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Submission + - Billionaire teams up with NASA to mine the moon (cnbc.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Moon Express, a Mountain View, California-based company that's aiming to send the first commercial robotic spacecraft to the moon next year, just took another step closer toward that lofty goal. Earlier this year, it became the first company to successfully test a prototype of a lunar lander at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The success of this test—and a series of others that will take place later this year—paves the way for Moon Express to send its lander to the moon in 2016.

Submission + - DARPA accelerates ultimate automated pilot software (networkworld.com)

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded the first contracts to vendors that will build the ultimate auto-pilot — an automated system that can help take care of all phases of aircraft flight-even helping pilots overcome facing failures in-flight

Submission + - Senolytics: A New Class of Drugs With the Potential to Slow the Aging Process (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: It's a cruel irony that when we're young we want to be older, but when we're older we want to be younger. While few would advocate research into ways to make kids grow up faster, there are plenty of efforts underway looking to forestall the rigors of age. The latest cause for hope in this area comes in the form of a new class of drugs called senolytics, which have been shown to dramatically slow the aging process in animal models.

Submission + - Rust Never Sleeps (nytimes.com)

Submitted by puddingebola
puddingebola writes: Interesting book review in the New York Times yesterday for Jonathan Waldman's Rust: The longest War. How much have you really considered the engineers, chemists, physicists and bureaucrats engaged in a war to stop the natural forces of oxidation. Rust, the book says, costs the United States $437 billion annually, more "than all other natural disasters combined." Technologies used to combat rust include the one micron thick polymer in your can of Coke, to the invention of stainless steel. Would Slashdot readers find a nontechnical book on the subject of entropy... entertaining?

Submission + - Researchers nearly double the size of worker ants (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have nearly doubled the size of a handful of Florida ants by chemically modifying their DNA, rather than by changing its encoded information. The work may help explain how the insects—despite their high degree of genetic similarity—grow into the different varieties of workers needed in a colony.

Submission + - The Milky Way May be 50 Percent Bigger Than Thought (discovery.com) 1

Submitted by astroengine
astroengine writes: A ring-like filament of stars wrapping around the Milky Way may actually belong to the galaxy itself, rippling above and below the relatively flat galactic plane. If so, that would expand the size of the known galaxy by 50 percent and raise intriguing questions about what caused the waves of stars. Scientists used data collected by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to reanalyze the brightness and distance of stars at the edge of the galaxy. They found that the fringe of the disk is puckered into ridges and grooves of stars, like corrugated cardboard. “It looks to me like maybe these patterns are following the spiral structure of the Milky Way, so they may be related,” astronomer Heidi Newberg, with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, told Discovery News.

Submission + - The secret to chameleon color change: Nanocrystals (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers report that chameleons change colors by rearranging a lattice of nanocrystals in one of the top layers of skin cells. These cells, called iridophores, contain tiny crystals made from guanine, one of the nucleic acid building blocks of DNA. The nanocrystals have a highly ordered arrangement, which normally causes them to strongly reflect one color of light, such as green. But when another male enters their surroundings, the animals stretch their skin cells, broadening the nanocrystalline lattice, thereby causing it to reflect a longer wavelength of light, such as yellow. In addition, the team found that chameleons contain a second, deeper layer of iridophores that reflect heat-producing infrared light, which presumably helps the animals stay cool. The new insights could help scientists design novel materials that stretch to change colors.

Submission + - Sugar industry shaped NIH agenda on dental research (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The sugar industry convinced the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) that studies that might persuade people to cut back on sugary foods should not be part of a national plan to fight childhood tooth decay, a new study of historical documents argues. The authors say the industry’s activities, which occurred more than 40 years ago, are reminiscent of the tobacco companies’ efforts to minimize the risks of smoking.

Submission + - Apple's High-End Watch Targets China's Wealthy (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Apple's known for its pricy gadgets, but the cost of its highest-end watch is $17,000, enough to make tech observers gasp. One particular planned target? China's wealthy, for whom it will serve as a flashy status symbol. The iPhone sells quite well in China despite its high price there, so hopes are high for high-end buyers.

Submission + - Why Israel Could Be The Next Cybersecurity World Power (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: Beersheba is a small town in southern Israel, more than an hour's drive away from Tel Aviv and the bulk of the country's population. But the city is a hotbed of cybersecurity startups driven in part by a graduate program at the local university and the country's military and intelligence apparatus's keen interest in the subject.

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