SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JUNE 2015

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1 June 2015: In an attempt to find the therapeutic properties of the Holy Basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum), Indian scientists have sequenced the whole genome of the herb. It is the first medicinal herb from the family named Lamiaceae, to have its genome sequenced. Holy Basil known to Indians as Thulsi is considered holy in India and all parts of this herb are used in several systems of traditional medicine, including Ayurveda. The sequencing effort was done by Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP), Lucknow, a laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The genome opens the possibility of identifying genes involved in producing therapeutic molecules and to produce them in vitro (in lab) according to CSIR. The study is published in BMC Genomics.Link: http://www.biomedcentral.com

2 June 2015: India has launched a supercomputer named Bhaskara which can improve the country’s weather forecasting capabilities. Housed in the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) in Noida, adjacent to Delhi, Bhaskara is part of the Earth System Science Organisation of the ministry of earth sciences that will considerably enhance prediction capabilities like tropical cyclones, heavy rainfall events, cloud burst events and monsoon, using very high resolution regional models. In coming years it will improve further with development of new technologies. With the commissioning of the IBM iDataPlex Supercomputer of peak computing power of 350 teraflops with 67 terabytes of aggregate memory, Bhaskara will have a peak computing power of 1.14 petaflops. Link: http://www.biomed.com

3 June 2015: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) got new directors for its spaceport at Sriharikota, and the rocket design and assembling and liquid propulsion systems centres at Thiruvananthapuram. P. Kunhikrishnan is the new director of the Satish Dhawan space centre in Sriharikota in place of M.Y.S. Prasad. Distinguished space scientist K. Sivan is the new director for Vikram Sarabhai space centre on superannuation of M. Chandradathan while heavy rocket project director S. Somnath succeeded Sivan as director of the liquid propulsion systems centre. ISRO is also planning for a ground station in Vietnam. ISRO already has a network of ground stations apart from within the country, one in Mauritius and two in Indonesia. It can also be used to provide training to personnel in space science and research. Link:http://www.isro.gov.in

4 June 2015: Finnish Weather Chief Petteri Taalas was today elected as head the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) during its quadrennial congress in Geneva. Taalas will replace the agency's veteran head, Michel Jarraud, who is stepping down next year after three four-year terms, a spokeswoman confirmed. Taalas is the head of the Finnish Meteorological Institute and has a strong scientific background, with more than 50 publications on climate change and satellite methodologies. Taalas has been on WMO's executive panel since 2008, and is also a member of the Finnish Science Academy. His election comes ahead of a key conference in Paris at the end of the year, marking the first attempt to clinch a world-wide deal on global warming since the near-disastrous 2009 UN summit in Copenhagen. The Paris Accord on Climate will be taking effect from 2020.Link:https://www.wmo.int    

5 June 2015: The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, India celebrated the World Environment Day which falls today by starting a massive tree plantation campaign across the country, with public participation. The project will run in the form of a Memorial Gardens. People will plant trees and those trees can be named after their beloved ones. The Ministry has written to all Chiefs of states to identify forest lands in urban areas. Most of the cities have some gardens, but do not have forests that can work as  carbon sink. The project has been named Nagar Van-udyan Yojana (Urban Forest Plan) and will be financed partly from Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) CAMPA funds. The Ministry has already piloted a bill to release Rs 35, 000 crore under CAMPA to all the states, towards achieving the goals of Green India Mission.Link:http://pib.nic.in  

6 June 2015: Today marks the hundredth aniversary of 'Pyrex', a new kind of cookware that entered the American market. It is a heat-resistant glass that is still being manufactured. Heat-resistant glass was invented in Germany at the end of the 1800s. But the glass was used mostly in lanterns because the lighting produced heat. It also was used in containers for telegraph and telephone batteries. The usefulness of heat-resistant glass as cookware was discovered by accident. It started at the Corning Glass Works manufacturing company in New York. Borosilicate glass is also being used for reflective optics in astronomical instruments because of its low expansion characteristics by being heat-resistant. One example is the 5.1 meter telescope mirror at the Mount Palomar Observatory in California. Pyrex dishes are still being manufactured today under rights to this recognizable brand name. Link:http://www.cmog.org  

7 June 2015: Mars Missions including India's maiden mission Mangalyaan will not beam any new data to the Earth as the Mars goes behind the Sun and the spacecraft and rovers take their biennial rest. The positioning of the Sun between the Earth and Mars is called Mars-Solar conjunction. This month, the Red Planet will swing almost directly behind the Sun from the Earth's perspective. This celestial geometry, that happens about every 26 months, will lead to diminished communications with spacecraft on or around Mars. NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft, which arrived in Mars orbit last September, will be experiencing its first solar conjunction. Transmissions from NASA's two other Mars orbiters: Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, will continue through the conjunction period, though with limited data.Link:http://www.isro.gov.in  

8 June 2015: A group of researchers at Cornell Lab of Ornithology in collaboration with California Institute of Technology have designed a program/app which lets users identify bird species using just a clicked photograph. The app is capable of identifying several hundred bird species through the photograph alone. The researchers provided a review of the project at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Boston, today. Christened as Merlin Bird Photo ID, the app can recognize 400 from the most frequently occurring birds in Canada and the United States. Users will also need to draw a box around the feathered creature, click its eye, beak and tail and then proceed to information on the location and time of the picture taken. The rest will be done by the website which relies on over 70 million sightings by bird watchers and online data, to identify the bird.Link:http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org   

9 June 2015: A deep depression in the Arabian Sea has intensified into a cyclonic storm, named Cyclone Ashobaa, and is heading towards the coast of Oman, according to  Indian Meteorological Department. Cyclone Ashobaa will further intensify into a severe cyclonic storm and it is set to bring rainfall in Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa, and Weather Departments have already warned fishermen that sea that conditions will be very rough on the western coast. The cyclone was named Ashobaa by Sri Lanka, one of the eight countries on a World Meteorological Panel that choose the names for cyclones over the north Indian ocean. The last one, Nilofar, which weakened by the time it arrived in the western state of Gujarat late last year, was named by Pakistan. It’s predecessor, Cyclone Hudhud made landfall and causalities in Visakhapatnam, a southern Indian city. Link:http://www.rsmcnewdelhi.imd.gov.in  

10 June 2015: Scientists at the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanical Garden in West Bengal have carried out artificial pollination of the only Double Coconut Tree in India, which bears the largest seed known to science. One of the rare and threatened species of palm, the double coconut (Lodoicea maldivica) tree was planted at the botanical garden in 1894 and the artificial pollination is a result of decades of work by scientists of the Botanical Survey of India. The Double Coconut tree not only bears the largest seed known to science, weighing around 25 kg, but this unique species is also the longest surviving palm which can live for as long as 1,000 years. The palm tree also bears the largest leaf among palms sothat one leaf could thatch a small hut. This rare tree can be found in only two of the 115 Seychelles islands and is also called Coco de Mer (Coconut of the Sea). Link:http://bsi.gov.in    

11 June 2015: Mangalyaan, India’s low-cost Mars orbiter mission, has brought pride for the country once again. For the Mangalyaan mission, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) bagged the prestigious Space Pioneer Award 2015. The award was presented by the US’ National Space Society in the 'Science and Engineering' category during the 34th Annual International Space Development Conference held in Canada. The Mangalyaan mission was launched on 5 November 2013 and the orbiter entered in the orbit nearly after nine months of journey on 24 September, 2014. With the Mangalyaan mission, India became the first country in the world to send a probe on Mars in its very first attempt. However, this isn’t the first time that ISRO has been awarded with the Space Pioneer Award by NSS. In 2009, ISRO won the same for its moon mission, Chandrayaan-1.Link:http://www.isro.gov.in  

12 June 2015: US has introduced legislation to recognize and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing with a Commemorative Coin. July 20, 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission moon landing by American astronauts. The United States remains the only country to have ever landed humans on a celestial body off the Earth and brought them home safely. The landing of Apollo 11 marks an important milestone in human history and to-date, is the farthest humans have traveled. The Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin would celebrate not only the innovative spirit, proceeds from the coin will support scholarships for students pursuing science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM) degrees, initiatives that promote space exploration and the astronauts whom have fallen in the line of duty. Link:http://www.nasa.gov  

13 June 2015: Philae, the comet lander by European Space Agency has again been in touch with Earth. Philae landed on Comet 67P on 12 November 2014 and worked for 60 hours before its battery ran flat. Philae had been dormant after bouncing into a dark ditch 60 hours after landing. The resting place had high walls that obscured the Sun and meant that the robot could not charge its batteries. With 67P sweeping in towards the Sun, these conditions have changed. Philae’s solar panels are now getting longer and more intense exposure to the Sun. Philae awoke today and its solar panels can now generate the electricity needed to power up its systems, including the transmitter, though not fully. It's mothership Rosetta, the craft that dropped it on to 67P, is still in orbit around the comet, and can relay messages to Earth. Currently, the comet, Philae and Rosetta are about 305 million km from Earth. Link:http://sci.esa.int 

14 June 2015: The legendary Indian Humpback Mahseer, one of the world’s most iconic freshwater fish, may become extinct before getting a valid scientific name. With its distribution having always been limited to South India’s River Cauvery basin, this fish is now believed to be so endangered. Adrian Pinder of Bournemouth University and Dr Rajeev Raghavan of St. Albert’s College have been studying the ecology, taxonomy and conservation status of 17 species of Mahseer which populate rivers throughout south and southeast Asia since 2010. Four of these species are already listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List. The endemic Humpbacked Mahseer is now of the brink of extinction which is replaced by the non-native relatives (Blue-finned Mahseer) which have been artificially bred and introduced to the river in the name of species conservation. Link: http://www.int-res.com 

15 June 2015: A special set of commemorative stamps has been issued to mark the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, today. The six stamps feature text from Magna Carta, and other charters, bills and declarations that have developed the rule of law around the world. Magna Carta was granted by King John of England on 15 June 1215, establishing that the king also is subject to the law rather than being above it. Principles set out in Magna Carta charted the right to a fair trial, and limits on taxation without representation. It also inspired a number of other documents, including the US Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The commemorative stamps contain texts from the American Bill of Rights of 1791, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and the 2013 Charter of the Commonwealth are among other texts that featured on them. Link: http://magnacarta800th.com 

16 June 2015: When NASA launches its next mission on the journey to Mars, a stationary lander in 2016, the flight will include two revolutionary CubeSats. The CubeSats, being built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, constitute a technology demonstration called Mars Cube One (MarCO). MarCO will launch in March 2016 on the same United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket as NASA's InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander. Insight is NASA's first mission to understand the interior structure of the Red Planet. MarCO will fly by Mars while InSight will land on Mars in September 2016. MarCO will be navigated to Mars independently of the InSight. The two CubeSats will separate from the Atlas V booster after launch and travel along separate paths to the Red Planet. Link:http://www.jpl.nasa.gov  

17 June 2015: The SAARC countries, including Pakistan, will participate in the ambitious SAARC Satellite Project, as per Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The SAARC Satellite Project was proposed to expand India’s footprint in satellite navigation program in South Asia. Though a member of SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) states, Pakistan, in spite of its early start and its well-developed missile program, has not made much progress in space arena. Their space agency, known as SUPARCO, Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, was established during 1961. Badr-1 was Pakistan's first satellite and was launched from China on July 16, 1990. Pakistan’s second satellite, Badr-B was launched on December 10, 2001. Paksat-1 (2002) and Paksat-1R (2011) followed with iCUBE-1 in 2013. Link: http://www.currentscience.ac.in

18 June 2015: Today marks the 50th anniversary of Shakey: the world's first mobile robot. Shakey was developed in US at the Artificial Intelligence Center of Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International) from approximately 1966 through 1972 with Charles Rosen as project manager. The project was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The robot's programming was primarily done in LISP, a high level programing language. The STRIPS (Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver) planner it used, allowed Shakey to map actions and subgoals to chart a plan of action. This also gave him the ability to recover from accidents, such as an unexpected obstacle. Now retired from active duty, Shakey is currently on view in a glass display case at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Ameica. Link: http://www.sri.com

19 June 2015: The conventional classification of tigers into nine sub-species has been challenged by an international group of scientists after detailed study of various traits. Less than 4000 tigers of all sub species put together are estimated to live currently. About 70 percent of surviving tigers are located in just 42 sites which is only 0.5 percent of their historical range. The nine 'official' tiger subspecies are: Bengal, South China, Siberian, Sumatran, Malayan, Indochinese, Caspian, Bali and Javan. But the new study suggests that there are only two subspecies: Continental and Sunda. A huge amount of international attention and funds, about $50 million per annum, are given for saving nine separate sub species, but now, one had to deal with just two sub species. The paper is published in the journal Science Advances. Link: http://advances.sciencemag.org
  
20 June 2015: Eminent scientist and recipient of Bharat Ratna CNR Rao was conferred Japan's highest civilian award for promoting academic interchange and mutual understanding in science and technology between the two countries. He was presented with the 'Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star' and certificate by Japanese ambassador to India Takeshi Yagi in the presence of senior officials of the Department of Science and Technology, which Rao has helped shape up over the years.Rao had been bestowed with about 70 honorary doctorates and is the 'Linus Pauling Research Professor' and honorary president of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. He is the only Indian to be elected as a foreign member of the Japan Academy. Link:http://www8.cao.go.jp       

21 June 2015: Japan says it plans to resume whale hunts in the Antarctic this year, even though the International Whaling Commission (IWC) says Tokyo has not proved that whales need to be killed for research. As per IWC's scientific committee report, it was not able to determine whether lethal sampling is necessary for whale-stock management and conservation. The IWC banned commercial whaling in 1986, but Japan continued killing whales under an exemption for research. Japan also sent a non- lethal expedition to the Antarctic for the 2014 season. Under Tokyo's revised proposal for the upcoming whaling season, it plans to catch 333 Minke Whales each year between 2015 and 2027, about one-third of what it used to target. Japan's actual catch has fallen recently because of declining domestic demand for whale meat. Link:http://www.ifaw.org  

22 June 2015: Government of Kerala declared today as the 'Snake Bird day', as part of a campaign to protect this endangered species. Known as 'Cherakkozhi' in Malayalam, the regional language of Kerala, Snake Bird or Oriental Indian Darter has Anhinga melanogaster as its scientific name. It is a large slender long-necked water bird and is mostly black with silver wing markings. As per a recent survey, there are over 1500 snake birds in the country in which majority are in Kerala. Snake birds are tropical water birds which belong to the Anhingidae family, having a single genus Anhinga. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has classified the species in the 'nearly-threatened' category. The term 'Darter' denotes the manner of catching fish by these birds with their beaks. Link:http://www.birdlife.org  
 
23 June 2015: Maharashtra has become the first state in country to have a ‘State Butterfly’. The state government has declared the Blue Mormon (Papilio polymnestor) as the State Butterfly. The decision was taken at a meeting of the State Wildlife Board in Mumbai today. The Blue Mormon is a large, swallowtail butterfly found primarily in Sri Lanka and India, mainly restricted to the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, South India and coastal belts. It is reportedly the second largest butterfly found in India, just smaller than the southern birdwing. Easily identifiable, the Blue Mormon boasts exquisite velvet-like black wings with bright blue spots. It may occasionally be spotted in the mainland of Maharashtra between Vidarbha and Western Maharashtra. No State in India has ever declared a State butterfly and it is an endangered one. Link:http://www.mahaforest.nic.in   

24 June 2015: World's longest-living cloned goat Yang Yang celebrated 15th anniversary today. Yang Yang was one of the first goats to be successfully cloned in China. Most regular goats only have a lifespan of between 16 to 18 years. Health defects are common in cloned animals, meaning that they are more susceptible to diseases and early deaths. This was demonstrated by Dolly the sheep, who, after developing a progressive lung disease, died at six years old, with a lifespan half as long as an un-cloned sheep. Born in 2000, Yang Yang was one of China's first successfully cloned goats and is now the proud great-great-grandmother to a five-generation family. Yang Yang was the second goat to be cloned from somatic cells, after the first cloned goat in China, Yuan Yuan, died from a respiratory failure just 36 hours after she was born. Link:http://www.china.org.cn

25 June 2015: The orbiter spacecraft module structure of the proposed Chandrayaan-2 mission, built by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., has been delivered to the ISRO Satellite Centre. Chandrayaan-2 is the country’s second lunar mission and is likely to come up in 2017 or 2018. It will have a lander and a rover to explore the Moon’s surface. Chandrayaan-2 is a two-module configuration having an orbiter and lander. ISRO will launch the mission using the most powerful GSLV-MkII, which is powered by the indigenous cryogenic engine. The satellite centre is working on the main spacecraft and the rover. The lander is being developed at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., has provided hardware for PSLV rocket and GSLV-MKII and GSLV-MKIII. Link:http://www.chandrayaan-i.com

26 June 2015: As part of the space agency’s two-week NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations 20 expedition, also known as ‘NEEMO’, an international crew will be sent into the watery depths of the Atlantic Ocean. All is being done as preparation for future deep space missions. The expedition will start on July 20. During the project, scientists will be testing many new techniques and tools that may find use for spacewalks in the future in places having different surfaces and levels of gravity. The crew will go into the depths of the ocean with professional habitat technicians and will live together at a depth of 62ft. The European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano will command the NEEMO-20 mission. Luca has already spent 166 days at the International Space Station. Link:https://www.nasa.gov  

27 June 2015: One of the fastest supercomputers in India named after eminent scientist Dr Vikram Sarabhai was inaugurated today at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), an organisation that was founded by Vikram Sarabhai at Ahmedabad in 1947. Christened as VIKRAM-100, this supercomputer is the 13th fastest supercomputer in India and is more powerful than 200 desktop computers. This is the first supercomputer in Gujarat of this magnitude.The supercomputer has a storage capacity of 300 terabytes of usable space and can help with numerical simulations as well. VIKRAM-100 support scientists, researchers and research scholars at PRL for computing complex data in various areas like space and atmospheric sciences, geoscience, theoretical physics and solar physics. Link:http://www.prl.res.in  

28 June 2015: After a journey of nine years and three billion miles, NASA’s New Horizons probe is finally close enough to Pluto to reveal intriguing surface feature. Using four images taken by the Long Range Reconnaissance Orbiter (LORRI) and colour data obtained by the Multi-spectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), British image processor Ian Regan created a colorized picture of Pluto and its largest moon Charon. The image of Charon comes on the 37th anniversary of its discovery in June 1978. The 'close approach' hemisphere of Pluto, which New Horizons will directly fly over on July 14, has the most varied terrain of both worlds. The spacecraft will come within 7,750 miles of Pluto’s surface during its July 14 encounter. New Horizons will spend that day taking data and will not communicate with Earth. Link: http://www.nasa.gov  

29 June 2015: Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who is the current commander of the International Space Station, has set a new record for most time spent in space, with a total of 803 days, as per Russian space agency, Roscosmos. Padalka, who turned 57 on June 21, is currently on his fifth space mission. Trained as a military pilot during the Soviet era, he first went to space in 1998, when he served as commander on the pre-ISS Mir orbital complex that year. He worked on both Mir and the International Space Station. When Padalka returns to Earth in September with fellow ISS crew members Mikhail Kornienko and Scott Kelly, he will have spent a total of 877 days or roughly 2.5 years in space. He is a veteran spacewalker and  and was described as the best at training on how to live in zero gravity. Link: http://www.spacefacts.de  

30 June 2015: The month of June 2015 will last one second more than a normal day. The midnight Coordinated Universal Time on June 30 will read 23:59:60 rather than resetting to 00:00:00. The extra second, or 'leap second', is needed to re-synchronise our land-based clocks with Earth's rotation, which is slowing down ever so slightly each year. This is the 26th time a second has been added to the day since the practice began in 1972. Due to tidal forces between the Earth and the Moon, our planet's rotation is slowing down, adding a whopping 1.4 milliseconds to our days every century. During the time of the dinosaurs, the typical Earth day was just 23 hours. In fact, the last true 24-hour rotation, exactly 86,400 seconds, occurred in 1820. Since then, the day on Earth has been lengthened by 2.5 milliseconds. Link:https://hpiers.obspm.fr