SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2016

1 September 2016: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is likely to launch another 68 commercial satellites in the remainder of this financial year, as per Rakesh S, chairman and managing director of Antrix, ISRO's commercial arm. Most of theses satellites will be nanosatellites. ISRO has already launched 74 commercial satellites belonging to space agencies and firms of various countries. According to unofficial documents, Antrix has earned a revenue of 80.6 million by launching foreign satellites in the last three years. The cryogenic engine for the GSLV MK-III is nearing readiness stage and that a demonstration flight is scheduled in December. Antrix will exploit commercial opportunities of that too. ISRO is looking for commercial opportunities with the GSLV also. The cryogenic engine for GLSV MK-II is already in the production stage. Link: http://www.antrix.gov.in

2 September 2016: Scientists trying to predict the future path of Zika say that 2.6 billion people living in parts of Asia and Africa could be at risk of infection, based on a new analysis of travel, climate and mosquito patterns in those regions. Some of the most vulnerable countries include India, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to the research. Experts caution that the study could overestimate the number of people at risk because they don't know whether Zika had already landed in some of these countries in the past and whether allowed people to develop immunity. Although Zika was first identified in 1947, the virus wasn't considered a major health threat until a major outbreak in Brazil last year revealed that Zika can lead to severe birth defects when pregnant women are infected. The study is published in the journal, Lancet. Link: http://www.thelancet.com
 
3 September 2016: Coffee could become extinct if global warming continues on its current trajectory, according to a report by the Climate Institute. By 2050, researchers said, the amount of suitable coffee farmland is expected to have halved due to rising temperatures, pests and fungi. Wild coffee is expected to be wiped from the face of the planet by the year 2080. The disappearance of the coffee plant would have a profound impact on the 120 million people worldwide whose livelihoods depend its beans. Coffee-drinkers are also expected to see flavour and aroma seriously impacted -alongside soaring prices for the ever-scarcer beans. The Climate Institute is not the first to warn about the bleak future of the coffee bean. According to a recent report by 80 scientists at Kew Gardens, coffee is at risk of running out by the end of the century, due to climate change and intensive farming. Link: http://www.wwfenvis.nic.in
 
4 September 2016: NASA scientists have for the first time imaged the edge of the Sun, enabling them to describe the mysterious origins of solar wind. Ever since the 1950s discovery of the solar wind, the constant flow of charged particles from the Sun, there has been a disconnect between this outpouring and the Sun itself. As it approaches Earth, the solar wind is gusty and turbulent. But near the Sun where it originates, this wind is structured in distinct rays, much like a child's simple drawing of the Sun. The details of the transition from defined rays in the corona, the Sun's upper atmosphere, to the solar wind have been a mystery. Now, using NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), scientists have for the first time imaged the edge of the Sun where the solar wind starts. Defining the details could helps us learn more about our solar neighbourhood. The finding is published in the Astrophysical Journal. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
 
5 September 2016: Scientists at the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research awarded yesterday for developing BGR-34, an Ayurvedic anti-diabetic drug. The drug has been found to be successful in controlling blood sugar. Developed after about four years of research at CSIR labs in Lucknow, the drug was found to reduce the HbA1c (a type of haemoglobin, its level reflects how well the body is controlling diabetes) levels from 7.8% to 7.3% in diabetic patients who were given a daily dose of BGR-34 for three months. Scientific studies have shown that complications related to diabetes can be delayed or prevented by keeping HbA1c level below 7%. Post-prandial blood sugar levels reduced from 204 to 194 mg/dl. In healthy adults it should be less than 180 mg/dl of blood. The human trial was conducted on 48 adults with diabetes. The study is published in the Lancet. Link: http://www.aimilpharmaceuticals.com
 
6 September 2016: A new collection in the psychiatric hospital of Duffel in the north of Belgium makes for a ghoulish sight: around 3,000 preserved brains that were originally saved by a British doctor. The collection of frontal lobes, hippocampi and other key parts of the brain floating in formaldehyde or fixed in paraffin will be used for research into psychiatric illnesses such as depression or schizophrenia. British neuropathologist John Corsellis collected and conserved the brains over a period of more than 40 years between 1951 and the middle of the nineties but authorities in London ran out of space. Now they have come to Duffel, where Manuel Morrens, the director of research at the hospital, and his colleagues will share the collection with the faculty of medicine at the University of Antwerp. Until recently the collection was kept in a psychiatric hospital in southeastern England, taken from mentally ill or epileptic people . Link: https://www.uantwerpen.be
 
7 September 2016: China’s first space station is expected to come crashing down to Earth next year, fueling concerns that Chinese space authorities have lost control of the 8.5-tonne module. The Tiangong-1 or 'Heavenly Palace' lab was described as a 'potent political symbol' of China’s growing power when it was launched in 2011 as part of an ambitious scientific push to turn China into a space superpower. However, speaking at a satellite launch centre in the Gobi Desert last week Chinese officials said the unmanned module had now comprehensively fulfilled its historical mission and was set to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere at some point in the second half of 2017. While most of the eight tonnes of space station would melt as it passes through the atmosphere, according to the officials, some parts, such as the rocket engines, were so dense that they wouldn’t burn up completely. So, still there is a chance to worry. Link: http://nasawatch.com
 
8 September 2016: ISRO launched the GSLV-F05 carrying advanced weather satellite INSAT-3DR from from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. The previous launch by ISRO on Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) was launch of GSLV-D6 carrying communication satellite GSAT-6 on August 27, 2015. GSLV-F05 in its 10th flight launched the 2,211 kg advanced weather satellite INSAT-3DR into Geostationary Transfer Orbit. INSAT-3DR will provide a variety of meteorological services. GSLV-F05 flight is the first operational flight carrying the indigenously developed Cryogenic Upper Stage and the first operational flight carrying it. ISRO's Master Control Facility at Hassan, Karnataka will take control of the satellite and perform the initial orbit raising manoeuvres and place it in circular Geostationary Orbit. ISRO had launched INSAT-3D on July 26, 2013 from French Guiana. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in
 
9 September 2016: Comet lander Philae has been located lying upside down in a ditch on comet 67/P 682 million km from Earth. It was caught by a camera on board Rosetta, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft orbiting the comet as it hurtles away from the sun. This was the first sighting of Philae since its rough landing in November 2014. The images also provide proof of Philae's orientation, making it clear why establishing communications was so difficult following its landing on 12 November 2014. The 100-kilogramme probe touched down on comet 67P in November 2014, after a 10-year, 6.5 billion kilometre journey piggybacking on Rosetta. Rosetta's mission is slated to end in less than a month with a planned crash landing on the comet's surface. On 30 September, the orbiter will be sent on a final one-way mission to investigate the comet from close up, including the open pits in the Ma'at region. Link: http://rosetta.esa.int
 
10 September 2016: A machine that can read closed books has been designed by a group of scientists led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, an MIT release has announced. It is at a prototype stage and as of now can read through the first nine pages of a closed book through an imaging system linked to a processor. The researchers described a prototype of the system, which they tested on a stack of papers, each with one letter printed on it. The system was able to correctly identify the letters on the top nine sheets. Heshmat is joined on the paper by Ramesh Raskar, associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences, Albert Redo Sanchez and two other members in the Camera Culture group at the Media Lab and Justin Romberg and Alireza Aghasi of Georgia Tech. The MIT and the Georgia Tech researchers developed the algorithms. The study is published in Nature Communications. Link: http://news.mit.edu
 
11 September 2016: US scientists have discovered a new species of a parasitic flatworm that infects turtles in Malaysia, and named it after Barack Obama as a way of honoring the US president. The flatworm, coined Baracktrema obamai, is so unusual that it merits not only a new species designation, but its own genus, too. The new species was discovered by Thomas Platt, an expert on turtle parasites, who recently retired from Saint Mary's College in the state of Indiana. Baracktrema obamai will endure as long as there are systematists studying these remarkable organisms. Scientists hope the discovery will improve public health by adding to research on a related flatworm that causes schistosomiasis, a disease that infects tens of millions of people per year around the world and can be deadly. The research reveals the plight of freshwater turtles, which are vulnerable to habitat loss around the world. Link: http://www.journalofparasitology.org
 
12 September 2016: NASA has sent a spacecraft chasing after an unexplored asteroid, in the hope that it might one day keep us from being destroyed. The OSIRIS-REx robotic hunter has blasted off to the asteroid Bennu. When it gets there it will scoop up bits of ancient space rock which could eventually tell us not just about where we came from but whether there is life elsewhere as well. But before it helps us find aliens, the craft might help us save ourselves. Bennu comes past Earth every six years - and could come so close in 150 years that it hits us. The odds are tiny - less than one-tenth of 1 per cent - but that is still significant. And while the rock itself wouldn't destroy Earth, though could cause huge destruction, there are asteroids flying around. OSIRIS-REx's freed sample container will parachute down with the pristine asteroid treasure in Utah. The mother spacecraft, meanwhile, will continue its orbit of the sun. Link: https://www.nasa.gov
 
13 September 2016: NASA's Cassini probe has found a strange ice cloud over Titan that appears to be made up of compounds that barely exist in the atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon. Located in Titan's stratosphere, the cloud is made of a compound of carbon and nitrogen known as dicyanoacetylene, an ingredient in the chemical cocktail that colours the giant moon's hazy, brownish-orange atmosphere. And it is not the first time NASA scientists spotted the mysterious cloud. Decades ago, the infrared instrument on Nasa's Voyager 1 spacecraft spotted an ice cloud just like this one on Titan. What has puzzled scientists ever since is that they detected less than one percent of the dicyanoacetylene gas needed for the cloud to condense. Cassini mission also yielded a similar result. Using Cassini's composite infrared spectrometer, researchers found a high-altitude cloud. The study is published in Geophysical Research Letters. Link: https://www.nasa.gov
 
14 September 2016: The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what may be water vapour plumes erupting off Jupiter's moon Europa - believed to be one of the most promising places that could harbour alien life in the solar system. The observation increases the possibility that missions to Europa may be able to sample Europa's ocean without having to drill through miles of ice. Europa's ocean is considered to be one of the most promising places that could potentially harbour life in the solar system. The plumes are estimated to rise about 200 kilometres before raining material back down onto Europa's surface. Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth's oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness. The plumes provide a tantalising opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice. Link: http://hubblesite.org
 
15 September 2016: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has entered the final year of its epic voyage during which it will make the the closest-ever observations of Saturn and its rings. The conclusion of the historic scientific odyssey is planned for September 2017, but not before the spacecraft completes a daring two-part endgame. Beginning on November 30, Cassini's orbit will send the spacecraft just past the outer edge of the main rings. These orbits, a series of 20, are called the F-ring orbits. Cassini's final phase, called the Grand Finale, begins in earnest in April 2017. A close flyby of Saturn's giant moon Titan will reshape the spacecraft's orbit so that it passes through the gap between Saturn and the rings - an unexplored space only about 2,400 kms wide. Cassini is a joint endeavor of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI). Link: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

16 September 2016: Today, 100 years ago, on 16 September 1916 the British Army made it first use of tanks in the attack on Flers Courcellet, part of the Battle of the Somme.  Although the attack proved a failure, the tanks proved highly effective, and proved a great propaganda asset. In the early days of last week occurred the triumph of the French troops; the past three days have seen the turn of the British.  The Paris newspapers are enthusiastic over our brilliant advance, which is described as the most important and decisive we have made since the battle of the Marne.The unexpected appearance of the new British armoured cars seems to have been not only effective from the military point of view, but also to have created a panic among the enemy. At the precise moment when the bombardment stopped the Germans had the surprise of seeing advanced in front of the waves of assaulting troops enormous steel monsters.  Link: https://www.gov.uk

17 September 2016: A new study of genetically modified (GM) soybean and maize farming in US has found that even when the insecticide use has dipped, herbicide use has increased considerably, raising environmental concerns. Herbicides are used to kill weeds and the researchers say that its increased use is because of growing resistance among weeds leading to proliferation of 'super-weeds'. This is the largest study of genetically modified crops and pesticide use till date. Maize seeds are modified with two genes: one kills insects that eat the seed and the other allows the seed to tolerate glyphosate, a herbicide commonly used in weed killers like Roundup. Soybeans are modified with just one glyphosate-resistant gene. Soybeans, on the other hand, saw a significant increase in herbicide use, with adopters of genetically modified crops using 28 % more herbicides than non-adopters. Link: http://dx.doi.org
 
18 September 2016: Allaying concerns of environmentalists who alleged that the central biotech regulator's sub-committee that studied the bio-safety of genetically modified mustard did not have any 'health expert' on board, the Union environment ministry said the panel had experts in subjects relevant to safety. The sub-committee also consists of a health expert who is an MD in pathology and former Director, National Institute of Nutrition, Indian Council of Medical Research and is currently chairman, Review Committee on Genetic Manipulation (RCGM). The ministry's response comes in the backdrop of comments of the Coalition for GM-free India - an umbrella organisation of the anti-GM groups in India - which had alleged that the GEAC sub-committee constituted for review of the Biosafety Dossier submitted by Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP), has no 'health expert' in it. Link: http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in
 
19 September 2016: Rocks formed by the grinding together of other rocks during earthquakes are rich in trapped hydrogen, and similar seismic activity on Mars may produce enough hydrogen to support life, a new study has claimed. Researchers from Yale University in the US, studied rock formations around active fault lines in the Outer Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland. While humans and other animals get their energy mainly from the reaction between oxygen and sugar, bacteria use a wide array of alternative reactions to obtain energy. The oxidation of hydrogen gas, for example, generates enough energy for bacteria deep in the Earth's subsurface. The best way to find evidence of life on Mars may be to examine rocks and minerals that formed deep underground around faults and fractures, which were later brought to the surface by erosion. The research papers are published in the journal Astrobiology. Link: http://news.yale.edu
 
20 September 2016: Indian Space Research Organisation would launch SCATSAT-1 for ocean and weather related studies and seven co-passenger satellites into polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO) on September 26. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, in its 37th flight, (PSLV-C35) will launch the satellites on September 26, 2016 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The 377 kg SCATSAT-1 will have satellites from Algeria, Canada and USA, as well as two satellites from Indian Universities as its co-passenger. SCATSAT-1 would be placed into a 720 km Polar SSO, whereas the two Universities satellites and the five foreign satellites will be placed into a 670 km polar orbit. This is the first mission of PSLV in which it will be launching its payloads into two different orbits. PSLV-C35 will be launched from the First Launch Pad (FLP) of Satish Dhawan Space Centre and it will be the 15th flight of PSLV in 'XL' configuration. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in
 
21 September 2016: The Adani Group’s 648 MW solar power plant, claimed to be the world’s largest solar plant at a single location, was inaugurated at Sengapadai in Kamudhi taluk in Ramanathapuram today. Adani Green Energy (Tamil Nadu) Ltd, an Adani Group company, has established the plant at a total outlay of Rs. 4,536 crore in 2,500 acres by installing 2.5 million modules. The group has set up three units each with 72 MW and two units each with 216 MW capacities. After purchasing more than 2,500 acres, the group launched preliminary work in August 2015. While there was no official communication from the State government, sources said that Chief Minister Jayalalithaa inaugurated the plant through video conferencing. The entire 648 MW is now connected with the Kamuthi 400 KV substation, making it the world’s largest solar power plant at a single location. Link: http://solarpv.tv
 
22 September 2016: The autumn equinox arrives at 10:21 a.m. ET (2:20 p.m. UTC) today, officially marking the beginning of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and the start of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. The word 'equinox' comes from Latin and means 'equal night', referring to the roughly 12-hour day and night that occurs only on the two equinox days of the year. This tidy split in our 24-hour day is linked to the reason Earth has seasons in the first place. The planet spins on an axis that is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to its orbital plane. That means as Earth travels along its 365-day orbit, different hemispheres tilt closer to or farther from our sun’s warming rays. An ancient Maya step pyramid known as El Castillo at Chichén Itzá in Mexico. Exactly at sunset on the spring and autumn equinoxes, sunlight hits the building’s steep staircase at just the right angle to create an eerie snake-like shape. Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com
 
23 September 2016: Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, and a trick of nature, have confirmed the existence of a planet orbiting two stars in the system OGLE-2007-BLG-349, located 8,000 light-years away towards the centre of our galaxy. The planet orbits roughly 483 million kilometres from the stellar duo, about the distance from the asteroid belt to our sun. The two red dwarf stars are a mere 11 million miles apart, or 14 times the diametre of the moon's orbit around Earth. The Hubble observations represent the first time such a three-body system has been confirmed using the gravitational microlensing technique. The objects were discovered in 2007 by an international collaboration. These ground-based observations uncovered a star and a planet, but also a third body that couldn't be identified. The results are published in the Astronomical Journal. Link: https://arxiv.org
 
24 September 2016: The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) completed two years around the Martian Orbit, outliving its estimated life span of six months by a year-and-a-half. The Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) biggest project yet, MOM, has not only put India on the global map, but has also provided a treasure of data. Among the major studies the mission is conducting is the joint morphological studies using the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) and the high resolution mineralogical data with the Nasa's Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) data. Data from the camera has helped in understating the sublimation process on the Martian north pole, where carbon-di-oxide and ice cover changes significantly as Mars enters into northern hemisphere summer. Further, ISRO has made public the data sets obtained from Mars insertion on September 24, 2014 to September 23, 2015. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in
 
25 September 2016: British physicist Stephen Hawking has warned against announcing our presence to any alien civilizations, especially to those more technologically advanced than humans. Our first contact from an advanced civilization could be equivalent to when Native Americans first encountered Christopher Columbus. The film, 'Stephen Hawking's Favourite Places', takes viewers to five significant locations across the cosmos, on his spacecraft - the SS Hawking. In the film, Hawking performs a hypothetical flyby of Gliese 832c, a potentially habitable exoplanet located 16 light years away. It is not the first time Hawking has warned about the prospect of hostile aliens. Earth is not a monopoly of human beings. The behaviour of human beings make one feel they are aliens to the earth.  Last year Hawking had suggested that any civilization reading our messages could be billions of years ahead of us. Link: https://app.curiositystream.com

26 September 2016: The SCATSAT-1 satellite launched by India for detection of cyclone and weather forecasting was a global mission and its services would be utilised by American space agency NASA and European Space Agency EUMETSAT. ISRO had successfully launched SCATSAT-1 along with seven other satellites belonging to various countries onboard PSLV-C35 in multiple orbits. According to ISRO, SCATSAT is the continuity mission for Scatterometer payload carried by OCEANSAT-2 satellite launched in 2009. The payload would be a vital tool to study wind patterns above ocean, air-sea interactions, ocean circulations and on weather patterns. The 'wind vectors' help meteorologists to accurately predict cyclone formation. It may be recalled that the data of ocean wind vectors helped in predicting the cyclone Phailin in Odisha coast in 2013 which helped in mitigation and saving of mankind and livestock'. Link: http://www.isro.gov.in

27 September 2016: The world’s first baby to be born from a new procedure that combines the DNA of three people appears to be healthy, according to doctors in the US who oversaw the treatment. The baby was born on 6 April after his Jordanian parents travelled to Mexico where they were cared for by US fertility specialists. Doctors led by John Zhang, from the New Hope Fertility Center in New York, decided to attempt the controversial procedure of mitochondrial transfer. While many experts welcomed news of the birth, some raised concerns that the doctors had left the US to perform the procedure beyond the reach of any regulatory framework and without publishing details of the treatment. Mitochondrial transfer was legalized in the UK in 2015 but so far no other country has introduced laws to permit the technique. The treatment is aimed at parents who have a high risk of passing fatal genetic diseases to their children. Link: https://www.newscientist.com

28 September 2016: The Union cabinet approved the country's move to formally join the Paris Agreement on climate change by giving its green signal for its ratification. The country will submit its instrument of ratification to the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The Cabinet approved the India's ratification to the Paris Agreement in its meeting. Since the European Union (28 nations), which accounts for over 10 per cent of the total global emission of greenhouse gases, has decided to submit its instrument of ratification before October 7, it is now certain that the Paris Agreement will come into force with India on board at the time of the next UN climate conference (Conference of Parties - COP22), scheduled to take place in Marrakech, Morocco from Novemver 7 to 18. France had ratified Paris Agreement on June 15 and was the first G20 countries to do so. Link: http://unfccc.int
 
29 September 2016: After hundreds of votes and careful deliberation by judges from the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India, Rosco, whose guardian is Spandana Raj, beat out nine other finalists to win PETA's 5th annual 'Cutest Indian Dog Alive' contest. The contest was created to show that the kindest thing a prospective guardian can do is to adopt an Indian dog from the streets or an animal shelter, PETA said in a statement. The second-place winner of the contest is Nekti, whose guardian is Ananya Karmakar of Kolkata, while Petu, whose guardian is Minima Peres from Goa secured the third place. Rosco proves that adopting a dog from the streets or an animal shelter can fill your life with a joy and love that words can't express. PETA urged prospective guardians to adopt an Indian community dog from the streets or an animal shelter, rather than buying puppies from pet shops. Link:http://www.petaindia.com
 
30 September 2016: Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, is dead, setting down in a final embrace with its companion of the past two years. Radio signals from Rosetta flatlined at 7:19 a.m. after it did a soft belly-flop onto Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at a speed of two miles per hour. Today's landing marks the end of an ambitious 1.3-billion-euro ($1.46 billion) mission that spanned more than a decade. The Rosetta launched in March 2004, and after a 10-year cruise through the inner solar system covering a distance of 6.5 billion km, it rendezvoused with Comet 67P in August 2014. Three months later, Rosetta deployed its surface probe Philae. But instead of anchoring to the comet's surface, Philae bounced twice before coming to a stop against a cliff face in the Abydos region. First observed in 1969, Comet 67P circles the sun every 6.5 years between the orbits of Earth and Jupiter. Link:http://rosetta.esa.int

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2016

Director : Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Story      : Chad St. John
Camera : Checco Varese
Country : United States

Replicas is an American science fiction thriller film. Set in a Nazi-future, where attending Mass is mandatory, and that all abortion, divorce, and sex outside of marriage are totally outlawed, including homosexuality, as well as immigration, Will Foster works as a biologist at a government-funded lab.

Recently, however, his wife, Mona is recently killed in a car crash. Knowing that Will cannot hold his grief any longer, he decides to bring her back to life by cloning her, which it's against the law and the teachings of Christianity.

Riverstone Pictures and Remstar Studios signed on to co-finance the film, which would be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Stephen Hamel share producing duties with Keanu Reeves, Mark Gao, and Luis A.Riefkohl.    

Details: http://www.imdb.com                                                                         

BOOK OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2016

                                                                           
Title          : How the Web Was Born:
                   The Story of the World Wide Web
Author     : James Gillies, Robert Cailliau
Pages        : 392
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN        :10-0192862073
 
In 1994, a computer program called the Mosaic browser transformed the Internet from an academic tool into a telecommunications revolution. Now a household name, the World Wide Web is a prominent fixture in the modern communications landscape, with tens of thousands of servers providing information to millions of users. Few people, however, realize that the Web was born at C.E.R.N., the European Laboratory for Particle Physics in Geneva, and that it was invented by an Englishman, Tim Berners-Lee.

The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world. The first website at CERN - and in the world - was dedicated to the World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT computer. The website described the basic features of the web; how to access other people's documents and how to set up your own server.

The NeXT machine - the original web server - is still at CERN. As part of the project to restore the first website, in 2013 CERN reinstated the world's first website to its original address. On 30 April 1993 CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. CERN made the next release available with an open licence, as a more sure way to maximise its dissemination. Through these actions, making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish.

Offering its readers an unprecedented 'insider's perspective', this new book was co-written by two CERN. employees-one of whom, Robert Cailliau, was among the Web's pioneers. It tells how the idea for the Web came about at CERN., how it was developed, and how it was eventually handed over at no charge for the rest of the world to use. The first book-length account of the Web's development, How the Web was Born draws upon several interviews with the key players in this amazing story. This compelling and highly topical book is certain to interest all general readers.

Review Courtesy: https://www.amazon.com

EVENT OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2016

This year marks 150 years since the birth of H.G. Wells, one of the nation’s greatest science fiction writers and public intellectuals. His first novel, The Time Machine, was published in 1895, and he saw the coming century clearer than anyone else. He anticipated wars in the air, the sexual revolution, motorised transport causing the growth of suburbs and a proto-Wikipedia he called the 'world brain'.

For Wells, imagining a viable version of the future was an intellectual game. It was a chance to show off, and a seemingly respectable way to be deeply subversive. Writing to his friend Elizabeth Healy, he described Anticipations, his 1901 book of predictions, as ‘designed to undermine and destroy the monarch, monogamy, faith in God and respectability – and the British empire, all under the guise of a speculation about motor cars and electric heating’. Futurology, for Wells, was exhilarating. The idea that writers would give up even trying was so implausible that Wells never imagined it.

Wells’s genius was his ability to create a stream of brand new, wholly original stories out of thin air. It is not those specific stories that we need now, but the imagination that spawned them. It is hard to find a contemporary author producing stories as new and unprecedented as Wells’s early work, but we should try. Because if it is true that you have to imagine a future before you can build it, then this failure of our imagination is deeply alarming.

His move to Woking in 1895 inspired some of his greatest works, including The War of the Worlds. Wells made Woking infamous in the late 19th Century by making Horsell Common the location for his Martian invasion so to celebrate the Borough’s connection with H.G. Wells, Woking Borough Council and its partners have launched the ‘Wells in Woking’ cultural event programme for 2016. The story of Wells in Woking is one of inspiration, imagination and success.

Link: http://www.celebratewoking.info

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2016

Around 18 million years ago, a feisty squirrel-sized marsupial roamed around the dense jungle of ancient Australia but has since gone extinct. In a new study, scientists from the University of New South Wales describe how they identified this ancient marsupial lion for the first time. They named the new species in honor of prominent British naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

Designated Microleo attenboroughi, the tiny marsupial is a member of the family Thylacoleonidae. Its name alludes to its size micro means small in Greek and status leo means lion in Latin.The last name of the creature attenboroughi recognizes Sir Attenborough's work in the field of natural history, particularly in uncovering paleontological treasures in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland, Australia.

When it was alive, the Microleo attenboroughi weighed just about 1.3 pounds (0.58 kilograms), lived in trees and possessed molars that were strong enough to rip apart other tiny creatures, scientists say. Anna Gillespie, one of the study researchers, says Microleo attenboroughi would have been the 'feisty kitten' of the Thylacoleonidae family.

And like most marsupial carnivores, Microleo attenboroughi had long and dangerously sharp knife-like premolar that protruded from in front of its bottom molars. Gillespie and colleagues identified this Australian micro lion from a teeth fossil and a partial skull. These 18-million-year-old remains were uncovered from the Neville's Garden Site at Riversleigh.

According to Gillespie, the micro lion shared the northern Miocene rain forests with two other larger species of marsupial lions, one dog-sized and the other cat-sized. It was plausible that the animals competed with each other, but their differences in size meant that they had specialized on different size ranges of prey.Microleo attenboroughi is the ninth and smallest marsupial lion ever identified at Riversleigh. The first identified species were the Thylacoleo carnifex, which was the last of their kind to go extinct, researchers say. Thylacoleo carnifex was identified in the late 1850s and fully described in 1999. It was about the size of a modern lion at about 5 feet long and 2 feet tall and could rip through its prey with its jaws. The ancient creature persisted through the Pleistocene until it was wiped out.

Furthermore, Microleo attenboroughi is called a 'lion' for a different reason. It refers to the status of the ancient marsupials as hunters, like big cats. Indeed, researchers say marsupial lions are not the ancestors of modern lions in Africa, although ancient marsupial lions are related to koalas and other modern marsupials.

Link to paper: http://palaeo-electronica.org

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: AUGUST 2016

1 August 2016: A near-Earth asteroid that is coming towards our planet after being dislodged by a gravitational pull can indeed strike us and and cause massive destruction but according to experts, it has a one in 2,700 chances of hitting. Such an event will not take place for 150 years and the people living in the year 2135 would know whether the asteroid named Bennu posed an actual threat to hit Earth. The OSIRIS-REx Mission, headed by NASA and the University of Arizona, plan to launch an unmanned spacecraft on September 8 in the efforts to reach Bennu in August 2018. OSIRIS-REx will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on an Atlas V 411 rocket during a 34-day launch period starting September 8. It will orbit the Sun for a year and then use Earth's gravitational field to assist it on its way to Bennu. In August 2018, OSIRIS-REx's approach to Bennu will begin. It will use an array of small rocket thrusters to match the velocity of Bennu and rendezvous with the asteroid. The spacecraft will begin a detailed survey of Bennu two months after slowing to encounter Bennu. After the selection of the final site, the spacecraft will briefly touch the surface of Bennu to retrieve a sample. The sampling arm will make contact with the surface of Bennu for about five seconds, during which it will release a burst of nitrogen gas. The procedure will cause rocks and surface material to be stirred up and captured in the sampler head. Link:

2 August 2016: Jupiter's volcanic moon lo has a thin atmosphere that collapses in the shadow of the planet condensing as ice, say NASA-funded researchers, revealing the freezing effects of its shadow during daily eclipses on the moon's volcanic gases. Io is the most volcanically-active object in the solar system. This is the first time scientists have observed this remarkable phenomenon directly, improving our understanding of this geologically active moon. The volcanoes are caused by tidal heating, the result of gravitational forces from Jupiter and other moons. These forces result in geological activity, most notably volcanoes that emit umbrella-like plumes of sulphur dioxide gas that can extend up to 480 km above Io and produce extensive basaltic lava fields that can flow for hundreds of miles. The new study documents atmospheric changes on Io as the giant planet casts its shadow over the moon's surface during daily eclipses. Io's atmosphere is in a constant state of collapse and repair and shows that a large fraction of the atmosphere is supported by sublimation of SO2 ice. Link:

3 August 2016: Chinese scientists are set to perform the world's first genetic editing trial on human beings this month. The idea behind using this controversial technique on cancer patients at a hospital in Chengdu city, is to find a cure for lung cancer. The trial will cover 10 patients with lung cancer. It will be conducted by a set of oncologists who will attempt to selectively edit genome parts and replace them with new DNA stretches. The oncologists will inject patients with cells modified using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique. The trial received ethical approval from the hospital's review board on July 6. Gene editing is disallowed in most countries because of fears that it can lead to dangerous consequences as scientists try to produce "designer babies" with extremely dangerous mental and behavioural traits. This is the first step on a path that scientists have carefully mapped out towards the legalization of (genetically modified) babies. On the other hand, a section of scientists see it as an opportunity to find cures and even avoid production of babies with inherited diseases. The US journal Science named CRISPR as the "2015 Breakthrough of the Year". Link:

4 August 2016: In a first, the Federal Aviation Administration has given license to a private US company, co-founded by an Indian American, to launch a spacecraft and land on moon in 2017. This breakthrough US policy decision provides authorisation to Moon Express for a maiden flight of its robotic spacecraft onto the Moon's surface, the company said in a media release. There have been no private space missions so far beyond Earth's orbit and only state agencies have performed outer space missions. The company was co-founded in 2010 by space visionary, Dr Bob Richards, Naveen Jain and serial entrepreneur and artificial intelligence and space technology guru, Dr Barney Pell, with the common vision to be at the forefront of commercial space exploration and innovation. The Moon Express 2017 mission approval is a landmark decision by the US government and a pathfinder for private sector commercial missions beyond the Earth's orbit. The federal interagency's approval of the Moon Express 2017 lunar mission establishes an important precedent for the private sector to engage in peaceful space exploration, bringing with it monumental implications for the advancement of technology, science, research, and development, as well as commercial ventures that expand Earth's economic sphere. Link:

5 August 2016: To mark Curiosity rover's fourth anniversary since landing on Mars, Nasa has launched a new mobile game that lets users explore the rugged terrain of the red planet. In the social media game, Mars Rover, players drive through Mars, challenging themselves to navigate and balance the rover while earning points along the way. The game also illustrates how Nasa's next Mars rover, in development for launch in 2020, will use radar to search for underground water. The mission is examining the lower slopes of Mount Sharp, a layered mountain inside Gale Crater, to learn more about how and when ancient environmental conditions in the area evolved from freshwater settings into conditions drier and less favourable for life. Curiosity landed inside Mars' Gale Crater on August 6, 2012. During the rover's first Earth year on Mars, the mission accomplished its main goal when it found and examined an ancient habitable environment. Researchers determined that a freshwater lake at the "Yellowknife Bay" site billions of years ago offered the chemical ingredients and energy favourable for supporting microbial life, if life has ever existed on Mars. Link:

6 August 2016: Geologists have found evidence supporting the hypothesis that Indian subcontinent was part of Antarctica a billion years ago but were separated and re-united several times due to tectonic movement of plates before the evolution of mankind. A group of geologists from India and Switzerland researching on evolution of the Earth's crust studied ancient rocks of the continental crust in the Eastern Ghats area and found important clues to the formation of the continents. India and Antarctica then got separated by an ocean. Their research, which was recently published in international journal 'Elsevier', shows the two continents separated once more and a new ocean was formed where the old ocean had been. After this collision the crust broke apart again, once more separating India from Antarctica and now there is a big ocean between the two land masses that had actually combined several times in the Earth's history, says the research report. All this happened much before the evolution of mankind on earth and the research team collected evidences at the junction of the Singhbhum Craton and Eastern Ghats in Odisha and Jharkhand. Link:

7 August 2016: Scientists have identified 20 potentially habitable Earth-like rocky planets from a trove of over 4,000 exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler mission till date. The new research outlines 216 Kepler planets located within the 'habitable zone'- the area around a star in which a planet's surface could hold liquid water. Of those, 20 were listed as the best candidates to be habitable rocky planets like Earth.This is the complete catalogue of all of the Kepler discoveries that are in the habitable zone of their host stars. The research also confirms that the distribution of Kepler planets within the habitable zone is the same as the distribution of those outside of it - additional evidence that the universe is teeming with planets and moons where life could potentially exist. The boundaries of the habitable zone are critical. If a planet is too close to its star, it will experience a runaway greenhouse gas effect, like Venus. But if it is too far, any water will freeze, as is seen on Mars. The 20 planets in the most restrictive category - rocky surface and a conservative habitable zone - are the most likely to be similar to Earth. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal. Link:

8 August 2016: A cosmic display of 'shooting stars' will light up the night skies this week during the annual Perseid meteor shower, when up to 200 meteors per hour will hit the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light, according to NASA. The Perseids show up every year in August when Earth ventures through trails of debris left behind by an ancient comet. This year, Earth may be in for a closer encounter than usual with the comet trails that result in meteor shower, setting the stage for a spectacular display. An outburst is a meteor shower with more meteors than usual. The last Perseid outburst occurred in 2009. Every Perseid meteor is a tiny piece of the comet Swift-Tuttle, which orbits the Sun every 133 years. Each swing through the inner solar system can leave trillions of small particles in its wake. When Earth crosses paths with Swift-Tuttle's debris, specks of comet-stuff hit Earth's atmosphere and disintegrate in flashes of light. These meteors are called Perseids because they seem to fly out of the constellation Perseus. Most years, Earth might graze the edge of Swift-Tuttle's debris stream, where there is less activity. Occasionally, Jupiter's gravity tugs the huge network of dust trails closer, and Earth ploughs through closer to the middle, where there is more material. Link:

9 August 2016: India's premier scientific research body, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research's (CSIR) Mysuru-based constituent laboratory, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute (CSIR-CFTRI), has developed an Omega-3 and Vitamin-E enriched frozen nutritional dessert - called Nutrice - from vegetarian sources. This product will provide the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of omega-3 for children in one serving. Using the knowledge of traditional Indian food habits, the CSIR-CFTRI has developed a diverse array of food products such as nutri-chikki incorporated with spirulina, rice mix, high protein rusk, energy food, nutri sprinkle, sesame paste and fortified mango bar so as to address the varying nutritional requirements of people. Dietary supplementation of Omega-3 fats, which are the poly unsaturated fatty acids, are beneficial for brain development in children and good health in elderly population. Since people's food habits largely revolve around diverse food sources and preparations to address the different nutritional requirements, the CSIR-CFTRI has been working to develop such dietary products for years. Link:

10 August 2016: The country's first tiger cell will soon take shape at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) campus in Dehradun. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding the setting up of the cell was signed between the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and WII. The cell will house a database of tigers as well as DNA and stripes samples of the big cats from over 50 tiger reserves, and will aid conservation efforts by keeping an update on tiger numbers as well as tracking poaching incidents throughout the country. The cumulative data of countrywide tiger assessment which WII has been compiling for more than a decade will now be institutionalized in the cell. In addition, the cell will also have a national tiger photo database which will be used for tackling poaching or wildlife crime incidents. For instance, if we have camera trap images of a tiger who is found dead or killed, then we can easily identify it by matching its stripes. Incidentally, WII had a few months ago, matched four of the five tiger skins found from a poacher, with the images of the tigers once captured in Corbett Tiger Reserve. WII had been working at creating a stripes repository of tigers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Link:

11 August 2016: Nearly two years after it was launched, 'Mangalyaan' is still functioning well, and with a planned course correction next January to extend its battery life, it would keep going for many years. The correction in the trajectory of the Mars Orbiter Mission (MoM) is required to keep the power supply strong during a long-duration eclipse, caused by shadow of Mars falling on it for 7-8 hours, so that it could continue to function longer. The long-duration eclipse period (in January) could cripple the satellite if no corrections are done because the battery cannot support long-duration eclipse. He delivered a lecture at IIT-Gandhinagar as a part of the institute's Roddam Narasimha Distinguished Lecture series. ISRO is every single Indians pride. ISRO is also working on its second lunar mission spacecraft, Chandrayaan-II. Unlike Chandrayaan-I, we have planned a controlled descent of Chandrayaan-II which we intend to put into orbit by the end of next year or early part of 2018. Rover engineering version is undergoing test. Link:

12 August 2016: Scientists and wildlife managers from the Sabah Wildlife Department, Swedish Museum of Natural History and Danau Girang Field Centre on Wednesday said it has successfully sequenced the complete genome of the Sumatran rhinoceros, using the blood samples of Tam. Swedish Museum of Natural History and leader of the project, Dr Love Dalén, said in a statement said that the genome sequencing was made out due to the lack of success in captive breeding programmes and maintaining the animals, as well as producing offspring. Meanwhile, Sabah Wildlife Department Assistant Director Dr Sen Nathan said the success will not lead to any immediate cloning of the rhinoceros as genome sequence is not required for this. Their comments came following USCF Vice Chancellor Prof. Datuk Dr Ghazally Ismail's statements on Aug 6 that UCSF would pursue genome sequencing of the rhinos as its first step towards cloning the species in collaboration with the University of Salford and the University of Verona, adding that the work required approximately RM2 to RM3 million. Towards this end, Danau Girang Field Centre Director Dr Benoit Goosens said the whole genome sequence would be available for free, adding, however, the real cost of a de novo genome assembly of a rhinoceros was much lesser. Link:

13 August 2016: The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram, an institute of national importance under the department of science & technology, have signed MoU to develop 'Deep Brain Stimulator' (DBS). The first prototype is planned to be available in three years. The DBS is currently being imported, limiting its wider usage due to the high cost. The planned joint development is targeted to provide an affordable alternative. The DBS involves implanting electrodes within certain areas of brain and the regular electrical pulses generated by a pacemaker-like device placed under the skin in upper chest regulates the abnormal impulses of the brain. It is used in typical neurological conditions of essential tremor, Parkinson's disease and Dystonia. The DBS consists of implanted pulse generator, electrodes and extension cables which interface with external Programmer module and wireless battery charger. As per the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed between BARC and SCTMIST on Thursday, the BARC will develop the device as per specifications provided by SCTMIST and the latter will be responsible for clinical trials, testing and qualification. The Electronics Division, Reactor Control Division and Centre for Design & Manufacture of the BARC will participate in the development of various subsystems. The MoU was signed by Asha Kishore, director, SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram on behalf of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram and Y S Mayya, director, Electronics & Instrumentation Group, BARC on behalf of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre at BARC, Trombay. Link:

14 August 2016: In a bid to validate concepts for the future manned journey to Mars, NASA has approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to proceed to the next phase of design and development for the mission's robotic segment. ARM is a two-part mission that will integrate robotic and crewed spacecraft operations in the proving ground of deep space to demonstrate key capabilities needed for NASA's journey to the red planet. The robotic component of ARM will demonstrate the world's most advanced and most efficient solar electric propulsion system as it travels to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA). NEAs are asteroids that are fewer than 194 million km from the Sun at the closest point in their orbit. Although the target asteroid is not expected to be officially selected until 2020, NASA is using 2008 EV5 as the reference asteroid while the search continues for potential alternatives. A target asteroid such as 2008 EV5 is particularly appealing to the scientific, exploration, and industrial communities because it is a primitive, C-type (carbonaceous) asteroid, believed to be rich in volatiles, water and organic compounds. The ability to extract core samples from the captured boulder will allow us to evaluate how its composition varies with depth and could unlock clues to the origins of our solar system. Astronaut sampling and potential commercial activities could indicate the value of C-type asteroids for commercial mining purposes, which in turn could have significant impacts on how deep space missions are designed in the future. After collecting a multi-tonne boulder from the asteroid, the robotic spacecraft will slowly redirect the boulder to an orbit around the Moon, using its gravity for an assist, where NASA plans to conduct a series of proving ground missions in the 2020s. Link:

15 August 2016: A mysterious 200-km wide chunk of ice has been discovered beyond the orbit of Neptune, the farthest recognized-planet from our sun. Bizarrely, this object is going around the sun in a backwards direction and its orbit is tilted by 110 degrees from the plane in which all planets stay. The object has been named Niku, a Chines word for 'rebellious' by the the international team of astronomers that made the discovery using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 Survey (Pan-STARRS 1), Universe Today reports. Astronomers have discovered many such objects in the region beyond Neptune. These are collectively called Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs). They orbit the sun at an average distance of 30 Astronomical Units or 1.5 billion km. Laws of physics dictate that when a planetary system like our Solar System forms, all the bodies orbit in the same direction. So if you look down at the Solar System from the 'top' all objects including planets will be moving around in the counterclockwise direction. But Niku is going around clockwise. This means that some outside, unknown forces are acting on it. In fact, when compared to other TNOs, the researchers found that all of them including Niku occupied a common plane and were clustered together. Link:

16 August 2016: Locating people living in poverty, such as through door-to-door surveys, sometimes is difficult. Therefore, scientists are now turning to satellite images. In a study published on Thursday in the US journal Science, researchers from the Stanford University used machine learning, the science of designing computer algorithms that learn from data, to extract information about poverty from high-resolution satellite imagery. They found the newly developed approach was able to 'make fairly accurate predictions' of impoverished areas across five African countries: Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, and Rwanda. According to World Bank data from 2000 to 2010, 39 out of 59 African countries conducted less than two surveys, from which nationally representative poverty measures could be constructed. Overall, surveys are costly, infrequent, and cannot always reach countries or regions within countries, for instance, due to armed conflict. Recent studies showed that satellite data capturing nightlights can be used to predict wealth in a given area. However, nightlight data alone is not effective at differentiating between regions at the bottom end of the income distribution, where satellite images appear uniformly dark. To circumvent this problem, the new study turned its attention to daylight imagery, which offers higher resolution and can capture features such as paved roads and metal roofs, markers that can help distinguish poor and ultra-poor regions. Link:

17 August 2016: The world population will reach 9.9 billion in 2050, increasing by 33 per cent from an estimated 7.4 billion now, the latest report from the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) has predicted. If the assumptions underlying 2050 projections by the PRB's World Population Data Sheet are applied to subsequent years, the world population would hit the 10 billion mark in 2053, with set to Asia gain about 900 million to 5.3 billion. PRB's projections show Africa's population will reach 2.5 billion by 2050, while the number of people in the Americas will rise by only 223 million to 1.2 billion. Europe registers a decline from 740 million to 728 million. Oceania (which includes Australia and New Zealand) would rise from 40 million to 66 million. The Data Sheet's midcentury population projections indicate that the combined population of the world's least developed countries in the world will double by 2050 to 1.9 billion. The population in 29 countries will more than double. Nearly all of these countries are in Africa. In Niger, the country with the highest birth rate, the population will more than triple. The data showed that, 42 countries will register population declines. These countries are scattered throughout Asia, Latin America and Europe. Some European countries will post significant declines, such as Romania, which is projected to have a population of 14 million in 2050, down from 20 million today. The population of the US will be 398 million, up 23 per cent from 324 million today. According to the Data Sheet's estimates of current population, over 25 per cent of the world's population is under 15 years old. The figure is 41 per cent in least developed countries and 16 per cent in more developed countries. Link:

18 August 2016: Amid spiralling cases of dengue reported in the national capital, a study has found that the vector-borne disease in cardiac patients could aggravate their heart ailments. Four persons have died due to dengue this season while the total number of cases in the city has climbed to over 310. The research was conducted by Fortis Healthcare in the last three months involving 150 dengue patients admitted to its hospitals in Delhi and NCR. The study also claimed that electrocardiograph and echocardiograph (ECG & Echo) readings changed in those patients who were admitted with dengue fever but with no prior heart ailments. The research refers only to those dengue patients who are in need of hospitalisation. The study released today by the hospital suggested that those having dengue fever coupled with chest discomfort, shortness of breath, unnecessary fatigue, must get their ECG or Echo done to rule out the possibility of heart involvement. If the changes are detected early, the situation can be handled in the first interface and heart disease progression could be averted, it said. In Delhi, out of the total cases reported this season, nearly 192 were recorded in the first three weeks of August, according to the latest municipal report.

19 August 2016: NASA is planning to hand over the control of the International Space Station (ISS) to a commercial company around the mid 2020s. The timing fits with the end of the US government's current funding of the ISS programme, which was extended by Obama administration from its original deorbiting date of 2016 through 2020. Operations were prolonged through 2024 to help give NASA a platform from which to run its near-Earth preparatory missions leading up to the ultimate manned mission to Mars. However, NASA did not specify any potential buyer. A new docking adapter is being put in place to support crew shuttle missions from Boeing and SpaceX, both of which are set to start shuttling personnel to the ISS in 2017. SpaceX has been running resupply missions for the space station and NASA since 2012, and has completed nine such missions to date.

20 August 2016: NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has captured a stunning 360-degree panoramic view of features called 'Murray Buttes', combining more than 130 images taken on the fourth anniversary of probe's landing on the red planet. The image was acquired by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on as the rover neared on lower Mount Sharp on Mars, during the afternoon of the mission's 1,421st Martian day. The visual drama of Murray Buttes along Curiosity's planned route up lower Mount Sharp was anticipated when the site was informally named nearly three years ago. A butte is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top. Mesa is an elevated area that has a top that is wider than its height, while a butte has a top that is narrower than its height. The buttes and mesas of Murray Buttes are capped by material that is relatively resistant to erosion, just as is the case with many similarly shaped buttes and mesas on Earth. This helps preserve these monumental remnants of a layer that formerly more fully covered the underlying layer that the rover is now driving on. In the image a dark, flat-topped mesa is seen towards the left, which is about 90 meters from the rover's position. It stands about about 15 meters high. Link: .

21 August 2016: Scientists have, for the first time, developed laser from fluorescent jellyfish proteins that were grown in bacteria. These lasers have the potential to be far more efficient and compact than conventional ones and could open up research avenues in quantum physics and optical computing. The breakthrough represents a major advance in so-called polariton lasers. By repurposing the fluorescent proteins that have revolutionised biomedical imaging, and by allowing scientists to monitor processes inside cells, the team created a polariton laser that operates at room temperature powered by nanosecond pulses, just billionths of a second. Gather and colleagues from the University of Wurzburg and Dresden University of Technology in Germany, genetically engineered E coli bacteria to produce enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP). The researchers filled optical microcavities with this protein before subjecting them to 'optical pumping', where nanosecond flashes of light are used to bring the system up to the required energy to create laser light. After reaching the threshold for polariton lasing, pumping more energy into the device resulted in conventional lasing. This helps confirm that the first emission was due to polariton lasing, Gather said, which is something other approaches using organic materials have been unable to demonstrate so far. The research was published in the journal Science Advances.

22 August 2016: While radio-collaring of tigers is now common, an atlas for the endangered state fish of Madhya Pradesh, Narmada Mahseer (Tor tor), is being prepared in a first of its kind experiment in the country. The forest department has begun identifying the occurrence of Narmada Mahseer and is mapping them in protected areas with Global Information System (GIS) technology. GIS helps in capturing, checking, storing and displaying data on earth's surface and can show different kinds of data on one map. The Nagdwari and Sonbhadra tributaries of Denwa river have been explored. Many juvenile fishes had been found in rivers and they were being mapped. A Rs 5-lakh budget has also been allotted for facilitating the survey. Additional principal chief conservator of forest (wildlife), Indore, Pankaj Srivastava said a scientific protocol would be made with help of collected data and help of experts and communities to ensure conservation. While conservation plans top the list of forest department, officials said they were facing some problems as many officials on the field do not have enough expertise to recognize the species. Link:

23 August 2016: India has identified and registered nine new indigenous breeds of livestock and poultry this year, taking the list of 'desi' breeds in the country to 160 including 40 of cows and 13 of buffaloes. Among the newly registered breeds, the cattle is found to be more disease resistant than the other known indigenous breeds. Indigenous breeds of livestock and poultry are identified and registered as part of an exercise to conserve them, taking in view their area-specific suitability and heat\cold and disease resistance capabilities. These nine indigenous breeds of livestock and poultry include one breed of cow, two breeds each of goat and sheep, three breeds of pig and one breed of chicken. These breeds have been registered by Karnal-based National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources (NBAGR). The ICAR had initiated the mechanism for 'Registration of Animal Germplasm' through the NBAGR. It had in 2008 constituted a Breed Registration Committee that takes a call on registration of newly found indigenous breeds based on scientifically produced evidence. The idea of the registration is to have an authentic national documentation system of valuable sovereign genetic resource with known characteristics. The newly identified and registered breeds include Badricow (Uttarakhand), Teressa goat (Nicobar Island), Kodi Adu goat (Tamil Nadu), Chevaadu sheep (Tamil Nadu), Kendrapada sheep (Odisha), Tenyi Vo pig (Nagaland), Nicobari pig (NicobarIsland), Doom pig (Assam) and Kaunayenchicken (Manipur). Link:

24 August 2016: Peanuts or groundnuts (Arachis hypogaea L.) are an important global food source and are a staple crop grown in more than 100 countries, with approximately 42 million tonnes produced every year. In a world first, under the leadership of University of Western Australia Winthrop Professor Rajeev Varshney, a global team sequenced and identified 50,324 genes in an ancestor of the cultivated peanut, Arachis duranensis. They decoded the peanut DNA to gain an insight into the legume's evolution and identify opportunities for using its genetic variability. Importantly, the researchers have isolated 21 allergen genes, that, when altered, may be able to prevent an allergic response in humans. The last decade has seen an alarming rise in peanut allergies with almost three in every 100 Australian children suffering, and only 20 per cent growing out of the allergy. The allergic reaction of peanuts is caused by specific proteins in its seeds, according to Dr Varshney who is also the Research Program Director at International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). They also identified additional genes that would help increase crop productivity and improve peanut nutritional value by altering oil biosynthesis and protein content. Link:

25 August 2016: The exotic and colorful snub-nosed monkey spends its days foraging about the treetop in the mountain forests in China, Myanmar and Vietnam. Though once widespread, this endangered species is only limited to fragmental mountain forests, and the highest altitude (up to 4,500 meters) of any primate, making them a fascinating subject for evolutionary biologists to study to reveal the genetics behind their adaptations. Five living species with different census population sizes are commonly recognized: R. roxellana, the Sichuan or golden snub-nosed monkey, totaling about 25,000 individuals; R. brelichi, the gray snub-nosed monkey (800 individuals); R. bieti, the black or Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (2,000 individuals); R. avunculus, the ultra rare Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (200 individuals) and R. strykeri, Myanmar snub-nosed monkey (300 individuals). In a heroic effort, authors Ming Li, Ruigiang Li et al. have now sequenced, assembled and analyzed the mutations in the genomes of 38 wild snub-nosed monkeys (from genome mapping of 42 individuals: 27 golden, 4 gray, 2 Myanmar and 9 black) from four different endangered species of snub-nosed monkeys -the largest investigation into primate genomics outside of the great apes. The findings were published in the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution. Link: Xuming Zhou,. Population genomics reveals low genetic diversity and adaptation to hypoxia in snub-nosed monkeys. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2016; msw150 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msw150

26 August 2016: A new method for analysing the chemical composition of stars may help scientists winnow the search for Earth-like planets where life like ours can form, a new study has found. Researchers from Yale University in the US have found a computational modelling technique that gives a clearer sense of the chemistry of stars, showing the conditions present when their planets formed. The system creates a new way to assess the habitability and biological evolution possibilities of planets outside our solar system. Lead author John Michael Brewer, a postdoctoral researcher at Yale, has used the technique previously to determine temperature, surface gravity, rotational speed, and chemical composition information for 1,600 stars, based on 15 elements found within those stars. The new study looked at roughly 800 stars, focusing on their ratio of carbon to oxygen, and magnesium to silicon. Brewer explained that understanding the makeup of stars helps researchers understand the planets in orbit around them. For instance, the study shows that in many cases, carbon is not the driving force in planetary composition. Brewer found that if a star has a carbon/oxygen ratio similar to or lower than that of our own Sun, its planets have mineralogy dominated by the magnesium/silicon ratio. About 60 per cent of the stars in the study have magnesium/silicon ratios that would produce Earth-like compositions; 40 per cent of the stars have silicate-heavy interiors.

27 August 2016: As the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has received more than 1.5 terabyte of data from Mars continues to remain mum on the Mars Orbiter Mission's (MOM) findings on the Red Planet, US' NASA has said that the 'seasonal dark streaks that have become one of the hottest topics in interplanetary research don't hold much water'. The new findings are from the Mars Odyssey mission, which is orbiting Mars and relies on ground temperatures measured by infrared imaging. They do not contradict last year's identification of hydrated salt at these flows, which since their 2011 discovery have been regarded as possible markers for the presence of liquid water on modern Mars. Nasa, however, said that the the temperature measurements now identify an upper limit on how much water is present at these darkened streaks: about as much as in the driest desert sands on Earth. When water is present in the spaces between particles of soil or grains of sand, it affects how quickly a patch of ground heats up during the day and cools off at night. Perhaps ISRO hasn't found anything noteworthy with its methane sensor. No need for media to make yet another drama at of this. ISRO scientists though continue to remain mum on the findings of our Methane Sensor, which was sent aboard MOM to detect methane, a possible indication of life. Senior scientists maintain that the data is primarily being analysed by the principal investigators, following which it will be sent for peer review. MOM has already outlived its expected life around Mars by nearly 18 months and continues to send in data. MOM was launched on November 5, 2013 and entered the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014. It was expected to have a life of around six months ending March 2015, but has continued to live on, orbiting the Red Planet.

28 August 2016: In a bid to control monkey menace in the state, the Uttarakhand forest department in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) is going to introduce a project, pegged as the first in the country, in which female monkeys will be given oral immuno-contraceptive medicine, Porcine Zona Pellucida (PZP) once in each year for three successive years which will nullify the effect of sperms on ovum making the female infertile for three years. This, experts say, will help curtailing the burgeoning simian population, which is a raging menace, to a large extent. The project has been proposed by Akash Verma, divisional forest official of Purola forest division and Govind Wildlife Sanctuary. The vaccine will be mixed into the food which will have its impact on the female monkey only in rendering her infertile for a year. So the same monkeys will have to be given repeated dose over a period of three -four years. For identification, the monkeys will either be tagged or identified from their traits. Such experiments of immune-contraception have been carried out in countries such as America, Austrialia, Brazil etc on small to big animals but not in India so far. He said, in two months' time, the pilot project will kick start in the state after laying out the road map. The environment ministry will also be roped in for facilitation of project at various levels.

29 August 2016: India successfully tested its own scramjet or air breathing engine with the launch of a rocket, said a senior official of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). The two stage/engine RH-560 sounding rocket took off from the rocket port located at Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The two air breathing engines were like hugging the rocket on its sides and normally when the rocket reaches a height of 11 km the scramjet engines would start breathing air. The scramjet engine, used only during the atmospheric phase of the rocket's flight, will help in bringing down the launch cost by reducing the amount of oxidiser to be carried along with the fuel. The scramjet engine designed by ISRO uses hydrogen as fuel and the oxygen from the atmospheric air as the oxidiser. The test flight was the maiden short duration experimental test of Isro's scramjet engine with a hypersonic flight at Mach 6. ISRO 's Advanced Technology Vehicle (ATV), which is an advanced sounding rocket, was the solid rocket booster used for testing the air breathing engine. The rocket weighed 3,277 kg during lift-off. According to ISRO, some of the technological challenges handled by ISRO during the development of scramjet engine include the design and development of hypersonic engine air intake, the supersonic combustor, development of materials withstanding very high temperatures, computational tools to simulate hypersonic flow, ensuring performance and operability of the engine across a wide range of flight speeds, proper thermal management and ground testing of the engines. Link:

29 August 2016: NASA has finally reestablished contact with a spacecraft communication with which was lost nearly two years ago. Contact was reestablished on Sunday with one of Nasa's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories, known as the STEREO-B spacecraft, after communication was lost on October 1, 2014. Over the course of the 22 months, the STEREO team had worked to attempt contact with the spacecraft. Most recently, they attempted a monthly recovery operation using NASA's Deep Space Network, or DSN, which tracks and communicates with missions throughout space. The STEREO Missions Operations team plans further recovery processes to assess observatory health, re-establish attitude control, and evaluate all subsystems and instruments. Communication with STEREO-B was lost during a test of the spacecraft's command loss timer, a hard reset that is triggered after the spacecraft goes without communications from Earth for 72 hours. The STEREO team was testing this function in preparation for something known as solar conjunction, when STEREO-B's line of sight to Earth and therefore all communication was blocked by the Sun. Launched in October 2006, STEREO is the third mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes programme (STP). It employs two nearly identical space-based observatories one ahead of Earth in its orbit, the other trailing behind to provide the first-ever stereoscopic measurements to study the Sun and the nature of its coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. The two STEREO spacecraft were originally designed to complete a two-year mission, ending in 2008. The long life of the two STEREO spacecraft has been a boon for scientists studying the Sun and its influence throughout the solar system, the US space agency said in a statement earlier. The two STEREOs slowly drifted away from Earth as they orbited the Sun, one ahead and one behind our home planet, giving scientists constantly-improving views of the Sun's far side, allowing us for the first time to see the whole Sun at once, it added.

30 August 2016: Today is the 10^th anniversary of Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status. Our solar system went from having nine major planets to having eight major planets, with the outermost planet being Neptune, according to astronomers’ new definition of what it means to be a planet. The XXVI^th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formalized the decision. The public and many astronomers didn’t take it lightly, with some declaring they would still consider Pluto a planet and with the word Plutoed, meaning to demote or devalue something, entering the global lexicon. Prior to 2006, astronomers hadn’t gotten around to establishing clear standards – such as a minimum size or mass, or other considerations by which an object might be categorized as a solar system ‘planet’ versus ‘dwarf planet’. They began to see a need when many small bodies such as Haumea and Makemake began being discovered in the outer solar system. Eris, also considered a dwarf planet, is even more massive than Pluto! So if Pluto is a planet, why shouldn’t Eris be granted planet status as well? That was the question the IAU asked itself, which led to its formation of a Planet Definition Committee and ultimately the 2006 decision. Meet the Planet Definition Committee of the International Astronomical Union. This group made the final decision to demote Pluto to dwarf planet status. But, even within the committee, not all agreed. The committee had a few possible roads to travel down. One would be to make the decision by size (or mass) so that Pluto would remain a planet, and therefore Eris and Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt in the inner solar system would become planets, too. For awhile, it looked as if that might happen with some IAU committee members favoring that decision. Link:

31 August 2016: Dr Kenneth T Bainbridge was the physicist who directed the first atomic bomb test, and Trinity was the codename given to the world’s first nuclear explosion by Dr J Robert Oppenheimer, known as the ‘father of atomic bomb’ for leading the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb. To advocate the banning of nuclear tests and to educate the world about the legacy impact of nuclear detonation, the UN unanimously approved a draft resolution on December 02, 2009 to declare August 29 the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The resolution was initiated by the Republic of Kazakhstan with a view to commemorate the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear test facility on August 29, 1991, which was the world’s largest underground nuclear test site. After the establishment of the International Day against Nuclear Test, all states party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) committed themselves to ‘achieve peace and security of world without nuclear weapons’ in May 2010. The inaugural commemoration of the International Day against Nuclear Tests was marked on August 29, 2010. In August 1963, the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), signed by the US, the UK and the USSR, entered into force, and banned the nuclear testing of signatory states in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater but not underground. Later, the PTBT became redundant with the signing of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in September 1996, which bans all nuclear explosions in all environments. Link: