Reuters Science News Summary

Following is a summary of current science news briefs.

A 194-year-old tortoise, world's oldest land animal, may hold clues to longer ​life

The world's oldest-known terrestrial animal, an Aldabra giant tortoise named Jonathan and estimated to ​be about 194 years old, may owe his extraordinary longevity ‌to ​a combination of genetic traits and an ability to keep key cellular systems functioning in a more youthful way, according to scientists. Members of this species are known to live more than 100 years, but Jonathan has far exceeded that. Brought to the remote South Atlantic island ‌of St Helena as a fully grown animal in 1882, likely from the Aldabra Atoll or the Granitic Seychelles, the tortoise now resides in a paddock at Plantation House, the governor's residence.

Alien 'phoenix planet' was born from the ashes of a dying star

In ancient mythology, the phoenix was a miraculous bird with a cyclical pattern of life and death, perishing in flames only to rise again from ‌the ashes. Astronomers have now found a world that rightly can be called a phoenix planet. Researchers said this exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, appears to have been ‌born from material expelled into space during the death throes of a star a bit bigger than the sun, and now orbits the highly compact stellar remnant that was left behind, called a white dwarf.

How is the Nobel Peace Prize decided?

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. Here is a look at how the award works: WHO IS NOMINATED?

US FAA looks to streamline rules for commercial space launches

The Federal Aviation Administration said on Tuesday ⁠it is proposing to ​streamline regulations for commercial space launches and re-entries. The ⁠moves include allowing operators to submit launch applications electronically, offering greater flexibility in demonstrating equivalent levels of safety and combining three required safety analyses into a single submission.

NASA rover takes striking image of dawn's early light on Mars

NASA has released ⁠a striking image of dawn on the Martian surface taken by its Curiosity rover, showing sunlight bathing jagged crags formed billions of years ago as the car-sized vehicle continues to explore Earth's planetary neighbor. Curiosity landed in ​2012 in Gale Crater near the Martian equator, and since 2014 has been climbing Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-km-tall) mountain rising from the crater floor. The image was taken by ⁠the six-wheeled rover's Mastcam camera about an hour after the sun rose above a landscape featuring wind-carved cliffs in the distance.

Trump to appear at White House science event on Thursday

US President Donald Trump will speak at a White ⁠House ​event on scientific discovery on Thursday, according to a social media post from his tech adviser Michael Kratsios. The event will highlight the Trump administration's plan to overhaul how federal scientific research funding is managed and distributed, according to an invitation seen by Reuters. Kratsios first released the plan in July. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will also speak at the ⁠event, according to the invitation and a post from Kratsios on the social media platform X.

Scientists in Vienna and Beijing create world's first nuclear clocks

Scientific teams working separately in Vienna and ⁠Beijing have developed the world's first two operating ⁠nuclear clocks in what they are calling an important advance in timekeeping that promises wide-ranging practical applications and offers a new tool to investigate fundamental physics. The two devices represent the next generation of atomic clocks, the ultra-accurate timekeeping machines first created in 1949. The two research teams, describing their ‌achievements on Wednesday in scientific papers ‌published in the journal Nature, said nuclear clocks have the potential to outperform the best conventional atomic ​clocks, but do not do so yet.