NASA to send African-American for first time to space station
NASA is sending an African-American astronaut to the International Space Station for the first time. The traveler is Jeanette Epps, a physics and science whiz who used to work for the CIA as a technical intelligence officer. Epps will head to the ISS as a flight engineer in 2018. Her commander will be Andrew Feustel, a veteran astronaut. A dozen or so African-American astronauts have traveled on US space shuttle missions but Epps will be the first African American on the space station.
Scientists discover rare double-ringed galaxy in space
Scientists have spotted a rare double-ringed elliptical galaxy, approximately 359 LIGHT years away from the Earth. Identified as PGC 1000714, it has a 5.5 billion-year-old core at its heart that looks red and is circled by a faint blue RING. While the rings are made up of mostly of young stars, the core is made of older stars.
December 2016 was the warmest in eight years
The year 2016 saw the second hottest December in the last 10 years in Coimbatore. The data available with the Agro Climatic Research Centre says that the maximum temperature in December 2016 was 29.9 degree Celsius, which was next only to December 2012’s 30.5 degree Celsius.
New species of gibbon discovered in China
Scientists have discovered a new species of gibbon living in south-west China’s rainforests. Although scientists had been studying the primate for some time, new research has revealed it is in fact a different species. It has been named the Skywalker hoolock gibbon by its discoverers, who are Star Wars fans. The name is also a nod to the fact that the Chinese characters of its scientific name, Hoolock tianxing, mean “Heaven’s movement”.
Hand-powered blood centrifuge developed
Stanford engineers, including those of Indian origin, have built an ultra-low-cost, humanpowered centrifuge that separates blood into its individual components in only 1.5 minutes, and may enable precise diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.
A centrifuge is critical for detecting diseases such as malaria, African sleeping sickness, HIV and tuberculosis. This version will enable precise diagnosis and treatment in the poor regions where these diseases are most prevalent.
ISRO, CNES ink pact on satellite launch
Indian Space Research Organisation and French Space agency (CNES) have signed a partnership agreement in satellite launch technology. The agreement was signed between ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar and CNES President Jean-Yves Le Gall in the presence of visiting French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Marc Ayrault.
Reliance Jio beats Airtel to become fastest 4G operator
Reliance Jio beat Airtel, Vodafone and others, becoming the fastest among all 4G service providers in India in December 2016, according to data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
TRAI’s MySpeed portal had previously in October revealed that Reliance Jio was the slowest 4G service provider in India. TRAI’s MySpeed online portal, unlike its Android and iOS app, doesn’t test the speed of an individual connection. It, instead, shows you the data of tests conducted across the country.
Physicists create a new form of hydrogen
Scientists have produced a new form of hydrogen in the lab negatively charged hydrogen clusters. Each cluster consists of hydrogen molecules arranged around a negatively charged hydrogen ion — a single hydrogen atom with an extra electron — at temperatures near absolute zero.
Similar, positively charged ion clusters have previously been found, but this is the first time scientists have seen negative hydrogen cluster ions beyond the simplest possible pairing of one molecule and one ion.
India successfully test-fires guided rocket Pinaka Mark-II
Guided Pinaka, which has been upgraded from Pinaka Rocket, was successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur. The Pinaka Rocket Mark-II, which evolved from Pinaka Mark-I, is equipped with a navigation, guidance and control kit and has been transformed to a Guided Pinaka. The test firing was conducted from Launch Complex-III of ITR. The conversion considerably enhanced the range and accuracy of Pinaka. The test firing had met all mission objectives.
China commissions sophisticated electronic reconnaissance ship CNS Kaiyangxing
China’s Navy has commissioned a sophisticated electronic reconnaissance ship, capable of conducting all-weather, round-the-clock observation on multiple targets, the latest addition to Beijing’s expanding fleet amid tensions over its assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea The new ship CNS Kaiyangxing, or Mizar, with hull code 856, was delivered to a combat support flotilla of the North Sea Fleet in Qingdao, Shandong province .
SpaceX resumes flights; launches Falcon 9 vehicle on California coast
The American SpaceX rocket company has resumed flights, launching a Falcon 9 vehicle from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on the California coast. It is the first mission by the company since one of its vehicles exploded on the launch pad in September. The return to operations sees SpaceX start to renew what was the original global handheld satellite phone network, run by Iridium.
Massive gravity wave spotted in atmosphere of Venus
A massive bow-shaped ‘bulge’ has been spotted in the upper atmosphere of Venus, and astronomers are trying to explain how it could withstand the gush of sulphuric acid clouds that are spinning faster than the planet itself.
Their best guess is that the strange, 10,000-km (6,214-mile) structure is the result of what could be the largest gravity wave ever witnessed in the solar system, but there’s one problem – scientists didn’t think gravity waves could form this high up in the atmosphere.
World’s lightest watch created using grapheme
Scientists have developed the world’s lightest high-performance mechanical watch made using the ‘wonder material’ graphene and weighing just 40 grammes. The RM 50-03 watch was made using a unique composite incorporating graphene to manufacture a strong but lightweight new case to house the delicate watch. Graphene is the world’s first two-dimensional material at just one-atom thick.
Silicon identified as ‘missing element’ in Earth’s core
Silicon likely makes up a significant proportion of the Earth’s core after iron and nickel, say scientists who claim to have identified the ‘missing element’ in the deep interiors of our planet that has eluded us for decades. The discovery could help us to better understand how our world formed. The innermost part of Earth is thought to be a solid ball with a radius of about 1,200 kilometres.
World’s first IBM PC virus was released on January 19, 1986
“Brain”, considered to be the first major personal computer virus, was created on January 19, 1986, by Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi at their computer shop in Lahore, Pakistan. From there the program spread across the world — one infected floppy disk at a time. At its peak Brain had even reached the offices of a government department in Canada, on the other side of the globe.
Indigenous fighter jet Tejas to make debut at Republic Day
Indigenously-made fighter jet Tejas will make its Republic Day debut in this year’s parade, the Indian Air Force. The IAF will use three of the Tejas which has been made by public sector giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The IAF has contracted 123 Tejas in various configurations. It will be after three decades that a locally-made fighter jet will fly during the Republic Day parade. The last time an indigenous fighter jet was part of the Republic Day was in the 1980’s when the Marut, a 1960’s design, was part of the flypast.The flypast will also include a display by the Russian-origin Sukhoi 30MKI.
IIT Bombay to build ‘Research Park’ for startups
Students of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) might no longer need to seek help from outsiders to support their start-up ideas, as work on a ‘Research Park’ will finally start in 2017.
• With Phase 0 being set up in the academic area, the Park aims to establish an innovation hub through industry-academia collaboration, build a strong industrial relationship by starting R&D centres in the institute, and promote entrepreneurship.
• The Research Park has already successfully been set up at the IIT-Madras campus and few other IITs across the country have been selected by MHRD for this venture.
Scientists names 3 diseases that could cause next global health emergency
Scientists have named three relatively little-known diseases they think could cause the next global health emergency. The 3 diseases are Mers, Lassa fever and Nipah virus
A coalition of governments and charities has committed 460 million dollars to speed up vaccine development . Also they are asking funders at the World Economic Forum Davos for another 500 million dollars.
• The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi) aims to have two new experimental vaccines ready for each disease within five years. New vaccines usually take about a decade to develop and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
• The Ebola outbreak in West Africa, closely followed by the Zika epidemic in Latin America, exposed just how tragically unprepared the world is for new outbreaks.
• NASA Set to Explore Iron-Rich Asteroid 16 Psyche
Scientists develop robotic ‘heart sleeve’ that helps it beat
Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital researchers have developed a customizable soft robot that fits around a heart and helps it beat, potentially opening new treatment options for people suffering from heart failure.The soft robotic sleeve twists and compresses in synch with a beating heart, augmenting cardiovascular functions weakened by heart failure.
Astronomer studies ‘habitable’ exoplanet Wolf 1061c
An astronomer has studied an exoplanet called Wolf 1061c and found that the celestial body could be habitable.Astronomer Stephen Kane from San Francisco State University focused on finding “habitable zones” where water could exist in a liquid state on a planet’s surface. Examining a habitable zone on a planetary system 14 LIGHT years away, Mr. Kane found that unlike Earth, which experiences climatic changes such as an ice age because of slow variations in its orbit around the sun.
China commission 31st stealth warship
China has commissioned its 31st stealth warship as it got its battle group under its first aircraft carrier ready amid tensions with the U.S. and other nations over its assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has commissioned its 31st Type—056 class corvette, marking a new addition to the world’s largest fleet of modern corvettes
Scientists develop new technique for faster diagnosis of HIV
Scientists have developed a new method for medical testing that may lead to faster diagnosis of HIV, Lyme disease, syphilis and rotavirus infections. Researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in the U.S. combined cutting-edge Nano science with a magnetic phenomenon discovered more than 170 years ago to create the method for speedy medical tests.
Massive Antarctic ice shelf ready to break
A gigantic chunk of ice that is breaking away from West Antarctica is attached to its parent ice shelf just by a thread. Covering 5,000 sq km and nearly 100 storeys-deep, the formation is poised to snap off from Larsen C ice shelf, creating “one of the largest icebergs ever recorded. A widening rift running the length of the finger-shaped, 350 metre-thick ice block grew 10 km longer some time during the last three weeks, satellite images revealed
ISRO to launch record 103 satellites on a single rocket
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will set a record when it launches 103 satellites in one go on a single rocket in the first week of February. Explaining how all the satellites will be placed in orbit, Dr. K. Sivan, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), Thiruvananthapuram.
Scientists creates world’s first stable semi-synthetic organism
Scientists have created the first stable semi-synthetic organism – a single-celled bacterium – that may play important roles in drug discovery and other applications.
Life’s genetic code has only ever contained four natural bases. These bases pair up to form two base pairs the rungs of the DNA ladder – and they have simply been rearranged to create all life as we know it, from bacteria to humans.
ISRO successfully ground-tests Cryogenic Upper Stage engine meant for rocket GSLVMark-III
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully ground tested the Cryogenic Upper Stage engine meant for the rocket GSLV-Mark-III. In a release, the space agency stated the indegenously developed engine, designated as C25, tested for a duration of 50 seconds in its Propulsion Complex at Mahendragiri in southern Tamil Nadu, demonstrating all the stage operations.
Atomic clocks of Satellite IRNSS-1A Develops Technical Snag
NavIC, the indigenously built satellite- based positioning system, has developed a technical snag in the atomic clocks on its first satellite.In the NavIC, a constellation of seven satellites, one of the three crucial rubidium timekeepers on IRNSS-1A spacecraft failed six months ago. The other two followed subsequently.
Kiran Kumar, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, confirmed the glitch in the clocks but clarified that the satellite was otherwise all right, and the rest of the satellites