2 January 2013: The Earth was at its nearest point from the Sun at 10:10 am today at a distance of 147 million km.Every January, the Earth is at perihelion, the closest from the Sun for the year.The word perihelion comes from the Greek words "peri" (meaning "near") and "helios" (meaning "sun").All planets and asteroids in our solar system have elliptical orbits. Thus, they all have a closest and a farthest point from the Sun, a perihelion and an aphelion. On 5 July 2013, the Earth will be at its aphelion, the farthest to the Sun for the year.Link:http://planetarysocietyindia.blogspot.in
3 January 2013:Prime Minister of India today unveiled a new Science Policy at the 100th Indian Science Congress which is going on in Culcutta. The Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy, 2013 also speaks of modifying the Intellectual Property Rights which enables co-sharing of patents generated in the public private partnership mode.The document is a revision of the 2003 Science Policy.India first unveiled its Scientific Policy Resolution in 1958.The Technology Policy of 1983 focused on technological self reliance.Link:http://www.dst.gov.in
4 January 2013:India's Mars mission will begin in 2013 October to explore the Red Planet's atmosphere and search for life-sustaining elements. The mission is yet to get an official name.The 470-crore mission will demonstrate India's capability to launch a spacecraft on a 55 million km journey from earth to an orbit 500 km over the Martian surface.The Indian space agency plans to use the PSLV-XL to launch the mission from Sriharikota.The Mars mission will enable India to join the elite club of US, Russia, Europe, China and Japan which have Mars missions.Link:http://www.isro.gov.in
5 January 2013: Indian scientists will soon set up new telescope in the Himalayas.The National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) will study the sun, the facility can also be used at night to look for planets outside the solar system.Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore, is making the telescope.When completed, NLST will be one the world’s largest Solar Telescopes.The Indian telescope is most likely to be located near Pangong Tso Lake in Ladakh, close to the Indo-China border.The fabrication is expected in 2013 and the first light is expected by 2017.Link:http://www.ncra.tifr.res.in
6 January 2013:The commissioning of the first 1,000 MW unit of the Kudankulam project is set to be commissioned within the next two weeks as nuclear scientists have entered the final lap of a series of tests on its safety and efficacy.India is building two 1,000 MW nuclear power plants at Kudankulam with Russian collaboration.Last month, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) had granted permission for the ‘second heat up’, under which all systems of the plant will be put to test to demonstrate its operatability and safety.Link:http://dae.nic.in
7 January 2013:Scientists are losing optimism in the recovery of the French CoRoT mission's space telescope that suddenly stopped producing science data in November 2.CoRoT stands for the Convection, Rotation and Planetary Transits mission. The project is led by CNES, the French space agency.CoRoT, which marked the sixth anniversary of its launch last week, was the first space mission dedicated to searching for planets circling other stars.CoRoT discovered the first rocky planet CoRoT-7b, beyond the solar system in 2009.Link:http://smsc.cnes.fr
8 January 2013:Today, a private Dutch organization called Mars One initiated plans to establish a human settlement on the Red Planet in 2023.It has also announced the Mars Astronaut Selection Programme which will kick off in the first half of this year.Mars One will maintain 40 trained astronauts during the first duration of the mission.The plan envisages launching a supply mission in 2016 landing on Mars in October 2016. In September 2022, the first four astronauts will be launched to Mars landing in 2023 after an eight month flight.There is no return trip.Link:http://mars-one.com
9 January 2013:The University of Agriculture Sciences, Bangalore (UAS) has come up with a unique portal to learn about all plants and animals found in India.It compiles information on more than 40,000 species native to India. This will help students, scientists, industrialists and enthusiasts of flora and fauna.In addition to biological data, the portal also provides details on chemical and sociological on all the species.The portal is a venture of the Department of Biotechnology under University of Agriculture Sciences.Link:http://www.ibin.gov.in
10 January 2013:2013 marks the 125th anniversary of the National Geographic magazine. Each copy of the January 2013 issue of the National Geographic magazine will feature five covers highlighting the Society’s 125th anniversary theme, A New Age of Exploration.Multiple covers will be included in the worldwide English-language edition and in 12 local-language editions.These editions are read by more than 50 million people around the globe.National Geographic Channels will premiere National Geographic at 125 on January11.
Link:www.nationalgeographic.com
11 January 2013:NASA will conduct the first flights of the Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX), the multi-year airborne science campaign with a heavily instrumented Global Hawk aircraft. It will take off from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California.Global Hawk is a remotely piloted research aircraft which will fly 65,000 feet over the tropical Pacific Ocean to probe unexplored regions of the upper atmosphere and detect how a warming climate is changing Earth.Six science flights are planned between January 16 and March 15.Link:http://www.nasa.gov
12 January 2013:After a successful three-year run that saw the discovery of a Higgs-boson-like particle in early 2012, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN,will shut down for 18 months for maintenance and upgrades.This is the first of three long shutdowns, scheduled for 2013, 2017, and 2022.Presently, the LHC smashes two proton beams at 3.5-4 tera-electron-volts (TeV) per beam.By 2015, the beam energy will be pushed up to 6.5-7 TeV per beam.The instantaneous luminosity will be increased ten-times greater than before.Link:http://public.web.cern.ch
13 January 2013:Astronomers have discovered the largest known structure in the universe - a group of quasars so large it would take 4 billion years to cross it while traveling at speed of light.According to researchers, the immense scale also challenges Albert Einstein's Cosmological Principle, the assumption that the universe looks the same from every point of view.The findings by academics from Britain's University of Central Lancashire were published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and reported on the society's website.Link:http://www.ras.org.uk
14 January 2013:A centre of excellence specializing in reading space weather conditions to help air traffic on polar routes would come up in Kolkatta, West Bengal, by the middle of this year, the first of its kind in the country.The centre, approved by the Union Human Resources Development ministry, would come up at the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) campus.The centre would also offer research in Gravitational Physics in addition to PhD programs in space sciences.Link:http://www.iiserkol.ac.in
15 January 2013:Iran will try again to send a live monkey into space after a previous attempt failed in 2011.The final tests for launching the capsule, carrying a monkey, have been completed. According to Hamid Fazeli, chief of Iran's Space Organization, the launch would take place during a 10-day period starting January 31, which marks the 34th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The monkey project would help Iran in sending a man into space which is scheduled for 2020.Link:http://www.en.iran.ir
16 January 2013:Fourteen leaders of world's top Space Agencies will arrive in Israel this month to mark the 10th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster and the death of the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Ramon.The officials confirmed their participation in the Seventh annual international Ilan Ramon Space Conference, which will be held in Herzliya on January 29-30. It is initiated by the Israel Space Agency and the Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.Link:http://www.asi.it
17January 2013:According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8C (1.4F) since 1880, (left 1880-1889) compared to today. 2012 was among the 10 warmest years on record, rising above the long-term average for the 36th year in a row.This makes 2012 the ninth hottest year on record globally. NOAA's data set put it at the 10th hottest year. The agencies use different methods to analyse data.Link:http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
18 January 2013:Australia experienced a wave of migration from India about 4,000 years ago, a genetic study suggests.It was thought the continent had been largely isolated after the first humans arrived about 40,000 years ago until the Europeans moved in in the 1800s.But DNA from Aboriginal Australians revealed there had been some movement from India during this period.To study, the team compared DNA from Aboriginal Australians with people in New Guinea, South East Asia and India.Link:http://www.pnas.org
19 January 2013:The Mars rover Curiosity will soon begin to drill into the Mars for the first time.Curiosity is travelling toward a flat rock with pale veins that scientists hope will provide clues about any water that might have existed on Mars.Curiosity will collect samples from inside the 'John Klein rock', named in honour of a former Mars Science Laboratory deputy project manager who died in 2012.The mission, set to last at least two years, aims to prepare for future manned missions.Link:http://www.nasa.gov
20 January 2013:NASA scientists beamed an image of the Mona Lisa from Earth to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) which is orbiting Moon.It was sent to the spacecraft's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument.Doing so required the scientists to break up the Mona Lisa image into a 152 pixel-by-200 pixel array, with each pixel and transmitted individually by laser pulse.The Mona Lisa, an oil on a poplar wood panel is arguably the most famous work of art in existence.Link:http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov
21 January 2013:Distinguished space scientist and former ISRO chairman UR Rao (Udupi Ramachandra Rao) will be inducted into the 'Satellite Hall of Fame' in Washington on 19 March 2013, in recognition of his contribution to space technology.Since 1987, the Satellite Hall of Fame has been recognising the immense contribution of visionaries in space science including Arthur C. Clarke, James Van Allen, etc.Rao is currently chairman of Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad.Link:http://www.prl.res.in
22 January 2013:The world's first surviving cloned buffalo, Garima-II, has given birth to a female calf at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal today.The female calf is named Mahima which was born through artificial insemination.In 2009, researchers at NDRI reportedly produced Garima-I, the world's first cloned buffalo through 'hand-guided cloning technique' but unfortunately it could not survive for more than six days.The third attempt proved lucky for the scientists and Garima-II was born on August 22, 2010.Link:http://www.ndri.res.in
23 January 2013:Sixty years after scientists revealed the two- stranded, double helical model of DNA, researchers have found evidence for the existance of four-stranded DNA.The odd structures are called G-quadruplex because they form in regions of DNA that are full of Guanine, one of the DNA molecule's four building blocks.The structure comprises four Guanines held together by a type of Hydrogen bonding to form a sort of square like shape.The new visualization of the G-quadruplex is detailed in the journal Nature Chemistry.Link:http://www.nature.com
24 January 2013:Three scientists from India, Germany and Russia have been selected for this year's Chinese Academy of Sciences Award for International Scientific Cooperation. The Indian scientist is Professor C.N.R. Rao from Jawaharlal Nehru University.The award was launched by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2007 to honor foreign scientists for their contributions in Sino-foreign research cooperation.Founded in Beijing in November 1949, Chinese Academy of Sciences is the country's top research institution.Link:http://www.currentscience.ac.in
25 January 2013:The older, smaller cousin of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover is quietly celebrating a big milestone today, nine years on the surface of the Red Planet.NASA's Opportunity rover landed on Mars just after midnight on Jan. 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, Spirit, touched down. Spirit stopped operating in 2010, but Opportunity is still going strong.Opportunity is currently inspecting clay deposits along the rim of Mars' huge Endeavour Crater, to know whether they are capable of supporting primitive microbial life.Link:http://www.nasa.gov
26 January 2013:Noted science educator Yash Pal and aerospace scientist Roddam Narsimha were selected for Padma Vibhushan this year.The Padma Bhushan awardees under the Science and Engineering category are Dr Apathukatha Sivathanu Pillai, Dr Vijay Kumar Saraswat, Dr Ashoke Sen, Prof. Satya N. Atluri, Prof. Jogesh Chandra Pati,Maharaj Kishan Bhan and Dr B.N. Suresh.Avinash Chander,Mutansir Barma,Ajay K Sood,Sanjay Dhande,Sankar Kumar Pal were among the Padma Shri awardees.
Link:http://www.pib.nic.in
27 January 2013:The Prof. Satish Dhawan Young Engineer Award was conferred on K. Balakrishna, associate professor of geology, Department of Civil Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT), Manipal, in Bangalore.Dr. Balakrishna was chosen for the award for his contribution and achievements in the area of Earth Sciences for 2011. He is the first one from MIT, Manipal University, to bag the award, established in 1996.Dr. Balakrishna has worked on the geochemistry of various Indian rivers to understand its link to the climate change.Link:http://kscst.org.in
28 January 2013:Stefan Kudelski, who invented the first portable professional recorder, has died. He was 84.Kudelski's first portable professional recorder was named "Nagra", meaning “will record” in Polish, Kudelski’s native language.Kudelski was widely acknowledged as being among the prominent pioneers in sound recording, being credited with the development of a range of recorders used in the radio, motion picture, television and security industries.Kudelski earned Oscars from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Link:http://www.nagra.com
29 January 2013:Kerala state government is all set to release the new Kerala Science Technology and Innovation (KSTI) Policy at the Silver Jubilee edition of Kerala Science Congress (KSC), which will begin here today.It will be on the lines of the National Science, Technology and Innovation (NSTI) Policy 2013.Though this year's NSTI policy seeks to double the gross expenditure for research and development from the current less-than 1% of GDP to 2%, key focus of the policy will be on private sector investment in research and development.Link:http://www.ksc.kerala.gov.in
30 January 2013:A hundred years after Alfred Russel Wallace's death, the Natural History Museum, London is hoping to address this and to make 2013 the "Year of Wallace".Wallace and Darwin arrived at the idea of Natural selection at the same time,it remained a controversial topic even after Wallace's death in 1913, and so his name devolved into relative obscurity.The Natural History Museum has this week launched Wallace Letters Online, a website that showcases for the first time the correspondence Wallace had during his life and research.Link:http://wallaceletters.info
31 January 2013:India plans to chip in Rs 760 crore towards building a mega telescope known as Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which will be the world's most advanced ground-based observatory, to be located below the summit of Mauna Kea peak in Hawaii. Its construction will begin in 2014 and the telescope may see the first light by 2021.Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, is the nodal Indian institute for the TMT project.Pondicherry-based firm General Optics Asia has been roped in to design mirror segments for the telescope.Link:http://www.tmt.org
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