SPECIES OF THE MONTH: NOVEMBER 2013

               Back to Nest, After a Long Way!  

Class   : Aves
Order  : Charadriiformes
Family : Glareolidae
Genus  : Rhinoptilus
Species: Rhinoptilus bitorquatus

The Jerdon’s Courser Rhinoptilus bitorquatus is a plover-like species which had been considered to be extinct for more than 80 years until it was rediscovered in the 1980s inhabiting a tiny area of land in the Andhra Pradesh region of Southern India. Its breeding habits are a mystery and its nest and eggs have never been found by ornithologists. 

The only egg known to exist of one of the world’s most critically endangered birds has been discovered.  Aberdeen University announced that the egg is coming from the nest of a Jerdon’s Courser has been found in a a century-old collection housed in a drawer at the institution’s Zoology museum. The egg was part of a small collection put together by Ernest Meaton, a veterinary surgeon working at the Kolar Gold Fields to the east of Bangalore, probably in 1917. 

The identification was only confirmed after DNA was extracted from dried up membrane very gently scraped from the inside of the egg. It was found to match DNA taken from the toe of a 140-year-old Jerdon’s Courser skin from Natural History Museum, Tring.

Source: http://www.abdn.ac.uk

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2013

1 October 2013: By October-end, Comet ISON is expected to be visible through the telescope through out India, and by November-end or first week of December, even to the naked eye, when the comet will be at its peak.Comet ISON, also called C/ 2012 S1, was discovered by Russian astronomers Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok using the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON) telescope, and hence named ISON. Presently, the comet ISON is about 10 in magnitude, and in the area of Leo. By the end of this month, it will be a good telescopic object and will continue to get better each morning as it brightens and climbs higher in the sky. Comets are dusty balls of ice and generally originate from the Kuiper belt, a region of icy small bodies beyond Neptune. The observations of the comet's progress so far will help in building a perspective in the evolution of solar system. Link: http://hubblesite.org

2 October 2013: Government of India will be setting up the world's largest solar power project, having a total generation capacity of 4,000 MW, in Rajasthan. The ultra mega green solar power project, whose idea has been mooted by the Heavy Industries Ministry, would be set up close to Sambhar Lake, the 23,000 acres area of which falls into Sambhar Salts Ltd, a subsidiary of central enterprise Hindustan Salts Ltd. Once fully implemented, the project would generate 6,000 million units of electricity annually. The first phase would be implemented through a joint venture company, whose stakeholders would be Bharat Heavy Electricals, Solar Energy Corporation, Power Grid Corporation, SJVN, SSL and Rajasthan Electronics and Instruments Ltd (REIL).The ambitious Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission aims to have about 20,000 MW of grid-connected solar power by 2022. Link: http://www.mnre.gov.in

3 October 2013: A Korean research team led by Professor Sang Yup Lee of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) reported, for the first time, the development of a novel strategy for microbial gasoline production through metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli (E. coli). Gasoline, the petroleum-derived product that is most widely used as a fuel for transportation, is a mixture of hydrocarbons, additives, and blending agents. The hydrocarbons, called alkanes, consist only of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Researchers engineered the fatty acid metabolism to provide the fatty acid derivatives that are shorter than normal intracellular fatty acid metabolites, and introduced a novel synthetic pathway for the bio-synthesis of short-chain alkanes, resulting in bio-gasoline. The study was published in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

4 October 2013: India launched its first indigenous vaccine to protect children from Japanese encephalitis. JENVAC is the first vaccine to be manufactured in the public-private partnership mode between the Indian Council of Medical Research and Bharat Biotech. Japanese encephalitis, a mosquito-borne viral infection. The disease was first recognized in India in 1955. The virus strain for this vaccine was isolated in Kolar, Karnataka, during the early 1980s and characterized by the National Institute of Virology at Pune. The strains were transferred to Bharat Biotech for further vaccine development.The results proved that JENVAC can be administered as a single dose during epidemics for mass vaccination campaigns and also as a two-dose schedule during routine immunisation as part of the National immunization programme. Until now, the country has been importing the vaccine from China. Link: http://www.bharatbiotech.com

5 October 2013: NASA’s next Mars orbiter, MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) will be blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 18th next month. It is designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. One of the stated mission goals is to possibly determine what caused atmospheric Martian water to be lost to space over time and the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space, providing answers about Martian climate evolution. By measuring the rate with which the atmosphere is currently escaping to space and gathering enough information about the relevant processes, scientists will be able to infer how the planet's atmosphere evolved over time. MAVEN is expected to reach Mars in 2014. By then, Curiosity rover will guide MAVEN's measurements. MAVEN's measurements will also help to analyse current methane formation in Mars. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

6 October 2013: Satellite-based advanced technology called Geographic Information System (GIS) will be used to monitor mustard crop in various parts of India. Mustard crop is the first major oilseed crop in India being selected for this purpose. Geographic Information System (GIS) will gather information through satellite and act as a third eye to provide information on spatial distribution of mustard crop, production and estimates, weather forecasting and market price fluctuations. It will be implemented in the major mustard producing states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. In India, mustard is the third largest produced oilseed after soybean and groundnut. Mustard seed is the second largest produced oilseed in the world and is the third leading source of edible oil after palm and soy oils. Link: http://www.ccdmd.qc.ca 

7 October 2013: A trio of scientists have won the Nobel Medicine Prize 2013 for plotting how cells transfer vital materials such as hormones and brain chemicals to other cells, giving insight into diseases such as Alzheimer's, Autism and Diabetes. Americans James Rothman and Randy Schekman, and German-born Thomas Suedhof, separately mapped out one of the body's critical networks in which tiny bubbles known as vesicles enable cells to secrete chemicals such as insulin into the surrounding environment. Their research on how cells transport material around sheds light on how insulin, which controls blood sugar levels, is made and released into the blood at the right place at the right time. Diabetes and some brain disorders have been attributed at least in part to defects in the vesicle transport systems. Nobel Prize on Medicine is the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Link: http://www.nobelprize.org

8 October 2013: Britain's Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium have won the Nobel Prize for physics for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson that explains how elementary matter attained the mass. Without the Higgs mechanism all particles would travel at the speed of light and atoms would not exist. Half a century after the original prediction, Higgs boson was finally detected in 2012 at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The Higgs boson was theoretically essential for the existance of the Standard Model of physics that describes the fundamental make-up of the universe. Higgs' and Englert's work shows how elementary particles inside atoms gain mass by interacting with an invisible field (Higgs Field)  and the more they interact, the heavier they become. The particle associated with the field is the Higgs boson. Link: http://www.nobelprize.org

9 October 2013: Martin Karplus of Harvard University, Michael Levitt of Stanford University and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California shared this years this year's Nobel prize in chemistry for developing a way for researchers to simulate chemical reactions in computers. During the 1970s they built computer programs that could accurately simulate lightning-fast chemical reactions and give scientists insights into how atoms and molecules interact with each other in the real world. Over subsequent decades their work has been used among countless other things, to examine the chemical reactions that enable proteins to work in the body's cells, how catalysts clean car exhausts and to design better drugs. This prize highlights the increasing role that theoretical and computational chemistry are playing in science, with the combined approach of both classical and quantum physics. Link: http://www.nobelprize.org

10 October 2013: The government shutdown in Washington has forced US bases in Antarctica into "caretaker" mode and the suspension of research efforts. Under caretaker status, the USAP will be staffed at a minimal level to ensure human safety and preserve government property, including the three primary research stations, ships and associated research facilities.Funds to provide logistical support for the US Antarctic Program (USAP) has dried up early next week and contractors have been ordered to scale back operations. The US has three Antarctic bases studying topics ranging from climate change to penguin populations. It is believed that non-essential personnel will be transported to the USAP's support base in Christchurch, New Zealand, while the funding freeze continues. The shutdown would however disrupt fieldwork essential for gathering scientific data. Link: http://www.nsf.gov

11 October 2013: Juno, the Nasa spacecraft bound for Jupiter will swing by Earth to get the boost it needs to arrive at the giant gas planet in 2016. Using Earth as a gravitational slingshot is a common trick since there isn't a rocket that's powerful enough to catapult a spacecraft directly to the outer solar system. Launched in 2011, the Juno spacecraft zipped past the orbit of Mars and fired its engines to put it on course for a momentum-gathering flyby of Earth. During the manoeuvre, Juno will briefly pass into Earth's shadow and emerge over India's east coast. At closest approach, Juno will fly within 350 563 kilometres of the Earth's surface, passing over the ocean off the coast of South Africa shortly before 12.30pm (local time). The rendezvous was designed to bump Juno's speed from 125,500 kmph relative to the sun to 140,000kmph enough power to cruise beyond the asteroid belt toward its destination. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

12 October 2013: World Health Organization (WHO) approved a vaccine that protects children from Japanese encephalitis (JE), a deadly brain infection that has claimed several hundreds of lives in the last six years. The live, attenuated JE vaccine, known as SA 14-14-2,  manufactured in China in partnership with global health organization PATH, will make the vaccine more affordable since it paves the way for international funding.  WHO pre-qualification is a critical step in expanding access to this lifesaving vaccine. The decision allows United Nations' procurement agencies to purchase the vaccine and serves as an endorsement of quality for countries interested in adopting it. During the first year of the immunization campaigns in 2006, more than nine million children in India were protected from JE. Children who survive JE are often left with severe neurological damage. Link: http://www.who.int

13 October 2013: If global temperatures rise by four to five degrees, a major portion of the city of Cochin in Kerala will be under the sea, warn experts. The study was conducted as part of the project, Asian Cities Adapt - Impacts of Climate Change in Target Cities in India and the Philippines, cordinated by European Secretariat of International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). A large area of the city will go under the Arabian Sea if global temperature will rise by 4-5 degree celsius. However, this represents a worst-case-scenario if global greenhouse gas emissions go unchecked and no mitigation and adaptation steps are taken.The project was intended to identify the impacts of climate change in four Indian cities, Kochi, Madurai, Vishakapatanam, and Howrah as well as four cities in the Philippines. The project was launched in February 2010 and will conclude by November. Link: http://www.iclei.org

14 October 2013: Global warming is expected to increase the severity of droughts and floods due to El Niño in the tropical Pacific, new research has found.During El Niño, the ocean surface temperature in the eastern Pacific warms and this leads to droughts in the western tropical Pacific and floods in the eastern part. This in turn has an impact on agriculture, economic activity and even human health. Power and colleagues looked at the latest generation of world climate models and found that climate change is expected to intensify El Niño's effects. While ENSO is a phenomenon centred in the tropical Pacific, it affects the weather in other parts of the world via a series of atmospheric "chain reactions", which the latest research does not cover. Dr Scott Power, from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research, and colleagues, report their findings today in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

15 October 2013: Today is Ada Lovelace Day, the day dedicated to the memory of Ada Lovelace who in 1842, wrote the first computer program. Ada Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Because of this, she is often described as the world's first computer programmer. It was only in 1953, over one hundred years after her death, Ada's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished. But even now, women software developers earn 80% of what men with the same jobs earn. Just 18% of computer science degrees are awarded to women, which was 37% in 1985. Less than 5% of computer IT start-ups are founded by women. Link: http://findingada.com

16 October 2013: Scientists at the California Department of Public Health have discovered a new type of botox, the protein by the soil bacterium Clostridium botulinum. It is believed to be the “deadliest substance known to man” and have withheld the DNA sequence because an antidote is not known. It is the first time the scientific community has made such a move to withhold such information but security concerns have dictated that they do so. Just 2 billionths of a gram, or inhaling 13 billionths of a gram, of Botulinum can kill an adult. Botulinum blocks the release of acetylcholine, the chemical secreted by nerves that makes muscles work. Victims are treated with antibodies that are produced artificially and react with the seven families of Botulinum, named A to G, discovered so far. Now discovered is the eighth toxin, type H, which has no antitoxins developed so far. Link: http://www.cdph.ca.gov

17 October 2013: The fossilised skull of Homo erectus that died nearly two million years ago has forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution. Anthropologists unearthed the skull at a site in Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, where other remains of human ancestors, have been found. Experts believe the skull is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, when our predecessors first walked out of Africa. The remains at Dmanisi are thought to be early forms of Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have body proportions like a modern human. The species arose in Africa around 1.8 million years ago and may have been the first to harness fire and cook food. The Dmanisi fossils show that Homo erectus migrated as far as Asia soon after arising in Africa. The fossil is described in the latest issue of Science. Link: http://www.sciencemag.org

18 October 2013: Research by Professor Bryan Sykes, a geneticist from the University of Oxford, has found a genetic link between Yeti, the fabled apelike creature said to inhabit the upper ranges of the Himalayas, and ancient Polar Bear. Professor Sykes conducted DNA tests on hairs from two unidentified animals, one found in the western Himalayan region of Ladakh, in northern India, and the other from Bhutan.The results were then compared with other animals’ genomes stored on a database of all published DNA sequences. Professor Sykes found a 100 per cent match with a sample from an ancient polar bear jawbone found in Svalbard, Norway. Professor Sykes believes that the animals are hybrids, crosses between polar bears and brown bears. Because the newly identified samples are from creatures which are recently alive, he thinks the hybrids are still living in Himalayas. Link: https://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk 

19 October 2013: A new study that decoded the DNA sequence of the Kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis )  has concluded that the fruit has many genetic similarities between its 39,040 genes and other plant species, including potatoes and tomatoes. Kiwifruit originated from the mountains and ranges of southwestern China and was not really known to the world until the early 20th century, when farmers in New Zealand discovered the fruit and began breeding it as a commercial crop. The study also has unveiled two major evolutionary events that occurred millions of years ago in the kiwifruit genome. The kiwifruit has long been called ‘the king of fruits’ because of its remarkably high vitamin C content and balanced nutritional composition of minerals, dietary fiber and other health-benefits. The study conducted by a team scientists from Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell, was published in Nature Communications. Link: http://www.nature.com

20 October 2013: Fossilised dinosaur bones and eggs have been discovered from the Salbardi area, in eastern Maharashtra. The discoveries have been made after nearly six years of efforts by a team led by A.K.Srivastava and his doctorate student R.S.Mankar, both from the Department of Geology, SGB Amravati University. The remains were found in the sedimentary rocks, geologically known as 'Lameta Formation' deposited during the Maastrichtian (Late Cretaceous) period. During that period, a species of dinosaur, Titanosaurus colberti inhabited the region and laid eggs. However, this is not the first dinosaur remains found in India and earlier. There have been discoveries from Nagpur, Chandrapur, and now Amravati in the state. Besides, more finds have been made in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh and Kheda district of Gujarat. The discovery is published in the journal Current Science. Link: http://www.currentscience.ac.in

21 October 2013: National Institute of Agro-biological Sciences, a Japan-based research institute, has selected the butterfly park situated at the foothills of the Western Ghats in Thumburmuzhi near Chalakudy river, to conduct a detailed study on the butterflies in India.The park is home to over 180 species of colourful winged insects. The butterfly garden spread over 10 acres of land near the Athirapilly waterfall, is attracting hundreds of butterfly enthusiasts every day by providing a panoramic view of the lush green cover of the rain forest situated on either sides of the falls and garden. Earlier, scientists had spotted Papilio Buddha and Moonlight butterfly, which are endangered species, in the park. Selecting the Thumburmuzhi butterfly garden as a research station may attract more attention from  butterfly enthusiasts around the world and other research institutes.Link: http://www.nias.affrc.go.jp

22 October 2013: Udayan Rao Pawar, a 14-year-old Indian boy, has bagged this year's 'Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award'. He shot the fresh water crocodile (Gharial) in Chambal river in Madhya Pradesh with hatchlings on its head. The awards are one of the most prestigious competitions in world photography, held annually by Natural History Museum and BBC 'Wildlife Magazine' in London. This year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year is South African artist Gred du Toit, who won over the judges with his photograph of an African elephant from Botswana.Images for the contest, now in its 49th year, are submitted anonymously by professional and amateur photographers alike.They are selected for their creativity, artistry and technical complexity and must be submitted as a raw file with no manipulations.The 2013 winners beat 43,000 entries submitted from 96 countries. Link: http://www.nhm.ac.uk

23 October 2013: Large-scale, deep re-sequencing of 115 cucumbers worldwide has led to the creation of a genomic variation map for the vegetable that includes 3.6 million variants. In 2009, cucumbers became the seventh plant to have its genome sequence published, and in addition to being an agricultural product, it also serves as a model system for both sex determination and plant vascular biology.The authors, who hail from the Genome Centre of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), could detect a total of more than 3.3 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), or DNA sequence variations occurring when a lone nucleotide in the genome differs between members, over 330,000 small insertions and deletions (indels) and nearly 600 presence-absence variations (PAVs). The study was published in Nature Genetics. Link: http://www.nature.com

24 October 2013: Scientists have now found the world's first vegetarian Piranha. Strictly herbivorous, this kind of Piranha inhabits the rocky rapids of the Amazon where its main source of food like aquatic herbs (Riverweed family) is found. The find is among 441 new species of animals and plants discovered over the past four years in the Amazon rainforest.  Discovered by a diverse number of scientists and compiled for the first time by WWF, the new species add up to at an astounding 258 plants, 84 fish, 58 amphibians, 22 reptiles, 18 birds and 1 mammal. The study was led by the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in South Holland, Netherlands. It is said that almost all trees in the Amazon have now got a scientific name. This will be a very valuable information for further research. But the bad news is, the 11,000 species known made up only 0.12% of tree cover. Link: https://science.naturalis.nl

25 October 2013: Astronomers have taken a new look at the coldest known object in the Universe-the 'Boomerang Nebula'. Using the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) telescope, they observed this strange object located 5000 light years away. The temperature of Boomerang is an incredible minus 272 degrees Celsius (minus 458 degrees Fahrenheit , the lowest in the whole known Universe. It is lower than the natural background temperature of space as exhibited by the cosmic microwave background radiation, the faint afterglow of the Big Bang.The researchers were able to take the temperature of the gas in the nebula by seeing how it absorbed the cosmic microwave background radiation, which has a very uniform temperature of minus 270.2 degrees Celsius (minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit). Link: http://www.almaobservatory.org

26 October 2013: A scientific team led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have found that bioinformatically optimised HIV vaccine antigens may help design a global HIV vaccine. Based on studies conducted in monkeys, the researchers demonstrated for the first time that mosaic HIV vaccine antigens can afford partial protection in rhesus monkeys against challenges with a stringent simian-human immunodeficiency virus. These mosaic vaccine antigens have been developed for optimal immunologic coverage of global HIV diversity.Although most animals immunised with the mosaic HIV vaccine became infected by the end of the study, the researchers observed an 87 to 90 per cent reduction in monkeys' probability of becoming infected. The monkeys also mounted cellular immune responses to the virus. The study was published in the journal Cell. Link: http://www.bidmc.org

27 October 2013: The satellite, Gravity Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) launched by European Space Agency to monitor  Earth’s gravity field since 2009, ran out of fuel today and eventually crash, with little risk to humans, according to the Space Agency. The pressure in the orbiter’s tank is expected to drop to zero, but the engine will likely stop working before then. About 40 to 50 fragments with a combined mass of 250 kg are projected to hit our planet within weeks. Not yet known is when and where the fragments will impact over the ocean or on land. GOCE was launched into orbit in March 2009 at an altitude of 260 km. It has stayed due to its unusual aerodynamic shape and an ion propulsion system. When it runs out fuel completely, the satellite will start losing altitude and would become eventually de-orbit. Most of the spacecraft will break up at an altitude of about 80 km. Link: http://www.esa.int

28 October 2013: Chinese researchers have developed a vaccine for H7N9 bird flu virus. This is the first influenza vaccine ever developed by Chinese scientists. The vaccine has provided important technical support to battle the new flu strain, making contribution to the H7N9 flu virus epidemic control all over the world. The vaccine has been jointly developed by the First Affiliated Hospital under the School of Medicine of the Zhejiang University, Hong Kong University, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Food and Drug Control, and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. China reported the world's first human case for H7N9 bird flu infection in March. A total of 136 people were confirmed to have been infected with H7N9 bird flu virus, of which 45 died, representing a fatality rate of about 33 per cent. Link: http://www.who.int

29 October 2013: As the countdown to India's maiden Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) begins, India hopes to become the fourth nation in the world to reach Mars. The following Indian scientists contributed to Mangalyaan mission: K. Radhakrishnan, Chairman ISRO, Secretary in Department of Space. S. Ramakrishnan, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and Member Launch Authorisation Board. M. Annadurai, Programme Director, Mars Orbiter Mission. A.S. Kiran Kumar, Director, Satellite Application Centre. M.Y.S.Prasad, Director, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Chairman, Launch Authorisation Board. S.K. Shivakumar, Director, ISRO Satellite Centre.P. Kunhikrishnan, Project Director, PSLV programme, S. Arunan, Project Director, Mars Orbiter Mission, B. Jayakumar, Associate Project Director, PSLV Project. M.S.Pannirselvam, Chief General Manager, Range Operation Director at Sriharikota. Link: http://www.isro.org

30 October 2013: Today marks the 75th anniversary broadcast to celebrate one of the most significant events in the history of radio - the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles famous radio adaptation of the 1898 science fiction classic 'The War of the Worlds', originally written by H.G. Wells. The now famous Orson Welles radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds was performed as a Halloween episode of the American radio drama anthology series, by the Mercury theatre of the air, and broadcast by CBS from Madison Avenue in New York City on October 30, 1938, the night before Halloween. To increase its realism, the first two thirds of the hour long play was presented as a rolling radio news broadcast. Despite clear identification at the start of the broadcast, anyone tuning in after the program commenced, heard what to many sounded like an actual alien invasion was underway. Link: http://www.mercurytheatre.info

31 October 2013: India's ambitious Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), 'Mangaalyan' will be launched on November 5 from the first launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota. The correct time of lift-off is 14:36 hrs IST on Tuesday, November 5, 2013. The powerful XL version of the Indian Space Research Organisation's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) would be used for the Rs.450 crore mission. 'Mangalyaan' will carry compact science experiment instruments, totalling a mass of 15 kg. There will be five instruments to seek whether there is methane, considered a precursor chemical for life, on the red planet. After leaving the earth's orbit, 'Mangalyaan' will cruise in deep space for about ten months using its own propulsion system and will reach Martian transfer trajectory in September 2014, to enter into an elliptical orbit around Mars.Link: http://www.isro.org

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2013

Director: Andrew Will

Story: Andrew Will

Screenplay: Andrew Will

Cinematography: Bridger Nielson

Country: United States

Language: English

A team of independent filmmakers known as The Bandito Brothers has released the first full-length trailer for a new genre project dubbed The Prototype. This sci-fi adventure film follows the escape and fight to freedom of an experimental artificial being originally designed for the military. While the machine runs from the armed forces, the creator of the ‘drone’ struggles with his own demons, including the imminent death of his wife.

The effects look fantastic, especially considering that it doesn’t come from a major studio, and really, who doesn’t love a good Pinocchio story? Frankly, it’s encouraging to see this kind of independent filmmaking. The Bandito Brothers are one of the studios working to prove that good films, even genre films, do not have to cost millions and millions of dollars to produce, and they definitely help give heart to indie producers everywhere.

Although the film is complete, it is  still shopping for a distribution partner. Until then, however, a release date has yet to be set.

Courtesy: http://www.tgdaily.com

BOOK OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2013

                                                              
Title: Five Billion Years of Solitude:                             The Search for Life Among the Stars 
Author: Lee Billings 
Pages: 304 
Publisher: Penguin Random House 
Published: November 2013
Price: 1,411/-
ISBN: 10: 1617230065

Since its formation nearly five billion years ago, our planet has been the sole living world in a vast and silent universe. Now, Earth’s isolation is coming to an end. Over the past two decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of 'exoplanets' orbiting other stars, including some that could be similar to our own world. Studying those distant planets for signs of life will be crucial to understanding life's intricate mysteries right here on Earth. In a firsthand account of this unfolding revolution, Lee Billings draws on interviews with top researchers. He reveals how the search for other Earth-like planets is not only a scientific pursuit, but also a reflection of our culture’s timeless hopes, dreams, and fears. This is a compelling story of the pioneers seeking the meaning of life in the infinite depths of space.

For 4.6 billion years our living planet has been alone in a vast and silent universe. But soon, Earth’s isolation could come to an end. Over the past two decades, astronomers have discovered thousands of planets orbiting other stars. Some of these exoplanets may be mirror images of our own world. And more are being found all the time.Yet as the pace of discovery quickens, an answer to the universe’s greatest riddle still remains just out of reach: Is the great silence and emptiness of the cosmos a sign that we and our world are somehow singular, special, and profoundly alone, or does it just mean that we’re looking for life in all the wrong places? As star-gazing scientists come closer to learning the truth, their insights are proving ever more crucial to understanding life’s intricate mysteries and possibilities right here on Earth.

Through these and other captivating tales, Billings traces the triumphs, tragedies, and betrayals of the extraordinary men and women seeking life among the stars. In spite of insu cient funding, clashing opinions, and the failings of some of our world’s most prominent and powerful scientifi c organizations, these planet hunters will not rest until they fi nd the meaning of life in the infi nite depths of space. Billings emphasizes that the heroic quest for other Earth-like planets is not only a scientifi c pursuit, but also a refl ection of our own culture’s timeless hopes and fears.
Science journalist Lee Billings explores the past and future of the  exoplanet boom” through in-depth reporting and interviews with the astronomers and planetary scientists at its forefront. He recounts the stories behind their world-changing discoveries and captures the pivotal moments that drove them forward in their historic search for the fi rst habitable planets beyond our solar system. Billings brings readers close to a wide range of fascinating characters, such as:

FRANK DRAKE, a pioneer who has used the world’s greatest radio telescopes to conduct the first searches for extraterrestrial intelligence and to transmit a message to the stars so powerful that it briefly outshone our Sun.

JIM KASTING, a mild-mannered former NASA scientist whose research into the Earth’s atmosphere and climate reveals the deepest foundations of life on our planet, foretells the end of life on Earth in the distant future, and guides the planet hunters in their search for alien life.

SARA SEAGER, a visionary and iron-willed MIT professor who dreams of escaping the solar system and building the giant space telescopes required to discover and study life-bearing planets around hundreds of the Sun’s neighboring stars.

Review Courtesy: http://www.scientificamerican.com
                               http://www.goodreads.com

EVENT OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2013

NOBEL PRIZE 2013

Nobel Prizes of 2013 were announced over several days beginning from October 7. This year, the award for Physiology or Medicine was announced on October 7; the award for Physics was announced on October 8; the award for Chemistry was announced on October 9; the award for Peace was announced on October 12; and the award for Economic Sciences was announced on October 14. The awards announcements were webcast live on NobelPrize.org. The prizes will be distributed in December at a formal ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden while the Peace Prize will be awarded in Oslo, Norway. 

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE: The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE: Canada's Alice Munro, often called "Canada's Chekhov". Notable works: 'The Moons of Jupiter',  'The Progress of Love' and 'Runaway'.

NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY:  Martin Karplus of the University of Strasbourg, France, and Harvard University; Michael Levitt of the Stanford University School of Medicine, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS: Peter Higgs of Britain and Francois Englert of Belgium.

NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE:  Americans James E. Rothman of Yale and Randy W. Schekman of the University of California and German-American Dr. Thomas C. Sudhof of the Stanford University School of Medicine. 

Link: http://www.nobelprize.org

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: OCTOBER 2013

GOLD IN EUCALYPTUS TREE

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Angiosperms
Class: Dicots
Order: Myrtales
Family: Myrtaceae
Genus: Eucalyptus
Species: Eucalyptus marginata

Eucalyptus could become a prospector's best friend: a team of researchers led by Melvyn Lintern of Australia's national science agency CSIRO, have proved that Eucalyptus tree leaves contain tiny gold particles drawn from deep underground. The study is published in Nature Communications.

The researchers found it on eucalyptus trees that are growing at the Freddo Gold Prospect in western Australia. This place has higher than average gold concentrations and it is undisturbed by mining. Eucalyptus trees, the researchers believe, are drawing gold from 35 meters below ground, then pushing it out to the leaves to reduce its poisonous effects.

The actual amount of gold in each leaf is negligible: the particles as so small that the leaves from 500 trees over a deposit would only be enough to make a wedding ring. But as gold discovery had dropped sharply over the past decade and new sites have become progressively more expensive to find, eucalyptus leaves could serve as a naturally occurring sample collector, bringing minerals from depths of over a hundred feet.

News Courtesy: http://www.theverge.com
Full Paper: http://www.nature.com

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2013

1 September 2013: An international team of scientists working at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany , have confirmed the existence of a new super-heavy element, 'Ununpentium' for its position at the 115th spot on the periodic table. First proposed by Russian scientists back in 2004, the new element has an atomic number of 115. It presently has an atomic symbol of Uup. The researchers  fired a beam of Calcium, into a piece of Americium, to get 'Ununpentium' which had 115 protons. Before the element is officially added to the periodic table, it needs to be confirmed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), granding an official name to it. Livermorium (atomic number 116) and Flerovium (atomic number 114) are the most recent elements added to the periodic table, in May 2012. The new discovery is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. Link:http://prl.aps.org
 
2 September 2013: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has used autonomous navigation software called or 'autonav' for the first time, a capability that lets the rover decide for itself how to drive safely on the red planet. Curiosity is now en route to Mount Sharp, where geological layers hold information about environmental changes on ancient Mars. Curiosity can analyse images it takes during a drive to calculate a safe driving path. This enables it to proceed safely even beyond the area that the human rover drivers on Earth can evaluate ahead of time. The drive began on August 27, the mission's 376th Martian day. After landing inside Gale Crater in August 2012, Curiosity spent nearly two months in 'Glenelg' area, where it worked for the first half of 2013. Curiosity was designed and built by JPL, a division of Caltech, which manages it for NASA. Link: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov
 
3 September 2013: Frederik Pohl, the American writer, who over decades gained a reputation of being a sophisticated writer of science fiction, has died. He was 93.Pohl died at an Illinois hospital after experiencing respiratory problems at his home in the Chicago suburb of Palatine. His death was first announced by his granddaughter, Emily Pohl-Weary, in a tweet. Born in New York City in 1919, Pohl became a literary agent and an editor before getting his own work published in science fiction magazines of the 1930s. His first published work, the 1937 poem "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna". During 1936, Pohl joined the Young Communist League. A prolific writer, two of Pohl's better known works were "The Space Merchants,'' written in the early 1950s with Cyril M. Kornbluth, and 1978's "Gateway'' a winner of the Hugo Award for science fiction. Link: http://www.frederikpohl.com

4 September 2013: Astronomers led by Jorge Melendez at at the Universidade de Sao Paulo in Brazil, discovered the oldest 'solar twin' named HIP 102152. Scientists believe that only the study of other stars akin to the Sun could help to discover how the evolution of the Sun took place. The stars akin to Sun could be categorized into three, viz. solar analogues, solar-type stars and solar twins. 'Solar twins' are similar to the Earth's star in varied terms, including temperature, mass and profusion of different chemicals such as Lithum which they destroy as they age. The Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory in Chile was behind the discovery. Two solar twins, viz. 18 Scorpii and HIP 102152, in particular, were studied by Jorge Melendez and colleagues so that the age and chemical compositions of the stars could be identified. Link: http://www.eso.org
 
5 September 2013: A group of scientists from the National Geophysical Research Institute is one step closer to actually viewing earthquakes and find out what triggers them. A pioneering deep-earth study underway in the Koyna-Warna region of Maharashtra will lead to improved earthquake prediction.The Koyna-Warna region is known for frequent seismic activity, attributed to changes in water levels in water reservoirs present in the region.The objective of the study is to drill holes to depths of 8km to directly visualize and measure rock changes during earthquakes. Fifty researchers from NGRI recently concluded gravity gradeometery studies to get a closer look at Earth's interior, again a first of its kind in the country. Earlier this year,  the research team drilled two holes to depths of 1.5km and retrieved samples. Link: http://www.ngri.org.in
 
6 September 2013: The hole in the earth's stratospheric ozone layer over Antarctica is closing slowly and should be completely recovered in the later half of this century, but its effect on global climate change is still uncertain, as per Dr Adrian McDonald, from University of Canterbury in New Zealand . As per him, the depleted stratospheric ozone might have indirectly protected Antarctica from greenhouse gas-related warming. Ozone recovery should act to move the winds back towards the equator, but greenhouse gases might counteract this effect on the jet-stream positions, which help to control the width of tropical and polar weather belts. The Montreal Protocol, which entered into force in 1989, effectively banned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). It is estimated that if the protocol is adhered to, then the ozone layer will repair itself by 2050. Link: http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz
 
7 September 2013: Earth's largest volcano and possibly the second largest in the solar system, has been discovered at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The volcano dubbed Tamu Massif, is located about 1,609 km east of Japan. It covers an area about 310,798 square kms, while Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth, is only about  5,179 square kms in area. Olympus Mons on Mars, the largest known volcano in our solar system, is only about 25 per cent larger by volume than Tamu Massif. Tamu Massif is the biggest single shield volcano ever discovered on Earth. It forms the largest feature of Shatsky Rise, an underwater mountain range formed 130 to 145 million years ago. Tamu Massif, which became inactive within a few million years after it was formed. The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience. Link: http://www.nature.com
 
8 September 2013: The Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) will start power generation in 20 days from the day the reactor attains criticality again. The scientists said KKNPP had permission for generating up to 500 MW and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) showed green signal to start the power production up to 500 MW in the first unit. But, the fine tuning works for equipment like cooling system, turbine, water pumps and desalination plant and valves are delayed. The reactor has attained criticality for four times till from July 14. Now, the reactor is being kept in the hot condition, but in a sub critical position. Again, the criticality process will be started only after the fine tuning works.Once  criticality process starts, the heat level of the turbine will be increased to 900 MW to generate 300 MW power in 15 days. Link: http://www.npcil.nic.in
 
9 September 2013: NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) aimed at scientific study of the moon’s atmosphere and lunar dust, lifted off today from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA Wallops Flight Facility. The mission is one of many firsts. It will mark the first lunar mission launched from Wallops and the first flown by Orbital Sciences Corp.; the first flight of Orbital’s Minotaur V rocket comprised of converted intercontinental ballistic missile motors belonging to the Air Force, launched from Wallops; the first five-stage rocket flown by Orbital; and the first test of a high-speed laser communications system. Minotaur V rocket, comprised of converted intercontinental ballistic missile motors belonging to the Air Force. LADEE is the first spacecraft designed and built at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
 
10 September 2013: For the first time in the history of India’s space flights, two civilian ships will play a supporting role in India’s forthcoming Orbiter Mission. In the earlier 'Space Capsule Recovery Experiment Mission', a naval ship was used. As per, B S Chandrasekhar, Director of ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network ( ISTRAC), Shipping Corporation of India's 'Yamuna' and 'Nalanda' ships will be positioned in the South Pacific Ocean. They will depart from will depart for the South Pacific Ocean from Visakhapatnam on September 15 and will support the mission during the launch phase. The launch is slated for lift-off between October 21 and November 19 from Sriharikota. The orbiter is set to be moved to Sriharikota on September 27. The first signal of the Mars orbiter insertion will be acquired by NASA's Deep Space Network in Australia. Link: http://www.istrac.org
 
11 September 2013: NASA has lost radio contact with the Deep Impact spacecraft that hunted for planets beyond the solar system. The last radio communications with the spacecraft were on August 8, and recent attempts to contact the probe have failed. Deep Impact was launched in January 2005 for a close-up study of a Comet, Tempel 1. As the probe's name implies, the primary mission, which took place in July 2005, involved the release of 379kg metal slug that tore into the comet's nucleus, raising a plume of materials to analyze. Five years later, Deep Impact sailed to a second comet, Hartley 2. It was 'Deep Impact' that returned thevery  first images of ISON, the newly discovered comet, in January 2013. With no more fuel left, the probe has been heading towards 2002 GT, the only target it could reach, an asteroid approaching Earth. Link: http://www.nasa.gov
 
12 September 2013: Ray Milton Dolby, an American engineer and inventor of the noise reduction system known as Dolby NR is dead. He was 80. Dr. Dolby founded Dolby Laboratories in 1965 and created an environment where scientists and engineers continue to advance the science of sight and sound to make entertainment and communications more engaging. Dr. Dolby's pioneering work in noise reduction and surround sound led to the development of many state-of-the-art technologies, for which he holds more than 50 U.S. patents. In the 48 years since Dr. Dolby founded Dolby Laboratories, the company has transformed the entertainment experience from the cinema to the living room. The industry has awarded Dolby Laboratories with 10 Academy Awards and 13 Emmy Awards for its achievements.Link:http://www.dolby.com

13 September 2013: Iran's hunt for its next animal astronaut may turn to the distinctive and locally named Persian cat, in another possible step by the country's ambitious aerospace programme that has also raised Western concerns about spillover military applications.The report by the official IRNA news agency comes seven months after Iran claimed it launched a monkey out of Earth's atmosphere and successfully returned it home. In 2010, Iranian officials said it sent a mouse, a turtle and some worms on a space flight, part of the country's goals of sending a human into space by 2018 and becoming a leading tech centre for the Islamic world. Ebrahimi said Iran's next space capsule could carry the Persian cat, a long-haired , flat-faced breed named after Iran's former name of Persia. Link: http://en.irna.ir/
 
14 September 2013: Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine, including Indian-origin researchers, have for the first time discovered that Down syndrome may be linked to faulty stem cell regulation in the body. Although the gene, called Usp16, is unlikely to be the only contributor to the disease, the finding raises the possibility of an eventual therapy based on reducing its expression, which is a good hope. As per the researchers, Usp16 overexpression is a major contributor to the neurological deficits seen in Down syndrome. Down syndrome, which is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21, affects about 6 million people worldwide. It causes both physical and cognitive problems.The finding marks the first time Down syndrome has been linked to stem cells, and addresses some long-standing mysteries about the disorder. The study was published in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com

15 September 2013: An international team led by South Korea's Personal Genomics Institute and BGI unraveled the first whole genome of Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), and compared it with the genomes of other big cats including the white Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), Lion(Panthera leo) and Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) . The genomic data provides an invaluable resource for the future studies of big cats and their whole family's conservation.The Amur tiger genome is the first reference genome sequenced from the Panthera lineage and the second from the Felidae species. The genome sequencing was part of the agreement made in 2010 at a Tiger Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. The latest study was published in Nature Communication.Link: http://www.nature.com
 
16 September 2013: In today’s Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, Stanford geneticist Stanley N. Cohen, MD, reflects on his role, together with that of Herbert Boyer, PhD, (then at the University of California, San Francisco), in a series of events 40 years ago that led to the first instances of 'DNA cloning' and an explosion in the fields of genetics, biotechnology and medicine. In 1972 researchers, including Boyer, realized that the enzyme EcoRI, which had actually been discovered in Boyer’s UCSF lab, cut DNA in such a way that one severed piece latch on to another piece possessing complementary cuts. November 1972 found both Boyer and Cohen in Hawaii giving papers at a U.S.-Japan joint meeting on plasmids. Link: http://scopeblog.stanford.edu
 
17 September 2013: This year's Ig Nobel Prizes were announced. This is the 23rd year for the Ig Nobel Prize, sponsored by the science humour magazine Annals of Improbable Research and given out to honour weird and humorous scientific discoveries. The awards ceremonies are usually silly, and this year's was no different.  An experiment that proved people who think they are drunk also think they are attractive and another that showed lost dung beetles can use the Milky Way to find their way home won the joint prize in biology and astronomy, given to Marie Dacke and others. Other winners included Brian Crandall of the US and Peter Stahl of Canada and the US, who parboiled a dead shrew, then swallowed it without chewing so they could examine their excrement to see which bones would dissolve in the human digestive system and which would not. Link: http://www.improbable.com
 
18 September 2013: Voyager 1 spacecraft has become the first man-made object to venture into interstellar space. The spacecraft arrived in this cold, unexplored interstellar region on or about Aug 25, 2012, and is now about 19 billion km from our Sun. As per NASA, data indicates that 36 years after it was launched, Voyager 1 has left the heliosphere, the bubble of hot, energetic charged particles surrounding the solar system, and entered into a region of cold, dark space, known as interstellar space.Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched 16 days apart in 1977. Both spacecraft flew by Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager 2 also flew by Uranus and Neptune. Voyager 2, launched before Voyager 1, is the longest continuously operated spacecraft. It is now about 15 billion km away from our Sun. The findings are published in the  journal Science. Link: http://www.nasa.gov

19 September 2013: Uttarakhand's famous Rajaji Park which recently got the status of a National Park is likely to become a tiger reserve in a month. The proposal seeking a tiger reserve status for it has already been cleared by the Ministry of Forest and Environment and a notification in this regard is likely to be issued in a month. The status of a tiger reserve will give a boost to tiger conservation efforts at the park with the National Tiger Conservation Authority releasing funds to be used for improvement of patrolling and creation of a separate task force to minimise man-animal conflict. On the recent status of a national park granted to the sanctuary, he said it was pending for years and will go a long way in conservation and management of wildlife at the sanctuary. Link: http://www.rajajinationalpark.co.in
 
20 September 2013: Veerabhadran Ramanathan, the atmospheric scientist of Indian origin was nominated to receive 'Champions of the Earth award', the UN's highest environmental award, according to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Ramanathan, who hails from Madurai, India received his bachelors degree in engineering from Annamalai University, in 1965, his masters degree from Indian Institute of Science in 1970, and Ph.D. from State University in 1974. His major focus now is on developing practical solutions for mitigating global climate change and slowing down the retreat of the Himalayan glaciers. Project Surya, a cook-stove project which attempts to eliminate climate warming pollutants from traditional cooking, was his first climate mitigation project. Link: http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu
 
21 September 2013: The work on a dome meant to protect the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), now under construction in the US state of Hawaii, has been completed by two Spanish companies. The dome has been designed to allow the telescope to follow the movement of the sun across the sky. Having a diameter of 26 metres (85 ft.), this dome is 24 metres high and weighs 600 tonnes. The ATST is set to begin operations in 18 months at the Haleakala High Altitude Observatory site on the Hawaiian island of Maui.After undergoing trials, the dome will be disassembled for transport to Hawaii by sea in January. The telescope in intended to be the primary scientific tool for understanding the impacts of variations in the solar output on the Earth's climate.Link: http://atst.nso.edu

22 September 2013: In the first series of the Curiosity rover’s analysis of fine Martian soil samples, NASA scientists have found that two per cent of it is water by weight. They have also found other evidence that hint at liquid water having once existed on the planet. The results came from 'Sample Analysis at Mars' (SAM) instrument which analysed the samples of material collected by the rover's arm. The scientists also found carbonates, which are formed in the presence of water, and aluminosilicates, ferric compounds, and sulphates. There was also oxygen which could have come from the breakdown of a perchlorate mineral. Perchlorates are a sensitive marker of past transformation of Martian organic matter. The results were announced in the journal Science. Link: http://msl-scicorner.jpl.nasa.gov
 
23 September 2013: At a time when most Indian cities and towns show pollutants in the air due to emissions from different sources, two towns in Kerala, Malappuram and Pathanamthitta, have met the clean air benchmark of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).  The finding is part of a book: 'Good News Bad News: Clearing the Air in Indian Cities', brought out by Delhi-based research and advocacy organization Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), after making detailed assessment of 227 cities/towns of India. However, 78% of these cities\towns have pollution levels that exceed the acceptable standards. The CSE assessment has reviewed practices across the world, and finds that cities worldwide have started to take action to reverse the trend in travel choices. Link: http://www.cseindia.org
 
24 September 2013: A group of Stanford researchers has moved a step closer to answering the question of what happens when silicon, the standard material in today's microelectronic circuits, reaches its fundamental limits for use in increasingly small transistors. The researchers reported that they had successfully built a working computer, entirely from transistors fashioned from carbon nanotubes. The computer can right now perform only basic functions at speeds likened to a 1950s computer, but nano-computer was hailed as a an alternative to silicon transistors. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are rolled-up, single-layer sheets of carbon atoms, tens of thousands can fit into the width of a single human hair. They have the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any known material. Link: http://news.stanford.edu
 
25 September 2013: Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Awards for 2013, given by Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) were announced today. This year's awardees include Dr Sathees Chukkurumbal Raghavan (Biological Sciences) from IISc Bangalore, Dr Yamuna Krishnan (Chemical Science) from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Dr Bikramjit Basu from IISc and Dr Suman Chakraborty from IIT Kharagpur (Engineering Sciences), Dr Eknath Ghate (Mathematical Science) from TIFR, Dr Amol Dighe from TIFR and Dr Vijay Balakrishna Shenoy from IISc (Physical Science). However, this year, there is no recipient in the category of Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean & Planetary Sciences. The Prize was instituted in 1957 in honour of late Dr Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, founder Director of CSIR. Link: http://www.csir.res.in
 
26 September 2013: A plant which produces both potatoes and tomatoes, described as a "veg plot in a pot", has been launched in the UK. The Tom-Tato can grow more than 500 sweet cherry tomatoes while producing white potatoes. Horticultural mail order company Thompson & Morgan, which is selling the plants for £14.99 each, said the hybrid plants were individually hand-crafted and not a product of genetic engineering. Grafted potato-tomato plants have already been produced in the UK, but Thompson & Morgan says this is the first time they have been successfully produced commercially. According to the company, the idea of TomTato emerged 15 years ago in the US, when he visited a garden where someone had planted a potato under a tomato as a joke. Link: http://www.thompson-morgan.com
 
27 September 2013: Humans are not the only primates who whisper. Zoologists know that some animals like to whisper, or do something like it, under certain circumstances. But it's never been observed in nonhuman primates, until now. The primate in question is the cotton-top tamarin (Saguinus oedipus), one of the world's smallest primates. It lives in the tropical forests of northwestern Columbia in South America. Its whisper-like behavior was discovered at New York City's Central Park Zoo. When the researchers analyzed audio spectrograms, they realized that the tamarins were in fact communicating, but at low amplitude vocalizations. It is the potential evidence of convergent evolution in communication strategies among the highly social animals. The study is published in Zoo Biology. Link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com
 
28 September 2013: Today marked 85th anniversary of the development of Penicillin which happened on Sept. 28, 1928. The discovery of Penicillin, one of the world's first antibiotics, marked a true turning point in human history when doctors finally had a tool that could completely cure their patients of deadly infectious diseases. Penicillin was discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming(1881 - 1955), the bacteriologist on duty at St. Mary's Hospital, London. Upon examining some colonies of the bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, Dr. Fleming noted that a mold called Penicillium notatum had prevented the normal growth of Staphylococci. Fourteen years later, in March 1942, Anne Miller became the first civilian patient to be successfully treated with the antibiotic Penicillin. Link: http://www.chemheritage.org
 
29 September 2013: Bill Gates has described the decision to use Ctrl+Alt+Del as a command was a mistake. The shortcut, also known as the three-finger salute - came to prominence in the early 1990s as a quick fix for the infamous "blue screen of death" on PCs. Originally designed to trigger a reboot of a PC, it survives in the Windows 8 operating system as the command to access the task manager toolbar and is still used in older versions to log on. The keyboard shortcut was invented by IBM engineer David Bradley. During IBM's 20th anniversary celebrations, he said that while he may have invented it, Bill Gates making it famous. His involvement in the invention has made him something of a programming hero, with fans asking him to autograph keyboards at conferences. Link: http://www.computerworld.com

30 September 2013: Keeping its commitment of regularly adding more science centres, the National Council for Science Museums (NCSM) has proposed 18 more science centres taking the total to 66. Work on five of them has already started and will be completed by 2017 and the others in next five year plan. The five science centres  include centres at Kottayam (Kerala), Mysore (Karnataka), Kumaon (Uttarakhand), Udaipur (Tripura) and Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh. The others which will be developed in next five year plan include Tumkar in Karnataka, Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, Udaipur in Rajasthan, Chandigarh and Dadar Nagar Haveli (UTs), Bavgarh in Odisha, Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, Ambala in Haryana. Besides these, Guwahati will have a science city. Link: http://ncsm.gov.in