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
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