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

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

How to make a fish face, and other photo contest winners

This forlorn-looking face of a 4-day-old zebrafish embryo represents “a whole new avenue of research” for geneticist Oscar Ruiz, who studies how faces and facial abnormalities develop at the cellular level. The research is possible thanks to a new method, developed by Ruiz and colleagues at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in ... Read more

New rules for cellular entry may aid antibiotic development

Like entry to an exclusive nightclub, getting inside a gram-negative bacterial cell is no easy feat for chemical compounds. But now a secret handshake has been revealed: A new study lays out several rules to successfully cross the cells’ fortified exteriors, which could lead to the development of sorely needed antibiotics. “It’s a breakthrough,” says ... Read more

Confusion lingers over health-related pros and cons of marijuana

No one knows whether chronic marijuana smoking causes emotional troubles or is a symptom of them…. This dearth of evidence has a number of explanations: serious lingering reactions, if they exist, occur after prolonged use, rarely after a single dose; marijuana has no known medical use, unlike LSD, so scientists have had little reason to ... Read more

Body clock mechanics wins U.S. trio the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine

Discoveries about the clocklike ups and downs of daily life have won Jeffery C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Circadian rhythms are daily cycles of hormones, gene activity and other biological processes that govern sleep, body temperature and metabolism. When thrown out of whack, there can ... Read more

The Arecibo Observatory will remain open, NSF says

The iconic Arecibo Observatory has survived a hurricane and dodged deep budget cuts. On November 16, the National Science Foundation, which funds the bulk of the observatory’s operating costs, announced that they would continue funding the radio telescope at a reduced level. It’s not clear yet who will manage the observatory in the long run, ... Read more

Hormone replacement makes sense for some menopausal women

Internist Gail Povar has many female patients making their way through menopause, some having a tougher time than others. Several women with similar stories stand out in her mind. Each came to Povar’s Silver Spring, Md., office within a year or two of stopping her period, complaining of frequent hot flashes and poor sleep at ... Read more

When it’s playtime, many kids prefer reality over fantasy

Young children travel to fantasy worlds every day, packing just imaginations and a toy or two. Some preschoolers scurry across ocean floors carrying toy versions of cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. Other kids trek to distant universes with miniature replicas of Star Wars robots R2-D2 and C-3PO. Throngs of youngsters fly on broomsticks and cast magic ... Read more

The mystery of Christiaan Huygens’ flawed telescopes may have been solved

17th century scientist Christiaan Huygens set his sights on faraway Saturn, but he may have been nearsighted. Huygens is known, in part, for discovering Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, and deducing the shape of the planet’s rings. But by some accounts, the Dutch scientist’s telescopes produced fuzzier views than others of the time despite having well-crafted ... Read more