2 July 2016: Researchers from the Centre for Genomic Regulation, the Real Jardín Botánico and the Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico decoded the olive tree genome by using a 1,300-year-old specimen belonging to the Spanish Farga variety as a reference. Over the past 10 years, a number of plant species have had their genetic code assembled, annotated, and made publicly available. Now the olive tree can be added to this list of sequenced plant genomes. The researchers discovered that it had over 56,000 genes, much more than other plant species, and double that of the human genome. Understanding the olive tree’s genetic code will help scientists understand a variety of factors related to the tree, including its longevity, its adaptability to arid conditions, and differences between the varieties, sizes and flavor of olives. In order to facilitate further research, the complete sequencing of the olive tree genome has been published in GigaScience journal. Link: https://gigascience.biomedcentral.com
3 July 2016: The Mariana Trench, located near the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, is known for its mystery: largely undiscovered and full of wildlife. The fish, according to The Telegraph UK comes from a family never seen alive before. The creature is from the little-known family called Aphyonidae - which were so rare that their existence was only previously confirmed by dead samples plucked out of the ocean using long trawls. The discovery of the species is only just the beginning. As Mundy noted, there are a few questions that need to be answered. For instance, do the creatures, which have only been found dead before, may dwell in the water column or down near the bottom of the ocean? The research mission, seem to suggest the latter. NOAA says that the fish's skin has no scales and is transparent and gelatinous. Team leader Shirley Pomponi even compared the species to a creature from a classic 1984 movie, saying that the fish looks like Falkor, the dragon from the NeverEnding Story. Link: http://eol.org
4 July, 2016: A threatened breed of sheep found only in coastal Jagatsinghpur and Kendrapara districts of Odisha has been conferred 'rare and singular species' tag by the central government. The National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR) has accorded genetic recognition to the breed of sheep, locally called 'kuji mendha'.With NBAGR conferring it genetically rare status, conserving these domesticated species would receive a boost, said Dash of the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics. Researchers of Fisheries and Animal Resources Development (FARD) Department, Odisha Livestock Resources Development Society and College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry had earlier conducted scientific study on this rare breed and had found the sheep to be carrying a rare gene mutation. Sheep in other parts of Odisha are not known for giving multiple birth. This characteristic makes them distinctive from other species. Link: http://www.nbagr.res.in
5 July, 2016: Scientists are developing biologically-inspired drones that can navigate just like birds and flying insects without needing human input, radar or satellite navigation. A team at the University of Queensland in Australia is studying flying techniques that budgerigars and bees share, and applying their findings to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) control programmes. At first glance, insects and birds have very different brains in terms of size and architecture, yet the visual processing in both animals is very effective at guiding their flight. Comparing the flight behaviours of these animals using high-speed cameras will lead to drastically improved UAV guidance systems. The biologically-inspired principles will foster a new generation UAVs that do not rely on external help such as GPS (Global Positioning System) or radar. These UAVs could be incredibly useful for applications like surveillance, defence, and planetary exploration. Link: http://dronecademy.org
6 July, 2016: Four species of reptiles, six species of amphibians, 26 species of fishes, three species of wild ginger and three of figs are among the 445 species new to science identified in India in 2015. The figure includes 262 animal species and 183 plant species.Some of the notable additions to the list of animals include a rock gecko (Hemidactylus yajurvedi) found in Kanker Chhattishgarh, a new frog species (Fejervarya gomantaki) from the Western Ghats, and a shiny new species of fish (Barilius ardens), also from the Western Ghats.Among the plants, a new species of ginger Zingiber bipinianum has been found in the South Garo hills of Meghalaya, and a species of mushroom (Bondarzewia zonata) has been collected from north Sikkim at an altitude of 2,829 m. Botanical Survey of India (BSI) is delighted that all regions in the country have recorded new species while Zoological Society of India are excited that more than 15% of the new species are higher vertebrates. Link: http://zsi.gov.in
7 July, 2016: NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft has entered the planet's magnetosphere, where the movement of particles in space is controlled by what is going on inside Jupiter. Juno is on course to swing into orbit around Jupiter on July 4. Science instruments on board detected changes in the particles and fields around the spacecraft as it passed from an environment dominated by the interplanetary solar wind into Jupiter's magnetosphere. Data from Juno's Waves investigation indicate the spacecraft's crossing of the bow shock just outside the magnetosphere on June 24 and the transit into the lower density of the Jovian magnetosphere on June 25. Out in the solar wind a few days ago, Juno was speeding through an environment that has about 16 particles per cubic inch. Once it crossed into the magnetosphere, the density was about a hundredfold less. The motions of these particles under the control of Jupiter's magnetic field will be one type of evidence for Jupiter's deep interior. Link: https://www.nasa.gov
8 July, 2016: India’s first crowdfunded, eco-friendly electric bike, Spero, was launched recently. The bike has been designed by 38-year-old, Coimbatore-based Manikandan who has been working on the project for the past three years. Three models of the bike are set to be released. Manikandan has been trying to raise money to turn his dream into a reality through a campaign on an online crowdfunding platform. People who have already funded the project have been provided with the option of purchasing the e-bike through the website itself. The more expensive models of the bike can run up to 60 km and 100 km on a single charge. Although the battery of the bike comes from Samsung and the motors and tyres from partners in Korea, the rest of the materials sourced to make the bike come from India, making it a healthy mix of the best from both worlds. But the best thing about the e-bike has to be the fact that it charges itself as the rider pedals. Link: http://www.greene-bike.com
9 July, 2016: The book 'Recovering Biodiversity in Indian Forests' published by Springer, demonstrates how varying levels of human disturbance manifested through different management regimes influence composition, richness, diversity and abundance of India's key mammal, bird, and plant species. The book's lead author is G. Viswanatha Reddy, Additional Principal Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden, Department of Forest, Government of Rajasthan. Other authors include: K. Ullas Karanth, Director of Science-Asia; N. Samba Kumar, Additional Director - Science and Training, WCS India Program; Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Convenor and Senior Fellow at the SuriSeghal Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment; and Krithi K. Karanth, Associate Conservation Scientist with the Global Conservation Program. The book shows the critical importance of the 'wildlife preservation' approach for effective Indian biodiversity conservation. Link: http://www.springer.com
10 July, 2016: 160 years ago today, on July 10th, 1856, Nikola Tesla was born to a Serbian family in southeastern Europe. A trained scientist and budding electrical engineer, Tesla moved to the United States in 1884. He went to work for Thomas Edison, but soon split with him over Edison's support for Direct Current (DC) electric power. Tesla believed that Alternating Current (AC) was more efficient, and switched sides to work with Edison's arch-rival, George Westinghouse. Tesla also made breakthroughs in radio, building a landmark 187-foot-tall radio transmitter on New York's Long Island. Tesla once predicted that humans would 'telephone the stars', and even graced the cover of Time magazine in 1931. A better scientist than money manager, he died virtually penniless in a New York City hotel room in 1943 at the age of 86. He's remembered today on Serbian money at the Nikola Tesla Corner in New York City and by the Tesla electric automobile, which uses an induction motor of Tesla's own 1882 design. Link: http://scienceworld.wolfram.com
11 July, 2016: Since 1989, the entire global community observes 'World Population Day' on July 11. The day is aimed at focusing our attention on the importance of population issues. Here are a few interesting facts about population: There are over 7.4 billion people on earth today. Based on the world’s demographics, the typical human is a 28-year-old, right-handed Chinese man. Humanity’s most common face could be radically different in just 20 years’ time. It could be Indian too, considering the country is close on the heels of China, population wise. The most common first name in the world is Mohammed. The 7th million baby called Baby Nargis was born at 07:25 local Indian time (01:55GMT) in Mall village of Uttar Pradesh state. The 5th billion baby was born in 1987 in Croatia. The 6th billion baby was born in 1999 in Herzegovina. One in three children under the age of 5 have never been officially registered till date, in the world. Link: http://www.un.org
12 July, 2016: China has reportedly lost contact with its space station amid concerns its space hardware could hurtle back down towards Earth in a fiery ball of hot metal. China’s Tiangong-1 space station, its first ever foray into space, was launched in 2011 and was expected to return to Earth in a controlled crash into the ocean. But fears are held for the station, dubbed a 'space lab', due to Tinagong-1’s overwhelming size and scope for damage once it hits Earth. Without China’s control, it could devastate communities in inhabited areas thanks to the extreme heat produced from re-entry, and the eight tonnes of metal that comes along with it. It is expected to make its return to ground late 2017, but China has remained tight-lipped about when and where it might happen. Tiangong-1, which translates to 'Heavenly Place' from Chinese mythology, was China’s first launch into space and was expected to be the launching pad towards a larger space station that would have been fully operational by 2020.Link: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn
13 July, 2016: A huge earthquake may be building beneath Bangladesh, which can turn urban areas in eastern India into 'ruins', a new study has warned. Scientists have new evidence of increasing strain where two tectonic plates underlie the world’s largest river delta. They estimate that at least 140 million people in the region could be affected if the boundary ruptures; the destruction could come not only from the direct results of shaking, but changes in the courses of great rivers, and in the level of land perilously close to sea level. The newly identified threat is a subduction zone, where one section of earth’s crust, or a tectonic plate, is slowly thrusting under another. The strain has been building through years. When an inevitable release comes, the shaking is likely to be larger than magnitude 8.2 on the Richter scale and could even reach a magnitude of 9, similar to the largest known modern quakes, said Steckler. The findings are published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Link: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn
14 July, 2016: NASA is launching an airborne mission that will map the contours of the Earth’s atmosphere to discover how much pollution exists in the most remote corners of the planet and assess how the environment has changed. Pollutants emitted to the atmosphere are dispersed over the whole globe, but remote regions are cleaner, by factors of 1,000 or more, than areas near the continents. The Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission is the first to survey the atmosphere over the oceans. Scientists aboard NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory will journey from the North Pole south over the Pacific Ocean to New Zealand and then across to the tip of South America and north up the Atlantic Ocean to Greenland. ATom is particularly interested in methane, ozone and airborne particles called black carbon, which have strong effects on climate having both human and natural origins. ATom’s first flight is planned for July 28, a round trip over the tropics between California and the equator.Link: http://science.nasa.gov
15 July, 2016: The ruins of the ancient Nalanda University dating back to the third century BC have been declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization or UNESCO. The World Heritage Committee met in Istanbul to inscribe four new sites in China, Iran and Micronesia besides the archaeological site of the Nalanda Mahavihara University in Bihar on the World Heritage List. The Nalanda site comprises of the archaeological remains of a monastic and scholastic institution dating from the 3rd century BC to the 13th century AD. It includes stupas, shrines, viharas (residential and educational buildings) and important art works in stucco, stone and metal. Nalanda stands out as the most ancient university of the Indian Subcontinent and engaged in the organised transmission of knowledge over an uninterrupted period of 800 years. The historical development of the site testifies to the development of Buddhism into a religion and the flourishing of monastic and educational traditions. Link: http://www.unesco.org
16 July, 2016: The 'Trinity' bomb test at dawn on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico was the first large-scale atomic weapons testing in history. Only three weeks later two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. More than 1,900 miles away from Alamogordo, at the Rochester, NY headquarters of Eastman Kodak, a flood of complaints came in from business customers who had recently purchased sensitive X-ray film from the company. Black exposed spots on the film, or 'fogging', had rendered it unusable. The fogging of Kodak's film and the Trinity test in New Mexico were eerily connected, revealing some chilling secrets about the nuclear age. By 1945, the US had a plutonium-based atomic bomb ready for testing. Called Gadget, the experiment was set for the Trinity test site, so named by Manhattan Project leader Robert J. Oppenheimer in homage to the English poet John Donne. At 5:30 a.m. on a hot desert morning, the bomb exploded and the atomic age began. Link: http://www.trinityremembered.com
17 July 2016: China decides to build mobile nuclear power plants in the South China Sea, days after an international tribunal dismissed Beijing's vast claims in the strategically vital waters. Marine nuclear power platform construction will be used to support China's effective control in the South China Sea. China has rapidly built up reefs in the sea into artificial islands in recent months, installing civilian and military facilities on them. China's activities had inflicted severe damage to fragile coral ecosystems and caused serious harm to endangered species. China has insisted that it will ignore the decision while warning its rivals that increasing pressure on the issue could turn the resource-rich waters into a 'cradle of war'. The CNNC plant is expected to start operation in 2019 and and building-activities will continue throughout the year, though no official statements yet. Nuclear power is used at sea for aircraft carriers and submarines. Russia also is attempting the same, as per reports. Link: http://www.southchinasea.org
18 July 2016: Some tiny islands formed by backwaters of scenic Ashtamudi Lake and Kallada River in Kollam Disrict in southern Kerala, among the major tourist attractions, are sinking due to rising sea level and erosion. The authorities of Munroe Thuruth Gram Panchayat, under which these islands fall, and political activists have sought assistance from global conservation organisations to deal with the 'alarming' situation. Panchayat officials said the shrinking tiny islands, ranging from one acre to over one hectare, were inhabited by humans. But now people were leaving these tiny islands as they find it very difficult to survive here as saline water has invaded the localities. The local inhabitants are facing a 'huge crisis' as there are not much funds to adopt scientific measures to save 'the sinking islands' which are part of the panchayat. The Munroe Thuruth Grama Panchayat comprises eight medium size islands and several small islands. It is named after the British administrative head of erstwhile Travancore kingdom Colonel John Munro. Link: http://www.munroethuruthu.com
19 July 2016: Manas National Park is set to increase its area by another 350 sq km following clearance of a proposal to that effect by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The picturesque national park that harbours wide-ranging flora and fauna has an area of 520 sq km. Conservationists believe that the proposed first addition would boost long-term conservation in the greater Manas landscape that has witnessed large-scale deforestation and fragmentation of prime wildlife habitat. The proposed area falls within the notified buffer of Manas Tiger Reserve declared during 1973 as well as the Critical Tiger Habitat notified by the Assam Government vide notification No. FRW. 2/2007/17 of 2007. The UNESCO World Heritage Site Committee, too, had in its decision report called for extending the property with the 36,000 hectares of intact habitat proposed by the Bodoland Territorial Council as an expansion of the national park, once this has been approved at the State and National level. Link: http://manasnationalpark.net
20 July 2016: Today NASA celebrates the 40th Anniversary of the history-making Viking missions. Viking-1, the first successful landing on Mars by a U.S. space craft occurred on July 20, 1976 and Viking-2 landed on September 3, 1976. With these missions, we began our exploration of the red planet which continues today. The Viking Mission was developed and managed at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In addition to collecting thousands of high-resolution images of Mars, Viking 1 and 2 collected an abundance of scientific data that characterized the structure and composition of the planet’s surface and was analyzed for signs of life, beginning the journey that will one day land humans on Mars. Viking Landers 1 and 2 brought a complex payload of scientific instruments to the surface to investigate the atmosphere and surface of the Red Planet, including 3 biology experiments to search for extant life on Mars. Interestingly, the search for life on Mars with dedicated biology experiments has not been repeated on any missions. Link: http://mars.nasa.gov
21 July 2016: The state of Telangana, in India has declared Murrel Fish (Channa Striatus) as the state fish. The Murrel is a species of snake-head fish.The snakehead murrel is a species of snakehead fish. It is also known as the common snake-head, chevron snakehead, and striped snake-head. In Malayalam, it is called Varaal. The Bathini Goud Brothers in Hyderabad, India, promote the swallowing of live murrel fish and herbs as an asthma treatment, although the high court ruled they cannot call it 'medicine'. They give it free to children on Mrigasira Nakshatra. No evidence indicates it is effective, and children's rights campaigners want it to be banned. Murrel Fish is native to South and Southeast Asia. It grows up to a meter in length, though because of fishing, this size is rarely found in the wild. It has a widespread range covering southern China, Pakistan, India, Southern Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and most of Southeast Asia. It has more recently been introduced to the outermost parts of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Mauritius. Link: http://www.snakeheads.org
22 July 2016: Ursula Franklin, one of Canada's most accomplished scientists and educators, died in Toronto at age 94. Franklin was a writer, scientist and a pioneer in the field of archaeometry, which applies modern materials analysis to archaeology. In the early 1960s, Franklin investigated levels of Strontium-90, a radioactive isotope in fallout from nuclear weapons testing, in children's teeth. Her research contributed to the cessation of atmospheric weapons testing. Ursula Maria Martius was born in Munich, Germany on September 16, 1921. Because of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, her parents tried to send their only child to school in Britain when World War II broke out, but the British refused to issue a student visa to anyone under 18. Ursula studied chemistry and physics at Berlin University until she was expelled by the Nazis. Her parents were interned in concentration camps while Franklin herself was sent to a forced labour camp. The family survived The Holocaust and was reunited in Berlin after the war. Link: https://btlbooks.com
23 July 2016: Scientists have published promising results from animal studies revealing the truth behind pomegranate's life-extending qualities. Pomegranate juice counteracts ageing by re-establishing a process called mitophagy, it's been revealed. All our cells are filled with small energy generators called mitochondria but when mitochondria get old they become less-efficient, or even toxic. Old mitochondria are recycled by the cell into new mitochondria (mitophagy). With age, this recycling progress slows down which can lead to muscle weakness. Scientists have discovered pomegranates contain a substance called urolithin A. This, excitingly, is the first and only known compound that can re-establish mitochondria. However, not everyone carries the bacteria in the gut needed to the urolithin A from the pomegranate. So, scientists are now testing just pure urolithin A on worms and rodents where it extended life span by 50 per cent in the hope of recreating the effect it has on human beings. The study is published in the Nature Medicine. Link: http://www.nature.com
24 July 2016: Khangchendzonga National Park, Sikkim has been inscribed as India’s first 'Mixed World Heritage Site' on UNESCO World Heritage List, by fulfilling the nomination criteria under both natural and cultural heritage. The 40th Session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, at a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, granted approval for the inscription of India’s on the coveted UNESCO World Heritage List. Khangchendzonga exhibits one of the widest altitudinal ranges of any protected area worldwide. The Park has an extraordinary vertical sweep of over 7 km within an area of only 178,400 ha and comprises a unique diversity of lowlands, steep-sided valleys and spectacular snow-clad mountains including the world’s third highest peak, Mt. Khangchendzonga. Numerous lakes and glaciers, including the 26 km long Zemu Glacier, dot the barren high altitudes. Khangchendzonga National Park lies within the Himalaya global biodiversity hotspot and displays an unsurpassed range of sub-tropical to alpine ecosystems. Link: http://journals.cambridge.org
25 July 2016: An international team of researchers has succeeded for the first time in sequencing the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains. This is the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date. The 6,000-year-old seeds were retrieved from Yoram Cave in the southern cliff of Masada fortress in the Judean Desert in Israel, close to the Dead Sea. Genetically, the prehistoric barley is very similar to present-day barley grown in the Southern Levant, supporting the existing hypothesis of barley domestication having occurred in the Upper Jordan Valley.The analyzed grains, together with tens of thousands of other plant remains, were retrieved during an archaeological excavation headed by Uri Davidovich, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Nimrod Marom, from Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel. Most examination of archaeobotanical findings has been limited to the comparison of ancient and present-day specimens based on their morphology. The results are published in Nature Genetics. Link: http://www.nature.com
26 July 2016: The International Day for the Conservation of Mangrove Ecosystem was observed today. UNESCO had declared July 26 to be observed as ‘The International Day for the Conservation of Mangrove Ecosystem’ towards protecting fast depleting mangrove forests. 2016 marks UNESCO's first celebration of the day. Mangroves are rare, spectacular and prolific ecosystems on the boundary between land and sea. They ensure food security for local communities. They provide biomass, forest products and sustain fisheries. They contribute to the protection of coastlines. They help mitigate the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. This is why the protection of mangrove ecosystems is essential today. UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves has 86 sites out of 669 that include areas of mangroves. The UNESCO World Heritage List includes the Sundarbans, the largest unbroken mangrove system in the World, shared between Bangladesh and India and home to the iconic Royal Bengal Tiger. Link: http://www.unesco.org
27 July 2016: Distinguished Agricultural Scientist, Dr. Neelamraju Ganga Prasada Rao, passed away in Hyderabad today. He was 89. Dr. Rao is well-known for basic and applied research in breeding and agronomy of several dryland crops. Due to his contributions to Sorghum improvement in India, he is at times referred to as the ‘Father of Hybrid Sorghum’ in India. Due to his efforts Sorghum hybrids, CSH1, CSH5 and CSH9 became very popular and were cultivated in over 8 to 10 million hectares. The growth rates of Sorghum during the 1970s and 1980s were comparable to irrigated wheat and rice. Kharif Sorghum represented an important change in dryland agriculture of India. The advent of hybrid Sorghum gave rise to the Sorghum seed industry. An improved Sorghum variety S35 gained popularity in drought prone areas of West Africa. Dr. N.G.P. Rao was born in Korisapadu, Prakasam, Andhra Pradesh. He had his education in the Agricultural College, Bapatla, the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and the Bihar University. Link: http://insaindia.org.in
28 July 2016: Andaman’s Jarawas and Onges are descendants of a completely new family of early men unknown to science so far, an Indo-Spanish team of researchers claimed on the basis of their genetic studies. While there is no fossil record found yet for the new category of early men, researchers say DNA analysis provides clear evidence on the existence of this new class of 'extinct hominid'. Hominids are ancestors of the great apes and humans. The discovery has the potential to open up a new window in the history of human evolution by suggesting that Homo heidelbergensis, the first group of men who came out of Africa, had given rise to multiple lineages and not just the Neanderthal and the Denisovan, the two known branches from which all modern human beings have evolved. The ancestry of Andaman’s Jarawa and Onge tribe is a long-standing mystery in science as there are many theories to explain their unique physical features and language that are similar to African tribes. The research is published in the journal Nature Genetics. Link: http://www.nature.com
29 July 2016: A new exploration of a legendary blue hole in the South China Sea has found that the underwater feature is the deepest known on Earth. The Dragon Hole, or Longdong, is 987 feet deep, far deeper than the previous record holder, Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. (That blue hole measures about 663 feet, or 202 m, deep). Blue holes are water-filled sinkholes that form in carbonate rock such as limestone. Over long periods of time, the carbonate rock dissolves in the subsurface to form caves or cavities. Scientists with the Sansha Ship Course Research Institute for Coral Protection in China used an underwater robot and a depth sensor to investigate the mysterious environment of Dragon Hole, which is a well-known feature in Yongle, a coral reef near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea. They found more than 20 marine organisms living in the upper portions of the hole, like coral which excrete calcium carbonate as a sort of protection. But calcium carbonate comes from many places, including calcareous algae. Link: http://www.blueholes.org
30 July 2016: This month marks the 40-year anniversary of the infamous Legionnaires' disease outbreak in Philadelphia, which, in turn, led to the discovery of the disease itself. In July of 1976, just weeks after Philadelphia hosted the nation's bicentennial celebration, hundreds of American Legion members descended on the city for their annual statewide convention. It centered around the city's most iconic hotel, the Bellevue Stratford, located near city hall. But within days of the conference, more than 100 attendees had come down with a severe and mysterious pneumonia. In the public health world, Legionnaires' disease is often viewed as a classic case of the power of epidemiology, and its core tools that field investigators use to map out patterns and understand how diseases strike. In the case of the Legionnaires' disease discovery, Mcdade said the disease itself wasn't new. But without a big, fatal outbreak, sporadic cases often went unnoticed. Following the discovery of the legionella bacteria, he and others were then able to trace it back to previous, unsolved outbreaks. Link: https://combatinglegionella.co.uk
