Robot dogs, x-ray vision and other science stories of the week

Welcome to your weekly science update – a curated list of this week’s most interesting stories in science.

GoreSat takes flight. The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) – the satellite dreamt up by Al Gore in 1998 – is finally on its way to a point 1.6 million kilometers from Earth, toward the sun where the gravitational pull of each sphere is equally balanced by the other. The satellite will provide livestream images of the Earth and help us monitor climate change.

The DSCOVR satellite launched Wednesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 reusable rocket which, according to a tweet from CEO Elon Musk, made a successful soft landing in the ocean – a major improvement over the last attempt.

Rocket soft landed in the ocean within 10m of target & nicely vertical! High probability of good droneship landing in non-stormy weather.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 11, 2015

Soon doctors will have Superman’s x-ray vision. Using techniques adapted from astronomy, physicists are finding ways to see through opaque materials such as living tissue.

Wearable health devices work fine, but are no better at tracking physical activity than your smartphone apps.

Uncanny robot dogs. Robotics developer Boston Dynamics, which was acquired by Google in 2013, has unveiled a new breed of robo-hound named “Spot”.

Researchers look to the microbes that live in our gut, hoping to better understand the causes, and cures, of diabetes.

Do mental disorders have more in common than previously thought? Neuroscientists at Stanford have discovered common brain abnormalities in patients with psychiatric conditions as diverse as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – throwing into question how mental illness is traditionally diagnosed and treated.

Have we lost touch with what really drives innovation? Big, meaningful scientific breakthroughs take time without guarantee of success. Who will fund tomorrow’s innovation?

How Big Data is turning medical practice into medical science, and opening up many questions about our data driven future.

And just in case you didn’t realize smoking is bad, it just got worse. 

Author: David Gleicher is Senior Programme Manager, Science and Technology, at the World Economic Forum.

Image: The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket launched by SpaceX carrying NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory Satellite sits on launch pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida February 11, 2015. REUTERS/Scott Audette