Science

With just a few short hours of battery life left on the Philae lander craft that recently touched down on comet 67P, the European Space Agency (ESA) has announced that it's begun drilling into the surface of the interplanetary body. The plan is to try and retrieve some material from …

The last few days have been an exciting time for those that follow the efforts of organisations like NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), as the 10 year, four billion mile journey of the Rosetta probe came to an end as it reached Comet 67P and dropped off its …

Update: The confirmation has come through. Philae has successfully separated from the Rosetta Probe “flawlessly” and now begins its multiple hour descent. This is quite an emotional moment for the Probe's crew back here on Earth, as Philae and Rosetta have travelled through space inseparably for over 10 years and …

One of the pipe dream projects that sometimes appears in Facebook feeds or on photo sharing sites, is the idea of crowd funding an internet-for-all network of cubesats; miniature satellites that can, in large numbers, provide a comprehensive net of internet interconnectivity around the world. Usually though these are debunked …

Remember Rosetta? The little probe that left Earth back in 2004 and spent a near decade taking a jaunt through space so that it could finally enter orbit around the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet? Back in August this year it did just that and many watched it happen live. If that's something you …

Google has announced that its health benefits for employees will soon be extended to cover DNA tests by medical research firm, Foundation Medicine, which are designed to allow doctors to prescribe precise medications and treatments for cancer, at doses that are specific to that patient. This added benefit will also cover family …

An unmanned rocket that was on its way to the International space station to drop off several thousand kilos worth of supplies to the waiting astronauts, has exploded shortly after leaving the launchpad. Nobody was hurt in the incident, but it's expected to delay any future launches at the Wallops …

The British national weather service, the Met Office, is set to be granted a big boost to its climate modelling and weather prediction systems, with the introduction of a £97 million supercomputer. When finally set up, the new platform will run up to 13 times as fast as current computational …

If there was one joke that often gets brought up about many dinosaurs, it's that if they had arms, they were often short. Not all of them though, and one dinosaur in particular with exceptionally long arms for its kind has been puzzling palaeontologists for decades, but no longer. Deinocheirus mirificus …

People often harp on about how we shouldn't be spending money on research into space age technologies, collecting rocks from other planets, or even consider the idea of sending people there, when we have so many problems here on Earth. What people often don't realise is it's these very technologies …

As ridiculous as the idea of a sword that can do a little more damage at point blank range by having a revolver in its handle is, it was still the most badass thing that I'd ever seen when I first played through Final Fantasy VIII in the late 90s. Combine …

It's time to once again go back to that iconic Dinosaur resurrection trilogy, Jurassic Park and correct our view without the 90's tint, as it turns out that along with the raptors not being of the veloci-kind and the fact that they'd probably have been covered in feathers, the Spinosaurus …

The Curiosity rover is a marvel of modern engineering. After spending eight months in the cold black of space, it descended through Mars' carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and landed in the Gale Crater in August 2012. From there it conducted a few simple scientific experiments, but spent the majority of …

Since the official NASA update to Kerbal Space Program, many people around the world have gotten their taste for how difficult it can be to land on anything smaller than a planet in the game, making it even more impressive that we're looking to do the same thing in real …

It's been nearly 50 years since the iconic moon landings were watched by over 125 million people around the world and though the footage is hazy, it's still a pretty amazing site to behold, considering the distances involved. While the International Space Station is much, much closer, we've clearly come …

Our solar system is a vast tract of space, but compared to our entire galaxy, or the universe as a whole, it's less than a single grain of sand compared to all the beaches in the world. That's why finding out what it's actually like outside our little plot of …

Research and development division of Dell is working on mood-reading hardware and software. The actual device and programs could reach the market as soon as in 2017. The technology, which could accurately identify a wearer’s emotional states, could be used for both work and entertainment. Jai Menon, the head of …

Update: It's done it. Rosetta has reached the comet! The Rosetta Probe was launched into the cosmos over a decade ago back in March 2004, with plans to have it rendezvous with a comet, begin orbiting it – essentially sticking to it like the moon does with the Earth – and eventually …

Ok so we're a few steps away from adding all the armour, repulsor jets, pop-up missiles and wise-cracking, self-destructive pilot or your average Iron Man suit, but some firms are really starting to push us in the direction of a fully functioning exoskeleton. For example, Korean shipping giant Dawewoo Shipbuilding, …

The Mars Curiosity rover is a not-so-little badass, having taken astounding pictures of the surface of the red planet, zapped rocks with lasers to find out their chemical components and given us hope that we might one day find life on the seemingly dead world. It's older cousin, Opportunity, is …

Space exploration costs billions and billions of dollars, which is why it's serious business. NASA is firmly of that mind set and doesn't go about validating bogus theories willy nilly, but this week it's – seemingly begrudgingly – lent credence to the practical application of a microwave space drive that …

Curiosity might be the current darling of the science world, having only landed on Mars in 2012, but its older brother Opportunity is making headlines today, because it just became the most travelled Rover in the history of space exploration, beating out the Soviet Union Lunokhod 2, which landed on …

Google isn't a stranger to giving away money to those that impress it with their ingenuity, so it's not that surprising that it's looking to dole out a million dollars to someone once again. This time though it's not trying to send robots to the moon, but is looking to …

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who watched Felix Baumgartner take that leap from the edge of space nearly two years ago. Amazing right? Beautiful really. Well that's what some artists have been hoping to replicate with a project called Exobiotanica, which involved sending plants up to similar sorts of …

Contraceptives are a bit a touchy subject. There's the old plastic bag that everyone hates so much and there's hormone pills and injections that require strict routine from the women taking them, but then there are the implants, which are the most ‘take-it-and-forget-it' of the bunch. However, those implants could give …

In just three days time, NASA is set to send a handful of Android smartphones into orbit, with plans to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) and deliver supplies. However those smartphones will do more than just let the astronauts get a quick game of Angry Birds in before …

Robotics might be something you consider the Japanese good at, or the Americans perhaps, maybe even the Russians, but not necessarily the British. That's something that the Technology Strategy Board wants to change and it has plenty of ideas how. By 2025, it wants the UK to become a hotbed …

Getting in to space has always been an expensive affair. It's come down a lot over the years, but whether you were one of the early NASA or Russian sponsored astronauts who sat on top of billions in development costs, or the first few space tourists that spent upwards of …

Quick, name three dinosaurs. Ok here's mine: T-Rex, stegosaurus, triceratops. These (along with Iguanodon in a close 4th) were the dinosaurs I loved the most as a kid and chances are, each of them with their very distinctive and different looks, will be on most of your lists too. However, …

Despite President Obama ending both the Shuttle program and Constellation (return to the moon by 2020) programs at NASA over the past few years, the organisation hasn't been resting on its laurels. One of its biggest developments has been designing and prototyping the successor to the iconic Shuttle, known as …