Exclusive: Hong Kong's first-ever and one of the world's largest satellite manufacturing facilities to deliver first satellite by 2024; city to keep up with country's robust advancement in space

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

Computer takes first game in match against Go world champion

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

Kepler telescope readies for new mission after communications scare

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

Scientific evidence should inform politicized debates

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

Gut microbe may challenge textbook on complex cells

A gut microbe collected from chinchilla droppings might be the first complex life form to lack even a shred of a supposedly universal organelle. Monocercomonoides, a one-celled gut microbe collected from a pet chinchilla in Prague decades ago, apparently has no mitochondria, the organelles known as the cell’s power plants. Cataloging DNA in the microbe ... Read more

Zapping clouds with lasers could tweak planet’s temperature

Laser blasts might help scientists tweak Earth’s thermostat by shattering the ice crystals found in cirrus clouds. Zapping tiny ice particles in the lab forms new, smaller bits of ice, researchers report May 20 in Science Advances. Since clouds with more numerous, smaller ice particles reflect more light, the technique could combat global warming by ... Read more

Animals get safe spots to cross the road — and car collisions drop

U.S. 191 is one of the driving options for people headed to Grand Teton or Yellowstone National Parks. But the road also cuts through prime territory for mule deer and pronghorns. And cars and large wildlife don’t usually mix well. When they do tangle, the cars end up heavily damaged, and the animals end up ... Read more

How to get Ötzi’s look

Ötzi had Copper Age style. The 5,300-year-old Tyrolean Iceman, whose body was found poking out of a glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991, incorporated hides from at least five domesticated and wild animal species into his apparel, a new genetic study finds. Comparing mitochondrial DNA extracted from nine ancient leather fragments with DNA of ... Read more

For snowy owls, wintering on the prairie might be normal

White, fierce and fluffy, snowy owls are icons of Arctic life. But some of these owls are not cool with polar winters. Every year, part of the population flies south to North American prairies. Ornithologists thought those birds fled the Arctic in desperation, haggard and hungry. But the prairie owls are doing just fine, researchers ... Read more

Philae lander spotted on comet 67P

Philae has been found, nestled in a shadowy crevice on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The comet lander, lost since its tumultuous touchdown on the comet on November 12, 2014, turned up in images taken by the Rosetta orbiter on September 2. Philae is on its side with one leg sticking out into sunlight. Its cockeyed posture probably ... Read more