2 December 2014: Today marks the 30th anniversary of Bhopal gas tragedy thhat occurred on the night of 2 December 1984 at the factory of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, where cyanide gas accidently leaked into the air, killing thousands of residents. More than one lakh people are still suffering the aftermath of the mishap and children are still born with twisted limbs and brain disorders. Other diseases like cancer, neurological disorders and blindness among other such illnesses are also part of the city landscape. Various activists have filed a petition in the US courts against Union Carbide to endure the cost of the cleanup, but as per the company, Indian government had taken control of the land in 1998. However, tones of waste remain still underground in the tragedy site. Link: http://www.bhopal.com
3 December 2014: Union Minister for Science and Technology Harsh Vardhan signed a multilateral agreement admitting India‘s participation in the development of the Thirty Metre Telescope (TMT) in Hawaii, today. This project was rapidly cleared by the Union Cabinet and India has agreed to spend Rs. 1299.8 crores over the next decade for this project. India will gain the technology to manufacture fine aspherical mirrors from the California Institute of Technology. TMT will contain a collecting area of 650 square metres making it thrice as sensitive as the Hubble Space Telescope. India’s role will be to create the control systems and software that keep the mirrors aligned to collect data. These will be manufactured by General Optics (Asia) in Puducherry, Avasarala Technolgies and Godrej in Bengaluru. Link: http://tmt.iiap.res.in
4 December 2014: The world's most complete Stegosaurus skeleton was unveiled today for the first time at the Natural History Museum. The skeleton is 560 centimetres long and 290 centimetres tall. It was uncovered 11 years ago in Wyoming, USA, and is made up of more than 300 bones, including 19 back plates and four tail spikes. Only the left arm and base of the tail are missing.The Stegosaurus lived around 150 million years ago, in the late Jurassic period. Stegosaurs have been found in North America, Africa, China and Europe. They preferred to live alone or in small groups, and their skeletons are rarely discovered. Determining the sex of dinosaurs is notoriously difficult, and the sex of the Stegosaurus specimens is still unknown. Although it is known about for more than 130 years, not much is known about its biology. Link: http://www.abc.net.au
5 December 2014: Today was declared as World Soil Day, by United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and 2015 will be the International Year of Soils. The celebration of the World Soil Day is to highlight the significance of soil in the lives of every living organism in our planet. Soil is the basis for food, feed, fuel and fibre production and for services to ecosystems and human well-being. It is the reservoir for at least a quarter of global biodiversity, and therefore requires the same attention as above-ground biodiversity. Soils play a key role in the supply of clean water and resilience to floods and droughts. Soil is the largest store of terrestrial carbon and so that its preservation contributes to climate change adaptation. The maintenance of soil is essential to humanity’s need for food, water, and energy. Link: http://www.fao.org
6 December 2014: NASA's Pluto-bound probe New Horizons spacecraft has come out of hibernation for the last time next month in preparation for a six-month encounter, including a first-ever close flyby of the mysterious dwarf planet on July 14, 2015. The wake-up call was preprogrammed into New Horizons' on-board computer in August, commanding it come out of hibernation today. Since its launch in January 2006, New Horizons has spent 1,873 days in hibernation, spread over 18 separate hibernation periods from mid-2007 to late 2014. Distant observations of the Pluto system begin January 15 and will continue until late July 2015; closest approach to Pluto is July 14. The mission should help lift the veil on Pluto, which has remained a mysterious entity since its 1930 discovery. Link: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu
7 December 2014: Ralph Baer, the Father of Video Gaming, the man known for creating the first-ever video-game console, which continues to serve as a blueprint for the Xboxes and PlayStations of today, has reportedly passed away. He was 92. Baer, a German immigrant, built a device he called the Brown Box in the late 1960s, which hit the market in 1972 as the Magnavox Odyssey. It consisted of a main electronic unit that connected to a television screen, two player control units that enabled user interaction, and insertable electronic cards that held different games. Over the course of his career, Baer accumulated over 150 patents and won several awards honors and recognitions, including the 2006 National Medal of Technology from President George W. Bush, and an induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2010.Link: http://www.ralphbaer.com
8 December 2014: A team of scientists has found a new technique of analyzing DNA that is found in ancient parchments that can help tracing agricultural development across the centuries. The study conducted at Trinity College Dublin and the University of York used state-of-the-art scientific techniques to extract ancient DNA and protein from tiny samples of parchment from documents from the late 17th and late 18th centuries. The researchers believe that the two specimens derive from an unimproved northern hill-sheep typical in Yorkshire in the 17th century, and from a sheep derived from the 'improved' flocks, such as those bred in the Midlands, which were spreading through England in the 18th century. The study is published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. Link: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org
9 December 2014: A promising new anti-malarial compound tricks the immune system to rapidly destroy red blood cells infected with the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum without damaging healthy cells, a new study has found. Researchers from the St Jude Children's Research Hospital in the United States determined that the compound (+)-SJ733 uses a novel mechanism to kill the Malaria parasite by recruiting the immune system to eliminate malaria-infected red blood cells. Laboratory evidence suggests that the compound's speed and mode of action work together to slow and suppress development of drug-resistant parasites. Whole genome sequencing of the Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest of the malaria parasites, showed that (+)-SJ733 disrupted activity of the Malaria parasites. Link: http://www.stjude.org
10 December 2014: The Curiosity rover has discovered evidence that billions of years ago a lake once filled the 154 km wide Gale crater in the Red Planet where the rover is presently exploring. Data sent back by the Rover showing rocks containing water-deposited sediment has now made it more plausible that Mars at one time was suitable for microbial life. This interpretation of the findings suggests ancient Mars maintained a climate that could have produced long-lasting lakes at many locations. Rivers carried sand and silt to the lake, depositing the sediments at the mouth of the river to form deltas similar to those found at river mouths on Earth. Curiosity currently is investigating the sedimentary layers of Mount Sharp, a section of rock 500 feet high, called the 'Murray formation'. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
11 December 2014: More than five trillion pieces of plastic, collectively weighing nearly 270,000 tonnes, are floating in the world's oceans, including the Indian Ocean, a new study has found. Microplastic pollution is found in varying concentrations throughout the oceans, including both micro and macroplastics. The data comes from across all five sub-tropical gyres, coastal Australia, Bay of Bengal, and the Mediterranean Sea. There is a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing nearly 269,000 tonnes in the world's oceans. Large plastics appear to be abundant near coastlines, degrading into microplastics in the 5 subtropical gyres, and that the smallest microplastics were present in more remote regions, such as the sub-polar gyres. The study is published in the Royal Society Open Science journal. Link: http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org
12 December 2014: Recreating isotopes that result when a star explodes can help physicists understand where life-supporting elements may be found in space.The researchers observed for the first time the isotopes of certain elementals formed when a star explodes. The isotopes of these elements (Samarium and Gadolinium) are sensitive tracers of the way that stars explode. The isotopes therefore can help us understand the origins of the heavy elements that are needed to support life in the universe. The team analysed the fragments left behind using a gamma-ray microscope and discovered that this reaction resulted in the creation of exotic isotopes. This helps map the creation of elements that are essential to support life. The study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Link: http://journals.aps.org
13 December 2014: China has developed a long range and non-lethal 'pain beam' weapon that can be used to break up riots or protests from a distance. The Poly WB-1, which was unveiled at an air show in China, uses a millimetre-wave beam that can travel distances of up to one kilometre. When the beam reaches a person, it heats water molecules just below the skin, causing intense pain. While a short burst with the pain beam will cause a human to recoil in pain, longer bursts at certain frequencies will cause the flesh to burn and blister. The system is very similar to the Active Denial System created by Raytheon, which was sent to Afghanistan but not used in combat due to fears it would fuel enemy propaganda and because it used so much power and took too much time to boot up. Link: http://www.popsci.com
14 December 2014: Scientists have for the first time created a new super-low density form of ice. The advance will help remove pipe-blocking clathrates from natural gas and thereby improve the energy efficiency of extraction. Water molecules can sometimes form crystal structures called a clathrate hydrate by surrounding impurities, such as methane or carbon dioxide, with frozen 'cages'. Scientists realised that if they could extract these molecules they could create a new type of ice. This was, however, difficult to achieve because the ice structure is fragile without these extra molecules. Researchers at the University of Gottingen have now done a trick to mix it with neon atoms, which are relatively small and easily coaxed out of the solid ice.The study was published in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com
15 December 2014: A younger portrayal of Mona Lisa, believed to be painted by the great Italian renaissance artist Leonardo Da Vinci, depicting his muse in the early twenties, made its world premiere in Singapore today. Experts believe that Da Vinci started working on in this in the early 16th century, 10 years ahead of the Louvre version. The painting was discovered in 1913 in the Somerset home of a British aristocrat and was dubbed 'the Isleworth Mona Lisa' owing to its close resemblance to the famous 'Louvre Mona Lisa'. The portrait was initially rejected by the art experts as a later copy of the world famous painting. But in 2013, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich carried out a carbon-dating test and finally confirmed that it originally came from Da Vinci. Link: http://monalisa.org
16 December 2014: Reaction Engines, a British aerospace firm is developing an aircraft that would take passengers anywhere in the world in just four hours while flying at five times the speed of sound. It is working on an engine system that will pave the way for a plane that would transport 300 passengers anywhere in the world in four hours. A cooling technology allows air entering the new 'Sabre' engine system to be cooled by more than 1,000 degrees Celsius in .01 seconds. This would allow a jet engine to run at higher power than others. In normal circumstances, this would cause moisture in the air to freeze, coating the engine with frost, but there is also a method which prevents this from happening. The aircraft called Skylon can take off and land like a plane.Link: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk
17 December 2014: India's manned space flight programme moved a step forward with the much-awaited launch of the advanced Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-MIII) from Sriharikota, today. The mission has evoked global interest because its only payload is the unmanned Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment. The primary aim of the first flight was to test the new rocket which has the capability to carry four-tonne class Insat-series communication satellites that are currently being flown by Arianespace. 325 seconds after the lift off, the crew module, made of aluminium alloy and with a lift-off mass of 3,735kg, separated from the rocket at an altitude of 126km. About 1,280 seconds after the launch the module was parachuted down in to the Bay of Bengal. Link: http://www.isro.org
18 December 2014: Pakistan today beat India in the race to become an associate member of CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), the world's largest particle physics laboratory that recently found some evidence of 'God particle'. CERN director general Rolf Heuer and the chairman of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission Ansar Parvez signed in Islamabad in presence of prime minister Nawaz Sharif, a document admitting Pakistan to CERN Associate Membership, subject to ratification by the government of Pakistan. Being an associate member will allow Pakistan to participate in the governance of Cern, through attending the meetings of the CERN council. Moreover, it will allow Pakistani scientists to become members of the CERN, and to be into CERN's programmes. Link: http://home.web.cern.ch
19 December 2014: China deployed a deep manned submersible in the Indian Ocean to look for deposits of Copper, Zinc and other precious metals. The submersible which is named ‘Jiaolong’ took its first dive in the hydrothermal area of the South West Indian ocean during the early hours of today. China has earlier procured the contracts to explore Indian Ocean in search of Poly Metallic Sulphide Ore. The 15 year contract was secured by China from the International Seabed authority. The ‘Jiaolong’ submersible will conduct a mission which is four month long, in the South West Indian Ocean. In this February, the Chinese research vehicle discovered a Hydrothermal Sulfide which is a kind of sea bed containing various metals like Copper, Zinc and sometimes precious metals like Gold and Silver. Link: http://www.researchgate.net
20 December 2014: Researchers developed a map of water vapor distribution in Mars' atmosphere. This was the longest period of observation and provides the largest volume of data about water vapor on Mars. The new updated version of the instrument was built with the participation of the Space Research Institute as part of the agreement between RosCosmos and the French space agency CNES for the Mars Express orbiter which was launched on June 2, 2003 which entered a near-Mars orbit at the end of December 2003. The content of water vapour in the atmosphere reaches a maximum level of 60-70 microns of released water in the northern regions during the summer season. The summer maximum in the southern hemisphere is significantly lower, about 20 microns. Link: http://www.esa.int
21 December 2014: The Curiosity rover’s detection of methane, the simplest organic compound, in both the atmosphere and on the surface of Mars indicates microbial life could live beneath the planet’s surface. Methane can be a by-product of biological processes, but it can also be produced geologically. Scientists are now planning tests to determine whether the methane comes from biological or geological activity.One particular strain of bacteria survived 120 days in the simulated Martian underground. These bacteria are known as methanogens because they emit methane. Methanogens were some of the first life forms on Earth. Because oxygen is toxic to them, methanogens migrated below Earth’s surface 2.4 billion years ago, when oxygen became abundant in the atmosphere. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
22 December 2014: NASA captured two images, one using the highly-powerful, and highly-sensitive NuSTAR telescope of something that many would not have expected to be at the receiving the attention of this sought after telescope. The telescope captured the high energy X-rays that surround the clusters of activity on the sun. The image captured a series of waves coming from the sun. The waves are seen in the varying colors, specifically the bluish-green patches that are visible, and signify X-rays. The reddish colors are the lower energy waves that come from the sun. Over the last year, or two, the sun has become more active, as it does from time-to-time. It’s the natural lifecycle of the sun, and something that scientists have long-accounted for in their studies of the sun to this point. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
23 December 2014: NASA has collaborated with four US companies to develop intra-vehicular activity space suits and new launch vehicle capabilities among other advances in space exploration. The partnerships build on the success of NASA's commercial spaceflight initiatives to leverage NASA experience and expertise into new capabilities. The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative is designed to advance private sector development of integrated space capabilities through access to NASA's spaceflight resources and ensure emerging products or services are available to government and customers within the next five years. The Space Act Agreements (SAAs) have no exchange of funds, and each party bears the cost of its participation. Link: http://procurement.jsc.nasa.gov
24 December 2014: India's maiden mission to Mars, Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission, affectionately called MOM), completes three months in Mars orbit today and will continue in orbit beyond the six months that was initially planned. India created history on September 24, by becoming the first country to succeed on its first Mars mission when ISRO's Mangalyaan slipped into Martian orbit. The country joined the United States, European Space Agency and the former Soviet Union in the elite club of Martian explorers with the Mangalyaan Mission. In the last three months, Mangalyaan has captured nearly 300 pictures. On an average the spacecraft takes four pictures in three days. Besides capturing the images of dust storm activities, it has also taken images of comet Siding Spring. Link: http://www.isro.org
25 December 2014: The first ever hybrid aircraft to be able to recharge its batteries took off on today, potentially signalling the beginning of a new form of low-carbon, green flight. It was a team-work of Cambridge University researchers and the Boeing company. They hope that the plane will be able to provide new forms of cleaner, low-carbon air travel. The petrol engine works with the battery-powered one at take-off and climb, when the plane needs extra power, but the electric motor can then switch into generator mode and recharges the batteries, or help the motor in minimising fuel consumption. The same technology is used in hybrid cars. The test flights took place at Sywell Aerodrome near Northampton. Aviation is thought to be responsible for about 2 per cent of man-made carbon emissions.Link: http://www.boeing.com
26 December 2014: A global warming expert has made shocking revelations that the north and south poles are "not melting".The scientist revealed that the poles are "much more stable" than climate scientists once predicted. Ted Maksym, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, conducted a study in which he sent an underwater robot into the depths of the Antarctic sea to measure the ice.The results are contradictory to the previous assumptions made by scientists and showed that the ice is actually much thicker than has been predicted over the last 20 years. Global sea ice at a record high is another key indicator that something is working in the opposite direction of what was predicted and there is a huge reality is now catching up with climate alarmists. Link: http://www.whoi.edu
27 December 2014: An international team of researchers has designed the world's smallest hearing aid which is so tiny that it is almost "invisible".The hearing aid called 'Nanoplug' is meant to be less intrusive than other such devices, less noticeable and less expensive. The device is just 7.1mm x 5.7mm x 4.17mm, which the team says is half the size of any other hearing aid. Nanoplug was first conceived by Nevena Zivic and then brought to fruition by industrial designer, Jongha Lee, audio engineer Mladen Stavri and electromechanical engineer Zoran Marinovi. On its Indiegogo page, the team claims the hearing aid has no toxic chemicals inside, nor heavy metals, which may be hrmful to the environment and to the person wearing it. Nanoplug can be programmed, the results of which can be downloaded directly to the device. Link: https://www.indiegogo.com
28 December 2014: The highly polluted backwaters of Cochin estuary could be a rich source of biofuel, as a research team of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) has managed to isolate a micro-algae capable of producing biodiesel. The algae, Prymnesium parvum, which has high content of phosphates and nitrates, is found in the backwaters, off Mattanchery harbour. The Prymnesium parvum is golden yellow in colour when in full bloom, flourish in waters where there is a high eutrophication content. The oil from Prymnesium parvum had properties within the ASTM D6751-02 standards for biodiesel. As of now, about 15-20% of a biofuel is the bio-content and the rest is petrol or diesel. The finding was made by researchers under Dr Valsamma Joseph, faculty of National Centre for Aquatic Health. Link: http://www.ncaah.org
29 December 2014: A new NASA app provides information on International Space Station (ISS) experiments, facilities and research results through videos, photos, interactive media and in-depth descriptions. The Space Station Research Explorer app has an experiments section which contains six categories and their subcategories.The space station is just over 72 m long by 108 m wide and 20 m high; it is maintained at an orbital altitude of between 330 km and 435 km and travels at an average speed of 27,724 kilometres per hour. Users of the app can drill down to see specific experiments within the categories and subcategories or search for a specific experiment or subject using the search option. The facilities section provides an interior view of three of the station modules: Columbus, Kibo, and Destiny. Link: http://spotthestation.nasa.gov
30 December 2014: NASA researchers have designed a new ape-like robot for disaster response that can navigate dangerous situations and carry out complex tasks such as lifting debris off survivors.The RoboSimian has four identical limbs that act as arms and legs. They move the robot across rough terrain and rubble but can also pick up and manipulate objects. Simian was designed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and has wheels which the robot can coast on if the surface is smooth enough. The RoboSimian is JPL's entry into the DARPA Robotics Challenge, a 27-month-long competition among some of the world's top robotic talent to create an emergency response robot. Although, RoboSiman is slower than many of its competitors, the JPL team is working to increase the robot's walking speed. Link: http://www-robotics.jpl.nasa.gov
31 December 2014: 2014 was the 175th anniversary of photography. The traditional story claims that it was in 1839 the discovery of photography was announced to the public in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787 –1851). This was immediately followed by a counter-claim by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) in London that for years he had been working on a medium that would also allow the recording of pictures ‘drawn by light’. Both processes were in fact quite different: the Daguerreo-type produced unique copies on a silver plate while Talbot’s process, the calotype, was reproducible, and therefore became the most widely used technique. Talbot wanted to make his invention applicable to the sciences and so promoted it in his book, 'The Pencil of Nature'. Link: http://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk
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