SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2011

Original Image Courtesy: http://www.lokvani.com/

1 April 2011: An exhibition opening in Chennai on today seeks to explore the science behing cricketing incidents and trigger scientific research on the gentleman's game. Organised by the Indian Science Monitor, the exhibition will showcase great cricket controversies and the science behind them. The exhibition will explain the science behind the effect of ball tampering, preparation of a pitch, the effect of sweat on the ball. Indians are yet to understand the science of cricket. Link: http://www.indusarchaeo.com

2 April 2011: Scientists have unveiled the most accurate map of the Earth's gravity, which shows it to be shaped not like a sphere but a potato. Also known as a geoid, the map is the result of two years of orbital surveys by the European Space Agency Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer satellite. The geoid will also assist scienitsts in measuring ocean circulation, changes in sea level and the movement of ice sheets, all of which are affected by climate change. Link: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/GOCE/


3 April 2011: Today is the 38th anniversary of the first public call made from a cell phone. The call was made by Martin Cooper the general manager of Motorola's communications systems division. The first cell phones were so big that they were described as a “brick” and weighed 2½ pounds. With the explosion of powerful technology, the cell phone is becoming smaller in size and more and more advanced. Link: http://www.google.com/patentsid=nO8tAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

4 April 2011: April is Global Astronomy Month and this past weekend, Saturn is closest to the Earth in its orbit. There is a phenomenon known as the Seeliger Effect, which might actually be a couple of different effects combining to enhance the brightness of Saturn: Since the Earth is smack dab in the middle of the Sun and Saturn, sunlight is coming from directly behind us and directly at Saturn. And there’s also the phenomenon called coherent backscattering. Link: http://www.astronomerswithoutborders.org/

5 April 2011: New photos from NASA's Messenger spacecraft, the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury show that some of its surfaces are extremely cratered. One area of the far north of Mercury had never been seen by previous spacecraft on mere fly-bys. The new images show scatterings of secondary craters. Messenger has been circling Mercury only since March 17. Mercury and Messenger are about 66 million miles from Earth. Link: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/index.html

6 April 2011: Tropical mangrove trees are better at storing carbon dioxide than most other forests, and cutting them down unleashes more greenhouse gas than deforestation elsewhere. Mangroves are so efficient at keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere that when they are destroyed, they release as much as 10 per cent of all emissions worldwide attributable to deforestation. even though mangroves account for just 0.7 per cent of the tropical forest area. Link: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome

7 April 2011: A team of scientists has developed a new type of atomic clock, which has potential to dramatically improve GPS accuracy and could test the laws of physics.The highly accurate 'optical lattice' atomic clock, developed by Professor Hidetoshi Katori and his team at the University of Tokyo, could also become a useful tool in developing relativistic geodesy and the search for minerals and hydrocarbons. The research is published in Nature Photonics. Link: http://www.nature.com/nphoton/index.html

8 April 2011: Gram-negative bacterial strains with NDM-1 (New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1) gene, also called the superbug, have now been detected in drinking water and seepage water samples collected from several sites in New Delhi. Seepage samples were collected from water pools found in streets or rivulets. The findings have been published online in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. NDM-1 was in the news in August last year by the same journal report. Link: http://www.thelancet.com/laninf-about

9 April 2011: The oldest known full-body impression of a flying insect has been found preserved in 300 million-year-old sandstone. Richard Knecht, of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and colleagues, report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The mayfly fossil displaces the previous record-holder from 280-285 million years ago. The fossil was discovered in 2008 when Richard Knecht, then an undergraduate at Tufts University. Link: http://www.pnas.org/

10 April 2011: Almost all the currency notes and coins in circulation in the country may be contaminated with bacteria according to a study published in Current Science. The researchers said 98% of the currency was contaminated, 96% of the coins and 100% of the currency notes were found to be contaminated with different bacterial species, of which Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella spp. and Escherichia coli were considered pathogens, micro-organisms that cause diseases. Link: http://www.ias.ac.in/currsci/

11 April 2011: A virus that attacks other viruses has been discovered in a hypersaline lake near Davis station in Antarctica. The virus is only the third ‘Virophage’ discovered. The first one, called Sputnik, was discovered in 2008 and the second one, Mavirus, was discovered earlier this year. The new Virophage, called Organic Lake Virophage or OLV, after the lake in which it was found.The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. Link: http://www.pnas.org/

12 April 2011: It happened 50 years ago today when an air force pilot named Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. It was the Soviet Union's own giant leap for mankind, humiliating America to race for the moon. The handsome Russian with the big smile became a poster boy for the communist world, still a national idol 43 years after his death in a jet training accident, and remembered with enormous affection by the last surviving pioneers of the Soviet space program. Link: http://yurigagarin50.org/

13 April 2011: A rare bacterium has been discovered in the Lonar crater lake sediments in Buldana district of Maharashtra. This could be first biological evidence of the origin of  Lonar crater, microbiologist Dr. Dilip Tambekar of Sant Gagdge Baba University claimed. The bacterium Bacillus odysseyi which the scientist discovered was first reported from Mars Odyssey space craft in 2004, he said. U.S. scientists had reported that the bacterium does not have existence on earth. Link: http://www.sgbau.ac.in/

14 April 2011: The surprising discovery of a fossil of a sharp-toothed beast that lurked in what is now the western U.S. more than 200 million years ago is filling a gap in dinosaur evolution. The short snout and slanting front teeth of the find, Daemonosaurus chauliodus had never before been seen in a Triassic era dinosaur. Hans-Dieter Sues of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and colleagues report the discovery in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Link: http://www.mnh.si.edu/

15 April 2011: In May the World Health Organization will meet to decide on the destroying of the last Smallpox samples left.There are only two remaining samples left, one at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and another at a Russian facility in Siberia. The delay in destruction of the samples has been led by the U.S. and Russia, who argue that they could be used in order to create new treatments in the future. Link: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/

16 April 2011: The removal of a massive iceberg from the Mertz glacier in East Antarctica has revealed a huge diversity of new life. The 78-kilometre long iceberg separated from the Mertz glacier after it was rammed by another giant iceberg. Scientists discovered new species of marine life, including sponges and fish as well as sea stars. Oceanographers from the Australian Antarctic Division also found that the salinity of the ocean around the glacier has decreased. Link: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/

17 April 2011: A two-year-old boy from the U.K. has become the only person in the world to be diagnosed with an extra strand in his DNA.Brave Alfie Clamp was born blind and with severe disabilities, which led doctors to carry out various tests.They revealed his seventh chromosome has an extra strand of material which has never been documented anywhere in the world before. Doctors are baffled at his condition, which is so rare it does not have a name. Link: http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/syndication/services.html

18 April 2011: Scientists at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal and Shere-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology, Kashmir are striving hard for the clone of Pashmina male goat. The serious shortage of fertile Pashmina male goats is on account of the age-old practice to castrate the male goat  in order to achieve more natural fibre from the animal.The natural fibre yielded by the Indian Pashmina goats is considered the finest in the world. Link: http://www.ndri.res.in/

19 April 2011: Indian-American doctor Siddhartha Mukherjee's book on cancer has been awarded the Pulitzer prize in the general non-fiction category. Mukherjee's book, The Emperor of All Maladies, recounts the history of the disease and how the war against it is being fought by doctors. The India-born doctor teaches medicine and is a cancer physician at Columbia University Medical Centre. The Pulitzer in the general non-fiction category carries an award of $10,000 (£6,152). Link: http://sidmukherjee.com/

20 April 2011: India's PSLV-C16 rocket today successfully launched into orbit the latest remote sensing satellite Resourcesat-2 that would study and help manage natural resources along with two nano satellites.ISRO's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) placed in a 'Polar Sun Synchronous Orbit' Resourcesat-2, Youthsat and X-Sat about 18 minutes after it blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre launch pad in Sriharikota. Link: http://www.isro.org/satellites/irs-p6resourcesat-1.aspx

21 April 2011: In celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope's deployment into space, astronomers pointed Hubble at an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light. The interaction was imaged on 17 December 2010, with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Link: http://hubblesite.org/

  
22 April 2011: An event sometimes dreaded by the residents of North East India, is bringing cheer to the people here with bamboo species flowering across the state. The flowering of Bamboo occurs once in 35-40 years across all the forests including Bandipur, Coorg and Dandeli. It is a simultaneous occurrence every 3540 years. As the bamboos die after such gregarious flowering, the seeds sprouted before its death take root within a year. Link: http://iwst.icfre.gov.in/divisions/tip/indextip.html

22 April 2011: NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered that the atmosphere on Mars changes dramatically as the tilt of the planet's axis varies. Researchers using the orbiter's ground-penetrating radar identified a large, buried deposit of frozen carbon dioxide, or dry ice, at the Red Planet's south pole. The scientists suspect that much of this carbon dioxide enters the planet's atmosphere and swells when Mars' tilt increases. The findings are published in the journal Science. Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
  

23 April 2011: The discovery of four individuals of a new species could shed light on human evolution.

The discovery of the new species of early human, Australopithecus sediba by South African researchers has caused quite a stir. The researchers said that the hominin shows some surprisingly modern traits and its species may even be an ancestor of our own genus. But most thought it important to compare Au. sediba directly with other fossils of early Homo. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_sediba

24 April 2011: Chinese scientists have sequenced the genome of the Crested Ibis(Nipponia nippon), an achievement which may aid efforts to protect the endangered bird. By understanding the genetic make-up of the crested ibis, researchers may be able to explain the species' low birth rate and high mortality rate. It was done by researchers from the university and the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) in Shenzhen, China's flagship genome center. Link: http://www.genomics.cn/en/index.php

25 April 2011: Kerala government has declared observation of Anti Endosulfan Day today. Kerala Chief Minister, V S Achutanandan, has declared that he will be observing fast from 10 am to 5 pm today near the Memorial for Martyrs at in Thiruvananthapuram, in support of the state’s demand for the union government to exert pressure on the participating nations to enforce a blanket ban on this insecticide, at the Stockholm Convention Meet being held at Geneva from April 25 to 29. Link: http://www.kerala.gov.in/

26 April 2011: On April 26, 1986, a botched routine safety test at the control room of Reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility led to an explosion and a fire that burned for 10 days. The infamous nuclear accident devastated the lives of millions of people in Western Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. 25 years on, and the nightmare for thousands of people is still frightening. It remains the world's worst nuclear disaster to date.Link: http://chernobyl.undp.org/english/

27 April 2011: India is seeking a postponement of the decision on a global ban on Endosulfan to the next meeting of the conference of parties to the Stockholm Convention in 2013, according to observers.

In the draft statement, India says that significant adverse health and environmental effects of Endosulfan have not been established. However, the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee of the Convention chose to rely on selective use of data to recommend a ban. Link: http://chm.pops.int/default.aspx

28 April 2011: China will start building a test satellite later this month to detect electromagnetic anomalies in the atmosphere, as part of the country's proposed earthquake monitoring network, and hopes to launch it in 2014.The China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) has been in development since 2003 and is the first spaced-based component of the network. It is intended to provide advance warning of earthquakes, such as the one off the coast of Japan last month. Link: http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n615709/index.html

29 April 2011: The Stockholm Convention today approved the draft proposal for elimination of production and use of endosulfan and its isomers worldwide, subject to certain exemptions.Exemptions will apply to 22 crops: cotton, jute, coffee, tea, tobacco, cow peas, beans, tomato, eggplant, onion, potato, chillies, apple, mango, gram, pigeon pea, maize, paddy, wheat, groundnuts and mustard. However, the decision will not be binding on India unless specifically ratified by the country. Link: http://chm.pops.int/default.aspx

30 April 2011: When it makes its final launch, NASA's space shuttle Endeavour will carry will carry the AMS-02 (Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer) that will search space for some of the biggest mysteries of physics- antimatter and dark matter. The AMS particle detector was built and is operated by an international team from 60 institutes in 16 countries. Scientists at CERN were also focusing on more information about antimatter. Link:http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/shuttleoperations/orbiters/endeavour-info.html                                         

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2011

APOLLO 18

Director       : Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego

Producer      : Timur Bekmambetov
Screenplay   : Brian Miller
Distributor   : Dimension Films
Release date: April 2011

Apollo 18 tells a story about the space mission in the 1970's that was canceled by NASA. Only in this movie, the mission actually happened and the astronauts encountered some aliens. Apollo 18 was originally planned in July 1969 to land in the moon's Schroter's Valley, a riverlike channel-way. The original February 1972 landing date was extended when NASA cancelled the Apollo 20 mission in January 1970. Support crew: Allen, Henize, Parker.

Apollo 18 was originally planned in July 1969 to land in the moon's Schroter's Valley, a riverlike channel-way. The original February 1972 landing date was extended when NASA cancelled the Apollo 20 mission in January 1970. Later in the planning process the most likely landing site was the crater Gassendi. Finally NASA cancelled Apollo 18 and 19 on 2 September 1970 because of congressional cuts in FY 1971 NASA appropriations.

There was also a feeling after the Apollo 13 emergency that NASA risked having its entire manned space program cancelled if a crew was lost on another Apollo mission. Total savings of cancelling the two missions (since the hardware was already built and the NASA staff had to stay in place for the Skylab program) was only $42.1 million. Before the cancellation, Schmitt was pressing for a more ambitious landing in Tycho or the lunar farside.

Apollo 18 is found-footage-style film about a post Apollo-17 mission to the Moon that takes on a premise of why NASA discontinued the Apollo moon missions. The plot involves a government cover-up of the Apollo 18  mission after Monsters on the Moon discovered the crew and began to kill them off one by one. Much of the back-story remains unknown, however the one trailer shows a Soviet LK Lander on the lunar surface, suggesting a plot connection with the canceled Soviet Moonshot. 

WEBSITE OF THE MOVIE: http://apollo18movie.net/

YOUTUBE LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F6DU6gx7-w

Courtesy: http://www.astronautix.com/flights/apollo18.htm, http://wikipedia.org

BOOK OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2011

                                                        
Title         : Starman: the Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin
Author     : Piers Bizony, Jamie Doran
Pages       : 256
Publisher  : Walker & Amp Company
Published : April 12, 2011
Price        : $16.00
ISBN        : 10: 0802779506

This April will see the 50th anniversary of the most important event in all of human history: the first time any of us left the planet. On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin pierced Earth’s thin shell of atmosphere to boldly go where no one had gone before. Yuri orbited the earth once in the Vostok 1, taking 108 minutes.  Back on the ground, his smiling face captured the hearts of millions around the globe. Film stars, politicians and pop stars from Europe to Japan, India to the United States vied with each other to shake his hand.

Born in 1934, Gagarin entered training as a foundry-man at the age of 16, and it was then that he discovered a new love - flying. His first flight was on board an old Yak-18 trainer, and that made quite an impact on him. In 1953, he was accepted for pilot training in the Soviet air force and he later met and married his wife, Valentina, a nurse. It was when he had been posted to Nikel, a base near the Arctic Circle, that he was asked questions by some mysterious doctors. Within a few weeks, he and a host of other fighter pilots underwent a series of utterly demanding physical tests until eventually he and 19 others were declared the Soviet Union's first cosmonauts.

Gherman Titov and Gagarin, like the others, came under the scrutiny of the Chief Designer, Sergei Korolev, and the general in command of training, Nikolai Kamanin. Gagarin being first was more a political decision, even if both were equally ready in all other respects to be first. However grudgingly, Titov admits, "You know, they were right to choose Gagarin. The public loved him. It would therefore appear that the powers-that-be were also looking at Gagarin beyond the space flight, namely as an ambassador for the USSR.

Despite this immense fame, almost nothing is known about Gagarin or the exceptional people behind his dramatic space flight. Starman tells for the first time Gagarin's personal odyssey from peasant to international icon, his subsequent decline as his personal life began to disintegrate under the pressures of fame, and his final disillusionment with the Russian state. Putting an American on the Moon was a direct reaction to Gagarin's achievement, yet before that successful moonshot occurred, Gagarin himself was dead, aged just thirty-four, killed in a mysterious air crash.

Entwined with Gagarin's history is that of the breathtaking and highly secretive Russian space program - its technological daring, its triumphs and disasters. In a gripping account, Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony reveal the astonishing world behind the scenes of the first great space spectacular, and how Gagarin's flight came frighteningly close to destruction. There are any number of theories about Gagarin's death, and the conspiracy theorists have bandied about the possibility that the crash wasn't exactly an accident.

Piers Bizony is author of the award-winning 2001: Filming the Future a detailed account of the making of Stanley Kubrick's film, The Rivers of Mars: Searching for the Cosmic Origins of Life and Island in the Sky: Building the International Space Station. Jamie Doran of Atlantic Celtic Films is an international award-winning documentary producer. After seven years at BBC Television, he went into independent production, where many of his films have concentrated on lifting the lid of secrecy within the former Soviet Union.


Review Text Courtesy: http://www.amazon.com, http://news.discovery.com, http://www.jasonspeaking.com/

EVENT OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2011

ARCTIC SCIENCE SUMMIT WEEK 2011

Theme: The Arctic: New Frontier For Global Science

Date: March 27 - April 1 , 2011

Venue: Coex, Seoul, Korea

Organized by: Korea Polar Research Institute

The largest coordinated research project ever undertaken into the Arctic and Antarctic regions yielded a treasure trove of information which will shape our understanding of the polar regions, global oceans, climate and climate change for decades ahead, according to a summary of the research released today.

“Understanding Earth’s Polar Challenges,” was presented to the Arctic Science Summit Week in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The summary prepared by the International Council for Science (ICSU) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Joint Committee presents the findings from International Polar Year – a massive research effort involving some 50,000 participants from more than 60 nations between March 2007 and March 2009.

The research provided convincing evidence of the widespread effects of climate change in the polar regions at a time when the global environment is changing faster than ever in human history. Snow and ice are declining, affecting human livelihoods, plant and animal life, atmospheric and ocean circulation, according to the summary.

Parts of the Arctic and the Antarctic Peninsula are warming twice as fast as the global average. Warming in the Antarctic is much more widespread than it was thought prior to International Polar Year. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass contributing to the sea level rise. The drastic changes in the Arctic Ocean are evidenced by the record minimum summer sea ice extent in 2007, which was followed by two other low-ice summers in the Arctic, according to the summary.

“International Polar Year invigorated polar science, led to an unprecedented level of action, and attracted global attention to the polar regions at a critical moment in the changing relation between humanity and the environment,” said WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud and ICSU President Catherine Bréchignac in their joint Preface to the 720-page summary. The two organisations co-sponsored International Polar Year.

Compiled by some 300 authors and reviewers, the summary reveals how the research established large-scale baseline data sets which can be used to assess and predict future change in areas including polar environments and oceans, biodiversity and ecosystem processes. It advanced coordinated satellite observations of polar ice sheets and new measurement systems for permafrost and polar atmosphere.


Link: http://www.assw2011.org/assw2011/sub_01.php

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: APRIL 2011

                BEETLE WITH ROOSEWELT'S NAME

Phylum     : Arthropoda
Class         : Insecta
Subclass    : Pterygota
Infraclass  : Neoptera
Superorder: Endopterygota
Order         : Coleoptera
Family       : Tenebrionidae
Genus        : Stenomorpha
Species      : roosevelti

A new species of  beetle that thrives in an arid region of the Chihuahuan Desert is being named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt on the 100th anniversary of a speech he gave at Tempe Normal School, now Arizona State University. The speech, delivered March 20, 1911, focused on the role of government, the importance of an educated citizenry, and the “far-sighted wisdom” of the Territory of Arizona.

The new species of beetle, Stenomorpha roosevelti was discovered in the protected area of Cuatro Ciénegas, a biodiversity-rich oasis in Coahuila, Mexico. It was discovered and named by Aaron Smith, a postdoctoral research associate at ASU; Kelly Miller at University of New Mexico and Quentin Wheeler of International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU.

According to Douglas Brinkley’s book, “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America” it was Roosevelt’s executive orders that saved such natural treasures as Devils Tower, the Petrified Forest, and Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Naming a new species for President Roosevelt honors his achievements as a pioneering conservationist, naturalist and explorer.

Roosevelt has had a number of species and subspecies named in his honor, including an elk, shrew, mollusk, worm and ant. The announcement of the new species named for Roosevelt was made March 21 during a commemoration ceremony at ASU’s Old Main, the site of the former president’s speech 100 years ago. Roosevelt was in Arizona at the time to dedicate a new dam on the Salt River that was named in his honor.

Roosevelt is not the first US president to have a beetle named by Wheeler and Miller. The pair of entomologists has named new species in honor of former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and former Secretary of  Defense Donald Rumsfeld (Agathidium bushi, A. cheneyi and A. rumsfeldi).

More information is available from http://species.asu.edu/. Also courtesy to this website.

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: MARCH 2011

Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (PARC) has proclaimed  2011 as the Year of the Turtle. Link: http://www.parcplace.org/yearoftheturtle.htm 

                                                                                   

                                                                                                        1 March 2011: The Government will establish The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) jointly by the Department of Atomic Energy and Department of Science and Technology. A site in Bodi West Hills near T. Pudukottai village of  Theni district, Tamilnadu has been identified as a suitable location. The project includes construction of a world-class underground laboratory under a rock cover of 1200 metre from all directions.  The primary goal of INO is to study neutrino properties. Link: http://www.imsc.res.in/~ino/ 

2 March 2011: Earth is worth £3,000 trillion, according to an astrophysicist who claims to have created a formula to calculate the value of a planet. The astrophysicist, Greg Laughlin from University of California , came up with the figure by calculating the sum of the planet’s age, size, temperature, mass and other vital statistics. Laughlin invented the equation, which he used to evaluate the discoveries made by US space agency NASA’s £600 million Kepler spacecraft. Link: http://www.ucolick.org/~laugh/ 

3 March 2011: Robonaut 2 has become the first humanoid robot ever to reach space. It was transported to the International Space Station via the Space Shuttle Discovery. The Robobaut is a dextrous robot designed by General Motors and NASA engineers and is on its first mission. Robonaut, or R2, does not have a specific job aboard the station and will perform maintenance and service tasks. The robot has 38 computer processors. Link: http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/default.asp

4 March 2011: India has applied to the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) at Geneva in Switzerland for associate membership. This was stated by CERN official Rudiger Voss who said if India is granted associate membership, Indian researchers would be eligible for jobs at the CERN. At present, CERN has 20 member-States. Currently, researchers of institutes that collaborate with the CERN can only be deputed there for short periods of time. Link: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/


5 March 2011: Paleontologists believe that at least seven species of Dinosaurs lived in the tiny town called Balasinor of  Raiyoli Taluk in Gujarat making Raiyoli the third largest hatchery in the world. In 2003 they also discovered a new species here named Rajasaurus narmandensis, meaning "theprincely reptile from the Narmada". The site was discovered accidentally in 1981 when geologists were conducting a mineral survey of the area. Link: http://www.dinohunters.com/History/Rajasaurus.htm 

6 March 2011: The number of spots on the Sun's surface varies periodically, going through successive maxima and minima in roughly 11 year solar cycles. Now a team of scientists led by Assistant Professor Dibyendu Nandy from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata, has developed a model which may explain why some solar cycles are worse than others. The study is reported in the journal Nature. Link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/nature09786.html 

7 March 2011: The Great Indian Bustard has recently been declared as Critically Endangered by the BirdLife International, a global alliance of conservation organisations, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).Environmentalists and experts say that this upgradation of category of the Great Indian Bustard will give priority to its conservation and protection. At present, the bustard population in six states, including Maharashtra, is just 300.Link: http://www.birdlife.org/ , http://www.iucn.org/

8 March 2011: Discovery ended its career as the world's most flown spaceship Wednesday, returning from orbit for the last time and taking off in a new direction as a museum piece in Smithsonian Institution.Even after shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis make their final voyages in the coming months, Discovery will still hold the all-time record with 39 missions, 148 million miles, 5,830 orbits of Earth, and 365 days spent in space. . Link: http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/resources/orbiters/discovery.html, http://www.si.edu/

9 March 2011: Eminent astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar will be the recipient of the prestigious 'Maharashtra Bhushan' award for 2010. The award - instituted in 1997 by the Maharashtra government to recognise the highly distinguished achievements of eminent persons from the state, representing different walks of life - carries cash Rs 5 lakh, a shawl and shriphal (traditional coconut) and a citation.  He has received several awards including Padma Bhushan in 1965, at the young age of 26. Link: http://maharashtra.gov.in/ 

10 March 2011: Richard Hoover, a  NASA scientist reports detecting tiny fossilised bacteria on three meteorites, and maintains these microscopic life forms are not native to Earth. If confirmed, this research would suggest life in the universe is widespread and life on Earth may have come from elsewhere in the solar system. The study is published in the Journal of Cosmology, is considered so controversial as the journal's editor seeks other scientific comment on this. Link: http://journalofcosmology.com/ 

11 March 2011: James Elliot, an astronomer who used light from distant stars to study planetary objects throughout the solar system, leading to his discovery of the rings of Uranus, died on March 3 at his home in Wellesley, Mass. He was 67. In 1977, using a telescope in an airplane, Dr. Elliot led a team of Cornell University scientists to observe the planet Uranus when it passed between Earth and a star, recording  the first evidence of Uranus’s rings. Link: http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/elliot_james.html h

12 March 2011: India successfully test-fired its homegrown nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles Prithvi-II and its naval version Dhanush from different locations off the Orissa coast, on a day Pakistan too tested its nuclear-capable Hatf-II ballistic missile. The Prithvi-II was fired from complex-3 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur in Balasore district. Pakistan too successfully test-fired the Hatf-II (Abdali) short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile. Link: http://www.mod.nic.in/

13 March 2011: The devastating tsunami that struck Japan on March 11 was "completely unrelated" to the approaching "supermoon," according to U.S. Geological Survey. The supermoon will occur on March 19, when the moon is at or near its point of closest orbit and is also full. However, a very small correlation exists between full or new moons and seismic activity, because the stronger-than-usual tidal forces caused by the alignment of the sun and moon puts added stress on tectonic plates. Link: http://www.usgs.gov/ 

14 March 2011: The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan on March 11 has shortened the length Earth's day by a fraction and shifted how the planet's mass is distributed. A new analysis of the 8.9-magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Link: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ 

15 March 2011: The Royal British Mint has released a  50 pence coin to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the World Wildlife Fund. Centered around the charity’s iconic panda logo at the heart of the design, is a dolphin, gorilla, rhino, polar bear and butterfly. Other symbols featured on the coin include a car, a wind turbine, coffee bean, and a human footprint to represent man’s impact in the world. The reverse design was created by award winning graphic artist Matthew Dent. Link: http://www.royalmint.com/

16 March 2011: A whale shark was satellite-tagged for the first time in India, as part of research to understand behavior, ecological preferences and migration of this species. The satellite tag was installed by a team of researchers under the Whale Shark Conservation Project. Since its inception in 2008, the Whale Shark Conservation Project has been working with the support of the fishing communities, involving them in the conservation of this largest fish in the world. Link: http://www.whalesharkproject.org/


17 March 2011: Scientists at the Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom have successfully sequenced the genome of a novel strain of Clostridium botulinum that can produce a deadly neurotoxin and could be used as biological terrorism weapon. The strain produces an unusual botulinum neurotoxin called type A5 neurotoxin, News-Medical.net reports. By sequencing the complete genome, the researchers hope to be able to manage any possible threat that the new strain poses. Link: http://www.nrp.org.uk/ 

18 March 2011: Researchers are trying to sequence  the complete genome of the world's largest fish, the Whale Shark. Researchers at Emory University and the Georgia Aquarium are working to create a complete library of Whale Shark DNA, sequencing the genomes of the aquarium's captive sharks, which come from Taiwan, and comparing them with wild whale sharks in Mexico. The genome sequencing project will take months to complete. Link: http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/ , http://www.emory.edu/home/index.html

19 March 2011: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest atom smasher that started regular operations last year, could be the first machine capable of causing matter to travel backwards in time.If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict that it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet. According to Weiler and Chui Man Ho's theory, these singlets can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or in the past. Link: http://public.web.cern.ch/

20 March 2011: For more conservation measures and research on common bird species and urban biodiversity, March 20 will be celebrated and marked as World House Sparrow Day. The marking of the day is an international initiative by the Nature Forever Society, in collaboration with the Bombay Natural History Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology (U.S.), Eco-Sys Action Foundation (France), Avon Wildlife Trust (U.K.) and numerous other organisations. Link: http://www.natureforever.org/

21 March 2011: For the first time, Earth has a regular orbiting eye-in-the-sky spying on the solar system's smallest and strangest planet, Mercury. NASA's spacecraft called Messenger successfully veered into a pinpoint orbit after a 6 1/2-year trip and 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) and tricky maneuvering to fend off the gravitational pull of the sun. It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon. Link: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/messenger/main/

22 March 2011: A new species of a Rugged Darkling Beetle that thrives in an arid region of the Chihuahuan Desert is being named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt on the 100th anniversary of a speech he gave at Tempe Normal School, now Arizona State University.  The new species of beetle, Stenomorpha roosevelti was discovered and named by Aaron Smith, an authority on darkling beetles and a postdoctoral research associate at Arizona State University. Link: http://species.asu.edu

23 March 2011: Scientists at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, have discovered a new type of moon rock thanks to the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument aboard the Indian Space Agency's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The imaging spectrometer took the first high resolution pictures of the far side of the moon. Evidence of the new type of moon rock, believed to be a form of pink spinel, was found on the edge of the Moscoviense basin on the far side of the moon. Link: http://m3.jpl.nasa.gov/

24 March 2011: The fossilised remains of the world's largest known rabbit, Nuralagus rex have been found off the coast of Spain. The animal, which lived three to five million years ago and was six times the size of most rabbits today, has been dubbed the "Minorcan King of the Rabbits", since it was found on the small Mediterranean island of Minorca. Researchers at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology report their discovery of the new species in the Journal of  Vertebrate Paleontology. Link: http://www.vertpaleo.org/

25 March 2011: Japanese scientists have found measurable concentrations of iodine-131 and caesium-137 radiation in seawater near the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The iodine concentrations were at or above Japanese regulatory limits, and the caesium levels were well below those limits,says International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).Food products from the affected areas near the plant were found to have levels of iodine-131 and caesium-137 had exceeding acceptable limits. Link: http://www.iaea.org/

26 March 2011: A new species of seabird has been recognized in Puerto Montt, Chilea. It is a new species of Storm Petrel, the first new species of seabird in 55 years. The announcement was made at a recent ceremony held by the San Diego Bird Festival. Thousands of Storm Petrels are found along the Chilean coast but scientists missed this new species. Storm petrels, 22 species in all, are called "the ballerinas of the sea" as they seem to dance on water with their webbed-feet. Link: http://www.sandiegoaudubon.org/


27 March 2011: When city lights go off during "Earth Hour" today, the Amateur Astronomers Association Delhi will set up telescopes at India Gate on today evening for the public to view celestial wonders such as planet Saturn. They will also raise awareness about minimizing light pollution in the city so that Delhiites get a chance to appreciate the night sky. "Earth Hour" is an annual international event started in 2007 by the World Wide Fund for Nature  to raise awareness about climate change. Link: http://www.earthhour.org/


28 March 2011: NASA says the unmanned spacecraft Stardust will burn off all its remaining fuel in a single burst today, and then its transmitter will be shut off and the spacecraft left to drift. Stadust will transmit information about its fuel usage as the burn happens. Since it was first launched in February 1999, Stardust has traveled more than 5.5 billion kilometers.  It has flown past an asteroid and two comets, and has returned comet particles to Earth in a sample capsule. Link: http://www.stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/

29 March 2011: India's latest tiger census shows an increase in the numbers of  it. The census counted at least 1,706 tigers in forests across the country, about 300 more than four years ago. The census included 70 tigers in the eastern Indian Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, which had not been counted in the last census in 2007. The 2007 census had shown 1,411 tigers, a sharp fall in the population from about 3,600 five years earlier.A century ago, about 100,000 tigers roamed India's forests. Link: http://projecttiger.nic.in/


30 March 2011: Scientists have created the world’s first artificial leaf that can turn sunlight and water into energy. A team at Massachusetts Institute of  Technology says that the artificial leaf from Silicon, electronics and various catalysts which spur chemical reactions within the device, can use sunlight to break water into Hydrogen and Oxygen which can then be used to create electricity in a separate fuel cell. The findings were presented at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. Link: http://web.mit.edu/

31 March 2011: Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister of State for Environment and Forests today launched Black Carbon Research Initiative National Carbonaceous Aerosols Programme (NCAP). It is a joint initiative and Ministry of Environment and Forest, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Indian Space Research Space Organisation and Department of Science and Technology are working together. The National Institute of Glaciology has been set up in Dehradun already related to this. Link: http://envfor.nic.in/

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: MARCH 2011

                                          LIMITLESS

                                                          

Director         : Neil Burger
Camera         : Jo Willems
Distributor     : Relativity Media

Screenplay    : Leslie Dixon
Releasing on : March18, 2011
Language      : English

Ever since Alice popped down the Wonderland rabbit hole, we humans have daydreamed about pills that can transform us. If there were a pill that could make you smart, rich and powerful, the best that you could be, would you take it? Such is the intriguing premise of  Limitless, the American techno-thriller film directed by Neil Burger and starring Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, and Robert De Niro. It is based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn with the screenplay by Leslie Dixon.

Eddie Morra is an unemployed writer whose girlfriend Lindy breaks up with him. Eddie believes he has no future, but when a friend introduces him to the experimental drug NZT, Eddie becomes highly focused and highly confident. He is able to recall everything he has read, heard, or seen, and he uses the knowledge to become successful in the financial world. Business mogul Carl Van Loon sees Eddie as a potential tool to make money, but Eddie's success also attracts hitmen who pursue him for the NZT. Eddie's stash dwindles, causing him side effects, as he tries to escape being assassinated.

Limitless is based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn. The film is directed by Neil Burger based on a screenplay by Leslie Dixon, who had acquired rights to the source material. Dixon wrote the adapted screenplay for less than her normal cost in exchange to be one of the film's producers. She and fellow producer Scott Kroopf approached Burger to direct the film, at the time titled The Dark Fields. For Burger, who had written and directed his previous three films, the collaboration was his first foray solely as director.With Universal Pictures developing the project, actor Shia LaBeouf was announced in April 2008 to be cast as the film's star.

The project eventually moved to development under Relativity Media with Universal distributing through Relativity's Rogue Pictures. By November 2009, actor Bradley Cooper replaced LaBeouf in the starring role.Actor Robert De Niro was cast opposite Cooper by March 2010, and The Dark Fields began filming in Philadelphia the following May. Filming also took place in New York City. Burger described the premise, "The whole movie is a ride, a kind of fever-dream crazy story constantly going off the rails. It's about the nature of power and what I'm willing to do to get that power."


Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-12-17-limitless17_ST_N.htm, http://www.wikipedia.org/