By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Public backlash against deadly overseas drone strikes may undermine promising uses of such technology for anything from disaster response to mail delivery, a top U.S. industry group said as it launched a lobbying effort to "demystify" unmanned planes. The Aerospace Industries Association wants to prevent misperceptions and regulatory roadblocks from cutting into a market it says could be worth $89 billion over the next decade, according to a report the trade group will release on Thursday. ...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - In a scene right out of Star Trek, a Texas company is developing a 3-D food printer for astronauts to create custom meals on the fly. With support from NASA, the firm, Systems and Materials Research Corp of Austin, intends to design, build and test a food printer that can work in space. "This project is to demonstrate we can create and change the nutrition of the food and be able to print it in a low-gravity environment," the company's research director and lead chemist, David Irvin, told Reuters. ...

By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - An automated telescope monitoring the moon has captured images of an 88-pound (40 kg) rock slamming into the lunar surface, creating a bright flash of light, NASA scientists said on Friday. The explosion on March 17 was the biggest seen since NASA began watching the moon for meteoroid impacts about eight years ago. So far, more than 300 strikes have been recorded. ...

By Tom Brown MIAMI (Reuters) - The U.S. National Weather Service is getting a quantum jump in computing power that will significantly improve its forecasting and storm tracking abilities to better protect the country from severe weather. "This is a game changer," Louis Uccellini, who took over as director of the National Weather Service in February, told Reuters in an interview, calling it "the biggest increase in operational capacity that we've ever had. ...

Your loyal pooch may be bringing a whole world of bacteria into your home — but don't panic. Research suggests that exposure to a wide variety of microbes may be good for us.

When April and Bryan Gionfriddo brought home their newborn son, Kaiba, in October 2011, he seemed like a healthy baby. But one night, when the family was out to dinner, Kaiba stopped being able to breathe and turned blue. Bryan laid Kaiba, just 6 weeks old, on the restaurant table and performed chest compressions on him before he was rushed to the hospital.

Two new species of short-tailed whip scorpions have been found living deep inside the cool, humid caves of northeastern Brazil, a study reports.

Take a look at the western sky just after sunset this week, and you’ll see an amazing sight: three bright planets in close formation.

The lunar crash site from an meteorite strike on the moon is taking center stage in cosmic crime scene investigation and you can see the space rock impact zone online in a free webcast tonight (May 22).

A deadly tornado hit suburban Oklahoma City on Monday. A quick look at some basic facts:

Everyone makes mistakes — even Einstein. The truth is, many of the world's greatest scientists made significant blunders along the path toward genius, which should be comforting news for the rest of us.

Sharing Science Research in the Age of Social Media

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Ninety-seven percent of scientists say global warming is mainly man-made but a wide public belief that experts are divided is making it harder to gain support for policies to curb climate change, an international study showed on Thursday. The report found an overwhelming view among scientists that human activity, led by the use of fossil fuels, was the main cause of rising temperatures in recent decades. ...

By Sharon Begley NEW YORK (Reuters) - After more than 15 years of failures by scientists around the world and one outright fraud, biologists have finally created human stem cells by the same technique that produced Dolly the cloned sheep in 1996: They transplanted genetic material from an adult cell into an egg whose own DNA had been removed. The result is a harvest of human embryonic stem cells, the seemingly magic cells capable of morphing into any of the 200-plus kinds that make up a person. ...

Do nuclear power plants need a redesign? Critics of nuclear energy seem to think so, and so does nuclear energy advocate, Taylor Wilson. A physics wunderkind, Wilson became the youngest person to ever create fusion at age 14. And since graduating from high school last year, he's devoted himself to finding innovative solutions to the world's biggest problems.

What If There Is No Happy Ending? Science Communication as a Path to Change

It's hard to convict someone of murder if their victim's body is never found. And it's hard to find a body once it's underground.

Quick updates: Science Studio, travel and quotes.

Move Over, Space Shuttle: There's a New Science Giant Cruising the U.S. This Summer

Science Advisor Gives Hopeful Progress Report on Obama s Achievements

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor PARIS (Reuters) - France's Muslim leaders have agreed to end almost 1,400 years of Islamic tradition and use modern astronomy to determine the start of the holy month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays. The French Muslim Council (CFCM) voted on Thursday to start using astronomical calculations to set the date rather than relying on the naked eye to sight the new crescent moon. Ramadan traditionally begins the morning after the sighting, which has in the past been delayed by a day or even two by weather. ...

Anyone who has lathered up soap or seen frothy suds form on top of freshly poured soda has witnessed the delicate science of bubbles in action. But while bubbles and foamy materials are common in everyday life, scientists have struggled to model suds’ complicated behavior — the way clusters of bubbles grow, change shape and ultimately pop.

Update: See the first photos of the solar eclipse here. An initial video of the 'ring of fire' eclipse is here.

Astronomers are calling for volunteers to help them search for "space warps," rare and distant galaxies that bend light around them like enormous lenses.

MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — A New York community group that raised $1.3 million in a six-week online fundraising effort has purchased a laboratory once used by visionary scientist Nikola Tesla.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The increasing demand for flying experiments in space was clearly in evidence over the weekend as a standing room only crowd of 100 people packed into a room here at the Hacker Dojo to hear about a new era of citizen science.

What will it take to get humans to Mars? That's the question on tap for hundreds of scientists, entrepreneurs, astronauts and government officials descending on Washington, D.C. this week for a summit on manned travel to the Red Planet.

NEW YORK — Being a scientist is a noble profession, but it has its darker side. From fierce competition to plagiarism to outright scientific fraud, scientists are far from immune to the sordid.