Pixabay Commons Washington, May 11 (EFE).- U.S. President Barack Obama has no plans to divulge information about the secret military base known as Area 51, where spy aircraft were tested during the Cold War and where some believe confidential information about extraterrestrials is being kept, the White House said. However, Democratic presidential favorite Hillary Clinton has said that, if s...

(YouTube / ODN) Spain’s Minister of Justice, Rafael Catala on Monday proposed leaving some US $4 billion to $17 billion worth of gold and silver on the seafloor off the coast of Colombia in order to avoid conflict over its ownership. The treasure is the cargo of the legendary galleon San Jose, a Spanish ship that was sunk in 1708 near the coast of Cartagena of the Indies, which was discover...

Source: NASA Washington, May 9 (EFE).- The planet Mercury on Monday made its first transit of the Sun in a decade, an unusual event that NASA broadcast live on its Web page. For about 7 1/2 hours, Mercury was visible from Earth as a tiny black disc crossing in front of the fiery Sun, a spectacle recorded for the first time by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a telescope launched in 2010. ...

Fer-de-lance snake, found in the jungles of Costa Rica By Carol Blair Vaughn We should care about the Reptilian Top Ten. Here's why: Scientists from Oxford University (U.K.) and from Tel Aviv University (Israel) have created a top ten list of the world’s most popular reptiles. You call this science? It turns out, that it actually IS science. The research team discovered valuable in...

Source; EFE file photo How do you use the Internet? Do you browse the Web to get a quick answer or to complete a certain task without leaving comments or opinions about your experience? Are you concerned about revealing your identity online? If you answer the questions above in an affirmative manner, you may be a digital visitor. If you, on the other hand, live out your life openly on the I...

Swansea University Swansea University Media Release - Becky Cliffe, a PhD researcher from the College of Science, has spent the past five years researching sloths at the world-famous Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica. During her time there, Becky has compiled data on a number of poorly and orphaned animals suffering from limb deformities and albinism. These are genetic problems she believes are...

Bionovelus SCOTTSDALE, AZ / ACCESSWIRE / May 5, 2016 / BioNovelus, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: ONOV) is pleased to announce the triumph of CR-10, their environmentally friendly fungicide product. Test results in five coffee plantations have proven that biodegradable CR-10 is a coffee rust killer! Coffee rust or "roya" (Hemileia vastatrix) is a devastating fungus that has already cost $2.5B to the coffee...

Zika map. Source: CDC Washington, May 3 (EFE).- The first human trials with a vaccine against the Zika virus will begin this autumn, but it will be two or three years before researchers will know if it is successful against the disease, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said Tuesday. Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke at a press conference at the Washington...

Source: OVSICORI Residents of the Turrialba canton in the province of Cartago woke up this morning to find a white steam column atop the summit of their eponymous volcano. According to an early morning press conference given by the Observatory of Volcanology and Seismology of Costa Rica (Spanish acronym: OVSICORI), seismic activity has been on the rise at the Turrialba Volcano since the early ...

Flickr Commons Sportsbooks in Costa Rica are currently busy handling the NBA playoffs, but these are not the only places where number crunching and statistical probability models are being developed. At the University of California, Merced, students of applied mathematics are working on advanced algorithms and stochastic models to predict outcomes of NBA games. According to a recent article...

Source: York University TORONTO, April 25, 2016 – The Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University opened its new Lillian Meighen Wright Centre and EcoCampus today in southern Costa Rica, offering students hands-on experiential learning from deep within a rainforest. The 400-square-metre Lillian Meighen Wright Centre overlooks the Peñas Blancas River from its prime location on York U...

A hoax, clear evidence of extraterrestrials, or something else? Watch the video above and let us know what you think in the comments! #OFFBEAT NEWS A remarkably clear video purportedly showing an unidentified flying object (UFO) hovering in the sky in Costa Rica began making its rounds on social media over the weekend. The video was uploaded to YouTube by at least two different users ov...

Wikimedia Commons NORTHWOOD, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NAMSA, the world’s leading medical research organization, is pleased to announce the addition of Microbiological Compliance Laboratories (MCL) as NAMSA’s local agent in Costa Rica. MCL is a microbiology and sterility assurance lab supporting US and European medical device and pharmaceutical manufacturers in the region. MCL provides local m...

Wikimedia Commons By Steve Carr — University of New Mexico Throughout the centuries, volcanic eruptions have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives due in part to the lack of accurate signs indicating imminent eruptions. One type of a volcanic eruption, a phreatic eruption, which involves external water, is particularly energetic causing a disproportionate number of fatalities. Phreatic eru...

Source: BellComm Madrid, Apr 22 (EFE). Spanish aerospace company BellComm is globally marketing its C-44 Medevac autogyro, a safe, practical and effective flying machine that can be adapted to multiple civilian or military uses, including the emergency airlifting of victims of highway accidents or the evacuation of wounded soldiers from combat zones. Its operating cost per flight hour of ar...

Wikimedia Commons Forensic investigators from the medical examiner's office in Costa Rica are trying to determine the ophidian species that killed a 46-year old woman in a remote area of Los Chiles canton, province of Alajuela. According to a news report filed by Alexander Mendez of daily tabloid Diario Extra, the woman was a student at the Unified Center of Adult Education (Spanish acronym...

Miss Costa Rica 2015 Brenda Castro smiles as she arrives at a charitable event. Facebook By Manuel Fuentes. Antofagasta, Chile, Apr 11 (EFE).- Looking at a beautiful picture or listening to pleasant music trigger the human brain, which also intensifies its activity in the presence of "moral beauty," British neurobiologist Semir Zeki said. "Which neuronal systems get activated when we con...

Popocateptl in 2004. Wikimedia Commons Puebla, Mexico, Apr 18 (EFE).- Several eruptions of the Popocatepetl volcano left the city of Puebla covered with a white cloud at sunrise Monday, which led authorities to decree a yellow alert, which obliges residents to take preventive measures to protect food and drinking water. According to a report by the Cenapred disaster management agency, start...

Los Angeles, Apr 18 (EFE; additional context by The Costa Rica Star).- J.A. Bayona, director of films like "The Impossible," has been picked to direct the sequel of the dinosaur saga "Jurassic World," the movie's producers announced Monday on Twitter. "Thrilled to announce JA Bayona is on board to direct JW2. Welcome to the team," producer Frank Marshall tweeted Monday. "Proud to collaborate...

Source: ACAE The first space program for satellite development in Central America is being developed in Costa Rica with the help of small, private donations. According to a news report published in March by international news agency EFE, the Central American Aeronautics and Space Association, or ACAE, has kicked off a Kickstarter campaign to collect the $75,000 needed to launch the first sa...

Source: NOAA PTWC The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PWTC) of the United States National Weather Service has lifted an alert that extended from Ecuador to the Pacific coastlines of Colombia, Panama, and Costa Rica following a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake that destroyed buildings in Guayaquil and claimed more than 230 casualties. The Observatory of Seismology and Volcanology of Costa Ri...

Wikimedia Commons London, Apr 12 (EFE).- Observations from NASA's Kepler Space Telescope have revealed the existence outside the solar system of planets whose atmosphere has been completely stripped off by radiation from the star they orbit, an article in the journal Nature Communications said. Scientists from Britain's University of Birmingham used a technique known as asteroseismology to ...

Wikimedia Commons Cap-Net UNDP News Release - The Central American Network of Engineering Institutions (REDICA), along with the University of Costa Rica (UCR), the Euro-American Consortium and the British Embassy in Costa Rica, have been interested in the development of applied research on gasification from biomass waste from the cultivation of pineapple in Costa Rica.   The project...

Waco Mammoth Museum - Photo By Larry D. Moore, CC BY-SA 3.0 Washington, Mar 29 (EFE).- Archaeologists have found a mammoth skull and two tusk fragments in a sand pit in northeastern Oklahoma, media reports said. The Oklahoma Archeological Survey, or OAS, identified the animal as a Columbian mammoth, one of the last species of that giant mammal to inhabit both North America and Central Ameri...

Source: Ad Astra Rocket Co. – Ad Astra Rocket Company, Costa Rica's most renowned aerospace firm, is currently generating 100% of its operating power requirement with renewable solar energy. The milestone was achieved in mid-March as the company’s new 76.86 kW solar array was formally connected to the facility and certified by representatives from Costa Rica’s electric power utility (ICE)....

Wikimedia Commons Aparecida, Brazil, Mar 28 (EFE).- Brazilian researchers have improved the delivery of a medication to fight Alzheimer's by using a nanofiber to regulate the compound's release, allowing long-term action in the fight against the disease. The project is being led by doctoral student Geisa Salles and professor Anderson Lobo, coordinator of Vale do Paraiba University's Researc...

Bionovelus The Hemileia vastatrix fungus, “roya” or “coffee rust,” can be devastating when conditions are especially favorable for rapid growth. The coffee rust has increased in 2015 mainly due to climate change. The economic impact is over $2.5 billion per year, along with over 500,000 jobs lost in Costa Rica and across Central America, and an increase of illegal immigration to the USA. Co...

Source: Starbucks At the Starbucks 2016 Annual Meeting of Shareholders this week, president and chief operating officer Kevin Johnson played a video of the company's agricultural research center in Costa Rica to highlight the company’s emphasis on creating a sustainable supply of coffee for future generations. Johnson announced that Starbucks in on track to donate 20 million rust-resistant ...

A tourist captured images of a supposed UFO while visiting Costa Rica’s Irazu Volcano National Park in Cartago last month. The tourist reported the sighting and sent images to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), an organization that maintains a database of UFO sightings around the world. According to the witness, he and his girlfriend were taking pictures of the volcano and the landscape sho...

Source: US CBP US CBP PRESS RELEASE - PHILADELPHIA — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed today that a long horned beetle that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agriculture specialists intercepted in a shipment of Costa Rican pineapples is the first recorded find of this species in the United States. CBP discovered the beetle January 29 in a container of 1,575 cases of...

Wikimedia Commons The current drought conditions experienced in various regions of Costa Rica may extend well into May and early June; however, substantial rainfall may cause floods and landslides once the green season takes hold. According to a recent press conference conducted by the National Meteorology Institute of Costa Rica (Spanish initials: IMN), the 2016 green season will feature h...

Stem cells. Wikimedia Commons (PRWEB) MARCH 18, 2016 - Bioscience Americas, LLC (http://www.bioscienceamericas.com), a leading international developer of autologous stem cell therapy centers for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, is pleased to announce that its lead scientific researcher, Dr. Anand Srivastava, has been invited to speak at the Fifth Annual European Biosimilar Conference to be ...

Radiocarbon dating of items at an archaeological site discovered by workers at Costa Rica’s Reventazón Hydroelectric Project has revealed the 66 human settlements at the site to be 12,200 years old, which would represent the oldest find of its type in Central America to date, the Costa Rican Electricity Institute announced in a press statement on Wednesday. Exploration of the site, which covers...

Jurassic footprints. Source: Wikimedia Commons Bogota, Mar 15 (EFE).- A team of scientists headed by geologist Herman Bermudez working on the Colombian island of Gorgonilla, in the Pacific, has found fragments of the meteorite that 66 million years ago caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, sources close to the investigation said Tuesday. "(We have) evidence of the impact of the meteorite,...

Source: The World Bank Over the next three years, the World Bank is proposing the establishment of a $65 million Catastrophe Deferred Draw Down Option (CAT DDO) for Costa Rica. This CAT DDO is part of the World Bank's Disaster Risk Management scope. According to the World Bank, the overall development objective of the CAT DDO funding is to enhance the capacity of the government of Costa Rica to...

Wikimedia Commons British Embassy Costa Rica News Release - On Wednesday 2 March, the Deputy Head of Mission of the British Embassy, Melanie Smart, attended a workshop organised by the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) at its headquarters in Turrialba, which was also attended by more than 90 Costa Rican livestock producers. The workshop was organised as part...

Leo and Zana Finkenbinder. Source: Olivet Nazarene University Olivet Nazarene University Press Release - An innovative educational and research facility in a Costa Rica cloud forest has been named for Dr. Leo Finkenbinder, zoology professor at Olivet Nazarene University, and his wife, Zana. The couple has worked for more than three decades in that region to advance scientific knowledge and eco...

Mexico City, Mar 9 (EFE).- Mexican authorities say they have located a container of industrial radioactive material that was stolen in late February. The vehicle used to transport the container of Iridium-192 - stolen on Feb. 27 in San Juan del Rio, a city in Queretaro state - was found in the neighboring state of Mexico, Luis Felipe Puente, who heads up the Government Secretariat's national em...

New York (March 3, 2016)—With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have embarked on an ambitious plane-based survey to gauge the influence of humans and their livestock on the largest remaining forests in Central America. Dubbed the “Central American Megaflyover,” the project is gathering detailed images of the largest five rem...

By Petter Lindgren - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia Commons Alarmed tourists evacuated the beach at Playa Herradura this weekend after a shark suddenly broke through the surf and landed right on the waterline at high tide.   According to a news report published by online news daily CRHoy.com on Sunday, the shark was identified as a thresher shark, a member of the pelagic Alopiidae...