SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2014

1 April 2014: Today marks the 10th anniversary of Gmail, the email service by Google and to celebrate it, Google is launching a new feature called Shareable Selfie or Shelfie for short. Gmail initially started as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009. Gmail was a project started by Google developer Paul Buchheit, who had already explored the idea of web-based email in the 1990s. Initially the software was available only internally as an email system for Google employees. In 2006, Forbes magazine declared Gmail as the best webmail. It is the most widely used web-based email with over 425 million users worldwide. Link:https://www.gmail.com

2 April 2014: NASA today celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Deep Space Network (DSN). The list of missions the Deep Space Network tracks starts with Surveyor 3, 5 and 6 in 1967 and Surveyor 7 in 1968. Of course there’s Apollo 11 in 1969, which put the first human on the moon. There were also the Mariner missions to Mercury and Venus and Pioneer missions to Jupiter. Today, the Deep Space Network tracks Voyager 1 and 2, Cassini and the Mars exploration rovers, like Mars Odyssey and Mars Express. DSN is also involved in the study of asteroids. The Indian counterpart IDSN (Indian Deep Space Network) is located at Byalalu, a village near Bangalore city in Karnataka. It started functioning on 17 October 2008. Other similar networks include ESTRACK of the European Space Agency and its Soviet and Chinese counterparts. Link:http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov

3 April 2014: Two people in England have developed tuberculosis after contact with a domestic cat, Public Health England has announced. The two human cases are linked to nine cases of Mycobacterium bovis infection in cats in Berkshire and Hampshire last year. Mycobacterium bovis is the bacterium that causes tuberculosis in cattle, known as bovine TB, and other species. Transmission of Mycobacterium bovis from infected animals to humans can occur by breathing in or ingesting bacteria or through unprotected cuts in the skin while handling infected animals or their carcasses. Those working closely with livestock and/or regularly drinking unpasteurised (raw) milk have a greater risk of exposure. The findings of are published in Veterinary Record. Link: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com

4 April 2014: India has successfully launched IRNSS-1B with PSLV-C24.  The lift-off took place from IRO's (Indian Space Research Organisation) spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. IRNSS-1B is India's second regional navigation satellite system. This will be the 26th flight of Polar Satellite Launch V, including Chadrayaan-1, GSAT-12, and Mangalyaan. The satellite was launched into a sub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. IRNSS-1B will reduce India's dependence on GPS used by the United States and the Russian GLONASS. The satellite is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India and in the region extending up to 1,500 km. The satellite which is powered by two solar panels and a Lithium-ion battery has a mission life of 10 years. Link: http://www.isro.org

5 April 2014: DNA tests by an international team of scientists has confirmed Indian or Asiatic Lions (Panthera leo persica) have close genetic links with the now extinct Barbary lions (Panthera leo leo). Barbary lions of North Africa, extending from Egypt to Morocco were also called the Atlas lions and had the most spectacular physical features of all lion species.  This means that "reseeding" Indian lions could bring back the extinct species and reintroduce lions into North Africa. Less than 400 Asiatic lions survive at present on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India and the species is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Dr Ross Barnett of Copenhagen University sequenced the DNA from the skulls of two Barbary lions once held in Britain's Tower of London. Link: http://www.biomedcentral.com

6 April 2014: Gravitational measurements by NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggest that there is an underground ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus, leading scientists to conclude it is the most likely place in the solar system for extraterrestrial life to be found. The ocean lies beneath the icy surface of Enceladus at it's south pole.An international team led by Luciano Iess at the Sapienza University in Rome inferred the existence of the ocean based on the measurements made during fly-bys between April 2010 and May 2012, which brought the Cassini spacecraft within 100km of the surface of Enceladus. The first hint that Enceladus might harbour a subterranean ocean came in 2005 when Cassini observed water vapour from Enceladus's south pole. The discovery is reported in the journal Science. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

7 April 2014: Intending to study the stars and other celestial bodies in the space, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is developing Astrosat, a smaller version of Hubble Space Telescope. Astrosat hailed as  India's first dedicated astronomy satellite can view the universe in UV, visible and X rays. Even Hubble does not have this aspect, though by size comparison, it is big. The Ground Command and Control Centre for Astrosat will be located at ISAC, Bangalore, India. Scientists from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) have completed the development of payloads to Astrosat. It’s Soft X-ray Telescope is the most challenging equipment. A payload from RRI (Raman Research Institute) is also under development. Astrosat is likely to be launched sometime next year. Link: http://astrosat.iucaa.in

8 April 2014: The Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (CWRDM) is preparing a detailed project report on Kavvai wetland in north Malabar to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) demanding it to be declared as a Ramsar site. CWRDM doing this under the directive from the technical unit of the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE). Though CWRDM had submitted a report to MoEF earlier for including the wetland under the Ramsar site, it had decided to prepare fresh report. The move was taken to preserve the wetland system which spread over 32.92 sq km with 25 tiny islands. It is near Payyannur to Nileshwaran which is part of the National Waterway, NW-3, connecting Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram. Link: http://www.cwrdm.org

9 April 2014: Mammals on the Indian subcontinent have shown a remarkable ability to survive large-scale climate and human impacts. 20 out of 21 mammal groups that roamed the Indian subcontinent 200,000 years ago are still present today. The new findings are based on fossil finds in the Billasurgam cave complex in Andrha Pradesh state of India. It is the oldest, well-dated faunal succession for the Indian subcontinent and stretches back from 240,000 to 10,000 years ago. Fossil analysis shows a diverse range of ancient mammals including small to large carnivores, primates, small to large Bovids (cloven-hoofed mammals) and Cervids (deer family), Rhinoceros and Wild Equus (horses, donkeys, zebras etc). The report is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Link: http://www.pnas.org

10 April 2014: According to a recent study, Diclofenac, the veterinary painkiller  has affected  two more vulture species, the Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus) and red-headed vulture (Sarcogyps calvus), whose populations have declined by nearly 80% and 91% respectively in the Indian subcontinent since the mid-1990s. Both species are now globally threatened.Earlier, the Diclofenac was found to be affecting only three species of vultures such as White-backed (Gyps bengalensis) Slender-billed (Gyps tenuirostris) and Long-billed Vultures (Gyps indicus). The study was done by researchers from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). It is published in the Cambridge Journal, Bird Conservation International. Link: http://dx.doi.org

11 April 2014: Business leader Abdul Awal Mintoo is aspiring to be the ‘first Bangladeshi’ to have his genome sequenced. Mintoo was was thrown to jail because of the alleged corruption charges, during the last Caretaker Government (2006 to 2008). The geneticists of Beijing Genome Institute will reveal his full DNA and Mintoo will travel to China next month to give blood samples. As per Shahnoor Hossain, assistant professor at the Department of Genetic Engineering, Dhaka University, no one from Bangladesh had their sequenced their genome yet. Skilled experts can do the analysis within six months. Personal genomics can be used to predict the chance of hereditary diseases. The entire human genome contains roughly 3 billion base pairs. Link: http://www.multimodebd.com 

12 April 2014: Scientists from University of Fortaleza in
Brazil have genetically modified a goat to produce milk with an enzyme to treat a rare genetic disorder. The goat, named Gluca, is the first of its kind in South America. It has been genetically modified to produce the enzyme glucocerebrosidase. Gaucher’s disease is a rare human genetic condition caused by hereditary deficiency of that enzyme. People with Gaucher’s which can manifest itself with anemia, low blood platelets and an enlarged liver and spleen often are treated with bone marrow transplants but still face pain and often poor health prospects. Gluca was born on 27 March, 2014. In the US, a drug called ATryn (human antithrombin ) is already produced in just this way from the milk of transgenic goats. Link: http://www.unifor.br

13 April 2014: Scientists have said that a big gold piece, found years ago in Venezuela, has now been identified as the world’s largest single crystal of gold. The gold piece, which was discovered in a river in Venezuela, weighs 217.78 grams and is the size of a golf ball. Its worth is estimated to be about Rs.9 crore. As per Miami University geologists, structure or atomic arrangement of gold crystals of this size has never been studied before. To determine the internal structure of the gold lump, the research team used two sophisticated machines: a neutron Single-Crystal Diffraction (SCD) instrument, which determines the atomic arrangement of crystals; and a High-Pressure/Preferred Orientation (or HIPPO) instrument, which measures the crystal structure of crystals in a polycrystalline material. Link:http://miamioh.edu

14 April 2014: Just like humans, organisms that live in the oceans need vitamins to stay healthy, but the sources of these underwater vitamins are not always easy for scientists to identify. Researchers have now shown that B12 vitamins in the ocean are produced by Archaea, a group of single-celled organisms, not only by marine bacteria, as was previously thought. In the early 1990s, researchers discovered that Archaea were present in the ocean, and at the beginning of the 21st century, they found that these organisms were abundant there. This is particularly important when it comes to the growth of phytoplankton, which use photosynthesis to make energy, as plants do, and are the foundation of the ocean food chain. The study was conducted by University of Washington. Link: http://www.washington.edu

15 April 2014: Parts of the world saw a rare celestial event today when the Earth's shadow fell across the Moon, turning it orange. The lunar eclipse unfolded over three hours, when the moon began moving into Earth's shadow. A little more than an hour later, the Moon could be seen eclipsed and bathed in an orange, red or brown glow. Depending on local weather conditions, the eclipse was visible across a swathe of the United States. A small crowd of stargazers who gathered on a roadside north of Los Angeles saw a sliver of still-illuminated moon and a reddish shadow cast across the lunar orb. The eclipse also was visible from Australia, New Zealand and all of the Americas. Precise coloring depends primarily on the amount of volcanic ash and other aerosols floating in the atmosphere. Link: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov

16 April 2014: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has documented the formation of a small icy object within the rings of Saturn that may be a new moon probably no more than half a mile in diameter. The findings may provide clues to the formation of the Saturn's known moons and give insight into how earth and other planets in our solar system may have formed and migrated away from the sun. Images taken with Cassini's narrow angle camera today, last year show disturbances at the very edge of Saturn's. A ring, the outermost of the planet's large, bright rings. One of these disturbances is an arc about 20% brighter than its surroundings, 1,200 km long and 10 kilometres wide. The object, informally named Peggy, is too small to see in images so far. Link:http://www.nasa.gov

17 April 2014: Fifteen Indian bird species are part of a list of avians which are evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered. According to the study, Bengal Florican, Lesser Florican, Great Indian Bustard, Sociable Lapwing and Jerdon's Courser are birds that are under threat due to the destruction of their habitat of grasslands and scrub forests.The survival of Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Siberian Crane and White-bellied Heron greatly depend on the existence of their wetland habitat. Forest Owlet's survival is impossible if its habitat of deciduous forests in central India is destroyed.The study was done by  Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Yale University which has come out with a study of 100 Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species worldwide. Link: http://www.edgeofexistence.org

18 April 2014: Earth's twin - a habitable planet with its own atmosphere and solid surface where liquid water and possibly life can exist has been found outside our solar system. The new planet, dubbed Kepler-186f, was discovered using NASA's Kepler telescope launched in March 2009 to search for a habitable zone, earth-sized planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy. Since liquid water is critical to life on earth, many astronomers believe the search for extra-terrestrial life should focus on planets where liquid water occurs. Around 1.11 times the radius of the earth, Kepler-186f is a planet around the star Kepler-186 which has five planets. Kepler-186 is a dwarf star, much smaller and cooler than the Sun. Link: http://www.edgeofexistence.org

19 April 2014: In a chance discovery, astronomers have spotted an 'upside-down' planet in the first ever "self-lensing" binary star system confirmed about 2,600 light-years away. It was fould out by Ethan Kruse, doctoral student working with University of Washington. Kruse made the discovery using data from the Kepler Space Telescope. The binary star system is named KOI-3278. The two stars of KOI-3278 are about 43 million miles apart. KOI-3278 is about 2,600 light-years away in the Lyra constellation, The finding was made through Gravitational lensing, a common tool in astronomy. It has been used to detect planets around distant stars within the Milky Way galaxy, when it is called Microlensing. It is also among the first methods used to confirm Einstein's General theory of Relativity. Link:https://www.sciencemag.org

20 April 2014: Researchers at University of Adelaide have discovered a new mineral in Australia that is unique in structure and composition among the world's 4,000 known mineral species. It has been named 'Putnisite' after two Australian mineralogist Christine Putnis. The mineral was found in a surface outcrop at Lake Cowan, north of Norseman in Western Australia. The new mineral occurs as tiny crystals, no more than 0.5 mm in diameter and is found on a volcanic rock. It appears as dark pink spots on dark green and white rock which, under the microscope, appears as square, cube-like crystals. It combines the elements Strontium, Calcium, Chromium, Sulphur, Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen, a very unusual combination. The finding is published in the Mineralogical Magazine. Link:http://minmag.geoscienceworld.org

21 April 2014: Scientists have found that the first sex determining genes appeared in mammals some 180 million years ago. In humans and other mammals, the difference between sexes depends on one single element of the genome: the Y chromosome. It is present only in males where the two sexual chromosomes are X and Y whereas women have two X chromosomes. A team from the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics found that a very long time ago X and Y were identical until the Y started to differentiate from the X in males. It then shrank to such an extent that now it only contains about 20 genes (the X carries more than one thousand genes). The study also shows that the same sex-determining gene named SRY in placentals and marsupials had formed in the common ancestor of both lineages around 180 million years ago.Link:http://www.nature.com  

22 April 2014: The genome of the Tsetse fly (Glossina sp.),a disease-ridden insect that are vectors of the disease popularly known as 'African Sleeping Sickness' (Trypanosomiasis) has been decoded.The Tsetse fly carries the Protozoan parasite called Trypanasoma which puts the lives of an estimated 70 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, at risk. And since the disease also affects livestock, it makes animal husbandry all but impossible in some parts of the region, exacting a severe economic toll. A female Tsetse fly produces only eight to ten offspring her whole life.The genome revealed a protein called ladybird late that orchestrates milk production in the fly, targeting which could be a good strategy for population control. Link:http://www.sciencemag.org

23 April 2014: Today marked the 30th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the causative organism for AIDS. It was on April 23, 1984, Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler announced that Dr. Robert Gallo, then the chief of the National Cancer Institute Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology, and his colleagues discovered the causative organism of AIDS. It was a virus that would come to be known as HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. In the early 1980s, Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, surged into public awareness. But it took until 1981 for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to recognize the disease.However, in 2008, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Luc Montagnier and his colleague Françoise Barré-Sinoussi for their work on the discovery of HIV, Gallo was left unawarded. Link: http://www.ihv.org

24 April 2014: Two researchers from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland, have invented a device that can check the over-consumption of electricity.The device, called Dynamic Energy Access Manager (DEAM), can alert consumers that they could exceed the electricity consumption limit.The device can be linked to the meter. During times of electricity deficit, if a household consumes electricity, the device will buzz, alerting the consumer not to use it. The consumer can wait until the green light blinks on the device before using the power-guzzling application.This can save the required energy and a keep a tab on the consumers using electricity recklessly. This will also work as a reminder to the consumers of the limit that they can go up to at a given time.Link:http://www.sharedelectric.com

25 April 2014: WWF-India launched "Save Our Snow Leopards",a campaign today to save the remaining 400-700 snow-leopards in the high altitude Himalayan region. Snow leopards are at the apex of the mountain eco-system and is also an indicator species for the mountain ecosystem.They are poached for their bones and other body parts which are used in traditional Asian medicines. Retaliatory killing of snow leopards is also a major threat faced by the species since they often attack livestock. Snow leopards also face habitat and prey loss with the increase of developmental activities.The snow leopard is found in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Link:http://support.wwfindia.org

26 April 2014: Gerald S. Guralnik, the Brown University physicist who co-authored a paper 50 years ago predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, has died. Guralnik, aged 77 was a member of the Brown University faculty for 47 years. He co-discovered the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson with C. R. Hagen and Tom Kibble. While widely considered to have authorerd the most complete of the early papers on the Higgs theory, Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble were controversially not included in the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics. As part of Physical Review Letters 50th anniversary celebration, the journal recognized this discovery as one of the milestone papers in PRL history. In 2010, Guralnik was awarded The American Physical Society's J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics.Link:http://journals.aps.org

27 April 2014: Dr Stephen Hughes, an Australian scientist from the Queensland University of Technology has forced the Oxford English Dictionary to change its definition of how a siphon works, after he found an error in the entry which had gone unnoticed for 99 years. Siphon is a tube used to convey liquid upwards from a reservoir and then down to a lower level of its own accord. For almost a century, the dictionary incorrectly stated that atmospheric pressure, rather than gravity, is the operating force in a siphon. According to Hughes, the Oxford English Dictionary corrected the error and removed the reference to atmospheric pressure after he pointed it out.The finding is published in the journal Scientific Reports. Link:http://www.nature.com  

28 April 2014: Astronomers have discovered the coldest star of its kind as frosty as Earth's North Pole - just 7.2 light years away. Using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the Spitzer Space Telescopes, a Pennsylvania State University astronomer spotted the 'brown dwarf', making it the fourth closest system to our Sun. Brown dwarfs start their lives like stars,but they lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel and radiate starlight.The new found coldest 'brown dwarf',  named WISE J085510.83-071442.5, has a chilly temperature between minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius. Previous record holders for coldest brown dwarfs were found to be about room temperature. Scientists believe that the new discovery could tell us a lot about planets which have similar cold temperatures.Link:http://www.nasa.gov

29 April 2014: Watergen, an An Israeli company has developed a new and inexpensive technology that produces drinking water from thin air a method that can address the problem of water scarcity in developing countries such as India. Using the technology, a litre of water can be produced for a mere Rs 1.50, as compared to Rs 15 for a litre of bottled water, the company claims. The Atmospheric Water-Generation Units created by Watergen use a 'GENius' heat exchanger to chill air and condense water vapour. The clean air is passed through the heat exchanger system where it gets dehumidified. The water is then removed from the air and collected in a tank inside the unit.The system can produces 250-800 litres of potable water a day depending on temperature and humidity conditions.Link:http://www.water-gen.com

30 April 2014: Today marks the 75th Anniversary of the Nylon stockings which was for the first time exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair. Initially, Nylon was used for fishing line and toothbrush bristles, but the Dupont Company for the first time introduced stockings made up of Nylon at the World Fair, in Newyork city. When America entered World War II on February 11, 1942, DuPont ceased production of nylon stockings and retooled their factories to produce parachutes, airplane cords, and rope. This led to a mass shortage and creation of a black market for stockings. At the end of the war DuPont announced that the company would return to producing stockings but could not meet demand. This led to a series of disturbances in American stores labeled as the 'Nylon Riots'. Link:http://inventors.about.com