Science News Roundup: Smart Caption glasses, alien moon discovered and lot more


Devdiscourse News Desk | Updated: 05-10-2018 11:15 IST | Created: 05-10-2018 10:30 IST
Science News Roundup: Smart Caption glasses, alien moon discovered and lot more

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

Bezos' space company designing a large lunar lander

Jeff Bezos' space company is in the conceptual design phase of a large lunar lander that it says will provide reusable access to the moon's surface and its resources, Blue Origin said on Wednesday. The lander is part of Blue Origin's broader mission of enabling a future in which millions of people live and work in space, the company said.

Smart caption glasses refocus the action for deaf playgoers

For all his adult life keen theatregoer Tim Hardy, who is partially deaf, has watched plays with a torch in his hand and a script on his lap so he can follow what's being said on stage. But from Wednesday he'll be able to swap those props for a pair of augmented reality glasses that, by displaying subtitles in real time, will let him focus fully on the action.

Trio wins chemistry Nobel for work on antibody drugs, smart enzymes

Two Americans and a Briton won the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for harnessing the power of evolution to generate novel proteins used in everything from environmentally friendly detergents to cancer drugs. The fruits of this work include the world's top-selling prescription medicine -- the antibody injection Humira sold by AbbVie for treating rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

Tech breakthrough offers an early warning system for heart attacks

A new method of analyzing images from CT scans can predict which patients are at risk of a heart attack years before it occurs, researchers say. The technology, developed by teams at Oxford University and institutions in Germany and the United States, uses algorithms to examine the fat surrounding coronary arteries as it shows up on computed tomography (CT) heart scans.

NASA addresses unexplained space station hole but the mystery remains unsolved

NASA sought on Wednesday to tamp down speculation that sabotage caused a tiny hole found last month in the side of a Russian module docked at the International Space Station, but the mystery remained unsolved. NASA stressed in a brief statement issued from its Washington headquarters that Dimitri Rogozin, general director of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, had in public comments this week ruled out a manufacturing defect as the cause.

In a surprise, first alien moon discovered is big and gaseous

Astronomers have pinpointed what appears to be the first moon detected outside our solar system, a large gaseous world the size of Neptune that is unlike any other known moon and orbits a gas planet much more massive than Jupiter. The discovery, detailed by researchers on Wednesday, was a surprise, and not because it showed that moons exist elsewhere - they felt it was only a matter of time for one to be found in another star system. They were amazed instead by how different this moon was from the roughly 180 known in our solar system.

(With inputs from agencies.)

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