By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thu Nov 1, 2012 4:09pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A pair of spacewalking astronauts floated outside the International Space Station on Thursday to bypass a leak in one of the outpost's cooling systems. Engineers suspect a micrometeoroid or tiny piece of space debris may have punched a hole no ...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Thu Nov 1, 2012 2:27pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's third and last surviving space shuttle will move to its retirement home on Friday after a 10-mile road trip from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis, which ended the 30-year-old space shuttle program with a final flight last ye...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has reported numerous times on Coco's Island Costa Rica. There are few places left where you can predictably encounter tiger sharks without luring them in with bait, and to the surprise of many, Costa Rica's Cocos Island is now one of them. Cocos, a national park 340 miles off the Central American nation's Pacific coast, is best-known for its large schools...

By Sarah McBride SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 1, 2012 7:10am EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Floating robots to gather storm data, fuel cells for power outages, and tools to choose evacuation routes and help responders stay connected to the Internet are among the innovations that increasingly will help responders deal with future disasters, start-up com...

Update: thank you Danny Haelewaters, the original author of this article, for allowing us to publish it. In the past The Costa Rica Star has published numerous articles about Sea Turtles in Costa Rica. Costa Rica - It has been named the promised land of biodiversity, Mother of Ecotourism, and it also harbors one of the most important nesting sites for sea turtles. Five of the world’s seven s...

Who says that Costa Ricans don't have imagination? The Universidad Americana's 19th edition of their Expotec and their Senior Adult Science Fair drew hundreds of all sorts of useful scientific applications. Expotec 2012 was open to kids kindergarten through high school who proudly demonstrated 350 samples of ingenuity from 1,200 students. The Expotec fair was shown in Cedes de Don Bosco ...

Air pollution in Costa Rica’s capital San Jose has exceeded the standard level set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, a study said Tuesday. The concentration of atmospheric particulate matter, or PM2.5, in the air reaches as high as 31 micrograms per cubic meter (31mcg/m3), while international norms say there should be no more than 10mcg/m3, acc...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:11pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - In the first inventory of minerals on another planet, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity found soil that bears a striking resemblance to weathered, volcanic sand in Hawaii, scientists said on Tuesday. The rover uses an X-ray imager to reveal the atom...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Tue Oct 30, 2012 7:11pm EDT CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - In the first inventory of minerals on another planet, NASA's Mars rover Curiosity found soil that bears a striking resemblance to weathered, volcanic sand in Hawaii, scientists said on Tuesday. The rover uses an X-ray imager to reveal the atom...

Every time the south Altantic breeds a hurricane, narrow Costa Rica suffers because the low pressure sucks in wet air from the Pacific to dump torrential rains on the Pacific coast. So the story went this week with Hurricane Sandy, which hit Haiti and Jamaica hard with high winds and rainfall. But it also brought flooding that isolated 200 families in Costa Rica. Roads were damaged, especial...

Chile’s Energy Undersecretary, Sergio del Campo, announced that the government will begin studying the potential for building nuclear power plants again. The government had been analyzing this option but stopped after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan. Del Campo underscored that the administration does not intend to start a full nuclear program, but rather wants to generate information in case ...

(BRUSSELS – 26/10/2012) A new report released by EuropeanVoice this week examines the policies and practises tasked with correcting the world’s climate change challenges. International Climate negotiations The next major meeting of international climate negotiators will start on 26 November in Doha and run until 7 December. One of the big issues will be outlining the rules of the second Kyot...

In the past The Costa Rica Star published about Stone Spheres found in farmers fields in Costa Rica. Costa Rican archeologist Ifigenia Quintanilla confesses those mysterious pre-Columbian stone spheres found in the country's southern Pacific zone still stump her after two decades of study. The scientist has lived in Spain since 1998 but confesses her fascination with the spheres that apparen...

A newly identified Latin plant is going Gaga. Duke University biologist Kathleen Pryer has named a new genus of ferns found in Central and South America, Mexico, Arizona, as well as Texas after pop singer Lady Gaga. The genus of ferns, in this case 19 species, will carry the name of the Grammy Award-winning star. According to Duke University, the fern has more in common with Lady Gaga than j...

The Nationa Animal Health Service (Senasa) now has a new tool to halt illegal sail fishing. A three-year-old law has banned catching and selling the fish. But despite this, commercial fishermen have continued the practice, aided by the fact that, cut up into pieces and frozen, the meat is often passed off as that of legal species, including tuna. But a year ago, the Pronature organization do...

By Bernie Woodall DETROIT | Tue Oct 23, 2012 6:19pm EDT DETROIT (Reuters) - Engineers and scientists at General Motors Co believe they are making major strides toward lighter vehicles by developing a way to expand the use of magnesium in auto parts. Making auto parts from magnesium sheets by heating the lightweight metal so it can be formed into ...

Senior thesis research conducted last spring by Audrey Haynes at Costa Rica’s National University, under the tutorship of Johan “Joop” Varekamp, has shown that many residents of the Central American nation have levels of mercury in their hair that far exceed those recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Varekamp, whose student made the discovery as part of a broad evaluation of en...

Dear friends and colleagues of Pretoma: Pretoma hereby wishes to express its sincere thanks to each one of you, whom at one time or another, for over a year, supported the campaign “Shark Fin Imports…Is Shark Finning.” With the signing of the decree “Ban on Shark Finning, importation and transportation, and transfer and possession of fins on board any vessel inside territorial waters”, Octob...

By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya KOROLYOV, Russia | Tue Oct 23, 2012 9:46am EDT KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russians and an American blasted off on Tuesday for the International Space Station (ISS), where the men are to spend five months in orbit. The Russian-built Soyuz TMA-06M lifted off on time from the Baikonur lau...

Thick cloudy skies subdued the sunlight on an autumnal day in Paris. That did not stop the group of representatives from the public and private sector attending the 5th Carbon Fund Meeting of the Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) from making a decision that is a major milestone. Costa Rica is set to become the first country to access performance-based payments through the FCPF. This is the...

October 19th, 2012 – As a result of flooding caused by heavy rains on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, as well as a report issued by the National Meteorology Institute (IMN, in Spanish) on Thursday, the National Risk Prevention and Emergency Response Comission (CNE), declared a “green alert” for the Pacific and Central Valley areas. The heavy rains, as well as bad waste management, caused riv...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:29pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - It remains in the realm of science fiction for now but the discovery of a new planet just four light years away will reignite a race to find a twin of planet Earth that may host extraterrestrial life. The step change comes as the most powerful telescopes ever built are about...

WASHINGTON | Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:04pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Polar bears' designation as a threatened species was challenged in a U.S. appeals court on Friday, with a lawyer for Alaska and other parties arguing that regulators had failed to back up the listing. Alaska and other plaintiffs that include hunters and the California Cattlemen's Association...

By Irene Klotz Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:25am EDT (Reuters) - NASA's Mars rover Curiosity tasted Martian dirt for the first time on Thursday, testing equipment needed to assess if the planet most like Earth in the solar system has or ever had the ingredients for microbial life. The sampling of about a baby aspirin's worth of Martian sand was slightly delayed wh...

By Alice Baghdjian LONDON | Fri Oct 19, 2012 11:21am EDT LONDON (Reuters) - A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels. Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, say they have produced 5 liters of syn...

After the recent deaths of an estimated 300 green sea turtles at the Cayman Turtle Farm in the Cayman Islands, Sea Turtle Conservancy has joined the World Society for the Protection of Animals in their campaign to stop sea turtle farming (www.stopseaturtlefarm.org) at the last remaining facility to intensively farm and breed sea turtles for human consumption in the world. Sea Turtle Cons...

Thu Oct 18, 2012 3:19pm EDT (Reuters) - Stanford R. Ovshinsky, the Michigan-based inventor whose development of the nickel-metal hydride battery helped the Toyota Prius become the world's first successful hybrid car, died on Wednesday evening, aged 89. Ovshinsky, a self-taught scientist, also developed -- and often patented -- a wide variety of breakthrough produ...

Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:26pm EDT (Reuters) - A new theory put forward by Harvard scientists suggests the Moon was once part of the Earth that spun off after a giant collision with another body. In a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Science, Sarah Stewart and Matija Ćuk said their theory would explain why the Earth and Moon have similar composition and chem...

LONDON | Wed Oct 17, 2012 9:00pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - An international consortium of scientists has published a high resolution draft of the barley genome in a move that could not only improve yields and disease resistance but may also hold the key to better beer. "This research will streamline efforts to improve barley production through breeding for ...

By Chris Wickham and Irene Klotz LONDON/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida | Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:12pm EDT LONDON/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronomers have found a new planet, the closest yet outside our solar system and just an astronomical stone's throw away at four light years, raising the chances of finding a habitable planet in Earth's neighbo...

In the past week The Costa Rica Star has published on the shark finning ban that was signed by Laura Chinchilla in the presence of Sir Richard Branson, near Manuel Antonio National Park. Taken from seashepherd.org: Sea Shepherd is not buying it. This is simply smoke and mirrors by President Laura Chinchilla. Costa Rica is simply trying to do damage control for all the attention focused o...

By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON | Tue Oct 16, 2012 4:22pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Computer models have accurately forecast conditions on Mars and are valid predictors of climate change on Earth, U.S. and French astronomers said on Tuesday. These computer programs predicted Martian glaciers and other features on Earth's planetary neighbor, scie...

By Zelie Pollon ROSWELL, New Mexico | Mon Oct 15, 2012 9:23pm EDT ROSWELL, New Mexico (Reuters) - An Austrian daredevil leapt into the stratosphere from a balloon near the edge of space 24 miles above Earth on Sunday and safely landed, setting a record for the highest skydive and breaking the sound barrier in the process. Cheers broke out as Feli...

With more than 90% of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources and goals to reach 95% by 2014, Costa Rica is certainly one of the greenest countries on the planet. It also is on track to become the world’s first carbon-free economy. I recently returned from a 12-day tour sponsored by Global Renewable Energy Education Network (GREEN) and showcasing renewable and sustainable en...

University students in Costa Rica and Athens can learn about sustainability — while learning from the same professors. Beginning in the spring of 2013, the UGA Costa Rica study abroad campus has a new program option: the Sustainability in Action semester, which offers a new sustainability certificate awaiting approval and collaboration between professors in both Costa Rica and Athens. Th...

In the past The Costa Rica Star has reported on Sir Richard Branson calling for the end to Shark Finning in Costa Rica. Today, the Government of the Republic of Costa Rica will sign a decree that seeks to eliminate, once and for all, the practice of shark finning in Costa Rica. The activity for the signing of the decree called "shark finning ban, import, and transport in Costa Rica water...

Costa Rica's National Seismological Network (RSN) published a detailed report about the changes to the country's active volcanoes induced by the great M7.6 earthquake of September 5 and recommends the access closure to the craters of Rincón de la Vieja and Turrialba volcanoes, which increased activity. On September 5, 2012 at 8:42 am (local time) there was a great earthquake at 10 km south...

Archaeologists discover the tomb of one of the greatest queens of Classic Maya civilization piecing together for the first time Maya archaeological and historical records. The tomb of Lady K’abel, a seventh-century Maya Holy Snake Lord, was discovered in the royal Maya city of El Peru’-Waka’ in northeastern Pet’en, Guatemala. The team of archaeologists at El Perú-Waka found a carved alab...

The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the k’iche’s of Guatemala and Classic Maya literature, has been translated into Yucatec Maya by a team led by the linguist Fidencio Briceño Chel. This bilingual version is printed in Yucatec Maya and Spanish, includes the art of the artist José Pool “Maxka”. This edition was a joint work between the Secretary of Culture and Arts of the State of Yucatan (SECAY)...

As the clock winds down to Dec. 21, experts on the Mayan calendar have been racing to convince people that the Mayas didn’t predict an apocalypse for the end of this year. Some experts are now saying the Mayas may indeed have made prophecies, just not about the end of the world. Archaeologists, anthropologists and other experts met Friday in the southern Mexico city of Merida to discuss ...