Source: EFE LeoLabs, a U.S. company, inaugurated in Costa Rica a radar capable of detecting space objects as small as a golf ball. It is one of the most advanced of its kind and can provide a series of services, such as safety information for satellites and space flights. "Just nine months after beginning our work in Costa Rica, we are very gratified to announce that the most advanced comme...

Did you know that meteorites are rarer than gold, platinum, diamonds or emeralds? They are worth as much as $1,000 a gram, meaning one weighing one pound could be worth one million dollars. Last year, a meteorite fell to earth in Aguas Zarcas, San Carlos, and this week the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science predicted that same meteorite could hold the secret to how the...

Environmentalist Ulises Corrales Barrantes hiked into the forest on Saturday, June 13th, in search of seeds from a newly discovered tree in Reserva Dendrobates in Penas Blancas de San Ramon. His body was discovered on Tuesday morning by friends who had mounted a search party after he had not returned home. He was found face down in a ravine, his satchel and notebook at his side. The 39-year old...

The Clodomiro Picado Institute of the University of Costa Rica created its first test lot with plasma on patients that have NOT had Covid-19, which helps verify its line of productions to process the plasma of Covid-19 convalescent patients. What this means is that the Institute now is completely prepared to receive the plasma from Covid-19 convalescent patients when the Social Security Service...

The year 2017 saw the second highest global tree cover loss recorded in the history of this planet, according to the World Economic Forum. Researchers at the University of Maryland (USA) found an area of tree loss equal to the size of Bangladesh. That equates to losing 40 soccer fields covered in trees every minute for a year. But guess what, Costa Rica took the fight in the other direction, decla...

University of Costa Rica’s Bernal Rodriguez Herrera, has won the prestigious Aldo Leopold award for his work in the field of conservation of bats and their habitats – the first time a Costa Rican has won this honor in any scientific pursuit. Rodriguez is the Founder and Co-ordinator of the Latin American Bat Conservation Network, and has done much of his vital research at the Biological Reserve Tr...

Four dentistry students of the University of Costa Rica came up with a solution to reduce plastic waste caused by dental saliva ejectors, which are currently discarded after just one use. The students, Nicole Miranda, Maria Francinie Guevara, Yulieth Segura and Catalina Serra created a metallic ejector of surgical level that can be cleaned in the autoclave and used multiple times, eliminating ...

Costa Rica will host the Pan-American Marine Energy Conference (PAMEC-2020), January 26 through January 29, 2020, an event where experts will be able to present and discuss results of the most diverse investigations on energy of waves, swells, currents, thermal gradients and wind. Investigators, researches and businessmen of the sector of non-conventional areas, consultants and other members of...

The next lunar eclipse will be taking place January 20-21 and will be visible from North and South America, Europe and Africa. Costa Rica is no exception and will be witnessing this phenomenon. “Lunar eclipses occur when Earth's shadow blocks the sun's light, which otherwise reflects off the moon”, explains the specialized website Space.com. In other words, the full moon happens to be in the s...

Students of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) created a natural sunblock that protects marine life, contrary to regular or commercial sunblock that cause whitening of the corals which causes their death and the alteration of the marine ecosystem. Five Pharmacy students, Mariana González, Mauricio Villegas, Catalina Ayón, Kimberly Barrantes and Andrés Solano, came up with a sunblock created ...

Image credit: Wikipedi Scientists from the Clodomiro Picado Institute of the University of Costa Rica (ICP-UCR) created an antidote capable of neutralizing the venom of the black mamba snake, (Dendroaspis polylepis), an extremely venomous snake of the family Elapidae, and native to parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The antivenom is currently on its experimental stage, and consists in a “panel of ...

Costa Rican physicist, mechanical engineer and former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang Díaz stated during the I International Hydrogen Forum that took place in Costa Rica this Monday that he wants the country to give hydrogen technologies an opportunity as a tool to transform the transportation sector in one with less contamination. “We don’t want Costa Rica to close the doors to this technology. ...

Five students of the Pharmacy Faculty of the University of Costa Rica (UCR) created an innovative product as part of their class “Innovation Management”; with the use of nanotechnology that allows the manipulation of molecular structures in very small measure, the students created a mouthwash prototype that whitens teeth while at the same time regenerating dental enamel. “Apati-Dent” is the na...

Ad Astra Rocket Company lead by Costa Rican physicist, mechanical-engineer and former NASA astronaut, Franklin Chang, signed an agreement with Aethera Technologies Limited, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to receive additional funding for the development of the VASIMR® engine. The financing of $1.5 million, “Provides a measure of Canada’s long-term vision of the importance of high-power ele...

Through an executive decree, Costa Rica will establish safe routes in waters of the Pacific to increase marine security and prevent collisions between vessels and cetaceans. By creating an “Area-to-be-Avoided” and a traffic separation scheme, the country hopes to protect marine environment, particularly the migratory population of humpback whales and other cetaceans that travel the waters of G...

Get up close to see a heart, lungs, skull and even a brain, at the “Yo Humano: All Bodies”  exhibit at the National Gallery in Costa Rica that will be open through June 17. “With the clear objective of raising awareness among the public on the importance of the care, protection and proper use of the different structures that make up the human body, the exhibit shows how our body is formed biol...

In his last days as President of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solis signed at the beginning of May, an executive decree to declare the Hammerhead Shark Sanctuary of Golfo Dulce, a critical nursery habitat for the Scalloped Hammerhead, a shark that is listed as Endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. “This Shark Sanctuary designation ...

The Center of Investigation for Biotechnology (CIB) of the Costa Rica Technological Institute works in the elaboration of a syrup with the use of a plant that grows in the North Zone of Costa Rica which will help save the life of poisoned dogs. The syrup is intended to provoke the vomit in a poisoned animal and diminish the effects of the toxic substance. At this time the group of investigat...

Costa Rica and Ecuador signed an agreement of cooperation for the conservation of the marine species and birds that will allow the strengthening of the conservation actions, control and protection of the ecosystems in the national parks Coco Island and Galapagos Island respectively. “The agreement Frame of Cooperation between the Direction of the National Park Galapagos in Ecuador and the Natio...

A new tide gauge or mareograph was installed in Isla del Coco, Costa Rica with the purpose of alerting park rangers, researches, volunteers and tourists about changes in sea level and the formation of tsunamis. “If we have information on how big is the tsunami on its arrival to the Island, then we can estimate how big it will be in Central and South America”, explained Silvia Chacon, oceanogr...

Engineering for Kids is a unique educational program in Costa Rica that works with international standards for the teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (S.T.E.M), and this time they have developed a program dedicated to Costa Rican Engineer and Astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, designed to inspire the future aerospace engineers. The classes are targeted to kids 4-6 years old (Juni...

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases entity in charge of creating the Zika vaccine wll be recruiting as of April, 240 Costa Ricans of the metropolitan area and Santa Cruz, Guanacaste that have not been infected by the virus and are willing to try the experimental vaccine in a trial. The Zika virus, transmitted by a mosquito has affected people in over 50 countries, includi...

Costa Rica will launch on April 2 its first satellite to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.A. This initiative known as Irazu Project (Space Technology for the Monitoring of Climate Change), is the result of the work of the Central American Association of Aeronautics and Space )CAAE for its Spanish acronym) and the Costa Rica Technology Institute (ITCR) with the s...

A newly discovered wasp species that so far it has only been found in Costa Rica, has experts around the world shocked because the small insect cuts its host open from the inside. Dendrocerus scutellaris is the scientific name of this sesame seed size wasp that has the characteristic of having saw-like spikes which scientists suspect are used by the wasp to cut open the host and lay their eggs,...

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an entity that belongs to the United Nations and is the world's central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical co-operation in the nuclear field. It works for the safe, secure and peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology, contributing to international peace and security and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Every two ye...

Blue Planet II is a documentary series produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, presented and narrated by David Attenborough which explores de planet’s oceans; the filming of the documentary series was done over the course of four years and involved 125 expeditions across 39 countries, one of these was Costa Rica. Costa Rican photographer Sergio Pucci was the person in charge of filming the wo...

Costa Rica has 5 active volcanoes, 1290 kilometers of coastlines, and 51.000 square kilometers of land, and Costa Rica’s National University, (UNA) in conjunction with the University of Costa Rica (UCR) have developed several observatories to help nationals and tourists safely enjoy the abundance of natural resources available here. In 1984, the UNA created the Volcanological and Seismological ...

The marine research yacht, the Shark Water, will dock in the Pacific port of Puntarenas, Costa Rica at the tourist pier Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 10 a.m., and will be open to the public for viewing. The 40-meter yacht was refitted to facilitate biological research of highly migratory sharks and other marine fauna in the Eastern Pacific, and is owned by the Colorado, United States-based ...

The Bioinformatics Magazine of Oxford University regarded as the most important in the field of bioinformatics published this week details on a tool developed by Costa Rican scientists. The visualization portal for genetic variation (VizGVar) is a tool for interactive visualization of SNPs and somatic mutations in exons, genes and protein domains; in other words, it helps visualize the pattern...

As it had been announced some weeks back the Science Tunnel by German non-profit organization Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, will be in exhibit in Costa Rica, and the dates and venue have now been announced. Children and adults alike can enjoy this fun and educational experience from Thursday, November 2 through Sunday, December 10 at the Villa Olímpica in Desamparados. Th...

Four students from the Costa Rican Technological Institute were selected to participate in the Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative (YLAI) organized by the United States Department of State for creating Atomik Monsters, a digital platform for teaching chemistry. Jean Carlo Gómez, student of industrial design; Kenneth Fernandez and Rodrigo López, from the computer engineering department, and...

Scientists in Tennessee identified something curious in Costa Rica’s crocodiles that has sent them on a global journey to understand the potential role of a synthetic hormone in changing the reptiles’ sex. A recent report in Science Magazine discussed the muddy crocodile sex-tracking forays of Chris Murray, physiological ecologist at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, and his res...

Listeria may not be part of your daily lexicon, but if you've ever been pregnant it probably was once on your radar. The bacteria can be spread by contaminated food, and can cause a rare infection that can be deadly in 20-30 percent of infections. Pregnant women are 10 times more likely than other people to get a Listeria infection, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control. ...

Costa Rica's first attempt at an unmanned space mission is entering its final phase of development of a space satellite, said a report in the digital Costa Rican Spanish-language news site ElMundo.cr. Scientists working on Project Irazú are programming and verifying the satellite's systems, as well as the terrestrial stations that are the final steps to readying the satellite. The satellite wil...

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, a German non-profit organization created a multimedia exhibition that takes visitors on a trip of scientific discoveries through video stations and interactive exhibits. This exhibition has traveled to several countries in Europe and America and it is expected to arrive in Costa Rica between November and December this year, an activity that...

On Monday, August 21, 2017 many will be able to witness a wonderful phenomenon, people in the United States will get to see a Total Eclipse of the Sun, while in Costa Rica it will be seen as a Partial Eclipse. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly between the sun and the Earth and blocks the sun totally or partially; in a total eclipse the sun’s outer atmosphere (the corona) beco...

--Study will evaluate NIH’s experimental DNA vaccine. Vaccinations have begun in a multi-site Phase 2/2b clinical trial testing an experimental DNA vaccine designed to protect against disease caused by Zika infection. The vaccine was developed by U.S. government scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)....

A donation by the United States government of US$1.3 million will turn the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) into an environmental management model, and will allow EARTH University to receive more students from all over the world, said the U.S. Embassy at a ceremony this week. The funds will be used to improve EARTH University's infrastructure and to turn the La Selva Biological Station, a ...

Researchers from Costa Rica's Tropical Agronomic Research and Teaching Center and the non-profit Conservation International published findings on the impact of climate change in Latin America. Climatic Change magazine's special edition in March, Climate Change Impacts on Ecosystems, Agriculture and Smallholder Farmers in Central America, detailed the negative impacts of climate change in Centra...

Researchers at the University of Costa Rica recently observed a neotropical frog that hasn't been observed for at least 30 years and which had therefore been declared extinct by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The rediscovery of the species, Craugastor escoces, or red-bellied frog, occurred in the Juan Castro Blanco National Park,  located in the province of Alaju...