SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JANUARY 2018

Photo Courtesy: http://newweb.bose.res.in

1 January 2018: India, today began the year-long celebration to mark the 125th birth anniversary of eminent physicist Satyendra Nath Bose who was born on this day in 1984. S. N. Bose was specialized in theoretical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein Statistics and the theory of the Bose-Einstein Condensate. But he was never awarded a Nobel Prize. A Fellow of the Royal Society, the nation honoured him with the second highest civilian award, Padma Vibhushan in 1954. The class of particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics, bosons, was named after Bose by Paul Dirac. The celebrations are being spearheaded by S.N.Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkatta. Link: http://newweb.bose.res.in

2 January 2018: The Nilambur Teak got the Geographical Indications (GI) Registration. Nilambur teak or 'Malabbar Teak' is obtained from the forest areas in Nilambur Taluk in Malappuram district in Kerala. As the quality of Nilambur teak is specific to the soil of Nilambur, the GI will give it a unique place. Nilambur teak will become the first forest resource to get a GI tag in India. Darjeeling tea was the first product to get GI in the country. Kerala products such as Aranmula Kannadi, Navara rice, Alappuzha coir, Palakkadan Matta rice, Pokkali rice, Jeerakasala rice and Gandhakasala rice, Malabar pepper, Maddalam of Palakkad, Vazhakkulam pineapple, Balaramapuram, Kasaragod and Kathumpulli saris,  Payyannur Pavithra ring and Central Travancore jaggery have GI so far. Link: http://www.wipo.int

3 January 2018: India’s second mission to the Moon, Chandrayaan-II would be launched during March-April 2018, by using a Geosynchronous Satellite launch vehicle (GSLV MK II). The mission will include a lunar, Orbiter, lander and rover. As per Dr. Mylswamy Annadurai, director, ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, the mission will include an orbiter craft, a rover and a lander. The wheeled rover will move on the lunar surface and will perform a chemical analysis on site. The orbiter will orbit the moon at an attitude of 100-km. The mission will carry five instruments on the orbiter namely, a large area soft X-ray spectrometer for mapping significant elements there on the lunar surface, L and S band synthetic aperture radar for probing the first few tens of metres on the surface of the moon for presence of constituents like water. Link: https://www.isro.gov.in

4 January 2018: One among the Arabian Sea Humpback Whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) which are believed to be the only non-migratory species, has reached the Kerala shores. The animal was named Luban, the Arabic name for the Frankincense tree, after the tree-shaped pattern at the base of its tail fluke. Luban was one of the 14 whales tagged by the Environment Society of Oman under the Renaissance Whale and Dolphin Project. It began heading east, across the Indian Ocean on December 12. Traveling around 1,500 km, it reached off the coast of Goa during the last week of December. It stayed 30 km off the Kochi coast on the New Year eve and then moved further south towards Alappuzha. The Humpback Whale is the least studied among the four species of Baleen whales occurring in Indian waters. Link: http://www.iucnredlist.org

5 January 2018: Resourcesat-2A, the third in the Resourcesat series of remote sensing satellites which have helped in improving the use of remote sensing technology in the country for various applications, has completed one year in space. The first satellite in the series, Resourcesat-1, was launched in 2003 followed by Resourcesat-2 in 2011. Resourcesat-2A was launched in 7 December 2016. Both Resourcesat-2 and 2A in orbit have improved revisit capability giving continuous data with higher temporal resolution for various operational applications like crop production estimation, forest cover mapping, environmental applications, rural and urban development plans, geological applications, disaster management support and improved monitoring of inland water resources. Link: https://www.isro.gov.in

6 January 2018: A rare total lunar eclipse that involves the second full moon of the month, popularly referred to as a Blue Moon, is set to take place on January 31 for the first time in over 150 years. This will be the first eclipse of 2018. For some parts of Asia and India, the eclipse will already be under way as the moon rises. Central and eastern Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand and most of Australia will get a fine view of the Blue Moon. The duration of the total phase is 77 minutes, with the moon tracking through the southern part of the Earth’s shadow. The next Blue Moon will be on December 31, 2028, and, after that, on January 31, 2037. Both of these eclipses will be total. There was a partial eclipse of a Blue Moon on December 31, 2009, but the last total Blue Moon was on March 31, 1866. Link: http://www.moongiant.com

7 January 2018: With the declining levels of ozone-destroying chlorine, scientists have for the first time observed less ozone depletion. The findings showed that an international ban on chloro-fluoro-carbons (CFCs) has resulted in about 20 per cent less ozone depletion during the Antarctic winter from 2005 to 2016. Specifically, chlorine levels declined by an average about 0.8 per cent annually. The change in ozone levels above Antarctica from the beginning to the end of southern winter, early July to mid-September, was computed daily from the Microwave Limb Sounder aboard the Aura satellite. The ozone hole should continue to recover gradually as CFCs leave the atmosphere, but complete recovery will take decades. The study is published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com

8 January 2018: An amateur scientist has discovered the largest known prime number, calculated by multiplying 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one. On December 26 last year, Jonathan Pace - a 51-year old electrical engineer in the US - stumbled on to the largest known prime number, having 23,249,425 digits. The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. They were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. The primality proof for the new prime number took six days of computing. Link: https://www.newscientist.com

9 January 2018: NASA is set to launch a satellite that will examine the Earth's upper atmosphere to see how the boundary between our planet and space changes over time. The new mission, called Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD), will launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on January 25. The mission will focus on the temperature and makeup of Earth's highest atmospheric layers. Along with another upcoming satellite, called ICON, GOLD will examine how weather on Earth - and space weather caused by the Sun - affects those uppermost layers. For years, researchers have been studying the Earth's upper atmosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere, and observing them in detail from the ground and from low-Earth orbit missions. Link: http://gold.cs.ucf.edu

10 January 2018: A team led by an Indian-origin researcher has developed a new theory for how life on Earth may have begun. Their experiments demonstrate that key chemical reactions that support life today could have been carried out with ingredients likely present on the planet four billion years ago. Every aerobic organism, from flamingoes to fungi, relies on the citric acid cycle to release stored energy in cells. The study outlines how two non-biological cycles, called the HKG cycle and the malonate cycle, could have come together to kick-start a crude version of the citric acid cycle. The two cycles use reactions that perform the same fundamental chemistry of a-ketoacids and b-ketoacids as in the citric acid cycle. The study is published in Nature Communications. Link: http://gold.cs.ucf.edu

11 January 2018: A tear-free onion won't bring tears to the eyes. It has taken more than 30 years of work by crop scientists to produce the Sunion described as crunchy and full of sweetness. They are smaller than normal onions but if kept in a cool dark place can stay fresh for up to six months. Developed through natural cross-breeding and not genetic modification in a laboratory, the Sunion are only being grown by farmers in Nevada and Washington where the climate is ideal for the crop. are only being grown by farmers in Nevada and Washington where the climate is ideal for the crop. Slicing a traditional onion releases a volatile compound called lachrymatory-factor synthase which on contact with eyes triggers the body to produce tears to reduce the irritation. In standard onions, the amount of these compounds stays increases over time, but not in the case of Sunion. Link: http://www.iheartsunions.com

12 January 2018: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) today launched 31 satellites, including earth observation spacecraft Cartosat-2. The rocket was launched from the spaceport at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. This first space mission in 2018 on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) comes four months after a similar rocket failed to deliver the country's eighth navigation satellite in the earth's lower orbit on August 31. As an observational satellite, Cartosat-2 will beam high-quality images for topographical mapping, vegetation monitoring, aerosol scattering studies and cloud studies, urban and rural applications, coastal land use and utility management like road network monitoring. The rocket also carry Indian Nano satellite-1C, third in the Indian Nanosatellite series, carrying miniature multi-spectral technology. Link: https://www.isro.gov.in

13 January 2018: Scientists are planning to launch a small telescope into the Earth's orbit that will monitor the flares and sunspots of small stars to assess how habitable the environment is for planets orbiting them. The spacecraft, known as the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat, or SPARCS, is a new NASA-funded space telescope and will be launched in 2021. The mission, including spacecraft design, integration and resulting science, is led by Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE). The stars that SPARCS will focus on are small, dim, and cool by comparison to the Sun, called M-dwarf Star. A M-dwarf Star has at least one planet orbiting it, and about one system in four has a rocky planet located in the star's habitable zone. Link: https://asunow.asu.edu

14 January 2018: Robots will soon replace humans in cleaning sewer holes in Kerala, ending the age-old practice of manual scavenging in the state. Bandicoot, the robot developed by the startup firm Genrobotics, will be used for cleaning sewer holes. Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) signed an MoU for transfer of technology and products, including use of the robots for the purpose. Bandicoot will start its work, so far mostly done manually, by cleaning sewer holes in Thiruvananthapuram during the upcoming Attukal Pongala festival in March. Founded in 2015, Genrobotics specialises in powered exoskeletons and human controlled robotic systems. Bandicoot is powered by pneumatics as electronic mechanisms would react with explosive gases. Link: http://www.genrobotics.org

15 January 2018: As per Team Hakuto, the sole Japanese team competing for the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE competition, it would be difficult to launch its rover before the March 31 deadline as it received confirmation from TeamIndus that the Indian team and ISRO have not been able to agree on a launch date. The Indian space agency's PSLV rocket was to send both TeamIndus's and Hakuto's 'Sorato' rovers to the moon but the Indian team pulled out recently due to financial reasons. Both TeamIndus and Team Hakuto were participating in the competition, which envisaged the rovers landing on the moon by March 31, moving 500m on the surface transmitting hi-res videos and images to the ground stations. Synergy Moon, Moon Express and Space II were the other participants in the collaborative project. Link: https://team-hakuto.jp

31 January 2018:  Events will take place in the United States today to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the launch of the first spacecraft sent into space by the US. Explorer 1, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 31 January 1958. The Army Ballistic Missile Agency had been working on a launch system known as the Jupiter-C developed by Wernher von Braun. At the California Institute of Technology where a team led by William Pickering were building a satellite capable of carrying an experiment to measure the 'cosmic rays' around Earth developed by University of Iowa physicist James Van Allen. Explorer 1 and missions that came after it were responsible for the first space-based discovery: radiation belts around the Earth called the Van Allen Belts. Link: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov