SCIENCE OF APRIL 2010

(Photo from Frontline, April 23, 2010)

1 April: One the most agile dinosaurs so far discovered has been unearthed in China.The tiny dinosaur, dubbed a "roadrunner" by the scientists who found it, is also one of the smallest dinosaurs known. Measuring just half a metre long, the fleet-footed theropod named Xixianykus zhangi was likely to have used a huge claw to dig for termites and ants. It then used its speed to efficiently move between ant mounds and avoid the attentions of larger predators. Details of the discovery are published in the journal Zootaxa.

2 April: Biologists at Freie Universität Berlin together with bioinformaticians and genome experts at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics teamed up as the only German team with another 20 international research groups to decode the first genome of a songbird, the Australian zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata).

This fascinating parallel was discovered in the lab of Prof Constance Scharff at Freie Universität Berlin, who is also a senior author on the genome study appearing on April 1st in Nature.


3 April: ISRO is preparing to launch a geosynchronous satellite launch vehicle (GSLV-D3), powered for the first time by a home-made cryogenic engine, from Sriharikota spaceport this month, its chief K Radhakrishnan said today. GSLV-D3 would carry on board GSAT-4 experimental satellite in which ISRO is also testing some new things. It is also trying electric propulsion system for the first time. ISRO conducted previous GSLV flights with the help of readymade cryogenic engines procured from Russia earlier.

4 April: A species of early human has been discovered in a South African cave. Scientists say the two million-year-old fossilised skeleton is from a previously unknown type of hominid, the evolutionary branch of primates that led to humans. The new species could be an intermediate stage between ape-like hominids and the first species of advanced humans, Homo habilis. The child’s skeleton and bones belonging to several adults were found by experts from the University of the Witwatersrand.

5 April: Scientists have discovered the first amber fossils from the African continent. The fossil resin was found in Ethiopia and is about 95 million years old. The resin was deposited in the Cretaceous period at a time when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Matthias Svojtka and Norbert Vávra from the University of Vienna contributed to the study of the unique amber. The results of this project are now published in the journal PNAS.

6 April: Japanese researchers said Saturday they have developed a humanoid robot that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's facial expressions.The robot, Geminoid TMF, can move its rubber facial skin to imitate a smile, a laugh showing teeth, and a grim look with furrowed brows, by receiving electric signals from the person it is modelled on.Copies of the robot are expected to be sold for about 10 million yen (110,000 dollars).

7 April: Scientists have developed the fastest-ever integrated circuit to transmit data in the demanding environment of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) or the Big Bang machine, the world’s largest physics experiment.The new “link-on-chip” - or LOC serialiser circuit - was designed by physicists at Southern Methodist University (SMU), Dallas, as a component for use in a key experiment of the LHC particle accelerator in Europe.

8 April: A team of Russian and American scientists has discovered a new element that has long stood as a missing link among the heaviest bits of atomic matter ever produced. According to a paper to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the superheavy element 117, which is made of atoms containing 117 protons, is roughly 40% heavier than lead. For the moment, the discovery will be known as Ununseptium, a very unwhimsical Latinate placeholder that refers to the element’s atomic number, 117.

9 April: Europe's Cryosat-2 spacecraft has launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a mission to map the Earth's ice cover. Cryosat's data should help scientists understand better how melting polar ice could affect ocean circulation patterns, sea level and global climate. Cryosat-2 is part of Esa's Earth Explorer programme - seven spacecraft that will do innovative science obtaining data on issues of pressing environmental concern.It expects to launch more than 20 EO missions in the coming decade.

10 April: In what could be a significant step forward for discovering new drug candidates for serious, but neglected diseases, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will on Monday unveil the most detailed genome map of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative organism for Tuberculosis. CSIR’s Open Source DrugDiscovery (OSDD), first reported on 7 December, aims to find new drug candidates by first collating all known information on thedifferent genes that make up the bacterium on single web portal.

11 April: Scientists from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, rushed to the capital to probe the incident in which a radioactive substance caused burn-like injuries to four people in west Delhi, police said. The substance was isolated and the area cordoned off. The prime minister and home ministry have been informed, they added. Four people suffered burn-like injuries after coming in contact on Thursday with the radioactive material in a scrap market in Mayapuri area.

12 April: Academics will explore the representation of vampires in literature and other media when they gather at the UK’s first vampire conference at the University of Hertfordshire on 16 April. The event: Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture, which will take place at the University’s de Havilland campus, is the brain child of Dr Sam George, a lecturer in English Literature at the University and organiser of the conference. Dr George says that vampires have enacted a host of anxieties and desires, shifting shape as the culture they are brought to life in itself changes form.

13 April: The National Science and Engineering Research Board, a new science funding agency that policymakers hope will liberate Indian science funding from bureaucracy, will finally start functioning this month, nearly two years after it was first approved by Parliament. The new Board is modeled on the US-based National Science Foundation. By creating the Board as a statutory authority that is separate from Department of Science and Technology, policymakers are hoping the Board will be similarly independent.

14 April: What are believed to be the world's deepest undersea volcanic vents have been discovered in the Caribbean.The vents, known as black smokers, were located 5,000m (3.1 miles) down in the Cayman Trough. The volcanic chimneys, which spew out water hot enough to melt lead, were caught on film by a British team led by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton. The team is sailing across the Caribbean and the Southern Ocean on the scientific research vessel the James Cook.

15 April: Gyanvani, the first educational FM channel in Kerala, which will be airing programmes on different courses, became operational from today. Programmes on post graduate diploma in audio programme production, post graduate diploma in Radio Prasaran and certificate course in Community Radio would also be offered.Other programmes in the pipleine include Post graduate diploma in Plantation management and Post graduate Diploma in Teaching and Research in Management.

16 April: India's ambitious quest to achieve total independence in cryogenic technology  suffered a setback with the indigenous cryogenic engine in a Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D3) failing to ignite and the vehicle tumbling into the sea.The mission to put communication satellite GSAT-4 in orbit thus ended in failure. The vehicle, however, was not destroyed in mid-flight as its trajectory was in a safe corridor over the Bay of Bengal.

17 April: An Icelandic volcano that is spewing ash into the air and wreaking havoc on flights across Europe appeared to be easing up but could continue to erupt for days or even months to come. Iceland's Meteorological Office said the cloud of ash above the volcano had shrunk to a height of 5 to 8 kilometres (3.125 to 5 miles) from 6 to 11 km (3.75 to 6.875 miles) when it started erupting earlier this week.

18 April: US researchers have found a gene mutation that causes a progressive type of hair loss known as hereditary hypotrichosis simplex and say their discovery is likely to affect research and improve treatments for different types of hair loss, including male pattern baldness.In this study, the researchers found that the gene APCDD1 causes hereditary hypotrichosis simplex and thus gives some insights into hair follicle miniaturization. The study  was published online issue of Nature.

19 April: In a major achievement, the department of Information Technology, Chandigarh Administration and National Informatics Centre, UT have been awarded three national-level Web-Ratna awards for the year 2009, at New Delhi.The Press Information Bureau (PIB) has bagged the first “Platinum Icon” for “Outstanding Web Content” for its user friendly and interactive website.The Web Ratna Awards have been instituted this year under the ambit of the National Portal of India (http://www.india.gov.in/).

20 April: UNESCO has appointed a US materials scientist to the post of assistant director-general of its Natural Sciences Sector alongside the Education Sector. The appointment of Gretchen Kalonji, from the Office of the President at the University of California, has been  controversial because of her engineering background, when UNESCO's science division focuses on hydrology, geology, oceanography, biodiversity, and more recently climate. The UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova announced her new eight-person assistant team this week.

21 April: In a multidisciplinary approach, Professor Yves Barral, from the Biology Department at ETH Zurich and the computer scientists Dr. Gina Cannarozzi and Professor Gaston Gonnet, from the Computer Science Department of ETH Zurich and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, joined forces to chase possible sub-codes in genomic information. The study, which is published in the April 16 issue of the journal Cell, led to the identification of novel sequence biases and their role in the control of genomic expression.

22 April: The Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international research program aimed at assessing the diversity of ocean life, has released its first data on tiny sea creatures.One of the field projects within the Marine Life Census, the Census of Marine Zooplankton, has sampled the ocean’s zooplankton more extensively and systematically than any previous survey. Like other projects within the Marine Life Census, it uses DNA barcoding techniques to identify species with certainty.

23 April: Research projects on at least 36 genetically modified crops including rice, okra, brinjal, potato, groundnut and tomato are under process, the Indian government told the Lok Sabha. Sugarcane, cabbage, papaya, apple, pea, black gram, chili, cowpea, watermelon, corn and pomegranate are the other GM food crops that are in the research pipeline. As of date, Bt cotton was the only GM crop in commercial cultivation. The Government has recently imposed a moratorium on commercial cultivation of Bt brinjal.

24 April: The 13th lion census, or the “lion population estimation” as preferred by the Forest Department, will be held at the only abode of the Asiatic lions — the Gir forests in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat from Saturday.It will be the first time enumerators would make full use of the latest technological innovations such as the Geographical Information System and the Global Positioning System.  The “preliminary census” would be carried out on April 24 and 25 and the final for 24 hours from 2 p.m. on April 26.

25 April: The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) celebrated its 20th anniversary yesterday and on the occasion NASA has also released a new photograph from the orbiting observatory. The HST was not the first telescope to roam in space, but certainly, it was one of the largest and most popular telescopes ever. .
However, the Hubble Space Telescope is to be phased out in 2014. The telescope was launched on April 24, 1990. It can be seen by naked eye as a star-like object moving from West to East due to its large size.

26 April: Australian oceanographer Dr Steve Rintoul, of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research in Hobart, and colleagues have measured the most powerful current that helps drive the circulation of the Southern Ocean, paving the way for more accurate climate models. The current carries about 8 million cubic metres per second of water to the north and that's about the equivalent 40 times the flow of the world's largest river. The study is reported in Nature Geoscience.


27 April: The 'first light' data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is providing extreme close-ups of the Sun's surface, including never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Scientists with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre say SDO will change their understanding of the Sun and its processes, having an impact similar to what the Hubble Space Telescope did for modern astrophysics.Launched back on 11 February, SDO is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun.

28 April: Japan is to launch a 'space yacht' propelled by solar particles that bounce off its kite-shaped sails.
A rocket carrying the Ikaros - an acronym for Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun - will blast off from the Tanegashima space centre in southern Japan on 18 May. The same rocket will also launch Japan's first satellite bound for Venus, called the Akatsuki, or PLANET-C, which will work closely with Venus Express, a satellite sent earlier by the European Space Agency.

29 April: Chile has won the right to host a telescope dubbed 'the world's biggest eye on the sky' by the European astronomical consortium behind the project.Known as the European Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), it is expected to begin operations in 2018.The European Southern Observatory (ESO), the intergovernmental astronomical research agency which already has three star-gazing facilities in Chile's northern Atacama desert, announced the choice of site as a key milestone.

30 April: Experts from Nasa put forward the claim that after analysing the results of the recent Opportunity and Spirit probes, they have gathered evidence of sulphates on Mars, a strong indication there is water on the planet and, therefore, life. Previous missions to Mars have concluded there is probably water on the planet. They are particularly excited about the discovery of a sulphate called gypsum which is found in large quantities among fossils in the Mediterranean, on Earth.