NASA is getting plenty of advice — and sympathy — as it assesses whether its Kepler planet-hunting telescope can be revived after the failure of its reaction-control system. The reactions from scientists and engineers range from repair tips to an Audenesque elegy. Here's a sampling:How to fix KeplerThe reason why the $600 million Kepler spacecraft can no longer search for planetary transits is tha...

Sat, 18 May 2013 19:05:13 GMT

Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges qu...

Sat, 18 May 2013 18:04:34 GMT

Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday.Area hospitals saw seventy people after the rush-hour collision. Two remained in critical condition on Saturday.“The damage is absolutely staggering,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Saturday after a tour of the scene. “Ribbons on the ...

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:26:18 GMT

Imagine having a drink with dinner at a restaurant only to be pulled over on the way home and slapped with a DUI. That could happen under a proposed plan to toughen the drunk driving laws across the country, and it has restaurateurs alarmed.The National Transportation Safety Board wants states to make it illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol content level above 0.05. Currently all U.S. states set ...

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:26:17 GMT

Are gadgets making us dumber? Two new studies suggest they might be. One found that people who are interrupted by technology score 20 percent lower on a standard cognition test. A second demonstrated that some students, even when on their best behavior, can't concentrate on homework for more than two minutes without distracting themselves by using social media or writing an email.Interruptions are...

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:26:16 GMT