Sunday, July 1, 2018

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: JULY 2018

Dr Chris Barnard with Louis Washkansky

1 July 2018: The Organ Transplant Bill passed in Indian Parliament in May 1994 legalized the organ transplants in India, enabling a team of doctors led by Dr. P. Venugopal to perform the first successful heart transplant in India on 3 August 1994 at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi. But the First Cardiac transplantation in India was performed by Dr. Prafulla Kumar Sen and his team in KEM Hospital, Bombay in February 1968. In fact, Sen had performed India’s first ever cardiac surgery, in 1952, to cure a rheumatic mitral valve. Sen became the fourth surgeon in the world to attempt a heart transplant, and he did it within three months of the world’s first heart transplant (by Chris Bernard on December 3, 1967). Though Sen's patient died soon after surgery, his achievement marks 50th anniversary of the actual Heart Transplanting event in the country. Link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

2 July 2018: The Kerala State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC) has identified Alappuzha, Palakkad, Wayanad and Idukki districts as climate change hotspots in the State, with a high degree of vulnerability to natural hazards like flood and drought, impacting on human life and biodiversity. According to the projected scenario, the atmospheric temperature in Kerala would rise by 2 degree Celsius by 2050. The minimum surface temperature in the Western Ghats region may rise by 2-4.5 degrees Celsius and the number of rainy days is likely to decrease along the entire western coast. If sea level rises by 1 metre, 169 sq.km. of the coastal region along Kochi would be inundated. Paddy production in Kerala would drop by 6% with each degree rise in temperature. Crops like Cardamom, Coffee, Tea and Black Pepper are also likely to be affected due to climate change. Link:http://www.moef.nic.in
 
3 July 2018: Scientists announced that they have recorded the coldest temperature ever on Earth. Using satellite data, researchers discovered that a series of valleys on an ice sheet in eastern Antarctica reached a temperature of minus 98 degrees Celsius (minus 144.4 degrees Fahrenheit). The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth was minus 89.2 degrees Celsius (minus128.6 degrees Fahrenheit) at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on July 21, 1983 by ground measurements. In Russia, Verkhoyansk was initially considered the coldest city in the world, and has the largest range of temperature on earth, at around 105° Celsius (189° Fahrenheit) between extremes. The city wanted to use this reputation to attract tourism, however the nearby city of Oymyakon which also lies within the Arctic Circle is now considered colder. The new discovery is published in Geophysical Research Letters. Link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com  


MOVIE OF THE MONTH: JULY 2018

This is not the Official Poster

Director : David Guy Levy    
Story      : David Guy Levy
Music    : Ohad Benchetrit    
Camera  : Matthew Chuang 

   
'Mandela effect' is a psychological sci-fi thriller The Mandela Effect, written by Steffen Schlachtenhaufen and Levy.  The movie follows a man who becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something much larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself. Principal photography is currently underway in Los Angeles. 


The Mandela effect is the pseudoscientific belief that some differences between one's memories and the real world are caused by changes to past events in the timeline. The name of the theory comes from many people feeling certain they could remember Nelson Mandela dying while he was still in prison back in the '80s. Contrary to what many thought, Mandela's actual death was on Dec. 5, 2013, despite some people claiming to remember seeing clips of his funeral on TV.
 

These false memories have some people thinking their memory sucks, but some wonder if they've gone to a parallel universe, or if time travelers have gone to the past and slightly affected our present, or if they're simply losing their freakin' minds. Whichever it is, what's most interesting about the Mandela effect is that so many individuals share the same false memories. Founded in 2004 by David Guy Levy, Periscope Entertainment is a Los Angeles based company.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: JULY 2018


Title         : The Role of Animals 
                   in Emerging Viral Diseases
Author     : Nicholas Johnson
Pages       : 364
Publisher : Academic Press
ISBN       : 9780124051911

Price        : £ 58.99

The Role of Animls in Emerging Viral Diseases presents what is currently known about the role of animals in the emergence or re-emergence of viruses including HIV-AIDS, SARS, Ebola, avian flu, swine flu, and rabies. It presents the structure, genome, and methods of transmission that influence emergence and considers non-viral factors that favor emergence, such as animal domestication, human demography, population growth, human behavior, and land-use changes.


When viruses jump species, the result can be catastrophic, causing disease and death in humans and animals. These zoonotic outbreaks reflect several factors, including increased mobility of human populations, changes in demography and environmental changes due to globalization. The threat of new, emerging viruses and the fact that there are no vaccines for the most common zoonotic viruses drive research in the biology and ecology of zoonotic transmission. 


The book analyzes the structure, molecular biology, current geographic distribution and methods of transmission of 10 viruses, provides a clear perspective on how events in wildlife, livestock, and even companion animals have contributed to virus outbreaks and epidemics, exemplifies the "one world, one health, one medicine" approach to emerging disease by examining events in animal populations as precursors to what could affect humans. The book include the following Chapters:


Chapter 1: Foot & Mouth Disease
Chapter 2: Canine Parvovirus
Chapter 3: Rabies
Chapter 4: Lassa virus
Chapter 5: Hendra virus
Chapter 6: West Nile virus
Chapter 7: Rift Valley fever virus
Chapter 8: SIV/HIV
Chapter 9: Hantavirus
Chapter 10: Nipah virus
Chapter 11: Synthesis

EVENT OF THE MONTH: JULY 2018

2018 marks the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela. Mandela Day falls every year on July 18, the day anti-apartheid revolutionary and former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was born.

The United Nations asks individuals around the world to mark Nelson Mandela International Day by making a difference in their communities. Everyone has the ability and the responsibility to change the world for the better.

Nelson Mandela was 95 when he passed away on December 5, 2013, but his spirit is still alive, encapsulated in his memorable words: what counts in life is not that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.
 

Event website: https://www.nelsonmandela.org

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: JULY 2018

Kingdom : Plantae
Division  : Angiosperms
Class       : Eudicots
Order      : Ericales
Family    : Balsaminaceae
Genus     : Impatiens
Species   : Impatiens dorjeekhanduii

Krishna Chowlu, a scientist with Botanical Survey of India (BSI), has named the newly discovered plant after the former chief minister Dorjee Khandu, as Impatiens dorjeekhanduii, to honour his contributions for the development of the state.

Impatiens dorjeekhanduii was discovered from a forest in Zemithang area of Tawang. It bears flowers which are white at the base and violet on the top. The plant belongs to the Balsaminaceae family.

Dr Chowlu from Namsai district is the only scientist in the BSI to be appointed from Arunachal Pradesh through UPSC. Apart from Chowlu, scientists Rajib Gogoi, SS Dash and Souravjyoti Borah of BSI had contributed in the study.

Impatiens is a genus of of flowering plants, belonging to Balsaminaceae, widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics. The new discovery is published in Nelumbo, the bulletin of Botanical Survey of India.

Link to full paper: http://www.nelumbo-bsi.org