1 July 2014: CERN and UNESCO are commemorating the signature of the CERN Convention at UNESCO’s Headquarters in Paris and thereby celebrating 60 years of science for peace. The Convention that led to the establishment of the European Organization for Nuclear Research in 1954 was signed on 1 July 1953 in Paris, under the auspices of UNESCO, by twelve founding Member States. The Convention entered into force on 29 September 1954, the official date of the Laboratory’s foundation. After lengthy negotiations on the details, the Convention was finally approved on 1 July 1953 in Paris. CERN was created with a view to relaunching fundamental research in Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War and 60 years on it has become one of the world’s most successful scientific collaboration. For 60 years, CERN has brought together scientists from all around the globe and has provided numerous benefits to the society. Link: http://cern60.web.cern.ch
2 July 2014: Maharashtra got its sixth tiger reserve today with the Ministry of Environment and Forests of India approving the state’s proposal to notify Bor Wildlife Sanctuary in Wardha district as a Tiger Reserve. Bor becomes the sixth tiger reserve in Maharashtra after Tadoba, Melghat, Pench, Nagzira and Sahyadri, and the 47th in the country. National Tiger Conservation Authority declared the 13,812-hectare area of Bor Sanctuary, New Bor Sanctuary and New Bor Extended Wildlife Sanctuary as a core, critical tiger habitat. The sanctuary, an important corridor between Tadoba-Andhari and Pench Tiger Reserves, lies on the boundary of Nagpur and Wardha districts. In order to attain the status of a tiger reserve should maintain a minimum inviolate space of 800-1000 sq km. But, the Bor tiger reserve admeasures just 138.1214 sq km and is one of the smallest tiger reserves in the country. Link: http://www.mahapenchtiger.com
3 July 2014: Today is the 25th anniversary of the 'The Great Kapok Tree', the children's book inspired by the murder of the Brazilian environmental activist Chico Mendes, who was assassinated by a rancher in 1988 in Brazil. Mendes’ murder was a significant international incident galvanizing support for environmental activists working to protect the Amazon forest. 'The Great Kapok Tree' was written by Lynne Cherry. It tells the story of a boy entering the Amazon forest to cut firewood and falls asleep. While asleep, the animals 'talk' to him, explaining why forests are so important for our world. While waking up, he considers the animals’ messages, puts down his ax, and decides to no longer cut down trees. 'The Great Kapok Tree' initially received a mixed reception by critics. Yet, within a couple of years of publication, it became one of the most influential children’s books of the last 40 years. Link: http://www.timelessteacherstuff.com
4 July 2014:The Bombay Natural History Society-India (BNHS) has tied up with American Alliance of Museums (AAM) to track and study the mammals across selected sites in India, while engaging school children and teachers in generating and documenting the related scientific data. The project called e-Mammal will be implemented under AAM's Museums Connect programme. The other collaborators are North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Smithsonian Institute, USA and Museo de Paleontologia, Mexico. The e-Mammal project seeks to promote cultural understanding among children through applied scientific research across schools in India, the US and Mexico. As a part of the project, BNHS will select three sites that are representative of India's diverse geography. Networking through the e-Mammal website will provide a common platform for students from Indian schools and those from American, Mexican and Iranian schools. Link: http://www.bnhs.org
5 July 2014: The Japanese Prime Minister is planning to gather all of the world's robots and aim to hold an Olympics where they compete in technical skills in 2020. Of course, 2020 is also the year, Tokyo will be holding the 32nd Summer Olympic Games, so the first-ever Robot Olympics may have some competition. The Prime Minister's comments came at a robotics factory with statements about invigorating the Japanese robotics industry. So plans of combining robotics and athletics might have just been tools of rhetoric. The robotics field booms in Japan, with a recent slew of ground-breaking projects including robot suits and machines that can understand emotion and speech. Prime Minister gave the thumbs up to a bed that transforms into a wheelchair, calling it "easy to use" after trying it out for himself. Considering the world just watched a robotic suit help a paralyzed man kick off the World Cup, it definitely seems like the first Robot Olympics would have an audience. Link: http://jen.jiji.com
6 July 2014: Scientists at the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) have developed a simple and quick method to detect copper in the human body. It uses a chemical sensor that glows in the presence of copper. Added to a sample of blood serum, it helps detect excess copper, by glowing a bright pink. This does away with more lab tests to ascertain copper content which is an indicator of neurological disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Now doctors send blood samples to labs where copper tests are done using expensive equipment involving flame detection and graphite furnace test, that should be done in a well equiped lab. The higher the amount of copper, the brighter the pink, which can be compared using a colourimeteric device. Hence the concentration of toxic copper in the blood stream will be directly related to the intensity of the pink. Copper which is present in our drinking water and food is soluble in blood and is carried and deposited in any part of the body. Link: http://www.clri.org
7 July 2014: Voyager 1, travelling in a region where no manmade spacecraft has ever been before, registered a 'singing from space' in the otherwise silent surrounding of it and informed mission control back at Earth. Sun goes through periods of increased activity, where it explosively ejects material from its surface, flinging it outward. These events, called Coronal Mass Ejections, generate shock, or pressure, waves. Three such waves have reached Voyager 1 since it entered interstellar space in 2012. Normally, interstellar space is like a quiet lake, but when sun produces a burst, it sends a shock wave outward. It was such a wave that was detected by Voyager. But, now the waves take about a year to reach the Voyager as it is over 19 billion kilometers from the Earth. Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Voyager 2, launched before Voyager 1, is the longest continuously operated spacecraft and is expected to enter interstellar space in a few years. Link: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
8 July 2014: In a ground-breaking discovery, scientists have identified the fossilized remains of an extinct giant bird that could be the world's biggest such. Named Pelagornis sandersi, the bird lived 25 to 28 million years ago after the dinosaurs were wiped out but long before the first humans arrived. The creature was an extremely efficient glider, with long slender wings that helped it stay aloft despite its enormous size. The new fossil was first unearthed in 1983 near Charleston, South Carolina. The present discovery was made by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, North Carolina. With an estimated 20-24-foot wingspan, the creature surpassed size estimates based on wing bones from the previous record holder, a long-extinct bird named Argentavis magnificens. It was twice as big as the Royal Albatross, the largest flying bird today. The findings appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Link: http://www.pnas.org
9 July 2014: Scientists working with human DNA have predicted that the red hair gene, synonymous to UK and Scotland, will soon disappear due to climate change. A gene mutation that yields red hair and pale skin which is more sensitive to light leaves DNA in skill cells more prone to sun damage and cancer. Only 1-2% of the world's population have red hair, though in Scotland 13% of the population are ginger and 40% are thought to carry the gene. Rising temperatures, due to Global Warming will cause it to regress.The reason for red hair is believed to be the lack of enough sunlight to get all the Vitamin D. But if that were true then the cloudier parts of Britain and Ireland, the west, would had the highest percentages. If both parents are carriers of a red hair gene, there is a 25% chance that their offspring will have red hair. This is called recessive inheritance. But people in Britain and Ireland have no idea that they are carriers. Link: http://www.scotlandsdna.com
10 July 2014: Russia test launched its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era on Wednesday, Russian news agencies quoted a source at the country's northern Plesetsk cosmodrome as saying. The launch was made possible through the high profile and new generation Angara-1.2PP test rocket. More than two decades in the works, the new generation Angara rockets are a key to Putin's effort to reform a once-pioneering space industry hobbled after years of budget cuts and a brain drain in the 1990s. The rocket is the first entirely designed and built within post-Soviet Russia's borders ordered by then President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s to break dependence on other ex-Soviet republics and a launch pad Russia leases from Kazakhstan. A potential commercial rival to Arianespace of France and Californian-based SpaceX, is designed to replace Russia's Proton rocket which had many failures.Link: http://www.spaceflight101.com
11 July 2014: US military agency Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a global announcement today that its Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) program has made, tested and demonstrated the world's first guided bullet of 0.50 caliber type. The guided bullet is much like a guided missile that hits its target irrespective of a bad aim or weather fluctuations has passed the test. For military snipers, acquiring moving targets in unfavorable conditions, such as high winds and dusty terrain commonly found in Afghanistan, is extremely challenging with current technology. It enables snipers to engage targets with better accuracy, since any shot that doesn't hit a target also risks the safety of troops by indicating their presence and potentially exposing their location. The objective of the EXACTO program is to revolutionize rifle accuracy and range by developing guided bullets. Link: http://www.darpa.mil
12 July 2014: India has emerged as the world's largest consumer of antibiotics with a 62% increase in popping habits over the last decade. As the world braces for its worst ever threat in the last century, global antibiotic resistance due to unnecessary and unregulated popping of antibiotics, an average Indian has been found to be popping over 11 antibiotic pills a year. India's antibiotic use went up from 8 billion units in 2001 to 12.9 billion units in 2010. The study Global Trends in Antibiotic Consumption, 2000-2010 by scientists from Princeton University has found that worldwide antibiotic use has risen a staggering 36% over those 10 years, with five countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), responsible for more than three-quarters of that surge. Among the 16 groups of antibiotics studied, cephalosporins, broad-spectrum penicillins and fluoroquinolones accounted for more than half of that increase. Link: http://www.princeton.edu
13 July 2014: Sun's corona, the vast atmosphere of solar particles that surround our star, is much larger than thought, extending out more than eight million kilometres above the solar surface. The finding has implications for NASA's upcoming Solar Probe Plus mission, due to launch in 2018 and go closer to the Sun than any man-made technology ever has before. Surrounding the Sun is a vast atmosphere of solar particles, through which magnetic fields swarm, solar flares erupt, and gigantic columns of material rise and fall. Now, using NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory and combing it with the measurements from Voyager 1, scientists have found that the corona is even larger than thought. Realizing this extension of the corona has important consequences for NASA's Solar Probe Plus because the mission will travel to within more than 6 million kilometres of the Sun. Details are published in the Astrophysical Journal. Link: http://iopscience.iop.org
14 July 2014: A split-second burst of radio waves has been discovered by scientists using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico that provides important new evidence of mysterious pulses that appear to come from deep in outer space.The finding by an international team of astronomers marks the first time that a so-called "fast radio burst" has been detected using an instrument other than the Parkes radio telescope in Australia. The bursts appeared to be coming from beyond the Milky Way galaxy based on measurement of an effect known as 'plasma dispersion. The result was important because it eliminated any doubt that these radio bursts were truly of cosmic origin and the radio waves showed every sign of coming far outside from their galaxy. Scientists, who reported the Arecibo finding confirm previous estimated that these strange cosmic bursts were very rare. The study is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Link: http://www.astron.nl
15 July 2014: NASA has fitted a heavily modified Boeing jet with a 17-tonne telescope and will use it as a flying observatory to study how stars are formed. Officially known as the 'Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy' (SOFIA) is a heavily modified Boeing 747 Special Performance jetliner, with a 17-tonne, 8-foot telescope mounted behind a 16-by-23-foot sliding door that reveals the infrared telescope to the skies. The plane’s ability to fly near the edges of the atmosphere gives it better visibility than ground-based observatories. The Boeing 747SP was designed in the 1970s to fly faster, higher, and farther than other versions of the 747. The plane can stay airborne for over 12 hours and its range is 6,625 nautical miles. It can fly above the troposphere and 99.8 per cent of the water vapour held in atmosphere, which obscures infraredlight. That gives its on-board infrared telescope a clear view into outer space. Link: http://www.sofia.usra.edu
16 July 2014: A previously unrecognised form of soot particle, known as super-aggregates has been identified from wildfire emissions in India, US and Mexico. Scientists led by Rajan Chakrabarty from Nevada's Desert Research Institute detected the soot particle in smoke plumes from wildfires in Northern California, New Mexico, Mexico City, and India. For several decades, scientists have been trying to quantitatively assess the impacts of wildfire soot particles on climate change and human health. However, due to the unpredictability of wildfire occurrences and the extreme difficulty in sampling, accurate knowledge of wildfire-emitted soot properties has eluded the scientific community. Unlike the conventional soot particles emitted from vehicles and cook stoves, super-aggregates are ten times longer and have a more compact shape. The research was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.Link: http://www.nature.com
17 July 2014: That's exactly what would happen if you tried to bring the Pelagornis sandersi home, assuming houses and humans existed back then. Scientists have identified the fossils of what could be the largest flying bird ever found. With an estimated 20- to 24-foot wingspan, the extinct Pelagornis sandersi was twice the size of today's biggest flying bird, the royal albatross, according to the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina. Researchers believe the Pelagornis sandersi lived about 25 million to 28 million years ago. The avian giant's long, slender wings and paper-thin hollow bones allowed it to stay aloft for long distances without flapping its wings. Pelagornis sandersi may have had to run downhill into a headwind to achieve takeoff, just like a glider would. The remains of the Pelagornis sandersi now rest in the Charleston Museum. The big bird's name honors retired Charleston Museum curator Albert Sanders. Link: http://www.pnas.org
18 July 2014: India released the 'State of Forest Report' today which recorded an increase of 5,871 sq km in its forest cover in the past two years with West Bengal contributing over 60% of the total rise in green area. Odisha, Kerala, Jharkhand and Bihar were the other states which contributed to this marginal increase. Hilly and tribal districts of the country registered an increase in forest cover of 40 sq km and 2,396 sq km, respectively. The northeastern states, which account for one-fourth of the country's forest cover, recorded a net decline of 627 sq km in 2013 compared to the assessment of green cover in 2011. Andhra Pradesh lost the maximum 273 sq km of forest cover whereas Madhya Pradesh lost 178 sq km of green patch in two years. India is the only country publishing this report in every two years while US does it in five and China in four years.Link: http://data.gov.in
19 July 2014: Researchers have discovered that water could have flowed on the surface of Mars with the help of salt present in the Martian soil that can melt ice. The findings reveal that Martian salts can help liquid water form but only when the salts touch the ice. Researchers found that the conditions that support salty water on the Red Planet can last for a few hours per day during late spring and early summer at the polar regions of Mars. To understand this, Fischer and team recreated Mars conditions in their lab in metal cylinders. The scientists mimicked temperatures in the late Martian spring and early summer as well as atmospheric pressure. When the scientists placed calcium perchlorate or salty soil directly on ice layer, drops of liquid water formed within minutes, researchers found. Last year, Nasa's Mars rover Curiosity discovered water locked up in Mar's surface soil. The study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
20 July 2014: The US Department of Energy announced that work has started on what when finished will be the world's largest carbon capture facility. Located in Thompsons, Texas, the project will capture a portion of the emissions from the coal-fired W.A. Parish Generating Station. The CO2 will then be compressed and piped to the West Ranch oil field, where it will be injected under ground. This will help liberate oil that's otherwise difficult to extract, but has the added benefit that the carbon dioxide typically stays underground, sequestered. The project was originally planned as a small pilot that would only extract CO2 from the equivalent of 60 megawatts of the plant's 3,500MW of generating capacity. When it was realized that the amount of CO2 from 60MW of would be too little CO2 to supply the oil field's needs, the project scope was expanded to 240MW. At that scale, the facility would become the largest of its type in the world.Link: http://www.energy.gov
21 July 2014: Scientists may have stumbled upon the world's first ever blood test for suicide. Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that changes in a gene involved in the function of the brain's response to stress hormones plays a significant role in turning what might otherwise be an unremarkable reaction to the strain of everyday life into suicidal thoughts and behaviors. They focused on a genetic mutation in a gene known as SKA2. By looking at brain samples from mentally ill and healthy people, the researchers found that in samples from people who had died by suicide, levels of SKA2 were significantly reduced. Some had the DNA modification called methylation which were found high in the study subjects who had killed themselves. If there isn't enough SKA2, it cant suppress the release of cortisol throughout the brain as in people who attempt or die by suicide. Link: http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org
22 July 2014: A scientist from Kerala has discovered three new species of oil-degrading bacteria from industrial waste. R.B. Smitha of the Malabar Botanical Garden in Kozhikode discovered one new species of Pseudomonas and two new species of Burkholderia which are new to science. Burkholderia is widely known as good bio-degraders of toxic and tough compounds. It consists of a number of versatile bacteria that occupy a wide range of ecological niches, having exceptional metabolic versatility. They can be used for bioremediation, a process for removing waste and pollutants from contaminated sites using microbes or other organisms. Malabar Botanical Garden is an institution focusing on the conservation of aquatic and medicinal plants. It comes under the Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE). Link: http://mbgs.in
23 July 2014: Today marked the fifteenth anniversary of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. It was was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999. Chandra is one of NASA’s current 'Great Observatories', along with the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes. It is specially designed for understanding the high-energy processes of the universe through its unrivaled X-ray vision. Originally called the 'Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility', the telescope was first proposed to NASA in 1976. Prior to its launch aboard the shuttle, the observatory was renamed in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, one of the foremost astrophysicists of the 20th century. With its superb sensitivity and resolution, Chandra has observed objects ranging from the closest planets and comets to the most distant known quasars. It is also contributing to research on dark matter and dark energy. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
24 July 2014: Scientists at the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal, Haryana have successfully cloned a male calf from the frozen semen of a Murrah bull which died 10 years ago. The calf, which is named Rajat, was born yesterday (July 23). It was made possible through the "hand-guided cloning" technique. The Murrah bull, whose frozen semen was used to produce male calf, had been ranked first in the 5th set of all-India progeny-testing programme. A progeny test is a measure of the male's reproductive and performance value. Cloning helps in faster multiplication of superior germplasm which can be done through producing clones of progeny-tested bulls and by producing high-lactating females. A team of seven scientists, SK Singla, MS Chauhan, RS Manik, P Palta, Shiv Parsad, Anuj Raja and Amol Sahare, was involved in the production of cloned calf. Link: http://ndri.res.in
25 July 2014: The world's first malaria vaccine will be available in the market by next year. Pharma company GSK has submitted a regulatory application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for its malaria vaccine candidate, RTS,S. It will be exclusively for use against the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, which is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Around 90% of estimated deaths from malaria occur in sub-Saharan Africa, and 77% of these are children under the age of 5. Data from the phase III vaccine trial programme conducted at 13 African research centres in eight African countries (Burkina Faso, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Tanzania) including over 16,000 infants and young children have also been included to support the filing. Results from a large-scale trials showed that children aged 5-17 months at first vaccination with RTS,S experienced 46% fewer cases of clinical malaria.Link: http://www.malariavaccine.org
26 July 2014: Samina Baig became the first Pakistani woman to climb seven highest peaks in seven continents in under eight months. Baig, 23, accompanied her mother, has completed climbing seven of the highest mountains around the world, including Mount Everest. Baig finally climbed the highest mountain in Europe, Mt Elbrus in Russia, bringing their 'Seven Summits' adventure to an end. Samina Baig also became the first Pakistani woman to climb to the top of that highest peak in North America. In March, Mirza Ali reached the top of the Mount Carstensz Pyramid, the highest peak in Indonesia. In the last six months, Mt Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America, Mt Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica, and then the Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Baig was part of an adventure diplomacy mission, funded by passionate climbers outside Pakistan, with no support from the Pakistan government. Link: http://mirzaadventure.blogspot.co.uk
27 July 2014: The Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding (IFGTB) is all set to host a thematic Environmental Information System (ENVIS) Centre which will provide access to forest-related research data from institutions across the country. The primary objective of the ENVIS Centre is to collect research data on the forest-related subjects and tie-up with various research institutions besides creating a databank. Conservation and management of Forest Genetic Resources (FGR) had gained a lot of importance in India, which is rich in biodiversity. A website, being developed as part of this project, will be commissioned shortly. It would offer information on wetlands and wildlife besides other aspects of trees and forestry. It would be part of a network that included 68 centres located in research institutes across the country. It would provide information on the best crops for their agro-climate. Farmers can also obtain information by e-mail. Link: http://ifgtb.icfre.gov.in
28 July 2014: The number of bird species listed as Critically Endangered (CE) has reached 173 bird in the country as per the latest International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Birds for 2013. The latest species to join the growing list of birds facing the danger is Woolly-necked Stork, Andaman Teal, Andaman Green Pigeon, Ashy-headed Green Pigeon, Red-headed Falcon, Himalayan Griffon, Bearded Vulture and Yunnan Nuthatch. Earlier in 2013, five species had been added to the threatened list, which includes Great Stone Plover, Alexandrine Parakeet, Grey-headed Parakeet, Blossom-headed Parakeet and Red-breasted Parakeet. Critically Endangered list of threatened species released by IUCN is that database which provides information about species which are facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. Among the total of 10,425 species in the 2014 Red List, 140 species are extinct, 4 extinct in the wild, 213 critically endangered, 419 endangered and 741 vulnerable.Link: http://www.iucnredlist.org
29 July 2014: An Ariane 5 ES heavy rocket lifted off from South America today, bearing 'Georges Lemaitre', Europe's fifth and final robot supply ship for the International Space Station (ISS). 'Lemaitre' is an 'Automated Transfer Vehicle' (ATV) which is named after Georges Lemaitre, the Belgian astrophysicist who proposed the Big Bang theory of how the Universe came into being. 'Georges Lemaitre' with a payload of more than 20 tonnes, is the biggest in ESA's history. After being placed in orbit, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is scheduled to navigate its way to the ISS by starlight and dock with it on August 12 at a height of about 400 kilometres above the Earth. 'Georges Lemaitre' carries nearly 6.6 tonnes of fuel, water, oxygen, food, clothes and scientific experiments. The first four ATVs were the Jules Verne, launched in 2008, the Johannes Kepler (2011), the Edoardo Amaldi (2012) and the Albert Einstein (2013). Link: http://www.esa.int
30 July 2014: Cassini celebrates a decade today in the Saturn system. It has been a decade since a robotic traveler from Earth first soared over rings of ice and fired its engine to fall forever into the embrace of Saturn. The Cassini spacecraft, carrying the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, arrived in the Saturn system on June 30, 2004, for a four-year primary mission. Cassini's top accomplishments and discoveries include, the Huygens probe makes first landing on a moon in the outer solar system (Titan), discovery of active, icy plumes on the Saturnian moon Enceladus, Saturn's rings revealed as a laboratory for how planets form, Titan revealed as an Earth-like world with rain, rivers, lakes and seas, studies reveal radio-wave patterns are not tied to Saturn's interior rotation, as previously thought, vertical structures in the rings imaged for the first time, mystery of the dual, bright-dark surface of the moon Iapetus solved. Link: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
31 July 2014: A railway bridge which could be the world's tallest is coming up in India. The Northeast Frontier Railway's (NFR) has begun the constructing of the bridge, at Noney in Manipur. The bridge will be raised on pillars having a height of up to 141 metres. From the point of view of pillar height, it will surpass the existing tallest of Mala-Rijeka viaduct on Belgrade-Bar railway line in Europe where the height of pillars is 139 meters. The proposed bridge in Manipur is part of the Jiribam-Tupul-Imphal railway line to connect the capital of Manipur with the broad gauge network of the country. The alignment of the railway line passes through steep rolling hills of the Patkai region, eastern trail of the Himalayas. However, another railway bridge is coming up on the Chenab in Jammu-Kashmir, having a height of 359 meters. When completed it will be the highest railway bridge in the world. Link: http://www.railway-technology.com
