Advancements in digital printing are leading to more sophisticated, flexible electronics capable of changing the way we live and the way we use technology. Reporter Deana Mitchell takes a look at the latest technological innovations at a research center in San Jose, California. …

A just-released report from the World Wildlife Fund details a rapid decline in the world’s biodiversity. In general, the percentage of all kinds of animals in the land, sea and air have declined rapidly since 1970. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports. …

This is part of “Ocean Shock,” a Reuters series exploring climate change’s impact on sea creatures and the people who depend on them. To stand at the edge of an ocean is to face an eternity of waves and water, a shroud covering seven-tenths of the Earth. Hidden below are mountain ranges and canyons that rival anything on land. There you will find the Earth’s largest habitat, home to billions of plants and animals — the vast majority of the living things on the planet. In this little-seen world, swirling super-highway currents move warm water thousands of miles north and south from the tropics to cooler latitudes, while cold water pumps from the poles to warmer climes. It is a system that we take for granted as much as we do the circulation of our own blood. It substantially regulates the Earth’s temperature, and it has been mitigating the recent …

Poking above the bright pink bougainvillea that spills into the street, the lone minaret of the Ta’la Al-Ali mosque towers over the Khalda neighborhood of Amman. Aside from its colorful stain-glassed windows and ornate calligraphy, this mosque stands out for another reason: its roof is covered with shining solar panels that make the building’s carbon emissions close to zero. The structure is part of a wider effort by mosques – and many other buildings in the city – to capitalize on Jordan’s plentiful sunshine and shift towards renewable energy, in a bid to achieve Amman’s goal of becoming a carbon neutral city by 2050. “Almost all the mosques here in Jordan now cover 100 percent of their energy needs” with renewable power, said Yazan Ismail, an energy auditor at ETA-max Energy and Environmental Solutions, a green consultancy in Jordan. Amman is one of more than 70 cities worldwide that are …

NASA’s elite planet-hunting spacecraft has been declared dead, just a few months shy of its 10th anniversary.  Officials announced the Kepler Space Telescope’s demise Tuesday.  Already well past its expected lifetime, the 9½-year-old Kepler had been running low on fuel for months. Its ability to point at distant stars and identify possible alien worlds worsened dramatically at the beginning of October, but flight controllers still managed to retrieve its latest observations. The telescope has now gone silent, its fuel tank empty.  “Kepler opened the gate for mankind’s exploration of the cosmos,” said retired NASA scientist William Borucki, who led the original Kepler science team.  Super Earths found Kepler discovered 2,681 planets outside our solar system and even more potential candidates. It showed us rocky worlds the size of Earth that, like Earth, might harbor life. It also unveiled incredible super Earths: planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune.  NASA astrophysics …

Asia could reap massive benefits in health, environment, agriculture and economic growth if governments implement 25 policies such as banning the burning of household waste and cutting industrial emissions, according to a U.N. report. Air pollution is a health risk for 4 billion people in Asia, killing about 4 million of them annually, and efforts to tackle the problem are already on track to ensure air pollution is no worse in 2030, but huge advances could be made, the report said. The report’s 25 recommendations would cost an estimated $300 billion to $600 billion annually, a big investment but loose change compared with a projected $12 trillion economic growth increase. The publication of the report, “Air Pollution in Asia and the Pacific: Science based solutions,” on Tuesday coincides with the World Health Organization holding its first global air pollution conference in Geneva this week The recommendations also included post-combustion controls …

Wealthy space buffs will have the chance to own three small particles of lunar matter when what Sotheby’s describes as the only known documented “moon rocks” to be legally available for private ownership hit the auction block in November. Sotheby’s said on Tuesday it expects the fragments, retrieved from the moon by a Soviet space mission in 1970, could fetch between $700,000 to $1 million at the Nov. 29 auction in New York. The pieces — a basalt fragment, similar to most of the Earth’s volcanic rock, and bits of surface debris known as regolith — are being sold by an unidentified private American collector who purchased them in 1993. Sotheby’s said in a statement they were first sold in 1993 by Nina Ivanovna Koroleva, the widow of former Soviet space program director Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. The fragments, ranging in size from about .079 inch x .079 inch (2 x …

The Hubble Telescope has given us spectacular pictures from space, from the dramatic image of the Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula, some 6,500 to 7,000 light years from Earth, to a snapshot of nearly 10,000 galaxies, including some that may be among the most distant known, existing when the universe was just 800 million years old. Awe-inspiring though they are, they are not detailed enough to help us in our search for life in the trillions of galaxies across the universe. And physicist Justin Crepp says the prospects for finding life out there are very good. “If tens of a percent of stars have planets that could resemble the earth and potentially have life, then the implications are that there are billions of them just within our Milky Way Galaxy.” Crepp, an associate professor of Physics at the University of Notre Dame, has been hard at work answering …

An Egyptian government program to pay traders to buy rice straw from farmers at the end of harvest has helped to combat one of Cairo’s ugliest features — a huge black cloud that hangs over the capital during the burning season. Cairo is the world’s second most polluted megacity, the World Health Organization says, and the government is pursuing several initiatives to cut back greenhouse gas emissions. One of the biggest contributors to the thick layer of smog has been the annual burning of rice straw by farmers who have no other means to dispose of it. To tackle the problem, the government offered an incentive to traders to buy the straw from farmers amounting to 50 Egyptian pounds ($3) per ton, said Mohamed Salah, head of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA). They can then sell it as animal feed or for other uses. The program appears to be …

From a copy of his PhD thesis to his wheelchair, items belonging to Stephen Hawking are headed for auction, offering fans of the late British physicist famed for his work exploring the origins of the universe a chance to buy some of his possessions. Known for his acclaimed research on black holes, the wheelchair-bound Hawking, who suffered from motor neuron disease and used an electronic voice synthesizer, died in March at the age of 76. “On the Shoulders of Giants,” which also features documents penned by Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, will feature 22 lots from Hawking’s estate, including one of five known copies of his PhD thesis, “Properties of expanding universes”, estimated at 100,000-150,000 pounds ($127,480 – $191,220).   “Stephen Hawking was a huge personality worldwide. He had this amazing ability to connect with people,” Thomas Venning, head of the Books and Manuscripts department at auction house …

Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts to block virtual private networks (VPN), service providers said Tuesday in describing a “cat-and-mouse” game with censors ahead of a major trade expo and internet conference. VPNs allow internet users in China, including foreign companies, to access overseas sites that authorities bar through the so-called Great Firewall, such as Facebook Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google. Since Xi Jinping became president in 2013, authorities have sought to curb VPN use, with providers suffering periodic lags in connectivity because of government blocks. “This time, the Chinese government seemed to have staff on the ground monitoring our response in real time and deploying additional blocks,” said Sunday Yokubaitis, the chief executive of Golden Frog, the maker of the VyprVPN service. Authorities started blocking some of its services on Sunday, he told Reuters, although VyprVPN’s service has since been restored in China. “Our counter measures usually work for …

Apple’s new iPads will resemble its latest iPhones as the company ditches a home button and fingerprint sensor to make room for the screen.   As with the iPhone XR and XS models, the new iPad Pro will use facial-recognition technology to unlock the device and authorize app and Apple Pay purchases.   Apple also unveiled new Mac models at an opera house in New York, where the company emphasized artistic uses for its products such as creating music, video and sketches. New Macs include a MacBook Air laptop with a better screen.   Research firm IDC says tablet sales have been declining overall, though Apple saw a 3 percent increase in iPad sales last year to nearly 44 million, commanding a 27 percent market share.   …

A new report says the world lost a staggering 60 percent of its wildlife populations over a period of four decades. In its 2018 Living Planet Report, the World Wildlife Fund cites deforestation, climate change and a rise in pollution for the decline among 16,700 populations between 1970 and 2014. The report says that half of the world’s shallow-water corals have been wiped out over the last 30 years; ivory poaching has reduced the elephant population in Tanzania by more than 60 percent between 2009 and 2014, and 100,000 orangutans in Borneo died between 1999 and 2015 due to deforestation. The WWF also predicts the number of polar bears will be reduced by 30 percent by 2050 as climate change melts the Arctic ice. “It’s mind-blowing,” says WWF Director-General Marco Lambertini, describing the crisis as “unprecedented in its speed, in its scale, and because it is single-handed.” The group is …

It is the time of the year when Indians hit the roads to distribute gifts and sweets to friends and family, visit colorful “Diwali bazars” and party as they gear up to celebrate the main Hindu festival of Diwali on November 7. But in the Indian capital, there is a party spoiler: a deadly haze of pollution that has prompted calls to minimize exposure to the dirty air and is making some pack up and leave the city during the festival. Grey smog shrouds New Delhi and satellite towns as winter approaches and authorities have advised citizens to avoid strenuous outdoor activity, take only short walks, shut windows, reduce use of private vehicles and wear masks as a precaution. A range of emergency measures has also been announced to reduce air pollution, such as a temporary ban on construction activity and coal and biomass based industries starting Thursday. The measures kick in …