2 January: Scientists have discovered 419 million-year-old DNA intact inside ancient salt deposits.The genetic material, the oldest ever found, belongs to salt-loving bacteria whose ancestors may have been among the first life forms on Earth. A team of researchers led by Dr Jong Soo Park of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, found six segments of identical DNA that have never been seen before by science. Their work appears in the December issue of the journal Geobiology .
3 January: NASA's Kepler space telescope discovered its first five new exoplanets. Named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b, the five planets are quite a bit larger than Earth. Known as "hot Jupiters" because of their high masses and extreme temperatures, the new exoplanets range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter.
4 January: Genetically modified rice cleared for commercial sale could be growing on Chinese farms as early as next year, making China the first country to allow commercial cultivation of GM strains. The field trials required for any new variety are now under way, following official safety clearance November.Two varieties, called Huahui 1 and Bt Shanyou 63, received clearance and should be launched within the next two years. Both contain "Bt" proteins from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium to protect them against the rice stem borer, the most serious rice pest in China.
5 January: The world's smallest transistor, made from only six atoms of carbon suspended between two gold electrodes, has been created by scientists from the US and South Korea. Transistors amplify or switch electric signals and are the fundamental building blocks of modern electronic devices. This molecular model, which appears in the journal Nature, is more of a scientific discovery than a technological breakthrough for now.
6 January: A new species of bird has been spotted in the rainforests of Borneo. Leeds University biologist Richard Webster first glimpsed the bird from a canopy walkway 35m above ground. The spectacled flowerpecker, a small, wren-sized, grey bird, was feeding on some flowering mistletoe in a tree. On one sighting it was heard singing. The bird has white markings around its eyes, belly and breast. It has not yet been given a scientific name because so little is known about it. Dr David Edwards, a tropical ecologist at the University of Leeds, identified the bird as a new species from photographs.
7 January: Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Telescope is fully operational again after engineers brought its damaged instrument back online. The observatory's HiFi spectrometer was turned off just three months into the mission because of an anomaly that was probably triggered by space radiation. The Dutch-led consortium that operates HiFi has now switched the instrument across to its reserve electronics. It says the failure event has been understood and cannot happen again.
8 January: Israeli researchers from Tel Aviv University have cloned the genes involved in producing specific toxic protein compounds, developing ways to produce and manipulate these toxins inside bacteria grown in their lab. These technical developments may eventually help scientists develop new, scorpion-inspired pesticides that would zero in on specific insect pests without harming people, the environment, or other animal bystanders.
9 January : Scientists claim to have the first persuasive evidence that Neanderthals wore "body paint" 50,000 years ago. The team report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that shells containing pigment residues were Neanderthal make-up containers. Scientists unearthed the shells at two archaeological sites in the Murcia province of southern Spain.
10 January : The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, launched the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission – Solar India in New Delhi today. The target of 20,000 MW of solar generating capacity by the end of the 13th Five Year Plan is no doubt an ambitious target. The focal point, for the next three years, will be the NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN), the power-trading arm of government-owned NTPC.
11 January : A promising push toward a novel, biologically-inspired "chemical computer" has begun as part of an international collaboration. The "wet computer" incorporates several recently discovered properties of chemical systems that can be hijacked to engineer computing power. The team's approach mimics some of the actions of neurons in the brain. The 1.8m-euro (£1.6m) project will run for three years, funded by an EU emerging technologies programme.
12 January: The Doomsday Clock - a barometer of nuclear danger for the past 55 years - has been moved one minute further away from the "midnight hour". The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) now stands at six minutes to the hour. The group said it made the decision to move the clock back because of a more "hopeful state of world affairs". The clock was first featured by the magazine in 1947, shortly after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.
13 January: The first direct capture of a spectrum of light from a planet outside the solar system has been obtained, in what is a landmark discovery in the search for extraterrestrial life, say astronomers.The light was snared from a giant planet that orbits a bright young star called HR 8799 about 130 light years from Earth, according to European Southern Observatory .
14 January: Global supply of a key, plant-based, anti-malaria drug is set to be boosted by a genetic study, scientists say. Researchers have mapped the genes of Artemisia annua to allow selection of high-yield varieties.The study, published in the journal Science, aims to make growing the plant more profitable for farmers. "It's a major milestone for the development of this crop," Professor Ian Graham from the University of York in the UK told BBC News.
15 January: The Indian space agency is launching five on rockets Friday to study the effects of the millennium's longest annular solar eclipse in the southern part of the country, an official said."Five rockets are being launched on Friday between 1 and 3 pm to investigate the effects of the solar eclipse in the lower and middle levels of the atmosphere," Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) project director P Ratnakar Rao told IANS from Thiruvananthapuram on Friday.The Rohini (RH) sounding rockets will be launched from the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launch Station (TERLS) at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) of ISRO in the Kerala capital.
16 January: The Ministry of Shipping has nominated the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), the Goa-based constituent laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), to carry out the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for a new alignment of the Sethusamudram Channel between the southern tip of India and the northern tip of Sri Lanka. The Expert Committee — chaired by Dr. R.K. Pachauri — established by the Supreme Court to advise on the alignment recommended NIO for this task.
17 January: The science-fiction blockbuster “Avatar” won best drama at the Golden Globes and picked up the directing honor for James Cameron on Suday, raising the “Titanic” filmmaker’s prospects for another Academy Awards triumph. It was a repeat of Cameron winning Globes 12 years ago, when “Titanic” won best drama and the directing prize on its way to dominating the Oscars. This time, though, instead of being “king of the world”, as Cameron declared at the Oscars, he has become king of an alien landscape, elevating space fantasy to enormous critical acclaim.
18 January : A United Nations body is expected to retract its oft-repeated prediction that most of the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035.Two years ago, the UN’s Nobel prize-winning body — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) headed by R.K. Pachauri — had warned of the melting of glaciers, which would have far-reaching consequences for India. Now, evidence has emerged to suggest that the IPCC may have been mistaken.The IPCC’s claim was based on an article in the New Statesman, London, which relied on an estimate made by India’s leading glaciologist and Padamshree recipient Syed Iqbal Hasnain.
19 January: The European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) wants participation of more Indian experts, including scientists, for conducting various experiments at its recently commissioned Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, Director General Prof Rolf-Dieter Heur said today.A meeting will be held with officials of the Atomic energy Commission and other expert bodies next month to discuss the availability of Indian manpower, he said.
20 January: "Plasma jets" could one day be used to clean out bacteria from tooth cavities, say researchers from Saarland University in Homburg, Germany. Tests reported in the Journal of Medical Microbiology found the plasma destroyed bacteria in infected teeth. They say plasma dentistry may be available within three to five years. Dr Stefan Rupf, who led the study, said the low temperature killed the microbes while preserving the tooth.
21 January: A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record. January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.
22 January: Physicist Andrew Lange, who conducted award-winning research into the remnants of the Big Bang died at age 53.Lange was co-leader of a project that in 1998 used a telescope, carried over Antarctica by a balloon, to study the so-called cosmic microwave background . Project "Boomerang" showed the spatial geometry of the universe is flat and supported theories that it will expand forever and not collapse upon itself.
23 January: In a new research, scientists have found that dolphins might be the second-smartest animals after humans.Lori Marino, a senior lecturer in neuroscience and behavioral biology at Emory University who has performed several MRI scans on dolphin brains, said that at least two other lines of evidence support her claims about dolphin intelligence.First, various features of the dolphin neocortex - the part of the brain involved in higher-order thinking and processing of emotional information - are "particularly expanded" in dolphins.Second, behavioral studies conducted by Marino and other experts demonstrate that dolphins exhibit human-like skills.
24 January: Indian Space Research Organisation successfully conducted the static test of its largest solid booster S200 at Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota today. The successful test of S200 makes it the third largest solid booster in the world, next to the RSRM solid booster of Space Shuttle and P230 solid booster of ARIANE-5. The S200 solid booster will form the strap-on stage for the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV-Mk III) which is currently under advanced stage of development for launching 4 ton class of communication satellites. It is a major milestone in the solid rocket motor programme of ISRO and a vital step in the development of GSLV Mk III.
25 January: For the first time, astronauts on board the International Space Station have personal access to the Internet and World Wide Web when the station is at points in its orbit when it can take advantage of high-speed Ku-band links to ground stations. The new systems enables astronauts to have personal, real-time internet access so long as the Ku-band links are operating. The astronauts will be able to use email and use videoconferencing systems.
26 January: The account of Newton's eureka moment, which led to his famous theory of gravity, forms part of William Stukeley's 1752 biography of the great scientist.Until now it has remained hidden away in the Royal Society's archives - but from Monday anyone with internet access will be able to look at it.The manuscript is one of a number of archive documents being published online by Britain's leading academic institution to mark its 350th anniversary.
27 January: NASA has given up trying to free its Spirit rover, which has been stuck in soft ground on Mars since May last year. NASA says all efforts to free the robot vehicle have failed and it will now live out its days as a static science station. In its six years on the planet, this robotic geologist has taken thousands of images and found evidence in the rocks of a wetter, warmer part in Mars history.
28 January: Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chief K Radhakrishnan on Wednesday said the configuration for the new moon mission 'Chandrayaan-2' is being finalised and added that it would be launched by 2013. Chandrayaan-2, which will be a joint effort between ISRO and Russia, will consist of a lander and a rover for a soft land on moon. The rover will move on the surface of the moon and pick up samples of rocks and soil and conduct a chemical analysis on it.
29 January: The world’s largest marine geoscience project is underway to drill deep beneath the Antarctic to discover clues to climate change.That would involve boring through two km of rock in the sea bed, seven km deep in the ocean.Rob McKay, post-doctoral fellow at Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre says the two-month expedition would help to understand the past climate history of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet is the world’s largest and drilling will helpto document the onset of glaciations in Antarctica and the end of the greenhouse world when there were forests in Antarctica.
30 January: Researchers have transformed ordinary mouse skin cells into neurons, bypassing the need for stem cells or even stemlike cells and greatly speeding up the field of regenerative medicine.The experiment could make it possible to someday take a sample of a patient's skin and turn the cells into a tailor-made transplant to treat brain diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, or heal damaged spinal cords.The study was coducted in Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University in California and the methodology has been patented.
31 January: NASA is embarking a new ambitious mission to unravel the sun's interior mechanisms that may help predict solar storms that cause chaos on Earth.The mission scheduled for February 9 from Space Launch Complex-41, Cape Canaveral AFS, Florida will help understand the causes of extreme solar activities such as sun spots and solar winds and flares.According to NASA, after its launch, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will spend five years in orbit trying to discover how such solar phenomena are created.
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