SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2015

1 September 2015: Bloodhound, the world's first supersonic car which aims to run at 1000 miles per hour (1,609km/h) will be unveiled to the world on September 24 in London's financial hub, Canary Wharf. The car is with a jet engine, normally found in the Eurofighter Typhoon and a cluster of Nammo hybrid rockets. The 135,000 thrust horse power land speed racer also includes the Rolls-Royce EJ200 jet engine in place when it targets 800mph in 2016, as well as the supercharged Jaguar V8 engine used to pump oxidiser into the rocket. The car will be driven by Andy Green. The car needs at least 19km road which is perfectly flat, to run. The Hakskeen Pan in Kalahari desert, South Africa is selected for this. Link: www.bloodhoundssc.com

2 September 2015: With the demand for milk in India projected to reach 200 million tons (MT) by 2021-22, the country's premier dairy research institute is looking at cloning as a strategy to boost the population of high-yielding, elite variety of buffaloes. The National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal had cloned the world's first buffalo in 2009, and repeated the experiment over the years. The 11th such calf, named Swarupa, was born last month using an advanced 'hand-guided cloning technique'. Scientists had used a donor cell from the ear of an adult buffalo named Karan Kirti to facilitate the faster multiplication of elite germplasm. This could increase the number of superior milch buffaloes in India, leading to its milk self-sufficiency. Link:http://ndri.res.in

3 September 2015: Indonesia is set to launch the LAPAN A2/Orari satellite from India on September 27.The satellite was produced entirely in Indonesia by the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN). It is a successor to LAPAN A1/Tubsat, which was launched byIndia in 2007.The satellite will be launched at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.LAPAN A2/Orari will function as a tool to monitor land usage, ship movements, sea resources and fishing explorations. It is also equipped with an automatic packet reporting system on board to aid disaster mitigation by monitoring floods, changes in the sea level. The satellite will orbit the earth along the equator with an altitude of 650 km and will travel at 7.5 km per second, circling 14 times a day. Link:http://space.skyrocket.de

4 September 2015: Exposure to certain substances commonly found in personal care products such as soaps and shampoos and food packaging could be associated with increased risk of miscarriage, a new study has claimed. The study of more than 300 women suggested that exposure to certain phthalates, could be associated with pregnancy loss, mostly between 5 and 13 weeks of pregnancy. The research is the first epidemiological study on non-work-related exposure to phthalates to provide evidence for the possible link among a general population. Out of concern over the potential health effects of phthalates, the US has banned six of these substances in products made for young children. The study is published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Link:http://pubs.acs.org

5 September 2015: An international team of scientists has for the first time mapped all the genes that are activated in the first few days of a fertilized human egg. Led by Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, the researchers showed how the newly identified genes are essential to the start of development. There are approximately 23,000 human genes in total. In the current study, scientists found that only 32 of these genes are switched on two days after fertilisation and by the day three, there are 129 activated genes. At the start of an individual's life, there is a single fertilized egg cell. One day after fertilization there are two cells, after two days four, after three days eight and so on, until there are billions of cells at birth. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. Link:http://www.nature.com

6 September 2015: GSLV-D6 was successfully positioned in its orbital slot, today, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has said. GSLV-D6 was lifted off from the Sriharikota spaceport at 4.52pm on August 27. About 17 minutes later, the rocket injected the 2,117kg satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The cryogenic stage is a complex system of very low temperatures that uses liquid Hydrogen stored at -253 degrees Celsius as fuel, and liquid Oxygen at -183 degrees Celsius as the oxidizer. Mixing these two, the engine is ignited to produce very high temperatures. The satellite is controlled by ISRO's master control facility in Hassan, Karnataka. The satellite's orbit will be raised in the coming days to its final circular Geostationary Orbit (36,000km). Link:http://www.isro.gov.in

7 September 2015: Spanish scientists have designed and created in the laboratory the first experimental 'wormhole' that can connect two regions of space magnetically. ‘Wormholes’ are cosmic tunnels that can connect two distant regions of the universe, and have been popularised by the dissemination of theoretical physics and by works of science fiction like Stargate, Star Trek or, more recently, Interstellar. Using present-day technology it would be impossible to create a gravitational wormhole, as the field would have to be manipulated with huge amounts of gravitational energy, which no one yet knows how to generate. In electromagnetism, advances in metamaterials have allowed researchers to put forward several designs to achieve this. Link:http://grupsderecerca.uab.cat

8 September 2015: Chinese and Italian transplant specialists are planning to conduct the world's first human head transplant surgery on a Russian computer scientist that their claim would change the course of human history by curing incurable medical conditions. Italian Sergio Canavero will partner with Chinese surgeon Ren Xiaoping at a hospital affiliated to Harbin Medical University to carry out the operation. Canavero and Ren plan to establish an international medical team and have identified a 30-year-old Russian computer scientist with muscular dystrophy as the first patient. The world's first head transplant was performed in 1970, when American neurosurgeon Robert White transplanted the head of a monkey. The monkey died later when the transplant was rejected. Link:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

9 September 2015: NASA lander to carry tiny spacecrafts for Mars fly-by. NASA working to avoid traffic jams around Mars. New NASA tools bring Mars closer to young . Anybody can send his/her name which will be embedded on a computer chip aboard the InSight lander. InSight is an acronym for Interior Exploration for Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport. The mission will launch on an Atlas V 401 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on March 4, 2016. As part of a series of tests, the spacecraft was commanded to deploy its solar arrays in the clean room to test and verify the exact process that it will use on the surface of Mars. It is scheduled to land in Mars' Elysium Planitia (Plain of Ideal Happiness) on September 20, 2016. The mission is designed to remain functional for last two years. Link:http://mars.nasa.gov

10 September 2015: French researchers have developed ‘an autobiographical memory’ for a robot, the only permanent member onboard the International Space Station (ISS), which will help it pass on key information to astronauts who change every six months. In order for a robot to understand cooperative behaviour, which is necessary for the cultural transmission of knowledge, researchers developed a system whereby a human agent can teach the 'Nao humanoid' new actions through physical demonstration, or voice command. These individual actions are then combined into procedures and stored in the robot's autobiographical memory developed by researchers, thus enabling the robot, to reproduce them for other humans. Link:http://www2.cnrs.fr

11 September 2015: Scientists in Scotland have become the first in the world to produce biofuel from residues of the whisky industry. Edinburgh-based Celtic Renewables plans to build a production facility in central Scotland after manufacturing the first samples of bio-butanol from by-products of whisky fermentation. A bacterial fermentation process known as Acetone- butanol- ethanol (ABE) produces acetone, n-Butanol, and ethanol from starch. The biofuel is produced from draff ,the sugar rich kernels of barley soaked in water to facilitate the fermentation process necessary for whisky production, and pot ale, the copper-containing yeasty liquid that is left over following distillation. Scotland's distilleries currently produce around 750,000 tons of draff and 2 billion litres of pot ale annually. Link:http://www.celtic-renewables.com

12 September 2015: Australian researchers have developed the world's first robot designed to seek out and eliminate Crown of-Thorns Starfish (COTS) that are wreaking havoc on the Great Barrier Reef 's coral. Crown of-Thorns Starfish are responsible for 40% of the reefs total decline in coral cover. The COTSbot is equipped with stereoscopic cameras to give it depth perception, five thrusters to maintain stability, GPS and pitch-and-roll sensors and a pneumatic injection arm to deliver a fatal dose of bile salts. The COTSbot is designed to search the reef for up to eight hours at a time, delivering more than 200 lethal shots to kill and eliminate Crown of-Thorns Starfish. As per Dr Feras Dayoub, who designed the robot's software system COTSbot, it can think for itself while under waters obeying orders. Link:https://wiki.qut.edu.au

13 September 2015: A team of researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, has produced the first draft genome of Holy Basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum) which can help them identify the genes responsible for production of compounds with medicinal properties. The medicinal properties of Holy Basil are attributed to compounds produced as a part of its defence mechanism. The sequence revealed pathways used by Holy Basil to make Ursolic acid, a medically important compound. The team used five varieties of Holy Basil to collect the genomic data. They then compared the results with Arabidopsis thaliana (a model organiam). This helped them identify the unique compounds from Holy Basil Krishnatulsi subtype. Holy Basil is of Indian origin and in cultivation for almost 3,000 years now. Link:https://www.ncbs.res.in

13 September 2015: The first business report written by a robot has been published in China this week, stoking fears among local journalists that it could make forays into the country's state-controlled media and threaten their jobs. Chinese social and gaming giant Tencent released its flawless 916-word article via the company's QQ.com portal, an instant messaging service that wields much sway in China. It was written in Chinese and completed in just one minute by Dreamwriter, a Tencent-designed robot journalist that apparently has few problems covering basic financial news. The subject of the article was China's August consumer price index. The software powering the Dreamwriter robot uses algorithms designed to collate data, find patterns and pull quotes from sources. Link:http://english.cas.cn

14 September 2015: Presence of oxygen may not necessarily indicate presence of life on an exoplanet, according to a new study published. The Earth's atmosphere contains oxygen because plants continuously produce it through photosynthesis. Therefore, oxygen had been thought to be an essential biomarker for life on extrasolar planets. But now, researchers Norio Narita and Shigeyuki Masaoka from Japan's National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), have presented a novel hypothesis that abiotic oxygen produced by the photo-catalytic reaction of Titanium Oxide, which is known to be abundant on the surfaces of terrestrial planets, Meteorolites, and the Moon in the Solar System, cannot be discounted. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Link:http://www.nature.com

15 September 2015: A new Ebola test which is not only easier to use but also 100 times more sensitive than a test currently in use could help curb the spread of the disease in western Africa, claims a study. The current outbreak of the Ebola disease affects countries in West Africa. Currently there are two ways to test for the virus causing Ebola disease: Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and with Antibody- Capture Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), which gives a visual indication for a sample. The new test, called the Nanozyme Test, uses magnetic nanoparticles, which work like enzymes to make clearer results that can be viewed with the naked eye. The research was published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics. Link:http://www.sciencedirect.com

16 September 2015: Scientists say they've discovered a new member of the human family tree, revealed by a huge trove of bones in a barely accessible, pitch-dark chamber of a cave in South Africa.The site, Rising Star cave system, about 30 miles northwest of Johannesburg, has yielded some 1,550 specimens since its discovery in 2013. The fossils represent at least 15 individuals. Researchers named the creature Homo naledi. That reflects the Homo evolutionary group, which includes modern people and our closest extinct relatives, and the word for ‘star’ in a local language. The creature, which evidently walked upright, represents a mix of traits. For example, the hands and feet look like Homo, but the shoulders and the small brain recall Homo's more ape-like ancestors. Link:http://elifesciences.org

17 September 2015: This year’s Ig Nobel prizes are announced. The annual prizes are awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research as a whimsical counterpoint to the Nobel Prizes. One laureate, Michael Smith, allowed honeybees to repeatedly sting his body on 25 different locations, to determine which are the most painful. The physics award went to the three Georgia Tech University scientists who concluded that all mammals take about the same time to relieve themselves. Mark Dingemanse and two colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, took the laurels in the area of literature, discovering that the word “huh” appears to exist in every language of the world.The awards carry a cash prize of 10 trillion Zimbabwean dollars. Link: http://www.improbable.com

18 September 2015: Mesothelioma, a rare cancer caused only by asbestos and asbestosis exposure has been detected for the first time in Rajasthan. As per Mine Labour Protection Campaign (MLPC), 15 such cases have been reported in Ajmer while 62 are suspected. Mesothelioma is the cancer of lung and abdomen and is associated with exposure to asbestos fibers dust and other carcinogens. It is a notified disease, under Section 25 of the Mines Act, 1952. The disease is largely incurable and increasing rampantly in the state. Meanwhile, 1,700 silicosis victims are diagnosed with pneumoconiosis. Pneumoconiosis is not restricted to mines only. It is far more widespread. In Ajmer, hundreds of former asbestos workers are suffering from TB like symptoms. Link:http://www.mlpc.in

19 September 2015: A 'global' ocean containing a vast liquid water reservoir lies beneath the icy crust of Saturn's geologically active moon Enceladus, according to new research using data from NASA's Cassini mission which has been orbiting Saturn since mid-2004. Researchers found the magnitude of the moon's very slight wobble, as it orbits Saturn, can only be accounted for if its outer ice shell is not frozen solid to its interior, meaning a global ocean must be present. The finding implies the fine spray of water vapour, icy particles and simple organic molecules Cassini has observed coming from fractures near the moon's south pole is being fed by this vast liquid water reservoir. Previous analysis of Cassini data suggested the presence of water, or sea underlying the South Pole. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

20 September 2015: The drug resistant superbug, which is immune to almost all known antibiotics and was first discovered in New Delhi have now spread to more than 70 countries in all regions of the world. The first State of the World's Antibiotics report 2015, to be revealed by Washington-based Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP) has confirmed that the superbug - New Delhi metallo-betalactamase (NDM 1) has also been identified in environmental samples from water sources in Vietnam. British scientists had first found it in New Delhi's public water supply used for drinking, washing and cooking. NDM-1 was originally identified in a Swedish patient returning from New Delhi in 2008. The river of Holy Ganges too has been found teeming with NDM-1. Link: http://www.cddep.org

21 September 2015: Club Concorde, a group of ex-pilots, airline executives, engineers and Concorde enthusiasts have unveiled their plan to have the airliner back in the sky by 2019. Concorde was retired by its owners British Airways and Air France in 2003. The twin owners have since resisted the approaches of Richard Branson, who hoped to make the fleet commercially viable, much to the dismay of the members of Club Concorde. The club's aims are twofold: display an aircraft by the London Eye, above the Thames, and buy another to do up and fly. The club has reportedly secured £40 million in investment to buy a plane to display . It hopes to purchase one that is currently stationed near Orly Airport in Paris and charge £16 a ticket to visitors on the Thames as soon as 2017. Link: http://www.clubconcorde.co.uk

22 September 2015: A first draft of the ‘Tree of Life’ for the roughly 2.3 million named species of animals, plants, fungi and microbes, from platypuses to puffballs, has been released. A collaborative effort among 11 institutions, the tree depicts the relationships among living things as they diverged from one another over time, tracing back to the beginning of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago. Tens of thousands of smaller trees have been published over the years for select branches of the ‘Tree of Life’ - some containing upwards of 100,000 species, but this is the first time those results have been combined into a single tree that encompasses all of life. The end result is a digital resource available free online for anyone to use or edit. The researchers can log on and update the data. Link:http://tolweb.org

23 September 2015: The world's biggest genetic rice database online is now available free. Information on the genetic sequence of 3,024 rice varieties can now be accessed through the Amazon Web Services system, a cloud computing platform, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). The database would make it faster and easier to develop new rice varieties in the face of climate change and a growing world population. He stressed that with about half the world's population dependent on rice, it was crucial to develop varieties for another ‘Green Revolution’. The first ‘Green revolution’ took place between the 1960s-1990s and has been credited with preventing massive food shortages. The genetic sequencing for the new database was funded by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Link:http://ricetoday.irri.org

24 September 2015: Mangalyaan, the Mars Orbiter Mission of India marked one year of its life around mars today. After successfully completing one year of the mission life around Mars, a large data set has been acquired by all five payloads of Mars Orbiter Mission. ISRO to mark the first anniversary of Mars Orbit Insertion released an atlas containing photos taken by the colour camera on board the spacecraft and results obtained by other payload results in a form of scientific atlas. The images from MCC have provided unique information about Mars at varying spatial resolutions. Mars is one of the closest celestial objects to the Earth and it has attracted humans towards itself since the time immemorial. A large number of unmanned orbiters, landers and rovers have been launched to reach Mars since early 1960s. India has joined the club of space faring nations to explore Mars by sending its first planetary mission called, Mars Orbiter Mission popularly known as Mangalyaan. Link:http://www.isro.gov.in

25 September 2015: Even when the fight against Yettinahole project gathers steam, an online petition is all set to reach the Supreme Court and the Central government. Facebook pages, groups and whatsapp groups are active to protect Western Ghats and to save River Nethravathi. Meanwhile, an online petition against Yettinahole project to the Supreme Court . Nearly 600 people have already signed the petition within a day. Online petition warns the possible damage on Western Ghats, one of the biological hotspots of the World, through the project. It points out the possible damage to be caused to the flora and fauna in the Western Ghats and water shortage crisis that may crop up in Mangaluru. The petition also warns the possible consequence on agriculture and fisheries and variation in the marine ecology. In addition to online petition, facebook pages also have been opened to create awareness on the impact of the project on Western Ghats. Link:http://sandrp.in

26 September 2015: Brazil pledged on today to slash Greenhouse Gas emissions by 43 per cent by 2030 as its contribution to a United Nations climate agreement, but it will include reductions from past efforts against deforestation to help it reach the target. President Dilma Rousseff presented the country's pledges during a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York, noting the targets are more ambitious than those of most developed countries and that Brazil will not need external support to achieve them. Rousseff reaffirmed the country's commitment to ending illegal deforestation in the Amazon, as stated during a joint announcement with US President Barack Obama in June, but fell short of declaring a freeze on deforestation in general as many environmental groups had sought. Estimates indicate legal deforestation could still be carried out in an area of around 100 million hectares. Link:https://unfccc.int

27 September 2015: A total lunar eclipse with a so-called Supermoon was visible today. This hasn't been seen since 1982 and won't happen again until 2033. When a full or new moon makes its closest approach to Earth, that's a Supermoon. Although still about 220,000 miles away, this full moon will look bigger than usual. In fact, it will be the closest full moon of the year, about 30,000 miles closer than the average distance. The full eclipse of the moon will last more than an hour and be visible, weather permitting, from North and South America, Europe, Africa and western Asia. In Europe, the action will unfold before dawn on September 28. There won't be another total lunar eclipse until 2018.This weekend's eclipse marks the end of a tetrad, or series of four total lunar eclipses set six months apart. This series began in April 2014.The 21st century will see eight of these tetrads, an uncommonly good run. From 1600 to 1900, there were none. Link:http://earthsky.org

28 September 2015: Country's first dedicated satellite for astronomical research, Astrosat, was launched today. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C30 carried it into a low earth equatorial orbit after its take-off from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, in Sriharikotta, along with six small satellites of international customers. The Astrosat has the ability to observe celestial bodies like distant stars and cosmic X-Ray sources in different wavelengths simultaneously. Along with Astrosat, four identical nano-satellites of Spire Global Inc., the US, a micro-satellite from Indonesia and a nano-satellite of the University of Toronto, Canada took off. Within 22 minutes 33 seconds of ignition of the PSLV, it put Astrosat in its 650 km orbit, followed by the smaller payloads. Astrosat is with five years of operational life would serve as a space observatory. Link: http://astrosat.iucaa.in

29 September 2015: Scientists have for the first time confirmed liquid water flowing on the surface of present-day Mars a finding that will add to speculation that life, if it ever arose there, could persist now. This also represents a shift in tone of NASA, officials of which repeatedly denied the notion that Mars could hold liquid water to sustain life. Although Mars had rivers, lakes and maybe even an ocean, a few billion years ago, the modern moisture is modest, small patches of damp soil, not pools of standing water.Scientists have long known that large amounts of water remain but frozen solid in the polar ice caps. There have been fleeting hints of recent liquid water, like fresh-looking gullies, but none have proved convincing. In a study revealed recently, scientists identified waterlogged molecules, salts of a type known as perchlorates, on the surface in readings from orbit around mars. The study is published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Link: http://www.nature.com

30 September 2015: Exactly nine years ago, today at 12:30 AM, Iran's first cloned lamb was born in the Royan research institute in Isfahan, and was named Royana (Royan-SHE-C2) after the name of his birthplace (Royan means embryo in Persian). This beautiful male brown lamb, which was Iran’s second attempt at cloning (the first sheep died few hours after birth) was a result of many successful experiences and research in Royan Institute started by late founder Dr. Saeid Kazemi Ashtiani. Royana lived for three years until he had to be euthanized on February 22, 2010 after a veterinary examination showed he had a progressive liver disease. If Dolly is the first cloned mammal who saw the light of day in 1996 and lived until the age of six, then Royana was the third cloned animal in the world and the first in the Middle East which marked production of transgenic lambs containing factor IX transgenic which is helpful in human blood clotting. Link:http://www.royaninstitute.org