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1 October 2011: The Bangalore-based Ganit Lab sequenced and analyzed the genome and coding parts of the Neem plant. Neem tree and its parts have been used since time immemorial in the country and its insecticidal, pesticidal, fungicidal and medicinal properties are well known. Understanding the molecular architecutre of the Neem genome and its various coding parts will enhance the knowledge about this wonder species further. Ganit labs is currently building an open access portal to host information gathered from the current study on genome, genome architecture, coding parts and molecular evolution of the Neem plant. In addition to Neem, Ganit Labs has sequenced 'tongue cancer genomes' from Indian patients. Karnataka Government's IT and BT department is funding Ganit Labs, a non profit organisation.Link: http://www.ganitlabs.in
2 October 2011: This year's Ig Nobel prizes were annouced last night in a ceremony at
3 October 2011: Three scientists shared this year's Nobel prize for medicine. Bruce Beutler, of the US, Jules Hoffmann from France and Ralph Steinman from Canada all shared the prize. Profs Beutler and Hoffman discovered how the body's first line of defence was activated. In 1996, Prof Hoffmann discovered that a gene called "Toll" was essential for kick starting the innate system in fruit flies. Without the gene, the flies could not "sense" and then fight bacterial infection. An equivalent gene, Toll-like receptor, was found by Prof Beutler in 1998 in his study on mice. Prof Steinman discovered the dendritic cell, which helps defeat infection.He showed that it can act as a bridge between the two immune systems, deciding whether to activate the adaptive system. Link: http://www.nobelprize.org/
4 October 2011: Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating pace, a stunning revelation that suggests the cosmos will eventually freeze to ice. The American scientist Saul Perlmutter would share the award with U.S.-Australian Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess, another American. Working in two separate research teams during the 1990s, the scientists raced to map the universe's expansion by analyzing a particular type of supernovas, or exploding stars. Perlmutter, heads the Supernova Cosmology Project at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and University of California, Berkeley. Schmidt, is the head of the High-z Supernova Search Team at the Australian National University in Weston Creek, Australia. Riess,is an astronomy professor at Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Link: http://www.nobelprize.org
5 October 2011: Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman won this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a material in which atoms were packed together in a well-defined pattern that never repeats. Shechtman, 70, a professor of materials science at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology won "for the discovery of quasicrystals." Dr Shechtman had to fight a fierce battle against established science to convince others of what he had first seen in his lab at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington - formerly called the National Bureau of Standards - on an April morning in 1982. Dr Shechtman himself is said to have cried "Eyn chaya kazo", which translates from the Hebrew as "there can be no such creature". Link: http://www.nobelprize.org
6 October 2011: India’s first android tablet Aakash was unveiled yesterday. It will only cost 2276 Indian rupees.The government will be providing subsidies to students to bring the cost down. The tablet with seven-inch touch screen and 256 megabytes of RAM is using the Android 2.2 operating system from Google, two USB ports and delivers HD-quality video. It was jointly developed by the London-based company DataWind with the Indian Institute of Technology Rajasthan and manufactured by the India-based company Quad, at a new production centre in Hyderabad. Aakash was developed as part of the country's aim to link 25,000 colleges and 400 universities in an e-learning program. Original projected as a '$35 laptop' the device will be marketed as the UbiSlate 7 at a projected price of $60 in open market.Link: http://www.iitk.ac.in/iitj
8 October 2011: ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft orbiting Venus has discovered an ozone layer high in the planet’s atmosphere, similar to that surrounding Earth and Mars according to astronomers. The study was recently presented at the Joint Meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences.While observing stars visible right at the edge of the planet, set through its atmosphere, ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft made the discovery. Ozone has also been regarded as a potential biomarker, since it traces the distribution of molecular oxygen. Ozone was found previously only in the atmospheres of Earth and Mars. Link: http://www.esa.int
9 October 2011: Top sea turtle experts from around the globe have discovered that almost half (45 percent) of the worldís threatened sea turtle populations are found in the northern Indian Ocean, specifically threatened populations of both Loggerhead Turtles (Caretta caretta) and Olive Ridley Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea). The study also highlighted the 12 healthiest sea turtle populations in the world, such as the Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) and the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas).The recent report, produced by International Union for Conservation of Nature's Marine Turtle Specialist Group and supported by Conservation International and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, is the first comprehensive status assessment of all sea turtle populations globally. Link: http://iucn-mtsg.org/
10 October 2011: A team of researchers trawling the ocean floor have just published their findings of the world's new largest virus, found lurking off the coast of Las Cruces, Chile. The virus with the scientific name Megavirus chilensis can even be viewed with a basic light microscope. The previous virus record holder was Mimivirus, which boasted the largest diameter of any virus to date. The Megavirus' DNA features 1,259,197 base pairs, which encode some parasitic bacteria-like features. Mimivirus was found in 1992, lurking in an amoeba in Bradford, England. Most viruses fall in the range between 20 and 300 nanometres, making both Mimivirus and the new Megavirus titans of the microscopic world. Link: http://www.giantvirus.org/
11 October 2011: If you’re a student between the ages of 14-18, you are eligible to enter a new contest announced this week, called Space Lab. The competition, sponsored by YouTube and Lenovo, gives students the opportunity to submit a science experiment that will be conducted at the International Space Station and streamed live to Earth via YouTube. Additionally, the winner will have the choice of watching live as his experiment launches into space from Japan or waiting until she turns 18 and receiving cosmonaut training in Star City, Russia.Entries can be submitted as a team or as an individual and must be submitted in video format, with a running time of less than 2 minutes. But don’t delay – all entries must be received by December 7. So put on your thinking cap, fire up your video camera, and come up with a great experiment. Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/spacelab
12 October 2011: India took a niche position alongside France in an exciting area of climate research, as the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18) on today successfully launched a unique science satellite called Megha-Tropiques from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre. Nearly 26 minutes after the lift-off, Jugnu, SRMSat and VesselSat-1 separated. Megha-Tropiques carries four instruments that include MADRAS (Scanning Microwave Imager for Detection of Rain and Atmospheric Structures) developed jointly by the ISRO and CNES, and “Radio Occultation Sensor for Vertical Profiling of Temperature and Humidity,” which was received from Italy. Link: http://meghatropiques.ipsl.polytechnique.fr/
13 October 2011: An international team of scientists has sequenced the entire genome of a varient of the Plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis), extracted from skeletons more than 700 years old. It's the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any pathogen older than 100 years or so, and could lead to a better understanding of modern infectious diseases. The team found that a specific variant of the Yersinia pestis bacterium was responsible for the plague that killed 50 million Europeans between 1347 and 1351.The team analyzed skeletal remains from victims buried in the East Smithfield plague pits in London, located under what is now the Royal Mint.The direct descendants of the Smithfield bubonic plague still exists, however, killing 2,000 people each year. Link: http://www.nature.com
14 October 2011: The high peaks of the Himalayas may soon be a beacon for adventurous solar power entrepreneurs, suggests a new study.Other regions not traditionally considered hotbeds of solar power potential include the Andes of South America and Antarctica, note Takashi Oozeki and Yutaka Genchi with the National Institute of Industrial Science and Technology in Japan.In addition to copious amounts of sunlight, these regions are chillier than the usual suspects such as the southwestern United States and the deserts of North Africa. Colder temps increase the operational efficiency of certain photovoltaic solar cells, which turn sunlight into electricity.The finding is based on a global analysis of photovoltaic potential that takes into account the effect of ambient temperature, something the team says has not been done before. Link: http://www.aist.go.jp/
15 October 2011: Bristol University students, both past and present, are behind the most popular student-run online news magazine in the country. Erudition began as a print publication but has evolved into a collection of three magazine-style websites, each covering the broad topics of the economy, politics, science, engineering, arts and culture.The latest addition to the online series is Experimentation, which covers the latest news and views on the world of science and engineering. It has just been launched by editor-in-chief Alistair Jacklin, who has worked hard with his news team over the last six months to create the website. The websites, which are updated with new editions each month, actively promote debate through its news and in-depth features. Link: http://www.eruditiononline.co.uk/
16 October 2011: The contest begins for the new name for New Mexico’s world famous radio telescope facilities. This telescope seeks a new name after completing extensive upgrades, which started in 2001.They are looking for a creative name that reflects the VLA’s future role in astronomy, while still honoring its past achievements of success. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) wants to open up the choice to the public’s creativity.The contest is open until 1 December and the winner will be announced at the American Astronomical Society conference in January.The search for a new name comes after the radio telescope underwent an expansion of upgrades. Officials say the VLA’s original, 1970s electronics have been replaced with state-of-the-art equipment. Link: http://www.nrao.edu/namethearray/
17 October 2011:The Soviet-era work-horse, Soyuz rocket will be launched from Europe's space base in South America.It will be the first time that the legendary rocket, which traces its lineage to Sputnik and Gagarin, has been deployed outside Russia's bases. And its payload will be the first two operational satellites in Galileo, Europe's €5.4bn rival to the US Global Positioning System (GPS). Soyuz is the world's most successful rocket, with a whopping 1 776 launches under its belt if the count includes forerunners dating back to 1957.Until now, Soyuz has been launched from Plesetsk, in northern Russia, or from Baikonur, in Kazakhstan. Under a 2003 deal, Russia agreed to launch it from ESA's base in Kourou, FrenchGuiana.Link: http://www.esa.int
18 October 2011:Researchers have sequenced the genome of a Dutch woman who held the title of the world's oldest person when she died, aged 115. The study of Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, could help to understand the biology of ageing, scientists say. A team led by Henne Holstege, of the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, has begun to compare DNA from van Andel-Schipper's blood and brain, to determine how different genetic mutations arise in these tissues. The genome will provide researchers with an unprecedented resource for investigating how DNA contributes to longevity and diseases of old age such as Alzheimer's. Van Andel-Schipper died of gastric cancer, having survived breast cancer at the age of 100.Link: http://www.vumc.com/
19 October 2011: The documentary produced by Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Chandra: In Quest of Perspectives, on the life and works of the astrophysicist Subramanyam Chandrasekhar will be aired on Doordarshan today at 9.30am.His work showed that a star higher than the so called "Chandrasekhar Limit"(mass 1.44 times that of the sun) will continue to collapse beyond what is called the White Dwarf to become a Neutron star or a Black hole following a supernova explosion. The documentary, an initiative to popularise science, is part of the centenary celebrations highlighting Prof S. Chandrasekhar’s contribution to physics and mathematics in general and astrophysics in particular. Link: http://www.iiserpune.ac.in/
20 October 2011: Stem cell scientist Hwang Woo-suk at the Sooam Biotech Research Foundation released eight Coyotes also known as the American jackal or the Prairie Wolf (Canis latrans) that he and his research team claimed to have cloned in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. The coyotes will be donated to a wildlife center. With this Hwang has become the world`s first to clone coyotes. Amother news said that Royal Blue Boon, the Quarter Horse mare which was the first commercially cloned horse, died last week in Texas, at the age of 31.The Quarter Horse mare was one of the leading producers of cutting horses in recent years. The clone--the filly Royal Blueboon Too-still resides on Hall's farm. Link: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com
21 October 2011: 2011 New data released by NASA and NOAA show in September the Ozone hole over Antarctica was the 9th largest on record – stretching over 16.17 million square kilometers. On the southern hemisphere the story seems much the same. Earlier this month over Antarctica the 10th lowest ozone concentration was measured: 102 Dobson units. CFC-induced ozone breakdown requires: extremely low stratospheric temperatures and sunlight. That’s why the ozone layer depletes more just after winter, when temperatures 10 kilometers up in the sky can be low enough for polar stratospheric ice clouds to form, and the onset of spring adds a little UV radiation to get the catalytic breakdown reaction going.Link: http://www.wmo.int
22 October 2011: Fresh from the successful launch of Megha Tropiques satellite on October 12,India and France today eyed another milestone of a new satellite dedicated to environment monitoring. The forthcoming launch of SARAL, a joint satellite to study sea surface altitude would be another milestone in space cooperation. SARAL would help ocean scientists gather accurate data on the rise in the sea level which could threaten the low lying and coastal areas of the country. The joint statement by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the French National Space Agency (CNES) will be pursuing the cooperation further within the framework of a memorandum of understanding signed in December last year. Link: http://www.isro.org/
23 October 2011:The 21-year-old German Roentgen Satellite, or ROSAT, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Bay of Bengal today. It is not known whether any debris reached Earth’s surface.Damage to property caused by ROSAT has not been reported. Engineers expected that 1.7 tons of debris from the X-ray astronomy satellite would survive re-entry and reach the surface, creating a 1-in-2,000 chance that someone would be injured by it.NASA’s Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS, re-entered the atmosphere on Sept. 24 and plunged into the Pacific Ocean, well away from the North American coastline. The 6.5-ton UARS spacecraft was the largest NASA satellite to fall uncontrolled from orbit since 1979.
24 October 2011: China would next month launch its much-awaited Mars probe mission, entering further deep into space exploration following two lunar projects, as the country braces itself for a deep space competition with the US. China's first Mars probe will be launched between November 8 and 20, after two years delay, a top scientist said. Yinghuo-1, a micro-satellite weighing 110 kg, will be sent into space with Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan. The probe is expected to enter a preset orbit around Mars between Aug-Sept next year. Last month China successfully launched its maiden space lab Tiangong-1.Link: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn
25 October 2011: In context of World Polio Day today, Government of India declared that only one polio case has been detected so far this year in the country making it the longest polio-free period ever since eradication efforts were launched. The only case of polio reported this year has been from Howrah district in West Bengal on 13th January 2011 as compared to 39 cases in the country in the same period of 2010. For the first time no case of polio has been reported from UP (since April 2010) and also from Bihar (since September 2010). No case of type 3 polio has come up for over a year. Closest ever to eradicating polio, Government of India has decided to treat any fresh case of polio as a 'public health emergency'. Link: http://www.worldpolioday.com
26 October 2011: Now an international team of scientists led by Dr Aaron Jex from The University of Melbourne have sequenced the genome of the common roundworm (Ascaris suum). The team hope the genetic roadmap of the giant worm, which infects pigs, can lead to the development of treatments for both animals and humans. It is a very close relative and excellent model for a really important parasite in humans which is Ascaris lumbricoides. While Ascaris suum causes major losses in the pig industry, Ascaris lumbricoides causes a disease called ascariasis, which kills around 135,000 people — mainly children — each year in developing regions of South East Asia, China, South America and Africa.Their results appear in today's issue of Nature.Link: http://www.nature.com
27 October 2011: Bangladesh, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among 30 countries with "extreme" exposure to climate shift, according to a ranking of 193 nations by Maplecroft, a British firm specialising in risk analysis. Five Southeast Asian nations - Indonesia , Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines and Cambodia - are also in the highest category , partly because of the rising seas and increasing severe tropical storms. Maplecroft's tool, the Climate Change Vulnerability Index ( CCVI), looks at exposure to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclones, wildfires and storm surges, which translate into water stress, loss of crops and land lost to the sea. Of 30 nations identified in the new report as at "extreme" risk from climate change, two-thirds are in Africa and all are developing countries. Link: http://maplecroft.com/
28 October 2011:A team of researchers including from the Zoological Survey of India, Western Ghat Regional Centre, Kozhikode has discovered a new species of limbless amphibian from Western Ghats. The new species, Ichthyophis davidi, a yellow striped caecilian was discovered from the Belgaum district of Karnataka, which is part of the Western Ghat. Ichthyophis davidi is one of the largest known yellow striped caecilians from Western Ghats and is named in honour of David Gower, Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, London, in recognition of his contributions to Indian caecilian studies. The members of the genus Ichthyophis include both striped and non-striped caecilians.The discovery has been published in the latest issue of Current Science. Link: http://cs-test.ias.ac.in
30 October 2011: On November 8, an asteroid 400 meters across will pass by us, missing the Earth by the very comfortable margin of about 320,000 kilometers. Named 2005 YU55,it is one among those called Potentially Hazardous Asteroid because its orbit intersects that of Earth. But observations have shown that it won’t be a danger to Earth for at least a century, and probably much more, eventhough astronomers world over will be observing it carefully, as it is a very closer pass by. There are plans to use NASA’s Deep Space Network of radio telescopes, as well as the Arecibo ‘scope in Puerto Rico (which was used to make the image above back in April 2010) for observing it. Link: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/
31 October 2011: In the wake of September’s surprising experimental results that suggested the observation of faster-than-light neutrinos, CERN has announced that it has been re-running the experiment over recent days. Criticisms of the experiment have proposed errors in the time measurement, or have asked whether CERN properly accounted for Earth’s rotation, or queried the statistical analysis of the results. The old experimental design, which used 10 microsecond bursts of protons at CERN to generate the neutrinos, is being replaced by a new design in which the proton bursts will last just a couple of nanoseconds, with a 500 ns gap between bursts.This should permit a more precise calculation, scientists think. Link: http://public.web.cern.ch
29 October 2011:Indian scientists have mapped the genome of a Sri Lankan individual. The project involved the Centre for Genomic Application, a public-private company floated by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Kolkata-based Institute of Molecular Medicine.Sridhar Sivasubbu, a CSIR researcher involved with the Sri Lankan genome-mapping exercise, said that though the mapping project was a commercial deal, it involved Indian scientists “sharing knowledge” with Sri Lankan collaborators. India was now a $25 million market for genome sequencing applications.Though the Sri Lankan genome was mapped in December, it is yet to be formally announced via a scientific publication. Link:http://www.tcgaresearch.org
30 October 2011: On November 8, an asteroid 400 meters across will pass by us, missing the Earth by the very comfortable margin of about 320,000 kilometers. Named 2005 YU55,it is one among those called Potentially Hazardous Asteroid because its orbit intersects that of Earth. But observations have shown that it won’t be a danger to Earth for at least a century, and probably much more, eventhough astronomers world over will be observing it carefully, as it is a very closer pass by. There are plans to use NASA’s Deep Space Network of radio telescopes, as well as the Arecibo ‘scope in Puerto Rico (which was used to make the image above back in April 2010) for observing it. Link: http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/
31 October 2011: In the wake of September’s surprising experimental results that suggested the observation of faster-than-light neutrinos, CERN has announced that it has been re-running the experiment over recent days. Criticisms of the experiment have proposed errors in the time measurement, or have asked whether CERN properly accounted for Earth’s rotation, or queried the statistical analysis of the results. The old experimental design, which used 10 microsecond bursts of protons at CERN to generate the neutrinos, is being replaced by a new design in which the proton bursts will last just a couple of nanoseconds, with a 500 ns gap between bursts.This should permit a more precise calculation, scientists think. Link: http://public.web.cern.ch
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