Media playback is unsupported on your device SpaceX has conducted a test of the abort manoeuvre it would use if one of its crew-carrying rockets ever developed a problem during flight. The rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center saw a Falcon-9 vehicle’s ascent into the sky deliberately terminated just 80 seconds after lift-off. The Dragon astronaut […]
America aims to take another step on Sunday towards being able to send its own astronauts into orbit again. California’s SpaceX company will practise what to do in the event that one of its rockets carrying a human crew fails shortly after lift-off. If the test is completed successfully, it should clear the way for […]
Media playback is unsupported on your device “The moment of crisis has come” in efforts to tackle climate change, Sir David Attenborough has warned. According to the renowned naturalist and broadcaster, “we have been putting things off for year after year”. “As I speak, south east Australia is on fire. Why? Because the temperatures of […]
People who have access to nature or urban green spaces are much more likely to behave in environmentally friendly ways, a study suggests. Researchers used a representative sample of 24,000 people in England for their study of green behaviour. The findings also showed that people who were not exposed to green spaces were less likely […]
Media playback is unsupported on your device Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa is looking for a female “life partner” to accompany him on Space X’s maiden tourist voyage to the Moon. The fashion mogul, 44, is set to be the first civilian passenger to fly around the moon on the Starship rocket. Planned for 2023, the […]
A record number of elephants – 361 – have died in Sri Lanka during 2019, environmental groups say. It is highest figure of elephant deaths to be reported since Sri Lanka became independent in 1948, conservationists said. Most were killed by people. There are an estimated 7,500 wild elephants in Sri Lanka. Killing them is […]
Media playback is unsupported on your device California’s SpaceX company says it will work constructively with the scientific community to fix the brightness of its satellites. The firm has come under fire for the brilliance of its Starlink spacecraft, which are being launched to deliver broadband to every corner of the globe. One hundred and […]
Finnish scientists producing a protein “from thin air” say it will compete with soya on price within the decade. The protein is produced from soil bacteria fed on hydrogen split from water by electricity. The researchers say if the electricity comes from solar and wind power, the food can be grown with near-zero greenhouse gas […]
A series of new records for high temperature were broken in the UK in 2019, concluding a record-breaking decade, the Met Office has said. The last decade was the second hottest in the past 100 years in the UK, with eight new high-temperature records set. Four new UK records were set last year alone, including […]
American scientist Frances Arnold, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry, has retracted her latest paper. Ms Arnold shared the prestigious award in 2018 with George P Smith and Gregory Winter for their research on enzymes. A subsequent paper on enzymatic synthesis of beta-lactams was published in the journal Science in May 2019. It has […]