1 November 2016: Today marks the the 75th anniversary of the first time that penicillin was used to treat a human patient. Although the drug was famously discovered in 1928, it wasn’t until 1941 that Oxford scientists first put penicillin to use on human patients. The three researchers, Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and Norman Heatley, who were awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1945 for their work, applied their results in treating bacterial infection in mice to Albert Alexander who had been admitted to the Radcliffe Infirmary with an infection. Although Alexander died due to a shortage of penicillin, his initial response was positive, sparking the greatest renaissance in modern medical history. The strong tradition of medicine at Oxford, as exemplified by Florey, Chain, and Heatley continues to this day, with Oxford routinely ranked first in the medical sciences field internationally. Link: http://www.ox.ac.uk
2 November 2016: The Bhitarkanika National Park may make it to the list of world heritage sites. The large mangrove eco-system has been nominated as one among the nine natural eco-sites of the country for the coveted tag. A five-member delegation from International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an international organization working in the field of nature conservation, would visit Bhitarkanika on Friday to assess the eco-site. The delegation consisting of wildlife scientists, environment specialists and eco-spot experts interacted with senior officers of the state government in presence of chief secretary Aditya Padhi on Thursday before leaving for the place. The delegation team would assess issues relating to protection, conservation, biodiversity, inclusiveness of the area, peoples participation, tourism potential, livelihood of the people and the quality of the environment concerned. Link: http://bhitarkanika.org
3 November 2016: The world’s largest and most sensitive cosmic ray monitor, located in India, has recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays that indicates a crack in the Earth’s magnetic shield, according to scientists. The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona struck Earth at a very high speed causing massive compression of the Earth’s magnetosphere and triggering a severe geomagnetic storm. The GRAPES-3 muon telescope located at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research’s Cosmic Ray Laboratory in Ooty recorded a burst of galactic cosmic rays last year lasting for two hours. The burst occurred when a giant cloud of plasma ejected from the solar corona, and moving with a speed of about 2.5 million km per hour struck our planet, causing a severe compression of Earth’s magnetosphere from 11 to 4 times the radius of Earth. The study is published in Physical Review Letters. Link: http://grapes-3.tifr.res.in
4 November 2016: Engineers have finished assembling the telescope that will succeed Hubble. The huge new observatory known as James Webb is on track to be launched in exactly two years from now. It will go into space on a European Ariane rocket from French Guiana, but before that is possible the delicate hardware must be tested to ensure it will survive the ride. This work will begin in the coming weeks at the US space agency’s Goddard space centre in Maryland. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a cooperative venture between NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts. When the contributions from all the parties are included, the value of this next-generation science facility is close to $10bn. Webb will carry technologies capable of detecting the light from the first stars. It will also reveal the chemistry of planets in details, far beyond our Solar System. Link: http://www.jwst.nasa.gov
5 November 2016: Scientists in China have found particles that are similar to Majorana fermions, elementary particles whose antiparticles are identical to themselves. Majorana fermions were first proposed by physicist Majorana in 1937. This kind of fermion is vital to the research of superconducting materials and topological quantum computation. However, 80 years after they were posited, scientists have still not found a Majorana elementary particle. Though it is widely proposed that the neutrinos are Majorana fermions, there is still no evidence to support this conjecture. In condensed matter physics, scientists have found a kind of quasi-particle called
Majorana Zero Modes (MZM) that have similar characteristics as Majorana fermions.
The research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences achieved fabrication and manipulation of MZM in an optical simulator. Th
e work is published in
Nature Communications.
Link: http://www.nature.com
6 November 2016: An agreement between 24 countries and the European Union made possible the creation of the largest marine park in the world, located in the in the Ross Sea, at the Antarctic Ocean. This area covers a massive 1.55 million square kilometers. This sanctuary will cover more than 12 percent of the Southern Ocean, which represents the habitat of 10,000 sea species, including the majority of the world’s penguins, seabirds, whales and colossal squids. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources established this week that the Ross Sea will become a Marine Protection Area, that automatically will ban all commercial fishing for the next 35 years. This measure will take place in 425,000 square miles, while in other designated spaces called
'research areas
' fishing will be allowed
, including that of 'krill', though
the primary objective for this initiative is to ban all the fishing on a permanent basis.
Link: https://www.mfat.govt.nz
7 November 2016: In a first, the Square Kilometre Array Organization will hold its annual science meeting in Goa, from
today to 11 November. About 200 astronomers from across the globe are expected to attend. The National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Pune, is the nodal institute for overseeing SKA-related activities within India. The SKA is an international project
to build the world's largest and most-sensitive radio telescope on two sites, in Africa and Western Australia. Currently there are 10 countries Australia, Canada, China, India, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and United Kingdom involved in the project. The Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, operated by NCRA, has an international class radio astronomy facility that has been accorded the status of an
SKA Pathfinder by the
Square Kilometre Array Organization. Link: https://www.skatelescope.org
8 November 2016: Mars is a primary target in the search for life outside Earth, and liquid water is the most important pre-requisite for life. But a team of international researchers has found that Mars is incredibly dry, and has been that way for millions of years.
It provides vital insight into the planet's current environment and shows how difficult it would be for life to exist on Mars today. Using data from the Opportunity mission, the scientists examined a cluster of meteorites at
Meridiani Planum, a plain just south of the planet's equator and at a similar latitude to Gale crater. The researchers calculated a chemical weathering rate for Mars, in this case how long it takes for rust to form from the metallic iron present in meteorites. A study suggested that very salty liquid water might be able to condense in the top layers of Martian soil overnight.
The discovery is published in the journal Nature Communications.Link: http://www.nature.com
9 November 2016: Preliminary assessments by scientists in Singapore have shown that coral bleaching this year is more severe than two other major bleaching events in 1998 and 2010. Corals depend on symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae, for food. Bleaching occurs when abnormally high sea temperatures cause corals to expel the zooxanthellae living in them, turning them white. In 1998, it lasted from June to August, said coral expert Chou Loke Ming, an adjunct research professor at the National University of Singapore's Tropical Marine Science Institute. This year, water temperatures began exceeding the bleaching threshold of 31.14 deg C from end-April. The good news, however, is that some corals are starting to recover from what is the longest bleaching incident to hit Singapore so far.
Recovery from bleaching is still ongoing. A bleaching event is considered to have ended when sea surface temperatures go back to normal.
Link: https://www.nparks.gov.sg
10 November 2016: At the end of five days of climate change negotiations in Morocco, rather than the news of Donald Trump being elected as the next US President, a four page document hobbled the crucial talks over implementing the Paris Agreement. The document, a draft of '
Marrakech Call For Climate Action And Sustainable Development', dated November 9, was selectively shared by the Moroccan presidency of the negotiations. Heads of states and ministers from 196 countries are expected to reach the Moroccan capital over the weekend for the high level segment of the two week negotiations. The Morocco round of negotiations this year were expected to set down some key ground rules to write the rule-book for the Paris Agreement over next year or two.
If the hosts tried to force countries to adopt the '
Marrakech Call' it in its current shape it could lead to a Copenhagen-like situation where the climate talks crashed in 2009 when Denmark tried the take-it-or-leave it tack, with others.
Link: http://cop22.ma/en
11 November 2016: An international team of researchers has sequenced the complete genome of the Amur
Leopard (
Panthera pardus orientalis), one of the most critically endangered big cats in the world. The scientists
used a muscle sample of a female from the Daejeon O-World of Korea. This is the second leopard genome to be sequenced following the
Snow
Leopard published in 2013. The leopard genome showed the longest continuity and highest accuracy among the big cat (
Panthera species and cheetah) genome assemblies. Two additional wild Amur leopards from the Far East-Primorsky Krai and a wild Amur leopard cat (
Prionailurus bengalensis euptilurus/euptilura) from Korea were whole genome re-sequenced, and were used together with previously reported whole genome data of other felid species for comparative evolutionary analyses. The findings are published in the journal
Genome Biology. Link: https://genomebiology.com
12 November 2016: The tallest tropical tree in the world is right where we thought it was
in a protected forest reserve in the state of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Greg Asner of the Carnegie Airborne Observatory revealed the new record holder in his speech at the 2016
International Heart of Borneo Conference. Earlier this year a team of researchers
from Cambridge made headlines with their announcement of the tallest tropical tree measuring 89.5 m (293.6 feet) in Maliau Basin. However, concurrent laser scanning shows that one
Behemoth tree on a hillside in Danum Valley
measures 94.1 m (308.7 feet), surpassing the Maliau specimen. The tallest known trees anywhere are California redwoods, which live in the temperate zone. They have been measured up to nearly 116 meters (380 feet). The research was funded by James Cameron's Avatar Alliance Foundation, UNDP, Rainforest Alliance, and WWF.
Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com
13 November 2016: The periodic table has been declared ‘complete’ after scientists agreed that the recent discovery of four new elements add the missing information to fill in the table’s seventh row. The elements have been approved by the Joint Working Party for the Discovery of New Elements. There are currently 118 elements. Of these, first 94 occur naturally on Earth with the remaining 24 being synthetic elements. The four new elements are synthetic. The elements were discovered by scientists from the U.S., Japan and Russia. These elements are coded 113, 115, 117 and 118.
At present the elements have temporary names: Element 113:
Nihonium; Element 115:
Moscovium; Element 117:
Tennessine; Element 118:
Oganesson. The periodic table orders elements according to their atomic number (number of protons), electron configurations and recurring chemical properties. Prior to 113, 115, 117 and 118, the previous elements to gain ‘elemental status’ were:
Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicium, Flerovium and
Livermorium.
Link: http://iupap.org
14 November 2016: For the first time, physicists have observed a strange molecule called the
Butterfly Rydberg Molecule - a weak pairing of highly excitable atoms that was first predicted back in 2002. The find not only confirms a 14-year-old prediction - it also confirms the existence of a whole new type of atomic bond.
Rydberg Molecule form when an electron is kicked far from an atom's nucleus, making them super electronically excited. Back in 2002, a team of researchers from Purdue University in Indiana predicted that a Rydberg Molecule could attract and bind to another atom- something that was thought impossible according to our understanding of how atoms bind at the time. They called that hypothetical molecule combination the Butterfly Rydberg Molecule, because of the butterfly-like distribution of the orbiting electrons. And now, 14 years later, the same team has finally observed a Butterfly Rydberg Molecule in the lab, and in the process, has discovered a whole new type of weak atomic bond. The findings are published in Nature Communications. Link: http://www.nature.com
15 November, 2016: The International Solar Alliance (ISA), brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, moved to a next level when more than 20 countries, including India, France and Brazil, signed its framework agreement today - the first day when it was opened for signature here on side-lines of the UN climate conference (COP22). More countries are expected to join it formally in coming weeks. The ISA - a collective voice of sunshine rich nations - will enter into force once 15 countries ratify it after completing their respective domestic processes. It will help these countries to bargain their positions as a group to get low cost finance and technology to boost solar energy. The ISA was launched at the UN climate change conference (COP21) in Paris on November 30 last year. This alliance provides a platform for 121 prospective member countries to collaborate and address the identified gaps through a common agreed approach. With legal framework in place, the Alliance will be a major international body, headquartered in India. Link: http://unfccc.int
16 November, 2016: Scientists just discovered the roundest object in the known Universe. The star in question is called Kepler 11145123 (or KIC 11145123), located some 5,000 light-years from Earth. When a team led by astronomer Laurent Gizon from Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and the University of Göttingen in Germany first discovered it, they used a technique called astero-seismology to determine how spherical it is. Strangely enough, this slowly rotating gas sphere hasn’t been flattened as it spins on its axis - its roundness is so beautifully intact, the researchers say it’s the most spherical natural object known to science. Kepler 11145123 the roundest natural object ever measured, even more round than the Sun. The discovery has opened up a whole bunch of questions, mainly how on Earth did this thing get so round. When stars, planets, and moons spin on their axis, they experience centrifugal forces, which pull their equatorial regions away from the centre of rotation. The study has been published in Science Advances.Link: http://advances.sciencemag.org
17 November, 2016: NASA's newest Mars orbiter has now been on the job for two Earth years, investigating how the Red Planet lost its atmosphere in the ancient past. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft reached Mars on September 21, 2014, and officially began its science mission less than two months later, on November 16 of that year. MAVEN, the first orbiter tasked with studying Mars' atmosphere as its primary task has made a number of interesting discoveries over the past two years. The orbiter also spotted a cloud around Mars that likely consists of interplanetary dust. In addition, in a layer of the atmosphere known as the ionosphere, the zone where auroras occur, MAVEN found a layer of metal ions, or charged particles. These are produced when interplanetary dust falls into the atmosphere. One of Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft's earliest tasks was to observe Comet Siding Spring make a close flyby of Mars on October 19, 2014, to see what effects the comet had on Mars' atmosphere. Link: https://www.nasa.gov
18 November, 2016: The genome sequence of Ginkgo biloba, the oldest extant tree species has been published. The research was carried out by a team of scientists at BGI, Zheijiang University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who tackled and analyzed an exceptionally large genome, totalling more than 10 billion DNA 'letters'. Ginkgo is considered a 'living fossil', meaning its form and structure have changed very little in the 270 million years since it first came into existence. The tree's genome is larger than other plant species known for extremely big genomes, such as maize or orchids. Ginkgo represents one of the five living groups of seed plants, and has no living relatives. Such a genome fills a major phylogenetic gap of land plants, and provides key genetic resources to address evolutionary questions like phylogenetic relationships of gymnosperm lineages, evolution of genome and genes in land plants, innovation of developmental traits, evolution of sex as well as history of distribution and conservation of Ginkgo. The research is published in GigaScience. Link: http://gigascience.biomedcentral.com
19 November, 2016: Peru has officially cloned its first animal. Peruvian researchers Luis Murga Valderrama and Jenin Cortez Polanco achieved this new development. They used scientist Gabor Vajta´s method, the Hand Cloning method. The scientists completed this amazing feat at the National University Toribio Rodriguez de Mendoza. After Chile, Peru is only the second Latin American country to use this technique. The cow is called Alma CI, and she was produced by handmade cloning. Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned animal, was cloned in Scotland in 1996 using this technique. It allows the full automation of somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), the process of fusing an egg cell with a donor nucleus. Scientists used a very thin blade to split eggs cells in half under a microscope. Then, they identify empty 'cytoplasts', which don't have an embryo. To create a cloned embryo, a cell from an adult animal is fused first with one cytoplast, then another. The Peruvian scientists created Alma's embryo using an ear cell from another cow. Link: http://www.nst.com
20 November, 2016: Scientists have discovered a vast reserve of water deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and there are fears that all life will die out when it dries up. Two new studies claim there is a huge store of water in the Earth’s mantle, as deep as 620 miles below our planet’s surface. The vast water reserves have been found in the mantle, deep beneath the Earth's surface. And researchers believe the oceans churning deep beneath our feet are essential for life on Earth, since they are responsible for volcanoes and other tectonic activity. Whilst volcanoes may seem like more of a threat, the lava they spew out is actually essential for creating fertile soil, which is why much of the world’s best farmland can be found on the slopes of volcanoes. Researchers from Florida State University and the University of Edinburgh estimated that water can be stored deep underground in a mineral called brucite. And researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois agreed with these findings to suggest that water can be found a third of the way to the Earth’s core. Link: http://www.minerals.net
21 November, 2016: Dr. Abdus Salam, the first and only Nobel laureate in the field of physics, is being remembered on his 20th death anniversary today. Born Mohammad Abdus Salam in 29 January 1926, the legendary physicist died on 21 November 1996.
He shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg for his contribution to the electroweak unification theory. He was the first Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize in science and the second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize (after Anwar Sadat of Egypt). In 1974, Abdus Salam departed from his country, in protest, after the Pakistan Parliament passed a controversial parliamentary bill declaring the Ahmadiyya movement, to which Salam belonged, as not-Islamic. 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 most prestigious award in physics, the Nobel Prize.
Link: http://www.osti.gov
22 November, 2016: CERN Director General, Fabiola Gianotti, and Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) of the Government of India, Sekhar Basu signed an Agreement admitting India to CERN as an Associate Member. India and CERN signed a Cooperation Agreement in 1991, setting priorities for scientific and technical cooperation, followed by the signature of several Protocols. India’s relationship with the Organization dates back much further, initially through cooperation with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, whose physicists have been actively participating in CERN
experiments since the 1960s. They were later joined by scientists from the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, in the 1990s. In 1996, Indian Atomic Energy Commission agreed to take part in the construction of the LHC, and CMS and ALICE experiments. In recognition of these contributions, India was granted Observer status to the CERN Council in 2002. Link: http://home.cern
23 November, 2016: The World Health Organization announced that the Zika virus outbreak, linked to deformations in babies' heads and brains, no longer poses a world public health emergency, though it warned the epidemic remains a challenge. Brazil, the epicentre of the outbreak, has however refused to downgrade the risk, while experts swiftly lashed out against the world health body's decision. While Zika causes only mild symptoms in most people, pregnant women with the virus risk giving birth to babies with microcephaly, a deformation that leads to abnormally small brains and heads. It can also cause rare adult-onset neurological problems such as Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which can result in paralysis and even death. In the outbreak that began in mid-2015, more than 1.5 million people have been infected with Zika, mainly in Brazil, and more than 1,600 babies have been born with microcephaly since last year, according to the WHO. The UN's global health agency declared the Zika epidemic a global health emergency in February 2016. Link: http://www.who.int
24 November, 2016: Peru has officially cloned its first animal. Peruvian researchers Luis Murga Valderrama and Jenin Cortez Polanco achieved this new development. They used scientist Gabor Vajta´s method, the Hand Cloning method. The scientists completed this amazing feat at the National University Toribio Rodriguez de Mendoza. After Chile, Peru is only the second Latin American country to use this technique. The cow is called Alma CI, and she was produced by handmade cloning. Handmade cloning is less costly than traditional cloning which uses an expensive machine called a micro-manipulator. Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned animal, was cloned in Scotland in 1996 using the traditional cloning technique. Using the micro-manipulator, scientists examine an egg cell under the microscope, insert a very fine needle to suck out its nucleus, and then use another needle to transfer a nucleus from the animal to be cloned. The Peruvian scientists created Alma's embryo using an ear cell taken from another cow. Link:
http://www.untrm.edu.pe
25 November, 2016: North Atlantic coral populations which support a variety of sea life - are under threat from climate change, according to scientists who have warned that changing winter weather conditions may upset fragile marine ecosystems. Corals allow diverse forms of marine life to thrive by building reef structures that provide protection from predators and safe spaces to reproduce. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh focused on a species of cold-water coral
, known as
Lophelia pertusa which grows in deep waters. The team found Scotland's network of Marine Protected Areas appears to be weakly connected, making it vulnerable to climate change. A coral population on Rosemary Bank seamount, an undersea mountain off Scotland's west coast, is key to maintaining the network. Corals also thrive on oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and west of Shetland, which may help to bridge a gap between populations in the Atlantic and along the coast of Norway. The study
is published in the journal
Royal Society Open Science. Link:
http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org
26 November, 2016: Kerala, one of the most abundant rainfall-receiving states of the country, is likely to witness an increase in temperature by 2-3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century due to climate change, according to a recent study. Considering the past observed data, consecutive droughts together with heat wave conditions could be ringing the bell of climate change for this otherwise heavenly state, says the report by M G Manoj, research scientist, Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research, CUSAT. Frequency and duration of weak rainfall periods and drought condition is gradually increasing in Kerala. Due to increase in anthropogenic activities and emissions, global temperatures have shown a warming trend of 0.85
Celsius over the period 1880-2012. This is a permanent factor in increasing the surface temperatures, even at our state too, it said, adding that during the recent years, minimum temperatures (night-time) have increased more than daytime temperatures, suggesting the possible role of moisture and the greenhouse gases. Link:
http://acarr.cusat.ac.in
27 November, 2016: Stating that country's Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, has completed one revolution around the Red Planet, Ritu Karidhal, deputy operation director of Bengaluru-based MOM ISRO Satellite Centre said studies based on analysis of data being sent by the orbiter would soon answer different queries related to life on the planet. The span of two years on Earth nearly equals to one year on Mars. The Mangalyaan, which entered into the orbit of Mars around two years ago, has completed one revolution. The data being sent by it over a period of last two years is being studied by ISRO for analysing atmospheric configuration. The Mangalyaan does not have any fuel system to support its existence while orbiting Mars but is being purely driven by its different components. The life of these components would decide the future life of MOM. There were many firsts associated with MOM at the international level, including that it was successful in the first attempt. The greatest achievement of Mangalyaan was to infuse confidence among countrymen that India was second to none. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in
28 November, 2016: NASA will work with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Space Agency to put communications capability on the UAE's Mars spacecraft Hope which will be reaching the Red Planet in 2021. As per Dr Gale Allen, NASA's Deputy Chief Scientist, the development is part of an 'umbrella agreement' for collaboration between the two agencies. The Hope spacecraft will travel more than 60 million km in its nine-month journey, coinciding with the UAE's 50th anniversary in 2021. The mission will be supervised by the UAE Space Agency and developed by Mohammad Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), with support from international partners. The name
'Hope' (Arabic:
al-Amal) was chosen because
'it sends a message of optimism to millions of young Arabs
'. Upon arrival at Mars, it will study the atmosphere of Mars for two years.
Hope will provide a new type of data to build
'the first truly holistic models
' of the Martian atmosphere. The
Hope probe will carry three scientific instruments to study the Martian atmosphere.
Link:
http://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae
29 November, 2016: The year 2016, which brought new national temperature records for India when Phalodi in Rajasthan had recorded 51 degree Celsius on May 19, is 'very likely' to be the hottest year on record. According to World Meteorological Organisation, the average global temperatures in 2016 would even be higher than the record-breaking temperatures in 2015, it means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record have been this century (the other record year was 1998). The release of report here assumes significance when nations from across the globe plan collective actions to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100. The report noted that the temperature spiked in the early months of the year because of the powerful El Nino event of 2015-16, the contribution of the overall global warming cannot be ruled out. The WMO report noted that the global temperatures for January to September 2016 have been about 0.88° C above the average for the 1961-1990 reference period. Link: http://public.wmo.int
30 November, 2016: Thousands of people from around the world have helped land
the discovery of one of the largest known prime numbers, comprised of about 9.3
million digits, or 9,383,761 to be exact. A discovery like this would take
centuries using computer, but thanks to the thousands of
collaborators. Even with over nine million
digits, the new prime number doesn’t make it into the top five largest known
prime numbers, it takes seventh place. Incredibly, the largest known prime
number, called a Mersenne prime number, contains a whopping 22 million digits. The
problem was identified back in the 1960s by Polish mathematician Waclaw
Sierpiński. In short, the challenge is to find the smallest possible number
that meets the following set of criteria, the number must be positive, odd, and
fill in for the place of k in the formula k x 2n + 1. The tricky part is that
all of the integers must be composite (not prime numbers). Currently, the
lowest known Sierpiński number is 78,557, but with this discovery, mathematicians may be en route to discovering even smaller ones. Link: http://www.primegrid.com
