2 November 2014: Scientists sequenced the genome of the Jujube tree (Ziziphus jujuba), the most economically important member of the Rhamnaceae family, popularly kown as the ‘Thorns of Jesus’. The sequencing was carried out by researchers at BGI Tech and Hebei Agricultural University. By using a combination of BAC-to-BAC sequencing and PCR-free whole genome sequencing, the researchers were able to successfully complete the high quality de novo sequencing of 98.6 percent of the estimated jujube genome, identifying 32,808 genes. Jujube has a much higher vitamin C content than other well-known vitamin C-rich fruits such as orange and it is highly resistant to salinity and drought, and grows well in sandy, alkaline and arid areas. Therefore, decoding the genome of the jujube tree can help exploiting these traits. The study is published in Nature Communications. Link: http://www.nature.com
3 November 2014: Kadaba Shamanna Seshadri, an Indian researcher at the National University of Singapore, discovered a new reproductive strategy in frogs, breeding and developing eggs in live bamboos. The males of the White-spotted Bush Frog, Raorchestes chalazodes enters the narrow openings at the base of the internodes of the flute bamboo Ochlandra travancorica where they vocalize to attract mates. Female frogs lays about five to eight eggs inside the bamboo. The adult males stays in the bamboo to take care of the eggs, defending territories too. The critically endangered Raorchestes chalazodes, recently rediscovered in the forests of the Kalakad Mundanthurai, in the Western Ghats, is currently one of only two species known to adopt this novel reproductive strategy. The study is published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
4 November 2014: Researchers in Nepal have developed a rapid diagnostic ‘dip-stick’- test similar to a pregnancy test which can be used to identify the snake by taking swabs from bite marks and analyzing the snake species by DNA analysis. There are up to 94,000 deaths occur and 300,000 cases of permanent disability worldwide from snakebite each year. There are 300 snake species in India out of which four species groups of snakes are primarily responsible for what is likely to be the highest death rate from snakebite in any country in the world. These are the 'Big Four': Cobra (four species), Krait (eight species), Saw-scaled Viper (two subspecies) and Russell's viper. Data from the clinical trials of this test was presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) at New Orleans, United States. Link: http://www.eurekalert.org
5 November 2014: Researchers at the Micreos biotech company have
developed the first effective alternative to antibiotics that may aid the fight
against drug-resistant infections. In a small patient trial, the drug was shown
to be effective at eradicating the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The
approach is inspired by naturally occurring viruses that attack bacteria using
enzymes called endolysins. Scientists
have now engineered a designer endolysin to tear the surface of bacteria cells. Conventional antibiotics need to reach the inside of the cell to work, and part
of the reason they are becoming less effective is that certain strains of
bacteria have evolved impenetrable membranes. By contrast, endolysins target
basic building blocks of the outside of bacterial cells that are unlikely to
change as infections genetically mutate over time. Link: http://www.micreos.com
6 November 2014: Wildlife Institute of India has suggested that the rookery of Olive Ridley Sea Turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea) near Rushikulya river mouth be declared an eco-sensitive zone under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. A large number of Olive Ridleys lay eggs on a stretch near the river mouth. It is considered the second largest rookery in the world for Olive Ridleys after Gahirmatha.Wildlife Institute of India scientists discovered the nesting site off the Odisha coast in 1995. The wildlife wing of the forest department had proposed that the area be turned into a wildlife sanctuary in 1998. The Odisha government had submitted 16 proposals to the Union government for notification of several areas as eco-sensitive zones. It includes 16 of 19 wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in the state. The final notification is yet to be made. Link: http://www.sciencedirect.com
7 November 2014: The International Organization for Medical Physics is celebrating today as the International Day of Medical Physics. It was on this day in 1867, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, known for her pioneering research on radioactivity, was born in Poland. In 1897, the world’s first Radiological Society, the Rontgen Society, was formed in London, admitting medical practitioners and physicists as members on an equal footing; this society is now the British Institute of Radiology. X-rays were rapidly brought into therapeutic use. Many physics-based medical innovations such as CT and MRI scans resulted from focused research with clinical applications in mind from the outset. But translation into clinical practice was not rapid, always.The theme for this year is ‘looking into the Body: Advancement in Imaging through Medical Physics’. Link: http://www.aapm.org
8 November 2014: Wildlife Institute of India has suggested that Rushikulya river mouth in Orissa, the rookery of Olive Ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys olivacea), be declared an eco-sensitive zone under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. A large number of Olive Ridleys lay eggs on a five-km stretch near the river mouth. It is considered the second largest rookery in the world for Olive Ridleys after Gahirmatha, also in Orissa. Wildlife Institute of India scientists discovered the nesting site off the Odisha coast in 1995. They had proposed that the area be turned into a wildlife sanctuary in 1998. It is still pending. The Odisha state government had submitted 16 proposals to the Union government for notification of several areas as eco-sensitive zones. It includes 16 of 19 wildlife sanctuaries and national parks in the state. The final notification on these proposals is yet to be made.Link:http://world-turtle-trust.org
9 November 2014: The world's first ever supersonic car, presently in the making, has breached the 500mph (804km/h), 50 per cent of the speed the Bloodhound Supersonic car will ultimately travel. The Bloodhound Project started the 12-month countdown last week to its first land speed record attempt at Hakskeen Pan, South Africa. It was called Jaguar F-TYPE R Coupe driven by project director Richard Noble and a Jaguar XF saloon, at closing speeds of up to 500mph. The world land speed record of 763mph is held by Thrust SSC, a UK team led by Bloodhound's project director Richard Noble and driven by Andy Green. At full speed Bloodhound Supersonic car will cover a mile (1.6km) in 3.6 seconds which is being assembled at the Technical Centre in Bristol, UK. It is on schedule for roll out summer 2015 where it will undergo UK runway testing. Link: http://www.jaguarusa.com
10 November 2014: Today marks the 10th anniversary of Firefox 1.0 and to celebrate Mozilla is rolling out new features, as well as a developer-centric version of its web browser. The Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt, Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross. The Firefox project has undergone several name changes. It was originally titled Phoenix, but was renamed due to trademark issues with Phoenix Technologies. The replacement name, Firebird, provoked an intense response from the Firebird database software project. In response, the Mozilla Foundation stated on February 9, 2004 that Mozilla Firebird becomes Mozilla Firefox.The name Firefox was said to be derived from a nickname of the red panda,which became the mascot for the newly named project. The Firefox version 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004.Link: https://www.mozilla.org
11 November 2014: The elusive Higgs Boson may not have been discovered despite claims of it being detected last year, according to a new study. Many calculations indicate that the particle discovered last year in the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland was indeed the famous Higgs particle. Physicists agree the CERN experiments did find a new particle that had never been seen before, but according to an international research team, there is no conclusive evidence that the particle was indeed the Higgs particle. Although the techni-higgs particle and Higgs particle can easily be confused in experiments, they are two very different particles belonging to two very different theories of how the universe was created. The Higgs particle is the missing piece in the theory called the Standard Model. The study is published in the journal Physical Review D. Link: http://journals.aps.org
12 November 2014: An event in Space history was made today when the first man-made object landed on a comet.The European Space Agency's Rosetta deployed its lander, Philae, to the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, after a decade-long journey through space. Rosetta has already become the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet and has been orbiting 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since August 2014. Since the rendezvous, Rosetta has been mapping the comet's surface; making important measurements of its gravity, mass and shape; assessing its gaseous, dust-laden atmosphere; and probing its plasma environment. Rosetta will continue to follow the comet around the Sun as it moves back towards the orbit of Jupiter. Comets are considered to be primitive building blocks of the solar system and may have helped to 'seed' Earth with the ingredients for life. Link: http://sci.esa.int
13 November 2014: Ashtamudi short-neck clam fishery in Kerala, received WWF-India initiated the MSC Certification today, being the first in India. The clam fishery in Ashtamudi dates back to 1981. MSC certification will mean the implementation of measures to ensure that this valuable resource is not overfished and its ecosystem is protected. It also opens up the scope for other fisheries in India to work towards MSC certification that will enhance conservation and sustainability of the resource while providing greater economic returns. The MSC certification was a joint effort by WWF, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Kerala State Fisheries Department and the local fishing community. Ashtamudi Lake is a Ramsar site and has extensive mangrove habitats harboring nearly 90 species of fish and 10 species of clams. Link: http://www.wwfindia.org
14 November 2014: Horses and rhinos probably originated on the Indian subcontinent, some 54.5 million years ago according to a new study of fossils found in Gujarat. Modern horses, rhinos and tapirs belong to a biological group, or order, called Perissodactyla. Cambaytheres (Cambaytherium, Nakusia and Kalitherium) are recently discovered early Eocene placental mammals from the Indo-Pakistan region. The researchers report new dental, cranial and postcranial fossils of Cambaytherium, from the Cambay Shale Formation, Gujarat, India (approximately 54.5 Million years ago). The presence of the sister group of Perissodactyls in western India near or before the time of collision suggests that Perissodactyla may have originated on the Indian Plate during its final drift toward Asia. The research is published in Nature Communications. Link:http://www.nature.com
15 November 2014: The ruddy colour of Jupiter's mysterious Great Red Spot is due to the effects of sunlight rather than chemicals from beneath the planet's clouds. According to a new analysis from NASA's Cassini mission, the reddish-rosy crimson colour is likely a product of simple chemicals being broken apart by sunlight in the planet's upper atmosphere. The results contradict the other leading theory for the origin of the spot's striking colour that the reddish chemicals come from beneath Jupiter's clouds. In the lab, the researchers blasted ammonia and acetylene gases, the chemicals known to exist on Jupiter with ultraviolet light, to simulate the Sun's effects on these materials at the extreme heights of clouds in the Great Red Spot. This produced a reddish material, which was compared using Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). Link:http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
16 November 2014: From the weaving waterways of the Sundarbans to the iconic Great Barrier Reef in Australia, NASA has unveiled stunning satellite images of Earth's last untouched sanctuaries in a new book. ‘Sanctuary: Exploring the World's Protected Areas from Space’, published by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (Arlington, Virginia) with support from NASA is an effort to conserve parks and protected areas around the world are being aided by Earth observations from space-based sensors operated by NASA and other space agencies as well as commercial providers. There are about 209,000 protected areas worldwide, covering 14 per cent of the planet's land and 11 per cent of coastal areas, as well as 3.6 per cent of the world's oceans. The book also encourages to protect some of the world's most changing, and threatened places. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
17 November 2014: A mysterious Russian object is being tracked by space agencies, giving new life to fears about the increase of space weapons. The satellite, dubbed Object 2014-28E, has grabbed the interest of official and amateur satellite-watchers because it is taking a confusing path and its purpose has not been identified. Some think that it could be collecting space junk, helping to clean up the useless satellites that are floating around space. Or it could be providing fuel or repairs to other satellites. But others fear that the satellite could be used to destroy enemy ones. Russia has launched three satellites to produce its own navigation system in May, on a rocket that carried three other packages, but the launch of the mysterious satellite was not declared. It was initially thought to be debris, but after it performed complex maneuvers the US re-classified it as a satellite. Link: http://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov
18 November 2014: A team of US researchers has identified new evidence supporting the growing belief that Neanderthals were a distinct species separate from modern humans and not a subspecies of them. The findings show that the Neanderthal nasal complex was not adaptively inferior to that of modern humans and that the Neanderthals' extinction was likely due to competition from modern humans and not an inability of the Neanderthal nose to process a colder and drier climate. However, the current study joins a growing body of evidence that the upper respiratory tracts of this extinct group functioned via a different set of rules as a result of a separate evolutionary history. Results indicate that Neanderthals and other later Pleistocene Homo possessed Nasal Complexes that align them with tropical modern humans.The study was published in the journal The Anatomical Record. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
19 November 2014: A project to fund a private lunar exploration mission got under way, offering the public the chance to take part. For as little as 10 pounds ($15), Lunar Mission One gives the public a chance to buy space on memory discs that will be buried in a hole drilled into the lunar surface. The public will be invited to leave music, photos and videos on the disc, helping creating a chronicle of the people of Earth. The mission plans to drill a hole 300 feet (90 meters) deep and extract material for science that is billions of years old. The study of the rock by the spacecraft's on board laboratory should give a unique insight into what happened during the early days of the formation of the Moon, and in particular what happened when it was torn away from the proto-Earth by a collision with another, now destroyed world called Theia when the planets had just formed. Link: http://www.lunarmissionone.com
20 November 2014: Today marked the 10th anniversary of NASA’s Swift observatory. Swift was sent into orbit to look for gamma-ray bursts, the most violent bangs in the Universe since the Big Bang. These explosions are the birth cries of black holes and occur somewhere in the Universe every day. Swift was designed and built to detect GRBs in gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet, and optical light, a huge chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum and rapidly slew over to point at them, sometimes in well under a minute. It was named after the acrobatic bird, which catches huge numbers of insects on the fly. As soon as it detects a burst, it sends the coordinates out via the Gamma-Ray Coordinates Network.
And Swift is still up there, orbiting the Earth, scanning the skies diligently, waiting for the next burst. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
21 November 2014: CERN scientists have announced the discovery of two new subatomic particles that could widen understanding of the universe. The particles were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before. A related particle was found by the CMS experiment at CERN in 2012. The collaboration for the LHCb experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider discovered the two new particles belonging to the baryon family. A baryon is a composite subatomic particle made up of three quarks. The particles were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before. Like protons, the new particles are baryons made from three quarks bound together by the strong force. The types of quarks are different, though: the new particles both contain one beauty (b), one strange (s), and one down (d) quark. Link: http://home.web.cern.ch
22 November 2014: European Space Agency is currently looking at Mercury for its next mission, which is called BepiColombo, in honor of Italian space pioneer Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo. The tentative launch-date of BepiColombo will be 21 July 2016 and it will reach Mercury's orbit seven and a half years later, in 2024. Upon reaching Mercury, a module called Mercury Planet Orbiter (MPO) will separate from the rest of the spacecraft and perform a detailed study of the Mercury system and the module is designed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which jointly conducts the mission along with ESA. It will use gravity assists to reach its destination: it will first complete a fly-by of Earth, essentially returning to our planet two years after. It will perform two fly-bys of Venus, before heading to Mercury. Link: http://sci.esa.int
23 November 2014: Mangalyaan is among the 25 ‘Best Inventions of 2014’ listed by Time magazine that are ‘making the world better, smarter and, in some cases, a little more fun. Developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Mars spacecraft cost India just $74 million, less than the budget for the Academy Award winning science fiction thriller film ‘Gravity.’ The list also includes inventions by two Indians for developing an exercise space for prisoners in solitary confinement and a tablet toy for kids. Nalini Nadkarni, forest ecologist and college professor helped develop the ‘Blue Room’ with Snake River Correctional Institution in Oregon for inmates in solitary confinement. Former Google engineer Pramod Sharma developed ‘Osmo’, a tablet toy that gets physical. The toyhelped to raise $14.5 million in capital and is now being sold in the Apple Store. Link: http://time.com
24 November 2014: Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian artist and scientist, may have been the first to identify hurricanes, scientists say. Ann Pizzorusso, a geologist and Renaissance art scholar said the painter's drawings show he had identified the swirling pattern of a hurricane 500 years before satellite technology first revealed the distinctive image of a hurricane. Pizzorusso studied the artist's deluge drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle. The 16 drawings, composed in the latter years of da Vinci's life between 1514 and 1518 and apparently inspired by biblical stories of floods, show that 500 years before satellite technology first revealed the distinctive image of a hurricane. Leonardo was the first to depict hurricanes. What he depicted was discovered by meteorologists in 1970s and called 'vortex flow patterns', the rotating masses of air or water. Link: http://www.leonardosgeology.com
25 November 2014: NASA is planning to launch an ambitious Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission in March next year to deploy four identical spacecraft from a single rocket to study magnetic reconnection in the universe.A single rocket will carry all four MMS spacecraft, stacked on top of each other, to their destination from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The fresh insights offered by the MMS mission could aid in the creation of clean energy solutions such as fusion energy reactors. The spacecraft are designed to break free from the stack once the rocket reaches orbit. Each of the four spacecraft has a compliment of 25 sensors comprising 11 instruments. Magnetic reconnection is a process that converts magnetic energy to kinetic or thermal energy. It happens all over the universe and occurs during coronal mass ejections causing solar winds. Link: http://mms.gsfc.nasa.gov
26 November 2014: As one of the most diverse plant family, orchid now has its first genome sequenced. The team carried out whole genome sequencing on Phalaenopsis equestris, which is an important parental species for breeding of commercial Phalaenopsis strains. Phalaenopsis equestris is also the first plant with Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) for which the genome has been sequenced. The genome contains 29,431 predicted protein-coding genes. The average intron length is 2,922 base pairs, which is much longer than in any sequenced plant genomes. This is possibly an important clue to why orchid developed into one of the largest plant families on earth. This study which is an accomplishment of the Orchid Genome Project, an international collaboration led by National Orchid Conservation Center in China is published at Nature Genetics.Link:http://www.nature.com
27 November 2014: Government of India now plans to protect endangered plants and trees as it protects the wildlife by making changes in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The plants are not protected under Forest Conservation Act, but only under wildlife laws. The current laws states that anyone caught keeping endangered plants species illegally can be charged with illegally cutting a tree and can be sent to the jail for maximum of six months and can be fined 500 rupees. On the other hand, killing an endangered animal can result in seven years in jail with a minimum fine of Rs 25,000.The ministry plans to create a network to work against inter-state smuggling after Andhra Pradesh government reported about 1,000 cases of Red Sander trees being illegally cut down. The endangered tree is is used for the manufacturing of facial creams, medicines and furniture.Link:http://envfor.nic.in
28 November 2014: Today marks the 50th anniversary of Mariner -4 mission which was launched on 28 November 1964 and it was NASA’s first successful journey to Mars. Mariner-4 made its closest approach to Mars on 15 July 1965 and sent back first images of another world beyond the Earth-Moon system. During its flight, the Marine-4 recorded information on surface temperatures of Mars and also measured the magnetic field and atmospheric pressure of the planet. Radio telescopes on Earth will beam 90,000 messages to Mars to commemorate this which will be traveling at the speed of light, and so, the messages will take 15 minutes to reach Mars. Copies of the messages will be delivered to Congress, to NASA headquarters in Washington, and the United Nations in New York. Since Mariner-4’s journey, more than 20 spacecraft have visited Mars. Link: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
29 November 2014: American geologists have named the earth’s most abundant mineral Bridgmanite. It had hitherto remained nameless as a large enough sample of the mineral, found in the earth’s lower mantle, had not been recovered. Under the rules of set down by the International Mineralogical Association, a mineral cannot be given a formal name until a specimen has been found and examined first hand. A group of American geologists were recently able to extract a sample large enough to analyse from a meteorite. The new name is in honour of Percy Bridgman, a pioneer in the use of high pressure experiments to better understand how many geological formations come about. Bridgmanite , made up of high-density magnesium iron silicate, makes up about 38 percent of the total volume of the earth. The research is published in the journal Science. Link: http://news.sciencemag.org
30 November 2014: The 70th anniversary of a V2 rocket attack on London was commemorated today in a service held by Reverend Neil Nicholls.The rocket landed on a New Cross shop killing 168 people and was the single biggest bombing attack in London during the Second World War.It was the middle of the day and no one inside those shops would have known anything about it. The V2 was so huge and travelled at thousands of miles per hour. The area was completely destroyed. Children from St James Hatcham CE Primary School in New Cross were part of a service held at St James Church by Bishop of Woolwich. During the service children aged between nine and 11 read out names of those who had lost their lives that day.Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham attended the service and planted a commemorative tree while the church bells chimed. Link: http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com
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