Thursday, December 31, 2015

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2016


1 January 2016: United Nations has declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses (IYP) to bring attention to this important category of food crops. Pulses, also known as grain legumes, are a group of 12 crops that includes dry beans, dry peas, chickpeas, and lentils. They are high in protein, fiber, and various vitamins, provide amino acids, and are hearty crops. Pulses have often been associated with poverty throughout history. Legumes contain no cholesterol, are composed of lots of complex carbohydrates and little fat. More complex carbohydrates mean less of a drastic spike in blood sugar levels and marks more energy for longer. Pulses are also a source of vitamin B, folic acid, potassium selenium, magnesium and fiber, which aids in maintaining digestive health. India is the largest producer (25% of global production), consumer (27%) and importer (14%) of pulses among the world. Link: http://iyp2016.org

2 January 2016: Popular online streaming service Netflix is likely to launch in India next week during the trade show CES 2016. The website was planning to enter the Asian nations soon with Singapore and Hong Kong. It is believed that the U.S.-based company has partnered with an Indian Telecom company to leverage 4G networks. The internet video traffic was 46 per cent of all consumer internet traffic in 2014, up from 38 per cent in 2013. By 2019, media in video format is expected to grow up to 74 per cent of all internet traffic in India. Netflix is an American on-demand Internet streaming media available to viewers in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and some parts of Europe. As of October 2015, Netflix had over 69 million subscribers worldwide. Netflix carries most of the TV sitcoms, and movies. The online streaming service has contracts with a number of channel companies to stream their content online. Link: https://www.netflix.com
 

3 January 2016: Scientists have developed a new way to test one of the basic principles of Einstein's theory of general relativity using brief blasts of rare radio signals from space. The new method using radio waves, called Fast Radio Bursts, is ten to hundred times better than previous testing methods that used gamma-ray bursts. The method is a tribute to Albert Einstein on the 100th anniversary of his first formulation of the equivalence principle, a key component of the theory of general relativity. Fast Radio Bursts are superbrief blasts of energy, lasting just a few milliseconds. They appear to be caused by events beyond Milky Way. Fast Radio Bursts travel through space as waves of photon particles. If Fast Radio Bursts are proven to originate outside the Milky Way, and if their distances can be measured accurately, they will be a new powerful tool for testing Einstein's equivalence principle. Link: http://science.psu.edu
 

4 January 2016: A team of scientists in Ireland has sequenced the first genomes from ancient Irish humans, which is now being used to answer pivotal questions about the origins of the country's people and their culture. Researchers sequenced the genome of an early farmer woman, who lived near Belfast some 5,200 years ago, and those of three men from a later period, around 4,000 years ago in the Bronze Age. The early farmer has a majority ancestry originating ultimately in the Middle East, where agriculture was invented, while the Bronze Age genomes are different with about a third of their ancestry coming from ancient Pontic steppe. The C282Y mutation is so frequent in people of Irish descent, which is said to be a Celtic disease marking the first identification of an important disease variant in history. The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Link: http://www.pnas.org
 

5 January 2016: The periodic table has been given four new elements, changing one of science's most fundamental pieces of knowledge. Elements 113, 115, 117 and 118 will now be added to the table's seventh row and make it complete, after they were verified by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry on 30 December. All of the four new admissions are man-made. The super-heavy elements have been worked on since at least 2004, when studies began showing the discovery and priority of element 113. The new elements are the first to be added since 2011, when the table got elements 114 and 116. The elements have to be named after a mythological concept, a mineral, a place or country, a property or a scientist. For the moment, the elements are named after their number: element 113 is called Ununtrium (which means 113-ium), and has the symbol Uut. Element 115 is referred to as Ununpentium or Uup; 117 is called Ununseptium or Uus; and 118 is called Ununoctium or Uuo. Link: http://www.iupac.org

6 January 2016: Defying global public opinion, reclusive North Korea has claimed to have detonated its first hydrogen bomb sending political shock waves around the world and even angering its ally China. China joined the US, Russia, the European Union and others in condemning the action as a breach of international law and the UN Security Council tentatively scheduled an emergency meeting later on Wednesday at the behest of the US and Japan. Although North Korea's claims were taken with a pinch of salt, detection devices around the world recorded a 5.1 seismic event on the country's northeast coast. The three previous tests, including the most recent underground explosion in 2013, were of an atomic weapon, not the exponentially more devastating hydrogen variety. The other two tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009. As per news, North Korea could already have atomic weapons which can grow into several weapons per year. Link: http://earthquake.usgs.gov

7 January 2016: A team of scientists from the Centre for Ecological Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) have sequenced the genome of Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus). While over 95 % of the genes were found to be similar to the African elephant, there are 1,500 bases that are unique to the Asian elephant including those responsible for the heightened sense of smell. A captive male elephant in Bandipur National Park was used for sequencing. There are 1,500 bases that are unique to the Asian elephant including those responsible for the heightened sense of smell. Similarly, sequencing the blood cell led to the realization that like the African elephant, the Asian elephant, too, has a particular gene, known to inhibit cancer that has been copied 20 times, rather than a single copy present in most mammals. The paper is published in Journal of Biosciences. Link: http://www.iiserpune.ac.in

8 January 2016: Even as the time nears for Olive Ridley turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) to arrive in large number on the shores of Chennai to lay eggs, environmentalists and volunteers have been busy ridding the coastline of the garbage that got accumulated following the December floods. Student’s Sea Turtle Conservation Network (SSTCN), Chennai Trekking Club and many volunteers were also a part of the clean-up activity. Over the years, however, the number of volunteers, environmentalists, conversationalists and general public who have taken an interest in the protection of the species, which has been classified as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, has risen with a number of public walks and awareness drives. The city in February is also set to host a Ridley Run, a marathon to propagate the importance of protecting the endangered species. Link: http://www.iucnredlist.org
 

9 January 2016: Joey was the last red kangaroo in captivity in India. With her death in October last year at Alipore Zoo in Kolkata, the fifth such death since 2011, the authorities have decided against keeping the pouched mammals in the future. Native to Australia, the red kangaroo is the largest of all marsupials. It was in June 2011 that the Alipore Zoo brought two pairs of red kangaroos from Czech Republic. They were the first to be seen at the zoo where kangaroos had died out in 1976. Of the four new kangaroos, a one-and-a-half year old male died in August 2011, followed by another 2-year-old male in December the same. The two females followed in February 2012 and August 2012. Nine months before its death, one of them had given birth to Joey, which died last October aged four. 'Capture myopathy' is common in kangaroos in captivity, as per veterinary scientists. Link: http://kolkatazoo.in
 

10 January 2016: Calicut University in Malappuram district will host the 28th Kerala Science Congress at the Tenhipalam campus from January 28- 30. The Kerala Science Congress is a three day annual event conducted by the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology & Environment during the last week of January. Talented young researchers will be honoured with the ‘Kerala State Young Scientist Award’ during this event. Best Paper and Poster awards will be awarded to selected papers. The Special theme chosen for the 28th Kerala Science Congress is 'Climate Change and its Impact on Water Resources of Kerala'. The Science Congress will be jointly organised by Centre for Water Resource Development and Management (CWRDM) and University of Calicut in association with Kerala School of Mathematics, Malabar Botanical Garden and Institute for Plant Science, C-STED and Kerala State Centre for Assistive Technology. Link: http://www.ksc.kerala.gov.in 

11 January 2016: Scientists at Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes (CIRB) successfully produced a cloned buffalo offspring ‘Cirb Gaurav’ which was born on December 11. Cirb Gaurav is distinct from the earlier clones produced in India. It was produced from cells of ventral side of tail of superior bull. This part of the body is the least exposed to sunlight and may have less mutation rate, and can be good choice for isolation of donor cells to produce healthy clones. The newborn cloned calf, weighed 40.4 kg at the time of birth through normal delivery, was maintaining good health and showing normal activities. With this achievement, CIRB becomes world’s third and India’s second institute to produce cloned buffalo. National Dairy Research Institute in Karnal was the first to produce a cloned calf in India in February 2009, by name, Samrupa. This achievement has been made under the project: 'Cloning for Conservation and Multiplication of Superior Buffalo Germplasm'. Link: http://www.cirb.res.in

12 January 2016: In an unusual phenomenon, 45 dead, Short-finned Pilot Whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) were washed ashore between Kallamozhi and Manapad in Thoothukudi district today. Of these, 37 were adults and eight were sub-adults. As many as 36 whales, part of the group which survived the beaching, were rescued in a joint operation by several government agencies and pushed back to sea. As per Marine scientists at Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve, the Short-finned Pilot Whales are deep water whales, diving up to 1,000 metres, who form stable matrilineal kinship groups. The Short-finned Pilot Whales could have stranded while in search of food, the favourite being squids. Not much is known about the species. IUCN classifies them as ‘data deficient’. While there were rumours claiming that the beaching could be due to climate change or pollution of the waters, the group most probably followed an isolated whale and must have been stranded. Link: http://www.iucnredlist.org

13 January 2016: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) plans to build its heaviest rocket, which can carry satellites weighing 10 tonnes into space. Currently, the space agency’s geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV MK-2) can carry satellites weighing only two tonnes. The proposed rocket would be powered by a semi-cryogenic engine that runs on kerosene and liquid oxygen, which the space agency is currently developing. The design process for the semi-cryogenic engine has been completed and it is being built by Godrej Aerospace, which also makes the Vikas engines for ISRO’s rockets. The CE20, which the rocket uses, is an indigenously developed cryogenic engine. A full-fledged rocket with a communication satellite will be launched in 2017. ISRO will launch its fifth of the seventh regional navigation satellite, the coming January 20. The satellite will be part of India’s constellation of geo-positioning satellites that would help in disaster management, mapping and navigation. Link: http://www.isro.org

14 January 2016: Described for the first time in Uganda in 1947, Zika is an arbovirus belonging to the same family as dengue and yellow fever. These viral diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes in the Aedes genus, like the yellowfever mosquito (Aedes aegypti) and the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). The first cases were confirmed in Brazil in May 2015, and the country is currently experiencing the largest epidemic ever recorded with 440,000 to 1,300,000 suspected cases reported by the Brazilian health authorities. The Zika virus has spread quickly, affecting 10 countries in the tropical regions of the Americas as well as the Caribbean. Until recently the infection was considered relatively harmless, but in Brazil and other countries, they have noticed an increase in the number of microcephaly cases in fetuses whose mothers were infected during pregnancy. The sequencing done by Institut Pasteur is published in the journal The Lancet. Link: http://www.thelancet.com

15 January 2016: Scientists have for the first time successfully raised laboratory-bred colonies of a critically endangered Caribbean coral species to their reproductive age, a step towards sustainable restoration of degraded reefs. The Elkhorn coral was one of the species whose decline was so severe that it was one of the first coral species to be listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species act in 2006, and as critically endangered under The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened species in 2008. Due to its large size and branching shape, elkhorn corals created vast forests in shallow reef waters that protect shores and provide a critical habitat for a myriad of other reef organisms, including ecologically and economically important fish species. Elkhorn corals reproduce only once or twice a year, generally a few days after the full moon in August. Link: http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov

16 January 2016
: Even as India prepares for a second mission to Mars, a team of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Mars Society Australia and the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, will mount an expedition to Ladakh this August to study the similarities of certain parts of the region’s topography and microbial life to Martian surroundings. India’s second mission to Mars, scheduled to be in 2020, will involve collaboration with France and may include a lander or rover, remote controlled vehicles which can ostensibly better analyse a planet’s surface.  This is the first time that India is part of the Spaceward Bound programme which is a NASA project that educates future space explorers. Before Ladakh, there have been expeditions to the deserts such in Atacama, Chile; Mojave, California; Arkaroola, Australia as well as the Arctic and Antarctica. Link: http://spacewardbound.in
 

17 February 2016: An Indo-French partnership will proceed to space exploration in a bid to probe Mars and Venus, as per the French space agency chief Jean-Yves Le Gall. France and India will put a lander on Mars in a bid to explore the planet. Jean-Yves Le Gall confirmed that France is ready to work with India to plant both flags on Mars as well as on Venus in a joint exploration. The two countries also inked a separate deal on a new thermal imaging satellite, said to be a follow-up of the Paris climate change conference. The venture will help scientists better understand the effects of climate change on vegetation. France will also be putting a payload on India’s OceanSAT satellite. It will be devoted to search and rescue beacons utilizing space. There are already two Indo-French space satellites for climate observations, namely the Megha-Tropiques launched in 2011 and SARAL-ALTIKA launched in 2013. Link: http://theowp.org 

18 January 2016: The first flower has finally bloomed in outer space. Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly has tweeted a photo of the first ever flower grown in space today.The flower was grown as part of an experiment astronauts are conducting on how plants grow in microgravity. Besides the flower, the team also grew lettuce in space, after a failed first attempt. The flowers were grown inside the Veggie lab aboard International Space Station (ISS) which was installed in early May 2014. With the success of this experiment, Zinnia has become the first flowering plant grown outside Earth's atmosphere. The flowers appear similar to those grown on Earth, except for the curled edges of the petals, which could be due to the zero-gravity conditions. The system, according to scientists, uses red, blue, and green LED lights to simulate sunlight, making the successful growth of the flower you see above possible. Link: https://twitter.com

19 January 2016: Navigation Satellite System 'IRNSS-1E', was launched on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C31 from the spaceport of Sriharikota today. IRNSS-1E was launched from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, as per ISRO. IRNSS-1E carries two types of payloads - navigation and ranging payload, Isro said navigation payload will transmit navigation service signals to the users, and will be operating in L5-band and S-band. The ranging payload consists of a C-band transponder which facilitates accurate determination of the range of the satellite, it said, adding that IRNSS-1E also carries Corner Cube Retro Reflectors for laser ranging. A highly accurate Rubidium atomic clock is part of the navigation payload of the satellite. IRNSS-1E is the fifth navigation satellite of the seven satellites constituting the IRNSS space segment, and has a lift-off mass of 1425 kg. It’s configuration is similar to that of its predecessors IRNSS-1A, 1B, 1C and 1D. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in

20 January 2016: Researchers, including one of Indian-origin, have identified two large patches of water ice on the surface of comet 67P, perhaps the most studied comet in history. The elusive ice was detected, us ing data collected by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, on the bottom part of the main lobe of the dumbbell-shaped comet, in a region called Imhotep. It appeared as noticeably bright patches in visible light and was located on cliff walls and debris falls. It looked like there was a break age, or something fell down on the surface of the comet, and a large, new inside area that had water ice was exposed. The surface of 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, like most comets, is mainly covered by materials so dark they appear almost black. This is because as comets fly towards the sun, they are exposed to warm temperatures that cause surface ice to sublimate, or transform directly from solid to gas. What remains are materials similar to rocks, sand and ash on Earth. Link: http://blogs.esa.int

21 January 2016: A genetically modified mosquito has helped reduce the proliferation of mosquitoes spreading Zika and other viruses in Brazil, its developers has said. The self-limiting strain of the Aedes aegypti mosquito was developed by Oxitec, the UK subsidiary of US company Intrexon. The male mosquitoes are modified so their offspring will die before reaching adulthood and being able to reproduce. Zika virus, first detected in Africa in the 1940's, was unknown in the Americas until last year when it appeared in northeastern Brazil. It has lead to a surge in the number of babies born with unusually small heads, a damaging neurological condition called microcephaly. According to Oxitec its proprietary OX513A mosquito succeeded in reducing wild larvae of the Aedes mosquito by 82% in a neighborhood of Piracicaba, where 25 million of the transgenic insects were released between April and November. Authorities reported a big drop in dengue cases in the area. Link: https://www.dna.com

22 January 2016: A new genus of tree frogs that was thought to have died out more than a century ago has been rediscovered in India. The Old World tree frog family currently contains over 380 species and includes some frogs with ambiguous classifications based on shared characteristics. Through their analysis, they identified a previously overlooked, yet distinct evolutionary lineage of frogs that the authors recognize as a new genus, Frankixalus. This genus probably remained unnoticed because of its secretive life in high canopy tree holes, says Prof S.D. Biju. Frankixalus differs from other tree frog genera in breeding, egg laying, and development. This includes having gel-encapsulated eggs, breeding in water accumulated in tree holes, egg laying on walls of tree holes, and tadpoles that devour their mother's eggs. The distinctiveness of this evolutionary lineage is also corroborated by the external appearance, skeletal shape and life history features. The study is published in PLOS ONE. Link: http://journals.plos.org

23 January 2016: Archaeologists have begun excavations in what they believe to be the legendary lost city of Ciudad Blanca, or White City, in the Honduran jungle. So far, they have removed dozens of artifacts, including a vessel with vulture-shaped handles, a clay tray with a jaguar's head and a stone-made throne carved with a jaguar possibly the remains of a ceremonial temple. The ruins, which appear to date between 1,000 and 1,500 AD, are distinct from the cultures of the ancient Maya civilization. It is believed the city's name was derived from the white limestone rock in the area and was first mentioned by Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. Thedore Morde suggested in 1940 the city was in fact the White City of the Monkey God. People from local tribes had told him of a monkey worshipping civilization. A monkey kidnapped a local woman, breeding half-human, half-monkey children. Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com

24 January 2016: The Mosquito-borne Zika virus is sweeping through South America and could infect hundreds of thousands of people, governments have warned. The virus can lead to common symptoms like headaches and joint pains. But if it hits pregnant women it can lead to huge problems for their children, leading to birth defects like microcephaly or abnormally small heads. The disease has already infected thousands of people across Colombia and Brazil. No newborns in Colombia are yet reported to have suffered from microcephaly, though of the 13,500 people already infected some 560 are pregnant women. The effects of Zika are usually mild. And only one in five of those people that are infected with it actually experience symptoms. At the moment, the only way to stop the spread of the disease is to clear the stagnant water that mosquitoes breed in, and keeping away from mosquito. Link: http://www.cdc.gov

25 January 2016: A computer has helped scientists find the largest prime number ever with over 22 million digits, breaking the previous record by around 5 million digits. A team at the University of Central Missouri, headed by Curtis Cooper also held the old record. They have broken the record four times. Cooper and his team are part of the The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search collaboration, an effort to find the largest prime number or, more specifically, a particular class of prime numbers that are called Mersenne, where it is one less than a power of two. The prime number, written as 2^74,207,281 - 1, had been found. The find came after a month of number crunching. It was only during a maintenance cycle that the message reporting the prime number found, was sent. The official discovery date is January 7th. The search for bigger prime numbers is conducted using a software called prime95. Link: http://primes.utm.edu

26 January 2016: The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to research published.Computer simulations show that the mystery planet, if it exists, would orbit between about 200 and 1,000 times farther from the sun than earth. So far, the planet has not been observed directly. Brown and astronomer Konstantin Batygin, also at Caltech, initially were sceptical that such a large planet would have eluded detection. But they modelled the hypothetical planet's gravitational effects on several known bodies in the region and found a near-perfect match. The computer model also predicted the location of other objects beyond Neptune, in a region known as the Kuiper Belt. Brown's earlier research helped to demote Pluto in 2006 as the solar system's ninth planet after other small, icy bodies were found beyond Neptune. The paper detailing the discovery is published in this week's Astronomical Journal. Link: http://iopscience.iop.org

27 January 2016: Tiny fungi from Antarctica have survived hostile conditions similar to those on Mars simulated on the International Space Station (ISS), scientists including one of Indian-origin have found. The results provide new information for the search for life on the red planet. After 18 months on board in conditions similar to those on Mars, more than 60 per cent of the fungal cells remained intact, with stable DNA. Lichens from the Sierra de Gredos (Spain) and the Alps (Austria) were also sent into space for the same experiment. The McMurdo Dry Valleys, located in the Antarctic, are considered to be the most similar earthly equivalent to Mars. Only cryptoendolithic microorganisms, capable of surviving in cracks in rocks, and certain lichens can withstand such harsh climatological conditions. Researchers, collected samples of two species of cryptoendolithic fungi Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

28 January 2016: Black Death, the historical plague pandemic in the mid-fourteenth century , may have been hiding in Europe for more than 400 years.Within only five years it killed 30-50% of the European population, researchers said. Unfortunately it did not stop there. The plague resur ged throughout Europe leading to continued high mortality and social unrest over the next three centuries. With its nearly worldwide distribution today, the once omnipresent threat of plague is all but absent in Western Europe. Scientists led by members of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, have re-constructed pathogen genomes from victims of the genomes from Great Plague of Marseille (1720-1722), which is conventionally assumed to be the last outbreak of medieval plague in Europe. Lead author Kirsten Bos cautioned that the geographical source of the disease cannot be identified yet. Link: http://www.shh.mpg.de

29 January 2016: A new carnivorous dinosaur species unearthed in the Wales, dating back 200 million-years, is possibly the oldest known Jurassic dinosaur from the UK, according to a new study. Researchers analysed the dinosaur skull and bones, discovered in 2014 on a beach near Penarth, Wales, and concluded it is a new species that they have named Dracoraptor hanigani. The dinosaur species was identified by David Martill from the University of Portsmouth, UK, and colleagues from National Museum Wales and the University of Manchester. Dracoraptor means dragon robber and hanigani honours brothers Nick and Rob Hanigan who discovered the remains. The dinosaur was meat-eating, from the theropod group.They also suggested that it may have been a juvenile animal, as most of its bones were not yet fully formed or fused. The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE. Link: http://journals.plos.org

30 January 2016: The mystery behind the extinction of a huge flightless bird called Genyornis that flourished in the grasslands and woodlands of prehistoric Australia may have been solved, with burned eggshells as the clue and people as the culprits.
The burn patterns detected on eggshell fragments indicate that the humans who first arrived in Australia roughly 50,000 years ago gathered and cooked the big bird's eggs, playing havoc with its reproductive success. Genyornis, at almost 7 feet tall and perhaps 225 kg, was much bigger than today's large flightless birds like the ostrich or emu. It possessed powerful legs, small wings, large claws and a big beak for eating fruit, nuts and maybe small prey. It was a member of a family of giant birds called Dromornithids. Genyornis vanished around 47,500 years ago. The finding is published in Nature Communications. Link:
http://science.sciencemag.org

31 February 2016: For the first time India is part of Spaceward Bound programme, which funds expeditions to places with extreme climate conditions. Even as India prepares for a second mission to Mars, a team of scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Mars Society Australia and the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, will mount an expedition to Ladakh this August to study the similarities of certain parts of the region’s topography and microbial life to Martian surroundings. India’s second mission to Mars, scheduled to be in 2020, will involve collaboration with France and may include a lander or rover remote controlled vehicles which can ostensibly better analyse a planet’s surface. Before Ladakh, there have been expeditions to the deserts such in Atacama, Chile; Mojave, California; Arkaroola, Australia as well as the Arctic and Antarctica. Link: http://quest.nasa.gov
 

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2016


Director   : Douglas Mackinnon
Writer      : Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss

Story        : Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Country   : United Kingdom 

Language : English

The door opens and Ricoletti enters.  He walks with the aid of a cane, as a result of his  severe club foot (meaning his foot is turned out and we walks on the inside of his foot).  Someone would have to be blind not to notice his condition.


Ricoletti: Mr. Sherlock Holmes?  I have a heard you have remarkable powers of observation and deduction.  What can you deduce about me?


Holmes: You own a printing press.  You run a successful business, but you are unsatisfied with your workers.


Ricoletti: Very good, Mr. Holmes, but there are two things about me that you did not observe!


Holmes: And what would those be?


Ricoletti: First, I have a club foot. And second, I have an abominable wife! You could kill her.  I would pay you a great deal of money.


Holmes: My dear Mr. Ricoletti.  I am a detective.  I solve crimes.  I don’t commit them.


This conversation is from The Abominable Bride special episode of Sherlock which will air on New Year's Day 2016. The title is based on the quote Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife from The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, which refers to a case mentioned by Sherlock Holmes.It will be shown the same day at 9/8c in the United States on the PBS show Masterpiece. 


It is written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. The special takes place in it's own continuity and is set during the Victorian period like the original stories. This special will also be shown in over 500 theaters in the United States for two nights on January 5th and 6th, 2016. The event, sponsored by Fathom Events, will also include a guided set tour of 221B Baker Street. 

Sherlock, the BBC serial has been sold to over 200 territories. The show received the most wins at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special for Moffat and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for Freeman. It is the three-episode series which is coming to be screened now, as New Year's Day special.

Source: http://www.imdb.com

BOOK OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2016

                                                
Title         : A is For Arsenic:  
                  The Poisons of Agatha Christie
Author     : Kathryn Harkup
Pages       : 288  

Publisher : Bloomsbury  
ISBN       : 10-147291130X

Before Agatha Christie became the world’s most famous mystery writer, she worked in a pharmacy. That experience served her well on the subject of poisons, by the far the most common cause of death in her novels and short stories. Now Kathryn Harkup, a chemist by training, has written an engaging and endlessly fascinating account of the science of these poisons, set against the backdrop of Christie’s substantial oeuvre. 


Each chapter focuses on a particular poison, arranged alphabetically, from arsenic and belladonna to thallium and veronal. We learn about the particular novel or short story in which said poison was used, its history, whether it has an antidote (vital information for anyone hoping to survive such a murder attempt), and we even get a smattering of real-life poisoning cases for good measure. The reader emerges with a deeper appreciation for how well Christie knew her stuff and perhaps just the slightest temptation to drop a bit of arsenic into the elderberry wine should unwanted guests come to call.

Agatha Christie used poison to kill her characters more often than any other crime fiction writer. The poison was a central part of the novel, and her choice of deadly substances was far from random; the chemical and physiological characteristics of each poison provide vital clues to the discovery of the murderer. Christie demonstrated her extensive chemical knowledge (much of it gleaned by working in a pharmacy during both world wars) in many of her novels, but this is rarely appreciated by the reader.

Written by former research chemist Kathryn Harkup, each chapter takes a different novel and investigates the poison used by the murderer. Fact- and fun-packed, A is for Arsenic looks at why certain chemicals kill, how they interact with the body, and the feasibility of obtaining, administering, and detecting these poisons, both when Christie was writing and today.


Chapters:

1. Dame Agatha's Deadly Dispensary 

2. A is for Arsenic-Murder is Easy  
3. B is for Belladonna-The Labours of Hercules 
4. C is for Cyanide-Sparkling Cyanide  
5. D is for Digitalis-Appointment with Death 
6. E is for Eserine-Crooked House 
7. H is for Hemlock-Five Little Pigs 
8. M is for Monkshood-4:50 from Paddington 
9. N is for Nicotine-Three Act Tragedy  
10. O is for Opium-Sad Cypress  
11. P is for Phosphorus-Dumb Witness 
12. R is for Ricin-Partners in Crime 
13. S is for Strychnine-The Mysterious Affair at Styles 
14. T is for Thallium-The Pale Horse  
15. V is for Veranol-Lord Edgware Dies

Review Courtesy: http://gizmodo.com

EVENT OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2016

January 28 is the day NASA remembers and gives thanks for the lives of those who gave all trying to push the boundaries of human achievement. The statements reads: "On this solemn occasion, we pause in our normal routines and remember the STS-107 Columbia crew; the STS-51L Challenger crew; the Apollo 1 crew; Mike Adams, the first in-flight fatality of the space program as he piloted the X-15 No. 3 on a research flight; and those lost in test flights and aeronautics research throughout our history."

The memorial takes place on the 30th anniversary of the Challenger explosion that killed seven crew members when, just 73 seconds after launch, a booster engine failed and caused the shuttle to break apart in midair. A wreath-laying ceremony was planned at Arlington National Cemetery, to be followed by remembrance events at several NASA locations, including the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.


The tributes also honor the three astronauts, including the first American space-walker, Ed White who were killed on Jan. 27, 1967, when a fire broke out in the Apollo 1 capsule during a pre-launch test, and those aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia, which in 2003 broke apart upon reentry from space and streaked across the sky over Texas engulfed in flames. The seven members of the crew were 16 minutes from home.


Source: https://www.nasa.gov

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2016

Phylum : Mollusca
Klase    : Cephalopoda
Orden   : Octopoda
Banay   : Octopodidae
Genus   : Cistopus
Species : Cistopus
platinoidus
 
An octopus swimming in the shallow coastal waters of Kerala may not have much to do with the University of Kerala, forget something to do with the university’s platinum jubilee. But one new species of the eight-legged cephalopod, discovered recently in the State’s coastal waters, has been named Cistopus platinoidus, the latter part of the name coming to commemorate the platinum jubilee of the university, during which the discovery was made.

The newly discovered species was part of a distinctive and poorly resolved genus, the Cistopus (pouched octopus), whose member species are characterised by possession of eight mucous pouches in a ring around the mouth between the arm bases. These pouches were previously been termed as water pouches/water pores, but of late they were reported to produce mucous that may aid in the construction of subsurface burrows in soft sediment substrates.
 

The old women octopus, Cistopus indicus, was mistakenly recognised as the sole species in this genus for a long time and the name was applied to all specimens found in the area of southern China, Taiwan, the Philippines, northern Indonesia, and west of India. Interestingly, their report also points out that the annual landing of octopuses in India was to the tune of about 6,000 tonnes, with nearly 95 per cent of octopus landings being collected by trawlers.

The paper on the Cistopus platinoidus was authored by A. Biju Kumar and V. Sreeja of Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, and noted octopus taxonomist Mark Norman of Museum Victoria, Melbourne. The study is published in the latest issue of the international taxonomy journal Zootaxa, according to an official press release from the Kerala University.


Full Paper Link: http://biotaxa.org

Thursday, December 3, 2015

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2015

1 December, 2015: Chennai witnessed highest rainfall in past one century today since 1901, according to NASA. The American Space Agency released a video saying flood-ravaged Chennai received highest rainfall in past 115 years. The data was obtained from the NASA’s Earth Observatory map using the Integrated Multi-Satellite Retrievals for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission (IMERG). The animated map shows that Chennai received nearly 400 millimetres of rainfall in 48 hours from Dec1- Dec 2. The unprecedented rainfall flooded the city and took 250 lives apart from affecting tens of thousands of people and disrupting lifestyle of entire city. In some areas of southeastern coast, rainfall exceeded the 500 millimetre mark (20 inches). According to meteorologists, such heavy and unseasonal rain in India was due to super-charged northeast monsoon. Link: http://www.ncaor.gov.in

2 December, 2015: The Union Cabinet gave its approval for introduction of a Bill to provide legal status to the Regional Centre for Biotechnology in Faridabad. The objective of the bill is to provide a legal status to the Centre so as to function independently as an autonomous body and also an 'institution of national importance' for education, training and research in the areas of biotechnology. The Centre has already been established by an executive order of the Government of India in November, 2008 after the approval by the Union Cabinet. It is currently operational at the NCR Biotech Science Cluster, Faridabad and the enactment does not involve any financial implications at this stage. It would be a hub of biotechnology expertise in the countries in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) region, and more generally in the Asia region. Link: http://www.rcb.res.in


3 December, 2015: Until recently, diamond was the hardest known naturally occurring material. But a new process applied to carbon has uncovered a substance that a group of scientists say is even harder. Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique for creating a substance they are calling Q-carbon, which represents a third phase, or distinct form, of carbon alongside graphite and diamond. The discovery could have many applications, notably in the fields of medicine and industry .The process of creating Q carbon produces minuscule 'synthetic diamond seeds' which can yield gems. The potential for creating synthetic gemstones pales next to possible applications of Q-carbon which is magnetic, fluorescent and electro-conductive. It can also be used in synthetic body parts and long lasting screens for televisions and cellphones. Link: http://scitation.aip.org


4 December, 2015: The Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) onboard India's first multi-wavelength satellite Astrosat has sent the first light images. UVIT was the last payload to be activated on the Astrosat, which was launched on September 28, 2015. For the first light observations, ISRO said that an open cluster of stars ‘NGC 188’, was chosen based on certain preconceived requirements. UVIT is a collaborative effort of Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and ISRO from the Indian side, and the Canadian Space Agency. Though this source is not a primary standard, it has been studied in details by the past missions so that a good idea of the performance of UVIT can be obtained from these images. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in


5 December 16, 2015:In a major breakthrough, researchers at Columbia Engineering have harnessed the molecular machinery of living systems to power an integrated circuit. They achieved this by integrating a conventional solid-state complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit with an artificial lipid bilayer membrane containing adenosine triphosphate (ATP)-powered ion pumps. In living systems, ATP is used to transport energy from where it is generated to where it is consumed in the cell. The advance has opened the door to creating new artificial systems that contain both biological and solid-state components. While other groups have harvested energy from living systems, Shepard and his team are exploring how to do this at the molecular level, isolating just the desired function and interfacing this with electronics. For this project, the researchers isolated the ATPases because they were the proteins that allowed us to extract energy from ATP. The study was published online in the journal Nature Communications.Link: http://www.nature.com
 

6 December 16, 2015: Japan's space agency’s Akatsuki probe had successfully entered into orbit around Venus after an initial attempt at reaching the second planet from the sun failed five years ago. The success marks the first time a Japanese space probe has entered into the orbit of another planet, according to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Akatsuki, meaning dawn, blasted off in 2010 on a 25.2 billion yen ($205 million at current exchange rates) mission to observe the toxic atmosphere and super-hot volcanic surface of Venus. But the box-shaped probe failed to enter the planet's gravitational pull and shot past it. The successful Venus orbit came a week after another Japanese space probe, ‘Hayabusa- 2’, passed by Earth to harness the gravitational pull to propel it toward a far away asteroid. Hayabusa-2 was launched a year ago on a six-year mission to bring back samples from the asteroid. It is expected to reach Ryugu, named after a mythical castle in a Japanese folk tale, in mid-2018. If all goes well, soil samples will be returned to Earth in late 2020. Link:http://global.jaxa.jp
 

7 December 16, 2015: To understand its evolutionary history of Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), researchers at the Beijing Genomics Institute and the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) sequenced the genome from a male Namibian cheetah named Chewbaaka, and six other wild cheetahs from Tanzania and Namibia. By sequencing the cheetah’s genome, an international team concluded that the first one came 100,000 years ago when first migrated out of North American across the Beringian landbridge to Asia and then eventually south to Africa. This was a time when all the Pleistocene megafauna went extinct, including Sabretooths, Mammoths and the Woolly Rhino. The second bottleneck came around 10,000-12,000 years ago, causing a major reduction in the gene pool that remains today.  A total of 18 cheetah genes showed damaging mutations with one gene in particular, AKAP4. The finding is published in Genome Biology. Link: http://www.genomebiology.com
 

8 December 16, 2015: The world's first dengue vaccine has won regulatory approval in Mexico, raising hopes that it could prevent more than 100 deaths there a year and eventually millions around the world. Globally, dengue affects about 400 million people every year, according to the World Health Organization. The Dengvaxia vaccine is being manufactured by French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. The company has requested regulatory approval in 20 countries across Asia and Latin America, but Mexico was the first to green flag it. While the price tag has yet to be decided, the vaccine is likely to generate more than $1billion a year in revenue for Sanofi, as per the company's vaccines division. Mexico's National Vaccination Council will meet to decide whether Dengvaxia will be among the vaccines the government distributes without cost. Tests, carried out on 40,000 people from 15 countries, have found Dengvaxia can immunize two-thirds of people aged nine years and older. Link: http://www.sanofipasteur.com
 

9 December 16, 2015: Researchers at Smithsonian Institution have identified a new species of whale that they are naming after the mythic beast of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. It has been called Albicetus oxymycterus meaning ‘White whale’. Researchers have identified a new species of whale that they are naming after the mythic beast of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Researchers have corrected a 90-year-old error and created a new branch of the sperm whale family tree for the fossil. She and co-author Nicholas Pyenson, the Smithsonian’s curator of marine mammal fossils, named the genus ‘albicetus’, meaning white whale. The fossil of the 15 million-year-old, newly named whale was pulled from the storage shelves at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History for the first dedicated study since 1925, when a naturalist named Remington Kellogg put the bones with a bunch of extinct walruses. The study is published Plos One. Link: http://journals.plos.org
 

10 December 16, 2015: Lonesome George, the last known Pinta Island tortoise(Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii), died in 2012. But, the iconic Galápagos tortoise whose death marked the end of his species, is in post-mortem luck. A scientific expedition has discovered some of his close blood relations alive and well. With careful breeding, biologists now hope to revive George’s species and reintroduce the tortoises to the island on which they evolved. Originally there were at least eight species of Galápagos tortoise, scientists now believe. One was discovered only this year. At least three species are now extinct, including tortoises on Pinta Island. The last one, George, was discovered wandering alone in 1972 and taken into loving custody. In 2008, scientists tagged and collected blood samples from more than 1,600 tortoises living on the flanks of the volcano. As per Elizabeth Hunter, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia, they have eighty-nine animals with full genetic profile DNA. Link:http://www.nature.com
 

11 December 16, 2015: Mountains of water ice tower thousands of meters over fields of frozen nitrogen and methane. Glaciers and what appear to be two ice volcanoes punch through the terrain. The alien landscapes of Pluto and its moons dazzled scientists this year. More than eight decades after its discovery, Pluto became much more than a nondescript point of light. After traveling for nine and a half years across nearly 5 billion kilometers, roughly the distance to the moon and back 6,700 times, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, just 12,500 kilometers from its surface. New Horizons, meanwhile, is on course for its next stop: 2014 MU69, a 50-kilometer-wide hunk of ice about 1.6 billion kilometers past Pluto. Unlike Pluto, MU69 is probably pristine, an untouched relic from the dawn of the solar system. There, researchers hope to study an example of one of the fundamental building blocks of the planets.Link:http://meetingorganizer.org

12 December 16, 2015: The United Arab Emirates is working to send a probe to orbit Mars. The UAE Space Agency has called its mission ‘Al Amal’. Various events have been organised in Dubai to give residents an insight into future plans for space exploration: workshops and interactive exhibitions that target families and schools. These activities are designed to encourage students to explore and research. The probe is planned to enter Mars’ orbit in 2021, the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence. It will be the first space exploration mission by an Arab state. The teams are working with scientists and academics at the University of Colorado. The idea is for the team to learn from their academic partners and bring the knowledge back to the UAE for the spacecraft assembly. Mars is thought to be a habitable planet because of the presence of water just like on earth, and recent explorations by NASA state that the Red Planet used to have a cool climate.Once the probe is in orbit around Mars it will study the planet’s atmosphere. Link: http://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae
 

13 December 16, 2015: Researchers with the Large Underground Xenon (LUX) are looking for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) which are among the leading candidates for dark matter. A new set of calibration techniques have been employed upon the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector that is hunting for the dark matter. Because WIMPs are thought to interact with other matter only on very rare occasions, they have yet to be detected directly. LUX consists of one-third tonne of liquid xenon surrounded with sensitive light detectors. It is designed to identify the very rare occasions when a dark matter particle collides with a xenon atom inside the detector. So far LUX has not detected a dark matter signal, but its exquisite sensitivity has allowed scientists to all but rule out vast mass ranges where dark matter particles might exist. The findings were published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Link: http://luxdarkmatter.org
 

14 December 16, 2015: India’s second lunar probe Chandrayaan II will land on moon in 2017 and the country’s first solar mission Aditya L1 is likely to be launched in 2019. Chandrayaan II will land on the surface of moon in 2017 and this second lunar mission will help explore the possibilities of signs of extra-terrestrial life. The Aditya L1 mission is aimed at studying the sun from an orbit around the sun-earth lagrangian point (L-1) which is about 1.5 million km from earth. It will carry seven payloads including a coronagraph to observe the outermost layers of the sun, the corona. Aditya L1 will be launched during 2019-20.The approved cost of the solar mission is Rs. 378.53 crore. So far, India has earned $15 million and €80 million by launching satellites of other countries, with $ 5 million and €65 million in the pipeline, while apparently referring to the launches proposed in the future. Rs. 1420 crore has been approved by the government for realisation of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite (IRNSS) programme, including satellites and ground segment. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in

15 December 16, 2015: NASA is now accepting applications for future explorers and the final selection list will be announced in mid-2017. Those chosen may fly on any of four different US spacecraft during their careers, the International Space Station (ISS), two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by the US companies and NASA’s Orion deep-space exploration vehicle to Mars. Today, NASA opened the application process for our next class of astronauts, extraordinary Americans who will take the next giant leap in exploration. This group will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) from Florida’s Space Coast on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and the SpaceX Crew Dragon. Astronauts will lift off again from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the Orion spacecraft, to unprecedented missions in lunar orbit.To help accomplish this work, NASA will select qualified astronaut candidates from a diverse pool of US citizens with a wide variety of backgrounds, including engineers, scientists and physicians. Link: https://www.nasa.gov

16 December, 2015: Scientists have begun a worldwide hunt for for Earth's undiscovered  carbon minerals, known by the name: the Carbon Mineral Challenge. Carbon is one of the most chemically diverse elements, and occurs in compounds with almost every element of the periodic table. Some carbon-containing minerals form ores, which are mined for metals such as iron, nickel, and copper. Carbon-bearing minerals can contain rare Earth elements, critical components of smart phones and tablets. The new carbon-bearing mineral discoveries, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) is challenging both amateur collectors and professional mineralogists around the world to find these rare specimens. Today, mineralogists recognize 406 carbon minerals out of more than 5000 known mineral species on Earth. The Carbon Mineral Challenge will continue until September 2019. DCO will publicly recognize each discovery as it happens and celebrate the final suite of newly discovered carbon minerals at the culmination of its decadal program in late 2019. Link: http://mineralchallenge.net
 

17 December, 2015: Today marks the 112th anniversary of the world's first flight of a aircraft.  On the morning of December 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North California, two amateur mechanical engineer brothers by name Orville and Wilbur Wright, two brothers, successfully flew the first mechanical aircraft. It all started from a cork-made toy helicopter, gifted by their father, had sparked interest in aviation among the Wright Brothers. The brothers started to design an aircraft, which they named as The Flyer. The design for The Flyer was inspired by a German engineer, Otto Lilienthal. The Wright Brothers also sought help from a bicycle machinist Charlie Taylor. Taylor made the four-cylinder aluminum engine in only six weeks. The engine of the Wright Brothers' aeroplane weighed over 400 kilograms with around 12 horsepower.Neil Armstrong had taken a piece of The Flyer to the Moon, to commemorate the invention of aircraft. The US President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared the day as the Wright Brothers Day on September 24, 1959. Link: http://wrightbrothers.info

18 December 2015: Renowned British cosmologist Stephen Hawking launched an award for science communication that will bear his name. The 'Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication' will be awarded to those who help promote science to the public through media such as cinema, music, writing and art. The first medals will be awarded next summer in three different categories: the scientific, artistic and film communities. The winners will be announced at the Starmus Festival, a gathering celebrating art and science in Spain's Canary Islands that will take place from June 27 to July 2 next year. Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and has achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time is a best seller. Link: https://www.hawking.org.uk 

19 December 2015: NASA's Mars Curiosity rover has found high concentrations of silica, a rock-forming chemical commonly seen on Earth as quartz which could help scientists learn more about the ancient wet environment on the red planet. Curiosity found much higher concentrations of silica at some sites it has studied in the past seven months. Silica makes up nine-tenths of the composition of some of the rocks.Water that is acidic would tend to carry other ingredients away and leave silica behind. Alkaline or neutral water could bring in dissolved silica that would be deposited from the solution. The recent findings on Mount Sharp have intriguing threads linked to what an earlier Nasa rover, Spirit, found halfway around Mars. Some silica at one rock Curiosity drilled, called Buckskin, is in a mineral named tridymite, rare on Earth and never seen before on Mars. Link: http://mars.nasa.gov

20 December 2015: China’s Yutu moon rover has discovered a new kind of rock on the lunar surface. The find suggests the moon’s make-up is more diverse than previously thought. China’s Chang’e 3 lander mission touched down on the moon in December 2013 and released the Yutu rover to explore the edge of a nearby crater, which was nicknamed Purple Palace at the time but is now formally known as Zi Wei. The landing site was in the Mare Imbrium, a large area on the moon’s northern hemisphere thought to have been formed around 3 billion years ago when lava flooded a giant crater. The concentrations of minerals including iron oxide, calcium oxide and titanium dioxide differ from those seen in the samples gathered by the Apollo astronauts and the Russian Luna probes in the 1970s. The finding is published in Nature Communications. Link: http://english.cntv.cn

21 December 2015: A new technology for quickly identifying deadly bacterial strains of infectious disease has been developed by researchers at McMaster University in Canada. The technique shows promise for detecting specific strains of bacteria and tracking their specific trail of illness. The test can be done in less than an hour, compared to the current 48 hours, allowing for rapid, more accurate treatment of patients. The research team's first success was the development of a molecular probe that precisely recognizes the strain which caused the 2011 Hamilton-outbreak of Clostridium difficile infection. Instead of having to do several different tests to narrow down to a positive identification of the specific strain, the researchers can now quickly pinpoint this superbug using their new molecular probe. The finding is published in the  journal Angewandte Chemie. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

22 December 2015: Scientists, including those of Indian-origin, have proposed a new 'hydricity' concept for round-the-clock power by not only generating electricity from solar energy but also producing and storing hydrogen from superheated water. Hydrogen can be com bined with carbon from agri cultural biomass to produce fuel, fertiliser and other pro ducts.Hydricity uses solar con centrators to focus sunlight producing high temperatures and superheating water to operate a series of electricitygenerating steam turbines and reactors for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would be stored for use overnight to superheat water and run the steam turbines, or it could be used for other applications, producing zero greenhouse-gas emissions.In superheating, water is heated well beyond its boiling point - in this case from 1,000-1,300 C. Link: http://www.futureentech.com

23 December 2015: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has placed a breed of lion found in India and Africa in the endangered species list in a bid to curb the dramatic decline of their population. It has listed Panthera leo leo located in India and western and central Africa as endangered, and Panthera leo melanochaita, located in eastern and southern Africa, as threatened. Research had concluded that the western and central populations of African lion were more genetically related to the Asiatic lion. These lions are now considered the same subspecies, Panthera leo leo. The rule aligns with U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking. The final 'Lion rule' was be published today and will go into effect 30 days after publication on January 22, 2016. Link: http://www.fws.gov

24 December 2015: For the first time, a Chinese news channel has employed an artificial intelligence robot as a weather reporter on its live breakfast show, raising concerns among the country's journalists as it could threaten their jobs. The robot is called Xiao-Ice. Xiao-Ice is actually a piece of software developed by Microsoft using smart cloud and big data. In the first two days of her work, Xiao-Ice impressed many with her cute voice. According to Microsoft, breakthroughs in text-to-speech artificial intelligence (AI) have helped Xiao-Ice score high points for linguistic naturalness, with hers being closer to the human voice than other speech synthesisers. Through unique emotional technology, she can make comments instantly based on weather data. After her successful debut, people are worried that Xiao-Ice could cause anchors to lose their jobs. Link: http://robots.lessthunk.com

25 December 2015: Environmental contaminants may be partly to blame for the rise in anti biotic-resistant bacteria, a new US study suggests. J Vaun McArthur from the Universi ty of Georgia tested his hypothesis in streams on the US department of energy's Savan nah River Site (SRS). The 802-sqkm site near Ai ken, South Carolina, east o the Savannah River, was closed to the public in the early 1950s to produce materials used in nuclear weapons. This production led to legacy waste, or contamination, in limited areas of the site. This waste impacted some of the streams in the industrial areas. The results showed high levels of antibiotic resistance in eight of the 11 water samples.The highest levels were found at the northern location of Upper Three Runs Creek, where the stream system enters the site, and on two tributaries located in the industrial area, U4 and U8. Link: http://environment-today.org

26 December 2015: A man believed to be the world's most obese passed away in Mexico, barely two months after undergoing a weight-loss surgery. Andres Moreno, 38, died of a heart attack and peritonitis (inflammation of the abdominal lining) in Ciudad Obregon, in Sonora state. Moreno, who at one time tipped the scales at 450 kilos, had bariatric surgery on October 28, in Guadalajara, Jalisco state, in hope of shedding the excess weight and leading a normal life. The surgery involved removing three-fourths of his stomach and reshaping what was left into a tube to prevent him from eating too much. The most obese man in the world' had shed 100 kilos to be able to undergo the surgical procedure in October. Last  November, Moreno had emergency surgery at the local State General Hospital in Obregon, due to severe peritonitis. Link: https://uk.yahoo.com

27 December 2015: A British couple have made history by having puppies cloned from their dead pet, using tissue taken two weeks after it died. Ms Laura Jacques, 29, and Mr Richard Remde, 43, were grief-stricken when their boxer dog, Dylan, died at the age of eight in June, having been diagnosed earlier this year with a brain tumour. Scientists warned them that the technique which costs £67,000 per procedure had never worked on dogs that had been dead for more than five days. But against the odds, it was a success, producing two puppy embryos. The couple enlisted the services of the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation in South Korea, which offers a commercial dog-cloning service. The male puppy has been named Chance, after a character in Disney's Homeward Bound. It was joined by a second cloned puppy to be named Shadow, also a character in the same film. Link: http://en.sooam.com

28 December 2015: It was today, in 1612, Galileo located Neptune, the Icy Planet.Galileo however failed to recognise Neptune as a planet and drew it as a star in one of his paintings. Le Verrier and Adams, on the other hand, theoretically proved the existence of Planet X, situated beyond Uranus. When astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle actually found Neptune in 1846, Le Berrier and Adams took the credit. Neptune is the coldest planet in the Solar System. Neptune has the fastest planetary wind speed in the Solar System. Wind speed on Neptune reaches up to 2,100 kilometre per hour on an average. So far, only one spacecraft has visited Neptune. NASA's Voyager-2 made a flyby near to the North Pol. NASA is planning another space mission 'Argo' to fly past Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. The space probe would be launched in 2019 and is likely to reach Neptune by 2029. Link: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov

29 December 2015: Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) is embarking on a survey, cataloguing archaeological objects discovered from the Periyar river basin to map its rich archaeological record. Aimed at adding a new layer of information on the Iron-Age sites along the riverbanks, KCHR is embarking on an extensive survey, cataloging the archaeological objects discovered from the region. The study, being held in view of the archaeological discoveries reported from some villages here, will be carried out by ensuring local participation. A study of this region is crucial for a broader understanding of the Pattanam urban settlement, as such a system could not have functioned in isolation. The study will also shed more light on the short-distance trade connections of Pattanam and the transformation of these Iron-Age settlements overtime. Link: http://www.keralahistory.ac.in

30 December 2015: Technical snags have forced the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to put off the first test on a scaled-down prototype of India’s futuristic space shuttle. The Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD), under development at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) at Thumba, Thiruvananthapuram, developed a minor leak during a test, forcing the ISRO to postpone the mission. The ambitious RLV-TD, the first small step to building a ‘space shuttle’ which can return to earth after accomplishing space missions, is likely to be delayed up to April 2016. ISRO had originally planned a mid-2015 launch for the RLV-TD. It had later been postponed to January 2016. RLV-TD will be the first of a series of tests planned by ISRO. The utilisation of the reusable launch vehicle will cut the mission costs considerably for ISRO. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in

31 December 2015: Members of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) and the ATLAS detectors working with the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have independently identified signals that could lead to the discovery of a new fundamental particle of nature. Both experiments have observed an excess of pairs of photons which could arise from the decay of heavy particles created during the collision. With the discovery of the Higgs boson, all the particles in the Standard Model of particle physics have been seen. So if a new particle is discovered, it would mean evidence for physics beyond the established mode of thinking about elementary particles from the mid-1970s onwards, namely the Standard Model of particle physics. In 2016, the LHC will continue experiments that probe not only the two-photon decay channel, but also others which will strengthen these searches. Link: http://home.cern