2 February 2013: Google launched Global Science Fair-2013 and invites students around the world to present their ideas that could change the world. This is the third time Google is launching this and partners in the third annual Google Science Fair include European research organization CERN and toy maker LEGO Group. Students aged between 13 to 18 can participate in the science contest.Science fair prizes include a $ 50,000 scholarship and a trip to the Galapagos with National Geographic Expeditions.The deadline for submissions is April 30.More details were available online.Link:www.googlesciencefair.com
3 February 2013: Peter Higgs, the scientist who gave his name to the Higgs boson gets a prize named in his honour.The annual prize, named The Higgs Prize, is open to Scottish school students who excel in physics. Prof Higgs hit upon the concept of 'Higgs Boson' in 1964,the existence of a particle that gives matter its mass. He published it in the journal Physical Review Letters, sparking a 40-year hunt for Higgs boson.In 2012 July, CERN scientists announced the discovery of particle that closely resembled Higgs Boson.Link:http://www.exploratorium.edu
4 February 2013:An asteroid by name "99942 Apophis" will safely fly by the Earth in 2029 and 2036, but may strike the planet in the year 2068, NASA scientists have warned.But,the chances of 99942 Apophis striking the Earth are slim with impact odds being about 2.3 in a million. This near-Earth asteroid has been the focus of considerable attention after it was discovered in December 2004 to have a significant probability of Earth impact in April 2029.However chances of 2029 potential impact was ruled out through the measurement of archival telescope images.Link:http://apophisasteroid.net
5 February 2013:Genetic relations of the Kerala Mud Snake, Enhydris dussumierii to the Chinese water snake, Enhydris chinensis was revealed in a joint research programme by the Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries of University of Kerala, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Australia based University of Adelaide, and US based Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) in Chicago.Endemic to the coastal lowlands of Kerala, Enhydris dussumierii is listed as endangered, locally known as Cheli kutta or Kanda pampu.
Link:http://www.tandfonline.com
6 February 2013:The large, unmanned Helium balloon, impressively dubbed Super-Tiger (Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder) broke two records pertaining to Antarctic research. Super-Tiger took off on Dec. 8, 2012 from a U.S. research center located on the southern tip of Antarctica’s Ross Island. Super-Tiger clinched its first record, “longest flight by a balloon of its size” on Jan. 24 after flying for 46 days. It grabbed its second, “longest flight of any heavy-lift scientific balloon” upon its landing. Link:http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov
7 February 2013:Scientists, using a new climate model, have predicted heavy snowfall over the polar regions and the highest altitudes, but an overall drop in global snowfall, as carbon dioxide levels rise over the next century.The projections are the result of a new climate model developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The observations show that atmospheric carbon dioxide has already increased by 40 per cent from values in the mid 19th century, and, given projected trends, could exceed twice those values later this century.Link:http://www.noaa.gov
8 February 2013:Just over a century after Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic expedition came to a tragic close, Britain’s latest and greatest Antarctic Research Station Halley VI will become fully operational over the coming weeks. Halley VI is located on the Brunt Ice Shelf and it replaces the 20-year old Halley V installation. Halley VI is the sixth such facility to occupy the floating Brunt Ice Shelf.It was the data from the Halley research station that led to the discovery of the Ozone Hole by British Antarctic Survey in 1985.
Link:http://www.antarctica.ac.uk
9 February 2013:The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, Government of India, today approved the proposal for the merger of National Lake Conservation Plan (NLCP) and National Wetlands Conservation Programme (NWCP) into a new scheme called the 'National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Eco-systems' (NPCA).The merged scheme shall be operational during the XII Plan Period.NPCA is proposed to avoid overlap with the objective of conserving aquatic ecosystems (lakes and wetlands).
Link:http://moef.nic.in
10 February 2013:Climate change is threatening the survival of a number of Asian bird species, including those in India, a new study research conducted by Durham University and BirdLife International warns. The study was conducted for 370 Asian bird species across the biodiversity hotspots of eastern Himalayas and lower Mekong River basin regions in Bhutan, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and parts of India and Nepal.India has a total of 466 Important Bird Areas hosting a wide variety of endangered avian species.Link:http://www.dur.ac.uk
11 February 2012:The peaks of the Himalayas are a modern remnant of massive tectonic forces that fused India with Asia, 50 million years ago, as per previous estimates.Now researchers at MIT have found that the collision between India and Asia occurred only 40 million years ago.The scientists analyzed the composition of rocks from two regions in the Himalayas and measured the ratios of Strontium to Neodymium, and Lutetium to Hafnium, to determine the presence of a collision.The research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.Link:http://web.mit.edu
12 February 2013:A dangerous virus, belonging to the same family as the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is inching towards India.The World Health Organization says the new case does indicate that the virus is persistent.United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency (HPA) has now confirmed a fresh case of the novel corona-virus infection in a British resident who had recently traveled to Pakistan.HPA has the full genome sequence of SARS virus and it is believed that they can find a treatment to the new variety of SARS.Link:http://www.cdc.gov
13 February 2012:Today sees the launch of the Global Ocean Commission - a body set up to advise the United Nations on how to conserve the world's declining fisheries and ocean resources.The commission was set up by the University of Oxford, UK, and three non-governmental organizations.The Forum Chairman will be the former Costa Rican president Jose Figueres.Mr Ratan Tata also has joined the Commission.The Commission's recommendations will come in 2014.Link:http://www.globaloceancommission.org
14 February 2013:Water reserves, as much as all the water in the Dead Sea, has disappeared from the already arid Middle East, along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, from Turkey to Syria, Iran and Iraq. Nasa's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites have found that between 2003 and 2010, the four nations lost 144 cubic kilometers of water,nearly equivalent to all the water in the Dead Sea.Tigris-Euphrates watershed is drying up at a pace second only to that in India.This rate is among the largest freshwater losses on the continents.Link:http://www.csr.utexas.edu
15 February 2013:An asteroid called 2012 DA14 passed very close to Earth today, coming within a range of 27,599 kilometers and making the closest known flyby for an asteroid of its size.The asteroid about 40 meters across in size was too small to see with the naked eye even at its closest approach around 2.25 p.m. EST over the Indian Ocean near Sumatra.In a chilling coincidence, a meteor exploded above Russia's Ural Mountains just hours before the asteroid zoomed past Earth.Link:http://www.nasa.gov
16 February 2012:NASA scientists have drawn up plans for a mission that could look for life on Europa, a moon of Jupiter that is covered in vast oceans of water under a thick layer of ice.The Europa Ice Clipper would be the first dedicated mission to Europa.For several years scientists have been considering plans for a spacecraft that could orbit Europa, but this turned out to be too expensive.Europa Ice Clipper, launched in 2021 and would take 3 to 6 years to arrive Europa.Link:http://www.astrobiology.com
17 February 2013:A community-based study in Kerala has found that the state leads in Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) and its associated risk factors. The state health department and the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology continuously monitored 7,449 people from Thiruvananthapuram district of which 51 per cent were women.The prevalence of smoking in men (42%) was double of that of in the US. The study appeared in the journal Lancet.Link:http://www.lancet.com
19 February 2013: The first nuclear weapon test carried out by India May 18, 1974 was a "near failure",claimed a secret US assessment dated January 24, 1996.The National Security Archive (NSA) noted that such an assertion by the US intelligence community may be a reference to the very low explosive yield of the 1974 nuclear tests.The nuclear tests codenamed 'Operation Smiling Buddha', tested a thermonuclear device in the Pokhran firing range in Rajasthan. The yield of the device is debated since then.Link:http://www.princeton.edu
20 February 2013:Inspiration Mars Foundation, a non-profit organisation, led by millionaire Dennis Tito, the world's first space tourist, announces that their the mission to Mars will start its journey from January 2018, using a modified SpaceX Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon Heavy rocket.The 501-day crewed free-return mission would fly by Mars, but not go into orbit around the planet or land on it. Dennis Tito made history in 2001, by an eight-day trip to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.Link:http://inspirationmars.org
21 February 2013:NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is developing an experiment which will make the International Space Station (ISS) the coldest spot in the universe, quite literally.The hitherto unknown project is called 'Cold Atom Laboratory' (CAL).The 17-nation ISS operates in the low earth orbit at an altitude of about 370km.NASA started the development of CAL Experiment in October 2012 and will launch roughly in April 2016. The project is led by an Indian woman, Anita Sengupta, who hails from West Bengal.Link:http://coldatomlab.jpl.nasa.gov/
22 February 2013:Researchers from Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India discovered the blue fluorescent emissions from insectivorous plants belonging to genus such as Nepenthes, Sarracenia and Dionaea muscipula (Venus flytraps). Blue fluorescence also appeared on the lids, interior pitcher tubes and peristomes (upper rims) of pitcher plants.The researchers found the "blue glow" (fluorescence) while scanning them at UV (366nm).The study is published Plant Biology.Link:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
23 February 2013:India and Russia are pursueing joint programmes on realisation of Chandrayaan-2 which will be a joint mission to the moon. However, there is no transfer of space technology envisaged under this agreement. Indian Space Research organisation (ISRO) and Federal Space Agency of Russia (ROSCOSMOS) entered into a co-operative agreement in November 2007, for carrying out joint moon exploration. The programme included a moon orbiter, lander and rover module.Chandrayaan-2 will be launched using ISRO’s Geo-synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.Link:http://www.isro.org
24 February 2013: China’s most renowned agricultural scientist,Yuan Longping, known here as “the father of hybrid rice” refutes the claim made by farmers in Bihar last year where they made a world-record harvest of 22.4 tonnes of rice per hectare of land without using herbicides or genetically modified (GM) seeds. The previous record was by China, which was 19 hectares per hectare. The Indian claim came from Sumant Kumar, the farmer from Nalanda district, who also broke the world record in Potato production by Netherlands (45 tonnes per hectare) by making a harvest of 72.9 tonnes per hectare.Link:http://www.icar.org.in
25 February 2013:In a multiple launch mission, a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C20) put India-French satellite SARAL and six others from the Sriharikota spaceport.SARAL stands for Satellite for Argos-3 and Altika.Hopes that SARAL will be an Indian answer to ESA’s EnviSat which stopped functioning last year. This was the 22nd consecutive successful PSLV mission.The other satellites launched along with SARAL were SAPPHIRE,NEOSSAT, AAUSAT,BRITE,UniBRITE and STR ,all from abroad.Link:http://www.isro.org
26 February 2013:Scientists at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkatta have developed a new technique to detect Arsenic in water,a toxic substance widespread in the groundwater of India and Bangladesh that is capable of causing skin cancer.The new method employs gold clusters that signal its presence in water by emitting light (fluorescence). According to the WHO, natural arsenic contamination is a cause for concern in Argentina, Bangladesh, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Thailand and the US.Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com
27 February 2013: Scientists found evidence of a drowned "microcontinent" has been found in sand grains from the beaches of a small Indian Ocean island. It had been hidden under huge masses of lava and it detached itself some 60 million years ago. The discovery was based on analysis of the sand grains which contained semi-precious Zircons aged between 660 million and 1.9 billion years, which were carried by the lava.The new study is published in Nature GeoScience.Link:http://www.nature.com
28 February 2013:One of the Pluto's smallest moons may be named 'Vulcan' after it gathered maximum votes in an online public contest.The poll for suggesting names for the planet's two unnamed moons currently called P4 and P5 was swept by 'Vulcan' and 'Cerberus' as polling closed.The International Astronomical Union will take the results into consideration.Pluto has five moons that astronomers currently know of. Scientists first caught sight of Pluto's largest moon Charon in 1978.In 2005, astronomers discovered two other moons, Nix and Hydra.The moon P5 was discovered in 2012 and P4 in 2011.Link:http://www.iau.org
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