Science Scanner: All Systems ‘Go’ for Comet Touchdown, Cigarette Ash Removes Arsenic from Water, Is Earth’s Magnetic Field Ready to Flip?, Building the World’s Biggest Cosmic Ray Detector

Rosetta’s Philae Lander Given Green Light for Comet Touchdown in November The European Space Agency announced that all systems are ‘go’ for the Rosetta Mission to send its Philae lander to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko on November 12, 2014. This will the first-ever attempt of a soft touchdown landing on a comet. A month […]

Science Scanner: Gravity Dip & Ice Loss Linked, Settling an Scientific Argument, Powerful Solar Flares Found on Mini-Star, Dolphins May Like Magnets

Drop in Gravity Field Over West Antarctic Linked with Ice Loss A group of German, Dutch and U.S. scientists who analyzed high-resolution satellite data from November 2009 until January 2012 found a drop in the gravity field over West Antarctica, which according to various reports has also experienced record ice loss. The researchers studied data […]

Science Scanner: Voters Say Pluto is a Planet, Sense of Touch Explored, Promising New Way to Stop Spread of Cancer, High-Tech Bracelet Secures Computers

People Vote to Make Pluto a Planet Again Until 2006, school children were taught – and most people considered the matter settled – that Pluto is one of the nine planets of the solar system.  But that year members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) – which is responsible for naming and classifying celestial objects […]

Power of a Black Hole, Metallic Glass, Bacteria Becoming More Antiseptic Resistant, How Geckos Stick to Ceiling

Astronomers Witness Power of Supermassive Black Hole Astronomers, using NASA’s space-based Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array or NuSTAR said they were able to capture what they described as a very rare astronomical event in the area that surrounds Markarian 335, a supermassive black hole that’s located about 324 million light-years from Earth. The astronomers noticed that […]