Saturday, December 1, 2012

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2012

Giant Pandas

1 December 2012: Quashing the 'doomsday' rumours,NASA has assured that the world won't end on December 21, 2012.The 'doomsday story' started with claims that Nibiru heading towards Earth, creating an impact similar to that caused extinction of the dinosaurs.This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but then moved to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 and hence the predicted doomsday.NASA has also started a new section of their website entitled "Beyond 2012: Why the World Won't End."Link:http://www.nasa.gov

2 December 2012:New figures from the Global Carbon Project has predicted that worldwide Carbon dioxide  emissions are set to rise again this year, reaching a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes.The biggest contributors to global Carbon dioxide emissions in 2011 were China (28 per cent), the United States (16 per cent), the European Union (11 per cent), and India (7 per cent).Emissions in China and India grew by 9.9 and 7.5 per cent in 2011, while those of the United States and the European Union decreased by 1.8 and 2.8 per cent. The analysis is published in Nature Climate Change.Link:http://www.nature.com


3 December 2012:Confirming decades of suspicion, the NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has observed vast deposits of water ice on the North Pole of Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. MESSENGER's Neutron Spectrometer spotted hydrogen, which is a large component of water ice. Researchers also believe that the South pole also has ice, but MESSENGER's orbit has not yet allowed extensive measurements of that region. MESSENGER will spiral closer to the planet in 2014 and 2015 as it runs out of fuel. This will let researchers look closer at the water ice as they figure out how much is there.Link:http://www.nasa.gov

4 December 2012:India is joining an ambitious international project that aims to develop artificial life.The “Synthetic Yeast 2.0 project” aims to produce  a synthetic version of Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) which could be used for cleaning up coal or exude biofuel.The project is spearheaded by the Johns Hopkins University will now include Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), New Delhi.Manufacturing synthetic or lab-created yeast is part of an emerging field of biotechnology called "Synthetic Biology", where DNA of living organisms are used to build new organisms.Link:http://syntheticyeast.org
 
5 December 2012:It was on December 5, 1982, 30 years ago, the only known fossil of an ancestor of humans in South Asia was found on the banks of the Narmada in Madhya Pradesh. The Geological Survey of India team led by Arun Sonakia concluded that the fossil skull, called the Narmada Human represented Homo erectus, which is similar to the Java man or the Peking man.Homo erectus inhabited the Earth from 1.8 million years to as early as 2,00,000 years.The discovery, however, is not included in Indian school textbooks, so far.Link:http://www.portal.gsi.gov.in

6 December 2012:A new genetic study has found that Romanis, Europe's largest minority group, migrated from northwest India 1,500 years ago.The Romani people , also known as the Roma, were originally dubbed "gypsies" in the 16th century. The results revealed the the first group of Romani departed from what is now Punjab state in India during 500 CE.They entered Europe through Bulgaria and started dispersing around Europe in about 1100 CE. The study was conducted by David Comas who led the research group in Institut de Biologia Evolutiva at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Spain.Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com

7 December 2012:Almost 40 years to the day after the Apollo 17 crew snapped the famed "blue marble" image of Earth floating in space on December 7, 1972, NASA has unveiled "black marble" video views of the planet by night.The cloud-free pictures were taken with Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) aboard Suomi NPP satellite.Scientists used the day-night sensor to watch the superstorm Sandy, illuminated by moonlight, hit the New Jersey shore on October 29, 2012. The National Weather Service is using VIIRS for weather forecast.Link:http://www.nasa.gov

8 December 2012:Delegates to U.N. Climate Change Summit in Doha, Qatar, concluded today agreeing to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2020, the pact that aims to curb greenhouse gas emissions. However, after eleven days of negotiations, US asked that the twelve paragraphs, about concerns of the developing world, be removed from document that the gathered 194 countries were expected to sign. The European Union and the 'Umbrella group' US, Australia and Canada opposed any reference to the Rio+20 declaration to the post-2012 Climate deal.Link:http://unfccc.int 

9 December 2012:NASA has been laying out its plans to send a revised version of Curiosity rover to Mars.Curiosity's current mission is to look at the habitability of Mars,but version 2.0 could add the ability to bring samples back to Earth. But, before that, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter will be launched next year, and by 2014 it will be in orbit, analyzing the thin Martian atmosphere and the effects of solar winds on the planet.By 2016, the next lander will touchdown on Martian soil: InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport).Link:http://www.nasa.gov 

10 December 2012: According to a new study by IUCN (International Union For Conservation of Nature), increasing human pressures are posing threat to the ecosystem of Suderbans in West Bengal.The study entitled titled ‘Sharing Lessons on Mangrove Restoration notes that depleting mangrove cover has made the islands more vulnerable to erratic climate conditions and invasion of alien species.Seawater intrusion has further affected the growth of freshwater-loving mangrove species such as the Heritiera.Link:http://www.mangrovesforthefuture.org

11 December 2012:The asteroid '4179 Toutatis', listed as a Potentially Hazardous Object, passed in close proximity to Earth at at 12:10 PM today.The asteroid passed Earth at a distance of 69,31,175, but posed no danger of impacting the Earth.This particular close approach by Toutatis is extra-special, because China's lunar orbiter, Chang'E 2, will fly within a few hundred kilometers of Toutatis on December 13. '4179 Toutatis' was first sighted on February 10, 1934 and then rediscovered on January 4, 1989, by Christian Pollas.Link:http://www.solarviews.com

12 December 2012:To attract more women to science, India and the US launched here a web-portal on best practices in public and private sector and policy initiatives in the field of technology in both countries.The portal will share best practices in the US and India to enable, promote and retain women in science.A study reveals that in the US, the percentage of females working in the fields of science lags far behind than that of the overall female-to-male workplace ratio.The portal was launched by US Ambassador Nancy J. Powell. Link:http://indousstf.org

13 December 2012:E C G Sudarshan and Padma Shri Prof M Vijayan at Indian Institute of Sciencehave been selected for the Sasthrapuraskaram (ScienceAward) for the years 2011 and 2012 respectively. ECG Sudarshan, who specialises in Quantam Physics, is known for his Quantum Zero Effect and Tachyones that can travel faster than light.The award is jointly instituted by Department of Science and Technology and KSCSTE to honour scientists of Kerala origin working abroad.Link:http://www.kscste.kerala.gov.in 

14 December 2012:Fifty years ago today, NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet Venus, marking the first-ever flyby of another planet.On December 14, 1962, Mariner 2 passed Venus at nearly 41,000 km, collecting data about its Runaway Greenhouse Effect.The spacecraft's flyby also marked a proud moment for the United States while Soviet Union was  claiming all the big space firsts.The Soviets launched the first artificial satellite in 1957, sent a probe to the moon in 1959 and put the first human in space in 1961.Link:http://solarsystem.nasa.gov

15 December 2012:NASA's Cassini spacecraft has captured a crisp image of a river near the north pole of Saturn’s moon Titan. The hydrocarbon-filled river stretches more than 400 km in length.It is the first high-resolution image of a river system on a world beyond Earth and scientists are comparing it to Earth's Nile River in Egypt.The newly imaged river flows into Kraken Mare, Titan's largest known sea.Cassini mission, a collaboration of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, took this photo on 26 September 2012.Link: http://www.nasa.gov

16 December 2012:Researchers have discovered a new Slow Loris (Nycticebus) species in the central-east highland jungles of Borneo. Known for its toxic bite,the Slow Loris is a nocturnal primate found across Southeast Asia. They are rated as Vulnerable/Endangered on the IUCN Red List.An international team of scientists pinpointed the new species by studying the distinctive colorings of  their faces.They also upgraded two subspecies of Slow Loris as separate species.The finding is published in the American Journal of Primatology.Link:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

17 December 2012:A research team in Kerala has discovered a new species of blind Catfish and named it Horaglanis abdulkalami in honor of Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the former President of India. The team was led by Dr. Bijoy Nandan of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT).Th new species was found in an old well in Irinjalakuda,Thrissur.This blind Catfish is the third discovered from Kerala,the others being Horaglanis alikunhii and Horaglanis krishnai.The paper was published in the Indian science journal Samagra.Link:https://sites.google.com

18 December 2012: A team of Italian Art Historians and Archaeologists have discovered what may be the skeleton of Lisa Gherardini, the woman who posed for Monalisa, the world's most famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Lisa Gherardini was the second wife of a wealthy silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo in Florence, Italy. The team is attempting to send the bones to universities in Italy and abroad, where they will be checked against the DNA of two confirmed relatives of Lisa Gherardini.Most modern historians believe that the lady in the painting is Lisa Gherardini. Link:http://www.louvre.fr

19 December 2012:Researchers  from University of North Dakota, claim to have discovered a new type of chemical bonding in distant Universe which may help explain how stars form, evolve, and eventually die.White dwarfs have an unusual spectrum that has been thought to result from polymerised hydrogen and helium which, of course, do not occur on Earth.It's possible out there because the magnetic fields on white dwarfs are several orders of magnitude larger than that on Earth.The discovery was published in the journal Science.Link:http://www.sciencemag.org

20 December 2012:The Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation will honour the Indian Scientist Professor Tejinder (Jim) Virdee FRS, who designed the CMS particle detector for the Large Hardron Collider Experiment at CERN. Professor Virdee is considered founding fathers of the CMS, carrying out the first preliminary studies to detect a Higgs boson in 1990.A separate $3 million prize is awarded to theoretical physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. The prizes will be given at a ceremony at CERN on 20 March 2013.Link:http://www.fundamentalphysicsprize.org

21 December 2012:NASA's twin lunar-orbiting GRAIL spacecraft are preparing to smash into the surface of the Moon.The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) probs, Ebb and Flow, will be intentionally crash-landed on the Moon which is scheduled for 24th December.They will hit a mountain located near the Goldschmidt Crater, finishing a mission that started on 1 January, this year. NASA declared that it is dedicating the crash landing spot in honor of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space who died earlier this year.Link:http://solarsystem.nasa.gov

22 December 2012:Today is Srinivasa Ramanujan's 125th birthday, and India is celebrating it as National Mathematics Day.India has also declared 2012- National Mathematical Year as a tribute to Srinivasa Ramanujan.Ramanujan was born in a poor Hindu Brahmin family on 22 December 1887 in Kumbhakonam, then part of Madras presidency. His brilliance was recgonised by G.H hardy, and was invited to work in Cambridge.On 26 April 1920, he died of illness, and possibly malnutrition at the age of 32.
Link:http://www.imsc.res.in

23 December 2012:The launch of  SARAL (Satellite with ARgos and ALtiKa), the joint Indo-French satellite, meant for studying the circulation of currents in the oceans and sea surface heights, has been postponed from December to the second week of February 2013. A core-alone version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will carry SARAL containing five other satellites along with NEOSSAT (Near-Earth Object Surveillance Satellite) which is the world’s first space telescope dedicated to detecting and tracking asteroids and satellites.Link:http://www.isro.org 

24 December 2012:An international team of researchers completed the first high-quality reference genome of the domestic Goat (Capra hircus), marking the first time the DNA of a ruminant animal has been sequenced. The ~2.66 Gb Goat genome was from a female Yunnan Black Goat. The genome could be useful for facilitating single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker identifications as well as improving the creature’s usefulness as a bioreactor and a biomedical model.The findings are published in Nature Biotechnology.
Link:http://www.nature.com

25 December 2012:Astronomers say that a rare super-comet called C/2012 S1 (ISON) moving towards the Sun from outer solar system would outshine Moon in November 2013. C/2012 S1 (ISON) was first noticed in September 2012.The comet would be closest to the Sun in November 2013. It will be ISON's first voyage through the solar system. Astronomers believe that this comet may contain certain volatile gases which are not found in any other comets and hope that it would help them to know about the materials of the outer solar system.Link:http://www.cometography.com

26 December 2012:China launched world’s longest high-speed rail route, linking the nation’s capital in Beijing to the country’s southeastern hub of Guangzhou.Averaging speeds of up to 186 m.p.h. (300 km/h), the 1,425-mile (2,293 km) route now takes eight hours to complete; previously, the journey would take about 22 hours by train.Reports say that, December 26) was chosen as the date for the train’s maiden voyage to commemorate the birthday of Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China.
Link:http://english.gov.cn
 

27 December 2012:A number of alien-like skulls have been discovered in a 1,000 year old cemetery in Mexico.The finding initially stunned the researchers, however, upon closer inspection the skulls were found to be human skulls warped into strange, alien-like shapes.Scientists said the practise of deforming skulls of children as they grew was common in Central America, and these findings suggest the tradition spread farther north than had been thought.The cemetery, referred to as El Cementerio, contained the remains of 25 human burials.Link:http://www.clas.ufl.edu

28 December 2012:The first National Biodiversity Conference, organised jointly by National Biodiversity Authority and its Kerala counterpart, began today in Thiruvananthapuram, capital city of Kerala.The focal theme of NBC 2012 is "Biodiversity for food security".A special session on "Western Ghats in World Heritage Status: Challenges and Opportunities" is also planned along with the Congress, to bring into focus the serious threats faced by biodiversity of the Western Ghats and to gear up the conservation initiatives.Link:http://nbc-india.org 

29 December 2012:NASA scientists are planning to capture a 500,000 kg asteroid, relocate it and transform it into a space station for astronauts to refuel at on their way to Mars.It would be the first time a celestial object has ever been moved by humans.An ‘Asteroid Capture Capsule’ attached to an old Atlas V rocket would release a 50 ft diameter bag that wrap around the spinning rock using drawstrings, From here space explorers would have a stationary base from which to launch trips deeper into space. Link:http://www.nasa.gov

30 December 2012:The former Director of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, ISRO, A.E. Muthunayagam, will receive the prestigious Aryabhatta award, instituted by the Astronautical Society of India (ASI), for the year 2010 and V.K. Saraswat, Director-general of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for 2011.The ASI awards for rocket and related technologies will go to G. Satheesh Reddy, Associate Director, Imarat, Hyderabad, for 2010 and P. Kunhikrishnan of the VSSC,Trivandrum,for 2011.Link:http://www.asindia.org

31 December 2012:Chinese scientists led by Dr Xiuwen Yan at the Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University,  discovered that a compound, called Cathelicidin-AM in the blood stream of Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) can destroy fungi and bacteria.The scientists found that Cathelicidin-AM killed bacteria in less than an hour while other antibiotics took more than six hours.The finding has become an added reason to protect these Giant Pandas which are now less than 1,600 in the wild. Link:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

MOVIE OF THE MONTH : DECEMBER 2012



Joseph Kosinski and Sean Bailey, the director and producer of Disney's upcoming Tron Legacy, and screenwriter Travis Beacham are teaming up for a reinvention of the 1979 sci-fi film The Black Hole.In the original, the explorer craft U.S.S. Palomino is returning to Earth after a fruitless 18-month search for extra-terrestrial life when the crew comes upon a supposedly lost ship, the magnificent U.S.S. Cygnus, hovering near a black hole.

The ship is controlled by Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his monstrous robot companion, Maximillian. But the initial wonderment and awe the Palomino crew feel for the ship and its resistance to the power of the black hole turn to horror as they uncover Reinhardt's plans, which involve turning his former crew into robots and flying through the hole. As they try to escape, a meteorite shower damages the ship, and the survivors hang on as they are plunged into the most powerful force in the universe, heading toward the blinding light that holds whatever eternity awaits them.


The details of the update are being kept secret!


Link: http://youtu.be/qzUJJKDa558

BOOK OF THE MONTH : DECEMBER 2012


Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way we think about science— from fluids to fungi, poisons to pirates. Featuring noted authors and journalists as well as the brightest up-and-comers writing today, this collection provides a comprehensive look at the fascinating, innovative, and trailblazing scientific achievements and breakthroughs of 2011, along with elegant and thoughtprovoking new takes on favorite topics. 

This is the sixth anthology of online essays edited by Bora Zivkovic, the blogs editor at Scientific American, and with each new edition, Zivkovic expands his fan base and creates a surge of excitement about upcoming compilations. Now everyone’s favorite collection will reach new horizons and even more readers. Guest-edited and with an introduction by the renowned science author and blogger Jennifer Ouellette, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 marries cutting-edge science with dynamic writing that will inspire us all.

In December 2006, the pioneering science blogger, Bora Zivkovic, met with his colleague, Anton Zuiker, to work on plans for the first Triangle Science Blogging Conference. They decided to try putting together an anthology of the year's best science blog posts and ask their conference sponsor, Lulu.com., to publish it as a handout for conference attendees. And what began as The Open Laboratory 2006 has evolved into the first of a series of high-caliber trade books titled The Best Science Writing Online 2012, published by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Both in terms of production and in terms of the quality of writing produced by the rapidly expanding and maturing science blogosphere, this is the best collection yet.Savvy reportage and critical analysis of new scientific papers. In-dpeth profiles. Personal reflections. Humor. Thoughtful commentary on science and social issues. Careful explication of complex scientific concepts written in accessible language. And yes, there are long-form features and investigative journalism. Above all, there are stories -- drawn from history, popular culture, the laboratory and personal experiences.

Review Courtesy: http://ksj.mit.edu
                              http://books.scientificamerican.com

EVENT OF THE MONTH : DECEMBER 2012

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY CONGRESS


Date: 27-30 December 2012
Venue: Thiruvananthapuram

The country's first national biodiversity congress will be held here on December 27 to discuss various issues concerning biodiversity, ecology and environment with food security as the focal theme.Vice President Hamid Ansari would inaugurate the four-day "National Biodiversity Congress-India 2012" (NBC), jointly organised by the National Biodiversity Authority of India and State Biodiversity Boards at Kanakakunnu Palace in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.


"Biodiversity for food security" would be the focal theme of NBC 2012, to be attended by a large number of experts, academics, researchers, stakeholders and students from within and outside the country.A special session on "Western Ghats in World Heritage Status: Challenges and Opportunities" was also planned to bring into focus serious threats faced by the Western Ghats and to gear up the conservation initiatives.

A Biodiversity Expo, as part of the Congress, would be inaugurated by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on December 21. Students' biodiversity congress and capacity building workshops would also be held as part of the event. Kerala Governor H R Bhardwaj, Union Ministers Jayanti Natarajan and Sashi Tharoor, Former President A P J Abdul Kalam, K Kasthuri Rangan and Sam Pitroda are expected to participate in the event.

Website: http://nbc-india.org

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: DECEMBER 2012

OBAMA FISH!
Phylum: Chordata
Class    : Actinopterygii
Order  : Perciformes
Family : Percidae
Genus  : Etheostoma
Species: Etheostoma obama


Etheostoma obama is a new fish species! "We chose President Obama for his environmental leadership, particularly in the areas of clean energy and environmental protection, and because he is one of our first leaders to approach conservation and environmental protection from a more global vision," says Steve Layman, who named the new species.

Layman (of Geosyntec Consultants) along with Rick Mayden, Department of Biology at Saint Louis University, studied the freshwater darters, most of which are native to the U. S. states of Alabama and Tennessee.While they were studying color variation of Etheostoma stigmaeum, the Speckled Darter, Layman and Mayden discovered that there were populations with enough variation that they should be described as unique species.


Etheostoma obama males have bright orange and iridescent blue speckles, stripes, and checked patterns, with a bright fan-shaped fin that has orange stripes. The males can reach up to 48 millimetres (1.9 in) long, while the females reach 43 millimetres (1.7 in) long. Twenty-nine percent of the studied fish had palatine teeth. Etheostoma obama is endemic to the Duck River and the Buffalo River, both in Tennessee.

Link: http://www.fishbase.org

Thursday, November 1, 2012

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: NOVEMBER 2012


1 November 2012: Scientists have discovered an elephant in the Everland Zoo in South Korea that can speak Korean language.The elephant, Koshik, can reproduce the sound of five Korean-language words, which translate into English as 'hello', 'good', 'lie down', 'no' and 'sit down'.Koshik imitates human speech by putting his trunk in his mouth.However, Koshik is not only the reported case of vocal mimicry in the large mammals, scientists say. Researchers have reported their finding in the journal Current Biology. 
Link:http://download.cell.com

2 November 2012:Namira Salim would become the first Pakistani woman to go to the space. Her flight with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism project is planned for next year. Although no date has been fixed for Virgin Galactic's first commercial flight, Namira is looking forward to fulfilling a lifelong obsession.Namira, who is 37 now, had kept up her passion for space even from childhood.She paid $200,000 to sign up with Virgin Galactic.Namira believes that the money she has paid will one day replace government space agencies.Link: http://www.phclondon.org

3 November 2012:British scientists have created the world’s first family tree linking all living birds, revealing when and where they evolved and diversified since dinosaurs walked the earth.Experts used the family tree to map out where the almost 10,000 species of birds live to show where the most diversification has taken place in the world. Researchers from the University of Sheffield, Yale University, University of Tasmania and Simon Fraser University were involved in the study.The work is published in the journal Nature.Link:http://www.nature.com

4 November 2012:India, which assumed this month’s rotating Presidency of the UN Security Council, will showcase its low-cost Aakash tablet at the United Nations. Aakash is the most competitively priced tablet computer in the world.The presentation of the tablet will be held on November 28 to which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will be invited.Aakash was launched in India October 2011,for students at subsidised rates.A new version of the tablet PC, featuring one Ghz processor, four-hour battery time and Android 4.0 operating system, is expected to be launched in India on November 11.Link:http://www.ubislate.com

5 November 2012:U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Lab is introducing Titan, the world's fastest supercomputer ever built.It can handle over 20,000 trillion calculations a second which is equivalent to seven billion people carrying out three million calculations per second.Titan is capable of everything from predicting climate change to aiding scientific research. Compared to its predecessor, Jaguar, Titan is faster and 10-times more powerful, while not occupying any extra space.Each of the computer's 18,688 nodes holds a 16-core AMD Opteron Central Processing Unit (CPU).Link:http://www.olcf.ornl.gov
 

6 November 2012:The Indian Army troops deployed along the China border from Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh in North-East India have reported more than 100 sightings of "Unidentified Flying Objects" (UFOs).Reports suggested that yellowish spheres appear to lift off from the horizon on the Chinese side and slowly traverse the sky for three to five hours before disappearing.The officials confirmed that these UFOs were not Chinese drones or satellites.Army had moved a spectrum analyser but could not detect the object that was being tracked visually, indicating it was non-metallic.Link:https://www.cia.gov

7 November 2012:TRAFFIC India,the joint venture of WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, states that the ritualistic sacrifice of Owls during Diwali, amounts to illegal owl trade in India.Owl sacrifice is believed to invoke the blessings of the goddess of wealth during Diwali.Apparently the cost of each owl varies from a mere Rs50 to Rs70,000 during Diwali season and recently in Ludhiana, an owl was sold for Rs.10 lakhs. This lucrative business prevails in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Bihar.Link:http://www.owlpages.com

8 November 2012:Today is World Radiography Day, the day gazetted by the World Health Organisation to commemorate the discovery of X-Ray by Dr W Roentgen on 8 November 1895. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range today known as X-rays or Röntgen rays. In honor of his accomplishments, IUPAC named element 111, Roentgenium,after him.The discovery earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 and introduced a new branch in science called Radiology or Radiography.Link:http://www.worldradiographyday.org 

9 November 2012:Indian Generic Drug manufacturing companies are expected to benefit from Barack Obama's re-election.The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) signed in to law by Barack Obama on March 23, 2010 was the main electoral force behind Obama's victory.Obamacare plans to extend health coverage to over 30 million uninsured Americans through subsidies and a paradigm shift to Generic drugs which are more affordable. It is expected that when Obamacare emerges fully, US will have to depend more on India for quality Generic drugs at affordable prices.Link:http://housedocs.house.gov

10 November 2012:China plans to launch another manned spacecraft Shenzhou-10 in early June 2013.The crew might include two men astronauts and a woman, who are scheduled to enter the Tiangong-1 space lab module.Tiangong-1 was sent into space in September 2011.Shenzhou-9 carried the first Chinese woman Liu Yang, along with two male astronauts,into outer space.China initiated the manned space program in 1992. It successfully sent Yang Liwei, the country's first astronaut, into orbit on Shenzhou-5 spacecraft in 2003.China plans to build its own space station in around 2020.Link:http://housedocs.house.gov

11 November 2012:A team of Indian researchers have discovered a massive ‘Tree Fossils Region’ in North Surguja’s Raghunath Nagar region in a forest near Shankarpur village in Chhattisgarh.The region was explored in joint association with the prestigious Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleobotany, Lucknow under a project to explore the ‘Geo Heritage’ sites in India. The exploration assumes international significance as this is the first time such an area had been discovered.The tree fossils included in the ‘Gondwana Time Scale’ are estimated to be 250 million years old. 
Link:http://www.bsip.res.in

12 November 2012:Dr Alex Moulton's Moulton Company first unveiled the iconic small-wheeled full-suspension bicycle on 12 November 1962 which is now on its 50th anniversary.Moulton bicycles are noted for unconventional frame design, small wheels, and front and rear suspension.In the late 1950s, disillusioned with the design of the classic bicycle, Alex Moulton set about creating a new design. the new bicycle with small wheels and "classic diamond frame" was convenient to mount for both sexes. Link: http://www.moultonbicycles.co.uk
 

13 November 2012:A team of scientists from Lucknow based Indian Institute of Toxicological Research (IITR), along with the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board officials collected about 24 soil and water samples from the premises of the abandoned Union Carbide factory. The IITR has been directed by the Supreme Court to check the contamination of underground water at the abandoned factory.The IITR is likely to submit its observations before the apex court in three months.In a related matter, the apex court ordered the state government to ensure clean water to people living in that area.Link:http://www.iitrindia.org

14 November 2012:Astronomers for the first time have discovered a young "homeless planet", up to seven times the size of Jupiter and with no gravitational ties. The lonely planet, called CFBDSIR2149 does not orbit a star. It is the first isolated planet of its kind ever to be discovered by scientists.Although theorists had established the existence of this type of very cold and young planet, one had never been observed until today. The absence of a shining star in the vicinity of this planet enabled the team to study its atmosphere in detail.Free-floating planets are planetary-mass objects that have no gravitational link to a star.Link:http://arxiv.org  

15 November 2012:A team led by He Meng at Shanghai Jiao Tong University unravelled the genome of a Bactrian Camel (Camelus bactrianus ferus).Bactrian camels are descendants of even-toed ungulates which diverged from a common ancestor around 55-60 million years ago, they found.Wild Bactrian Camels live in the deserts of northwestern China and southwestern Mongolia.They also make unique disease-fighting proteins called heavy-chain antibodies, which interest pharmaceutical engineers. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. 
Link:http://www.nature.com   

16 November 2012:An international training centre for operational oceanography will be set up at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad to meet the future demands of trained manpower in the field of oceanography. A series of satellites will be launched soon which will aid research on ocean systems.The SARAL-Altika satellite, planned for a December launch, will collect information on sea surface levels.It was INCOIS that developed a tsunami warning system for the country which is now called the Indian Ocean observation system for the entire region.Link:http://smsc.cnes.fr   

17 November 2012:CERN scientists have proposed a method to create the world's most precise stopwatch for the world's shortest light pulses, using a detector which is going to be installed at CERN in 2018.The pulses are so short that they cannot even be measured by today's technological equipment. The debris of the scattered nuclei together with new particles created by the power of the impact form a quark-gluon plasma, a state of matter which is so hot that even protons and neutrons melt. Their building blocks, quarks and gluons can move independently without being bound to each other.Link:http://indico.cern.ch  

18 November 2012:The Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) recommended Kerala government to ban on fishing of inland fish during the monsoon.During the monsoon season, when water levels in the rivers rise, fresh water fish migrate to the other water bodies for breeding and for food. Fishing during this migration is known as Flood Plain Fishery. The study conducted by KSBB in Kannur, Wayanad, Thrissur, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta, found that Flood Plain Fishing adversely affects fish diversity in the rivers.Frogs and tortoise also are captured which in turn affects biodiversity.Link:http://www.keralabiodiversity.org 

19 November 2012:Sunita Williams, the Indian-American astronaut who has been in the International Space Station for four months returned to Earth today. She was accompanied by two flight engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide. They landed in Kazakhstan. Sunitha was commander to the  International Space Station,during Expedition 33 that began on 14 July 2012. She is holding the record for the longest space flight time among female space travelers (195 days). She also holds the record for the most spacewalk time for a female (50 hours and 40 minutes). 
Link:http://www.nasa.gov   

20 November 2012:The world's most effective vaccine candidate against dengue is all set for trials in India and if all goes to plan, the vaccine will be available globally by 2015.The vaccine will be tested on 120-odd adults in the beginning, the results of which should be available by 2013.The drug controller general of India has asked the French pharma giant Sanofi Pasteur to conduct phase II safety trials on adults first, then on children.There is currently no vaccine to protect against dengue, and efforts to develop one have been hamstrung since four viruses (known as DENV 1, 2, 3 and 4) cause the disease.Link:http://www.sanofipasteur.com  

21 November 2012:Indian company Wipro has taken the top spot in Greenpeace's annual Guide to Greener Electronics. The list ranked companies based on their commitment and progress in three environmental criteria, Energy and Climate, Greener Products and Sustainable Operations.Meanwhile, Nokia climbed up to third place from fourth in 2011 and Taiwanese computer maker Acer moved nine places up to fourth position.According to greenpeace, the companies should redesign their production processes to reduce their carbon pollution.Link:http://www.wipro.com   

22 November 2012:Research team lead by Dr Femeena Hassan, Senior Scientist, Central Institute of Fisheries Technology Kochi, Kerala, has developed a lipstick using pigments extracted from Squid skin.Normally, lipsticks contain butylated Hydroxyl Toluene, Nylon G, Ferric Oxide, Polyethelene and Titanium dioxide which can cause allergy and even cancer.Femeena Hassan's paper, 'Isolation of squid chromatophores and its commercial application as a natural pigment in lipsticks' won the best paper award at the recently concluded 22nd Swadeshi Science Congress. Link:http://www.wipro.com    
23 November 2012:NASA astronaut Scott Kelly will attempt the longest spaceflight ever by an American. Along with Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, he will spend an entire year aboard the International Space Station beginning in 2015.Kelly is a 48-year-old Navy captain.Both men already have lived aboard the space station for six months.Astronauts normally spend about four to six months aboard the space station.Americans must buy seats on Russian spacecraft now that NASA's shuttles have retired to museums, until private U.S. companies have vessels capable of carrying human passengers.Link:http://www.jsc.nasa.gov     

24 November 2012:With one dam for every 32 km in the Himalayas, India is all set to have one of the highest dam densities in the world.Sikkim would have the highest dam density in the world.It is, however, no matter of pride because such large-scale dam building, while adding megawatts of power, could wipe out vast swathes of biological diversity in the ecologically fragile region.The dam density of 0.3247 per 1,000 km sq area is nearly 62 times more than the current average global figure.The study appeared Conservation Biology.Link:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com   

25 November 2012:Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. One year ago, an Atlas V 541 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral with the Mars rover Curiosity, tasked with the mission of finding out whether Mars has ever supported extraterrestrial life. Curiosity is now four months into its two-year prime mission to reach Mount Sharp in Gale Crater and analyze some rock samples for signs of life. In recent news, Curiosity has taken its first sniff of Martian atmosphere using its SAM instrument.
 Link:http://www.antarctica.ac.uk  

26 November 2012:The United Nations Conference on Climate Change began today in Doha, Qatar.Delegates from nearly 200 countries hope to forge a new agreement on curbing industrial emissions that extends the Kyoto Protocol, the global climate change treaty due to expire this year.The protocol set Carbon dioxide emission- reduction goals for industrialized countries.Meanwhile, the BASIC group, India, China, Brazil and South Africa, strongly demand the adoption of its second commitment period through a ratifiable amendment implemented from January 1, 2013.Link:http://unfccc.int  

27 November 2012:Dr. Joseph Murray, who won the Nobel Prize for performing the first-ever successful organ transplant, died yesterday in Boston at the age of 93. On December 23, 1954, Murray performed the world's first successful renal transplant between the identical twins Richard and Ronald Herrick at the same Hospital.In 1959, Murray performed the world's first successful allograft and, in 1962, the world's first cadaveric renal transplant. He won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1990, sharing with E. Donnall Thomas.Link:http://www.nobelprize.og 

28 November 2012:The remains of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were exhumed eight years after his death, which will be tested for Polonium as part of a new investigationto find out whether Arafat was poisoned by Polonium. The suspicion aroused when abnormal amounts of Polonium was found on his personal belongings. The samples taken will be flown to laboratories in Paris, Geneva and Moscow.However, some experts doubt whether anything conclusive could be found out because Polonium has a short half-life. Link:http://www.yaserarafat.com

29 November 2012:Researcher Melba Ketchum calimed that he has got full sequence of 20 mitochondrial genomes and three whole nuclear genomes of Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch, the name given to an ape-like creature believed to be inhabiting forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The sequencing data indicate that Sasquatch is a hybrid species crossing with female Homo sapiens.The cross would have happened 15,000 years ago. Genetically, the Sasquatch seems a human hybrid with human ancestry.Link:http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com  

30 November 2012: Ocean acidification caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is eating away at the shells of marine snails known as Pteropod snails, the researchers of British Antarctic Survey have warned.The Pteropod snails also known as Sea butterflies, live in the surface layers of the open ocean, are part of the floating plankton community on which all other fish and marine animals ultimately depend for their survival.It is the first time that scientists have discovered the visibly acid-damaged shells in Antarctica.Link:http://www.antarctica.ac.uk