Cutting Edge

More than half the way to its first major scientific destination, the Curiosity Mars rover will pause a few days to perform the mission's first hands-on geology, using instruments on the vehicle's robot arm to photograph and chemically assess an intriguing pyramid-shaped rock, project managers said Wednesday.

Data from the arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, or APXS, will be compared with remote sensing data from another instrument known as Chemcam that uses a powerful laser to vaporize tiny sections of a target's surface. Debris from the laser strike is measured remotely to help determine chemical composition.

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Today, patients with chronic lung conditions such as cystic fibrosis or asthma can't easily monitor how their airways are doing. Instead, they have to go to the doctor's office and blow into a special device called a spirometer as hard and fast as they can.

So for the past two-plus years, grad students at the University of Washington in Seattle have been working to develop an app that can measure lung function just as accurately but without the need for additional hardware. (Existing apps either require hardware or are for entertainment purposes only.)

In other words, they've been trying to turn a smartphone into a spirometer.… Read more

Who needs Helvetica when you can write in a font made from real galaxies?

The font comes courtesy of Galaxy Zoo, a citizen science project that enlists volunteers to classify the observable universe's billions of galaxies on the Web for scientific use. In their wanderings, the galaxy watchers spotted a select few galaxies that resemble the ABCs.

"The Zooites started collecting these peculiar galaxies on the Redirect Galaxy Zoo Forum, the most beautifully simple, the most spectacular, the most messy, even those that happen to look like animals and, here we get to the point, letters of the alphabet," said Steven Bamford, a senior research fellow at the University of Nottingham's Centre for Astronomy and Particle Theory in the U.K. who created the unusual font as part of his work with Galaxy Zoo. … Read more

COCOA BEACH, Fla.--Bolted to the back of a 747 jumbo jet, the space shuttle Endeavour took off on its final voyage this morning, a "bittersweet" valedictory tour highlighted by low-altitude passes over NASA field centers, towns and cities along the way to museum duty in Los Angeles, giving the public one last chance to see the winged spaceplane in flight.

Running two days late because of stormy weather along the Gulf Coast, the NASA 747 and its 78-ton payload lifted off the Kennedy Space Center's 3-mile-long shuttle runway at 7:22 a.m. ET, following a … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--The space shuttle Endeavour, veteran of 25 trips to orbit since its maiden launch two decades ago, was prepped today for takeoff on its final flight tomorrow, a cross-country tour atop a NASA 747 transport jet that will give the public one last chance to see the iconic spaceplane in flight before landing in Los Angeles Friday for work to ready the ship for museum duty.

Running two days late because of stormy weather along the Gulf Coast, Endeavour and its carrier jet are scheduled for takeoff from the Kennedy Space Center's 3-mile-long shuttle runway … Read more

I have a very basic grasp of sign language, including the alphabet and few simple words like "thank you," "snake," and "chicken."

The last time I spoke with someone who was speech impaired, we resorted to a scrap piece of cardboard and a pencil to get our messages across. A new invention may help break down those barriers.

The EnableTalk smart glove recognizes sign language gestures and sends them for text and voice translation to a smartphone or other device. … Read more

If Baxter had a favorite band, it might be The Carpenters. Rethink Robotics' new droid could hum "Close to You" while it gets cozy with human workers along the assembly line.

The Boston-based startup launches Baxter today, billing it as a revolutionary humanoid robot that could help stem the tide of manufacturing going overseas for cheap labor.

For one thing, Baxter itself is surprisingly low-cost. Priced at $22,000 including software upgrades, it goes for far less than traditional industrial robots and puts automation in the hands of small and midsize companies that may not have been able to afford it. Labs and universities are also expected to show interest.

Also, unlike most factory robots, Baxter doesn't require a safety cage. People can work alongside the droid, which is covered in soft materials in case of impact. Sensors tell it when people are near, and it will stop moving if it does make contact with something unexpected. … Read more

Seeing as Mars is much further away from the sun than Earth is, a solar eclipse would look different than it does here. Curiosity -- NASA's Mars rover -- caught an image of what this phenomenon looks like from the Red Planet.

While somewhat less impressive than what a solar eclipse looks like from Earth, appearing as a tiny black blip on a small white blip, this photo is still fascinating. Mars has two moons that orbit it, so the moon seen in this image is called Phobos.

To get this photo, Curiosity -- ever the clever rover -- … Read more

After reviewing data from 1,839 14- to 17-year-old high-school students in Los Angeles, researchers are confirming what may otherwise seem obvious: sexting and sex go hand in hand.

But which of these activities comes first -- sex or sexting -- remains unclear.

"What we really wanted to know is, is there a link between sexting and taking risks with your body? And the answer is a pretty resounding 'yes,'" lead author Eric Rice, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.

Rice and colleagues, who just published their findings in the journal Pediatrics, … Read more