Science

FEC approves establishment of ICT University in Nigeria

The Federal Executive Council has approved the establishment of the proposed Information and Communications Technology University of Nigeria. The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo disclosed this at the opening of a two-day summit on Smart Cities in Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday. The implementation committee of the proposed university submitted its report to the Minister […]

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NASA response to ‘9-year-old applicant for alien-protection job’: Maybe

The Earth seems to have spun at twice its normal speed since NASA announced it was looking for someone to protect the planet from aliens. And someone to protect aliens from our, well, worst habits. The position of planetary protection officer, for which applications are now being accepted, is important and prestigious. It means trying […]

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Jerry Nelson, astronomer who built advanced telescopes, dies

Jerry Nelson, an astronomer who designed advanced telescopes that help scientists glimpse far reaches of the universe, has died in California. He was 73. The University of California, Santa Cruz, where Nelson was a professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics, said he died June 10 at his home. No cause was given. Nelson’s design using […]

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Oldest fossils of Homo sapiens found in Morocco

Fossils of Homo sapiens discovered in Morocco are the oldest known remains of our species, scientists say. The bones, about 300,000 years old, were unearthed thousands of miles from the previous record-holder, found in fossil-rich eastern Africa. The new discovery reveals people from an early stage of our species’ evolution, with a mix of modern […]

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12 new astronauts selected from pool of applicants

NASA chose 12 new astronauts Wednesday from its biggest pool of applicants ever, selecting seven men and five women who could one day fly aboard the nation’s next generation of spacecraft. The astronaut class of 2017 includes doctors, scientists, engineers, pilots and military officers from Anchorage to Miami and points in between. They’ve worked in […]

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Scientists discover a ‘cold’ dwarf planet near the Sun

A brown dwarf, which is a little more than 100 light years away from the sun, has been discovered by the astronomers with the help of a new citizen-science tool that was released earlier this year to pinpoint new worlds lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. Details were recently published in the […]

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FUTA launches satellite into space in US today

The Federal University of Technology, Akure, will today launch a CubeSat, with the code name NigeriaEdusat-1, into space from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, United States. The Nigerian Cubesat, is a component of the Birds 1 satellites, comprising of four other CubeSats belonging to Japan, Ghana, Mongolia and Bangladesh. They will be launched from […]

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Nigeria’s NASRDA manufactures Nano-Satellite

National Space Agency (NASRDA) says its collaboration with five countries has resulted in the successful completion of a global project for the design and manufacture of five identical Nano-Satellites. Dr Felix Ale, Head, Media and Corporate Communication, NASRDA made this known in a statement in Abuja on Friday . Nano-satellites or Nano-sats are miniaturised satellites […]

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Solar system of seven Earth-sized planets ‘could include worlds with life’

An extraordinary solar system of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a dwarf star could include at least three worlds on which life may have evolved, scientists believe. The cool dim star, known as TRAPPIST-1, can be considered a close neighbour since it is only 39 light years away. Six of its “exoplanets” lie in a temperate […]

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US relies on industry help to make ‘giant leap’ to Planet Mars

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday the nation is relying on private industry to find ways to make the “giant leap” to Mars, with human missions on the horizon by the 2030s. The US president’s announcement confirmed a long-standing agreement to partner with commercial companies on future missions to deep space, and gave some new […]

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Trio British scientists win Nobel Physics Prize for exotic matter research

Nobel prize in physics is awarded to three British scientists for revealing the secrets of ‘exotic matter’ – The prize will be shared by the three for their work on states of matter – Half the prize goes to David Thoules at the University of Washington – The other other half is awarded to Duncan […]

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NASA to reveal ‘surprising’ activity on Jupiter’s moon

There’s something going on beneath the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. But what? NASA teased a “surprising” announcement for Monday, based on Hubble Space Telescope images of the celestial body, which many experts believe could contain a subsurface ocean, even possibly some form of life. The US space agency has already proclaimed that Europa […]

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