Science

LONDON (Reuters) - Malaria kills more than 1.2 million people worldwide a year, nearly twice as many as previously thought, according to new research published on Friday that questions years of assumptions about the mosquito-borne disease.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Despite a spate of Russian space accidents last year, NASA remains confident in its partner's ability to fly crew and cargo to the International Space Station, the program manager said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings share certain features in the brain, suggesting a susceptibility to addiction is inherited but is also a flaw that can be overcome, scientists said on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia blamed radiation on Tuesday for a computer glitch that doomed its Mars moon mission, but space industry experts cast doubt on the findings of an investigation into the crash of what was to be Moscow's first deep space mission in two decades.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Germany's OHB AG confirmed it won a 250 million euro ($330 million) contract to build eight satellites for the European Union's Galileo navigation system.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The health impact of last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan appears relatively small thanks partly to prompt evacuations, the chairman of a U.N. scientific body investigating the effects of radiation said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia blamed radiation on Tuesday for a computer glitch that doomed its Mars moon mission, but space industry experts cast doubt on the findings of an investigation into the crash of what was to be Moscow's first deep space mission in two decades.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A potentially deadlier form of the bird flu virus poses one of the gravest known threats to humans and justifies an unprecedented call to censor the research that produced it, a top U.S. biosecurity official said on Tuesday.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Bird enthusiasts are reporting rising numbers of snowy owls from the Arctic winging into the lower 48 states this winter in a mass southern migration that a leading owl researcher called "unbelievable."

SEVERODVINSK, Russia (Reuters) - When severe snowstorms prevented life-sustaining fuel supplies from reaching the frozen Alaskan town of Nome, U.S. officials turned to a Russian company for help.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to delay the next mission carrying U.S. and Russian astronauts to the International Space Station by several weeks due to problems with the spaceship's descent vehicle, Interfax news agency quoted an industry source as saying Friday.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found 11 new planetary systems, including one with five planets all orbiting closer to their parent star than Mercury circles the Sun, scientists said on Thursday.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Roche Holding AG's rivals Sanofi SA and Novartis AG see no need to match the Swiss drug maker in buying a gene-decoding business like Illumina Inc and reckon they can do partnerships instead.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found 11 new planetary systems, including one with five planets all orbiting closer to their parent star than Mercury circles the Sun, scientists said on Thursday.

COCOA, Florida (Reuters) - Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich called on Wednesday for a base on the moon and an expanded federal purse for prize money to stimulate private-sector space projects.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Studying the potential health hazards of nanotechnology will require an additional $24 million a year to close the knowledge gap about the tiny particles used in a fast-growing array of consumer products, the National Research Council said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Studying the potential health hazards of nanotechnology will require an additional $24 million a year to close the knowledge gap about the tiny particles used in a fast-growing array of consumer products, the National Research Council (NRC) said on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The brains of people tripping on magic mushrooms have given the best picture yet of how psychedelic drugs work and British scientists say the findings suggest such drugs could be used to treat depression.

(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines was diverting some flights on polar routes between Detroit and Asia to avoid disruptions to aircraft communications by a strong solar radiation storm, the airline said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Before treatment, the 51-year-old graphic artist was legally blind, unable to read a single letter on a standard eye chart. She has suffered from Stargardt's disease, the most common form of macular degeneration in young patients, since she was a teenager, and it was getting progressively worse.