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NASA will not launch an unmanned mission to Mars before 2018, as per an announcement made by the US space agency on Wednesday. The decision has been taken citing a leak in a key component of the agency’s Mars spacecraft.

The Mars InSight mission, also known as Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, may have a launch window in May of 2018, NASA announced. The agency also stated that if everything goes as per plan, the spacecraft will land on the Red Planet in November 2018.

NASA’s InSight Mars mission will be launched with an aim to understand the deep interior of the planet. The space agency believes data collected by the spacecraft may reveal how solar system’s rocky planets, including our earth, have formed.

Harvard University evolutionary anthropologist Daniel Lieberman chewed raw goat meat smacked with a rock for the sake of science as well as to get first-hand experience how our ancestors did so for survival.

Lieberman said the raw meat was a challenge to eat and once put in mouth, there was a need to chew and chew and chew and chew, but still nothing happened.

The anthropologist found that modern humans, unlike wolves and other wild animals who have sharp teeth that are designed for slicing through elastic muscle almost like a pair of scissors, lack the ability to break the chunks of raw meat into pieces that are small enough to swallow.

Scientists have for the first time enabled an amputee to feel the texture through artificial fingertips of his phantom hand. This was made possible by connecting the fingertip surgically to nerves of the upper arm of the amputee.

The amputee was able to make distinction between rough and smooth surfaces 96% of the time. The discovery will help in developing bionic prostheses, enhanced with sensory feedback.

"The stimulation felt almost like what I would feel with my hand. I still feel my missing hand; it is always clenched in a fist. I felt the texture sensations at the tip of the index finger of my phantom hand," said Dennis Aabo Sorensen who received the experimental fingertips.

Many people in the world might be unhappy with their body size and weight. Every time when you stand in front of mirror watching your tiny or larger than normal figure, you must feel a bit annoyed. Some researchers now claim that shorter height in men and higher body mass index (BMI) in females could also lead to low chances of success in life. Their findings were published in the BMJ Wednesday.

The results were collected after analyzing genetic and socio-economic data from more than 120,000 people in Britain, ages 37 to 73. From the data, the researchers concluded that shorter men are less likely to receive opportunities, such as level of education, income and job class.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allowed Amarin Corporation to endorse a drug for off-label use, said the company in a statement on Tuesday. The drug by the New Jersey headquartered drug-maker will be promoted for a use that the federal agency has not allowed yet.

The new deal will resolve a conflict between FDA and the company that last year went to court against the federal agency for its product, Vascepa. Amarin claimed that it has the right to promote a drug that can help many people. In August, a Manhattan judge ordered the FDA not to stop the drug-maker from promoting truthful information on the drug.

Now, the FDA and the biopharmaceutical company have agreed on a deal and eying on the court to approve it.

Scientific tests by environmental organization Greenpeace reveal that residents of areas affected by Chernobyl disaster three decades ago are still consuming radioactive foods. These foods and drinks are with dangerously high radiation levels, as per the group.

Researchers carried out some tests on the behalf of Greenpeace and found that some key isotopes, like strontium-90 and caesium-137, have stopped participating in overall contamination, but they are still there in forests.

Locals are still coming into contact with dangerous radiation that was expelled in 1986 after an explosion at a nuclear plant. A plume of radioactive fallout covered a large portion of Europe with dangerously high levels of radiation immediately after the explosion.