A group of scientists led by Professor Jean-Michel Claverie and Dr. Chantal Abergel of the French University of Aix-Marseille (Aix-Marseille Université) has discovered a previously unknown virus. Called Pithovirus sibericum, it’s very special because it’s gigantic by the standards of the viruses and was revived after being hibernated in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30,000 years.
The novel “Nova Swing” by M. John Harrison was published for the first time in 2006. It won the Arthur C. Clarke and Philip K. Dick awards. It’s the second novel in the Kefahuchi Tract series.
At the center of the city of Saudade fell a fragment of cosmic disturbance known as the Kefahuchi Tract. That created an area where everything is abnormal, even the laws of physics. For this reason, the city has become a center of touristic interest for people who want to try some really unique experience.
Vic Serotonin is a kind of guide who leads in and maybe even out of Saudade anyone who has the courage to venture into the anomaly. His activity is illegal and his last client seems even more dangerous than normal. Vic must also save himself from Lens Aschemann, a police detective determined to find the evidence needed to arrest him.
The NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) Space Telescope discovered his first comet after starting its new mission last year. On February 14, 2014, during one of its scans of space in search of objects that can cross the Earth’s orbit, it found a comet, which has been designated C/2014 C3 (NEOWISE). Astronomers quickly realized that it’s a weird comet because its orbit is retrograde.
A process called microencapsulation could allow a major step forward in therapies against various forms of cancer. It consists in the production of micro-balloons containing specific combinations of anti-cancer drugs that can be injected into specific parts of the patient’s body to administer therapies targeted with very strong limitations of the side effects. The experiments that allowed the development of this process were carried out on the International Space Station.
It was night in Japan when the Core Observatory satellite, part of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM), was launched on a H-IIA 202 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center, run by JAXA, the Japanese space agency, on the island of Tanegashima. After about 16 minutes, the satellite separated from the second stage of the rocket and successfully entered low Earth orbit. In the following minutes, it deployed its solar panels and started sending signals, confirming that it works.
