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Today, NASA announced the new Space Launch System (SLS), an advanced heavy-lift launch vehicle that will provide an entirely new national capability for human exploration beyond Earth's orbit.

Universities are a breeding ground for innovation, but in order for those innovations to benefit the public, they must progress beyond the theoretical or prototype level — which requires adequate funding. A promising development was recently announced in California: Five teams of scientists from the...

Code created by a start-up company called Narrative Science takes data, including sports statistics, company financial reports, and housing sales, and turns it into readable news articles. Supporters of this type of software note an increasing sophistication in the technology's ability to make...

One of the nation's largest health insurers, WellPoint, announced today that it would develop and launch IBM Watson-based solutions to improve patient care. Ever since Watson's noteworthy performance on Jeopardy!, talk has circulated about the supercomputer's potential usefulness as a tool that physicians could use to...

As telemedicine gains prominence, the potential for misdiagnosis remains a viable concern. Whether in regard to ultrasound or ECG technology, the focus is shifting toward finding ways to make remote diagnosis as foolproof as possible even among individuals with limited expertise. It is estimated that 4 percent...

Tufts University chemists have announced the development of the world's first single-molecule electric motor — a mind-boggling concept in and of itself, but even more so when you take a look at the hard numbers. The new motor measures a mere 1 nanometer across — 200X smaller than the current world record...

This week's Question: While companies debate the merits of cloud computing, the U.S. government has been weighing its own options. By gradually shifting to maintenance-free services that are based on the Internet and run by private companies, Vivek Kundra, the White...

A conceptual design has been developed for a miniature laser magnetometer (MLM) that will measure the scalar magnitude and vector components of near-Earth magnetic fields. The MLM incorporates a number of technical innovations to achieve high-accuracy and high-resolution performance while significantly reducing the size...

NASA satellites measure vector magnetic fields around planets to learn about the geology of the planets. Existing fluxgate magnetometers drift as a result of temperature and aging. A magnetometer whose calibration was stable would improve investigations of planets and the solar system.