CAPE CANAVERAL, March 2 -- NASA and SpaceX have launched a new astronaut capsule on a week-long trip to the International Space Station and back, a key step towards resuming manned space flights from US soil after an eight-year break. This time around, the only occupant on board SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule is a dummy named Ripley. If Saturday's test goes smoothly, NASA plans to put two astronauts on board by the end of the year. The new capsule took off onboard a rocket built by SpaceX, run by billionaire Elon Musk, at 2:49am on Saturday (0749 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida. It is scheduled to reach the ISS by Sunday, with a scheduled return to Earth next Friday. "This is a critically important event in American history," the head of the US space agency, Jim Bridenstine, told reporters before the launch, with the rocket and capsule visible behind him on the legendary launch pad where the Apollo missions to the Moon began. "We're on the precipice of launching American astronauts on American rockets from American soil again for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011." The excitement was palpable at Cape Canaveral, from the space-fan volunteers guiding media on site, to the tourists who came to watch the launch light up the overcast skies. "It's been a long eight years," the Kennedy Space Center's director Bob Cabana, a former astronaut himself, said as SpaceX employees milled around the rocket. Reliance on Russia After the shuttle programme was shuttered in July 2011 after a 30-year run, NASA began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions. It pays Russia to get its people up to the ISS orbiting research facility at a cost of $82m a head, for a round trip. In 2014, the US space agency awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for them to take over this task.
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SHANGHAI, January 18 -- Workers conduct quality check on mulberry alcohol in Gaoqing County, east China's Shandong Province. The cultivation of mulberry trees and silkworms is a long-standing agricultural practice in Gaoqing County. In addition to a market-oriented business strategy, the local authorities encourages innovation and research to develop a green and sustainable mulberry-related industry, which not only produces mulberry leaves, but also turns out silk fabrics, mulberry leaf tea, mulberry alcohol, dried mulberry fruits and other derivative products. China has pledged to coordinate its efforts of environmental protection and economic development in 2019, an important year for winning the tough battle against pollution. At the annual Central Economic Work Conference earlier this month, authorities called for building on this year's achievement in pollution control, making more efforts and input in 2019. Since the turn of this year, China has made solid efforts to combat pollution and seen constant improvement of the environment. The Central Economic Work Conference made it clear that local governments must avoid past simple and unscrupulous practices in dealing with environmental problems.
BEIJING, January 18 -- China has dominated four of the five top spots in the Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019, remaining the most-represented nation in this year’s listing.
The country has 72 institutions in the rankings, up from 63 last year. Tsinghua University has scooped the top spot, overtaking Peking University, which ranks second this year. Zhejiang University and the University of Science and Technology of China rank third and fourth respectively, while Russia’s Lomonosov Moscow State University rounds off the top five. India is still the second most-represented country in the list, with 49 institutions included. Top 10 Universities in the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019:
This year’s ranking, which feature 442 universities from 43 countries, includes only institutions in countries classified by the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier”. “The rankings use the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings to judge institutions on their teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. But they are recalibrated to reflect the development priorities of universities in emerging economies,” THE says on its website. Meanwhile, THE rankings editor and international reporter Ellie Bothwell said, based on THE’s latest ranking, Egypt and Malaysia are among the fastest-improving higher education systems in developing countries this past year. “Both countries increased their representation in the THE Emerging Economies University Rankings 2019 despite rising competition from mainland China, with Egypt claiming 19 spots, up from nine last year, and Malaysia taking 11, also up from nine,” she said.
The rapid higher education progress is attributed to improvements in citation impact. “An analysis of country performance based on universities that feature in both the 2019 and 2018 tables show that Egypt’s and Malaysia’s average overall scores rose by almost three points, largely driven by improvements to their citation impact scores,” said Bothwell. “In comparison, India’s average score improved by about 1.6 points. In addition, Malaysia’s average scores for the 13 individual performance indicators in the ranking all improved since last year.” Despite Malaysia and Egypt’s rise, some nations have stagnated or declined. “Brazil is a prime example; 17 of its 36 representatives have declined, including its two leading universities. The University of São Paulo drops one place to 15th, its lowest position ever, while the University of Campinas slips seven places to joint 40th,” adds Bothwell.
SEOUL, January 18 -- The increasingly erratic climate patterns are accelerating the melting of glaciers in the South Pole.
A joint research team from University of California, Irvine and Utrecht University found that as much as 252 billion tons of continental icebergs in the Antarctic are vanishing every year. The pace has made a six-fold increase over the past four decades (from 40 billion tons per year). The findings were published on Monday in an international science journal called Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Unlike the North Pole where all the ice is floating on the seas, the melting of Antarctic icebergs directly translates into a rise of sea levels in the South Pole. Experts are concerned that the sea levels could rise by more than five meters in the next couple of decades, which is fast becoming reality. Alarmed, scientists across the globe are scrambling to the South Pole for research. The International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea, is launching a probe into the Thwaites Glacier in west Antarctica, which is disappearing most quickly among the glaciers in the South Pole. The goal of the investigation is to identify the remaining time for the glacier to melt away. The ITGC project has been chosen by the international scientific journal Nature as one of the research projects worth the most attention in the year of 2019. The American and British research teams launched explorations in October last year, and South Korea is joining forces with them late this year. The Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) is planning to make a concentrated observation into the borders between the Thwaites Glacier and the seas by mobilizing the Korean RV Araon and unmanned submarines. The researchers will identify topographical and geological traits under the glacier through air radar monitoring and analyze the movement of the glacier and the adjacent waters by installing seismometers and GPS sensors onto the ice. The area near the Thwaites Glacier is susceptible to climate change as it is lower than the sea level by more than 500 meters, making itself exposed to warmer waters. The land is covered by glacier 2,500 meters thick, and the bottom of it adjoining the sea level, causing the ocean water to penetrate deep into the depth of the glacier. Consequently, the glacier takes the form of an ice shelf floating on the waters with its edge connected to the continent ice. If the endangered glaciers in west Antarctica vanish in their entirety within this century, the sea levels would rise by 57.2 meters globally. This will leave Seoul, a city at the altitude of 38 meters, fully inundated. With the research value of South Pole growing more than ever, an increasing number of countries are introducing large-sized icebreaking research vessels. China will introduce a polar icebreaker with 13,990 tons of displacement capacity called Xue Long 2 that can penetrate 1.5 meter-thick ice, and Australia will have a 25,500 ton-icebreaker named Nuyina that can break the ice 1.65 meters deep. The UK and Germany will have a new fleet of polar icebreakers go into commission in 2020 and 2023, respectively. South Korea pushed for a project to build the successor of the Aaron, an icebreaker that can break into the ice one meter deep with 7,500 tons of displacement capacity, but failed a preliminary feasibility study in May last year. "Erratic motion of north magnetic pole forces experts to update model that aids global navigation" ROTTERDAM, January 12 -- Something strange is going on at the top of the world. Earth’s north magnetic pole has been skittering away from Canada and towards Siberia, driven by liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core. The magnetic pole is moving so quickly that it has forced the world’s geomagnetism experts into a rare move. On 15 January, they are set to update the World Magnetic Model, which describes the planet’s magnetic field and underlies all modern navigation, from the systems that steer ships at sea to Google Maps on smartphones. The most recent version of the model came out in 2015 and was supposed to last until 2020 — but the magnetic field is changing so rapidly that researchers have to fix the model now. “The error is increasing all the time,” says Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information. The problem lies partly with the moving pole and partly with other shifts deep within the planet. Liquid churning in Earth’s core generates most of the magnetic field, which varies over time as the deep flows change. In 2016, for instance, part of the magnetic field temporarily accelerated deep under northern South America and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Satellites such as the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission tracked the shift. By early 2018, the World Magnetic Model was in trouble. Researchers from NOAA and the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh had been doing their annual check of how well the model was capturing all the variations in Earth’s magnetic field. They realized that it was so inaccurate that it was about to exceed the acceptable limit for navigational errors. TOKYO, January 10 -- Japan's weather bureau said on Thursday (Jan 10) that the El Nino weather pattern appears to be continuing and there was an 80 per cent chance it would stretch into the northern hemisphere spring. A United States government weather forecaster last month projected a 90 per cent chance of the El Nino weather pattern emerging during the northern hemisphere winter 2018-19, with a 60 per cent chance of continuing through spring this year. The last El Nino, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically happens every few years, occurred around 2015/2016 and caused weather-related crop damage, fires and flash floods. SHANGHAI, January 3 -- Technicians detect a non-alcohol drink made of bamboo in a biotechnology company in Anji County, east China's Zhejiang Province. Anji is known for its pleasant environment with flourishing bamboo plantations and many scenes from the famous movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" were shot here. The county persists in green, low-carbon development, and strives to protect environment as well as to develop local economy. China has pledged to coordinate its efforts of environmental protection and economic development in 2019, an important year for winning the tough battle against pollution. At the annual Central Economic Work Conference earlier this month, authorities called for building on this year's achievement in pollution control, making more efforts and input in 2019. Since the turn of this year, China has made solid efforts to combat pollution and seen constant improvement of the environment. The Central Economic Work Conference made it clear that local governments must avoid past simple and unscrupulous practices in dealing with environmental problems. BEIJING, January 3 -- A cluster of 12 royal tombs dating back more than 3,000 years was unearthed in northern China's Shanxi province, local archaeological authorities confirmed Thursday. According to Bai Shuzhang, a leading researcher in the excavation team, the findings offer new keys to the investigation of the Yin capital of the Shang Dynasty, renowned for its great discovery of oracle bones. The team carried out an urgent excavation of the old complex in August 2017, given the tombs had suffered significant damage with four of its five major chambers looted. More than a hundred objects made of copper, ceramics; porcelain and jade were also unearthed in the tombs. The Shang dynasty ruled northern China for more than six centuries. They lived in a series of towns along the Huang He and had the capital in Anyang, a city with many palaces and temples, built mainly from carved wood. The Zhou dynasty replaced Shang in 1122 BC. Photo provided by the China National Space Administration on Jan. 3, 2019 shows the first image of the moon's far side taken by China's Chang'e-4 probe. China's Chang'e-4 probe touched down on the far side of the moon Thursday, becoming the first spacecraft soft-landing on the moon's uncharted side never visible from Earth. The probe, comprising a lander and a rover, landed at the preselected landing area at 177.6 degrees east longitude and 45.5 degrees south latitude on the far side of the moon at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time (0226 GMT), the China National Space Administration announced BEIJING, January 3 -- China’s space program made history this morning when it's Chang’e 4 lunar spacecraft successfully touched down on the moon’s far side at 10:26 a.m. Beijing Time. China Central Television (CCTV) reported the touchdown was made in the South Pole-Aitken Basin which is an impact crater. Official word was provided at 8 p.m. PT by CCTV.According to Andrew Jones, a journalist reporting on the Chinese space program, Chang'e 4's descent required "laser ranging and optical cameras for navigation, velocity, and coarse hazard avoidance." Practically, this meant Chang'e 4 was on its own as it descended to the surface with its important scientific payload, on a side of the moon marked by rugged terrain. The final descent came about from a landing orbit 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) above the moon's surface. State media reported the rover transmitted back the world's first close-range image of the far side of the moon. No other details were provided. After tweets by Chinese State-owned media outlets, China Daily and China Global Television Network made their way online. Twitter was abuzz... but the tweets were quickly deleted. ORLANDO, January 1 -- A NASA explorer is believed to have reached the solar system's outermost region, flying close to a space rock 30 kilometres long and billions of kilometres from Earth. The body is farther from Earth than any other that has had such a close encounter with a NASA probe, scientists believe. The New Horizons probe was slated to reach the "third zone" in the uncharted heart of the Kuiper Belt early on Tuesday. Scientists will not have confirmation of its successful arrival until the probe communicates its whereabouts through NASA's Deep Space Network later in the day. Once it enters the peripheral layer of the belt, containing icy bodies and leftover fragments from the solar system's creation, the probe will get its first glance of Ultima Thule, a cool mass shaped like a giant peanut. "Anything's possible out there in this very unknown region," John Spencer, deputy project scientist for New Horizons, told reporters on Monday at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland. Launched in January 2006, New Horizons embarked on a seven billion-kilometer journey toward the solar system's frigid edge to study the dwarf planet Pluto and its five moons. During a 2015 fly-by, the probe found Pluto to be slightly larger than previously thought. In March, it revealed that methane-rich dunes were on the icy dwarf planet's surface. After trekking almost two billion kilometers beyond Pluto into the Kuiper Belt, New Horizons will now seek clues about the formation of the solar system and its planets. As the probe flies 3500 kilometers above Thule's surface, scientists hope it will detect the chemical composition of its atmosphere and terrain in what NASA says will be the closest observation of a body so remote.
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