Nobel Prize in Chemistry to India-born scientist (October 7 2009)
Three Americans won 2009 Nobel Prize and one among them is India-born. They
are Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath. Ramakrishnan is
India-born American and Ada Yonath is Israeli. They were awarded with Nobel
Prize in chemistry for mapping ribosomes. It is the protein-producing factories
within body cells, at the atomic level.
NASA telescope discovers giant ring around Saturn (October 7 2009)
The Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered the biggest but never-before-seen
ring around the planet Saturn, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced. The
thin array of ice and dust particles lies at the far reaches of the Saturnian
system and its orbit is tilted 27 degrees from the planet’s main ring plane,
the laboratory said. Although the ring dust is very cold — minus 316 degrees
Fahrenheit — it shines with thermal radiation.
13-year-old Indian to address UN climate change summit (September 21 2009)
A 13-year-old Indian girl from Lucknow, Yugratna Srivastava has won the
honour to address US President Barack Obama, President Hu Jintao of China and
other world leaders on behalf of the world’s three billion youth and children.
The UN summit that Yugratna would address is part of the UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon’s campaign to bring about a fair and ratifiable green house gas
reduction agreement at this year’s Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
“World leaders must recognise the energy and potential which lies in children
and youth. This age group is just like flowing rivers and they make their own
way in the direction in which they march,” said Yugratna, a lively, committed
and very passionate teenager.
Largest ever telescope launched from French Guiana ( May 15 2009)
Ariane 5 rocket, the world’s largest telescope was launched on May 15 from
the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana to investigate the origins of the
universe. The Herschel telescope was developed by the European Space Agency
(ESA) at a cost of 1.1 billion euros ($1.49 billion). The main objective of the
telescope is to determine how the stars and galaxies are formed in the
universe. The Physicist Albrecht Poglitsch, of the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrial Physics, worked on the development of Herschel’s instruments.
The stars are comprised of gas and dust, a mix that makes it impossible to see
into the star itself with light. Herschel’s strength is to enable a look into
the gas-dust clouds. The primary mirror of the Herschel telescope is 3.5 meters
in diameter, more than four times larger than those of previous infrared space
telescopes and almost one and a half times larger than the Hubble space
telescope. Herschel will tap into previously unexplored wavelengths and examine
phenomena that had been out of reach for other observatories. The telescope
will begin to carry out its three-and-a-half-year mission in about a month.
First face transplant patient in US shows face ( 6th May 2009)
Five years ago, Connie Culp, 46-year-old woman in a shotgun blast left a
ghastly hole in the middle of her face. Five months ago, she received a new
face from a dead woman. She stepped forward to show off the results of the
nation’s first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the
puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror. Culp’s
expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste
her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face
is bloated and squarish, and her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to
pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new
muscles.
UK scientists to develop Swine Flu vaccine (4th May 2009)
As the world is getting ready to fight against Swine Flu (H1N1 virus),
researchers from all over the world have stepped up to build a vaccine to fight
the scary disease.
A team from National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in
Hertfordshire had started their work for developing a vaccine against the H1N1
virus. The researchers aim to drill a hole in hen’s egg, considered for growing
up flu viruses. The process involves injecting a small amount of virus into
each egg. The scientists are using two different techniques for the process.
The first one is ‘reverse genetics’, where scientists take the H and the N
surface proteins from the H1N1 virus and mix them with a laboratory virus known
as PR8. This leads to a creation of a harmless hybrid virus, which can be used
for the vaccine.
The second technique involves injecting both the H1N1 and PR8 viruses into eggs
and allowing the hybrid strain to be created through a natural re-assortment of
their genes. The vaccine will work by dodging the immune system into it has
been infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus so that it creates antibodies
against it. The researchers hope that the first seed strain of H1N1 swine flu
vaccine will be ready in three to four weeks. It will then take another four or
five months for vaccine manufacturers to produce the vaccine in bulk.
PET bottles potential health hazard (29th April 2009)
Wagner, a lead researcher stated, “Drinking water from PET plastic bottles
is harmful to human health”. It has a higher probability of drinking estrogenic
compounds (which affects reproductive hormones) through water. He analysed 20
samples of mineral water. Nine samples came out of glass bottles, nine were
bottled in PET plastic and two were in cardboard. The specialised yeast, which
change colour in the presence of estrogen like compounds, revealed estrogenic
activity in seven of the nine plastic bottles (and both cardboard samples), and
compared with just three of the nine glass ones. The levels of these compounds
in the water were surprisingly high.
ISRO launches RISAT-2 (20th
April 2009)
The Indian Space Research Organisation successfully launched a revolutionary
spy satellite RISAT-2. It is designed by the Israeli Aerospace Industries. It
can take images through the thickest cloud cover, rain and snow or fog
conditions during night and day or even of the hundreds of winding mountain
valleys. It will be used extensively for purposes like mapping, managing
natural disasters and surveying the seas, it can also see through camouflage
like cloth or foliage used to conceal camps or vehicles. It will enable India
to keep a watch on terror camps, military installations across boundaries,
missile sites and suchlike. It should also help keep track of ships at sea that
could pose a threat. The RISAT will reduce India’s dependence on foreign
suppliers like Ikonos for satellite imagery.
March
Discovery Crew Returns Home From ISS
The Discovery space shuttle crew returned home to the Johnson Space Center
in Houston on Sunday(29/3/09) after completing a 12-day mission.
Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:14 p.m. Saturday(28/3/09),
after traveling more than 5.3 million miles. Its crew delivered solar arrays to
help power the International Space Station and science experiments taking place
there. The astronauts completed three space walks, lasting more than six hours each,
to install, repair, and maintain equipment for the station.
The STS-119 flight marked the first trip to space and the first spacewalks
for former science teachers Joseph Acaba and Richard Arnold. Both are now NASA
astronauts. The flight was Discovery’s 36th trip to space. It marked the 125th
space shuttle mission and the 28th shuttle trip to the space station.
Internet Crime Up 33 Percent, FBI Reports
Internet-based crime increased by 33 percent last year, making 2008 the
biggest year ever for reported cybercrime incidents, according to an Internet
Crime Complaint Center annual report.
The ICCC, a nonprofit organization run by the FBI and the National White
Collar Crime Center dedicated to monitoring online fraud, issued a report
Monday showing that fraud losses incurred from cybercrime reached a total of
$264.6 million in 2008, compared to $239.1 million the previous year, Reuters
reports. Losses in recent years pose a sharp contrast to cybercrime losses of
$18 million in 2001.
“2009 is shaping up to be a very busy year in terms of cybercrime,” said
John Kane, director of the National White Collar Crime Center based in
Richmond, Va., and the report’s author, to Reuters.
Adobe, Facebook partner to create Flash developer tools
Adobe has partnered with one of the most popular social networking Web
sites, Facebook, to give developers a new set of tools to create applications.
The applications will use Adobe’s Flash platform and the new ActionScript 3
Client Library for Facebook the two companies developed together. The client
library is a free open source programming language that supports Facebook
application programming interfaces (APIs) including Facebook Connect.
Microsoft to discontinue Encarta
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) is to exit its Encarta encyclopedia business later
this year after losing ground over the years to freely available reference
material on the Internet on web sites like Wikipedia.
“People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways
than in years past,” the software maker said in a notice posted on its MSN
website.
Microsoft, which axed 5,000 jobs earlier this year to cut costs and warned
profit and revenue would fall over the next two quarters, said it would stop
selling Encarta software products by June. Encarta websites worldwide, except
Encarta Japan, would be discontinued on October 31 and Encarta Japan will cease
after December 31, the company said.
Obama to restore stem cell research funding
US President Barack Obama on Monday signed an executive order reversing Bush
administration restrictions on Federal funding for stem cell research. He said
that he would ensure that all research on stem cells would be conducted
ethically and with rigorous oversight.
This move would be in line with Mr Obama’s campaign vow to restore funding
to embryonic stem cell research.This development impressed scientists who have
long campaigned for the Bush policy to be overturned, but will likely be
condemned by conservative right-to-life groups.
Mr Bush barred Federal funding from supporting work on new lines of stem
cells derived from human embryos in 2001, allowing research only on a small
number of embryonic stem-cell lines which existed at that time.He argued that
using human embryos for scientific research – which often involves their destruction
– crossed a moral barrier and urged scientists to consider other alternatives.
Embryonic stem cells are primitive cells from early-stage embryos capable of
developing into almost every tissue of the body.
India To Send Sun Mission Aditya In 2012
After the successful launch of the moon mission, Chandrayaan-1, Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO) is now gearing up for a mission to the sun. The
proposed sun mission christened as “Mission Aditya”, is aimed at unraveling the
secrets of the sun. G Madhavan Nair, chairman of the Indian space agency ISRO,
announced that, the agency is ready with its new space programme to explore the
corona of the Sun in 2012.
“Mission Aditya” will find out answers for how and why solar flares and
solar winds disturb the communication network and play havoc with electronics
on the earth. It will also uncover the mysteries surrounding the sun’s corona
that create geomagnetic field disturbances on the earth and often damage man-made
satellites and spacecraft moving in the sky under intense sunlight.
Though the sun mission of ISRO has been on the cards for quite some time
now, it got a boost after the successful launch of Chandrayaan-1. The success
of the Aditya Mission will provide vital clues to ISRO to protect its
satellites and spaceware from being damaged by hot winds and flares ejected out
of the sun’s corona.
Indian-American Scientist Vivek Pai Creates Top Web Technology
The researchers’ team led by Indian American scientist Vivek Pai has
developed a revolutionary way to expand internet access around the world. The
team of Princeton University computer science researchers created a new
efficient data storage system called HashCache which got listed as one of the
top emerging technologies of the year in scientific magazine, Technology
Review. The scientific magazine is being published by Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
HashCache claims to store information more efficiently than current methods.
The newly created data-caching system is expected to expand web use in
developing regions around the world by making internet access more affordable.
The new data storage system increases the possibilities of expanding internet
facility across the poorer regions as it is very affordable. Compared to RAM,
HashCache is capable of storing more information from frequently visited web
sites on a local hard drive thereby enabling direct data access. Vivek Pai
explained that by increasing the efficiency of internet data transfer,
HashCache can reduce the cost of maintaining a hard drive.
February
Indian Scientists To Clone Pashmina Goat
A team of scientists from Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana is working on a
project to clone the famous pashmina goat. A success in this direction is
expected to give boost to the dwindling trade in pashmina wool. The project is
under a World Bank aided project known as National Agriculture Innovation
Project.
The project ‘Value Chain on Zone Free Cloned Embryos Production and
Development of Elite Germ Plasma Pashmina’ hopes to change the pashmina
production scenario in the state. A six-member team will use somatic cells of
the goat to clone the cell to produce new pashmina goat. Scientists will use a
hand-guided cloning technique and the four-phased project will run for next
three years.
NASA’s Kepler Mission To Begin Quest To Find Planets Hosting Life
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is all set to begin its maiden journey in search
for worlds that could potentially host life. The spacecraft is scheduled to
blast-off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida aboard a Delta II
rocket on March 5, 2009. Kepler is the first mission with the ability to find
planets like Earth. The mission will study rocky planets that orbit sun-like
stars in a warm zone where liquid water could be maintained on the surface that
is believed to be essential for the formation of life.
The mission will spend three-and-a-half years in the space. It will survey
more than 100,000 sun-like stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our Milky Way
galaxy. It is expected to find hundreds of planets of the size of earth and
larger, at various distances from their stars.
ISRO To Use Home-Grown Cryogenic Engine For GSLV Launch
The India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will use an indigenously
developed cryogenic engine to launch the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch
Vehicle (GSLV). Reports say that IRSO will undertake the launch operation in
July this year. The use of home-grown cryogenic engine to put GSAT-4 into orbit
will end India’s dependency on Russia. India has been importing the cryogenic
engines from Russia since 1991. So far, India has launched five GSLV rockets.
But now ISRO has developed its own cryogenic engines and all the tests have
been completed successfully, the source added.
The launch of GSAT-4 communication satellite using an indigenously developed
cryogenic engine will provide internet connectivity in remote villages. The
ISRO is also considering to use the GSLV for the Chandrayaan-II mission
scheduled for 2012. Earlier, ISRO used PSLV to launch Chandrayaan-I.
January
1.World’s First Internet Car Radio Unveiled
The Australian researchers have developed a new internet car radio for the
first time which enables the users to access 30,000 stations including online
broadcasts and AM and FM stations from all round the globe. The internet car
radio developed by Melbourne-based online radio aggregator miRoamer was
launched in prototype form at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
miRoamer has signed a deal with German-based Blaupunkt which is one of the
largest producers of car radios in the world.
Under the new deal, Blaupunkt will produce internet radios which will be
fitted in latest models by car manufacturers such as Ford, Holden, Mercedes,
BMW and Audi. The internet radio will also be sold separately for those who
want to install it in their cars. It is very imperative that radio lovers will
prefer internet car radio to traditional broadcasters as it offers a huge
number of stations from all over the world. The new product is expected to be
launched in the US and Europe in the second half of 2009. In more ways than
one, the internet car radio is going to revolutionise the way people listen to
radio.
2.Motorola Unveils Cellphone Made From Recycled Water Bottles
Motorola has unveiled a new kind of mobile phone called MOTO W233 Renew
which is made from recycled plastic water bottles. According to the handset
manufacturing company, MOTO W233 Renew is also a carbon neutral phone. The
company is said to have collaborated with Carbonfund.org to manufacture the new
mobile phone. Interestingly the container that holds the phone is also made
from recycled material.
In order to uplift its recycling program for mobile phones and accessories,
Motorola has also entrusted another postage-paid box with the MOTO W233 Renew
which can be used by customers to mail their old phones back to the company for
recycling. The postage-paid box is also made from recycled paper, claimed
Motorola.
The new MOTO W233 Renew offers nine hours of talk time with ChrystalTalk technology
and has messaging capabilities. The new mobile handset from Motorola is
expected to be launched at the 2009 International CES in Las Vegas. The phone
will be available in the market by the first quarter of 2009.
MOTO W233 Renew has been designed for eco-conscious consumers as well as for
those who loves to make phone calls. The recycling program of Motorola is ready
to accept any mobile phone or accessory for recycling which it feels will help
to recover valuable materials for reuse that will reduce environmental impact.
3.UK Doctors Deliver Cancer-Proof Baby
The first British baby genetically selected to be free of a breast cancer
gene has been born. She grew from an embryo screened to ensure it did not
contain the faulty BRCA1 gene, which passes the risk of breast cancer down
generations.
According to the sources of University College Hospital in London the
mother, a 27-year-old Londoner, and her little girl were in very good
condition. Women in three generations of the father’s family have been diagnosed
with the disease in their 20s, including his mother, grandmother, sister and
cousin.
A girl born with the altered BRCA1 gene have a 50-80% chance of developing
breast cancer – but screening can prevent this. The technique used is known as
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which involves taking a cell from an
embryo at the eight-cell stage of development, when it is around three-days
old, and testing it.
The treatment follows the green-signal given by Britain’s Human
Fertilization and Embryology Authority in 2006, which said doctors could test
for ‘susceptibility genes’ such as BRCA1. A properly functioning BRCA1 protein
helps stop cancer before it starts but faulty genes greatly increase the risk
of cancer.
BRCA1 and a related version of another gene, BRCA2, account for around 5% of
breast cancer.
Sony To Launch World’s Lightest 8-Inch Notebook PC
In a bid to capture the rapidly growing market for ultra-portable personal
computers, Sony Corp of Japan decided to launch 8-inch notebook PC which is
considered to be one of the lightest laptops in the world. The new Sony Vaio PC
will have Microsoft Corp’s Windows Vista operating system. Windows Vista
operating system incorporated in Sony laptops will support all the software
programs found in full-sized notebooks.
While revealing the plan, Sony said that the new notebook weighs only 1.4
pounds and it is as thin as a mobile phone. The notebooks will available for
pre-orders and were released in the market in the first week of February 2009.
the Sony notebook is priced at about $900, setting itself apart from Netbooks.
The Red Planet Of Mars May Have Life On It
NASA, the space agency of USA, may be ready to announce alien microbes
living below the Martian soil are the cause of a methane haze surrounding the
Red Planet of Mars.
Researchers from around the world have shown a greater interest in the Red
Planet, as possible traces of water and ice dust have raised hopes of
discovering signs of life on or underneath the planet’s surface. Even though
methane is created on Earth by volcanoes, scientists haven’t found any active
volcanoes on the Red Planet.
In addition, it seems NASA researchers found high levels of methane in the
same regions as water vapor clouds, which are absolutely necessary for life.
The study was conducted during a seven year examination of the planet.
Indian Scientists Conduct Anti-Warming Experiment In Antarctic Ocean
A group of scientists from India and Germany jointly conducted an
anti-warming experiment in Antarctic Ocean. It is believed that the experiment
may find out a possible solution to on-going global warming crisis. The
scientists began their experiment by scattering iron powder on hundreds of
square kilometres of the Antarctic Ocean. The iron powder will fertilize the
growth of phytoplankton which will eventually remove carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and take it deep under the ocean surface.
The technology of iron fertilization is likely
to stop global warming at a very little cost. About six tonnes of iron are to
be scattered on 300 sq km of sea. The group of scientists which left Cape Town
on board the Polarstern on January 7 includes thirty Indian and 18 from other
nations. The tiny organism called phytoplankton can eliminate carbon dioxide
which is the main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. The technology
used by the Indian and German scientists can be path-breaking one in curbing
global warming which stands out to be a major threat to mankind
