Headlines

A new way to plan trajectories to asteroids

There are tens of thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that represent some of the most easily accessible resources in the solar system. Planning trajectories to rendezvous with these miniature worlds is notoriously difficult, and requires a massive amount of computational

How Does Your Brain Know a Cat Is a Cat?

A conversation with renowned neuroscientists Lisa Feldman Barrett and Earl Miller about categories, “folk psychology,” beginner’s mind, and thinking fast and slow The post How Does Your Brain Know a Cat Is a Cat? appeared first on Nautilus .

Bigger, faster, but still outfoxed: How prey escape predators

Predators are typically larger, faster, and more powerful than the animals they hunt. Yet in nature, most attacks fail. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by researchers from the University of Amsterdam Institute for Biodiversity and

New lithium-plasma engine passes key Mars propulsion test

You're on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you're told the Odyssey spacecraft designed to take you there will be the smoothest ride you'll ever take. It features a newly christened electric propulsion engine which was in the late stages of testing during the first three

Understanding the inspiration for social entrepreneurship

New research published in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business suggests that universities have a bigger role to play in shaping what students go on to do after graduation, particularly in the growing field of social entrepreneurship.

Hunting the elusive Eta Aquariid meteors

Early May is a good time to watch for a powerful yet often elusive meteor shower, the annual Eta Aquariids. They're a prolific, yet often elusive for northern hemisphere observers. If skies are clear, watch for a strong annual meteor shower that's attained an almost mythical

Under crushing hypergravity, fruit flies adapt—and recover

Expose an animal to extreme physical stress, and the expectation is simple: It will break down. But when UC Riverside scientists subjected fruit flies to forces many times stronger than Earth's gravity—a condition called hypergravity—the insects did something unexpected. They

Physicists have measured 'negative time' in the lab

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island. We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about that particular time. Odysseus

A better way to search for extraterrestrial intelligence

When you're looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, it helps to know what you're looking for and to go about it in the most efficient way. But work so far has generally not done so, writes Benjamin Zuckerman, an astrophysicist and emeritus professor in the