Slippery slope: the more we lie, the easier it gets Paris, France | AFP | Whether cheating on taxes or one’s lover, the little lies we tell can quickly escalate into big ones, according to a study released Monday that describes dishonesty as a “slippery slope”. Serial untruths, moreover, register …
Read More »Did it crash or land? Search on for Europe’s Mars craft
Paris, France | AFP | Europe’s second attempt to reach Mars’ surface appeared in peril Thursday as initial analysis suggested the latest lander may have plummeted to its demise. While holding out faint hope, ground controllers said it seemed the paddling pool-sized lander’s parachute may have been discarded too early, …
Read More »Scientists launch unprecedented Antarctic research mission
London, United Kingdom | AFP | More than 50 researchers from 30 countries are to carry out the first scientific full circumnavigation of Antarctica in an attempt to measure pollution and climate change, with the official launch held on Monday. The international team will cruise on Russian research vessel Akademik …
Read More »Rosetta’s comet adventure in numbers
Darmstadt, Germany | AFP | Europe’s ground-breaking quest to unravel the Solar System’s mysteries concludes Friday with the Rosetta comet chaser crashlanding onto the cosmic wanderer’s rocky surface. The mission, summarised in numbers: 1: Rosetta became the first spacecraft, in August 2014, to enter the orbit of a comet. In …
Read More »From America to Viagra: the art of finding what you’re not looking for
Stockholm, Sweden | AFP | It’s serendipity: from America to Viagra, history is full of great discoveries helped along by chance, as more than a century of Nobel prizes can attest. Among the chance discoveries that have been honoured with the prestigious prize are X-rays (physics, 1901), penicillin (medicine, 1945), …
Read More »World’s largest radio telescope starts operating in China
Beijing, China | AFP | The world’s largest radio telescope began operating in southwestern China Sunday, a project which Beijing says will help humanity search for alien life. The Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), nestled between hills in the mountainous region of Guizhou, began working around noon, the official …
Read More »Zuckerberg fund pledges $3 bn to banish disease
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Mark Zuckerberg and his wife on Wednesday pledged $3 billion over the next decade to efforts to prevent, cure or manage disease, aiming to use the Facebook founder’s fortune for innovative research. “This is a big goal,” Zuckerberg said at a San Francisco …
Read More »Who says you need an egg to create an embryo?
Paris, France | AFP | We all grow up to accept certain unassailable facts: water is wet, the Earth is round, and to produce a baby you need an egg and sperm. As it turns out, the last of these may turn out not to be true. On Tuesday, scientists …
Read More »Missing comet lander Philae spotted at las
Paris, France | AFP | Europe’s Rosetta spacecraft has finally spotted the tiny lander Philae stuck in a dark crack on the surface of its comet home — the first glimpse since the robot lab crashlanded in 2014, ground controllers said Monday. The European Space Agency (ESA) released a photograph …
Read More »PHOTOGRAPHS: Uganda-South Korea sign cooperation pact
Uganda and South Korea have signed a Memorandum of Understating in 10 areas of interest to the two nations. This was after President Yoweri Museveni officially welcomed the President of South Korea Park Geun-hye for her first state visit to Uganda. The ten areas of cooperation are; policy consultation (foreign …
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