SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: FEBRUARY 2012

1 February 2012: Tripura, which grows 25 varieties of Bamboo, is about start India's first bamboo park. The idea is to help expand industries based on Bamboo which is also known as 'green gold'.The bamboo park, will be set up at Radhakishore Nagar, near Bodhjunjnagar industrial growth centre in western Tripura, 15 km north of state capital Agartala. Being created over an area of 70 acres, the bamboo park would be ready by March next year.More than 40 bamboo species are available in the northeastern region with 25 species in Tripura alone.Of the 1,250 bamboo species throughout the world, India has 145. Bamboo forests in India occupy approximately 10.03 million hectares, almost 12.8% of the total forest area.Link: http://tripura.nic.in   

2 February 2012: Amukkuram (Withania somnifera), a plant used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine, can reverse within 30 days the abnormal accumulation of a protein, called beta-amyloid plaque, in the brain that is linked to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a team of Indian scientists. The researchers at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) at Manesar in Haryana fed mice with Withanosides and Withanolides, extracted from Amukkuram. The NBRC team, including Neha Sehgal, Alok Gupta, Rupanagudi Khader Valli, and Shanker Datt Joshi collaborated with Delhi University Plant Chemistry for the study. The findings appear today in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Link:http://www.pnas.org    

3 February 2012:The Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), popularly known by the trade name Amul, has won the “Green Globe Foundation Award” in the Manufacturing Category at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2012. GCMMF received this award for its mass tree plantation drive and contribution to environment by the milk producers of Gujarat. The 30 lac milk producers of Gujarat have planted more than 312 lakh trees in 15000 villages of the State in last 5 years. GCMMF is India’s largest food products marketing organisation procuring an average of 100 lac litres of milk every day from 30 lac farmers across 15,000 villages of Gujarat.
Link:http://www.greenglobefoundation.com

3 February 2012: India, one of the seven participating countries, is keeping pace with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which is coming up at Cadarache, France.The project aims at producing energy through nuclear fusion, using Deuterium and Tritium, the two hydrogen isotopes, as fuels. The reactor is expected to be ready by 2022. India was the last to join the experiment.India is making 'Cryostat', world's largest high vacuum cold storage vessel for the reactor. Besides Cryostat, India is also making the Neutron shielding plates made of Borated steel, 20 MW heating power system of heating Plasma ions, Power supply system and Electron heating systems.Link:http://www.iter.org
 
4 February 2012:NASA's twin GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) probes orbiting the moon has beamed home its first video of the lunar far side, a view people on Earth never see.Because the moon is tidally locked with Earth, it only presents one face to the planet's surface (the near side). The side of the moon that faces away from Earth is the far side. Only robotic spacecraft and Apollo astronauts who orbited the moon in the 1960s and 1970s have seen the far side of the moon directly. The new video was captured by a novel camera called MoonKAM, which is a project led by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, to encourage student interest in science. It is the first set of NASA cameras dedicated to education. Link:http://moon.mit.edu  

5 February 2012:The Sumatran Elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus) has been placed on the list of "Critically Endangered" by International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). IUCN upgraded the risk assessment after tracking the loss of 69% of the animal's habitat over the past 25 years. With their home forests burned, felled or converted to plantations, the wild population has fallen to no more than 2,800 in Indonesia. The animal is now at risk of becoming extinct within decades. The Javan Rhino was declared extinct in Vietnam in October last year. A month later, it was followed by Africa's Western Black Bhinoceros along with warnings that the Sumatran Rhino is on the brink of extinction in Indonesia. Link: http://www.iucn.org

6 February 2012: Chinese scientists have assembled the highest resolution map ever created of the entire Moon and unveiled a series of global Moon images today.The composite Lunar maps were created from over 700 individual images captured by China’s Chang’e-2 spacecraft. Chang’e-2 is China’s second lunar probe and achieved orbit around our nearest neighbor in space in October 2010.Chang’e-2 also captured high resolution photos of the “Sinus Iridum”area , or Bay of Rainbows, where China may land their next Moon mission.Russia hopes to send the Lunar Glob spacecraft to land on the Moon around 2015. But, it’s very possible that the next flag planted on the Moon by humans will be Chinese.Link: http://www.dailymotion.com

6 February 2012:Arid conditions on Mars for more than 600 million years may have been too hostile for any life to survive on its surface.Researchers led by Tom Pike of London's Imperial College have spent three years analysing data on Martian soil that was collected by NASA's Phoenix mission to Mars.Phoenix touched down in the northern arctic region of Mars to search for signs of life.The results of the soil analysis suggest that the surface of Mars has been arid for hundreds of millions of years, despite the presence of ice.Previous research has shown that Mars may have had a wetter period.The study is published Geophysical Research Letters. Link: http://www.agu.org/journals                                          .

7 February 2012: Two day International Conference on Climate Change, Sustainable Agriculture and Public Leadership began today in New Delhi bringing scientists and policy makers from around the world to a single platform. It will also try to develop a consensus containing a set of valuable recommendations, as a way forward for addressing the issues related to climate change in Indian agriculture sector.The conference is being organised by Indian Council of Agricultural Research and Education in collaboration with the National Council for Climate Change. Apart from different national organizations, several international organizations like ICRISAT, FAO, IFAD, ICARDA are taking part in the Conference.Link: http://www.icar.org.in                    

8 February 2012: Indonesia ratified the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the United Nations. Indonesia is the 157th country to adopt the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) but eight more nations in a core group of 44 nuclear countries- China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and United States, must still ratify to bring the global ban into force.Indonesia had resisted ratification for many years. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has appealed  India to ratify the CTBT, in this context. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) completed its talks on ratification of that treaty, last year.The declared nuclear powers- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, also have co-sponsored a resolution on the Southeast Asian zone.Link:http://www.ctbto.org   .

9 February 2012: According to the new biennial assessment report by the Forest Survey of India (FSI),India recorded a net increase of 23.34 sqkm of mangrove cover between 2009 and 2011.Mangroves in India account for about three per cent of the world's mangrove vegetation.The report says mangrove cover in India is 4,662 sqkm, which is 0.14 per cent of the country's total geographical area. Sundarbans in West Bengal accounts for almost half of the total area under mangroves in the country. The very dense mangrove comprises 1403 sqkm (30.10 per cent of the total mangrove cover), moderately dense mangrove is 1658.12 sqkm (35.57 per cent) while open mangroves cover an area of 1600.44 sqkm (33 per cent). Link:http://www.fsi.nic.in

10 February 2012: Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have reconstructed the entire genome of an extinct type of human from a 30,000-year-old finger bone, and made it available on the internet.It's the first high-coverage, complete genome sequence of an archaic human group. The discovery of the finger in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia was announced in 2010. The individual came from a previously unknown group of extinct humans that have become known as Denisovans.Together with the Neanderthals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. It appears that human occupation at the site started up to 280,000 years ago, while the finger bone was found in a layer dating back to 50,000 and 30,000 years.Link:http://www.eva.mpg.de  .

11 February 2012:Russian researchers reported Wednesday that they had reached Lake Vostok,body of water untouched by light or wind for about 20 million years.Lake Vostok had been the site of a secret Nazi base.Russian scientists Near the end of the World War II, the Nazis moved to the South Pole and began constructing a base at Lake Vostok. The scientists want to know what type of microbial life,bacteria too small to see,might exist there.There are plenty of examples of life forms existing in the most improbable of places: The "world’s toughest bacterium” by the Guinness Book of World Records and also termed “Conan the Bacterium” was found 55 years ago in a can of meat.Link: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu
 
12 February 2012: Today was Darwin Day, an international celebration of science and humanity on the anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth on February 12, 1809. Specifically, the event celebrates the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin,the man who first described biological evolution via natural selection with scientific rigor.The religious right tries to characterize the theory of evolution as a theory of the origin of life, one of many misunderstandings. Despite court rulings that teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional, there are already six bills currently pending that would require "teaching the debate," intelligent design and/or creationism in the public schools, in US. Link: http://darwinday.org

13 February 2012:The bitterly cold weather sweeping Britain and the rest of Europe has been linked by scientists with the ice-free seas of the Arctic, where global warming is exerting its greatest influence.The surface waters of the Danube River froze completely, the first time in 20 years as in the winter of 1984-1985.A growing number of experts believe complex wind patterns are being changed because melting Arctic sea ice has exposed huge swaths of normally frozen ocean to the atmosphere above.An intense anticyclone over north-west Russia is behind the bitterly cold easterly winds that have swept across Europe and some climate scientists say the lack of Arctic sea ice brought about by global warming is responsible. Link:http://www.wmo.int

14 February 2012: The giant seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) living in the Mediterranean Sea is now considered to be the oldest living organism on Earth.The separate patches of seagrass in the Mediterranean span almost 10 miles and weigh more than 6,000 tons. Scientists dated them as up to 200,000 years old. The researchers genetically sampled the seagrass and found it to decline due to global warming.The analysis found that the seagrass is between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, "Icarus Dream"a Tasmanian plant (Eucalyptus regnans)that is believed to be 43,000 years old.The study is published in the journal PLoS ONE. Link:http://www.plosone.org    

15 February 2012: The genome of Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii),world's largest carnivorous marsupial, has been mapped for the first time.The international team compared the genome of healthy Tasmanian devils to those devils suffering from cancerous facial tumours.The facial tumour disease has decimated the devil population since it was first discovered in 1996.Many devils die of the disease made their faces become deformed, interfering with their ability to eat.The Researchers at the Australian National University hopes that the sequencing will help to increase understanding of cancers in devils as well as humans.The study is published in the scientific journal PLoS Genetics. Link: http://www.plosgenetics.org

16 February 2012: The Mysore-based Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL) will dish out ready-to-eat food in space, the Defence Bioengineering and Electromedical Laboratory (Debel) (both under DRDO) will design and produce the space suits for the first vyomanauts (Indian astronauts will be called so) of India.This will be the first time that space suits will be developed in India. India’s first human space mission, expected to be launched in 2015-16, envisages carrying two members to about low earth orbit and return to earth after a week.The suits will have to protect the from intense radiation which cut short India’sfirst mission to Moon, Chandrayaan-1.Link:http://www.isro.org

17 February 2012:The genome of the Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) has been fully sequenced as a result of an international scientific collaboration which included researchers from the University of Sydney.The saltwater crocodile, also known as estuarine or Indo-Pacific crocodile is the largest of all living reptiles. It is found in suitable habitats from Northern Australia through Southeast Asia to the eastern coast of India.The saltwater crocodile is one of the three crocodilians found in India, the other two being the Mugger crocodile and the Gharial.A huge population of saltwater crocodiles is present within the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary of Orissa.Link:http://sydney.edu.au
 
18 February 2012: As the Indian Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) nears completion, the Centre plans to build six commercial fast breeder reactors in the next 15 years.The 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu is expected to be commissioned by early 2013. The first two of the six commercial fast breeder reactors are planned during the 12th plan period and will be located in Kalpakkam.The remaining four will be constructed in the 13th and 14th plan period.Fast breeder reactors burn Plutonium, generated in the Uranium-fueled pressurized heavy water reactors and light water reactors—to breed a type of fissile Uranium known as U-233, which is used as fuel. Link: http://www.dae.gov.in
 
19 February 2012:An Indian scientific mission to Venus is being considered by the space community.A preliminary study had indicated that if this mission gets the go ahead and depending upon the orbital parameters, it could be launched on May 20, 2015 arriving in Venus in October 2015. There could be about five scientific instruments on board the Venus-bound spacecraft. The rocket could either be the advanced version of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-XL) or the Geo Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) or the newer version of the GSLV designated as GSLV Mark3.The preliminary study states that the main role of the Indian mission to Venus would be to study its atmosphere.Link:http://www.isro.org
 
20 February 2012:Today is the 50th anniversary of astronaut John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth as he flew aboard Project Mercury's Friendship 7 spacecraft, on February 20, 1962.During his four-hour, 56 minute-flight, Glenn’s Mercury spacecraft reached speeds of more than 17,000 miles per hour before splashing down in the Atlantic. He is also the world's oldest spaceman, flying at age 77 aboard space shuttle Discovery in 1998. He was also the Democratic candidate for president during 1984. But at this 50th anniversary of Glenn’s flight, NASA’s enormous budget cuts force them to rely on Russia’s space program to fly its astronauts to the international space station.Link:http://www.nasa.gov

21 February 2012:Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was conferred on the Doctorate degree by Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in recognition of his contributions to the development of the farm sector. It was during the 50th Convocation of IARI, Singh was presented with the 'Degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa).It is said that the "Green Revolution" was born in the fields of IARI.The citation recognises the Prime Minister's illustrious academic career and his contributions to development of the farm sector in the country.Singh was also elected as the fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1999.Link:http://www.iari.res.in/    

22 February 2012:China will launch its next manned space mission sometime between June and August, which will attempt to dock with an experimental module launched last year.It will be China's fourth manned space mission since 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited Earth 14 times, becoming the country's first man in space.For the next mission, three astronauts will attempt to dock with the Tiangong-1 module, launched on September 29 as part of China's exploratory preparations for a space lab.China also plans an unmanned moon landing and deployment of a moon rover. Chinese scientists have raised the possibility of sending a man to the moon around 2020. Link:http://www.cnsa.gov.cn    .

23 February 2012:Government of India is planning to set up a specialised body,within the next couple of months,to promote the development of the Indian automotive sector. The body will be called National Automotive Board (NAB) and is being finalised by the Department of Heavy Industries. It will act as a mediator between the Government and the Indian automotive industry.The NAB will be a successor to NATRIP (National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project) which was set up in order to upgrade the following three:Vehicle Research &Development Establishment (VRDE) at Ahmednagar; Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) at Pune and the International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) at Manesar.Link: http://www.natrip.in

23 February 2012:India government today introduced the country's first-ever Virtual Science and Engineering Laboratory to provide students of higher educational institutions a facility to perform their required laboratory experiments online.The laboratory can facilitate experiments in 97 fields in nine disciplines of Science and Engineering including Electronics and Communications, Civil Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Biotechnology and Biomedical engineering.They cover the syllabi approved by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and University Grants Commission (UGC).Secondary school students can also use its physical and chemical segment.Link:http://www.vlab.co.in

24 February 2012:To commemorate India’s efforts on the erradication of Polio, Ministry of Health and Rotary International organized the ‘Polio Summit 2012’ which was inaugurated today at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.Pulse polio campaign started in India in 1994 and in 2011 India didn’t have one single polio case. In 2005 the only two places where polio wasn’t eradicated were the Indian subcontinent and Nigeria. Polio was completely eradicated in the Americas by 1991, in Europe by 1998. World Health Organisation has reported that 2011 was India’s first polio-free year and therefore India no longer considered polio
endemic.Link:http://www.rotarypolio.org

25 February 2012:Today, the western skies in India witnessed Venus and Jupiter near each other and Moon between them. This allowed telescope-equipped sky-gazers to look at the Martian north-pole.Mars, too, will be at its closest approach to Earth on March 5.This phenomenon is called conjunction. Planets of our solar system are nearly aligned in the same plane in the sky, though they are at completely different distances from Earth.However, sometimes they will appear in the same region of the night sky as they orbit the sun, giving the impression that the planets are aligned.This is a routine celestial event and has no physical implication, nor will it have any discernible effects on Earth.Link: http://earthsky.org

26 February 2012:A new family of Caecilians, the most enigmatic branch of the amphibians, has been discovered in northeastern India.The animals, which at first glance resemble worms, live in forest soil and are most closely related to an African group of caecilians.The new discovery was the result of about 250 soil-digging expeditions over five years that covered every northeast Indian state.This is the 10th Caecilian family to be identified, and the team named it Chikilidae, derived from the name used in the local Garo tongue.Caecilians are limbless and smooth.The discovery is published in the Proceedings of Royal Society-B.Link: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org  

27 February 2012:The first clinical trial of a new vaccine for Visceral Leishmaniasis (VL) also known as ‘Kala azar’ has been launched by the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), a Seattle-based nonprofit that develops products to prevent, detect, and treat diseases of poverty.The Phase 1 companion trial planned in India, an epicenter of the disease.Visceral leishmaniasis is a neglected parasitic disease spread through the bite of a Sandfly. Drug resistance is also a growing problem, particularly in India.Beginning later in 2012, the Indian vaccine manufacturer will produce the LEISH-F3 + GLA-SE vaccine.It will be then tested in healthy Indian adults, in collaboration with the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India.Link:http://www.idri.org 

28 February 2012:The scientific community in India has hailed the experiment carried out in the field of in-vitro meat by Prof. Mark Post of MaastrichtUniversity, Netherlands, which attempts to produce meat in the laboratory through stem cell technology.The professor uses cow stem cells, gradually transforming them into tissues that resemble the skeletal muscle. Indian scientists are perceiving these attempts as much-needed initiatives towards food sufficiency.The global meat consumption is expected to rise 60% by 2050. So scientists want to find ways to make meat that are more environmentally friendly, healthy, and in some cases less cruel to animals. Link: http://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl

29 February 2012:An initiative that aims to impart science education to common people across India through SMS(Short-Messaging Service) has been launched as part of the two-day National Science Day celebrations.'Science@Mobile' is an innovative scheme by IGNOU's National Centre for Innovations in Distance Education (NCIDE) in collaboration with Vigyan Prasar, a government body involved in science popularisation tasks.The basic objective of this scheme is to exploit the potential of mobile phones for science popularisation in society so as to create interest among the people towards science.There is no subscription fee for the Short-Messaging Service(SMS).
Link:http://scienceatmobile.ignou.ac.in