Science

Rockstar certainly knows how to draw out a bit of PR for the fullest effect.

Today, the above image arrived in our inbox with no additional info except to confirm that the trailers are coming on April 30.

There aren't many companies and not many games that could get away with this, but when you're talking about the next Grand Theft Auto, all bets are off.

As a quick reminder before these new trailers arrive next week, here are a few things that we already know about GTA V: … Read more

It sounds like a monster from a Victorian penny dreadful: a revolting, stinking mass of gelatinous glop lurks under the streets of London, threatening the citizenry. What's to be done?

Burn it with fire! Well, use it as an alternative energy source.

Fat and oil that accumulate in the city's drains and sewers -- forming large clogging masses called "fatbergs" -- are to be harvested and used to generate electricity at the largest plant of its kind in the world. … Read more

While it might look like a giant robotic pet, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have actually created the "FlipperBot" to generate new data on how organisms move.

The robot mimics the movements of sea turtle hatchlings struggling to reach the ocean. These little creatures need to rely on dexterity and flexibility in their wrists to get around without moving a lot of the surrounding sand.

"We are looking at different ways that robots can move about on sand," Daniel Goldman, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said in a statement. "We wanted to make a systematic study of what makes flippers useful or effective. We've learned that the flow of the materials plays a large role in the strategy that can be used by either animals or robots."… Read more

We've always been told not to stare at the sun, but NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been doing just that for the last three years. Since it started operations, the SDO has taken a shot of the sun using its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly every 12 seconds on 10 different wavelengths, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the shifting moods and surface of our nearest star.

NASA put together a 3-minute video of the sun's last three years and set it to lovely music. The result is a yellow, fluctuating, spinning globe, spitting out flares over time. It's nearly hypnotizing.… Read more

Comet ISON, discovered in September of last year by Russian Vitali Nevski, is headed in our direction. And although the sungrazing comet is still more than 394 million miles away (a little closer than Jupiter's current orbit), NASA's Hubble telescope managed to capture an amazing photograph on April 10.

NASA believes that when ISON is at its closest point to the sun on November 28 of this year, it will briefly become brighter than the moon in the sky, making it a serious contender for "comet of the century."

Currently, the comet is headed toward the sun at a speed of around 47,000 miles per hour and has a dusty head of around 3,100 miles wide (about 1.2 times the width of Australia). Its tail trails more than 57,000 miles behind. And yet, the core of the comet's head is tiny -- no more than around 3 to 4 miles across. … Read more

When they take over, robots will surely take advantage of studies suggesting we pathetic meatsacks are hardwired to sympathize with them.

Watching a robot being cuddled or abused produces similar reactions in humans to watching people undergo the same treatment, according to two new studies to be presented at the International Communication Association Conference in London in June.

In one, subjects were shown videos in which popular dino-bot Pleo was either hugged or treated violently. Perhaps not surprisingly, the subjects' skin conductance levels rose when Pleo suffered, suggesting they were distressed.

They also reported feeling bad for the bot. Check out how the poor little guy was mistreated in the vid below. … Read more

What do you get when you combine some celebrities with serious nerd cred and a few incomplete sentences? The first official Vine from the White House, of course!

Bill Nye the Science Guy, LeVar Burton, and uh, this other woman took a quick 6 seconds to welcome us all to the White House Science Fair in a Vine tweeted out from the official White House Twitter feed today.

Students from across the country were invited to the White House to share their creations -- from marshmallow launchers to robots to 3D-printed widgets -- with the president and others. Some projects also got the Vine treatment. … Read more

Don't cry for Tyrannosaurus rex and its teensy-weensy arms. It was in good company in the dinosaur kingdom with a recently discovered new species found in Madagascar. After a nearly 10-year dino drought on the island, two researchers uncovered the Dahalokely tokana, a creature with big back legs and itsy-bitsy front arms.

The critter was about as tall as a human male, but had a length of 9 to 14 feet. What helped the researchers peg it as a new species were some unique characteristics of the vertebrae, including the shape of cavities on the side. For dinosaur species, that's a lot like finding a fingerprint.

Besides being a new species, Dahalokely is also helping to fill in some puzzling gaps in the fossil record for Madagascar. "We had always suspected that abelisauroids were in Madagascar 90 million years ago, because they were also found in younger rocks on the island. Dahalokely nicely confirms this hypothesis," said project leader Andrew Farke, curator of paleontology at the Alf Museum.… Read more

After multiple scrubbed launches last week, an Antares rocket finally lifted off the ground from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia as part of Orbital Sciences' bid to transport cargo to the International Space Station.

The rocket lifted off at 5 p.m. ET Sunday and achieved orbit smoothly. It launched an 8,400-pound mock Cygnus supply ship into orbit about 158 miles above Earth.

Antares is a medium-class, two-stage, 13-storey rocket designed to carry payloads of up to 6,500 kg (14,329 pounds). Along with SpaceX, Orbital was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) contract to … Read more