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SAINABA- ENDOSULFAN VICTIM FROM KASARAGOD, KERALA: At the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee in |
November 1: An eight-member Indian team today left from Goa on an expedition to explore climatic changes in the frozen depths of the Antarctic region over the past 1,000 years. The team of Indian scientists is led by Rasik Ravindra, Director of National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa. During their 40-day journey, the scientists will conduct experiments, gather atmospheric data and collect ice cores from the frozen continent in their bid to understand the changes in the environment over past 1,000 years.
November 2: A Japanese man has joined the elite club of humans whose genetic code has been fully sequenced, according to research unveiled today. Six other genomes are reported to have been fully sequenced since 2001.They comprise the genomes of James Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA; Craig Venter, a US biotech tycoon; a male of the Yoruba ethnicity of western Africa; two Korean males; and a male of Han Chinese ethnicity.The study is published online in the specialist journal Nature Genetics.
November 3: Neanderthals may have been underdeveloped mentally compared to modern humans, but in one respect they outperformed us: in the number of sex partners. That's the conclusion of a study published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, which suggests finger length can indicate promiscuity among hominins, as the ancient family of humans is known. Researchers from Liverpool University, looked at fossilised fingers from four hominin specie such as Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus afarensis, Neanderthals and a fossil of an early Homo sapiens.
November 4: A breakthrough in holographic technology has just brought researchers a step closer to creating real-time 3-D images. Nasser Peyghambarian of the University of Arizona, and colleagues, say their new holographic technology can beam a near 360-degree image that updates every two seconds, to another location. Known as Three-Dimensional Telepresence, the technology addresses shortcomings of current holograms, which give the illusion of 3-D but leave out the rear view. The study appears in the journal Nature.
November 5: A virus closely related to polio is causing major outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth disease across the Asia-Pacific region. In Lancet Neurology and Lancet Infectious Diseases this month, researchers from the UK, Asia and Australia warn that in some cases there are severe neurological complications; and there are fears that Australia is unprepared for an outbreak. Enterovirus 71 was first identified in California, US, in the 1960s where it caused small outbreaks of hand, foot and mouth and neurological disease.
November 6: The weather department has warned of the cyclone called Jal that is likely to hit the northern region of Tamil Nadu and southern region of Andhra Pradesh coasts, India by Sunday evening. Cyclone Jal is currently in one of the neighbouring countries of India, Sri Lanka. The department informs that there is a huge possibility of heavy rainfall in the coastal regions of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry (Puducherry) and Andhra Pradesh anytime, within 24 hours. (It later weakened and claimed only 11 lives in different incidents.
November 7: NASA's human spaceflight program might take some giant leaps forward if the agency embraces genetic engineering techniques more fully, according to genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter. Craig Venter who is a pioneer in creating "artificial life" said that human space exploration could benefit from more genetic screening and genetic engineering. Venter was speaking to a group of scientists and engineers who gathered at NASA's Ames Research Center for two different meetings: a synthetic biology workshop, organised by NASA.
November 8: Stem cell researchers have found a way to turn a person's skin into blood, a process that could be used to treat cancer and other ailments. The method uses cells from a patch of a person's skin and transforms it into blood that is a genetic match, without using human embryonic stem cells, said the study in the journal Nature. With the ability to create blood for transfusion from a person's own skin, the advance means someday patients needing blood for surgery could bypass the blood bank and derive the necessary supply from themselves.
November 9: Physicists working on the ALICE experiment in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) have started smashing heavy lead ions together at close to the speed of light - in the process recreating the universe as it was 13.7 billion years ago. The successful collision of lead ions in the accelerator at record energies allows matter to be probed as it would have been in the first moments of the Universe's existence. This comes after seven months of successfully colliding hydrogen proton packets at high energies.
November 10: Scientists in China have bred the country’s first genetically engineered Rhesus monkey, a step that could speed up the development of cures for diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s. Scientists used green fluorescent protein (GFP), a substance originally isolated from a jellyfish and now commonly used as a biotech marker, and implanted transgenic embryos in the uteri of surrogate mother monkeys, said Ji Weizhi, a researcher with the Kunming Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
November 11: A new study has found that has resolved the age-old issue of the origins of the people who introduced farming to Europe some 8000 years ago. A detailed genetic study by an international team of researchers led by ancient DNA experts from the University of Adelaide revealed marked similarities with populations living in the Ancient Near East (modern-day Turkey, Iraq and other countries) rather than those from Europe. The results of the study were published in the journal PLoS Biology.
November 12: According to an initial survey of the Kerala Birds held as part of commemorating the birthday of renowned ornithologist Dr. Salim Ali, the Painted Stork and Glossy Ibis that live in the wetlands of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have been spotted in large numbers in in the major bird habitats in and around central Kerala. As many as 130-odd birders covered an area extending from the kole fields in Thrissur to the birding hotspots in Kottayam and Alappuzha districts.
November 13: The Himachal Pradesh government has taken an initiative to preserve 'Chamurthi', one of four recognised indigenous horse breeds in India. 'Chamurthi', or snow horse, is an endangered species, which has prompted the government to initiate a preservation project. It is one of the most popular breeds of horses in the world. They are very strong, sure-footed, rarely fall sick, and have great endurance. The 'Chamurthi' horse traces its origin to the Tibet region.
November 14: Archaeologists in New Mexico have discovered what they believe is a complete mammoth skeleton. The New Mexico Natural History Museum Foundation will hold a special event at the Western Heritage Museum next week during which Executive Director Calvin Smith will announce the historic find.
So far, amateur archaeologists have unearthed a femur, tibia, fibula and a carpal. Smith has found the remains of five mammoths in Lea County, but this could be the first complete skeleton.
November 15: Today is the Steve Irwin Day. Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast will celebrate the life and legacy of Steve Irwin who died after he was stabbed in the heart by a stingray barb while filming a nature documentary off far north Queensland's coast on September 4, 2006. It was his widow Terri and family decided the year Irwin died to make the anniversary of the 44-year-old's death a private day and established November 15 as Steve Irwin Day for the public. Link: http://www.steveirwinday.org/
November 16: Wayanad Jeerakasala Rice, Wayanad Gandhakasala Rice and Central Travancore Jaggery have been registered with the Geographical Indications (GI) registry at the initiative of the Kerala Agricultural University. Geographical Indications (GIs) identify products, the reputation or other characteristics of which essentially attributable to its geographical origin. The registration is intended to prevent unauthorised use of a registered geographical indication by others and to promote economic prosperity of its producers.
November 17: In a bid to solve Earth's energy woes, scientists are contemplating building the world's first "sustainable fusion" reactor by creating what they claim a miniature star on our planet. Following a series of key experiments over the last few weeks, the 2.2-billion-pound project has inched a little closer to its goal of igniting a fusion reaction by 2012. National Ignition Facility in Livermore, has earlier fired up the LASER-experiment resulting release of energy of a magnitude of 1.3 million mega joules, which was a world record.
November 18: A large new species of deep red, glowing squid has been discovered living near undersea mountains in the southern Indian Ocean. At about 28 inches (70 centimeters) long, the as yet unnamed species is relatively big—though other squid can reach as long as 65 feet (20 meters), some species are barely three quarters of an inch (1.5 centimeters). The new species belongs to Chiroteuthidae, a group of slender squid in which light-producing organs run in the family.
November 19: Physicists have succeeded for the first time in trapping atoms of antihydrogen, a feat that could take researchers one step closer to understanding anti-matter. That, in turn, could reveal all sorts of things about gravity and perhaps shed light on what happened to all the antimatter that theoretically should be, but isn't, present in the universe. two groups have been working on trapping antihydrogen at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
November 20: Around four lakh species of plants and animals in the country are yet to be identified, as many biodiversity-rich areas remain inaccessible, said M Sanjappa, director of Botanical Survey of India. About 33 per cent of the higher plant species are endemic. There are 17, 588 species of Angiosperms,of which 5,725 are endemic. The three megacentres of endemism are Western Ghats, Eastern Himalaya and Western Himalaya. There are 3,000 medicinal species, of which 85 per cent are wild.
November 21: In an attempt to answer astrobiology's fundamental questions about the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe, NASA launched a nanosatellite, known as Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses, or O/OREOS. NASA also launched its Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite, or FASTSAT. It is a unique platform creating opportunities for researchers to conduct low-cost scientific and technology research on an autonomous satellite in space.
November 22: Scientists have discovered the first planet from another galaxy. It has been discovered orbiting a star called HIP 13044, located about 2,000 light year away. The new planet is orbiting a star from what is known as the Helmi stream — a group of stars that originally belonged to another galaxy that was captured by our Milky Way about six to nine billion years ago. The new planet is about 20 percent larger than Jupiter. A telescope in Chile was used to make the discovery, the journal Science report says.
November 23: Researchers in Norway and France have deciphered the genetic blueprints of a tunicate called Oikopleura dioica, a tiny member of one of the most abundant plankton types in the oceans. The animal’s compact genome contains roughly 18,000 genes — nearly as many as the human genome’s 22,000 or so, but with genes in a completely different order and less DNA stuffed in between them, the researchers report in the journal Science.
November 24: Scientists at sites in eastern Utah say they have discovered two new species of dinosaurs related to the plant-eating, beaked iguanodon. Teams led by the Utah Geological Survey discovered the bones in 2004 and took years to extract them. Paleontologist Jim Kirkland says the specimen dubbed “Iguanacolossus” includes most of the backbone, tail, ribs, hip and shoulder..Iguanodons were able to walk on their hind legs.The species were identifiedin online scientific journal PLoS ONE.
November 25: DNA experts are working with sweet giants Mars to create genetically modified chocolate that fights heart disease and diabetes and won't make you fat. The beans contain chemicals called flavonols which lower blood pressure and help keep the heart healthy. And the scientists believe they can change the DNA of the cocoa tree so it produces beans with far higher levels of flavonols.They also hope to produce beans that fight diabetes, as well as making the fat in cocoa much healthier.
November 26: Four clones of Dolly the sheep, the world's first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, are alive and well and living in Nottinghamshire. University of Nottingham researchers created the quads three-and-a-half years ago from the same genetic material used to make Dolly. The sheep are being used carry out further research into cloned animals' longevity and susceptibility to disease. Professor Keith Campbell, leading the research into animal development, was part of the team that created Dolly.
November 27: An advanced communication satellite HYLAS (Highly Adaptable Satellite), built by ISRO on a commercial basis in partnership with EADS-Astrium of Europe, was successfully launched today by the European Ariane-5 V198 launch vehicle from the Guyana Space Centre at Kourou in French Guyana.
HYLAS satellite developed for Avanti Communications, UK consists of ten high power transponders that use eight in Ka and two in Ku band frequencies.
November 28: Saturn's second-largest moon Rhea has a wispy atmosphere with lots of oxygen and carbon dioxide, a new study has found. Oxygen atmospheres are known to exist on other natural satellites in solar system. For example, Europa and Ganymede ,moons of Jupiter,are also rich in oxygen. But the discovery on Rhea suggests that many other large, ice-covered bodies throughout the solar system and beyond may harbor thin shells of oxygen-rich air and, perhaps, complex chemistry, researchers said.
November 29: Representatives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) signatory countries gathered today in Cancun, Mexico for a summit to draw out a plan to curb global warming. At the summit, which will run until December 10, the leaders of the world's twenty major economies will attempt to reach a binding agreement on curbing greenhouse gasses after 2012, when current emission reduction targets laid out in the Kyoto Protocol expire.
November 30: Tripura has huge stock of ‘unexplored’ Anthracite coal, considered as black gold. A team of Geological Survey of India (GSI) has been conducting survey extensively in different villages of Tulashikar block in Khowai subdivision over the past few days. This is for the first time, the GSI has undertaken exploration drive for coal and it got success. If the test gives positive report, the economy of not only Khowai subdivision but also the State will get a massive boost.
November 30:
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