Stories by JR Minkel

LHC to switch on early tomorrow amid death threats

Heads up, science fiends and night owls: The greatest science experiment ever built is set to switch on at around 3:30 A.M. Eastern time tomorrow.

After 14 years and $8 billion, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) plans to inject the first beam of protons fully around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the circular particle accelerator 17 miles (27 kilometers) long straddling the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva...

How U.S. Researchers Are Making the Switch to the Large Hadron Collider

Remote operations means the move to Geneva is not always mandatory

Continent-Wide Telescope Brings Galactic Black Hole into Focus

Gains in resolution may provide proof of black hole's existence

Fact or Fiction: NFL Teams Should Go for More Fourth Downs

If the stats favor going for it, why are coaches so wary?

World record ($100,000) prime number found?

First Light from Space Telescope Reveals Gamma-Ray Sky

GLAST orbiting observatory renamed for Enrico Fermi

Moo North: Cattle and Deer May Sense Earth's Magnetic Field

Google Earth photos and field studies reveal animals lining up north–south

Intel gets into the wireless electricity game

Are we closing in on laptops that can recharge without those annoying power cords?

Yesterday Intel, the world's largest chip manufacturer, demonstrated a form of wireless energy transfer by lighting a 60-watt bulb from a power source three feet away, in an effect they referred to as WREL (wireless resonant energy link)

If the trick sounds familiar, that's because researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported the same thing last year under the moniker WiTricity...

How Puzzling Stars Formed near Galactic Black Hole

Gas clouds pulled into orbit around black holes could survive long enough to make stars

NASA releases Orion crash photos

Budding astronauts, avert your eyes. NASA has posted photos of a failed test landing (read: crash) of a mock-up of the Orion crew exploration vehicle, part of the Constellation program to replace the shuttle in 2015...

How NASA plans to quell Ares 1 rocket vibrations

The last thing you want on a flight to the moon is a headache.

That's why NASA engineers have been working to figure out how to reduce vibrations predicted to occur in the Ares 1 rocket, a multi-stage launch vehicle that plays an early role in the space agency's Constellation program to return to the moon by 2020...

NASA contractors battling it out over space suits, shuttle

The battle for juicy NASA contracts is heating up as the space shuttle nears retirement in 2010 and work continues on the Constellation program to replace it.

Could the Russia-Georgia conflict jeopardize U.S. space plans?

Here's a scenario that might be going through the minds of NASA astronaut Greg Chamitoff and his two fellow Russian crew members on the International Space Station (ISS).

News Scan Briefs: Iron-Tough Paper; DEET-free Repellent; Artificial Corneas

Biology -- Repellents -- Materials -- Neuropsychology

"Great Planet Debate" to revive Pluto planet brouhaha

Many researchers were none too happy when the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted in 2006 to cast Pluto out from among the planets, demoting it along with similar bodies in the solar system to the status of mere dwarf planets...

Quantum weirdness wins again: Entanglement clocks in at 10,000+ times faster than light

No matter how many times researchers try, there's just no getting around the weirdness of quantum mechanics.

In the latest attempt, researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland tried to determine whether entanglement—the fact that measuring a property of one particle instantly determines the property of another—is actually transmitted by some wave-like signal that's fast but not infinitely fast...

The 2003 Northeast Blackout--Five Years Later

Tougher regulatory measures are in place, but we're still a long way from a "smart" power grid

Light bent the wrong way--can an invisibility cloak be far behind?

Researchers have taken the next step on the road to constructing a cloak of invisibility or a powerful "superlens" capable of capturing fine details undetectable to current lenses...

Large Hadron Collider countdown going strong

When Clones Attack: Q&A with Clone Wars Director David Filoni

See the softer, more digital side of Jedi Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: The Clone Wars