Archive by date | June 2013

Russian meteor blast was the largest ever recorded by CTBTO

The blast on 15 February over the Urals Mountains of a fireball that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Kazakh-Russian border was the largest explosion ever recorded by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CNTBTO), according to the first detailed analysis of the event.  Read more

Canadian accelerator produces a city’s-worth of medical isotopes overnight

Canadian accelerator produces a city’s-worth of medical isotopes overnight

The looming problem of a global medical isotope shortage is one step closer to a solution. A Canadian team has developed an upgrade that allows hospital cyclotrons to make a much-needed diagnostic tracer, and has proven it can pump out enough overnight to fulfil a city’s needs the next day.  Read more

French biotech sector shows lively signs in bad economy

PARIS – Despite the continuing economic crisis, the balance between start-ups and failures in the French life-science sector bounced back last year to the 2010 level, after tilting sharply in 2011. The number of new firms created in 2012 rose from 24 to 35 in 2011, and the number of closures fell from 25 to 14.  Read more

US Institute of Medicine lays out gun-research agenda

When he responded in January to the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, US President Barack Obama issued 23 orders aiming to address the US epidemic of gun violence — including one directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to re-start gun research, which has languished since 1996.  Read more

Mathematics prize ups the ante to $1 million

Mathematics prize ups the ante to $1 million

A billionaire businessman from Dallas, Texas, has sweetened the pot for a number theory prize that has remained unclaimed for 16 years. After putting up $5,000 in 1997 for a solution to the Beal conjecture, upped to $100,000 in 2000, Andrew Beal has now raised the stakes yet again to US$1 million, the American Mathematical Society announced today.  Read more

Commercial access to suborbital space still on the horizon

Commercial access to suborbital space still on the horizon

BROOMFIELD, COLORADO — In a packed hotel ballroom within sight of the Rocky Mountains, entrepreneurs and researchers gathered on 3 June to discuss their sky-high dreams for commercial spaceflight. One day soon, they say, private spaceships will zip aloft on a daily or even hourly basis, for a brief taste of zero gravity in suborbital space. Tourists will line up for rides, while scientists hop on board to do planetary science, materials research, and even human physiology studies.  Read more