Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
U.S. hypersonic aircraft crashes seconds into military test
flight
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An unmanned experimental aircraft
designed to fly six times the speed of sound broke apart over
the Pacific Ocean seconds into a military test flight due to a
faulty control fin, the U.S. Air Force said on Wednesday. The
problem with the fin on the craft known as the Waverider or
X-51A was identified in a test flight on Tuesday, 16 seconds
after a rocket booster on the remotely monitored craft was
ignited to propel it forward, the Air Force said in a
statement.
Senior Russia space official quits after loss of satellites
MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of a leading Russian
rocket-maker has resigned, the country’s space agency chief
said on Thursday, after two satellites were lost in a botched
launch in the latest failure to dog the once-pioneering space
industry. Vladimir Nesterov, 63, is leaving the Khrunichev
State Research and Production Space Centre, which produces
Russia’s workhorse Proton rockets, after Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev harshly criticised the industry.
Astronomers find record-breaking galaxy cluster
2012-08-16T124400Z_3_BRE87E1BP_RTROPTC_0_US-SPACE-SCIENCE-PHOEN
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Biology gives American psychopaths a legal break
LONDON (Reuters) – Criminal psychopaths in the United
States whose lawyers provide biological evidence for their
brain condition are more likely to be sentenced to shorter jail
terms than those who are simply said to be psychopaths,
according to new research. A study published in the journal
Science found that if judges were told a criminal was a
psychopath, they considered it an aggravating factor. But if
they also heard biological explanations for the disorder, they
gave shorter sentences.
