made by Wang Min and Zhou ... Read more
China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) has newly launched the city's first and one of the world's largest satellite manufacturing facilities, known as AMC. The facility revealed to the Global Times in an exclusive interview that their first made-in-Hong Kong, high-quality satellite would hopefully be delivered by the beginning of 2024. Referred also as ... Read more
South China’s Shenzhen vowed on Wednesday to intensify its crackdown on ill-intentioned speculation and smears against private businesses among its newly 20-point measures to boost the private economy, according to Shenzhen Fabu, the official WeChat account of the Shenzhen Government Information Office. The move marks a prompt response from local authorities to implement the comprehensive ... Read more
The island of Taiwan's "mainland affairs council" recently released a "plan" to "resume" cross-Straits tourism and exchanges, but such a plan is a "pie in the sky" as it actually imposes stricter restrictions for exchanges, Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, said on Friday. Taiwan's "mainland affairs council" announced on ... Read more
Computer: 1, Human: 0. That’s the score after the first match between Lee Sedol, the world’s top Go player and AlphaGo, the computer program that recently defeated the European Go champion. AlphaGo is the creation of Google DeepMind, an artificial intelligence company based in London. The company’s program is the first to give top human ... Read more
For burying beetles, parenting is a real turnoff. While caring for her newborn larvae, a mother burying beetle (Nicrophorus vespilloides) releases a chemical compound that limits her mate’s urge to breed. The antiaphrodisiac cue lets beetle dads focus on childcare before mating again, researchers report March 22 in Nature Communications. “We were surprised to discover ... Read more
A new refrigerator-sized factory can rapidly pump out a diverse assortment of drugs on demand. Researchers designed the system to offer a speedy alternative to large-scale pharmaceutical production. Rejiggering chemical inputs and the device’s collection of tanks and tubes allowed the team to produce four different drugs: an anesthetic (lidocaine), an antihistamine (Benadryl), an anti-anxiety ... Read more
The Kepler space telescope, NASA’s premier planet hunter, is about to embark on a hunt for planets toward the center of the galaxy. But on April 7, just hours before its new mission was set to begin, the observatory gave astronomers a scare by temporarily hunkering down in an emergency state that prevented mission controllers ... Read more
SALT LAKE CITY — When black holes collide, astronomers expect to record a gravitational wave “chirp.” But rapidly spinning black holes, like the one featured in the 2014 film Interstellar, might prefer singing to chirping. According to the calculations of Caltech physicist Kip Thorne, who served as scientific consultant for Interstellar, the movie’s black hole, ... Read more
Over the years, readers have on occasion written to me to point out what they see as an increasing politicization of Science News. These are not accolades — more than one of those readers has contemplated ending their subscription. Some of those critics deny climate change, some oppose GMOs, others view any policy discussion in ... Read more