SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2015

                                                 
1 January 2015: 2015 is the International Year of Light and International Year of Soils. By proclaiming 2015 as the International Year of Light, United Nations has recognized the importance of raising awareness of how light-based technologies promote sustainable development and provide solutions to global challenges in energy, education, agriculture and health. The resolution proclaiming the Year was adopted during the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly. The same session also declared 2015 as the International Year of Soils. It is aimed at increasing the awareness of soil for food security and ecosystem functions. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been nominated to implement the Year of Soils, within the framework of the Global Soil Partnership along with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. Link: http://www.light2015.org

2 January 2015: Today marked 100 days of the Mangalyaan (Mars Orbiter Mission) in the red planet's orbit. Mangalyaan was launched on 5 November 2013 and it it was successfully inserted into Mars orbit on 24 September 2014. Mangalyaan was given a life span of 180 days, but may well continue to study Martian details for up to 15 years. ISRO scientists were looking forward to June, well past the spacecraft's assigned life of mid-March, when it will go through a phase of no communication with earth. This will be a test for the spacecraft's autonomy (the ability to remain in orbit and carry out experiments without orders from Earth). The systems has to pass through an 'infant mortality test,' when it will undergo 168 hours of burn-in under high temperatures. This is to ensure it withstand the extremities of space weather. Link: http://www.isro.org

3 January 2015: Chinese scientists have found a ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule called 'dla-miR18' which they think plays a central role in the coordination of the more than 200 genes suspected of participating in the mass flowering cycles of bamboo. Massive flowering cycles of bamboo are a natural phenomenon that occur approximately every half a century and of which few details are known. The research could help explain the mass flowering of bamboo, a process that has raised more questions than answers and is especially sensitive in China since the plant is the food for pandas, China's national symbol. The team led by Zhenhua Guo at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been working with bamboo since 2007 in the Chinese province of Yunnan. The plants bloom only once and then die, which can deprive pandas of their basic food, something that happened in the 1980s killing 40 percent of the species. Link:http://www.sainonline.org

4 January 2015: Six telescopes will be circling Antarctica to observe microwave radio waves, believed to be remnants of the primordial fireball in which it all started 13.8 billion years ago. The set of six telescopes will be known as SPIDER, for Suborbital Polarimeter for Inflation, Dust and the Epoch of Reionization, which will be encircleing the continent for the next 20 days. The telescopes, built by an international collaboration led by physicists from Caltech and Princeton, are designed to detect faint curlicues in the polarization of the microwaves. Spider is a sister experiment to another Caltech-based collaboration known as Bicep done towards seeking evidence for  inflation. Both experiments were conceived by Andrew Lange, a Caltech astronomer who died in 2010. The SPIDER experiment was supposed to complete last year, and was shipped to McMurdo Station, run by the National Science Foundation. Link:http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca

5 January 2015: Barely a month after signing in as a full partner in the Thirty-Metre Telescope (TMT) project jointly developed by five nations, India is all set to make sensors and actuators that will keep the huge mirror of the biggest telescope in place.Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Aryabhatta Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital and Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) constitute the Indian arm of the consortium that also comprises labs from Canada, the US, China and Japan.The US will make the primary mirror segments, while China comes up with the tertiary mirror. India will be involved in polishing the primary mirror and setting up its control system, besides developing electronics, edge sensors and actuators. Canada will put in place the dome and Japan the telescope structure. TMT will strengthen the search for intelligent life elsewhere, by direct imaging of planetary systems. Link: http://www.tmt.org

6 January 2015: A sun-powered plane was loaded onto a cargo carrier in Switzerland late today heading for the Middle East from where it will attempt a revolutionary round-the-world trip. The air carrier transporting Solar Impulse 2 is due to leave for Abu Dhabi, from where the long-winged plane will begin its record-making bid in March with the aim of completing the trip by July. It is the successor of Solar Impulse, a pioneering craft which notched up a 26-hour flight in 2010, proving its ability to store enough power in lithium batteries during the day to keep flying at night. The forerunner was put through its paces in Europe, crossed the Mediterranean to reach Morocco and traversed the United States in 2013 without using a drop of fossil fuel. The masterminds of the project are Bertrand Piccard, the scion of a dynasty of Swiss scientists-cum-adventurers, and Andre Borschberg, a former Swiss air force pilot. Link:http://www.solarimpulse.com

7 January 2015: In a landmark achievement, scientists at the National Diary Research Institute (NDRI) in Karnal, Haryana, have successfully cloned the Asian Wild Buffallo, raising hope of saving the endangered species from extinction. This is the first cloning attempt of Asian wild buffalo species in the world. It was the last surviving female wild buffalo of Chhattisgarh. The female calf was born on December 11 by normal parturition. The clone has been named Deepasha. The project was a part of the mission by the Chhattisgarh government to save the wild buffalo, declared as state animal. Wild buffaloes have also been sighted in Indravati Reserve forest in south Bastar of Chhattisgarh in the past. Of the six surviving wild buffaloes in Udanti reserve forest  only one is female, raising the prospect of extinction of the breed. Following this, the Chhattisgarh government had approached NDRI, to clone it using domestic buffaloes.Link: http://www.icar.org.in

8 January 2015: In a massive breakthrough, scientists have created the first new antibiotic in more than three decades, Teixobactin, that can treat many common bacterial infections such as tuberculosis, septicemia and C Diff or Clostridium difficilecolitis. The discovery comes at a time when World Health Organization has sent out warnings that humanity is staring at a post-antibiotic era when common infections will no longer have a cure. The first antibiotic, Penicillin, was discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, and more than 100 compounds have been found since then, but no new class has been found since 1987. Most antibiotics target bacterial proteins, but bugs can become resistant by evolving new kinds of proteins. What's unique about Teixobactin is that it launches a double attack on the building blocks of bacterial cell walls. This will pave the way for a new generation of antibiotics.Teixobactin could be available in the next five years. Link:http://www.nature.com

9 January 2015: According to Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) project director, Subbiah Arunan, the Mars-bound spacecraft crossed the deadly Van Allen radiation belt as many as 39 times while zooming towards the Red Planet and remained unaffected. Arunan revealed this while addressing a plenary session of the 102 Indian Science Congress at Mumbai University's Kalina campus today. The components of MOM were radiation shielded at Isro's Satellite Centre in Bengaluru while the spacecraft was being prepared for the mission.NASA's Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 missions confirmed the existence of the radiation belts in 1958 under Jamas Van Allen of the University of Iowa. The main belts extend from an altitude of about 1000 to 60,000 kms above the earth's surface. He added that an advanced version of GSLV Mark 3 also known as LVM3, is being designed to carry payloads upto 20 tonnes to low earth orbit. Link:http://www.isro.gov.in

10 January 2015: In honor of the Hubble telescope’s upcoming 25th anniversary in April, NASA has provided a clearer view of the Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation', the iconic image released in 1995 that changed people’s perception of space. It was unveiled at this week’s American Astronomical Society meeting. Showing three columns of gas highlighted by the ultraviolet light emitted from a nearby star cluster in M16, a region of the Eagle Nebula in the constellation Serpens, the image has inspired everyone from those behind the recent Star Trek films to children who aspire to study astronomy. The image of the pillars sheds light on the constantly shifting face of the universe. The gaseous bodies suggest “creation” but also “destruction,” according to a release from NASA. The swirling gaseous bodies shown in the images are what scientists say our own sun’s formation looked like. So, these kinds of images sheds light on our own origins. Link: http://hubblesite.org

11 January 2015: On June 30th this year, a single second will be added to the world's atomic clocks, according to the Paris based International Earth Rotation Service (IERS), which keeps tracks of such things. The leap second needs to be added because as the Earth spins on its axis - causing days and nights, it is slowing down by about two thousandth of a second every day. So, after 23:59:59 on June 30 2015, the world's atomic clocks will tick to 23:59:60 and then on to the standard 00:00:00 which is midnight. From here onwards it will continue normally to 00:00:01 which will be July 1. The Earth's rotation, like a spinning top, is affected by many gigantic forces including earthquakes, tidal pulls and even weather. This year's leap second will be the 26 thadded since 1972. Google has devised a method called leap smear to get around the leap second problem. This strategy involved adding very small bits of time, adding up to one second. Link:http://www.iers.org

12 January 2015: United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday visited India's first 'Net Zero Energy' consuming building, Indira Paryavaran Bhawan, which is constructed in such a way that it can meet most of its annual energy requirement through solar power. In fact, Ban Ki-moon had expressed his desire to see the green building when Javadekar had last met him during the UN climate conference in Lima, Peru in December, 2014 and explained him the features of the 'Paryavaran Bhawan' from where his ministry works. The building is located at Jor Bagh in South Delhi. The building was dedicated to the nation by the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh early last year. It is focused on increasing the efficiency of resources like energy, water and materials. The 'Net Zero Building', is a structure with zero net energy consumption where the total amount of energy used on an annual basis. Link: http://batchgeo.com

13 January 2015: Today, as India's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) completed 113 days in orbit around the red planet, the US National Space Society (NSS) bestowed its Space Pioneer Award in the Science and Engineering category to Team MOM. This was for two significant mission firsts: it has gone into orbit around Mars on the very first try (on September 24, 2014). No other country has ever done this. Two, the spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit with a high apoapsis (farthest point from the planet), and has a high resolution camera which is taking full-disk color imagery of Mars. NSS's Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, a space artist. NSS, has been giving the Space Pioneer Award since 1988. The award will be given away at NSS's 34th International Space Development Conference in Toronto in May. Link:http://www.nss.org

14 January 2015: Today is the tenth anniversary of Huygens, an atmospheric entry probe that made a historic landing on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. The probe was operated by European Space Agency (ESA). According to reports, the size of Huygens is smaller compared to size of Cassini. If Cassini probe is considered as a wagon, the Huygens probe can be considered as a tyre of that wagon. ESA’s probe was launched on October 15, 1997 that had landed on Titan on January 14, 2005. The probe was sent with a mission to gather data for a few hours in the atmosphere. As per Carolyn Porco, head of the Cassini mission's imaging team, the probe’s entry in Saturnian orbit in 2004 was an unforgettable moment as it was the first spacecraft to land on Titan. ESA has released a video that begins with a view of Saturn and Titan’s atmosphere and then the surface by the Huygens' Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer. Link: http://saturn.esa.int

15 January 2015: The European Space Agency's Beagle-2 lander, which had been lost on Mars since 2003, has been found. New photos taken by the high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show the lander partially deployed on the surface of the Red Planet, it said. Beagle-2 has not been heard of since it separated from its mother ship, but the images proved the entry, descent and landing sequence did work and that it successfully landed on Mars on Christmas Day in 2003. The discovery of the craft showed its complex landing procedures had worked.The British-built Beagle-2 was launched on ESA's Mars Express orbiter and was supposed to look for signs of alien life. It was released from its mother ship on December 19, 2003, and was supposed to land six days later, but no communications with the lander were ever established. After the project failed, two U.S. spacecraft landed on Mars and sent back extensive scientific data. Link:http://www.beagle2.com

16 January 2015: Scientists have developed a novel instrument that can reveal the age of meteorites that fall on Earth, offering insight into the geologic history of the solar system. The instrument can be miniaturized for spaceflight to reveal the age of planetary materials. The key to understanding the geologic history of the solar system is knowing the ages of planetary rocks. Researchers validated the instrument - a laser ablation resonance ionisation mass spectrometer, by dating a rock from Mars: the meteorite Zagami, which formed about 180 million years ago, and fell to Earth in 1962. The advantage of the technique is that it requires little sample preparation, and the instrument is small and fast. Furthermore, the instrument can simultaneously provide geochemistry measurements and provide high-sensitivity detection of organics.The study is published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

17 January 2015:  NASA has teamed up with Microsoft to develop a new software that will enable scientists to work on Mars virtually using a wearable technology. Developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the software called OnSight will give scientists a means to plan and, along with the Mars Curiosity rover, conduct science operations on the Red Planet. OnSight will use real rover data and extend Curiosity's existing planning tools by creating a 3-D simulation of the Martian environment where scientists from world over can meet. The OnSight system uses holographic computing to overlay visual information and rover data into user's field of view.The tool will assist researchers in better understanding the workspace of robotic spacecraft. JPL plans to begin testing OnSight in Curiosity mission operations later this year. Future applications may include Mars 2020 rover mission, and support of Nasa's journey to Mars. Link:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

18 January 2015: Scientists have for the first time showed unambiguously that the propagation of light can be slowed below the commonly accepted figure of 299,792,458 metres per second, even when traveling in air or vacuum. Researchers from the University of Glasgow and Heriot-Watt University demon started that applying a mask to an optical beam to give photons a spatial structure can reduce their speed.The team compare a beam of light to a team of cyclists who share the work by taking it in turns to cycle at the front. Although the group travels as a unit, the speed of individuals vary. The group formation can make it difficult to define a single velocity for all cyclists, and the same applies to light. A single pulse of light contains many photons and light pulses are characterized by different velocities. The experiment involved two photons released simultaneously across identical distances towards a defined finish line. Link: http://www.sciencemag.org

19 January 2015:  An Interstellar-style space-time tunnel may exist in the Milky Way and we could even travel through it, according to a new theory proposed by an international team of scientists, including those from India. Based on the latest evidence and theories our galaxy could be a huge wormhole and, if that were true, it could be stable and navigable.If we combine the map of the dark matter in the Milky Way with the most recent Big Bang model to explain the universe and we hypothesize the existence of space-time tunnels, what we get is that our galaxy could really contain one of these tunnels, and that the tunnel could even be the size of the galaxy itself. We could even travel through this tunnel, since, based on our calculations, it could be navigable. The paper authored by Farook Rahaman from University in Kolkata and a group of Indian and North American researchers is published in the Annals of Physics. Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com

20 January 2015: A team of researchers has unveiled closest-ever details about the evolution of a comet that was in headlines last year when the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission helped its Philae lander touch down on the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (C-G). The study helps scientists better understand how comets form in the first place, how their surfaces evolve over time and how to potentially predict their lifespans. The authors are from the team for Rosetta's Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS). Comets have very little gravity, dust and gas flow freely into the space.The comet will be most active when it reaches perihelion or the single point in C-G's orbit that is the closest and most intensely affected by solar radiation.It will reach this point August 13, 2015 after which it will head away from the Sun once again.The series of papers appeared in a special issue of the journal Science.Link:http://www.sciencemag.org

21 January 2015: An international team of scientists have found exactly what is tarnishing Taj Mahal's white marble. In the published study, the  scientists have concluded that black carbon and brown carbon from the burning of trash and fuels are among the primary pollutants tarnishing Taj Mahal. Every several years, the Archeological Survey of India apply a clay mask to India's iconic but yellowing Taj Mahal to remove layers of grime and reveal the white marble underneath. Mike H Bergin and Sachchida Nand Tripathi from the American Chemical Society note that Indian officials have tried to reduce the effects of pollution on the Taj Mahal by restricting nearby traffic and limiting local industrial emissions. But despite regulations, the domes and minarets continue to accrue a layer of soot. The team estimated how these specks reflect light and therefore affect the color of the building. Link:http://www.acs.org

22 January 2015: Germany will provide 3 million Euro to support India's ongoing Ganga rejuvenation plan and explore various options to develop the country's national river.One of the options is to explore an option of extending co-operation for Ganga rejuvenation on the lines of Indo-German Energy Forum - a dedicated platform to support India's energy needs through various measures including government-private partnership.The matter of financial support and other options for partnership were discussed during a bilateral meeting of the German minister of environment, conservation and nuclear safety Barbara Hendricks. It was discussed that the co-operation on Ganga on the lines of the Indo-German Energy forum may include river basin planning, institutional setting and researches. The overall co-operation under such proposed dedicated forum may also include technical supports like river rejuvenation strategies. Link: http://energyforum.in

23 January 2015: In its move to push higher use of alternative fuels, India will soon notify the emission standards for vehicles that can ply on 85-95% ethanol-blended fuel. This will pave way for manufacturing of new engines that can use cleaner fuel and Indian vehicle testing agencies will give 'type approval' certificates. The vehicle manufacturers will define the level of ethanol blend and it will be displayed on vehicles by putting a clearly visible sticker unlike CNG vehicles which cannot be identified quickly. The road transport ministry has issued a draft notification setting emission standards for flexi-fuel ethanol (E85) and ethanol (ED95) vehicles. E85 is commonly used by Flexible-Fuel Vehicles (FFV) in the United States and Europe. Ethanol is a cleaner fuel and producing less Carbon.The apex advisory body on setting vehicle standards, CMVR TSC, also took up the issue of facilitating introduction and manufacturing of bio-CNG vehicles. Link:http://www.acma-act.in

24 January 2015: Coastal dwellers and fishermen of Kerala were warned that High Swell Waves (HSW) measuring over two metres from the Southern Ocean may hit the Kerala coast. The warning came from the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Telangana, which issued 'high wind-wave alert' to Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Tamil Nadu, Andaman, Nicobar and Goa upto January 26. Last week, wave surges were reported on the Kollam, Alappuzha and Kochi coasts. Flooding was reported in many parts of Vypeen, Nayarambalam, and Edavanakad in Kochi. The high-energy HSWs, which originate from the Southern Ocean and the Indian Ocean, travel over 4,000 km to reach the Kerala shores. The coasts of Vizhinjam, Kollam, Alappuzha, Kochi and Kasaragod are said to be vulnerable to HSW. Besides the Spring Tides, wind plays a crucial role in formation of wave surges. Link: http://www.incois.gov.in

25 January 2015: NASA's Mars Opportunity rover celebrated its 11th anniversary on the Red Planet today with a spectacular panorama of a Martian crater. Opportunity landed on Mars on January 25, 2004 in the Meridiani Planum region.Since that time, the spacecraft has trekked 25.9 miles across the surface of the planet, further than any other off-planet vehicle. From a low segment of the rim that it crossed in mid-2013, called 'Botany Bay', it climbed about 135 meters in elevation to reach the top of Cape Tribulation. It has placed an US flag there which is intended as a memorial to victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York. Opportunity rover is also known by (Mars Exploration Rover, MER-1) and is actually a robotic rover active on the planet Mars since 2004. The scientific objectives Opportunity mission are to search and  characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity.Link: http://mars.nasa.gov

26 January 2015: The asteroid 2004 BL86, that flew past the Earth today has its own small moon, as per NASA's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. Its primary body is approximately 325 metres across and has a small moon approximately 70 metres across. The flyby was the closest approach the asteroid will make to Earth for at least the next two centuries. It is also the closest a known asteroid this size will come to the Earth until asteroid 1999 AN10 flies past our planet in 2027. In the near-Earth population, about 16% of asteroids that are about 200 metres or larger are a binary (the primary asteroid with a smaller asteroid moon orbiting it) or even triple systems. In 2016, NASA will launch OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid (101955) Bennu,  one of the most potentially hazardous of the known near-Earth objects (NEOs). The OSIRIS-REx mission will be a pathfinder for future spacecraft designed to perform reconnaissance around NEOs. Link:http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov

27 January 2015: Charles Townes, who shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for invention of the MASER died at age 99. In 1953, Townes, James P. Gordon, and H. J. Zeiger built the first ammonia MASER (Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) at Columbia University. This device used stimulated emission in a stream of energized ammonia molecules to amplify of microwaves at a frequency of about 24.0 gigahertz. For his creation of the MASER, Townes along with Nikolay Basov and Alexander Prokhorov received the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics. Four years later, he and a brother-in-law, Arthur Schawlow, conceived of a variation on that invention to amplify a beam of optical light, instead of microwave energy, and Bell Laboratories patented it as LASER. As member of the United Church of Christ, Townes considered that "science and religion are quite parallel, they must converge". Link:http://www.nobelprize.org

28 January 2015: Today marks the 29th anniversary of NASA's 'Challenger' shuttle disaster. The accident happened on January 28, 1986, 73 seconds into flight, nine miles above the Atlantic for all to see, remaining as NASA's most visible failure. The Challenger explosion was the world's first high-tech catastrophe to unfold on live TV. Adding to the anguish was the young audience: School children everywhere tuned in that morning to watch the launch of the first schoolteacher and ordinary citizen bound for space, Christa McAuliffe. The other members of the crew were Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair and Gregory Jarvis, the first of the shuttle astronauts to die on the job. NASA paid tribute to the crews of Challenger, Apollo 1 and space shuttle Columbia. Today was the Annual Day of Remembrance, the day that honors those who lost their lives for the cause of exploration and discovery.Link:http://www.challenger.org

29 January 2015: Today was the 89th birth anniversary of Prof Dr Abdul Salam who was the first person to win Nobel Prize in science from the Muslim world. Salam was a science advisor to the Government of Pakistan from 1960 to 1974, and during this tenure he played an integral role in Pakistan's development of peaceful use of nuclear energy, and may have contributed to development of atomic bomb project of Pakistan in 1972.Salam's major and notable achievements include the Pati–Salam model, magnetic photon, vector meson, Grand Unified Theory, work on supersymmetry and, most importantly, electroweak theory, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community as not-Islamic. Link:http://www.nobelprize.org

30 January 2015: The Planetary Society, a nonprofit that promotes space exploration, announced that it would send the first of two small spacecraft testing the technology of solar sails into orbit this May, tagging along with other small satellites on an Atlas 5 rocket. When photons, particles of light, bounce off a shiny surface, they impart a tiny bit of momentum, an effect that comes directly from the equations of electromagnetism published by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s. Next year, a second LightSail is to be lofted higher, to an altitude of 450 miles, by a Falcon Heavy rocket from Space Exploration Technologies Corp, or SpaceX. That flight is to be the first to demonstrate controlled solar sailing while in orbit around Earth.In his 1865 novel, 'From the Earth to the Moon', Jules Verne appears to have been the first to realize that this force could be harnessed for travel in space. Link: http://sail.planetary.org

31 January 2015: The Bannerghatta Biological Park has become the first fenced, forested elephant sanctuary in the country which is set up at 49.5 hectare (122 acres).  Home to 15 elephants, this innovative project has been funded by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India. Elephants can move about freely in the enclosure. This comes as a big relief to jumbos that were either chained or kept in small enclosures after they were rescued or captured from different places. Sunder, 15, who was famously liberated by the Supreme Court in 2014 after being subjected to a harsh life at a Maharashtra temple, is one of the celebrated inmates here. Designed by PETA consultant and elephant expert Carol Buckley, based on the US elephant expert Margaret Whittaker, there is a solar-fencing running all along the specially designed enclosure. India, home to over 27,000 elephants as per the year 2007-08 estimates. Link: http://www.petaindia.com