 |
| Photo Courtesy: Philip Ross |
1 June 2013: India's highest farm science centre (Krishi Vigyan Kendra) will be set up at Nyoma in Leh district of Jammu and Kashmir at a height of about 14,000 feet. People living in Nyoma are mostly nomads and rear pashmina goats.The region is extremely cold and dry and so, it is a challenge to promote agriculture there. There are 631 farm science centres across the country which are funded by the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) under the Ministry of Agriculture.Link:http://www.icar.org.in
2 June 2013: Ruth Carter, a 42-year-old UK woman, a psychologist by profession, has become the first in the world to give birth to a baby conceived using a pioneering IVF time-lapse photography technique to pick the best embryo. The child was conceived using a technique which monitors the growth of the embryo, to select the one which is most likely to result in a successful pregnancy. The girl is the first in the world to have been conceived using a technique called Eeva - Early Embryo Viability Assessment.Link: http://www.eevaivf.com
3 June 2013: The tenth anniversary of the launch of European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express was marked by the release of new global maps of the Red Planet which trace the history of water and volcanic activity on Mars and identify sites of special interest for the next generation of Mars explorers. Each map represents a different chapter in the story of geological evolution on Mars.Mars Express was launched on 2 June 2003 and entered the Martian orbit on December 25,2003.Link: http://www.esa.int
4 June 2013: Professor Qin-Bin Lu at the University of Waterloo challenges conventional thinking about the roots of climate change. According to Lu, since 1987 when CFCs were phased out under the Montreal Protocol, there was a decrease in global temperature.There was global warming by about 0.6°C from 1950 to 2002, but the Earth was actually cooling since 2002. The cooling trend is set to continue for the next 50-70 years as the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere continues to decline. Link:http://www.worldscientific.com
5 June 2013: Researchers from the University of New South Wales will retrace Sir Douglas Mawson's expedition 100 years ago (1911-1914) to the Antarctica in November 2013. They will take measurements of the ocean water, visit sub-Antarctic islands where they will collect sediment cores from lakes and peat bogs, and study the wildlife. A team of 46 researchers will set out for a six-week journey to repeat measurements made by Mawson's team, including observations of the ocean and wildlife.Link: http://uniken.unsw.edu.au
6 June 2013: Japan has unveiled its first commercial model of a magnetically levitated train (maglev train) designed to travel at speeds of upto 500 kmph today at its test track in Yamanashi Prefecture, central Japan. Commercial runs of the are scheduled to start between Tokyo and Nagoya in 2027. It was in 1964 that Japan unveiled its first bullet train known as "Shinkansen" to coincide with its hosting of the Olympic Games. Tokyo pledging to invest in building high speed railway systems in India too.Link:http://www.maglevboard.net
7 June 2013: The World Health Organization (WHO) has approved a first-of-its-kind, non-surgical circumcision device to forestall the spread of AIDS. The device called PrePex is the only adult circumcision method, aside from conventional surgery, to gain WHO approval to date.PrePex can be quickly put in place by a two-nurse team.The new method of circumcision relies on a rubber band. WHO says that the new nonsurgical circumcision device reduces the chance of AIDS by about 60 per cent.Link:http://www.prepex.com
8 June 2013: Scientists have found a new layer in the cornea and named it after the Indian researcher Harminder Dua of University of Nottingham who made the discovery. It was believed that the cornea is composed of five layers, the corneal epithelium, Bowman's layer, the corneal stroma, Descemet's membrane and the corneal endothelium.The new layer is located between the corneal stroma and Descemet's membrane. The study is published in the journal Ophthalmology.Link:http://www.aaojournal.org
9 June 2013: Nasa's Opportunity rover is heading for its new destination, 2 kilometers to the south, by August,a favorable spot before the next Martian winter. Opportunity has been exploring Endeavour Crater since 2011.Previous studies by Opportunity pointed to a watery past on Mars. Since landing on Mars in 2004, Opportunity and its twin, Spirit, have impressed scientists with their longevity. Meanwhile, Curiosity, the latest rover on Mars will soon be heading to a Martian mountain. Link:http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov
10 June 2013: Scientists have discovered the tiniest galaxy called Segue 2, in the known Universe which contains just 1,000 or so stars with a bit of dark matter holding them together. It is located at the edge of the Milky Way, some 114000 light years from the Sun. Segue 2 was discovered in 2009 as part of the massive Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Measurements of this dwarf galaxy were made by scientists of the University of California-Irvine and the results are published in the Astrophysical Journal.Link:http://iopscience.iop.org
11 June 2013: With futuristic warfare in mind, India is working to develop robotic soldiers, joining a select group of countries in this endeavour. Under the project being undertaken by DRDO, high intelligence robots would be developed enabling them to be deployed in difficult warfare zones, a step that would help avert the loss of human lives. The newly-appointed DRDO chief Avinash Chander listed the project for development of robotic soldiers as one of the priority thrust areas of DRDO.Link:http://drdo.gov.in
12 June 2013: Standard atomic weights of chemical elements on the periodic table, were once thought of as unchanging constants of nature.To calculate standard atomic weight, scientists have traditionally averaged the weights of isotopes. But as per International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the atomic weights of five elements Magnesium, Bromine, Germanium, Indium and Mercury has been changed. The report is detailed in the journal Pure and Applied Chemistry.Link:http://pac.iupac.org
13 June 2013: Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has inaugurated the Swiss-based European Laboratory for Particle Physics, or CERN's Wigner data center in Budapest. CERN is famous for owning some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators. The data center is directly connected to CERN’s Geneva headquarters and will receive and handle data flow of 100 gigabit-per-second. It costs Hungary 8.5 billion forints ($38.7 million) and will ensure security for data produced at CERN.Link:http://information-technology.web.cern.ch
14 June 2013: Naturally occurring human gene sequences cannot be patented but artificially copied and replicated DNA can be, the US Supreme Court ruled today. A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated but cDNA is patent eligible because it is not naturally occurring. Nearly 20 percent of identified human genes are currently under patent, some of which are associated with Alzheimer's disease or other cancers. Link:http://www.supremecourt.gov
15 June 2013: The Indian telecom firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has decided to discontinue the 160-year-old telegram service from today.At their peak of service in 1985, 60 million telegrams were sent. It was once a means of urgent communication. This missive comes 144 years after Samuel Morse sent the first telegram in Washington. In India, telegraph was introduced by William O'Shaughnessy, a British doctor who used a different code in 1850 to send a message. Link:http://www.bsnl.co.in
16 June 2013: Today in 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly into space. Two years after Yuri Gagarin's historic first manned flight, Tereshkova blasted off in a Vostok-6 spaceship, becoming a national heroine at the age of 26. She remains the only woman ever to have made a solo space flight. During her three-day mission, Tereshkova circled Earth 48 times. On the first day, she communicated with Valery Bykovsky who was on another Soviet spaceship, Vostok-5, and even sang him songs.Link:http://www.enchantedlearning.com
17 June 2013: The billion-euro Herschel space telescope has been switched off.Controllers emptied the satellite's fuel tanks and commanded the observatory to stop all communications. The "passivated" spacecraft is now in a slow drift around the Sun, about 2.14 million km from Earth. With its 3.5m mirror, Herschel was the most powerful observatory of its kind ever put in space. Decommissioning became necessary when Herschel used up the last of its superfluid Helium coolant. Link:http://sci.esa.int/herschel
18 June 2013: 30 years ago today, Sally K. Ride, at the age of 32, became America's first woman in space. Ride began her career as an astronaut after answering a NASA newspaper ad in 1978 seeking applicants for the space program. After leaving NASA in 1989, Ride joined the faculty of the University of California, and became director of the University’s Space Institute. In 2001, she founded Sally Ride Science to encourage girls to pursue careers in science. She died in July 2012 due to pancreatic cancer.Link: https://sallyridescience.com
19 June 2013: Tianhe-2 developed by the National University of Defence Technology in China has become the world's fastest supercomputer. Tianhe-2 which means Milky Way-2, is capable of sustained computing of 33.86 petaflops per second,knocking the US Energy Department's Titan which achieved 17.59 petaflops per second. It's the second time a Chinese computer has been named the world's fastest. In November 2010, the Tianhe-2's predecessor, Tianhe-1A, had that honour.Link:http://english.nudt.edu.cn
20 June 2013: The Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (KVASU) has launched a web portal for sharing new technologies and methods being developed by the university to farmers, entrepreneurs and students. The portal is in Malayalam and has provisions for video streaming and web radio. The project, by the Directorate of Entrepreneurship under the university also has content on the various initiatives of the university. The University's new courses were also launched at the function. Link:www.kasavu.in
21 June 2013: 65 years ago, on June 21, 1948, at Victoria University of Manchester, a software was born. The computer with that software was called "Baby", officially designated as the 'Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine' which first ran the first "program" retrieved from random-access memory. "Baby" wasn't the first programmable computer. But the technology proven in "Baby", with its 1,024 bits of cathode-tube based RAM, would become the basis of the first commercial computers. Link: http://www.computer50.org
22 June 2013: Six majestic forts of Rajasthan, including Satyajit Ray's Shonar Kella, have been declared World Heritage Sites by Unesco's World Heritage Committee. The other forts are Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Sawai Madhopur, Jhalawar, Jaipur and Jaisalmer were inscribed on the World Heritage List. UNESCO says the hill forts represent the genius of Rajput Military architecture, tracing the development of the fort typology and evolution of its architectural style from the 15th to 19th century.Link:http://whc.unesco.org
23 June 2013: Today was the day of the Super Moon.The situation is called Super Moon and the scientific term is perigee moon, used when the moon is nearest to the earth. There are three super moons this year, in May, June and July. Super Moons are as much as 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter compared to the normal full moon. Today the moon comes to a distance of 3,56,989 km. The last Super Moon was on May 6, 2012. Moon will be farthest from earth this year on July 7, at 4,06,491 km.Link:http://planetarysocietyindia.blogspot.in
24 June 2013: Palaeontologists have discovered the fossilised remains of a tiny tree-dwelling creature that lived around 55 million years ago, making it the oldest primate ever found. It has been called Archicebus achilles, a compound name that means "first long-tailed monkey." The "achilles" is derived from the mythical Greek warrior due to its unusual ankle anatomy.The discovery also strengthens the theory that primates originated in Asia. The study is reported in the journal Nature.Link:http://www.nature.com
25 June 2013: Sunjammer, the spacecraft that uses only sunlight to cruise through space, is set to be launched in November 2014. The mission is handled by the NASA’s Space Technology Program. NASA took the name Sunjammer from an Arthur C. Clarke short story, a fictional yacht race in the heavens using solar sails. However, Sunjammer won’t be the world’s first solar sail mission because it was Japan’s Ikaros deployed in June 2010, becoming the first and largest Solar-sail to be manufactured ever.Link:http://www.nasa.gov
26 June 2013: The world's population could reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to a new statistical analysis. That represents 800 million more people than was forecast in 2011. The United Nations reported that the population hit 7 billion in October 2011. That's an amazing increase from the mere 5 million people who lived on the planet in 8000 B.C. or the 1 billion who were alive in 1805. Africa's population stands at 1.1 billion, but that is expected to increase four-fold, to 4.2 billion, by 2100.Link:http://www.un.org
27 June 2013: The Indian sub-continent may lose close to 14,000 sq.km. of land with the rise of a one metre of sea level due to climate change. Total area loss due to marine intrusion into coastal areas of the Indian sub-continent is estimated at approximately 13,973 sq.km. and 60,497 sq. km. of land area under 1m and 6m sea-level rise scenarios, respectively. Marine intrusion might affect 18 of the 48 eco-regions in India. The report is published in the latest issue of Journal of Threatened Taxa. Link:http://www.threatenedtaxa.org
28 June 2013: The International Linear Collider Collaboration (LCC) project plans to build an $8.75 billion (830 billion yen) particle accelerator. The next-generation super-collider will be 31-kilometer in length. The project would allow researchers to accelerate electrons and positrons into a beam moving more than 99 % the speed of light.The candidate sites for the particle accelerator in Japan include the Kitakami Mountains straddling Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, and the Sefuri Mountains straddling Saga and Fukuoka prefectures.Link:http://www.linearcollider.org
29 June 2013: According to World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), there is only a small chance of an El Nino or La Nina system developing in the Pacific Ocean this year.The two climate phenomena, which cause an abnormal warming or cooling of the surface of parts of the Pacific Ocean, also cause extreme floods and droughts. El Nino happens every two to seven years. It last occurred from June 2009 to May 2010. El Nino is often followed by La Nina which was last declared over in April 2012. Link:http://www.wmo.int
30 June 2013: Six exceptional individuals were honored last night at the National Geographic Society’s 125th Anniversary celebration. Hubbard Medal, the highest honour from the Society was presented to explorer and filmmaker James Cameron, oceanographer Sylvia Earle and scientist and author Edward O. Wilson. Cameron also received the Explorer of the Year Award for his record-setting solo dive to the deepest point of the ocean in 2012. National Geographic Society was founded in 1888.Link:http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com
31 June 2013: NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft launched nearly 36 years ago in 1977, now more than 18 billion kilometers from the sun, is entering inter-stellar space. This would make it the first man-made object to wrench itself free of the Sun's powerful magnetic field that extends to over 13 billion kilometers beyond the known planets. Three papers published in the journal Science describe how Voyager 1's entry into a region called the magnetic highway also known as the depletion region.Link:http://www.sciencemag.org
No comments:
Post a Comment