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| Hand-coloured copperplate engravings from Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede's Hortus Malabaricus published from Amsterdam: 1678-1693 Source: http://www.aradersf.com/indianbotanicalselection.htm |
2 February 2011: World Wetlands Day is going to be celebrated today with the theme ‘Wetlands and Forests’ and with a slogan ‘Forests for Water and Wetlands’ especially chosen because 2011 is the UN International Year of Forests. It marks the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971, in the Iranian city of Ramsar. The day is aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.Link: http://www.ramsar.org/
3 February 2011: A newly discovered species of dinosaur appears to be related to the horned dinosaur species. The new species, called Titanoceratops weighed nearly 15,000 pounds and a massive eight-foot-long skull. It lived in the American southwest around 74 million years ago and is the earliest known Triceratopsin. The study appears in an upcoming issue of the journal Cretaceous Research. Link: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/622812/description
4 February 2011: Astronomers have spotted a new solar system with small planets packed in close orbit to their sun. The solar system discovery, published in the journal Nature, is mystifying astronomers for the time being and illustrates how much variety is possible in the universe.The team at NASA and a range of universities has named the system Kepler-11,after the Kepler space telescope that spotted it. Link: http://kepler.nasa.gov/
5 February 2011: The genome of the water flea Daphnia pulex has been sequenced for the first time. It has the largest number of genes ever recorded for a multicellular animal. Daphnia is the first crustacean to have its genome sequenced. The findings was by the Daphnia Genomics Consortium led by the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics at Indiana University Bloomington and the U.S. Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute. Link: https://daphnia.cgb.indiana.edu/Home
6 February 2011: The Indian Space Research Organisation is getting ready to launch Resourcesat 2, a remote sensing earth observation satellite, by February 20. Resourcesat-2 will replace Resourcesat-1 launched in 2003.With the tenth one to join, India has the largest number of Remote Sensing Satellites in the world. The remote sensing satellites currently operational are: Resourcesat-1, Cartosat-2B, Oceansat-2, RISAT-2, Cartosat-2A, IMS-1, Cartosat-2, Resourcesat-1 and TES. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in/
7 February 2011: An international symposium on Opium Poppy (Papaver somniferum) began at Central Institute of Medicinal & Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow. On this occasion a Morphine rich variety of Opium Poppy named CIMAP-Ajay was also released which contains about double the amount of Morphine as compared to other existing variety. The meeting is also hosted by the International Society for Horticulture Science (ISHS). Link: http://www.cimap.res.in/cimapdev/index.php
8 February 2011: The Centre is giving final touches to Green India Mission (GIM), a project to improve both the quantity and quality of the country’s forest cover. The objective of the mission is two-fold: to improve the quality of five million hectares of forest land and to convert five million hectares of non-forest land to forest in ten years. The GIM, conceived as part of National Action Plan on Climate Change, would be implemented through grama sabhas. Link: http://pmindia.nic.in/climate_change.htm
9 February 2011: An asteroid about the size of a car will pass close by Earth today, the second space rock in five days to fly near, but pose no threat of hitting, our planet. The asteroid is called 2011 CA7 and will fly within 103,480 kilometers of Earth, according to an alert from NASA's Asteroid Watch program. It is about 3 meters and was discovered by astronomers earlier this month. On Feb. 4, the asteroid 2011 CQ 1 sailed within 5471 km of Earth during its brief encounter. Link: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch/
10 February 2011: Iran produced two cloned calves through freezing embryo in laboratory. The calves Abgoun and Abgineh were born in Biotechnology Research Center of Royan Institute. The Middle East's first and the world's fifth cloned goat, Hanna was successfully born at Royan institute in Isfahan, Iran in April 2009. Iran's first cloned lamb, Royana, was born on Sept. 30, 2006 in Royan institute and was able to survive the post-natal complications common in cloned animals. Link: http://www.royaninstitute.org
11 February 2011: India’s first International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadam in Kochi, designed to handle the largest container ships, will be opened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today. Lal Bahadur Shastri, a container ship owned by Shipping Corporation of India will dock at ICTT today to load containers.DP World owned by the Dubai government, won the 30-year contract to build and operate the ICTT in a public auction in 2004. Link: http://www.vallarpadam.com/ a
12 February 2011: This year has brought the 20th anniversary of the start of the Human Genome Project and the 10th anniversary of having in hand a draft sequence of the human genome. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 and a working draft of the genome was announced in 2000. A parallel project was conducted by the Celera Corporation. Although the working draft was announced in June 2000, it was not until February 2001 that scientists published details of their drafts. Link: http://www.ornl.gov/sci/
13 February 2011: India will start a Siberian Crane Breeding Program in the country to increase the number of birds in the wild. Cranes raised in captivity are given flight training to team up with those born in the wild. A microlite aircraft will be used to guides them on their migratory route till they get accustomed. The number of Siberian cranes at Bharatpur have dropped drastically from more than 120 pairs eight years ago to a handful which arrives from Siberia. Link: http://www.bharatpursanctury.com/
14 February 2011: India's first cricket mentoring web portal, 'CricketMentor.tv' was launched here today with a promise of providing an online platform for interaction between players, coaches and others associated with the sporting community. The site offers e-learning capabilities to players and coaches also A unique feature of the site lies in the fact that the players will be provided a channel through which they can share their cricketing videos with their friends. Link: http://www.cricketmentor.tv/
15 February 2011: Some 210 million miles away, a comet-hunting Stardust-NExT spacecraft is ready to get up close and personal with its cosmic match on Valentine's Day. Speeding at 24,000 mph, NASA's Stardust craft will swoop within 125 miles of comet Tempel 1, close enough to take high-resolution images of the surface. In 2005, NASA craft Deep Impact aimed a copper bullet that crashed into the surface and excavated a crater. Link: http://stardustnext.jpl.nasa.gov/
16 February 2011: Fateh Singh Rathore, one of the last of the mighty men who fought all odds to protect the tiger, was conferred a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).“There were times when in Ranthambhore one could not spot a tiger even after trying hard for ten days. Then came Kailash Sankhla, Project Tiger and Fateh Singh,” said Divyabhanusinh Chavda, WWF India president on the occasion. Link: http://www.wwfindia.org/
17 February 2011: Today, the first space probe in nearly 40 years will approach the planet Mercury. The mission is called MESSENGER, for Mercury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging being launched on August 3, 2004 . It is there after more than six years of maneuvering between the Earth, Venus and Mercury itself. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun. So far the only space probes to get a close look at Mercury is Mariner 10 in mid-1970's. Link: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/
18 February 2011: The dreaded avian influenza (H1N1) or bird flu has reappeared at RK Nagar, 8km east of Agartala town Tripura after a gap of two years. The Centre advised the Tripura government to cull all birds in the farm after the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal confirmed that samples collected from the farm tested positive for H5 strain of Avian Influenza. The last outbreak was reported in January 2010 in Murshidabad district of West Bengal. Link: http://www.hsadl.org/index.htm
19 February 2011: Scientists of the University of Delhi, as part of the ‘Lost Amphibians of India' initiative launched in November 2010 , have rediscovered five species of frogs such as Chalazodes Bubble-nest Frog (Raorchestes chalazodes), Anamalai Dot-frog (Ramanella anamalaiensis), Dehradun Stream frog (Amolops chakrataensis), Silent Valley tropical frog (Micrixalus thampii), and Elegant tropical frog (Micrixalus elegans). All these were believed to be extinct years ago. Link: http://www.du.ac.in/
20 February 2011: The laser, a 50-year-old invention now used in everything from CDs to laser pointers, has met its match in the 'anti-laser', the first device capable of trapping and cancelling out laser beams. The most obvious use of this device is in computing. Instead of having chips with transistors and silicon, these new computers will use both light and electrical energy. Researchers of Yale University has published their findings in the journal Science. Link: http://www.yale.edu/
21 February 2011: India plans to set up its first laboratory exclusively tasked with designing vaccines against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) at the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI),near Delhi. It will be a joint venture of India Government’s Biotechnology Department and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. The THSTI laboratory will be the first, exclusively tasked towards new candidate HIV vaccines. Link: http://www.thsti.res.in/
22 February 2011: Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organization have discovered a giant underground chamber on the moon, which they feel could be used as a base by astronauts on future manned missions to moon. An analysis by an instrument on Chandrayaan-1 revealed a 1.7-km long and 120-metre wide cave near the moon's equator that is in the Oceanus Procellarum area of the moon that could be a suitable 'base station' for future human missions. Link: http://www.sac.gov.in/
23 February 2011: Thai scientists have successfully produced the world's first Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever vaccine and will let the private sector improve it for the effective treatment of patients. Dr Suthee Yoksarn, a lecturer of Mahidol University, together with his team and Chiang Mai University have jointly developed four stereotypes of the live attenuated vaccine. This was achieved by combining attenuated DNA with a protein structure that stimulates immunity against the Dengue fever. Link: http://www.chiangmai.ac.th/
24 February 2011: Aadhaar, the Unique Identification (UID) project launched by Central Government in 2009 is here in Kerala today. The IT Department has been designated as nodal department and Akshaya, IT@School and Keltron are the enrolment agencies. K Chandrika, Mayor of Trivandrum was the first person to be enrolled. Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number which will be linked to the basic biometric information based on photograph, fingerprints and iris mapping of each citizen. Link: http://uidai.gov.in/
25 February 2011: Space shuttle Discovery, the most flown spacecraft in history, will blast off for its 39th mission today, this time for the last. It promises to be a sentimental journey for the six astronauts assigned to the mission as well as the supporting cast of thousands who have painstakingly prepped the world's most traveled rocketship. When Discovery returns, it will be the first of the three surviving shuttles to be decommissioned this year and shipped off to a museum. Link: http://discovery.nasa.gov/
26 February 2011: Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have designed a pen-shaped, needleless drug delivery device, the first such in India that will use supersonic shock waves for painless delivery of medicines into the body. Around 12 billion injections are used globally,and the device will be helping some 150 million diabetics around the world. US-based Bioject Medical Technologies Inc. is also making such a device, but is using a different gas-based technology. Link: http://www.iisc.ernet.in/
27 February 2011: Scientists think they have seen the "birth" baby planet around a very young sun-like star, about 350 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Chameleon. If they can confirm their discovery, it would be the earliest picture yet of a natal planetary system, further illuminating how planets are born. Using the Very Large Telescope, astronomers were looking at a star called T Chamaeleontis. The finding is in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Link: http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html
28 February 2011:Because of the issues surrounding turtles and the need to raise awareness, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) has proclaimed 2011 as the Year of the Turtle. Currently, 328 species of turtles are known worldwide -- 57 (20% of the world's turtle species) are found in the United States and Canada. The United States has more native turtle species than any other country; it is a turtle biodiversity hotspot. Link: http://www.arc-trust.org/
Great work ,hitherto new initiative ..good wishes!
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