What You’re Looking At Are Human Beings Assembling Humanity’s Most Advanced Space Telescope To Date.

Neptune-size exoplanet around a red dwarf star

Goleta CA (SPX) Nov 27, 2015 A team of astronomers have used the LCOGT network to detect light scattered by tiny particles (called Rayleigh scattering), through the atmosphere of a Neptune-size transiting exoplanet. This suggests a blue sky on this world which is only 100 light years away from us. Transits occur when an exoplanet passes in front of its parent star, reducing the amount of light we receive from the star Full article

First sketch of Copenhagen Suborbitals’ SPICA capsule. They aim to be the first amateur organization to send a man to space.

via reddit

Almost a month ago, the spaceflight company Blue Origin sent a rocket up to the edge of space and then guided it gracefully back down to earth, intact. It was a historic first.

But Blue Origin’s major competitor, SpaceX, was quick to point out that the rocket wasn’t going fast enough (or sideways enough) to place a satellite into orbit - just 4,600 kph (~2,860 mph). It went straight up, and then straight down.

Now, SpaceX has managed to put 11 satellites in orbit with a “reusable” rocket. Their rocket didn’t just go up and down - it reached a horizontal velocity of 6,000 kph (3,600 mph) before returning to earth. If SpaceX is able to refurbish the rocket and use it in another launch, they’ll have figured out a way to dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight.

Here’s the full webcast. And here’s the full story.

Video credit: SpaceX

Disabled violinist uses thoughts to make music for the first time in 27 years

This is incredible.

Rosemary Johnson was a promising violinist and member of the Welsh National Opera Orchestra when she was involved in a devastating car crash 27 years ago. The accident left her in a coma for seven months, and the resulting brain damage has robbed her of most of her ability to talk and move.

But thanks to new software that reads people’s brain waves, Johnson has been able to compose music for the first time since 1988, and has had the chance to have it played to her in real time by a professional string quartet.

“It was really very moving,” Eduardo Miranda from the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at Plymouth University in the UK, told The Telegraph.

Humpback whales around the globe are mysteriously rescuing animals from orcas

Scientists are baffled at this seemingly altruistic behavior, which seems to be a concerted global effort to foil killer whale hunts.

Humans might not be the only creatures that care about the welfare of other animals. Scientists are beginning to recognize a pattern in humpback whale behavior around the world, a seemingly intentional effort to rescue animals that are being hunted by killer whales.

Marine ecologist Robert Pitman observed a particularly dramatic example of this behavior back in 2009, while observing a pod of killer whales hunting a Weddell seal trapped on an ice floe off Antarctica. The orcas were able to successfully knock the seal off the ice, and just as they were closing in for the kill, a magnificent humpback whale suddenly rose up out of the water beneath the seal.

This was no mere accident. In order to better protect the seal, the whale placed it safely on its upturned belly to keep it out of the water. As the seal slipped down the whale’s side, the humpback appeared to use its flippers to carefully help the seal back aboard. Finally, when the coast was clear, the seal was able to safely swim off to another, more secure ice floe.

Read more

Read the study: Humpback whales interfering when mammal-eating killer whales attack other species: Mobbing behavior and interspecific altruism?

NASA just released more awesome space tourism posters

Pack your bags, we're moving to Jupiter.

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how incredible our Solar System is? Sure, pretty much everywhere other than our own planet is a deathtrap, with acid rain pouring down on Venus and storms three times the size of Earth swirling around Jupiter, but you don’t have to look too hard to find the unique beauty in our neighbouring planets and moons.

And with unique beauty comes… tourism! From the diamond-inspired cloud observatory of Venus to Jupiter’s aurorae-backed balloon ride, the design team from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have taken us back to the future with this new batch of retro space tourism posters.

The “Visions of the Future” series features seven original posters released this week, plus seven “Exoplanet Travel Bureau” posters that were published around this time last year. And these haven’t just been dreamt up by anyone - the designers behind the posters have been consulting with JPL scientists and engineers to come up with tourism scenarios that are as realistic as they are fantastical.

Jeff Bezos beats Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the reusable rocket race

A major breakthrough could let both same-sex partners be biological parents to their kids

Could two same-sex partners ever be biologically related to one baby? Maybe. With a relatively new process called in vitro gametogenesis, or IVG, scientists could combine genetic material from both parents. While we may have to wait a bit for it — here’s how it works.

Saving lives on the road with virtual reality http://futurism.com/videos/saving-lives-on-the-road-with-virtual-reality/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=tumblr&utm_medium=futurismnews&utm_content=Saving%20lives%20on%20the%20road%20with%20virtual%20reality

Saving lives on the road with virtual reality

This virtual simulation is convincing drivers across the country of the dangers of distracted driving.