Spread currently grows 7.7 million heads of Vegetus lettuce (bottom right) in its artificially-lit vegetable factory in the Japanese city of Kameoko (pictured left), but from next year it plans to build a sprawling new site (illustrated top right) that will be almost completely run by robots. The machines will automate every step of the planting process, from germination to seeding, harvesting and delivery while also monitoring levels of carbon dioxide and lighting conditions. Not only will this boost production by almost 25 per cent, it is expected to halve labour costs.
The landing site is more rugged than the film portrays, according to Nasa. The inset shows a recent image of the Martian landscape sent back from Curiosity.
It's reported New Horizons principal investigator Dr Alan Stern teased a big announcement due today while giving a talk at the University of Alberta.
Forget likes, Facebook will soon let you respond with EMOJI: 'Reactions' feature includes sadness, anger, surprise and love
From tomorrow, users in Ireland and Spain will begin seeing the reaction emoji below their friends' statuses, videos and photos. They include 'Like', 'Love', 'Haha', 'Yay', 'Wow', 'Sad' and 'Angry' (pictured beneath the phones). These icons will appear when a person holds down the Like button on a mobile (Love pictured left and Sad pictured right), or hovers their mouse over it on the desktop version of the site. Facebook has not revealed how long the trial will take place but it is expected to roll the option out to other regions if this initial trial is a success.
Is SpaceX about to reveal its mission to MARS? Cryptic tweet suggests company is to announce the most 'exciting thing ever'
A tweet by the managing editor of NASASpaceFlight (inset bottom left) has triggered speculation that SpaceX is preparing to make a major announcement about plants to build a colony on Mars. Elon Musk (inset bottom right), the founder of SpaceX, has hinted in the past that he hopes to reveal details of the company's Mars Colonisation Transport project, which would carry 100s of passengers to the Red Planet, later this year. Nasa has also revealed plans to use SpaceX's Dragon space capsule to return soil samples to Earth from the Red Planet (main illustration).
- Have scientists found alien life on Pluto? Rumors of an 'amazing' announcement sweep the internet, but Nasa says there's no new Horizons update
- Life inside the Apollo missions: Intimate portraits of astronauts shaving and doing DIY among 10,000 Nasa images uploaded to Flickr
- The lightsaber for your FACE: Skarp razor blasts bristles with laser light to 'melt' hair
- P-p-p-pongy! Biologists hold sticks covered in FAECES under the beaks of sleeping penguins in bizarre experiment to study their sense of smell
- World's first robot FARM to open in 2017: Firm plans to replace humans with machines in its lettuce factories
- Sorry Kim, Twitter won't be letting you edit tweets anytime soon: Site claims there are 'real challenges' to correcting typos
- Could this 'psychic robot' prevent car crashes? AI software predicts a person's intentions to steer vehicles back on track
- World's coral reefs face mass bleaching event next year: Disaster due to El Niño 'could be worst ever recorded'
- Earth's solid iron core formed a BILLION years ago and is still growing: Innermost part of our planet was created when it 'froze'
- Did Neanderthals really care for their dead? Pollen found inside 'graves' is NOT proof of human ancestors burying flowers with the deceased
- End of the speckled, brown banana? 'Chemical dip' extends shelf-life of the world's most popular fruit by three days
- Forget likes, Facebook will soon let you respond with EMOJI: 'Reactions' feature includes sadness, anger, surprise and love
- Is YOUR mobile sluggish? Searches for 'slow iPhone' peak after launch of the 6s - but the lag just might be all in your head
- The AI uprising has begun: ConceptNet system has the same IQ as a 4-year-old and scientists warn it is getting smarter
- The secret to remembering things? Read them ALOUD: People who talk to themselves have better memories than those who work in silence
- Cyber criminal hijacked computer webcams to spy on people have sex: Pervert spent up to 12 hours a DAY watching strangers in their bedrooms
- US East Coast sky glows red, green, and blue after Nasa launches a sounding rocket to study the ionosphere
- The 'death ray' that can knock out drones from up to a mile away using radio waves
- Is Google rotting your BRAIN? A third of adults search for answers without trying to remember and 25% immediately forget what they've found out
- What are these strange lights floating above a Mexican volcano? UFO hunters say they could be aliens monitoring the Earth
- US East Coast sky glows red, green, and blue after Nasa launches a sounding rocket to study the ionosphere
- How YOU can live till you're 150: JANE FRYER meets the eccentric scientist who thinks he's found the secret. Just one problem: you'll have to give up sex!
- Is the world going to end TODAY? Doomsdayers change their predictions... again
- Have scientists found alien life on Pluto? Rumors of an 'amazing' announcement sweep the internet, but Nasa says there's no new Horizons update
- Fossil of unborn 'horse' still INSIDE the womb discovered: 48-million-year-old foal died shortly before giving birth
- The lightsaber for your FACE: Skarp razor blasts bristles with laser light to 'melt' hair
- Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich And Aziz Sancar for research into how DNA repairs itself
- Life inside the Apollo missions: Intimate portraits of astronauts shaving and doing DIY among 10,000 Nasa images uploaded to Flickr
- How the head of the household affects a child's self-esteem: Aggressive and controlling behaviour can leave children with low confidence
- Are YOU more racist than you think? Men named Jamal are seen as being bigger and more violent than those named Connor
- Why 'The Office' humor doesn't work: Bad bosses shouldn’t make jokes as it annoys and offends employees, finds study
- Is SpaceX about to reveal a mission to MARS? Cryptic tweet suggests company is to announce the most 'exciting thing ever'
- Forget smartwatches, £155 Eyecatcher 'Kindle' bracelet shows notifications, tracks your steps and lasts a YEAR on a single charge
- Was the early universe a LIQUID? Atom smasher creates smallest ever droplets... and gives clues about the primordial soup created by the Big Bang
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What are these strange lights floating above a Mexican volcano? UFO hunters say they could be aliens monitoring the Earth
Volcanoes have been a favourite site for alien hunters over the years. Now a strange series of lights above the Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico have got conspiracy theorists excited once again. Unusual circular orbs (inset) and a long cigar-shaped anomaly were spotted on the cameras of Webcams Mexico. The sightings, say UFO hunters, suggest aliens are studying Earth's geothermal activity to understand how it works so that they can trigger eruptions.
The lightsaber for your FACE: Skarp blasts bristles with laser light to 'melt' hair
The Skarp prototype razor (pictured main), built by Californian firm Skarp Technologies, is fitted with an optical fibre that contains a class one laser. This laser (pictured inset) uses a specific wavelength of light that cuts through hair particles known as chromophores. Chromophores are found in the hair molecules and are responsible for giving the hair its colour. A single razor costs $189 (£125) and is available to pre-order from Kickstarter.
Could a smartwatch help astronauts aboard the ISS? Nasa challenges designers to create apps that would improve life for crew members in space
The winning app design (pictured left) was designed by Jocelyn Richard and Ignacio Calvo, based in Montreal Canada and is designed to show important information at a glance. More than 230 designers entered a Nasa-affiliated competition to come up with a design for an app to be worn by astronauts on the ISS (bottom right) that would run on an Android smartwatch. Another entry is shown top right.
How YOU can live till you're 150: JANE FRYER meets the eccentric scientist who thinks he's found the secret. Just one problem: you'll have to give up sex!
Professor Alex Zhavoronkov works tirelessly to extend life expectancy and to evangelise about his discoveries, writes JANE FRYER. He has clean flyaway hair, a brain the size of Jupiter and is a world expert in ageing and biomedical research - an area of study which supports a burgeoning, multi-billion-pound global industry dedicated to longer life and improving the health of the elderly. In his recent book The Ageless Generation, he claims that if we follow his example and 'reset' our longevity expectations, we can all work and live far, far longer.
How many solar panels would it take to power the PLANET? Experts reveal we would need to cover an area the size of Spain to provide the world with enough energy
The calculations were made by Pittsburgh-based Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian from the Land Art Generator Initiative (Logi). They used US Department of Energy data about the world consumption of energy with projected figures up to 2030. From this, they worked out how much energy would be needed per square metre of land across the globe to discover the panels would need to cover 191,817 sq miles (496,805 sq km) of land to power the world with solar energy - the equivalent to covering the whole of Spain with the boards.
Not so Northern Lights: Phenomenon seen in the night skies above Wales and Yorkshire (and if you missed it there will be plenty more chances to see them this month)
The Northern Lights, known as the Aurora Borealis, could be seen across large swathes of the UK last night including in Scotland, Manchester, Leeds and parts of Wales. The phenomenon, which sees the sky illuminate with eerie green light, is usually only spotted from the north of Scotland. The reason the lights were visible elsewhere last night is down to the current stage of the Sun's cycle causing these storms that disturb the Earth's magnetic field.
Amazing video shows babies 'SINGING' in the womb: Foetus can 'hear music as early as 16 weeks - and moves their mouth and tongue in response'
Scientists at the Institut Marques in Barcelona claim to have shown for the first time that unborn babies can hear by the time they reach 16 weeks gestation.It is accepted that an unborn baby's ear is fully developed at week 16 of a pregnancy. But, until now experts did not believe a foetus could hear until week 18, at the earliest but more commonly nearer 26 weeks. Dr Marisa Lopez-Teijon, who led the study, said the findings show a foetus responds to music transmitted intravaginally by moving their mouth and tongue, 'as if they were trying to speak or sing'.
Life inside the Apollo missions: Intimate portraits of astronauts shaving and doing DIY among 10,000 Nasa images uploaded to Flickr
More than 8,400 photographs from Nasa's moon missions have been uploaded to Flickr in high resolution by a team of enthusiasts based in Virginia. They include astronauts doing mundane tasks such as shaving (main picture), eating and collecting moon rocks as well as doing emergency repairs. There are also light moments such as this picture of Gene Cernan and Jack Schmitt (inset) in 1972, which may be a selfie.
Forget smartwatches, £155 Eyecatcher 'Kindle' bracelet shows notifications, tracks your steps and lasts a YEAR on a single charge
The Eyecatcher (pictured main) was designed by Looksee Labs based in Oakland, California. It has a curved, 5-inch display that wraps around the wearer's wrist and this always-on display shows notifications (pictured inset) from a connected phone. Looksee Lab claim the device will last a year on a single charge and prices on the Kickstarter campaign start at $239 (£155).
Devastated by man... reclaimed by nature: Amazing images reveal how the exclusion zone around Fukushima has been abandoned to become an overgrown wilderness
A stunning new photo project offers unprecedented insight into the wild and desolate exclusion zone surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant - where tonnes of contaminated soil lie untouched and overgrown forest is engulfing hundreds of abandoned vehicles and homes. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, health concerns prompted authorities to create a 12.5mile exclusion zone surrounding the power plant and four years later, the scenes are reminiscent of the stark post-apocalyptic landscapes seen in The Walking Dead. Bushes left to grow unimpeded are seen swallowing abandoned cars (pictured left, and top and bottom right), while classrooms and libraries untouched since the earthquake struck gather cobwebs and dust.
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Did Homo naledi walk on two feet AND swing from trees? Mysterious species of man had uniquely adapted hands and feet, analysis reveals
Scientists affiliated with the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa analysed hundreds of hand and foot bones (pictured main) to better undertstand Homo naledi. They say that the mysterious species (facial reconstruction pictured top right) was uniquely adapted to both tree climbing and walking as dominant forms of movement, while also being capable of complex tool use. The bones, revealed for the first time last month, were found in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa's Gauteng province, part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site, in a remote chamber that can only be accessed via several steep climbs and fissures.
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British photographers Fiona Rogers and Anup Shah captured apes in Indonesia and Borneo - and highlighted how human our evolutionary cousins are.