Korea lags far behind other economies such as the U.S., Russia and Japan in space technology investment.The country is also behind China and India, which have made significant investments in the development of their lunar probe programs.The country hopes to conduct its first successful space rocket launch this week after two failed attempts in August 2009 and June 2010. The Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1, also known as Naro-1, is the country’s first locally assembled space rocket.Its first-stage t

It could be the muffled sound of singing in the shower or that sing-songy indecipherable voice from the Muppets' Swedish Chef.Surprisingly, scientists said the audio they captured was a whale imitating people. In fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human that divers initially thought it was a human voice.Handlers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation in San Diego heard mumbling in 1984 coming from a tank containing whales and dolphins that sounded like two people chatting far away.In a mor

New derivatives could be boost to local electronics industryKorean scientists have developed new organic materials that may help the electronics industry produce next-generation displays and maintain its global competitiveness.A team of scientists led by professor Choi Dong-hoon of Korea University said it has discovered extended conjugated molecules through compounds of porphyrin.The porphyrin derivatives may be used to boost the efficiency of semiconducting devices such as organic field-effect

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has swallowed its first solid sample into an analytical instrument inside the rolling laboratory, mission scientists said.The rover's Chemistry and Mineralogy instrument, or CheMin, is analyzing the sample to determine what minerals it contains, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., reported Thursday."We are crossing a significant threshold for this mission by using CheMin on its first sample," Curiosity's project scientist John Grotzinger said. "This

(ESO-UPI)European astronomers say they've discovered a planet about the mass of the Earth orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system, the nearest star system to Earth.Alpha Centauri, only 4.3 light-years away, is actually a triple star -- a system consisting of two stars similar to the Sun orbiting close to each other, designated Alpha Centauri A and B, and a more distant and faint red component

(UPI)Female Komodo dragons live just half as long as males on average and it's all down to physically demanding "housework," Australian researchers say.Females tied to tasks of building huge nests and guarding eggs for up to six months live for around 32 years, as compared to 60 years as an average lifespan for a male dragon, they said.A research team that included scientists from the University o

(NASA-UPI)A chemical quirk found in lunar soil backs a 37-year-old theory that the Moon was born from an apocalyptic collision between Earth and a huge space rock, scientists said on Wednesday.Way back in 1975, astronomers proposed at a conference that billions of years ago, our satellite was created through a smashup between the infant Earth and a Mars-sized body they named Theia, in Greek mythol

(NASA)U.S. scientists say they have uncovered new clues in the ongoing mystery of the Jovian Trojans -- asteroids that orbit the sun on the same path as Jupiter.The asteroids are unusual in that they travel in packs, with one group leading the way along the orbit in front of the gas giant planet, with a second group trailing behind.Data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has revealed

A monstrous prehistoric marine reptile that had been hailed as one of the biggest and most fearsome creatures ever is smaller than expected, Norwegian scientists said.Paleontologists Espen Knutsen, Patrick Druckenmiller and Jørn Hurum from the University of Olso discovered the remains of two big pliosaurs -- marine reptiles from the Jurassic and Cretaceous period with short-necks and large jaws -- between 2004 and 2012 on the Arctic island of Svalbard.The specimen, dubbed “Predator X” and “The M

 Some 41,000 years ago a complete reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field occurred and compass needles would have pointed south not north, German scientists say.Researchers at the Helmholtz Center Potsdam -- GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences report the most remarkable feature of the phenomenon was the speed of the reversal.“The field geometry of reversed polarity, with field lines pointing into the opposite direction when compared to today‘s configuration, lasted for only about 440 years