Finding quake survivors just one use for remote heartbeat detectors

A system that detects the faint electric signals of beating human hearts is being used to help rescuers frantically seeking to locate people trapped under the rubble in China's horrific earthquake. | 05/20/08 18:24:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Mars landing May 25 will kick off a year of space missions

Despite a painful budget squeeze, the United States will undertake a jampacked array of new astronomy missions over the next 12 months. The goals range from counting tiny specks of carbon in Earth's atmosphere to surveying the outer boundary of the solar system and studying the farthest corners of the universe. | 05/12/08 15:03:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

More killer germs resisting world's antibiotics

The threat of death-defying bacteria, stubborn organisms that refuse to be conquered by antibiotic medicines, is growing more alarming. Infectious microbes that used to be able to resist only one drug, such as penicillin or methicillin, now resist multiple drugs. Some can survive virtually every weapon in doctors' medicine cabinets. | 05/05/08 15:55:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Dangerous Russian space landing raises alarms at NASA

The terrifying landing Saturday of a Russian space capsule with three astronauts aboard is raising serious concerns about how to get humans to and from the International Space Station. | 04/24/08 15:31:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Florida moving closer to Canada? Tiny measurements yield big discoveries

As scientists learn how to make more exact measurements, they're finding some astonishing surprises. New technologies are enabling researchers to measure things such as time, distance, temperature, weight, force, size and motion with a precision never before achieved. | 04/15/08 14:47:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Astronomers revel in recent spate of discoveries

The year 2008 is turning out to be stellar for astronomy. New discoveries in the sky are popping up like fireflies. Recent highlights include a whopping haul of new planets around faraway stars. | 04/03/08 15:32:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Faster computers may use light instead of electricity

Scientists and engineers are racing to develop ways to use light instead of electricity to avoid traffic jams inside computers. | 04/02/08 14:37:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Distant star's demise previews our sun's death

Astronomers at 25 observatories around the world began aiming their telescopes this week at a preview of our sun's eventual death. Their target is a slowly cooling "white dwarf" star in the constellation Virgo that eventually will become a cold, black cinder. | 03/27/08 11:42:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Fly research into human diseases bearing new fruit

Most people think of fruit flies as annoying little pests zipping around bananas or grapes on the kitchen counter. But to biologists, they're diamonds on the wing. Thousands of researchers have ground out almost 16,000 scientific papers in the last five years. | 03/20/08 11:26:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Energy, water demands are on collision course

It takes a lot of water to produce energy. It takes a lot of energy to provide water. The two are inextricably linked, and claims on each are rising. | 03/12/08 00:58:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Our solar system isn't what it used to be

Move over, Copernicus. Your once-revolutionary idea — that the Earth revolves around the sun rather than the other way around — has been eclipsed.

Recent years have brought a sweeping new revolution in solar system astronomy. The Earth still orbits the sun, as Copernicus declared 400 years ago, but the planetary system in the textbooks you studied is now out of date. | 03/04/08 06:00:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Bird flu remains dangerous as it continues to mutate

Like the rumble of distant thunder, bird flu continues to spread across Asia, Africa and Europe. Although it's been out of the news lately in the United States, scientists say that avian influenza, as it's also known, remains a serious threat to human and animal health. | 02/20/08 14:22:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Despite doubts, nuclear energy making comeback

Like it or not, the nukes are coming. Driven by soaring energy demands, the high cost of gas and oil and worries about global warming, an expansion of peaceful nuclear power increasingly appears to be inevitable. | 02/09/08 06:00:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Experts trying to preserve world's digital knowledge

If you've lost family photos, can't listen to your beloved old cassette tapes or no longer can read important files stored on your previous computer, you're not alone. | 01/29/08 14:41:00 By - Robert S. Boyd

Scientists explore using viruses to combat germs

Silently, invisibly, vast miniature armies are waging a fight to the death on land and sea. The defenders are bacteria, the one-celled microbes that infest every cranny on Earth, from the seafloor to garden soil to the human gut. The aggressors are a class of viruses known as bacteriophages — literally ``bacteria-eaters'' — that happily slaughter their far bigger foes. | 01/10/08 00:09:00 By - Robert S. Boyd