Science & Technology

SYDNEY, April 8 (Xinhua) -- An experimental facility launched in the Australian State of Queensland on Monday will test a new way to purify bore water, industrial wastewater and sea water for drinking.

For the past three years, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), along with Japanese chemical conglomerate Asahi Kasei, have worked to develop a method by which solar energy or industrial "waste heat" can be used to desalinate water samples.

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) -- A new study showed that a compound responsible for chili peppers' heat could help slow the spread of lung cancer, making it a potential treatment for lung cancer.

A researcher from Marshall University presented the results on Saturday at the ongoing American Society for Investigative Pathology annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

New Delhi, Apr 6 (PTI) India chose a much lower orbit of less than 300 km during Mission Shakti for "capability demonstration" and to avoid threat of debris to global space assets, DRDO Chairman G Satheesh Reddy said Saturday.

His remark comes days after NASA raised concerns about the spread of debris from the Anti-Satellite Test (A-SAT) test India conducted on March 27.

Reddy, at a briefing held at the DRDO Bhawan here, said the interceptor had the capability to intercept satellites in orbit of 1,000 km.

CHICAGO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- It will take decades to fully dismantle the Three Mile Island unit 1 nuclear reactor (TMI-1) after its planned shutdown in September 2019, its owner and operator Exelon Generation said on Friday.

The Chicago-headquartered energy company has filed a federally required post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, detailing plans for TMI-1 after it ceases operation later this year.

CHICAGO, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A study posted on the website of the Northwestern University (NU) on Friday found that poverty leaves a mark on nearly 10 percent of the genes in human genome.

In the study, NU researchers found evidence that poverty can become embedded across wide swaths of the genome. They discovered that lower socioeconomic status is associated with levels of DNA methylation (DNAm), a key epigenetic mark that has the potential to shape gene expression, at more than 2,500 sites and across more than 1,500 genes.

Xing Er and Mao Er, two giant pandas from China, are unloaded from a cargo plane at Kastrup airport in Copenhagen, Denmark, on April 4, 2019.

After arriving in Copenhagen on Thursday, the pair of giant pandas Xing Er, a 5-year-old male, and Mao Er, a 4-year-old female, will head to their new home in Copenhagen Zoo for collaborative research.

They will live in Denmark for 15 years, according to the agreement signed between the Chinese Association of Zoological Gardens and the zoo in 2017. (Xinhua/Li Pengfei)

5 Apr 2019; AFP: A Japanese probe on Friday launched an explosive device at an asteroid, aiming to blast a crater in the surface and scoop up material that could shed light on how the solar system evolved.

The explosive mission is the riskiest yet attempted by the Japanese space agency's Hayabusa2 probe that aims to reveal more about the origins of life on Earth.

KOROLYOV /Moscow Region/, April 4. /TASS/. The Progress MS-11 resupply ship has docked to the International Space Station (ISS) after using an ultra-short flight scheme. The flight lasted slightly over 3 hours and 20 minutes, Russia’s Mission Control reported on Thursday.

"The Progress MS-11 space freighter docked with the orbital station in an automated mode at 5:22 p.m. Moscow time," the Flight Control Center said, specifying that the resupply ship had arrived at the Pirs docking module.

SYDNEY, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A mathematics professor from Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW) has solved a 48-year multiplication puzzle which will give computers the ability to multiple large numbers much faster.

Associate Professor David Harvey, from UNSW's School of Mathematics and Statistics, on Thursday published a method to multiply large numbers which proves an academic theorem first proposed in 1971 by German mathematicians, Arnold Schonhage and Volker Strassen.

Tehran, April 3, IRNA - Capable of delivering precision bombardment, the weirdly shaped Chinese helicopter drone Blowfish A2 sparked interest from many countries' militaries following its flight demonstration at the 15th Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition (LIMA) in Malaysia, the drone's manufacturer said.