SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: FEBRUARY 2014

Testing of the indigenously built cryogenic engine at the High Altitude Test Facility (HAT) of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Mahendragiri in early 2013.

1 February 2014: The Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) at Mahendragiri in Tirunelveli will henceforth be called as the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Propulsion Complex. With this, the long-pending demand of the scientists and stakeholders of the LPSC in Mahendragiri, one of the three such centres in the country, has been met with. The move would now help the complex to get autonomous power and would function as a separate department of ISRO. The Mahendragiri centre, which was functioning under LPSC in Valiyamala in Thiruvananthapuram district in Kerala, would henceforth directly report to the Isro chairman.The Mahendragiri centre has assembled and tested as many as 125 engines made by Isro so far. ISRO is also considering to make Kulasekaranpattinam of Tuticorin district, its third rocket launching pad. Link: http://www.lpsc.gov.in

2 February 2014: Hit by five cyclones on its eastern coast last year, India plans to procure a a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 aircraft from NASA equipped with a lab to study wind patterns at high altitude for better prediction of such calamities. NASA uses the DC-8 aircraft as a flying science laboratory. The platform aircraft, based at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California, collects data for several experiments in support of scientific projects. India may get it by 2015-2016. The government has also tied up with University of Massachusetts, US, for research on weather patterns in the country especially in the Bay of Bengal. This assumes significance as several cyclones, including the powerful Phailin that had hit the country’s eastern coast last year. Study of the wind patterns in depth could help in the prediction of cyclones. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

3 February 2014: British scientists announced today that they are convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" that a skeleton found during an archaeological dig in Leicester, central England, in August 2012 is that of the former king, Richard III who was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Now, the scientists are to sequence the entire genome of Richard III. Experts hope the project will reveal the color of Richard's hair and eyes, and uncover the genetic markers for any health conditions he suffered, or might have been at risk of, had he not been killed, aged just 32, at the Battle of Bosworth. Richard III is best known as the hunchbacked anti-hero of Shakespeare's play. He will be the first known historical figure to have his genes studied in this way; scientists have previously sequenced the genomes of Oetzi the Iceman and most recently a hunter-gatherer from Spain. Link:http://www2.le.ac.uk

4 February 2014: Facebook, the world's biggest social network, celebrated its 10th anniversary today. Launched on 4th February 2004, the Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow Harvard University students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. It had a predecessor called Facemash, opened on October 28, 2003. Zuckerberg wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. It allowed visitors to compare two student pictures side-by-side and let them choose who was “hot” and who was “not”. Facebook has now established itself as a phenomenon, securing its place in the world of the technology giants. Facebook has now become a part of daily life with a global total of 1.23 billion monthly active users, including 945 million using it on mobile phones. Link:https://www.facebook.com

5 February 2014: The 70th anniversary of the pioneering Colossus computer is being celebrated at Bletchley Park. The machine was first used to crack messages sent by Hitler and his generals on 5 February 1944. The celebration will bring together some of the machine's creators and operators at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC). The machine's code-cracking prowess will be demonstrated on the day using the museum's rebuilt Colossus. Now widely recognised as the first electronic computer, Colossus was kept a secret for 30 years because of the work it did during World War Two to crack German codes. Colossus was created by Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, and his first prototype was built out of parts from telephone exchanges including 1,600 valves. Later versions used even more valves and about 10 of the machines were in use during war. Link:http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk

6 February 2014: A new earthworm species has been developed by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) that can get rid of the wild aquatic plant Jal Kumbhi growing on the banks of river Brahmaputra. The plant, whose scientific name is Pistia stratiotes, is a big menace in the region since it spreads its tentacles right upto the river bed and impairs the movement of fishermen besides causing widespread pollution. The earthworm is named 'Jai Gopal' with the scientific name Perionyx ceylanesis which has the ability to eat wild vegetation very fast and convert it into organic fertilizer that is suitable for use in farming. Jai Gopal can also withstand different temperature variations and survive temperatures ranging from 0 degrees celsius to 43 degrees unlike foreign species such as Icina Fetida and Udilus Ujini which are used by scientists across the globe. Link:http://ivri.nic.in

7 February 2014: Archaeologists have discovered a 4600-year-old mysterious step pyramid in Egypt, which was built at least a few decades before the Great Pyramid of Giza. Scientists are unsure as to why this pyramid was built and speculate it could have been a symbol of the king's power. Working near the ancient settlement of Edfu, in southern Egypt, archaeologists unearthed the step pyramid that predates the Great Pyramid of Giza by at least a few decades.  The pyramid, which was once 13 meters in height, is one of seven so-called "provincial" pyramids built by either the pharaoh Huni (2635-2610 BC) or Snefru (2610-2590 BC). The provincial pyramids are scattered throughout central and southern Egypt and are located near major settlements. The finding was made by a team led by Gregory Marouard at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute. Link:http://chicago.academia.edu

8 February 2014: Jérôme Lejeune has become widely known as the scientist who discovered that Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. He received many awards, including one from former U.S. President John F. Kennedy. But in recent years, Marthe Gautier, a pediatric cardiologist and scientist living in Paris, has claimed that she did most of the experimental work for the discovery. In May 1958, Gautier she soon noticed an extra chromosome, but she was unable to take pictures. In June 1958, she invited by Jérôme Lejeune to get her slides photographed. Gautier claims that she was "shocked" when, after more than 6 months of silence, the discovery was about to be published in the journal of the French Academy of Sciences, with Lejeune as the first author and Turpin the last; Gautier was in the middle, her last name misspelled as Gauthier. Link:http://link.springer.com

9 February 2014: CERN scientists are planning a next-generation circular collider with a circumference of 80 to 100km which will be much more powerful than the Large Hadron Collider that discovered the 'God particle'. The Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said the time has come to look even further ahead. Cern is now initiating an exploratory study for a future longterm project centred on a circular collider with a much bigger circumference. A worthy successor to the LHC, such an accelerator would allow particle physicists to push back the boundaries of knowledge even further. The LHC, which identified the Higgs boson particle in 2012, is housed in a 27km tunnel beneath the Franco-Swiss border. The accelerator is currently undergoing an upgrade that will see its collision energies reaching up to 14 teraelectronvolts (TeV). Link: http://home.web.cern.ch

10 February 2014: The next-generation James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the 24-year-old Hubble Space Telescope, is on track for a planned launch in 2018 and all the pieces of the most powerful space telescope ever are ready for assembly at NASA. James Webb Space Telescope will be the most powerful space telescope ever erected, capable of spotting the most distant objects in the universe, providing pictures of the first galaxies formed, and spotting unknown planets around distant stars. 18 mirror segments will be combined to form the 21-foot-wide main mirror of the huge space telescope.James Webb Space Telescope has a mirror six times larger in area than the Hubble’s and so the possibilities of the Webb telescope are dramatic. The James Webb Space Telescope is designed to see to the time when stars began to form in the universe. Link:http://www.jwst.nasa.gov

11 February 2014: ISRO's Mars Orbiter spacecraft Mangalyaan successfully completed 100 days in space today. This is the first Indian-made object sent into deep space from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota on November 5 last year. Since then, the spacecraft is continuously monitored by the ground station of Isro's Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC), located at Byalalu, near Bangalore. Presently, the spacecraft is at a radio distance of 16 million kilometres causing a one-way communication delay of approximately 55 seconds. After travelling the remaining distance of about 490 million kilometres over the next 210 days, the spacecraft would be finally inserted into the Martian Orbit on September 24. To reach there, the spacecraft has to still travel 680 million km. Link: http://www.isro.org

12 February 2014: The glacier that may have produced the iceberg responsible for sinking the Titanic has been found to be moving at record speed, four times faster into the sea than it was in 1960s. Scientists fear that by the end of the century, global warming could lead to the Jakobshavn Glacier in the south west of Greenland moving at 10 times the present speed. Researchers now believe that Jakobshavn is in an unstable state. By the end of this century, its calving front could retreat as far back as the head of the fjord through which the glacier flows, about 50 km upstream from where it is today. Researchers from the University of Washington and the German Space Agency measured the speed of the glacier in 2012 and 2013 and say it is moving into the ocean at the fastest speed ever recorded. The results ar published in the journal of the European Geosciences Union. Link:http://www.egu.eu

13 February 2014: China’s Yutu, or Jade Rabbit, lunar rover is functioning again today after shutting down for a 14-day lunar night, according to Chinese officials. The rover’s normal signal reception function was restored and scientists were working to identify the cause of a mechanical problem reported on January 25. International space experts speculated that the problem could be in the electric motors that close the rover’s solar panels. Launched on the Chang’e-3 spacecraft on December 1, the rover was designed for a three-month mission exploring Sinus Iridum, or the Bay of Rainbows. China became the third nation to land a spacecraft on the moon, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, when Chang’e-3 touched down on the lunar surface on December 14. Jade Rabbit is named after the mythological pet rabbit of Chang’e, China’s moon fairy. It is designed to collect soil samples, and search for resources. Link:http://www.ecns.cn

14 February 2014: ERWIN (Emotional Robot with Intelligent Network) is the world’s friendliest robot, built by an Indian student in UK, capable of expressing five basic emotions while interacting with a human. ERWIN is a great listener and responds only when required. He understands when we are unhappy. He is warm, responds to touch and is the perfect companion for the elderly. ERWIN is the world's friendliest robot capable of expressing five basic emotions while interacting with a human. Originally the brain child of Dr John Murray from the School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, UK, ERWIN is helping scientists to understand how relationships might be developed between humans and robots. In the case of conventional human-robot interaction, the robot's lack of identifiable characteristics prevents any relationship bond developing. Link:http://www.lincoln.ac.uk

15 February 2014: NASA's Curiosity rover has taken a photograph of Earth from the surface of Mars, showing what our planet looks like from 100 million miles away.It's rare that a single dot on a computer screen can elicit such a strong reaction, but there is something mind-blowing about Earth's diminutive appearance in the image.While we are used to seeing vivid greens and blues and swirling cloud when the Earth is photographed from space, from this distance the planet and its moon appear like no more than a couple of bright 'evening stars'.Taken about 80 minutes after Mars' sunset on Curiosity's 529th Martian day, the image was 'processed to remove effects of cosmic rays', with NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project is using Curiosity to assess ancient habitable environments. Link:http://www.nasa.gov

16 February 2014: NASA is now looking to private entrepreneurs to help exploit resources on the moon. In its latest initiative, NASA is proposing private companies take advantage of NASA's extensive know-how, its engineers and access to its installations to help design and build lunar robots. However, the moon proposal dubbed CATALYST (Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown) would get no economic help from government. Recent missions in the moon's orbit have revealed evidence of water and other interesting substances on the moon. In 2013 NASA reached an agreement with Bigelow Aerospace to build a lunar base. Founded by US billionaire Robert Bigelow, the company offers inflatable space modules. The lunar soil is also rich in coveted rare earth elements: 17 chemicals that are heavily used in everyday electronics. Link:http://www.nasa.gov

17 February 2014: Astronomers in Australia have found the oldest known star in the universe, a discovery that may re-write our understanding of the universe directly following the Big Bang. The team from Australian National University (ANU) say that the star, located around 6,000 light years away from Earth, is roughly 13.6 billion years old. The star has been given the unwieldy catalogue reference of SMSS J 031300.36-670839.3. It broke the record of antiquity, the star HD 140283 installed, open in early 2013. Age was the last 13.2 billion years. Both stars are relatively close to Earth: 186 light-years in HD 140283 and 6 thousand light years SMSS J031300.36-670839.3. Key to determining its age was an analysis of its iron content. The study was published in the latest edition of the journal Nature. Link:http://www.nature.com

18 February 2014: Indian scientists generated about 4500 crore base pairs of genomic sequence data of mango genome using new generation of sequencing technologies. Scientists from five institutes of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) including National Research Center on Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, Lucknow, Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bangalore and Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, New Delhi are working on this project. The first draft of genome was generated with more than 90% coverage of the genome and a total of 78,831 genes coding for different properties of the mango plant. India is the largest producer of mango in the world, with 25 major commercial varieties highly preferred in the International market. Link: https://pag.confex.com

19 February 2014: More than 10,000 people have signed up for an online course to study the work of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs which led to the discovery of the 'God particle'.The free seven-week course, titled 'The Discovery of the Higgs boson', is being run by the University of Edinburgh in UK, where Professor Higgs worked when he developed the 'God particle' theory.He proposed that particles acquire mass by interacting with an all-pervading field spread throughout the Universe. The course, which begins this week, has already attracted more than 10,000 learners to register, the university said in a statement.The course explores the scientific advancements that have led to the building of the Large Hadron Collider, in Switzerland, and to the detection of the Higgs boson in July 2012.The course features filmed lectures of Professor Higgs. Link:http://www.ed.ac.uk

20 February 2014: Union Cabinet of India on today gave its approval for continuation of Nano Mission, a mission on Nano Science and Technology - in its second phase in the 12th Plan Period (2012-17) and sanctioned Rs 650 crore for the purpose. Nano Technology is a knowledge-intensive and "enabling technology" which is expected to influence a wide range of products and processes with far-reaching implications for the national economy and development.It will be anchored in the Department of Science and Technology and steered by a Nano Mission Council. The government had launched the Nano Mission in May 2007 as an "umbrella capacity-building programme". As a result of the efforts led by the Nano Mission, India is at present amongst the top five nations in the world in terms of scientific publications in Nano Science. Link: http://nanomission.gov.in

21 February 2014: Odisha state in India has now got it's first Butterfly Park at the botanical garden of Nandankanan. The park spreading over 3,200 sq metre is an open garden and has at least 54 species of butterflies. The park consists of a breeding section and a visitor section. The breeding section came up on 840 square meter, the visitor section is constructed on 2360 square meter. Species such as Banded Peacock, Crimson Rose, Blue Mormon, Commander, Wanderer, Grass Demons and Moneky Puzzle could be seen in the park. The objective behind this garden is to spread much needed awareness among the visitors about the ecological role of the butterflies.It has been designed to act as an in-situ conservation centre for butterflies. To make the park more splendid they have planted at least 6,100 plants of 56 species, while 22 are host species of butterflies.Link:http://www.nandankanan.org

22 February 2014: A study has found that that ability of Tibetans to live in high altitude areas lies in their genes. A new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University traced back the genetic origins of high-altitude Tibetans to 30,000 years ago. High elevations are challenging for humans because of low oxygen levels but Tibetans are well adapted to life above 13,000 feet. Due to physiological traits such as relatively low haemoglobin concentrations at altitude, Tibetans have lower risk of complications such as thrombosis compared to short-term visitors from low altitude areas. Unique to Tibetans are variants of the EGLN1 and EPAS1 genes, key genes in the oxygen homeostasis system at all altitudes. To shed light on the evolutionary origins of these gene variants, scientists obtained genome-wide data from 69 Nepalese Sherpa, an ethnic group related to Tibetans. Link:http://news.uchicago.edu

23 February 2014: India will launch four foreign satellites in 2014-15 in the Earth's lower orbit, using its workhorse polar rocket. ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation has signed agreements today with a British firm and a Singapore agency to launch their spacecraft onboard PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle). The customers are DMC International Imaging, a subsidiary of the Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, for launching its three 350kg disaster monitoring satellites and ST Electronics (Satcom and Sensor Systems) Ltd, Singapore, for launch of its TeLEOS-1 earth observation satellite. The launches will take place between 2014-15. The satellites will be launched from the Indian spaceport at Sriharikota. The space agency is working towards launching SPOT-7, a French satellite onboard the PSLV with four satellites in March/April 2014. Link: http://www.antrix.gov.in

24 February 2014: US scientists announced an important milestone in the costly, decades-old quest to develop fusion energy, which, if harnessed successfully, promises a nearly inexhaustible energy source for future generations. For the first time, experiments at the federally funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have produced more energy from fusion reactions than the amount of energy put into the fusion fuel. The research team was led by physicist Omar Hurricane. They noted that did not produce self-heating nuclear fusion, known as ignition, that would be needed for any fusion power plant. The scientists used 192 laser beams to zap a tiny target containing a capsule less than a tenth of an inch (about 2 mm) in diameter filled with fusion fuel, consisting of a plasma of Deuterium and Tritium, which are two isotopes, or forms, of Hydrogen.Link: http://fsi.stanford.edu

25 February 2014: Today is the 20th annual World Spay Day, a campaign by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and Humane Society International (HSI) to raise awareness of spay/neuter as a solution to animal overpopulation.The majority of homeless animals in the U.S. represent puppies and kittens of pets accidentally or intentionally allowed to breed. About half of homeless animals are adopted, while 2.7 million adoptable pets are euthanized. Worldwide, street animal overpopulation is often addressed by local authorities through the use of electrocution, poison or other methods that are ineffective as long-term solutions. World Spay Day globally promotes the benefit of spaying and neutering as permanent, effective methods of birth control, ensuring that those animals will not be continuing to reproduce. Link: http://www.humanesociety.org

26 February 2014: European astronomers have found a previously unknown comet, detected as a tiny blob of light orbiting our Sun deep in the solar system. The new coment is officially designated as P/2014 C1 but popularly named as called TOTAS after the Teide Observatory Tenerife Asteroid Survey, which was responsible for its discovery. The comet's orbit was determined to lie between Jupiter and Mars. This means it will not come close to Earth. The comet was unexpectedly discovered during a routine set of observations at European Space Agency's Optical Ground Station, Spain.The confirmation was announced by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. This year, European Space Agency's spacecraft Rosetta will meet up with another comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta will land the comet in 2014 August. Link: http://www.iac.es

27 February 2014: In a major breakthrough Brajendra Kumar Sharma, a senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center has successfully converted plastic shopping bags into Diesel, natural gas and other useful petroleum products. The conversion produces significantly more energy than it requires and results in transportation fuels like diesel. Other products such as natural gas, naphtha, gasoline, waxes and lubricating oils such as engine oil and hydraulic oil also can be obtained from shopping bags. The process involved is called pyrolysis which is essentially heating the bags in an oxygen-free chamber. Previous studies have used pyrolysis to convert plastic bags into crude oil. Plastic trash bags started appearing around the world by the late 1960s.A quarter of the plastic bags used in wealthy nations are now produced in Asia. Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com

28 February 2014: Lichens may hold the key to a potential drug against breast cancer that affects one in 28 women in India, according to a discovery by scientists at Bose Institute's Division of Molecular Medicine. Lichens are made up of a symbiotic association of fungus and alga and are known reservoirs of dyes and drugs. India is home to more than 2,400 species of lichens which is almost 16 per cent of its global distribution. Now, a team of five scientists at the Kolkata-based Bose Institute's Division of Molecular Medicine have shown that an extract of the tropical lichen species Parmotrema reticulatum (PRME) can specifically halt duplication of cancerous cells and and treat breast cancer. The study was done done in collaboration with the Department of Ecology and Environmental Science at Silchar's Assam University. Link: http://www.plosone.org