By Irene Klotz SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 3, 2012 9:38pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - NASA's long-lived Voyager 1 spacecraft, which is heading out of the solar system, has reached a "magnetic highway" leading to interstellar space, scientists said on Monday. The probe, launched 35 years ago to study the outer planets, is now about 11 billion miles ...

By Irene Klotz SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 3, 2012 8:23pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, dispatched to look for the chemical ingredients and environments for microbial life, has found hints of carbon, though whether this building block for life on Earth has played a similar role on Mars is unknown, scientists said on Monda...

By Stuart McDill SYDNEY | Sun Dec 2, 2012 10:48pm EST SYDNEY (Reuters) - A group of intrepid explorers are readying themselves for the first-ever recreation of the epic voyage made by British explorer Ernest Shackleton on his ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole in 1914, on an exact copy of Shackleton's lifeboat. Shackleton's boat, the Endur...

By Franck Leconte KOUROU, French Guiana | Sat Dec 1, 2012 11:51pm EST KOUROU, French Guiana (Reuters) - A Russian-made Soyuz rocket blasted off from French Guiana on Saturday and placed into orbit an Earth observation satellite for France, space officials said. It is the fourth time that Soyuz, which first flew in 1966 and traces its roots back e...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Fri Nov 30, 2012 1:01pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - The publisher of a much-criticized study suggesting genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats has come under heavy pressure from scientists to retract the paper and explain why it was ever printed. The calls follow a report by Europe's food safety watchdog this week dis...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:15pm EST CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Despite searing daytime temperatures, Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, has ice and frozen organic materials inside permanently shadowed craters in its north pole, NASA scientists said on Thursday. Earth-based telescopes have been compil...

By Nina Chestney LONDON | Thu Nov 29, 2012 2:07pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - The melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has raised sea levels by 11.1 millimeters since 1992, a fifth of the total rise which threatens low-lying regions around the globe, a new study published on Thursday said. The results of the study involving 47 researchers...

SEOUL | Thu Nov 29, 2012 4:08am EST SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea canceled the launch of its first space rocket on Thursday after a glitch in the propulsion system halted the countdown just minutes before the scheduled lift-off. It was South Korea's third attempt to put a rocket into orbit and the second time this particular mission has failed.October's ...

TOKYO | Wed Nov 28, 2012 10:03pm EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Like many Japanese, Kogoro Kurata grew up watching futuristic robots in movies and animation, wishing that he could bring them to life and pilot one himself. Unlike most other Japanese, he has actually done it. His 4-tonne, 4-meter (13 feet) tall Kuratas robot is a grey behemoth with a built-in pilot...

By Laura Zuckerman Wed Nov 28, 2012 3:25pm EST (Reuters) - A study by polar researchers has revealed an ancient community of bacteria able to thrive in the lightless, oxygen-depleted, salty environment beneath nearly 70 feet of ice in an Antarctic lake, giving insight into the unique ecosystem. The research, fu...

LONDON | Wed Nov 28, 2012 1:20pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists from Britain, Germany and the United States have unlocked key components of the genetic code for wheat, helping to create varieties that are more productive and better able to cope with disease, drought and other crop stresses. The identification of around 96,000 wheat genes, and insights...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Wed Nov 28, 2012 11:39am EST LONDON (Reuters) - A small British company with a dream of building a re-usable space plane has won an important endorsement from the European Space Agency (ESA) after completing key tests on its novel engine technology. Reaction Engines Ltd believes its Sabre engine, which would operate like...

By Ethan Bilby BRUSSELS | Tue Nov 27, 2012 4:53pm EST BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The physicists who theorized the existence of a basic subatomic particle half a century ago are confident recent data is proving they were right all along. Peter Higgs, whose eponymous "Higgs boson" is the long-sought target of the $10 billion Large Hadron collider in Swit...

By Irene Klotz Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:49pm EST CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., November 27 - NASA is looking for new ideas on what to do with two space telescopes left over from a once-secret U.S. spy satellite program. The U.S. space agency asked the scientific community on Tuesday for its input into possible missions for a pair of space telescopes donated last year t...

Government utility Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE) seeks bids from consultants to determine Costa Rica's ocean energy potential for electricity generation. Bids are due December 7. ICE seeks analysis of electricity generation potential of waves, currents, tides, and other marine sources on its Caribbean and Pacific coasts. The selected consultant is to: determine theoretical and t...

STOCKHOLM | Tue Nov 27, 2012 11:33am EST STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Commuters in the northern Swedish town of Umea are being treated to ultra-violet light therapy as the long, dark winter for which the Nordic state is renowned draws in. Energy company Umea Energi has decided to install ultra-violet lights at about 30 bus stops for people, which will be in pla...

By Mary Slosson Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:04pm EST (Reuters) - Dr. Joseph Murray, the surgeon who carried out the first successful kidney transplant and later won a Nobel Prize for his work in medicine and physiology, died on Monday in Boston at the age of 93. Murray died after suffering a stroke last Thursday, Brigham and Women's Hospital spokesman Tom Langfor...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:06pm EST CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Two veterans of the International Space Station will return for an experimental year-long stay aboard the orbital outpost, a test run for future missions to the moon, asteroids and Mars, NASA said on Monday. Former U.S. space shuttle pilot and...

ALMATY | Mon Nov 19, 2012 12:43am EST ALMATY (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe on Monday, safely delivering a trio of astronauts from a four-month stint aboard the International Space Station. The Soyuz TMA-05M capsule, carrying Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and U.S. astronaut Sunita ...

By Robert Evans GENEVA | Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:10pm EST GENEVA (Reuters) - A new elementary particle whose discovery was announced with fanfare to a waiting world in July may be just a little less exciting than scientists had hoped. Reporting on a conference in Kyoto where the latest data from their Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was presented, scienti...

For many people, no creature evokes the kind of disgust and horror that snakes do, and Costa Rica has an abundance of slithering serpents known to have deadly dentures. But the reality is that snakebites are few and far-between. On average, 504 people are bit per year in all of Costa Rica, according to a review of medical facility data by Mahmood Sasa from the University of Costa Rica. And than...

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO | Wed Nov 14, 2012 5:32pm EST CHICAGO (Reuters) - Two international teams of scientists have identified a rare mutation in a gene linked with inflammation that significantly increases the risk for the most common form of Alzheimer's disease, the first such discovery in at least a decade. The findings, published on Wed...

PERTH, Australia | Wed Nov 14, 2012 3:43pm EST PERTH, Australia (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday it will station in Australia an advanced radar to help track space junk threatening satellites and is working toward placement of a new, state-of-the-art deep-space telescope developed by the Pentagon's advanced research arm. The positioning of...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:29pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Military drone technology, which has revolutionized warfare over the last decade, will be ready for civilian use within four years and could create a market worth more than $400 billion. That's the prediction from a UK research project backed by the government and top aerosp...

By Gabriela Baczynska and Steve Gutterman MOSCOW | Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:58am EST MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's space agency scrambled to refigure communications with civilian satellites and the International Space Station on Wednesday after a cable broke outside Moscow, but said the satellites and the station were operating normally. The space agenc...

This is a great sign for the future of English news media here in Costa Rica. Nearly two decades after ex-President Jose Maria Figueres took the forward step of initiating English classes for grade school students, the program is finally gaining headway. The program got off to a slow start in Figueres' term (1994-98) but by 2005 nearly three-quarters of primary students were receiving some E...

By Kate Kelland LONDON | Tue Nov 13, 2012 7:16pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have used DNA sequencing for the first time to identify, analyze and put a halt to an infectious disease outbreak in a hospital. The success of the technique, which used fast genome sequencing technology to control...

CAIRNS, Australia | Tue Nov 13, 2012 5:30pm EST CAIRNS, Australia (Reuters) - A rare full solar eclipse plunged north Queensland into darkness for two minutes early on Wednesday, delighting the thousands of people who had gathered on the Australian state's beaches. In Cairns, the main city in north Queensland and a gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, clou...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Tue Nov 13, 2012 2:52am EST LONDON (Reuters) - An international team of astronomers has produced the first map of the universe as it was 11 billion years ago, filling a gap between the Big Bang and the rapid expansion that followed. The study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, shows the universe went...

By Robert Evans GENEVA | Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:42pm EST GENEVA (Reuters) - CERN researchers said on Monday they have spotted a particle reshaping into two others in their Large Hadron Collider, a breakthrough that could be crucial in exploring physics frontiers once the realm of science fiction. The mutation - in a process known as decay - was predi...

Both in the Great Tempisque Wetland and at the river mouth, populations of crocodiles (Crocodylus acutus), far from diminishing, have tripled in recent years. For Laura Porras, researcher from Instituto Internacional de Conservación y Manejo de Vida Silvestre de la Universidad Nacional (ICOMVIS-UNA), (International Academic Institute for Conservation and Wildlife Management National University)...

JERUSALEM | Thu Nov 8, 2012 11:25am EST JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli archaeologists are scratching their heads over a possible 8,500-year-old murder mystery after discovering two skeletons at the bottom of an ancient well. Flint sickle blades and arrowheads found in the eight-meter (26 foot)-deep Stone Age well in the Jezreel Valley in Israel's Galilee ...

This country continued to have bridge troubles, this time when a giant crane caused one of four Bailey bridges on the heavily traveled General Canas Highway to collapse under its weight. The load bearing capacity of a Bailey bridge is 40 tons but the huge crane that tried, unsuccessfully, to cross weighed in at 84 tons. It was registered as belonging to the Quiros S.A. company. The collapsed...

The two phreatic eruptions that occurred in the Poás volcano on Saturday, pose no danger and there is no need to declare a state of emergency in the area. Carlos Ramirez, a geologist at the National Seismological Network, said that the two eruptions are normal behavior of the volcano. "This is something almost monthly in Poás however the eruptions usually remain in the area of the intracrat...

Anyone who sees the entrance to San Jose’s new Chinatown will be impressed by the huge arch at its entrance. Isabel Yung, President of the local Chinese Colony in Costa Rica, stated, “Anyone who passes under the arch with be filled with good luck.” She also said, “Prosperity is something very important for our culture and the new arch reflects the prosperity of San Jose.” The huge arch is f...

Recently The Costa Rica Star updated our Facebook page with a status update about small tremors in the Central Valley. Costa Ricans are on alert, which was declared by the National Committee of Emergency due to the seismic activity in the central region. The western province of Guanacaste and the Great Metropolitan Area are the most active regions and authorities are asking residents a conti...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Fri Nov 2, 2012 6:36pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's last space shuttle rolled out of a hangar in Florida on Friday and traveled down the road to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to begin a new life as a museum piece. Atlantis is the third and final shuttle to be retired and turned...

By Irene Klotz Fri Nov 2, 2012 5:19pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Nov 2 - Initial analysis of the atmosphere of Mars from NASA's rover Curiosity has shown no sign of methane, a gas detected previously by remote sensors, researchers said on Friday. On Earth, more than 90 percent of the methane in the atmosphere results from living organisms and its presence ...

The key to winning backing for environmental action from finance ministers is to present a solid economic case to back your argument, according to a former Costa Rican Environment and Energy Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, pushed hard for support from the Costa Rican treasury during his tenure with many positive results including the development of renewable energy and huge reforestation. “We f...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Fri Nov 2, 2012 9:01am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - With oil becoming scarcer and more expensive, the economics of the industry may finally tip in favor of one of the most neglected areas of its business - the technology for cleaning up oil spills. Despite efforts by scientists to find new and more effective ways to deal with ...