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The space elevator

The science-fiction idea of space tourism is moving ever closer to reality. One such effort is the space elevator.

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2008

Saturday 19 January 2008 European probe aims for Mercury
The European Space Agency signs the industrial contract to build a spacecraft to send to the planet Mercury in 2013.

SCIENCE/NATURE
	'Darkest ever' material created Superblack material made from microscopic carbon nanotubes is produced in a US laboratory.
	Mercury's unseen side is revealed The first pictures taken by the Messenger probe as it passed Mercury on Monday start to arrive at Earth.
	Giant palm tree puzzles botanists Botanists discover a species of giant self-destructing palm in Madagascar, quite unlike an ordinary palm tree.

2007

TIME Top 10 Scientific Discoveries video 2007 Best Inventions>br> Lev Grossman talks about the long process behind the TIME Best Inventions list

Friday 14 December 2007 Magnetic waves power solar wind
Mechanisms that cause the solar wind had baffled scientists for decades, but were revealed in observations by a Japanese satellite called Hinode
WASHINGTON — The solar wind, which whips off the sun and blows past Earth and through the solar system, is unleashed by powerful magnetic waves in electrically charged gas around the sun, scientists said on Thursday. The mechanisms that cause the solar wind had baffled scientists for decades, but were revealed in observations by a Japanese satellite called Hinode orbiting Earth, the scientists said in research published in the journal Science.

Wednesday Dec 12, 2007 'Magnetic ropes' link Earth's atmosphere to sun, researchers find NASA scientists say they've made key discoveries about the northern lights - including the presence ...

Tuesday 20 November 2007

Wednesday 26 September 2007 50 Years Since Sputnik
Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, was launched on Oct. 4, 1957, aboard a Soviet R-7 rocket and touched off an intense space race with the United States.

Sunday 05 August 2007 rci HALIFAX: CANADIAN TECHNOLOGY IS SENT TO MARS
An unmanned spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday morning bound for Mars. If all goes according to plan, the Phoenix Mars Lander will touch down on the Red planet in 10 months to look for signs of life. The spacecraft is carrying some Canadian-made weather instruments as well as a laser-based instrument to measure clouds. It will spend three months scooping up soil and ice and analyzing the samples. Only five of the 15 attempts to land on Mars have been successful.

A field of 600 mirrors reflects rays from the Sun A tour of the tower How the solar tower works

bbc Thursday 03 May 2007 Power station harnesses Sun's rays
There is a scene in one of the Austin Powers films where Dr Evil unleashes a giant "tractor beam" of energy at Earth in order to extract a massive payment.

Well, the memory of it kept me chuckling as I toured the extraordinary scene of the new solar thermal power plant outside Seville in southern Spain.

From a distance, as we rounded a bend and first caught sight of it, I couldn't believe

From a distance, as we rounded a bend and first caught sight of it, I couldn't believe the strange structure ahead of me was actually real.

Sunday 14 January 2007 nyt The new supercollider that is poised to shake up physics.

Tuesday 02 January 2007 nyt Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t
I was a free man until they brought the dessert menu around. There was one of those molten chocolate cakes, and I was suddenly being dragged into a vortex, swirling helplessly toward caloric doom, sucked toward the edge of a black (chocolate) hole. Visions of my father’s heart attack danced before my glazed eyes. My wife, Nancy, had a resigned look on her face.

NYT video Marie Thsrp Other scientists dismissed her work as "girl talk," but she refused to back down -- and changed the way we see the planet.

Why a hydrogen economy doesn't make sense

2006

Thursday 23 November 2006 cnn Robot science in reach for humans

Sunday 06 August 2006 nyt Video Proof and Belief In a video interview, Cornelia Dean discusses reader reactions to her July 25 review of books about science and faith. (Produced by: Erik Olsen)

Sunday 06 August 2006 nyt Video Women Science & Politcs In part three of her interview with the Times's Claudia Dreifus, Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard discusses politics and science in her native Germany. (Producer: Craig Duff)

Wednesday Jul 5, 2006 The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), designed to measure the Earth's solar energy balance and which has already been built, is grounded at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, after the agency cancelled it, citing competing priorities.

Menu to mitworld.mit.edu/ on-demand videos of significant public events at MIT. in RealPlayer
Ex Donald R. Sadoway Fuel Cells and Portable Power Solutions Video length is 1:15:16.

Tuesday Jun 27, 2006 nyt Audio & Photos: Taking Off, Again
Warren E. Leary talks about the Discovery shuttle flight, which will be a test for modifications made after the Columbia disaster.
Related Article

Monday May 8, 2006 Black Holes Collide, and Gravity Quivers Researchers have calculated the shape of the gravitational waves that should result when two black holes, orbiting one another, merge.

Wednesday Apr 26, 2006 globe That old black hole magic
Scientists determine black holes are the most energy-efficient engines in the universe

Tuesday Apr 11, 2006 nyt Regrow Your Own Salamanders can do it. Why not humans? Scientists try to harness the genes that let animals replace lost body parts.

Friday Apr 7, 2006
PREHISTORIC CANADIAN IDOL
The Globe, the Citizen and the Star all front reports on the discovery of a fish fossil in the Canadian Arctic, which may be an important missing link between prehistoric life in the ocean and life on land. The fossil – named Tiktaalik (Inuktitut for large freshwater fish)—was “definitely a fish,” the Globe reports, but with a neck, ribs, nostrils and fins “starting to look like they belonged to a land animal.” The 375-million-year-old specimen was found by a team of American and Canadian fossil hunters on the tip of Ellesmere Island after six years of searching. Their findings are published in today’s edition of the British journal Nature. The Citizen mentions an accompanying piece in the journal speculating that this fossil may become as iconic as the famed “flying dino-bird Archaeopteryx,” and as important for understanding another key transition in the history of evolution.

Friday Apr 7, 2006 nyt Fossil Called Missing Link From Sea to Land Animals By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Scientists found evidence of limbs in the making in the 375-million-year-old fish's forward fins.

Saturday Mar 18, 2006 GLOBE The biggest bang of all In a trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space, researchers say
In that trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a marble to a volume larger than all of observable space through a process they call inflation. At the same time, the seeds were planted for the formation of stars, galaxies, planets and every other object in the universe.

Sunday Mar 12, 2006 great Video (Quick Time) Welcome to AthenaWeb the professional portal of audiovisual scientific information in Europe. You arrived on this site through the Quicktime News. This portal targets the audiovisual professionals, feel free to ask for a login. In the meantime, this demonstration video is provided to you by courtesy of Athenaweb.
Nano: The Next dimension In this film e will find out what tools scientists have developed to explore this new reality, opening up an apparently infinite field of research and practical applications. But what do we mean by nanotechnology? It means doing things on a small scale. It's such a vast area. It's technology on a very small scale. It can be chemistry, or physics, or perhaps biology.

Tuesday Feb 21, 2006 nyt Explaining Ice: The Answers Are Slippery What makes Olympic skaters slide across the ice? Physicists still disagree over the answer to this seemingly simple question.

Friday Feb 17, 2006 globe Researchers study enormous lightning storm on Saturn Lightning bolts are more than 1,000 times stronger than those found on Earth

Sunday Feb 12, 2006 Fossett breaks world flight distance record
Adventurer Steve Fossett completed the longest nonstop flight in aviation history Saturday after flying around the globe - and then some - in roughly 80 hours.

Wednesday Feb 1, 2006 nyt How to Listen for the Sound of Plutonium
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
Knowing, with precision, when a country is about to gain the ability to build an atomic bomb is a problem Washington has faced for decades.

Monday Jan 16, 2006 nyt Capsule Carrying Interstellar Samples Lands Safely
By WARREN E. LEARY
Scientists hope samples of comet and star dust obtained on the seven-year journey will hold clues to the origin of the solar system.
A spacecraft that could be a time capsule carrying the history of the solar system made a predawn landing in a muddy Utah desert yesterday, completing a seven-year journey of almost three billion miles with a fiery, pinpoint descent to Earth.
....Scientists believe that about a million samples of comet and interstellar dust, most of them less than one-tenth the width of a human hair, are locked inside the capsule. Researchers around the world are awaiting the samples, hoping they will provide clues to the origin of the planets and other bodies in the solar system. ...grains are believed to be pristine remains of the birth of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago. ...$212 million Stardust mission ...at a speed of 28,800 miles per hour, the fastest speed any human-made object has achieved entering the atmosphere, causing it to reach peak temperatures around 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit.

Saturday Jan 14, 2006 TAIWAN rci Scientists in Taiwan have successfully bred three pigs which glow fluorescent green in the dark. Professor Wu Shinn-Chih, of National Taiwan University's Institute and Department of Animal Science and Technology says the experiment marks a potential breakthrough for stem cell research. The team from Taiwan, where the world's first genetically engineered fluorescent fish were created in 2003, injected a protein extracted from jelly fish into the nucleus of a pig embryo to breed three male transgenic pigs. It is hoped that the pigs would eventually enable reserachers to trace the development of tissues when stem cells are used to repair damaged organs. Professor Wu dismissed concerns that the technology could endanger the ecosystem.

2005

Tuesday Dec 13, 2005 nyt The 5th Annual Year in Ideas
This issue marks the fifth anniversary of what is becoming a venerable tradition at the magazine: The Year in Ideas.

Monday Oct 31, 2005 ts The awesome power of GPS
Scenario: Someone has been murdered. A person is in custody but evidence is thin. It turns out the suspect rented a vehicle that contained a satellite-tracking unit.

The best battery? Soon, it may be none at all
SAN FRANCISCO — The battery of the future, if a Berkeley, Calif., start-up gets its way, looks something like a fat stick of butter with metal grills stuck on the sides.

Tuesday Sep 27, 2005 globe SKYCAR PROTOTYPE
Your very own piece of transportation history: the M400 Skycar prototype. This prototype for a groundbreaking mode of transportation that may ultimately combine sci-fi and state of the art technology in the world's first personal vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Developed by Moller International this prototype of the flagship M400 Skycar, a three-wheeled, folding-wing craft designed to be as safe, affordable, and easy to use as an automobile. The M400 Skycar will travel 350+ miles per hour and boasts an environmentally friendly 21 miles per gallon on alcohol. Get this one of a kind functional prototype and imagine what it will be like to elevate yourself above the frustration of commuting to the Highway in the Sky! Prototype M400 Skycar: ($3,500,000.00, page 85)

Sunday Oct 2, 2005 nyt Don't Call It Science Fiction
By DAVE ITZKOFF
The "Threshold" formula for network success: think like "X-Files," act like "CSI."

Tuesday Sep 27, 2005 globe Spanish city gets high-tech buggies
Alfredo Romeo, co-founder of the Blobject company, sits on a tourist buggie in Cordoba. The vehicle boasts GPS positioning technology that tells the computer where it is so it can provide background on nearby attractions through its tactile screen and audio system, giving information in Spanish, English and French.

Monday, September 26, 2005 gaz Tiny engine could be major advance
Quasiturbine, a local invention, is hailed as fuel-efficient, clean and inexpensive

Tuesday Sep 20, 2005 gaz Can this man save the world?
Everyone wants to cut car emissions. Sooner or later, someone will find a way to do it. Joe Williams hopes it's him.

Tuesday Aug 2, 2005 rci HALIFAX: LASER EXPERIMENTS UNDERWAY FOR MARS PROBES
Canadian scientists are testing a highly sophisticated laser apparatus they hope will help solve some of the mysteries of Mars. The scientists are currently experimenting with the so-called Lidar Laser by sending beams of green light across the night sky to gather information about atmospheric conditions. The scientists from the University of Alberta and Dalhousie University say the laser measures aerosols, clouds, water vapour and temperatures. The laser will be sent into orbit on a space shuttle in 2007. It will then be pointed at Mars in hopes of determining whether the planet really did have bodies of water billions of years ago.

Saturday Jul 30, 2005 Fuel-cell industry on a roll
The head of Ballard Power Systems Inc. says Canada`s fuel-cell industry, after hitting some rough patches over the years, is regaining momentum despite naysayers who continue to dismiss the hydrogen economy as wishful thinking.

Tuesday Jul 19, 2005 nyt Hunting for Life in Specks of Cosmic Dust
By DENNIS OVERBYE
With the detection of a new planet close to the Earth in size, astronomers take another step on the road to finding out whether or not humanity is alone in the universe.

Technology that imitates nature June 9th 2005

Wednesday, June 1, 2005 globe Scientists use molecule as computer switch
Scientists in Alberta say they have taken a giant leap in the tiny world of molecular electronics, building a transistor out of a single molecule and opening the way for the creation one day of minute computers, thousands of times more powerful than conventional devices.
Devices that control electrical current flow are known as transistors. Computers operate with millions of transistors, set onto silicon microchips, that switch current on and off to represent binary digits.
Where today's transistors require about one million electrons to switch a current, Dr. Wolkow and his team say they have managed to switch the current through a molecule using a single electron. That means the flow can be changed much faster and using far less power.

Objective, moon

Monday May 23, 2005 rci A new lens that could revolutionize photography was announced by Canadian researchers in the province of Quebec on Sunday. The new lens is five times thinner than a sheet of paper. It can zoom in or out and focus with no moving parts. The lens can eliminate the thick glass used in optical lens, and has the potential to eliminate distortion caused by conventional zoom mechanisms. The inventor of the lens, Tigran Galstian of Laval University, said that the lens could dramatically increase the quality of photos taken by small cameras such as cellphone cameras. "Right now we're guessing what industry needs and we'd love to work with them on what they really want," he said.

New Ideas

Wednesday Mar 30, 2005 ts
Obstacles remain for micro fuel cells It`s generally accepted that the first mass-market introduction of fuel-cell technology will be thumb-sized cartridges that power laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and an endless assortment of energy-sapping gadgets. Tyler Hamilton comments.

Friday Feb 25, 2005 ec

Friday Feb 11, 2005 gaz 5 pages as long as the gaz leaves it up
Quantum leap A chance encounter between a computer-science professor and a physicist launches new field of quantum cryptography

Monday Jan 10, 2005 TORONTO: CANADIAN INVENTION HARNESSES SUN'S POWER Scientists at the University of Toronto have invented a material that is more efficient at turning the sun's power into electricity than any current method. The discovery involving material sensitive to infrared rays could be used to create material that would allow shirts and sweaters to generate enough electricity to recharge cell phones and other wireless devices. One of the discoverers, Ted Sargent, said that the material "catches" solar energy and a layer of it could be applied to any device, much like paint on a wall. It can convert up to 30 per cent of the sun's power into usable electricity, compared to plastic solar cells that capture only about six per cent.

Saturday Dec 18, 2004 - it Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
The promise of RFID is a fluid supply chain -- pick, pack, ship, it'll all be easier with these little tags that hold more information than bar codes and don't require line of sight to read them. Everything from a Buick to a bar of soap can be tagged and the people that manufacture them, deliver them and sell them will have better and more up to date information.

Dec 8, 2004 cbc ALBERTA TEAM INVENTS ENERGY-SAVING COMPUTER CHIP A new computer microchip developed in Alberta is 100 times more energy efficient, researchers say.

Cosmology And there was light Nov 4th 2004

Wednesday Sep 22, 2004 ts
China`s energy leap China, the world`s second-largest consumer of electricity behind the United States, is intent on solving a growing domestic energy crisis. As Tyler Hamilton comments, alternate sources including hydrogen and fuel cells may be an option.

Wednesday Sep 22, 2004 ts
Weightless wireless Lasers technology that would video images to be transmitted wirelessly underwater with lasers, is being tested at laurentian University in Sudbury. If successful the project has major implications for the mining industry, the military and even construction in space. Lisa Wright explains.

Space telescopes X-ray specs Aug 26th 2004

Friday Aug 13, 2004 ec
Forgery Pressure to identify Holographic analysis of handwriting

Monday Aug 9, 2004 cbc
Technology that illuminates the darkest recesses of handbags It is based on electroluminescence (EL) and is really and truly a "cool" concept because, unlike other light sources, it does not produce heat. thanks to Joel Yaffe

Friday Jul 23, 2004 ec Paradox lost ... Hawking's hole story
SCIENCE is forever a work in progress. Moulded by the hands of many, the body of scientific knowledge is like a sculpture that is never quite finished. Sometimes, as in the case of cold fusion, the newly added clay just doesn't stick. Other times, ideas are contributed, but the overall aesthetic leaves scientists uneasy. Such is the case of the “information paradox” brought to us by the people's physicist, Stephen Hawking.

BRAMPTON: CANADIAN FIRM OFFERS HELP FOR U.S. TELESCOPE
The Canadian company MD Robotics has offered the U.S. space authorities a way to keep the Hubble space telescope in operation for a number of years more. MD Robotics says it could make a double robotic arm that could keep Hubble going until 2011. The Brampton, Ont.,-based firm is the originator of the CANADARM, the robotic arm used on the U.S. space shuttle. Astronauts have gone into space four times to repair the Hubble, but last January NASA announced it would stop using the telescope. The Canadian Space Agency says it supports the Canadian firm's proposal.

Monday 29 Mar 2004 cbc
MUTANT MICE SUPPORT AGING THEORY By experimenting with prematurely aged mice, scientists have strengthened the case for a link between aging and mutations. see DNA

Monday 29 Mar 2004 cbc
NASA JET REACHES WORLD-RECORD MACH 7
The U.S. Space agency used a special engine to send an unpiloted plane on a brief but historic, hypersonic flight off the coast of California Saturday.

Friday 20 Feb 2004 cbc
CALGARY SCIENTIST GROWS BRAIN CELLS ON MICROCHIP Canadian and German researchers have grown snail nerve cells on a microchip and showed the cells have memory and can communicate.

Saturday Jan 24, 2004 cbc
EUROPEAN PROBE CONFIRMS THERE'S ICE ON MARS Europe's Mars orbiter has found the most direct evidence yet of ice on the Red Planet's surface, the European Space Agency said Friday.

Thursday Jan 15, 2004 'Hole in sky' amazes scientists
A giant hole that appeared in a uniform layer of cloud over Alabama in the US has left scientists puzzled.

Grand visions Bush is not the first US president to put forward a big idea

Thursday Jan 15, 2004 bbc
	Rover rolls on to Martian soil The US probe that arrived on Mars 10 days ago has moved off its lander and on to the surface.

Wednesday Jan 14, 2004 bbc
	Bush to unveil human space plans The US president will announce a $800m boost in Nasa's budget to send Americans back to the Moon and on to Mars.
	GM experts cautious on maize crop A team of UK Government advisers has given no clear direction to ministers on whether to commercialise GM crops.
	Mars rover to visit deep crater The US space agency unveils a list of initial targets on the Martian surface which it plans to explore using its robot rover Spirit.

Sunday Jan 4, 2004 bbc

Red and revving What the Nasa buggies are roving for on the Red Planet

Friday Jan 2, 2004 bbc

Topsy-turvy world When will the Earth go into its next North-South flip-flop?

SPECIAL COVERAGE

Martian timeline Witness the history of Red Planet space missions Thursday Dec 25, 2003

Also see Monday Oct 20, 2003 bbc
Water sparks new power source
Scientists say they have developed a new way of generating electricity from water which could power computer chips.

Monday Oct 20, 2003 cbc
EDMONTON TEAM DEVISES NEW WAY TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY
Researchers in Alberta have discovered a new way to produce electricity. They believe the finding may lead to a new kind of battery for small appliances such as cell phones.

Light Up The World (LUTW) Foundation
Ultra-low power consumption- use 5% of the energy of a regular incandescent bulb. This simple but revolutionary technology can light an entire rural village with less energy than that used by a single conventional 100-Watt light bulb.Our brightest WLED, the 1-Watt Luxeon, produces 40 lumens with an optical efficiency (its ability to 'focus' the light required) far greater than either the Incandescent or Fluorescent.

Monday Oct 13, 2003 cbc
LASER POWERS MODEL PLANE
NASA has flown a prototype airplane powered by an invisible ground-based laser.

Thursday Oct 9, 2003 bbc
Cosmos is 'shaped like a football'
We could be living in a small Universe where space is curved in on itself, rather like a football, say researchers in this week's Nature journal.
Leonardo da Vinci had the right idea More precisely, we may inhabit a dodecahedral cosmos. It is, according to the scientists, the best way to account for the latest satellite observations.
Dodecahedrons, and similar shapes, have long fascinated mankind. Plato believed that the Universe was made up of

Tuesday Sep 23, 2003 es
Space race
China is to join the European Union’s project to launch a rival to America’s GPS satellite navigation system. The news will add to American defence chiefs’ worries about the project

Tuesday Sep 23, 2003 ts
Awesome rays
What are all those twinkling lights beaming into home, office and landscape?

Thursday Aug 21, 2003 cbc
OCEAN SPONGE CAN SPIN BETTER FIBRE OPTICS A deep-sea sponge with a "skeleton" of silica can create fine glass fibres that can transmit light better than industrial fibre optic cables, researchers say.

Friday Jul 11, 2003 ts
Ancient and most distant planet discovered
Celestial detective work revealed orb 'Methuselah' twice the size of Jupiter
The discovery means that planets were formed billions of years earlier than generally believed and under bizarre conditions previously dismissed as improbable, even impossible.

Friday Jul 4, 2003 bbc
Solar System 'twin' found A planet like our Jupiter circling a star like our Sun is giving astronomers a feeling of deja-vu.
Of the 100 or so other planetary systems known, this one more closely resembles ours than any other.
Researchers speculate that this system may contain other worlds, such as smaller rocky planets like Earth, either in orbit around the star or around the Jupiter-like world itself.

Tuesday Jul 1, 2003 cc
Inca secrets may lie in knots The Inca shared records with the conquistadores; they may have drawn from a three-dimensional language
The "lost city" Machu Picchu represents a mystery to archeologists. Part of the reason is the absence of a written Inca language, which could be resolved if knotted strings are shown to be more than accounting