The Academy of Natural Sciences has never been one to brag.
Its 225,000 annual visitors may associate the oldest natural history museum in the U.S. solely with dioramas and dinosaurs, but behind the scenes there is groundbreaking research conducted by world-renowned scientists and an enviable collection of some 18 million specimens representing all manner of animal, vegetable and mineral.
Full StoryThe memories of a World War II-era Marine have renewed hopes of solving one of the greatest archaeological mysteries — the whereabouts of the lost Peking Man fossils, South African and Chinese scientists said.
In the March edition of a scientific journal published by Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand, renowned South African paleontologist Lee Berger and two Chinese colleagues say the fossils may be lying under a parking lot in China's northern port city of Qinhuangdao where the Marine said he saw two crates of bones in 1947.
Full StoryAn international consortium planning to build the world's most powerful radio telescope is still debating whether South Africa or Australia should host the $2 billion project, an official said Friday.
Scientists hope the Square Kilometer Array, or SKA, will shed new light on fundamental questions about the universe, including how it began, why it is expanding and whether it contains life beyond our planet.
Full StoryA NASA spacecraft in orbit around the moon has sent back five dozen new images of the lunar surface including a view of the far side with Earth in the distance.
Don't thank scientists for it. Fourth-graders from an elementary school in Montana directed the spacecraft to snap pictures as part of a project headed by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.
Full StoryNorth Korea may have the bomb, but it hasn't perfected ways to put one onto a missile that could strike faraway enemies like the United States.
This is why Pyongyang's announcement that it will launch a satellite on a long-range rocket next month is drawing so much attention: Washington says North Korea uses these launches as cover for testing missile systems for nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond.
Full StoryA discarded chunk of a Russian rocket missed the International Space Station early Saturday. However, it came close enough to force six astronauts to seek shelter in escape capsules.
NASA says the space junk was barely close enough to be a threat. Had it hit, however, the station could have been dangerous. So the astronauts — two Americans, three Russians and a Dutchman — woke early and went into two Soyuz vehicles ready to rocket back to Earth just in case.
Full StoryA prehistoric monster snake is making a quick stopover in New York City's Grand Central Terminal.
The full-scale replica of the Titanoboa was unveiled Thursday as a promotion for an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.
Full StoryAn automated craft laden with supplies for the International Space Station (ISS) headed into space on Friday in the heaviest launch ever undertaken by Europe.
The 20-tonne vessel, named after 20th-century Italian physicist, Edoardo Amaldi, was taken aloft by a heavyweight version of the Ariane 5 launcher at 01:34 am (0434 GMT).
Full StoryScience experiments devised by teenage students, one from Egypt and two from the United States, will be conducted in space as part of a move by YouTube and Lenovo to inspire young minds.
Winners of a global YouTube Space Lab competition were announced Thursday, with 18-year-old Amr Mohamed of Egypt taking the honor for older students while Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma was deemed top submission in a younger group.
Full StoryEuropean researchers said Thursday they have created a device invisible to a static magnetic field that could have practical military and medical applications.
Fedor Gomory and colleagues in Slovakia and Spain designed a cloak for a direct current, or dc, magnetic field that is static and produced by a permanent magnet or coil carrying a direct current.
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