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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY NOTES (NOV, 2014 - JUNE 2015)

The Smart Notes

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY NOTES

November 2014
Agni-II test-red for full 2,000-km strike range
1. India test-red the nuclear weapon-capable Agni-II ballistic missile for its full strike range of 2,000 km
from Wheeler Island o the Odisha Coast.
2. Personnel of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) red the surface-to-surface missile from a mobile
launcher.
3. Terming Agni-II a workhorse, the ocial said the overall mission objectives were met precisely. The
navigation, guidance and control aspects of this class of missile were proven once again.
New Research Reveals the Role of Magnetic Fields in Star Formation

A schematic illustration of the magnetic eld and motions found in a massive star forming cluster. The core
(gray-lled ellipse) is a attened, rotating cloud of gas and dust (blue and red arrows indicate the sense of the
rotation). It is fragmenting into new stars (evidenced by the three condensations/gray dots), and is threaded
by an hourglass magnetic eld (B eld green lines) largely aligned with a bipolar outow indicated with
the arrows.
1. Using the Sub millimeter Array to study the magnetic eld in a massive star cluster
2. Astronomers were able to determine the properties of the magnetic eld and the role they play in star
formation.

3. Massive stars tend to form in clusters as the gas and dust in molecular clouds collapses and fragments
under the inuence of gravity.
4. In the classic picture of star formation, gravity must eventually compete against the thermal pressure
that develops in the collapsing core as the material heats up.
5. The scientists report detecting the clear signature of an hourglass-shaped magnetic eld that is
remarkably consistent with theoretical predictions of the classic paradigm.
6. This is the rst time that such an hourglass eld, aligned with a well-dened outow system, has been
seen in a high-mass region.
European Space agency releases rst picture from comet

1. The European Space Agency published the rst image taken from the surface of a comet and said that
its Philae lander is still stable despite a failure to latch on properly to the rocky terrain.
2. The lander scored a historic rst on (14 th November), touching down on comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko after a decade-long, 6.4 billion-kilometer (4 billion-mile) journey through space aboard its
mother ship Rosetta.
3. Scientists jubilation was slightly dampened because the harpoons which were meant to anchor the
lander to the surface failed to deploy.
4. Causing it to bounce twice before it came to rest on the comets 4 kilometer-wide body, or
nucleus; Now Philae is stable, sitting on the nucleus and is producing data.
5. Philae and Rosetta will use 21 instruments to analyze the comet over the coming months. Scientists
hope the 1.3 billion ($1.6 billion) project will help them better understand comets and other celestial objects,
as well as possibly answer questions about the origins of life on Earth.
Role of El Nino in heat build-up in Indian Ocean

1. The Indian Ocean has been warming at a rate faster than thought before (1.2 deg C during the past
century).
2. It is also the largest consistent contributor to the global ocean warming trends.
3. Recent studies show that a warm Indian Ocean can in turn modulate the Pacic conditions including the
El Nino events.
4. The western Indian Ocean traditionally thought to have cooler sea surface temperatures (SSTs) than the
central and eastern Indian Ocean.
5. But it is showing an even stronger summer warming trend over the whole of the 20th century than the
central and eastern Indian Ocean.
6. The warming is signicantly so large that it may alter the monsoon circulation, monsoon rainfall over
the ocean and land, marine food webs and sheries (western Indian Ocean is one of the most productive
oceans) and global climate including the El Nino.
7. The study found that the ocean atmospheric phenomenon the El Nino, and its inuence on the
Walker Circulation were responsible for periodic weakening of monsoon westerlies.
8. Led to abnormally high summer sea surface temperatures in the western Indian Ocean.
9. Walker Circulation represents the zonal (east-west) circulation over the tropics.
10. In the Pacic, the trade winds blow from east to west.
11. This is because of the low pressure in the west and high pressure in the east, which drives these winds.
12. This is linked to the warm waters over the west Pacic and cool waters over the east Pacic.
13. In the upper atmosphere, this trade wind circulation is completed by winds blowing from west to east.
14. During summer, this Pacic cell is linked to the monsoon westerlies in the IndianOcean.
15. During an El Nino, due to warm waters in the east and cool waters in the west, the pressure systems also
change, reversing (shifting) the Walker circulation.
16. The wind direction reverses and the whole circulatory system shifts eastward leaving only weak surface
westerlies in the western Indian Ocean.
17. This results in ocean warming in the Western Indian Ocean.
NASA tests 3D-printed rocket engine parts
1. NASA has successfully tested 3D manufactured copper parts for rocket engines and found they could
withstand the heat and pressure required for space launches.
2. Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) at NASAs Glenn Research Centre in partnership with NASA
3. Successfully completed the rst hot-re tests on an advanced rocket engine thrust chamber assembly
using copper alloy materials.
4. This was the rst time a series of rigorous tests conrmed that 3D manufactured copper parts could
withstand the heat and pressure required of combustion engines used in space launches, NASA said.
5. In all, NASA and AR conducted 19 hot-re tests on four injector and thrust chamber assembly
congurations.
6. Exploring various mixture ratios and injector operability points and were deemed fully successful
against the planned test programme.

7. The successful hot re test of subscale engine components provides condence in the additive
manufacturing process.
Milky Way black hole producing mysterious particles: NASA
1. The giant black hole at the centre of the Milky Way may be producing the mysterious high-energy
neutrinos, NASA scientists have found.
2. This would be the rst time that scientists have traced neutrinos back to a black hole.

3. Neutrinos are tiny particles that carry no charge and interact very weakly with electrons and protons.
4. Unlike light or charged particles, neutrinos can emerge from deep within their cosmic sources and travel
across the universe without being absorbed by intervening matter.
5. The Earth is constantly bombarded with neutrinos from the sun. However, neutrinos from beyond the
solar system can be millions or billions of times more energetic.
6. Scientists have long been searching for the origin of ultra-high energy and very high-energy neutrinos.
7. Because neutrinos pass through material very easily, it is extremely dicult to build detectors that show
exactly where the neutrino came from.
Google joins ght against illegal shing
1. Technology giant Google has taken the battle against illegal shing online
2. With the company unveiling a tool in Australia that harnesses satellite data to track thousands of boats
in real time.
3. A prototype interactive tool, which is developed in conjunction with environmental activists SkyTruth
and marine advocacy group Oceana.
4. The tool is the latest salvo from environmentalists against illegal shing, which is currently estimated
by the Global Ocean Commission to cost the world economy up to $23.5 billion a year.
5. The tool uses data points from the Automatic Identication System network, which picks up GPS
broadcasts of a vessel's location to map movements.
6. The prototype has tracked just over 3,000 shing vessels, with a public tool set to be released down the
track.
NASA installs rst zero-gravity 3D printer on ISS

1. NASA successfully installed the worlds rst zero-gravity 3D printer on the International Space Station
(ISS)
2. To help out astronauts experiment with additive manufacturing in microgravity.
3. NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore installed the 3D printer, designed and built by Made In Space, inside the
Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) on the ISS.
4. Theprinter was launched in Septemberaboard the SpaceX 4 resupply mission to the ISS.
Two new subatomic particles discovered
1. Two new subatomic particles that could widen our understanding of the universe have been discovered.
2. The collaboration for the LHCb experiment at CERNs Large Hadron Collider discovered the two new
particles belonging to the baryon family.
3. The particles were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been seen before. A related
particle was found by the CMS experiment at CERN in 2012.
4. Like the well-known protons that the LHC accelerates, the new particles are baryons made from three
quarks bound together by the strong force.
5. The types of quarks are dierent, though: the new particles both contain one beauty (b), one strange (s),
and one down (d) quark.
6. The results match up with predictions based on the theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), QCD is
part of the Standard Model of particle physics, the theory that describes the fundamental particles of matter,
how they interact and the forces between them.
Flash memory breaches nanoscales
1. A team of scientists from Glasgow has proposed a way to harvest molecules and construct nano-sized
non-volatile (permanent) storage devices, also known as ash memory devices.
2. It is a great challenge to reduce the size of conventional MOS ash memories to sizes below ten
nanometres.
3. This poses a problem when one tries to build small ash memory devices.
4. They have found a suitable candidate in the polyxometalate molecules.
5. When such a molecule is doped with the selenium derivative [(Se(IV)O 3)2]2-a new type of oxidisation
state (5+) is observed for the selenium.
6. This new oxidation state can be observed at the device level, and this can be used as a memory.
Akash missiles tested again
1. Two Akash Surface-to-Air supersonic missiles were red in quick succession by Indian Air Force
personnel.
2. To destroy one fast moving Banshee unmanned aerial vehicles and a simulated electronic target at the
Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, in Odisha.
3. The current series of tests, which culminated on Friday, were conducted for acceptance of new
production lot of the missiles.
4. In all, nine missiles were tested since November 17 as part of the training exercise for IAF personnel.
European Space Agency satellite uses gravity map to track ocean currents

1. Using data from various satellites, particularly European Space Agencys GOCE, scientists have created
what they claim is the worlds most accurate space view of global ocean currents and the speeds of their
movement.
2. The Gravity eld and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer, or GOCE, measured the minute changes
in Earth's gravitational pull which varies at dierent places due to the uneven distribution of mass inside the
planet.
3. The GOCE geoid was subtracted from the mean sea-surface height measured over a 20-year period by
satellites, including ESAs veteran Envisat.
4. The data is of great use in ocean monitoring and forecasting systems. The new ocean current speed
map is of particular interest to UNESCOs Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
5. This supports the international cooperation and the understanding and management of oceans and
coastal areas.
Novel way to produce safer drinking water
1. Making drinking water a lot safer by killing an overwhelming number of bacteria and most viruses is
now possible.
2. In May 2013, the same team was able to achieve only 100 times reduction in bacterial load and
negligible reduction in viral load through sustained release of 50 parts per billion (ppb) of silver ions in
drinking water.
3. In the latest study, the team was able to achieve 1,00,000 times reduction in bacterial load and 1,000
times reduction in viral load by synergistically combining silver with carbonate ions.
4. The drastic improvement in antimicrobial performance was achieved despite the team using only 25
ppb of silver ions, half the amount used in the earlier work.
5. A fundamental result that came out of our earlier study was that the antibacterial activity of silver can
be tuned by simple methods.
6. Everybody was studying silver in isolation but the team looked at synergistically combining silver with
some other ions.
December 2014
Star Cluster NGC 3532 A Colorful Gathering of Middle-Aged Stars
1. NGC 3532 is a bright open cluster located some 1,300 light-years away in the constellation of Carina
(The Keel of the ship Argo).
2. It is informally known as the Wishing Well Cluster, as it resembles scattered silver coins which have
been dropped into a well.
3. This very bright star cluster is easily seen with the naked eye from the southern hemisphere.
4. It was discovered by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille whilst observing from South Africa in
1752 and was cataloged three years later in 1755.
5. It is one of the most spectacular open star clusters in the whole sky.
6. NGC 3532 covers an area of the sky that is almost twice the size of the full Moon.
7. This grouping of stars is about 300 million years old. This makes it middle-aged by open star cluster
standards.
8. The cluster stars that started o with moderate masses are still shining brightly with blue-white colors,
but the more massive ones have already exhausted their supplies of hydrogen fuel and have become red giant
stars.

9. Stars with masses many times greater than the Sun have lives of just a few million years; the Sun is
expected to live for about ten billion years.
New Biotech Innovation Reduces Unpredictability in Biological Circuits

1. A new biotech device from MIT reduces the unpredictability of biological components and could
ultimately allow such circuits to behave nearly as predictably as their electronic counterparts.
2. Researchers have made great progress in recent years in the design and creation of biological circuits
systems that, like electronic circuits.
3. It can take a number of dierent inputs and deliver a particular kind of output, but while individual
components of such biological circuits can have precise and predictable responses.
4. One example: cells that could detect markers that indicate the presence of cancer cells, and then trigger
the release of molecules targeted to kill those cells.
5. It is important for such circuits to be able to discriminate accurately between cancerous and
noncancerous cells, so they dont unleash their killing power in the wrong places.
6. To date, that kind of robust predictability has not been feasible, in part because of feedback eects
when multiple stages of biological circuitry are introduced.
7. The problem arises because unlike in electronic circuits, where one component is physically connected
to the next by wires that ensure information is always owing in a particular direction.
8. Biological circuits are made up of components that are all oating around together in the complex uid
environment of a cells interior.
Earths most abundant mineral gets name
1. American geologists have named the earths most abundant mineral Bridgmanite.
2. It had hitherto remained nameless as a large enough sample of the mineral, found in the earths lower
mantle, had not been recovered.
3. Under the rules of set down by the International Mineralogical Association, a mineral cannot be
given a formal name until a specimen has been found and examined rst hand.

4. A group of American geologists were recently able to extract a sample large enough to analyse from a
meteorite.
5. The new name is in honour of Percy Bridgman, a pioneer in the use of high pressure experiments to
better understand how many geological formations come about.
6. Bridgmanite makes up about 70 percent of the earths lower mantle and 38 percent of the total volume
of the earth. It is made up of high-density magnesium iron silicate.
7. The lower mantle, which starts at 670 km under the crust, is dicult to access for samples.
8. The researchers looked at a meteorite that had fallen inside Australia in 1879 as a likely candidate for
samples, and found what they were looking for.
GSLV Mark III faces its rst experimental ight
1. Later this month, the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III is expected to lift o for
the rst time from Indias spaceport at Sriharikota on an experimental ight.
2. It will assess the rockets performance as it hurtles through the atmosphere to reach speeds many times
that of sound.
3. When operational, the GSLV Mark III will be the Indian Space Research Organisation's most powerful
rocket, capable of putting four-tonne communication satellites into orbit, almost double the capacity of the
current GSLV.
4. The Mark III will weigh about 640 tonnes at launch, about 50 per cent heavier than the GSLV.
5. It is perhaps appropriate that the forthcoming launch will also provide an early test of a crew module
that is being developed.
6. The GSLV Mark III has two huge solid propellants boosters, which are among the largest in the world,
anking a big liquid propellant core stage.
7. Atop the core stage, sits a cryogenic upper stage that will provide half the velocity needed to put
communication satellites into the proper orbit.
8. For the experimental launch, the Mark III will be equipped with a dummy cryogenic engine and stage
that will simulate the weight and other characteristics of the ight version.
9. The GSLV Mark III is a totally new conguration, observed K. Radhakrishnan, the current ISRO
chairman, explaining the rationale for the experimental mission.
Earth-based telescope detects super-earth transit
1. Astronomers in Spain have detected the transit of a super-earth transiting across its star 55 Cancri
using only ground-based detection systems.
2. This detection is signicant because it opens the door to ground-based remote sensing of astronomical
bodies.
3. The detection was through the 2.5 metre Nordic Optical Telescope, in La Palma, Spain.
4. Developing ground-based telescopes such as this is important because it paves the way to interpreting
the atmospheres of planets and detection of bio-signatures of Earth-like planets.
5. Super-earths are extrasolar planets that are bigger than the earth, but not as big as the gaseous giants in
the solar system, for example, Uranus, which is 17 times as big as the earth.
6. Its proximity to its star makes 55 Cancri es surface as hot as 1,700 degree C. Thus, it is hostile to life.
NASA tests Orionthe spacecraft that might carry people to Mars

1. In what is another feat for NASA, the international space agency has launched its Orion spacecraft on
Friday
2. The spaceship that was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aims to send man to Mars someday.
3. Orion orbited the Earth twice on the inaugural ight and the entire mission lasted for just 4.5 hours,
culminating with a splashdown in the Pacic, to be collected by the US Navy.
4. The rst Orion-SLS combo will y around 2018, again without a crew. Astronauts are expected to climb
aboard in 2021.
5. NASA has been developing Orion since 2004 to carry astronauts to an asteroid, the moon, and even
Mars.
6. Orion most closely resembles the Apollo spacecraft used for missions to the moon in the 1960s and
1970s has some upgrades.
7. It is not only 50 per cent larger by volume but contains much more sophisticated computer systems.
India's GSAT-16 launched
1. Indias communications satellite GSAT-16 was on Sunday, put on a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit
(GTO) by the European launcher Ariane 5 VA221, from the Kourou space port in French Guiana.
2. GSAT-16's 48 transponders - 12 in the C band, 12 in the extended C and 24 in the Ku band - cover the
entire country and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
3. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) briey said the 3,181 kg GSAT-16 was put in orbit.
4. It was delivered on an Ariane 5 rocket along with US broadcast satellite DIRECTV-14, launch company
Arianespace said.
5. GSAT-16 will be used by television, telephone, Internet, public and private operators. It replaces the
INSAT-3E which expired in April this year at 55 degrees East longitude.
6. The cost of the satellite, built by ISRO in Bengaluru, and Arianespace's launch fee are put at around Rs.
880 crore.
Web inventor says Internet should be 'human right'
1. The computer scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web says aordable access to the
Internet should be recognized as a human right.
2. Tim Berners-Lee said on Thursday the Internet can help tackle inequality but only if it comes with the
rights to privacy and freedom of expression.
3. The Briton, who launched the Web in 1990, made the remarks as he released his World Wide Web
Foundations latest report tracking the Internets global impact.
4. The Web Index found that laws preventing mass online surveillance are weak or nonexistent in more
than 84 percent of countries.
5. It also said that almost 40 percent of surveyed countries were blocking sensitive online content to a
moderate or extreme degree, and that half of all Web users live in countries that severely restrict their
rights online.
6. Almost 4.4 billion people most of them in developing countries still have no access to the Internet, the
Web Index said.
New battery generates power from waste heat
1. Researchers have developed new ammoniabased battery system to convert lowgrade waste heat into

electricity.
2. The use of waste heat for power production would allow additional electricity generation without any
added consumption of fossil fuels.
3. Thermally regenerative batteries are a carbonneutral way to store and convert waste heat into
electricity with potentially lower cost than solidstate devices.
4. Lowgrade waste heat is an artifact of many energygenerating methods.
5. In automobiles, waste heat generated in winter is diverted to run the vehicle heating system, but in the
summer.
6. Using lowgrade waste heat from an outside source, the researchers distill ammonia from the euent
left in the battery anolyte and then recharge it into the original cathode chamber of the battery.
7. The researchers were able to increase power density by increasing the number of batteries, so that this
method is scalable to something that might be commercially attractive.
Unmanned crew module to be tested
1. Thirty years after Rakesh Sharma became the rst Indian to venture into space, ying aboard a Soviet
Soyuz spacecraft.
2. An Indian crew capsule and rocket that could one day carry astronauts will get their rst trial next
week.
3. The experimental ight of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) Mark III, scheduled for
next Thursday (Dec. 18).
4. Will send the unmanned crew module on a suborbital trajectory, with the latter splashing down in the
Bay of Bengal about 21 minutes after the rocket lifts o from Sriharikota.
Skulls reveal the dawn of civilization
1. When and how did we humans turn modern, and technologically and culturally adept?
2. This was the theme of a symposium held several weeks ago at the Salk Institute in California.
3. The experts attending the meeting suggest that self- domestication turned humans into the
cooperative species we are today.
4. Many animal species have formed a collaborative and cooperating groups or herds long before we
humans even arrived on the scene.
5. Look at the hundreds of sh, birds, foxes, or even primates such as bonobos. In unity is strength is an
adage they discovered and found useful.
6. In forming societies of this kind, each member of the herd had to cut down aggression, understand the
value of tameness and the advantages of working as a team.
7. Humans started forming groups as early as about 68,000 years ago from Africa and began their long
migration across the globe.
8. In doing so, they formed groups or societies over millennia, settling down in various places across the
world.
9. Language, customs, social mores, culture, religions and technology began emerging.
10. The main thread that bound each such society has been tolerance, cooperation and levelling down of
aggression.

11. This, in turn, Cieri and others argue, led to the evolution of technology tools, taming and using re,
navigation, shing and birding, water harvesting and agriculture.
12. All over the millennia spanning the early middle and later stone ages (almost until 25,000 years ago)
Domestication of horse and cattle occurred. All this could happen because we self- domesticated.
Greening food transport
1. Since antiquity, food items have been transported from place to place.
2. But never at the speed or in the variety or amounts seen in the past few decades.
3. Twenty-rst century consumers expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or
geography.
4. Catering to their demands are trucks with refrigeration units that carry perishable freight like
vegetables, fruits, meat, milk and sh at specic temperatures via roads.
5. But this comes at a huge cost: diesel, which powers the truck, emits greenhouses gases and
hydrouorocarbons (HFCs), used as a coolant, have very high global warming potential.
6. While gures for the emissions released by refrigerator trucks are not known
7. The entire refrigeration and air-conditioning sector contributes to 8-10 per cent of total global green
house gas emissions.
8. A variety of options are thus being developed to reduce emissions from refrigerator trucks.
9. One such alternative is to use cryogenic fuels, which are gases liquidied at very low temperatures.
10. The fuel is typically used in spacecrafts and results in zero carbon emissions.
11. UK-based Dearman Engine Company is experimenting with two cryogenic fuelsliquid air and liquid
nitrogento power refrigerator trucks.
12. These trucks are expected to hit the UKs roads by 2016.

13. A liquid air-fuelled transport refrigeration unit could not only reduce diesel consumption by up to 20 per
cent
14. But also eliminate harmful nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from the refrigeration process.

15. Non-prots have given a red carpet welcome to the technology.

Dirty past of cryogenic fuels
1. Emission factor for a fuel is the amount of CO2emitted while producing and burning one unit of fuel.
2. Though the emission factor for certain fuels, such as diesel and petrol, are pretty much constant across
the world.
3. Because of their standard extraction process, the factor varies quite a lot for electricity and depends on
whether it is generated from thermal power plants or by using renewable sources.
4. So every country has its own emission factor for electricity, based on the percentage of renewable
contribution to the countrys power need.
5. According to CSE, the new refrigeration technology that uses cryogenic fuels would be carbon-ecient
only if the electricity used to manufacture the fuels is renewable.
6. In the UK, where around one-third of the electricity is generated from coal, the technology could be
marginally better than conventional fuels.
Expensive for India
1. Dearman is interested in selling the trucks to India. Although it has admitted that the technology is not
viable for Indian conditions.

2. It says it is pinning its hopes on the future as it foresees economies moving towards renewable energy.
3. Even then, Dearman may not nd a lucrative market for its trucks in India.
4. Unlike the Western world, refrigeration for preservation of food is not a popular practice in India.
5. For instance, in the West, meat is processed, refrigerated and transported.
6. While in India, cattle are transported alive and then slaughtered to prepare meat for cooking. Vegetables
are mostly consumed locally.
7. The technology is also not economically feasible for India.
8. To power the refrigeration unit for one hour, 30 litres of cryogenic fuel would be needed.

9. With one litre costing Rs 25, an hour of refrigeration would cost Rs 750.
10. Powering a refrigeration unit for an hour with diesel would require 3 litres of it, which would cost
around Rs 180.
11. Instead of taking chances over cryogenic-based cooling technology, India must go for completely green
technologies like ammonia-based refrigeration systems.
12. India being a tropical country with abundant sunlight, exploring solar refrigeration systems would be
ideal as it is completely green.
Launch rehearsal of ISROs LVM 3 successful
1. Ahead of the countrys maiden experimental launch of latest generation vehicle GSLV Mk III
2. Which would carry out the Crew module Atmospheric Re- entry Experiment (CARE) on a suborbital
mission on December 18.
3. The nine hour 30 minutes launch rehearsal of ISRO LVM3 has just been successfully completed, ISRO
said in its social networking site.
4. Conrming the success, a senior ISRO ocial said the countdown for the launch of GSLV Mk III/X CARE
Mission (also known as LMV 3) would commence around 8.30 a.m., on December 17 at Sriharikota.
How Mars lost its atmosphere decoded
1. Early discoveries by NASAs newest Mars orbiter have unveiled key features about the loss of the Red
Planets atmosphere to space over time.
2. The ndings are among the rst returns from NASAs Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution
(MAVEN) mission, which entered its science phase on November 16.
3. The observations show a new process by which the solar wind can penetrate deep into a planetary
atmosphere.
4. They include the rst comprehensive measurements of the composition of Mars upper atmosphere and
electrically charged ionosphere.
5. The results also oer an unprecedented view of ions as they gain the energy that will lead to their
escape from the atmosphere.
6. Over the course of the full mission, well be able to ll in this picture and really understand the
processes by which the atmosphere changed over time.
7. This layer serves as a kind of shield around the planet, deecting the solar wind, an intense stream of
hot, high-energy particles from the Sun, researchers said.
8. Scientists have long thought that measurements of the solar wind could be made only before these
particles hit the invisible boundary of the ionosphere.
9. MAVENs Solar Wind Ion Analyser, however, has discovered a stream of solar-wind particles that are
not deected but penetrate deep into Mars upper atmosphere and ionosphere.
10. New insight into how gases leave the atmosphere is being provided by the spacecrafts Supra-thermal
and Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC) instrument.
11. Within hours after being turned on at Mars, STATIC detected the polar plume of ions escaping from
Mars. This measurement is important in determining the rate of atmospheric loss.
12. As the satellite dips down into the atmosphere, STATIC identies the cold ionosphere at closest approach
and subsequently measures the heating of this charged gas to escape velocities as MAVEN rises in altitude.

13. The energised ions ultimately break free of the planets gravity as they move along a plume that
extends behind Mars.
NASAs Curiosity rover detects organic matter on Mars

1. NASAs Mars rover Curiosity has made the rst denitive detection of organic molecules, the building
blocks of all known forms of terrestrial life.
2. The team responsible for the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on Curiosity found the
organic molecules in a drilled sample of the Sheepbed mudstone in Gale crater.
3. Organic molecules consist of a wide variety of molecules made primarily of carbon, hydrogen, and
oxygen atoms.
4. However, organic molecules can also be made by chemical reactions that dont involve life, and there
is not enough evidence to tell if the matter found by the team came from ancient Martian life or from a
non-biological process.
5. Perchlorates (a chlorine atom bound to four oxygen atoms) are abundant on the surface of Mars.
6. Its possible that as the sample was heated, chlorine from perchlorate combined with fragments from
precursor organic molecules in the mudstone to produce the chlorinated organic molecules detected by SAM.
As it happened: ISRO successfully launches GSLV Mark-III
1. ISRO successfully carries out human crew module experiment; module safely splashes down into Bay of
Bengal o Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

 Test ight sequence of LVM3X/CARE Mission. T 5 minutes and counting

2. India launches GSLV Mark-III, its largest rocket
3. The CREW module would be separated from the rocket about 325.52 seconds after the lift-o at 126.16
km altitude.
4. The specially made parachutes would help the module soft-crash in the Bay of Bengal, some few
hundred km from Indira Point in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which would later be fetched by Indian
Coast Guard ships.
NASAs Kepler mission discovers super-Earth
1. NASAs planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft, which is carrying out a new mission has made its rst
exoplanet discovery a super-Earth located 180 light-years from Earth.
2. This led to the discovery of a planet, HIP 116454b, which is 2.5 times the diameter of Earth and follows
a close, nine-day orbit around a star that is smaller and cooler than our Sun, making the planet too hot for life
as we know it.
3. HIP 116454b and its star are 180 light-years from Earth, toward the constellation Pisces.
4. The discovery was conrmed with measurements taken by the HARPS-North spectrograph of the
Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands, which captured the wobble of the star caused by the
planets gravitational tug as it orbits.
5. HARPS-N showed that the planet weighs almost 12 times as much as Earth. This makes HIP 116454b a
super-Earth, a class of planets that does not exist in our solar system.
NASAs NuSTAR clicks rst solar image
1. US Space agency NASAs Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has taken its rst picture
of the sun.
2. The telescope was launched into space in 2012. Originally, its purpose was to set its eyes on black holes
and other objects far from our solar system.
3. But now, it has been able to turn its gaze closer, to the sun and in the process, has taken the most
sensitive solar portrait ever taken in high-energy X-rays.
4. While the sun is too bright for other telescopes such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NuSTAR can
safely look at it without the risk of damaging its detectors.
5. The sun is not as bright in the higher-energy X-rays detected by NuSTAR, a factor that depends on the
temperature of the sun's atmosphere.
Tsunami 2004: scientists move closer to understanding triggers for tsunamis
1. Its been a decade since one of the largest ever recorded earthquakes struck o the coat of Indonesia,

triggering a massive tsunami which devastated coastal regions around the Indian Ocean and killed over
230,000 people.
2. The tsunami of 2004 was caused by a rupture in the 1,600 km stretch of the Sunda megathrust fault
between Aceh (Indonesia) and Andaman Islands.
3. It was an event waiting to happen, say scientists. For more than ve centuries, the Indo-Australian
tectonic plate wassubductingunder the Sunda plate.
4. But near the surface these plates had locked together, accumulating extremely high levels of tension
along a huge stretch of the Sunda megathrust. The earth struggled to maintain its mounting pressure.
5. Then, in a decisive moment on December 26, 2004, the earth shrugged o its strain.
6. In a matter of seconds, 1,600 km of ocean oor broke free and lurched upward, like a compressed
spring released suddenly.
7. The displacement of the sea oor was later calculated to be as high as six metre.
8. It was the incredible force of this displacement that triggered the great tsunami of 2004.
9. The tsunami could not have been prevented, but it could have been anticipated, and the loss might have
been greatly reduced.
10. Despite the uncontrollable chaos we associate with natural disasters of this scale, there are patterns and
rules governing even the greatest earthquakes and tsunamis.
11. Over the past decade, much scientic research has taken place along the Sunda megathrust, including the
segment that ruptured in 2004.

12. The term megathrust refers to an extremely large and active fault between convergent tectonic plates.
13. These geological structures are responsible for all earthquakes of moment magnitude 9.0 or higher.
14. Very few earthquakes are that powerfula grand total of ve have occurred since 1900, and the 2004
earthquake was, by far, the deadliest of these.
15. The 1,600 km stretch that ruptured during the 2004 earthquake was only one section of the 5,200
kilometer Sunda megathrust, which arcs all the way from Burma to Australia, hugging the western coast of
Sumatra.
NASA emails wrench to space station
1. NASA has for the rst time emailed a new wrench as an emailed digital le for the International
Space Stations onboard 3D printer.

2. A request from ISS astronaut Barry Wilmore for a ratcheting socket wrench led the Made in Space team.
3. To design the tool after which it sent the digital printing le to NASA which uploaded it to the station.
4. For the rst time hardware have been mailed to space, Because its a lot faster to send digital data
(which can travel at the speed of light) to space
5. Than it is to send physical objects (which involves waiting months to years for a rocket), it makes more
sense to 3Dprint things in space.
6. In November, the printer had manufactured the rst 3-D printed object in space a replacement part
for itself.
Scientists map water vapour in Martian atmosphere
1. Scientists, including NASA researchers, have created a map of the distribution of water vapour in
Mars atmosphere.
2. Researchers observed seasonal variations in atmospheric concentrations in Mars using data collected
over ten years
3. It was collected by the Russian-French SPICAM (Spectroscopy for Investigation of Characteristics of the
Atmosphere of Mars) spectrometer aboard the Mars Express orbiter.
4. This is the longest period of observation and provides the largest volume of data about water vapour on
Mars.
5. Conditions on Mars like low temperatures and low atmospheric pressure do not allow water to exist in
liquid form in open reservoirs as it would on Earth.
6. However, on Mars, there is a powerful layer of permafrost with large reserves of frozen water
concentrated at the polar caps.
7. There is water vapour in the atmosphere, although at very low levels compared to the quantities
experienced here on Earth.
8. If the entire volume of water in the atmosphere was to be spread evenly over the surface of the planet,
the thickness of the water layer would not exceed 10-20 microns.
9. Data from the SPICAM experiment allowed scientists to create a picture of the annual cycle of water
vapour concentration variation in the atmosphere.
January 2015
New half-light half-matter quantum particles discovered
1. In a breakthrough, researchers led by an Indian-origin scientist have discovered half-light, half-matter
particles in atomically thin semiconductors made of a 2D layer of atoms.
2. The research improves the prospects of developing computing and communication technologies based
on quantum properties of light and matter.
3. The atomically thin semiconductors consisted of two-dimensional (2D) layer of molybdenum and sulfur
atoms arranged similar to graphene.
4. Researchers from City College of New York led by Dr Vinod Menon sandwiched the 2D material in a
light trapping structure to realise the composite quantum particles.
5. The study appears in the journal Nature Photonics.
Big Bang to be probed using Antarctica telescopes

1. A set of six telescopes collectively known as Spider Sub-orbital Polarimeter for Ination, Dust and the
Epoch of Re-ionization will circle Antarctica in a bid to observe a haze of faint, radio microwaves that
envelops space.
2. Such waves are thought to be the fading remnants of the primordial reball in which it all started 13.8
billion years ago.
3. The exercise would help scientists understand the phenomenon of the Big Bang, the most plausible
theory explaining the origin of universe.
4. The telescopes are designed to detect faint curlicues (a decorative curl or design of an object) in
microwaves.
5. Spider will observe the microwaves in two wavelengths that would allow them to distinguish dust from
primordial space-time ripples.
6. The theory propounds that such curls would have been caused by violent disruptions of the space-time
continuum when the universe began expanding.
7. Spider is the sister experiment to a California Institute of Technology-based project known as Bicep,
whose investigators made headlines last spring when they announced that they had recorded curlicues in a
patch of the sky from a telescope at the South Pole.
First Chhattisgarh wild bualo clone born in Haryana
1. India's rst cloning of Chhattisgarh's endangered wild bualo met success with birth of healthy female
calf born on December 12 last at National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) at Karnal in Haryana.
2. The clone of the only wild-bualo in Chhattisgarh in semi-captivity was produced through the 'handguided cloning technique' at ICAR- National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal.
3. The female calf was born by normal parturition, and was named "Deepasha".
4. Its weight at the time of birth was 32 kg and is keeping good health," an ICAR spokesman said.
Birds Evolved in 'Big Bang,' New Family Tree Reveals
1. A new family tree of the world's bird species may be the most complete one ever made, and reveals
some surprising relationships.
2. More than 200 scientists at 80 institutions spent more than four years sequencing the genomes of bird
species and analyzing them using supercomputers as part of a massive eort to reconstruct how birds evolved.
3. The new bird genealogy is the most comprehensive one to date in terms of the amount of genomic data
and the scientic approaches used.
4. In one nding, the analysis revealed that the common ancestor of a group called the core landbirds
which includes today's songbirds, parrots and woodpeckers was a top-level predator of its time.
5. Previous studies have tried to reconstruct the relationships between bird species using just a few dozen
genes.
6. More than 10,000 bird species are alive today, and from the colorful birds-of-paradise of New Guinea, to
the iconic blue-footed boobies of the west coast of the Americas, birds are some of the most varied and
fascinating creatures around.
ISRO gears up to launch IRNSS 1D
1. After completing an eventful year, ISRO is gearing up for some satellite launches this year, with the
IRNSS 1D being the rst.
2. Which would put in place Indias own navigation system on par with the Global Positioning System of
the U.S.

3. The launch campaign for IRNSS 1D has come, which starts on January 16.
4. Within two months, all components from other ISRO labs have to reach Sriharikota. The launch is likely
after March 15.
5. IRNSS 1D is the fourth in the series of seven satellites, the national space agency is planning to launch
to put in place the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
6. While four satellites would be sucient to start operations of the system, the remaining three satellites
would make it more accurate and ecient.
7. IRNSS is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in the country as well as the
region extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area.
8. ISRO not only launched a GLSV rocket, a GSLV Mk III, besides two PSLVs during 2014 but also
successfully inserted its Mars orbiter into the Martian atmosphere and tested the re-entry of unmanned crew
module from space.
Hubble captures images of Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation'
1. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation and
has captured high-denition images.
2. The telescope had earlier captured the three impressive towers of gas and dust in 1995, which revealed
never-before-seen details in the giant columns.
3. Now the telescope is kickstarting its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer, and more stunning, image
of these beautiful structures.
4. The captured image is part of the Eagle Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 16 and although such
features are not uncommon in star-forming regions.
5. The Messier 16 structures are by far the most photogenic and evocative ever captured.
6. The infrared image shows that the reason the pillars exist is because the very ends of them are dense,
and they shadow the gas below them.
7. Creating the long, pillar-like structures and the gas in between the pillars has long since been blown
away by the winds from a nearby star cluster.
8 new planets found in Goldilocks zone
1. Astronomers with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) have discovered eight new
planets within the so-called Goldilocks or habitable zone of their stars.
2. To be considered habitable, exoplanets must orbit within a distance of their stars in which liquid water
can exist on the planets surface, receiving about as much sunlight as Earth.
3. Most of these planets have a good chance of being rocky, like Earth, lead author Guillermo Torres of
the CfA said in a release.
4. The discoveries of Kepler-438b and Kepler-442b are the latest in several advancements scientists have
made to nd signs of possible life in the universe.
5. At a panel held last summer at NASA headquarters in Washington, astronomers said they were very
close in terms of technology and science to actually nding the other Earth.
6. Thats due in part to the Kepler Space Telescope. The planet-hunting Kepler probe, launched in 2009,
nds planets by looking for dips in the brightness of a star as a planet transits, or crosses, in front of that star.
BCL11A: Novel cancer gene found

1. A new study identies the BCL11A gene is especially active in aggressive subtypes of breast cancer. The
research suggests that an overactive BCL11A gene drives triple-negative breast cancer development and
progression.
2. The research, which was done in human cells and in mice, provides new routes to explore targeted
treatments for this aggressive tumor type.
3. There are many types of breast cancers that respond dierently to treatments and have dierent
prognoses.
4. Approximately one in ve patients is aected by triple-negative breast cancer; these cancers lack three
receptor proteins that respond to hormone therapies used for other subtypes of breast cancer.
5. In recent years it has become apparent that the majority of triple-negative tumors are of the basal-like
subtype.
6. Although new treatments are being explored, the prognosis for triple-negative cancer is poorer than for
other types.
7. To date, only a handful of genomic aberrations in genes have been associated with the development of
triple-negative breast cancer.
8. When BCL11A was inactivated in an experimental system in mice, no mice developed tumors in the
mammary gland, whereas all untreated animals developed tumors.
9. The team also showed that BCL11A is required for normal development of breast stem cells and
progenitors, which are thought to be the cells that, when mutated, give rise to basal-like breast cancer.
NASA satellite to track droughts
1. NASA is launching a new satellite this month that will improve drought monitoring and ood warnings.
2. The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite will provide the best maps yet of soil moisture levels
from pole to pole, scientists said.
3. For the rst time, scientists will get a birds-eye view of drought patterns; for instance, they will watch
where droughts begin and end, and how droughts spread across large area.
4. Scientists said the soil moisture maps will help farmers who depend on rain to irrigate crops.
5. The soil moisture maps could also help improve ood warnings because forecasters will know how wet
the ground is before an intense storm, Live Science reported.
6. Data from the satellite will track global soil moisture levels for the top 5 centimetres of Earths surface
every two to three days.
7. The mission is planned to last three years, at a cost of USD 916 million, but the instruments could last
several years longer, mission scientists said.
8. The SMAP satellite, which will be carried aloft by a Delta II rocket, is scheduled to launch on January
29 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California
Insecticide-resistant super mosquito discovered
1. A newly discovered super mosquito has the ability to survive the insecticides used to treat bed nets
which are key to preventing the spread of malaria in humans, scientists say.
2. Interbreeding of two malaria mosquito species in the West African country of Mali has resulted in a
super mosquito hybrid that is resistant to insecticide-treated bed nets.
3. Its super with respect to its ability to survive exposure to the insecticides on treated bed nets, said
medical entomologist Gregory Lanzaro of University of California Davis, who led the research team.

4. The research provides convincing evidence indicating that a man-made change in the environment
the introduction of insecticides has altered the evolutionary relationship between two species, in this case a
breakdown in the reproductive isolation that separates them,
5. Anopheles gambiae, a major malaria vector, is interbreeding with isolated pockets of another malaria
mosquito, a coluzzii.
6. Entomologists initially considered them as the M and S forms of Anopheles gambiae. They are now
recognised as separate species. Growing resistance has been observed for some time
7. Recently it has reached a level at some localities in Africa where it is resulting in the failure of the nets
to provide meaningful control, and it is my opinion that this will increase.
8. The World Health Organisations World Malaria Report indicates that deaths from malaria worldwide
have decreased by 47 per cent since 2000.
9. A number of new strategies are in development, including new insecticides, biological agents
including mosquito-killing bacteria and fungi and genetic manipulation of mosquitoes aimed at either
killing them or altering their ability to transmit the malaria parasite.
Cheap asphalt to trap carbon dioxide created
1. Researchers have developed an inexpensive type of asphalt that can capture carbon dioxide from natural
gas wells and keep it out of the atmosphere.
2. The study from the laboratory of James Tour at Rice University found that a compound made cheaply in
a few steps from asphalt is even better than a green carbon capture material for wellhead sequestration
discovered last year.
3. The best version made by the Tour lab is a powder that holds 114 per cent of its weight in carbon
dioxide.
4. These new porous carbon materials capture carbon dioxide molecules at room temperature while letting
the desired methane natural gas ow through.
5. The basic compound known as asphalt-porous carbon (A-PC) captures carbon dioxide as it leaves a
wellhead under pressure supplied by the rising gas itself.
6. When the pressure is relieved, A-PC spontaneously releases the carbon dioxide, which can be piped o
to storage, pumped back down-hole or repurposed for such uses as enhanced oil recovery.
7. This provides an ultra-inexpensive route to a high-value material for the capture of carbon dioxide from
natural gas streams.
8. The material captured 93 per cent of its weight in carbon dioxide. Further experiments showed
processing A-PC with ammonia and then hydrogen increased its capacity to 114 per cent.
9. The research appears in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.
Improved solar panels with new material discovery
1. Researchers say discovery of highly sought-after 'nematic liquid crystals' can now lead to vastly
improved organic solar cell performance.
2. Lead author Dr David Jones of the University's School of Chemistry and Bio 21 Institute, said these cells
will be easier to manufacture, with the new crystals now able to work in cells that are double in thickness on
the previous limit of 200 nanometers.
3. We have improved the performance of this type of solar cell from around 8 per cent ecient to 9.3 per
cent, nally approaching the international benchmark of 10 per cent.
4. It means that consumers can look forward to more competitive pricing in the solar energy sector, and
according to Dr Jones, the discovery is a shot-in-the-arm for the whole organic materials sector.

5. The discovery is a step forward for the wider commercialization of printed organic solar cells.
6. But more than this, could aid in the development of new materials with improved performance such as
LCD screens."
7. Uptake of the current generation of organic solar cells has lagged behind more widespread silicon-based
models, due to their comparative lack of performance even with a simplied construction via large printers.
8. This is despite the organic models providing an unparalleled degree of versatility in how they are used;
they can be shaped to t nearly any surface area, as opposed to the traditional 'grid' formation of silicon-based
cells.
New genetic clues found in fragile X syndrome
1. Scientists have gained new insight into fragile X syndrome -- the most common cause of inherited
intellectual disability -- by studying the case of a person without the disorder, but with two of its classic
symptoms.
2. In patients with fragile X, a key gene is completely disabled, eliminating a protein that regulates
electrical signals in the brain and causing a host of behavioral, neurological and physical symptoms.
3. This patient, in contrast, had only a single error in this gene and exhibited only two classic traits of
fragile X -- intellectual disability and seizures -- allowing the researchers to parse out a previously unknown
role for the gene.
4. "This individual case has allowed us to separate two independent functions of the fragile X protein in
the brain," said co-senior author Vitaly A. Klyachko.
5. By nding the mutation, even in just one patient, and linking it to a partial set of traits, we have
identied a distinct function that this gene is responsible for and that is likely impaired in all people with
fragile X."
6. The research, appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Online Early
Edition, is by investigators at Washington University and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
7. In studying fragile X, researchers' focus long has been on the problems that occur when brain cells
receive signals.
8. Like radio transmitters and receivers, brain cells send and receive transmissions in ne tuned ways that
separate the signals from the noise.
9. Until recently, most fragile X research has focused on problems with overly sensitive receivers, those
that allow in too much information. The new study suggests that fragile X likely also causes overactive
transmitters that send out too much information.
New species discovered beneath ocean crust
1. Two miles below the surface of the ocean, researchers have discovered new microbes that "breathe"
sulfate.
2. The microbes, which have yet to be classied and named, exist in massive undersea aquifers -- networks
of channels in porous rock beneath the ocean where water continually churns. About one-third of the Earth's
biomass is thought to exist in this largely uncharted environment.
3. "It was surprising to nd new bugs, but when we go to warmer, relatively old and isolated uids, we
nd a unique microbial community," said Alberto Robador, postdoctoral researcher at the USC Dornsife
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and lead author of a paper on the new ndings published in Microbiology
on Jan. 14.
4. Sulfate is a compound of sulfur and oxygen that occurs naturally in seawater. It is used commercially in
everything from car batteries to bath salts and can be aerosolized by the burning of fossil fuels, increasing the
acidity of the atmosphere.
5. Microbes that breathe sulfate -- that is, gain energy by reacting sulfate with organic (carbon-containing)

compounds -- are thought to be some of the oldest types of organisms on Earth. Other species of sulfatebreathing microbes can be found in marshes and hydrothermal vents.
6. Microbes beneath the ocean's crust, however, are incredibly tricky to sample.
7. Researchers from USC and the University of Hawaii took their samples from the Juan de Fuca Ridge (o
the coast of Washington state), where previous teams had placed underwater laboratories, drilled into the
ocean oor.
8. To place the labs, they lowered a drill through two miles of ocean and bored through several hundred
feet of ocean sediment and into the rock where the aquifer ows.
9. "Trying to take a sample of aquifer water without contaminating it with regular ocean water presented a
huge challenge," said Jan Amend, professor at USC Dornsife and director of the Center for Dark Energy
Biosphere Investigations (C-DEBI), which helped fund the research.
February - 2015
Google making articial human skin
1. Search giant Google is developing articial human skin to test cancer-detecting nanoparticles that will
work with a smart wristband.
2. Last year Google announced that it was working on magnetic nanoparticles that would seek out cancer
cells in the bloodstream and report back to a wristband.
3. The technology will use light signals to talk to the wristband through the supercial veins on the
underside of the wrist.
4. Shining lights through the skin means factoring in a range of skin types and colours, and so Googles
scientists have built fake arms with the same autouorescence and biochemical components of real arms.
NASA launches Earth-observing satellite
1. A Delta 2 rocket carrying Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite was launched early from
Vandenberg Air Force Base on Californias central coast.
2. The satellite is on a three-year mission to track the amount of water locked in soil, which may help
residents in low-lying regions brace for oods or farmers get ready for drought conditions.
3. Once the satellite reaches the desired orbit 430 miles or 692 kilometers high, engineers will spend two
weeks checking out the two instruments.
4. This will measure moisture in the soil every several days to produce high-resolution global maps.
5. Scientists hope data collected by the satellite, the latest to join NASAs Earthorbiting eet, will
improve ood forecasts and drought monitoring.
New instrument can detect atmospheric mercury
1. A newsensorcan detect ambient levels of mercury in the atmosphere.
2. This new highly sensitive, laser-based instrument provides scientists with a method to more accurately
measure global human exposure to mercury.
3. The measurement approach is called sequential two-photon laser induced uorescence (2P-LIF).
4. It uses two dierent laser beams to excite mercury atoms and monitor blue shifted atomic uorescence.
5. The 2P-LIF instrument measured ambient mercury at very minute levels within 10 seconds, whereas its
counterpart instrument requires at least 2.5 minutes.

6. It is not able to dierentiate between elemental and oxidized mercury, where the mercury atom is
combined with another element or elements and becomes more eciently deposited in the environment.
7. Mercury is deposited on the ground (dry deposition) or via rainfall (wet deposition) where it
bioaccumulates and biomagnies, ending up at much high concentrations in sh and mammals.
8. Direct exposure to mercury by humans is primarily through the ingestion of methyl mercury from sh
consumption
First gene responsible for familial scoliosis discovered
1. The discovery of the rst gene causing familial scoliosis was announced by an international FranceCanada research team today.
2. Mystery surrounds the cause of scoliosis, which is a three dimensional deformation of the vertebral
column.
3. Many researchers have been attempting to uncover the origins of this disease, particularly from a
genetic point of view," explained leading co-author Dr Florina Moldovan of the University of Montreal and the
CHU Sainte Justine research hospital.
4. "To date, many genes have been suspected of causing scoliosis amongst dierent populations, but the
gene that causes the familial form of the disease remained unknown.
Moon rich ground for mining: Experts
1. Moon is a rich ground for mining, with an estimated 1.6 billion tonnes of water ice at its poles and an
abundance of rare-earth elements hidden below the lunar surface, experts say.
2. Private rms and space agencies are dreaming of tapping into these lucrative resources and turning the
Moons grey, barren landscape into a money-making conveyer belt, according to an article published in the
journal Physics World.
3. Since NASA disbanded its manned Apollo missions to the Moon over 40 years ago, unmanned
spaceight has made giant strides and has identied a bountiful supply of water ice at the north and south
poles of the Moon.
4. With a near-monopoly on the dwindling terrestrial rare-earth elements, which are vital for everything
from mobile phones to computers and car batteries, it is no surprise that China may want to cast its net wider,
the article said.
Eight dierent types of schizophrenia identied
1. Scientists have found that there is not a single type of schizophrenia, but that it consists of a group
made up of eight genetically dierent types of diseases.
2. Previous research has shown that approximately 80 per cent of the risk of suering from schizophrenia
was hereditary.
3. The new research has for the rst time identied the dierent gene networks that contribute to the
existence of eight dierent types of schizophrenia.
4. The study included 4,196 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 3,200 healthy patients participated
as control group.
5. In some patients with hallucinations or delirium, for instance, researchers agree that there are dierent
networks of genes related to their respective symptoms, which demonstrates that specic genetic variations
interact with each other.
6. In another group, they found that incongruent speech and disorganised behaviour are specically
associated with a DNA variations network that leads to a 100 per cent risk of suering schizophrenia.
7. In parallel, scientists classied the proles of these symptoms into eight qualitative types of dierent

diseases according to the underlying genetic conditions.

8. Although individual genes only present weak, inconsistent associations with schizophrenia, the
interaction networks of gene groups pose a high risk of suering from the disease, between 70 and 100 per
cent.
9. Which makes it almost impossible that individuals with those genetic variation networks will avoid
schizophrenia, researchers said.
10. Researchers found a total of 42 genes groups that inuenced in a variety of ways the risk of suering
schizophrenia.
Benecial algal species discovered
1. Two new bloom-forming algal species were discovered recently o the west coast of India.
2. These two species have excellent carbon capture properties ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and reduce global warming and are also promising candidates for use as bio fuels.
3. Currently, a number of research groups are working on using algae as a potential candidate for carbon
sequestration because they grow at very high rates and can absorb atmospheric CO.
4. As they are endemic, their cultivation is not going to cause any environmental harm; had it been a
species of Atlantic or Mediterranean origin, it might overgrow local ora and might wreak havoc on the local
habitats the so-called bio invasion.
5. Bloom forming indicates spontaneous growth. There is no need for fertilizers/pesticides or any
expensive cultivation systems such as photobioreactors for their cultivation.
Now make pure water from thin air
1. In April 2012, at the height of summer, Mumbaikars were shocked to read about the death of a woman
in a Thane village who trudged several kilometres to fetch drinking water and died from sunstroke.
2. The incident prompted an IITian to build a device that can convert humidity in the atmosphere into
water, right in our homes.
3. Anit Asthana, a chemical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) - Delhi and an MBA
from XLRI, Jamshedpur.
4. It was moved to do something about the problem of cheap drinking water, especially during the summer
months and in the drought-prone regions of the country.
5. After a lot of research and experiments, we have developed India's rst Air-Water Generator which can
'make' pure water from the humidity in the atmosphere.
6. It can be developed right into home Asthana, managing director of ElectroWater Technologies Pvt. Ltd,
Mumbai, told IANS.
SpaceX looks to launch space weather satellite, land rocket
1. SpaceX, the California-based company led by billionaire Elon Musk, is aiming for both a launch and
landing within minutes of each other.
2. The company is set to launch an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket at sunset from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
3. On board is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which will head to a destination 1 million miles away.
Its designed to monitor solar outbursts that could disrupt life here on Earth.
4. NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Air Force have teamed up for the
$340-million mission.

5. As soon as the main booster completes its lifting job, it will attempt to y to a platform oating nearly
400 miles o the Florida coast.
Rare triple-moon conjunction captured
1. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has captured the rare occurrence of three of Jupiters largest moons
racing across the face of the gas-giant planet.
2. Europa, Callisto and Io complete orbits around Jupiter with durations ranging from 2 days to 17 days.
3. They can commonly be seen transiting the face of Jupiter and casting shadows onto its cloud tops.
However, seeing three moons transiting the face of Jupiter at the same time is rare, occurring only once or
twice a decade, researchers said.
4. The moons in the photos have distinctive colours. The ancient cratered surface of Callisto is brownish;
the smooth icy surface of Europa is yellow-white; and the volcanic, sulphur-dioxide surface of Io is orange.
5. The moon Ganymede is missing from the photos as it was outside Hubbles eld of view and too far
from Jupiter in angular separation to be considered part of this conjunction.
6. Jupiter has over 60 moons. The four large moons - Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto - are called the
Galilean moons after the 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei who discovered them.
India to explore mineral deposits o Mauritius coast
1. India will soon start exploration of mineral deposits, mainly polymetallic sulphides, along the 10,000 sq
km mid-ocean ridge o Mauritius following approval from the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
2. The exploration will actually begin after the Government of India signs a 15-year contract with the ISA
within a year.
3. National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research Director Dr. S. Rajan said on Monday while
addressing a plenary session at the ongoing World Ocean Science Congress (WOSC2015).
4. The congress is jointly organised by Swadeshi Science Movement of Vijnana Bharati here and the Kerala
University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies.
5. An application for Deep Sea Mining Exploration License was lodged with the ISA by the Ministry of
Earth Sciences in April 2013 and approval for the plan of work for exploration was given in July 2014.
6. The project will be implemented in three continuous phases from the date of agreement.
7. The exploration is expected to lead to vast deposits of lead, zinc and copper ranging from several
thousands to about 100 million tonnes.
8. The hydrothermal uids, when mixed with the cold surrounding seawater, are precipitated onto the
chimney vents leading to the formation of massive deposits of lead, zinc and copper.
9. The Ministry has given a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
seeking to extend the countrys Continental Shelf Limit to 350 nautical miles from the current 200 nautical
miles.
10. This will allow the country to widen its area of exploration of large scale mineral deposits.
11. National Institute of Ocean Technology Director Dr M A Atmanand, addressing the session, said the
institute has taken up a number of projects for the benet of society including beach restoration, weather
forecast, tsunami warning, desalination and generation of renewable energy.
Parasitic wasps novel weapon
1. A parasitic wasp employs a biological weapon a virus to paralyse a beetle, turning the
creature into a bodyguard for its larva, according to research just published.

2. Parasites are known to manipulate the behaviour of their hosts in a fashion that benets them.
3. Rats infected with the single-celled parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, for instance, stop eeing from the
smell of cats and thereby readily fall prey to them.
4. That allows the parasite, which can sexually reproduce only in alimentary tract of cats, to complete its
lifecycle.
5. In the case of the parasitic wasp, Dinocampus coccinellae, a female wasp will attack a ladybeetle,
stinging it and then laying an egg inside its abdomen.
6. The developing larva feeds o its unfortunate hosts tissues and, after nearly three weeks, a proceeds
to squeeze its way out of the latters body.
7. The beetles travails do not end there. The wasp larva then spins a cocoon between the beetles legs.
8. While the larva undergoes further development inside the cocoon, the beetle becomes partially
paralysed, unable to move about properly and with its legs twitching occasionally.
9. By remaining perched on top of the cocoon, it acts as a bodyguard, its body protecting the larva from
predators.
10. After about a week, an adult wasp emerges from the cocoon and ies away. Some beetles survive this
traumatic experience and gradually recover.
11. In beetles that recover, their immune system returns to normal and gets rid of the virus, allowing the
nervous system to repair itself.
SpaceX rocket blasts o to put weather satellite into deep space
1. A SpaceX rocket blasted o on Wednesday to put a U.S. satellite into deep space, where it will keep tabs
on solar storms and image Earth from nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million km) away.
2. Illuminated by the setting sun, the 22-story Falcon 9 rocket soared o its seaside launch pad at 6:03
p.m. EST (2303 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
3. The launch was delayed on Sunday by a problem with a radar tracking system and on Tuesday by high
winds.
4. The rocket carries the Deep Space Climate Observatory, nicknamed DSCOVR, a $340 million mission
backed by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Air Force, which paid for the
launch.
5. DSCOVR replaces a 17-year-old satellite monitoring for potentially dangerous solar storms, which can
disrupt GPS signals, block radio communications and impact power grids on Earth.
6. It will take DSCOVR 110 days to reach its operational orbit around the sun, almost 1 million miles (1.6
million km) inward from Earth, where it will serve as a weather buoy, providing about an hour's advance
notice of threatening solar activity.
7. It also will take pictures of Earth every two hours that will be posted on the Internet, fullling in part
Gore's dream.
NASA spacecraft captures giant lament on Sun
1. A NASA spacecraft has captured a giant solar lament which appears as a dark line snaked across the
lower half of the Sun and is longer than 67 Earths lined up in a row.
2. An image captured by NASAs Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on February 10 shows the lament
of solar material hovering above the Suns surface.
3. SDO shows colder material as dark and hotter material as light, so the line is, in fact, an enormous
swatch of colder material hovering in the Suns atmosphere, the corona.

4. Stretched out, that line or solar lament as scientists call it would be more than 857,780 km long.
That is longer than 67 Earths lined up in a row, NASA said.
5. Sometimes they also erupt out into space, releasing solar material in a shower that either rains back
down or escapes out into space, becoming a moving cloud known as a coronal mass ejection, or CME.
India to explore mineral deposits o Mauritius coast
1. India will soon start exploration of mineral deposits, mainly polymetallic sulphides, along the 10,000 sq
km mid-ocean ridge o Mauritius following approval from the International Seabed Authority (ISA).
2. The exploration will actually begin after the Government of India signs a 15-year contract with the ISA
within a year.
3. National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research Director Dr. S. Rajan said on Monday while
addressing a plenary session at the ongoing World Ocean Science Congress (WOSC2015).
4. The congress is jointly organised by Swadeshi Science Movement of Vijnana Bharati here and the Kerala
University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies.
5. An application for Deep Sea Mining Exploration License was lodged with the ISA by the Ministry of
Earth Sciences in April 2013 and approval for the plan of work for exploration was given in July 2014.
6. The project will be implemented in three continuous phases from the date of agreement.
7. The exploration is expected to lead to vast deposits of lead, zinc and copper ranging from several
thousands to about 100 million tonnes.
8. The hydrothermal uids, when mixed with the cold surrounding seawater, are precipitated onto the
chimney vents leading to the formation of massive deposits of lead, zinc and copper.
9. The Ministry has given a submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf
seeking to extend the countrys Continental Shelf Limit to 350 nautical miles from the current 200 nautical
miles.
10. This will allow the country to widen its area of exploration of large scale mineral deposits.
11. National Institute of Ocean Technology Director Dr M A Atmanand, addressing the session, said the
institute has taken up a number of projects for the benet of society including beach restoration, weather
forecast, tsunami warning, desalination and generation of renewable energy.
Rare planet with extreme seasons discovered
1. Researchers have discovered one of the most dense and massive planets known so far with extreme
seasons.
2. The teams, one led by Mauricio Ortiz of the Centre for Astronomy of Heidelberg University (ZAH) and
the other by Simona Ciceri of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg.
3. The shape and the size of its orbit are also unusual for the planet named Kepler-432b that is revolving
around a giant star.
4. The majority of known planets moving around giant stars have large and circular orbits. With its small
and highly elongated orbit, Kepler-432b is a real maverick among planets of this type.
5. Dr. Gandol explained that the star around which Kepler-432b is orbiting has already exhausted the
nuclear fuel in its core and is gradually expanding.
6. Its radius is already four times that of our Sun and it will get even larger in the future. As the star is
reddish in colour, astronomers call it a red giant.
7. The orbit brings Kepler-432b incredibly close to its host star at some times and much farther away at
others, thus creating enormous temperature dierences over the course of the planets year, which

corresponds to 52 Earth days.

8. During the winter season, the temperature on Kepler-432b is roughly 500 degrees Celsius. In the short
summer season, it can increase to nearly 1,000 degrees Celsius, said astronomer Dr. Sabine Reert from the
state observatory Konigstuhl.
9. Kepler-432b was previously identied as a transiting planet candidate by the NASA Kepler satellite
mission. From the vantage point of Earth, a transiting planet passes in front of its host star, periodically
dimming the received stellar light.
10. Both groups of researchers used the 2.2-metre telescope at Calar Alto Observatory in Andalucia, Spain to
collect data.
11. The group from the state observatory also observed Kepler-432b with the Nordic Optical Telescope on La
Palma.
Newton knew how water rise in plants dees gravity
1. English physicist Isaac Newton very nearly uncovered the secret of how plants defy gravity by pulling
water up from roots, almost 200 years before the process was described by botanists, new research has shown.
2. David Beerling from the University of Sheeld, UK, reviewed an old notebook lled with scrawlings by
Newton.
3. Beerling described in the journal Nature Plants that Newton kept a notebook during his college years
which he used for jotting down ideas and musings.
4. One of those was apparently an idea to help explain how it is that plants are able to pull water from the
ground via roots and transport it up through stalks and stems to their leaves - defying gravity in the process,
'Phys.org' reported.
5. Newton suggested in his notebook that light pulled water particles from pores in plant leaves - as
"juices" beneath owed in naturally to rell the pore, juices from below were pulled upward.
6. This idea is not far from what is the commonly excepted explanation for plant transpiration today where water is pulled up a plant from roots and evaporates out of leaves, causing tension due to unequal
pressure.
7. The current theory came about by botanists working in 1885, approximately 200 years after Newton
was writing in his notebook.
New laser technique to hunt for Earth-like planets
1. The hunt for Earth-like planets around distant stars could soon become a lot easier, thanks to a new
laser technique developed by researchers in Germany.
2. The technique will allow a spectral analysis of distant stars with unprecedented accuracy, as well as
advance research in other areas of astrophysics, such as detailed observations of the Sun and the measurement
of the accelerating universe by observing distant quasars, researchers said.
3. Researchers successfully demonstrated how a solar telescope can be combined with laser frequency
comb (LFC) - a tool for measuring the colour or frequency of light.
4. LFC has been responsible for generating some of the most precise measurements ever made.
5. An LFC is created by a laser that emits continuous pulses of light, containing millions of dierent
colours, often spanning almost the entire visible spectrum.
6. When the dierent colours are separated based on their individual frequencies - the speed with which
that particular light wave oscillates - they form a comb-like graph with nely spaced lines, or teeth,
representing the individual frequencies.
7. This comb can then be used as a ruler to precisely measure the frequency of light from a wide

range of sources, such as lasers, atoms or stars.

8. When a planet orbits a star, the star does not stay completely stationary, but instead moves in a very
small circle or ellipse.
9. When viewed from a distance, these slight changes in speed cause the stars light spectrum to change a process known as a Doppler shift.
10. The researchers believe that an LFC would allow them to measure these Doppler shifts much more
accurately and therefore increase the chances of spotting Earth-sized, habitable planets.
Displacement cuts life expectancy among tribal people
1. Displacement does more than eace identities and disrupt livelihoods, it can reduce life expectancy,
nds a DNA study of a tribal community relocated from Madhya Pradeshs Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary.
2. Around 8,000 Sahariya tribal people were moved out of their ancestral homes in Kuno in 1998-2002 to
make space for Asiatic lions brought in from Gujarat.
3. The families suered acute stress as they coped with their radically changed life in unfamiliar,
semi-urbanized surroundings 10 km away.
4. To nd a possible link between these tumultuous life changes and lifespan, scientists studied their
subjects telomeres the protective caps on either end of a chromosome which are known to be
associated with aging and disease.
5. Premature telomere shortening has for long been used as an indicator of psychosocial stress and
accelerated human aging.
6. Researchers studied physical stress (cortisol), psychosomatic stress (through self-assessments) and then
conducted high resolution studies of telomere length among 24 individuals from the relocated Maziran village
in the forest core.
7. They compared the results with identical tests on 22 individuals from Behruda village (in the
sanctuarys buer) where no relocation took place (but the residents faced certain stressors such as benign
neglect from the Indian state).
8. Those in the relocated Maziran, they found, have statistically signicantly shorter telomeres
compared with those in Behruda. Consistent with expectations, we found signicant associations between
each of our stress measures and telomere length, they conclude.
9. Telomere shortening has already been associated with several stress-inducing situations.
10. But most studies in these scenarios have been conducted in Western, educated, industrialized and
rich societies, say the authors adding that this could, therefore, possibly be the rst study to link stress to
telomere length in a developing country.
11. Telomere shortening among displaced tribal communities shows that these DNA stretches are clearly a
pan-cultural biomarker of compromised health and aging, says the paper.
12. During interactions, parents among the displaced Sahariya families expressed deep uncertainty about
the future, particularly with respect to the welfare of their children, and wished to return to their
predisplacement lives.
13. Sahariyas are among the most marginalised communities, steeped in poverty, with high illiteracy rates
and are geographically isolated.
NASA probe spots small moons orbiting Pluto
1. Exactly 85 years after Plutos discovery, the NASA spacecraft set to encounter the icy dwarf planet this
summer has spotted small moons orbiting Pluto.
2. The moons, Nix and Hydra, are visible in a series of images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft at

distances ranging from about 201 million-186 million km.

3. The long-exposure images oer New Horizons best view yet of these two small moons circling Pluto
which professor Clyde Tombaugh discovered at Lowell Observatory in Flagsta, Arizona Feb 18, 1930.
4. Tombaughs discovery of Pluto heralded the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and a new class of planet.
The New Horizons team salutes his historic accomplishment.
5. Assembled into a seven-frame movie, the new images provide the spacecrafts rst extended look at
Hydra (identied by a yellow diamond) and its rst-ever view of Nix (orange diamond).
6. The rst good view of Nix and Hydra marks another major milestone and a perfect way to celebrate the
anniversary of Plutos discovery.
7. Nix and Hydra were discovered by New Horizons team members in Hubble Space Telescope images
taken in 2005.
8. Hydra, Plutos outermost known moon, orbits Pluto every 38 days at a distance of approximately
64,700 km while Nix orbits every 25 days at a distance of 48,700 km.
Indigenous sonar simulator inaugurated
1. Indigenous sonar simulator Dhwani was inaugurated by Director Naval Physical and Oceanographic
Laboratory S Anantha Narayana at the Indian Navy Submarine training school INS Satvahana in
Visakhapatnam.
2. The state-of-the-art simulator Dhwani is a completely indigenous system developed for training
the submariners on operational aspects of Sonar.
3. It was executed by NPOL KochiThe inaugural function was attended by several senior submariners of
ENC including Flag Ocer Submarines Rear Admiral SV Bhokare and Commanding Ocer INS Satavahana
Commodore A Srinivas.
Spacewalk on ISS completed
1. NASA astronauts at International Space Station (ISS) have successfully completed the rst of three
spacewalks to create parking spots for Boeing and SpaceX to deliver astronauts to the orbital laboratory.
2. The 6-hour, 41-minute-spacewalk by Expedition 42 astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts was
meant to prepare the ISS for a pair of international docking adapters (IDAs) that will allow future commercial
crew vehicles to dock.
3. They rigged a series of power and data cables at the forward end of the Harmony module and
Pressurised Mating Adapter2 and routed 340 of 360 feet of cable.
4. The cable routing work is part of a reconguration of station systems and modules to accommodate the
delivery of new docking adapters that commercial crew vehicles will use later this decade to deliver astronauts
to the orbital laboratory.
5. The spacewalk was the rst for Mr. Virts. Mr. Wilmore now has spent 13 hours and 15 minutes in the
void of space during two spacewalks.
6. Astronauts have now spent a total of 1,159 hours and 8 minutes conducting space station assembly and
maintenance during 185 spacewalks, NASA said.
Agreement in space technology for peaceful uses of outer space
1. Government ofIndiaand its national space body, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
ofDepartment of Space(DOS) has signed agreement with other developing/ developed countries
2. And their space bodies for peaceful uses of outer space including Research and Development (R&D) in
space science, technology and applications.

3. Currently, such cooperative arrangements are in place with Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria,
Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Mongolia, Myanmar, Peru, Republic of Korea, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Thailand,
The Netherlands, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America and Venezuela. (No need to remember
this)
What its all about?
1. There is a committee of United Nations on peaceful uses of outer space
2. The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was set up by the General Assembly in 1959
(resolution 1472 (XIV)) to review the scope of international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space.
Main functions are
1. To devise programmes in this eld to be undertaken under United Nations auspices, to encourage
continued research and the dissemination of information on outer space matters, and to study legal problems
arising from the exploration of outer space.
2. Right now there are 77 member states in committee; the committee has two standing subcommittees of
the whole, the Scientic and Technical Subcommittee and the Legal Subcommittee.
3. The Committee and its two Subcommittees meet annually to consider questions put before them by the
General Assembly, reports submitted to them and issues raised by the Member States.
4. The Committee and the Subcommittees, working on the basis of consensus, make recommendations to
the General Assembly.
5. Detailed information on the work of the Committee and the Subcommittees are contained in their
annual reports.
The fty-seventh session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space was held from 11-20
March 2015
Cern to test new particle model
1. The Higgs particle can disintegrate into particles of dark matter, according to a new model that is being
tested at the particle physics laboratory Cern.
2. Physicists describe the smallest constituents of nature - elementary particles and forces acting between
them using a set of theories known as "the Standard Model".
3. This model was developed in the 1970s and has been very successful, particularly in predicting the
existence of undiscovered particles.
4. The last in the series was the Higgs particle, or the 'Higgs Boson', the existence of which was conrmed
by the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern in 2012.
5. The problem is that there are several things the Standard Model is unable to explain, for example dark
matter that makes up a large part of the universe.
6. One of them is Christoer Petersson, who carries out research in theoretical particle physics at Chalmers
University of Technology in Sweden and the Universite Libre in Belgium.
SpaceX rocket blasts o with world's rst all-electric satellites
1. A Space Exploration Technologies rocket blasted o from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sunday
to put the world's rst all-electric communications satellites into orbit.
2. The 22-storey tall booster soared o its seaside launch pad at 10:50 a.m. EST (0350 GMT), the third
ight in less than two months for SpaceX, as the privately owned, California-based company is known.

3. Perched on top of the rocket were a pair of satellites built by Boeing and owned by Paris-based Eutelsat
Communications and Bermuda-based ABS, whose majority owner is the European private equity rm Permira.
4. Eutelsat and ABS shared satellite manufacturing and launch costs, a business arrangement spurred by
technological innovation.
5. The satellites launched on Sunday are outtted with lightweight, all-electric engines, rather than
conventional chemical propulsion systems, to reach and maintain orbit.
6. The value of electrical propulsion is that it allows the satellite operator to need much less fuel than
when the satellite has chemical propulsion," Eutelsat chief executive Michel de Rosen said in an interview
before launch.
7. SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, turned the theoretical price cuts
into reality.
8. Breaking what de Rosen calls "a quasi-monopoly" Europe's Arianespace had on the small satellite launch
market.
9. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although SpaceX's website lists a Falcon 9 launch as costing $61
million.
10. The disadvantage of electric propulsion is that it will take the satellites months, rather than weeks, to
reach their operational orbits about 22,300 miles (35,800 km) above Earth.
11. High enough to appear virtually parked over a particular part of the globe.
12. The companies are partnering for a second pair of satellites that are due to launch aboard another Falcon
9 rocket later this year.
13. SpaceX also ies cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA and is working on an
upgraded spaceship to y astronauts as well.
Countdown to IRNSS 1D on March 7
1. The 59-hour countdown for the launch of IRNSS 1D satellite, which will help India kick-start
functioning of indigenous navigation system on a par with the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS), will
commence at 7.35 am on March 7.
2. The launch is scheduled at the rst launch pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota at 6.35
p.m. on March 9, a senior ISRO ocial told.
3. IRNSS 1D is the fourth of the seven satellites to be launched to put in place Indias very own satellite
navigation system, which will be established at a cost of Rs. 1,400 crore.
4. Though the launch would help the ISRO commence initial operations on the system, the formal
commencement of the IRNSS function would be announced a few months later, as the satellite would have to
take its nal position.
5. Following the IRNSS 1D, the ISRO is planning to launch a GSAT-6 communication satellite on board
GSLV D-6 rocket with indigenous cryogenic engine by July.
6. A foreign satellite on a commercial launch is planned in May onboard a PSLV and we plan to launch
IRNSS 1E and Astrosat satellites before the end of this year.
Worlds rst solar-powered aircraft to land in Gujarat
1. Solar Impulse, claimed to be the worlds only solar-powered aircraft, will make a stopover in
Ahmedabad on Tuesday as a part of its maiden global journey.
2. Solar Impulse will take o from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and land in Ahmedabad after
making a rst stop over at Muscat in Oman.

3. It will make a pit-stop in Ahmedabad, a release issued by the aircraft projects PR rm said.
4. After making a landing here, the solar-powered aircrafts founders and pilots Bertrand Piccard and
Androrschberg are likely to stay in the city for two days before leaving for Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, the
release said.
5. The Swiss solar-powered aircrafts ight got delayed by a day due to bad weather conditions in the
UAE.
6. Piccard and Borschberg, during their stay in the city, will reach out to the government, NGOs,
universities and schools to spread the message of clean technologies.
7. The aircraft is also likely to hover above river Ganga in Varanasi to spread the message of cleanliness
and clean energy, an ocial associated with the project said.
8. Solar Impulse is claimed to be the rst aircraft to y day and night without a drop of fuel, propelled
solely by the suns energy, as per the projects website.
Tech-savvy farmer saves wheat crop in Chandigarh
1. Untimely rains accompanied with strong winds and hailstorm have farmers across north India worried
as it has led to lodging (attening) of wheat crop.
2. However, one progressive farmer from Karnal managed to save his wheat from the vagaries of weather
as he had sown his crop using, the "Happy Seeder" machine unlike the broadcasting method used by most
farmers.
3. Harpreet Singh of Kalwehri village of Karnal, who had sown 10 acres of wheat, said, "Heavy rainfall and
strong winds attened the wheat crop in our area on March 2 and 3.
4. Crops of many farmers in the adjoining elds got lodged due to inclement weather. However, my crop
remained unaected by the torrential downpour and strong winds.
5. I had sown wheat with the Happy Seeder so that could be the reason that my crop remained
unaected."
6. Harpreet said he has been sowing wheat with this machine since 2011. "I have sown HD-3086,
HD-2967, and WH-1105 and KRI-210 varieties of wheat.
7. I started using Happy Seeder for sowing about four years ago and the results have been encouraging."
8. Even farm scientists are taking keen interest in the growth of wheat sown by Harpreet.
9. Hisar also visited Harpreet's elds on March 5 to take a look at the crop, which remained unaected by
strong gusts of wind and heavy downpour.
10. Scientists at the Karnal station of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) also inquired about
the crop condition from Harpreet after heavy rainfall in the region.
11. Many other progressive farmers in the region are also keen to use Happy Seeder now.
Advanced Technology to Check Inltration
1. The fencing is not feasible along the riverine stretches of the Indo-Pakistanand Indo-BangladeshBorder.
2. There is about 145.876 km of unfenced riverine stretches along the Indo-Pakistan Border which is about
6.3% of the Indo-Pakistan Border.
3. Similarly, there is about 930.076 km of unfenced riverine stretches along the Indo- Bangladesh Border
which is about 22.7% of the border.
4. The riverine segment of the borders are being patrolled and dominated with the help of water crafts/

speed boats/ oating Border out Posts (BOPs) of the Border Security Force water wing.
5. The BSF, deployed on the Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh Border, has developed its own technical
solutions like Farheen LASER walls which are very useful to guard reverine/ nullah gaps.
6. These LASER walls have been deployed along the Jammu International Border. The thermal sensors like
Hand-Held Thermal Imager are already installed along the Indo-Pakistan and Indo-Bangladesh Border.
7. Further, at present, there is no proposal for installation of anti-tunnel ground sensors in the fenced
stretches of both the borders.
Massive Ocean found on Jupiters largest moon Ganymede
1. NASAs Hubble Space Telescope has found strong evidence of a massive saltwater ocean under the icy
crust of Jupiters largest moon Ganymede that could potentially support life.
2. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earths surface,
researchers said.
3. Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search for
life.
4. This discovery marks a signicant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish, said
John Grunsfeld, assistant administrator of NASAs Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters,
Washington, DC.
5. A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond
Earth, said Grunsfeld.
6. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and the only moon with its own magnetic eld. The
magnetic eld causes aurorae, which are ribbons of glowing, hot electried gas, in regions circling the north
and south poles of the moon.
7. Because Ganymede is close to Jupiter, it is also embedded in Jupiters magnetic eld. When Jupiters
magnetic eld changes, the aurorae on Ganymede also change, rocking back and forth.
8. By watching the rocking motion of the two aurorae, scientists were able to determine that a large
amount of saltwater exists beneath Ganymedes crust, aecting its magnetic eld.
9. A team of scientists led by Joachim Saur of the University of Cologne in Germany came up with the idea
of using Hubble to learn more about the inside of the moon.
10. The new observations were done in ultraviolet light and could only be accomplished with a space
telescope high above Earths atmosphere, which blocks most ultraviolet light.
Nine dwarf galaxies found orbiting the Milky Way
1. Astronomers from the University of Cambridge have discovered nine dwarf satellites orbiting the Milky
Way, the largest number ever discovered at once.
2. The ndings may help unravel the mysteries behind dark matter, the invisible substance holding
galaxies together.
3. The results also mark the rst discovery of dwarf galaxies small celestial objects that orbit larger
galaxies in a decade.
4. The objects are a billion times dimmer than the Milky Way, and a million times less massive.
5. The closest is about 95,000 light years away, while the most distant is more than a million light years
away.
6. The discovery of so many satellites in such a small area of the sky was completely unexpected, said
Sergey Koposov from the Cambridge Universitys Institute of Astronomy and the studys lead author.

7. The satellites were found in the southern hemisphere near the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud the
largest and most well-known dwarf galaxies in the Milky Ways orbit.
Chitin molecule associated with allergy response identied
1. Scientists at Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) have made an unexpected discovery
that overturns a longstanding belief in the biological sciences.
2. Research, led by Chris Amemiya, PhD, a member at BRI, and primarily conducted by Joyce Tang, was
published online in today's issue of Current Biology.
3. The research demonstrates that chitin, a molecule that was previously thought to be absent in
vertebrates and that has been shown to trigger an allergy/immune reaction in mammals, is endogenously
produced in shes and amphibians.
4. Based on our observations, it is clear that vertebrates probably use chitin in very dierent ways than
invertebrates or fungi," noted Dr. Amemiya.
5. Our hope is that by studying the biological roles of chitin in vertebrates, we will uncover broad
generalizable principles, thereby allowing us to extend its use in biomedical and practical applications.
6. Chitin is primarily known as a molecule that forms hard structures like fungal cell walls and the
exoskeletons of invertebrates such as insects and crustaceans.
7. . It is a polymer made up of many repeating units of a sugar called N-acetylglucosamine, is naturally
produced in many organisms, and forms a strong and pliable material that is made even stronger when
complexed with other materials (such as proteins and minerals) to form the protective outer shells of insects
and crustaceans.
8. The general belief that vertebrates lack chitin was largely based on the presumed absence within
vertebrate genomes of a gene called chitin synthase, whose activity is necessary to produce chitin.
9. However, upon closer examination of many vertebrate genomes, the Amemiya laboratory identied sh
and amphibian genes that strongly resembled chitin synthase genes found in insects.
10. Using multiple experimental approaches, including genomics, developmental biology, and chemical
purication and analysis, the authors have demonstrated that chitin synthase genes are active in shes and an
amphibian and that they endogenously generate chitin.
11. "These ndings seemingly ip the previously held assumptions about vertebrates and chitin on their
head," noted Steven Ziegler, PhD, Director of the Immunology Research Program at BRI.
12. Prior research from Dr. Ziegler and Richard Locksley, MD (UCSF), demonstrated that chitin produces an
allergic reaction in mice.
13. Taken together with Dr. Amemiya's ndings identifying chitin in shes and amphibians, this exposes a
paradox with regard to the role of chitin in vertebrates and the evolution of chitin synthase genes.
14. Chitin is expressed in shes and amphibians, however, chitin synthase genes are no longer maintained in
the genomes of mammals and chitin exposure induces an immune response.
15. Chitin's current and potential uses across agriculture, industry and medicine are quite broad. Chitin,
which naturally induces anti-fungal defense responses in plants, has been used in agriculture to protect against
fungal infections and as a fertilizer.
16. In addition, due to the malleable nature of the chitin polymer, it has also been leveraged in biomedical
applications including surgical sutures, wound healing approaches, drug delivery vessels and bioscaolds for
tissue engineering. Chitin has also been shown recently to be an excellent material for biodegradable plastics.
Darbha grass, a natural preservative
1. Traditional tropical grass, Darbha, has been identied as an eco-friendly food preservative.

2. This nding was evolved in a research study undertaken jointly by the Centre for Nanotechnology and
Advanced Biomaterials (CeNTAB) and the Centre for Advanced Research in Indian System of Medicine
(CARISM) of the SASTRA University, Thanjavur, under the supervision of Dr. P. Meera and Dr. P. Brindha
respectively.

3. Darbha (Desmotachya bipinnata) is a tropical grass considered a sacred material in Vedic scriptures and
is said to purify the oerings during such rituals.
4. At the time of eclipse, people place that grass in food items that could ferment and once the eclipse ends
the grass is removed.
5. A systematic research was conducted by the SASTRA University researchers, in which cows curd was
chosen as a food item that could ferment easily.
6. Five other tropical grass species, including lemon grass, Bermuda grass, and bamboo were chosen for
comparison based on dierent levels of antibiotic properties and hydro phobicity.
7. Electron microscopy of dierent grasses revealed stunning nano-patterns and hierarchical nano or micro
structures in darbha grass while they were absent in other grasses.
8. On studying the eect of various grasses on the microbial community of the curd, darbha grass alone
was found to attract enormous number of bacteria into the hierarchical surface features. These are the bacteria
responsible for fermentation of cows curd.
9. During eclipse, the wavelength and intensity of light radiations available on the earths surface is
altered.

10. Especially, the blue and ultraviolet radiations, which are known for their natural disinfecting property,
are not available in sucient quantities during eclipse.
11. This leads to uncontrolled growth of micro-organisms in food products during eclipse and the food
products are not suitable for consumption.
12. Darbha was thus used as a natural disinfectant on specic occasions, say researchers at SASTRA
University.
13. Further, the scientists say that darbha could be used as a natural food preservative in place of harmful
chemical preservatives and the articial surfaces mimicking the hierarchical nano patterns on the surface of
darbha grass could nd applications in health care where sterile conditions were required.
When cancer cells stop acting like cancer
1. Cancer cells crowded tightly together suddenly surrender their desire to spread, and this change of heart
is related to a cellular pathway that controls organ size.
2. These two stunning observations are reported today by researchers at Georgetown Lombardi
Comprehensive Cancer Center in the journal Oncogene.
3. "What we really need in cancer treatment is a way to stop cancer from growing in the organ it has
spread to, and we have discovered a mechanism that seems to do that," says the study's senior investigator,
Anton Wellstein, MD, PhD, a professor of oncology and pharmacology at Georgetown Lombardi.
4. Wellstein says the initial nding was made when Ghada M. Sharif, PhD, a member of the Wellstein lab,
noticed that cancer cells crowded back-to-back -- high density -- were less eective at invading cancer-free
tissue than cells grown in a low density -- less crowded -- environment.
5. Researchers noticed that cancer cells crowded back-to-back -- high density -- were less eective at
invading cancer-free tissue than cells grown in a low density -- less crowded -- environment. Credit: Courtesy
Ghada M. Sharif/Georgetown
6. It turns out that high-density cells activated the "Hippo" molecular pathway, an ancient biological
mechanism that limits the size of an organ. Low-density cancer cells do not engage Hippo, which means the
cells are free to grow unchecked within the organ. The trigger for activating Hippo is a single molecule called
YAP.
Moons most unusual volcano more massive than thought
1. Scientists have produced a new map of the Moons most unusual volcano showing that its explosive
eruption 3.5 billion years ago spread debris over an area much greater than previously thought.
2. A team of astronomers and geologists, led by experts at Durham University, UK, studied an area of the
lunar surface in the Compton-Belkovich Volcanic Complex.
3. By mapping the radioactive element thorium which spewed out during the eruption they discovered
that, with the help of the Moons low gravity, debris from the unnamed volcano was able to cover an area
the size of Scotland, or around 70,000 square kilometres.
4. The eruption, which happened 3.5 billion years ago, threw rock ve times further than the pyroclastic
ow of molten rock and hot gases that buried the Roman city of Pompeii, the researchers added.
5. The research used data from NASAs Lunar Prospector spacecraft which rst spotted the volcanic site
in 1999 when it detected an isolated deposit of thorium on the Moons far-side between the Compton and
Belkovich impact craters.
6. Since its discovery, the deposit had been hard to study because it is hidden beneath debris from
meteorite impacts, but Lunar Prospector did detect gamma rays emitted by the thorium that can pass through
up to a metre of rock.
7. Based on this information, the team used a pixon image enhancement technique to sharpen the map
and reveal the enormous size of the thorium deposit from the volcanic eruption.

Over million young stars found in nearby galaxy

1. Astronomers have discovered more than a million young stars forming in a hot, dusty cloud of
molecular gases in a tiny galaxy near Milky Way.
2. The star cluster is buried within a supernebula in a dwarf galaxy known as NGC 5253, in the
constellation Centaurus.
3. The cluster has one billion times the luminosity of our Sun, but is invisible in ordinary light, hidden by
its own hot gases, researchers said.
4. We are stardust, and this cluster is a factory of stars and soot, said Jean Turner, a professor of
physics and astronomy in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) College and lead author of the
research.
5. We are seeing the dust that the stars have created. Normally when we look at a star cluster, the stars
long ago dispersed all their gas and dust, but in this cluster, we see the dust, Turner said.
6. The amount of dust surrounding the stars is extraordinary approximately 15,000 times the mass of
our Sun in elements such as carbon and oxygen.
7. The cluster is about 3 million years old, which in astronomical terms, is remarkably young. It is likely to
live for more than a billion years, Turner said.
8. The Milky Way has not formed gigantic star clusters for billions of years, Turner said. It is still forming
new stars, but not in nearly such large numbers, she said.
9. The Milky Way has gas clouds, but nothing comparable to this galaxys Cloud D which houses the
enormous star cluster enshrouded in thick gas and dust, Turner said.
10. How much of a gas cloud gets turned into stars varies in dierent parts of the universe. In the Milky
Way, the rate for gas clouds the size of Cloud D is less than 5 per cent. In Cloud D, the rate is at least 10 times
higher and perhaps much more.
11. NGC 5253 has hundreds of large star clusters, including at least several that are young, the astronomers
report. The most spectacular is found within Cloud D.
12. Were catching this cluster at a special time. With a cluster this large, we would expect several
thousand stars that would have become supernovae and exploded by now. We found no evidence of a
supernova yet, Turner said.
13. The cluster contains more than 7,000 massive O stars the most luminous of all known stars, each
a million times brighter than our Sun.
14. NGC 5253 has approximately nine times as much dark matter as visible matter a much higher rate
than the inner parts of the Milky Way, Turner said.
Scientists discover shape-shifting frog in Ecuador cloud forest
1. A frog in Ecuadors Andean cloud forests can rapidly change skin texture in minutes, appearing to
mimic the texture it sits on.
2. Katherine Krynak, a PhD student at the US Case Western Reserve University and her husband Tim
Krynak, project manager at Cleveland Metroparks Natural Resources Division, discovered the new species,
called the mutable rainfrog (Pristimantis mutabilis), in 2006 at nature preserve Reserva Las Gralarias.
3. They nicknamed the amphibian the punk rocker frog for its thorn-like spines. It wasnt until three
years later that the couple discovered the species secret shape-shifting skills, which may help the marble-size
frog be better camouaged in its mossy surroundings.
4. The couple, and colleagues from Universidad Indoamrica, Ecuador and Tropical Herping, an
organisation committed to discovering, and studying reptiles and amphibians, co-authored a paper describing
the new animal and skin texture plasticity in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society this week.

5. Juan M Guayasamin of Universidad Tecnolgica Indoamrica, Ecuador, and the lead author of the
paper performed morphological and genetic analyses showing that mutabilis was a unique and undescribed
species.
6. Carl R. Hutter, from the University of Kansas, studied the frog's calls, nding three songs the species
uses, which dierentiate them from relatives.
7. The fth author of the paper, Jamie Culebras, assisted with eldwork and was able to locate a second
population of the species. Culebras is a member of Tropical Herping.
Countdown begins for launch of IRNSS-1D
1. Countdown began on Thursday for the launch of Indias latest navigation satellite IRNSS-1D onboard
PSLV-C-27 on March 28 from Sriharikota that would take the country closer to setting up its own navigation
system on par with the GPS of the US.
2. The 59-and-half hour count down for PSLV-C27/IRNSS-1D Mission has started at 05.49 hours
today, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a post on its facebook page.
3. The countdown began after the Mission Readiness Review and the Launch Authorisation Board on
Wednesday cleared it.
4. The launch of IRNSS-1D, originally scheduled for launch on March 9, was deferred after an anomaly
was found in one of the telemetry transmitters.
5. The satellite is now scheduled to be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota,
about 90 km from here, at 5.19 p.m. on March 28.
6. IRNSS 1D is the fourth in the series of seven satellites, the space agency is planning to launch to put in
place the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
7. According to ISRO, while four satellites would be sucient to start operations of the system, the
remaining three would make it more accurate and ecient.
8. The rst three satellites in the IRNSS series were launched from Sriharikota on July 1, 2013, April 4 and
October 16 last year respectively.
9. The system would provide two types of services -- Standard Positioning Service, which is provided to all
the users, and Restricted Service that is an encrypted service provided only to authorised users.
10. The IRNSS system was targeted to be completed by this year at a total cost of Rs. 1,420 crore.
11. IRNSS is designed to provide accurate position information services to users in the country as well as the
region extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area.
Fixed nitrogen: Mars was once habitable
1. The Mars rover Curiosity has for the rst time found evidence of indigenous nitrogen in the form of
nitrate in aeolian deposits and in two mudstone deposits on the red planet.
2. This discovery has great implications for habitability and, specically for the potential evolution of a
nitrogen cycle at some point in Martian history.
3. The results were published a few days ago in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences (PNAS).
4. At rst, Curiosity found indirect evidence of water that was once present on Mars, and then found true
indicators of water that existed as rivers and lakes.
5. The evidences unequivocally showed the presence of fresh water that was neither acidic nor salty.
6. In December last year, Curiosity detected wafts of methane in the Martian air. On Earth, methane is
largely produced by living organisms.

7. The detections indicated that the gas is present at about 1 part per billion in the Martian atmosphere, or
4,000 times less than in Earths.
8. The detection of nitrate in aeolian samples and two mudstone samples drilled from a relict lakebed
suggests widespread atmospheric deposition of nitrogen gas.
9. The detection of nitrate in samples of dierent kinds (aeolian deposits and mudstone) is quite likely due
to nitrogen xation to nitrate as a result of thermal shock either from impact or volcanic plume lightning.
10. Immaterial of the route in which the nitrogen xation had taken place, the very presence of xed
nitrogen would have facilitated the development of primitive nitrogen cycle on the Martian surface.
11. In turn, this would have provided a biochemically accessible source of nitrogen.
12. Much like water, nitrogen is essential for life. After all, it forms the building blocks of larger molecules
like DNA, RNA and protein.
13. But nitrogen has to be xed for it to take part in chemical reactions essential for creation of life.
14. Both on Earth and Mars, atmospheric nitrogen is in the form of nitrogen gas (N), where two nitrogen
atoms combine and do not easily react with other molecules.
15. Earlier studies have found nitrogen gas to constitute around 2 per cent of the Martian atmosphere.
IRNSS-1D launch on Saturday, countdown progressing smoothly
1. The stage is set for the launch of Indias satellite IRNSS-1D on Saturday from Sriharikota onboard
workhorse PSLV-C27 that would pave the way for the countrys own navigation system on par with the GPS
of U.S.
2. The 59.5-hour countdown for the launch scheduled at 5.19 p.m. from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre
at Sriharikota, about 90 km from here, is progressing smoothly, Indian Space Research Organisation said
today.
3. The countdown (which began at 5.49 a.m. on Thursday) is progressing smoothly.
4. The mixed oxides of nitrogen oxidiser lling operation of fourth stage have been completed, ISRO
sources said.
5. The launch originally scheduled for March 9 was deferred after an anomaly was found in a telemetry
transmitter.
6. IRNSS-1D is the fourth in the series of seven satellites, planned by ISRO to put in place the Indian
Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), currently under development.
7. The IRNSS system, targeted to be completed by this year at a total cost of Rs. 1,420 crore, will be
targeted at South Asia and is designed to provide accurate position information services to users in the country
as well as the region extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary.
8. IRNSS applications include terrestrial and marine navigation, disaster management, vehicle tracking
and eet management, navigation aide for hikers and travellers, visual and voice navigation for drivers.
9. While four satellites would be sucient to start operations of the system, the remaining three would
make it more accurate and ecient, ISRO said.
10. The rst three satellites in the IRNSS series were launched from Sriharikota on July 1, 2013, April 4 and
October 16 last year respectively.
11. Similar to the previous three launches, ISRO would use the XL version of the Polar Satellite Launch
Vehicle (PSLV), its most reliable rocket, for IRNSS-1D which will have a mission life of 10 years.
12. This is the eighth time XL version is being used after Chandrayaan-I, GSAT-12, RISAT-1, IRNSS-1A, Mars
Orbiter Spacecraft, IRNSS-1B and IRNSS-1C.

13. The 44.4 metre tall PSLV-C27 which has a lift o mass of 1,425 kg PSLV-C27 will put the satellite in
Geosynchronous orbit at 111.75 degree east longitude with 30.5 degree inclination.
14. The system would provide two types of services -- Standard Positioning Service, which is provided to all
the users, and Restricted Service that is an encrypted service provided only to authorised users.
SpaceX rocket blasts o with world's rst all-electric satellites
14. A Space Exploration Technologies rocket blasted o from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Sunday to
put the world's rst all-electric communications satellites into orbit.
15. The 22-storey tall booster soared o its seaside launch pad at 10:50 a.m. EST (0350 GMT), the third
ight in less than two months for SpaceX, as the privately owned, California-based company is known.
16. Perched on top of the rocket were a pair of satellites built by Boeing and owned by Paris-based Eutelsat
Communications and Bermuda-based ABS, whose majority owner is the European private equity rm Permira.
17. Eutelsat and ABS shared satellite manufacturing and launch costs, a business arrangement spurred by
technological innovation.
18. The satellites launched on Sunday are outtted with lightweight, all-electric engines, rather than
conventional chemical propulsion systems, to reach and maintain orbit.
19. The value of electrical propulsion is that it allows the satellite operator to need much less fuel than when
the satellite has chemical propulsion," Eutelsat chief executive Michel de Rosen said in an interview before
launch.
20. SpaceX, owned and operated by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, turned the theoretical price cuts
into reality.
21. Breaking what de Rosen calls "a quasi-monopoly" Europe's Arianespace had on the small satellite launch
market.
22. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although SpaceX's website lists a Falcon 9 launch as costing $61
million.
23. The disadvantage of electric propulsion is that it will take the satellites months, rather than weeks, to
reach their operational orbits about 22,300 miles (35,800 km) above Earth.
24. High enough to appear virtually parked over a particular part of the globe.
25. The companies are partnering for a second pair of satellites that are due to launch aboard another Falcon
9 rocket later this year.
26. SpaceX also ies cargo missions to the International Space Station for NASA and is working on an
upgraded spaceship to y astronauts as well.
April, 2015
Unravelling the blood rain mystery
1. A recent study by Indian and Austrian scientists has led to the discovery of the cause of the Blood
Rain phenomenon to be dispersal of spores of micro algae.
2. Since 1896, reports have been coming in of sporadic instances of red coloured rain over parts of Kerala
and Sri Lanka. The latest one was in 2013 over Kerala.
3. The rain colours red even laundry left in the open to dry and reminds one of human blood. Many
reasons were attributed to this mysterious phenomenon some irrational like a divine spell, and alien
involvement. The Hungton Post reported in 2012 that this was caused by extraterrestrial life (aliens).
4. The recent study, published in the journal Phylogenetics and Evolutionary Biology, conrmed that the
red colour in the rain was caused by the presence of spores of a European species of green microalgae,

Trentepohlia annulata that was reported previously only from Austria a Central European country.
5. The study conrmed that the blood rain is nothing but a mechanism employed by this alga to disperse
its spores (similar to plant seeds) to a very large area at once, so that algae can quickly colonize a large area.
6. The study revealed that DNA sequence of this species from Kerala and that from Austria had very little
dierences and they evolve slowly, which suggests that the alga got introduced from Europe not very long
ago.
7. The research conrmed the likelihood that the introduction happened through clouds over ocean a
phenomenon of intercontinental species dispersal previously reported for bacteria and fungi, but rst time for
alga said the lead author, Dr. Felix Bast who works at the Central University of Punjab.
8. Clouds over ocean dispersal is analogous to the intercontinental ights that we take; spores of this alga
from Europe get transported to India via clouds that drift across the Arabian Sea.
9. But if the spores travelled across the Arabian Sea all the way to Kerala and Sri Lanka, why did the
phenomenon not occur in intermediate regions like Gujarat, MP?
10. Answering this query, Dr. Bast noted in an email to this Correspondent: We don't have any proof for
this "clouds over ocean" hypothesis, but probability is high because this is how spores of Trentepohlia get
transported.
11. How exactly these lower stratospheric clouds got into Kerala remains unknown but aerial route from
Austria to Kerala won't pass through other states like Gujarat, MP etc.
12. It might be related to monsoon as well, as Kerala is the rst state which the SW monsoon strikes together
with Sri Lanka.
13. On how the spores get into the clouds, Dr. Bast explains: I would presume these spores might have got
transported to the clouds by wind.
14. We are planning to work with atmospheric scientists to sample intercontinental clouds to see what kind
of organisms they transport.
15. Metagenetic analysis of air from clouds using High Eciency Particulate Air Filters will be the ultimate
proof, for which I'll soon be applying for research grant from Ministry of Earth Sciences.
16. He added that this microalga is absolutely harmless, and the blood rainwater is perfectly potable,
even for vegetarians.
17. The present study resulted in an nternational collaborative eort involving researchers from India and
Austria, supported in part by INSPIRE Faculty Award.
Brain dierences in children with OCD
1. A new study demonstrates that communication between some of the brain's most important centers is
altered in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
2. The study included youth with a diagnosis of OCD and a comparison group free of psychiatric illness.
The investigators used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to collect brain responses while
participants engaged in a basic working memory task.
3. Task diculty was varied to evoke activity in a core brain sub-network responsible for implementing
complex processes such as cognitive control.
4. Then, using sophisticated network analyses, the investigators quantied dierences in brain network
function between the two groups.
5. The research led by Wayne State University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience's
David Rosenberg, M.D., and Vaibhav Diwadkar, Ph.D., sheds signicant light on our understanding of how
brain networks contribute to obsessive-compulsive disorder in youth.

6. "Most fundamentally, we show that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, a key region of the brain
associated with cognitive control, exerts exaggerated brain network eects in OCD," said Diwadkar.
7. "This result provides a putative scientic framework for what clinicians have noted about OCD-related
behaviours. These network-based eects have been suggested, but not explicitly demonstrated before in brain
imaging data in the disorder.
8. Our studies are perfectly aligned with the renewed emphasis of the National Institute of Mental Health
to discover mechanisms of neuropsychiatric disease in the brain.
9. If you can discover a reliable mechanism underlying disease, you have the promise of improved
pathways toward treatment."
10. The results are highly consistent with observations in the clinic, said Dr. Rosenberg, who is a professor
and the department's chair. "Children with OCD are beset by preoccupations and can't easily move on from
certain tasks and behaviours.
11. As all complex behaviour arises from brain networks, being trapped in this mode must arise from
impaired brain network interactions in OCD.
12. In our previous studies we had focused on assessing the structure and the neurochemistry of the anterior
cingulated.
13. We had long suspected that brain network interactions originating in this region are impaired in the
disorder. But this is the rst study to clearly demonstrate this."
Large Hadron Collider to start up after 2-year shutdown
1. The worlds biggest particle accelerator is about to start up again after a two-year shutdown and
upgrade.
2. Scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, were preparing to shoot the rst
particle beams on Sunday through the Large Hadron Colliders 27-km tunnel, beneath the Swiss-French
border near Geneva.
3. The collider was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle that had long
been theorised but never conrmed until 2013. Scientists are promising nearly twice the energy and more
violent particle crashes this time around.
4. They hope the more powerful beam crashes expected to start as early as June will give them a peek into
the unseen dark universe.
NASA reveals its most powerful rocket launcher ever
1. Armed with an asteroid hunter, lunar ashlight and DNA kit, NASA will launch the unmanned Orion
spacecraft using the Space Launch System (SLS) its largest, most powerful rocket booster ever built in
2018.
2. The US space agency plans to use the SLSs massive lift capability to carry nearly a dozen
nano-satellites to conduct science experiments beyond low-Earth orbit and eventually, Mars.
3. The SLS will launch Orion on an uncrewed test ight to a distant retrograde orbit around the moon.
4. Tucked inside the stage adapter the ring connecting Orion to the top propulsion stage of the SLS
will be 11 selfcontained small satellites, each about the size of a large shoebox.
5. NASA is taking advantage of a great opportunity to conduct more science beyond our primary focus of
this mission, said Jody Singer from the Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama.
6. While this new vehicle will enable missions beyond Earth orbit, we are taking steps to increase the
scientic and exploration capability of SLS by accommodating small, CubeSatclass payloads, Singer said.
7. The secondary payloads are NearEarth Asteroid (NEA) Scout, Lunar Flashlight and BioSentinel.

8. NEA Scout, using solar sail propulsion, will y by a small asteroid, taking pictures and making
observations that will enhance the current understanding of an the asteroid environment and will yield key
information for future astronauts exploring an asteroid.
9. NASAs Lunar Flashlight will scout for locations on the lunar surface that are rich in resources that,
once broken down into their component molecules, could be used in future exploration, such as building
materials, propellant, oxygen and water.
10. The BioSentinel mission will be the rst time living organisms have traveled to deep space in over 40
years and the spacecraft will operate in the deep space radiation environment throughout its 18month
mission.
11. About 10 minutes after Orion and its service module escape the pull of Earths gravity, the two will
disconnect and Orion will proceed toward the moon.
12. Once Orion is a safe distance away, the small payloads will begin to be deployed, all at various times
during the ight depending on the particular missions, the space agency said in a statement.
After 12 days, IRNSS-1D reaches its space home
1. Navigation satellite IRNSS-1D reached its space home on Wednesday, 12 days after it was launched
from Sriharikota.
2. After tests and validations, it is expected to be put to work and beam signals from early May, joining its
three siblings IRNSS-1A, 1B and 1C that are already in orbit, according to senior ocials of Indian Space
Research Organisation.
3. IRNSS-1D is the fourth of the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System; the
constellation was conceived to give location-related information across the country and is loosely called the
Indian version of the popular GPS which the U.S. military owns and operates.
4. The satellite reached its home after four orbit manoeuvres were conducted since its launch on March 28.
It is now slotted at about 36,000 km from Earth at 111 degrees East longitude.
Earths violent collision with Theia created Moon
1. Scientists have generated a new isotopic ngerprint of the Moon, suggesting the collision of Theia into
early Earth was so violent that the debris from the impact mixed completely before settling and forming the
Moon.
2. Within the rst 150 million years after our solar system formed, a giant body roughly the size of Mars
struck and merged with Earth, blasting a huge cloud of rock and debris into space. This cloud would
eventually coalesce and form the Moon.
3. For almost 30 years, planetary scientists have been quite happy with this explanation with one major
exception.
4. Although this scenario makes sense when you look at the size of the Moon and the physics of its orbit
around Earth, things start to break down a little when you compare their isotopic compositions the
geological equivalent of a DNA ngerprint. Specically, Earth and the Moon are too much alike.
5. The expectation has long been that the Moon should carry the isotopic ngerprint of the foreign
body, which scientists have named Theia.
6. Because Theia came from elsewhere in the solar system, it probably had a much dierent isotopic
ngerprint than early Earth.
7. Now, a team of scientists at the University of Maryland has generated a new isotopic ngerprint of the
Moon that could provide the missing piece of the puzzle.
8. By zeroing in on an isotope of Tungsten present in both the Moon and Earth, the UMD team is the rst
to reconcile the accepted model of the Moons formation with the unexpectedly similar isotopic ngerprints
of both bodies.

9. The results suggest that the impact of Theia into early Earth was so violent, the resulting debris cloud
mixed thoroughly before settling down and forming the Moon.
Glaciers of frozen water found on Mars
The glaciers were located in belts around Mars between the latitudes
300-500.
1. Scientists have discovered belts of glaciers consisting of frozen water equivalent to over 150 billion
cubic metres - enough to cover the entire surface of the Red Planet with more than one metre of ice.
2. Using radar measurements from the NASA satellite and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and combining
those with ice ow modelling, researchers have been able to determine that it is water ice.
3. We have looked at radar measurements spanning ten years back in time to see how thick the ice is and
how it behaves, said Dr. Nanna Bjornholt Karlsson, from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of
Copenhagen.
4. A glacier is after all a big chunk of ice and it ows and gets a form that tells us something about how
soft it is.
5. We then compared this with how glaciers on Earth behave and from that we have been able to make
models for the ice ow, said Dr. Karlsson.
6. The glaciers were located in belts around Mars between the latitudes 300-500. They were found on both
the northern and southern hemispheres.
7. We have calculated that the ice in the glaciers is equivalent to over 150 billion cubic meters of ice that much ice could cover the entire surface of Mars with 1.1 meters of ice.
8. The ice at the mid-latitudes is therefore an important part of Mars water reservoir, said Dr.
Karlsson.
9. That the ice has not evaporated out into space could actually mean that the thick layer of dust is
protecting the ice, researchers said.
10. The atmospheric pressure on Mars is so low that water ice simply evaporates and becomes water vapour.
But the glaciers are well protected under the thick layer of dust.
Dhanush missile successfully test-red
1. India successfully test-red nuclear weapons-capable Dhanush missile from a ship, o the Odisha coast
on Thursday.
2. The ship-based missile was launched at 11.02 a.m. by personnel of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC)
from an Oshore Patrolling Vessel (OPV), which was deep inside the sea, for its full range of 350 km,
according to Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) missile scientists.
3. It was a perfect mission and the missile splashed down near the target point with high degree of
accuracy, they said.
4. Dhanush, a manoeuvring missile is a naval variant of Prithvi-II, and can carry a nuclear payload of 500
kg.
5. It can target both land-based and sea-based targets. The missile has already been inducted into the
armed services and the SFC personnel randomly picked up the missile from the production lot for Thursdays
trial, which was carried out as part of regular user training.
6. Dhanush was one of the ve missiles developed by the DRDO under the Integrated Guided Missile
Development Programme.
Acidic oceans led to Earths worst mass extinction

1. Ocean acidication triggered Earth's greatest extinction of all time, wiping out more than 90% of
marine species and over two-thirds of land animals some 250 million years ago, a new study has found.
2. Researchers found that oceans absorbed huge amounts of carbon dioxide from volcanic eruptions which
changed their chemical composition making them more acidic with catastrophic consequences for life on
the planet.
3. The amount of carbon added to the atmosphere that triggered the mass extinction was probably greater
than today's fossil fuel reserves, according to the study published in the journal Science.
4. However, the carbon was released at a rate similar to modern emissions. This fast rate of release was a
critical factor driving ocean acidication, the study found.
5. The researchers analysed rocks unearthed in the UAE which were on the ocean oor at the time to
develop a climate model to work out what drove the extinction.
6. . "The Permian-Triassic Boundary extinction took place over a 60,000 year period. Acidication of the
oceans lasted for around 10,000 years," researchers said. Ocean acidication was the driving force behind the
deadliest phase of the extinction.
Pediatric melanoma declines
1. Melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer, has been increasing in incidence in adults over the past
40 years.
2. Pediatric melanoma is rare (5-6 children per million) but some studies indicate that incidence has been
increasing.
3. In a new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics, researchers found that the
incidence of pediatric melanoma in the United States actually has decreased from 2004-2010.
4. Laura B. Campbell, MD, and colleagues from Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals
(UH) Case Medical Center in Cleveland, used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results
cancer registries.
5. Which represent approximately 28% of the US population, to identify new cases of pediatric melanoma
from 2000-2010.
6. According to Dr. Campbell, "We took an in-depth look at whether or not the number of new cases of
melanoma per year in children and adolescents was increasing in the recent decade.
7. They also studied how rates changed over time according to age, sex, type of melanoma, and its location
on the body.
8. A total of 1,185 new cases of pediatric melanoma were identied. Overall, the number of new cases
each year decreased by 12% per year from 2004-2010.
9. For boys, there was a decrease of almost 7% each year (2000-2010); in 15-19-year-olds, there was a
decrease of 11% each year (2003-2010).
10. Additionally, new cases of pediatric melanoma located on the trunk and upper extremities, as well as
cases with good prognostic indicators, both decreased signicantly each year.
11. Reasons that pediatric melanoma incidence rates are decreasing could include eective public health
initiatives, a shift to youth participating in more indoor activities, and increased parental awareness to use
more sun protective measures with young children.
12. However, as noted by the senior author, Jeremy S. Bordeaux, MD, MPH, a dermatologist at UH Case
Medical Center and UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.
13. "Although it is encouraging to observe decreasing melanoma incidence overall, it is concerning that this
decrease is occurring in those cases of melanoma with good prognostic indicators.

14. " Therefore, public health programs should continue to teach sun protective behavior (e.g., regular use of
sunscreen and protective clothing in the summer, decreased time spent outside, decreased indoor tanning),
because limiting exposure to ultraviolet radiation plays a key role in reducing melanoma incidence.
One of the most distant planets discovered
1. A remote gas planet about 13,000 light-years away has been discovered by scientists using NASAs
Spitzer Space Telescope.
2. The discovery demonstrates that Spitzer can be used to help solve the puzzle of how planets are
distributed throughout our at, spiral-shaped Milky Way galaxy.
3. We dont know if planets are more common in our galaxys central bulge or the disk of the galaxy,
which is why these observations are so important.
4. Poland-based Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment, or OGLEs Warsaw Telescope at the Las
Campanas Observatory in Chile scans the skies for planets using a method called microlensing.
5. A microlensing event occurs when one star happens to pass in front of another, and its gravity acts as a
lens to magnify and brighten the more distant stars light.
6. If that foreground star happens to be orbited by a planet, the planet might cause a blip in the
magnication.
7. Astronomers are using these blips to nd and characterise planets up to 27,000 light-years away in the
central bulge of our galaxy, where star crossings are more common.
8. Our Sun is located in the suburbs of the galaxy, about two-thirds of the way out from the centre.
9. The microlensing technique as a whole has yielded about 30 planet discoveries so far, with the farthest
residing about 25,000 light-years away.
10. In the case of the newfound planet, the duration of the microlensing event happened to be unusually
long, about 150 days.
11. OGLE detected the start of the event, and Spitzer began monitoring it. Both Spitzer and OGLEs
telescopes detected a telltale planetary blip in the magnication, with Spitzer seeing it occur 20 days earlier.
12. This time delay between OGLEs and Spitzers viewing of the planetary event was used to calculate
the distance to the star and its planet.
13. Knowing the distance allowed the scientists also to determine the mass of the planet, which is about half
that of Jupiter.
Genetically engineered bacteria can treat cancer
1. Genetically modied Salmonella bacteria that causes severe food poisoning can be used to kill
cancer cells, a new study has claimed.
2. There has long been interest in using genetically engineered microbes to target and destroy cells within
solid tumours, said Roy Curtiss, from the Arizona State University.
3. I think this study goes a signicant way in developing some strategies that will help in the overall
means of using Salmonella as part of a cancer therapy.
4. For years, researchers have known that certain strains of bacteria, including Salmonella enterica, can
kill cancer cells.
5. Specically Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium has been shown to not only colonise solid
tumours, but also to exhibit an intrinsic anti-tumour eect.
6. However, in order to use Salmonella as a weapon against cancer in humans, researchers must nd a
balance between allowing it to kill the cancer and be safe for the patient.

7. The bacteria, commonly known for causing severe food poisoning, can lead to sepsis and death in
humans.
8. In the study, the researchers focused on modifying the lipopolysaccharide structure (LPS) of the
Salmonella strain to make the bug less toxic.
9. LPS, found in the outer membrane of bacteria, is one of the major inducers of sepsis, a life-threatening
infection.
10. Researchers used genetic engineering to delete genes involved in the synthesis of the LPS, and then
tested various modied Salmonella strains to see how they performed in test tube studies with human cancer
cells and in tumour bearing mice.
11. They identied a particular mutant strain that was the most eective at killing cancer cells and shrinking
tumours, and also unable to cause disease.
12. However, this mutant strain was less able to colonise the tumours, although being most eective in
killing tumour cells when getting there.
13. To address this problem, the researchers then added another genetic modication, an inducible
arabinose promoter.
New LED technology boosts Wi-Fi bandwidth
1. Anew technology that can increase the bandwidth of Wi-Fi systems by 10 times, using LED lights to
transmit information, has been developed.
2. The technology could be integrated with existing Wi-Fi systems to reduce bandwidth problems in
crowded locations, such as airport terminals or coee shops, and in homes where several people have multiple
WiFi devices.
3. Experts say that recent advances in LED technology have made it possible to modulate the LED light
more rapidly, opening the possibility of using light for wireless transmission in a free space optical
communication system.
4. In addition to improving the experience for users, the two big advantages of this system are that it uses
inexpensive components, and it integrates with existing Wi-Fi systems.
5. Nguyen worked with Alan Wang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, to build
the rst prototype.
6. The prototype, called WiFO, uses LEDs that are beyond the visual spectrum for humans and creates an
invisible cone of light about one meter square in which the data can be received.
7. To address the issue of a small area of usability, the researchers created a hybrid system that can switch
between several LED transmitters installed on a ceiling, and the existing WiFi system.
Hubble Space Telescope marking 25th anniversary in orbit
1. One of NASAs crowning glories, the Hubble Space Telescope, marks its 25th anniversary this week.
2. With 1 million-plus observations, including those of some of the farthest and oldest galaxies ever beheld
by humanity, no man-made satellite has touched as many minds or hearts as Hubble.
3. NASA is celebrating Fridays anniversary with ceremonies this week at the Smithsonian Institution and
the Museum in Washington.
4. Hubble has become part of our culture very much, said NASAs science mission chief, John
Grunsfeld, a former astronaut who ew on the nal three Hubble repair missions.
5. A full decade in the making, Hubble rocketed into orbit on April 24, 1990, aboard space shuttle
Discovery.

6. NASA wanted an observatory free of the atmospheres distortion and, in some cases, absorption of
light. Stars, for example, do not appear to twinkle when seen from space.
7. The telescope was named for American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who in the 1920s determined that
the universe is expanding.
8. Sky-high excitement turned into bottomless agony when it quickly became apparent that the
telescopes primary mirror had been botched during manufacturing, resulting in blurry eyesight.
9. Three years later, with NASAs reputation and entire future on the line, a team of astronauts managed
to restore Hubbles promised vision with replacement parts.
10. Shuttle astronauts visited Hubble ve times, from 1993 to 2009, to make improvements and repairs to
the 13-metre-long observatory, about the size of a school bus.
11. That last mission almost didnt happen- NASA cancelled it for safety reasons in the wake of the 2003
shuttle Columbia disaster.
12. But public uproar and changing NASA administration, along with detailed crew-rescue plans just in case,
led to the ights reinstatement.
13. By the time Atlantis blasted o on the last servicing mission, NASA put the investment in Hubble at $10
billion.
14. Three-time Hubble mechanic Grunsfeld was the last person to lay hands on the orbiting observatory. He
recalls giving Hubble a little pat and a salute, and telling it, Good travels, Hubble.
15. Early on, Hubble proved the existence of super-massive black holes and found theyre located at the
centre of most galaxies.
16. It also helped to pinpoint the age of the universe at 13.8 billion years old, by determining the current
rate of expansion of the universe with an uncertainty of just 3 per cent, according to the Mario Livio, an
astrophysicist at the space telescope institute.
17. Thanks to Hubble, he noted this week, astronomers now know that cosmic expansion is accelerating
because of mysterious dark energy.
18. The space telescope has shown that the birth rate of stars hit a peak in the universe about 10 billion
years ago and has been declining ever since, Livio said.
19. Astronomers have published 12,800 scientic papers based on data from Hubble. Some of the research
on supernovas, or exploding stars, contributed to a Nobel Prize in physics in 2011.
Radiation Technology for Cleaner India
1. India enters into a new era of utilizing advanced technology of Radiation Processing for Hygieniesing
Sewage Sludge by signing of MoU between Ahmadabad Municipal Corporation and Bhabha Atomic Research
Centre.
2. Bhabha Atomic Research Centre will provide all technical and scientic support for setting up 100 tons
per day dry sewage sludge hygienisation Cobalt -60 Gamma Irradiation Plant at Ahmadabad.
3. Largely, sludge is disposed in unorganised manner resulting in environmental pollution and spread of
diseases.
4. The sludge produced carries a heavy microbiological load and therefore its disposal has been a
challenge to the urban development authorities.
5. Bacterial counts including pathogens generally observed in sludge can vary between 105 to 109 per
gram.
6. Sludge also contains worms, ova, viruses, helminthes, weeds etc. It also contains toxic heavy metals and
organic pollutants like pesticides, polyaramatic hydrocarbons, drugs and other persistent pollutants.

7. Sludge is a rich source of many macro (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium), micro nutrients (Zinc,
Iron, Copper, Manganese) and organic carbon essential for soil.
8. If the sludge can be treated in eective and economic way to meet the prescribed norms, it can be
recycled by safely applying it on land for various applications including agricultural.
9. High energy gamma radiation from Cobalt-60 can kill pathogens, reduce odours and degrade organic
chemival contaminants and thus making sludge safer for use or disposal.
10. With this initiative of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and Bhabha Atomic Research centre, a
beginning is made to utilize advanced technology for hygienising sludge for cleaner India (Swachcha and
Swastha Bharat).
Articial photosynthesis method turns waste CO2 into fuels
1. In a breakthrough in articial photosynthesis, researchers have developed a new system that uses
sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products such as biodegradable plastics,
pharmaceuticals, and even liquid fuels.
2. Scientists with the US Department of Energy (DOE)s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have created a hybrid system of semiconducting
nanowires and bacteria that mimics the natural photosynthetic process by which plants use the energy in
sunlight to synthesise carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water.
3. However, this new articial photosynthetic system synthesises the combination of carbon dioxide and
water into acetate, the most common building block today for biosynthesis.
4. In natural photosynthesis, leaves harvest solar energy and carbon dioxide is reduced and combined with
water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass, said Christopher Chang, who holds joint
appointments with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley.
5. In our system, nanowires harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide is
reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted, value-added chemical products
6. By combining biocompatible light-capturing nanowire arrays with select bacterial populations, the new
articial photosynthesis system oers a win/win situation for the environment: solar-powered green chemistry
using sequestered carbon dioxide.
7. The system starts with an articial forest of nanowire heterostructures, consisting of silicon and
titanium oxide nanowires, developed earlier by Yang and his research group.
8. Once the forest of nanowire arrays is established, it is populated with microbial populations that
produce enzymes known to selectively catalyse the reduction of carbon dioxide.
9. In the study published in the journal Nano Letters, the Berkeley team used Sporomusa ovata, an
anaerobic bacterium that readily accepts electrons directly from the surrounding environment and uses them
to reduce carbon dioxide.
10. Once the carbon dioxide has been reduced by S ovata to acetate (or some other biosynthetic
intermediate), genetically engineered E coli are used to synthesise targeted chemical products.
11. The team achieved a solar energy conversion eciency of up to 0.38 per cent for about 200 hours under
simulated sunlight, which is about the same as that of a leaf.
How earthquakes happen
1. Most earthquakes originate from compressional or tensional stresses built up at the margins of the huge
moving plates that make up the earth's surface.
2. The immediate cause of most shallow earthquakes like in Nepal now, occuring within 70 km of the
surface, is the sudden release of stress along a fault, or fracture in the earth's crust, resulting in movement of
the opposing blocks of rock past one another.
3. Nepalese dig for quake survivors as toll exceeds 2,200, big aftershock hits.

4. The focus of an earthquake is the point where it originates within the earth. The earthquake epicentre is
the point on the earth's surface directly above the focus.
5. The size or magnitude of earthquakes is determined by measuring the amplitude of the seismic waves,
which depends on many factors such as the magnitude, distance from the epicentre, and depth of focus,
topography, and local ground conditions.
6. The area of Saturday's earthquake in Nepal is the so-called Indus-Yarlung suture zone, where the Indian
subcontinent collided 40 million to 50 million years ago with the Eurasian plate, creating the Himalayan
mountain ranges which are still rising by around one centimetre a year as an ongoing consequence.
7. In areas underlain by water-saturated sediments, large earthquakes, usually magnitude 6.0 or greater
may cause liquefaction.
8. Beneath the Kathmandu Valley is a 300-metre deep layer of black clay, the remnants of a prehistoric
lake, which amplies the damage caused by severe earthquakes.
9. Studies have established that this region is prone to soil liquefaction in strong earthquakes, when
vibrations can cause solid ground to collapse, swallowing buildings in the process.
10. The Indian subcontinent has a history of devastating earthquakes. The earthquake zoning map of India
divides the country into four seismic zones - 2, 3, 4 and 5 - in which Zone 5 expects the highest level of
seismicity and is referred to as the Very High Damage Risk Zone. Kashmir, the western and central Himalayas,
the northeast region and the Rann of Kutch fall in this zone.
How our brain decodes sound
1. In an interesting discovery, scientists have found that when we hear a sound, neurons re in sync with
the rhythmic structure of the sound, exactly encoding its original structure in the timing of spikes.
2. When people hear the sound of footsteps or the drilling of a woodpecker, the rhythmic structure of the
sounds is striking.
3. Even when the temporal structure of a sound is less obvious, as with human speech, the timing still
conveys a variety of important information.
4. When a sound is heard, neurons in the lower subcortical region of the brain re in sync with the
rhythmic structure of the sound, almost exactly encoding its original structure in the timing of spikes.
5. As the information progresses towards the auditory cortex, however, the representation of sound
undergoes a transformation.
6. There is a gradual shift towards neurons that use an entirely dierent system for encoding information.
7. For neurons in the auditory thalamus - the part of the brain that relays information from the ears to the
auditory cortex - this takes the form of temporal coding.
8. Neurons re in sync with the original sound, providing an exact replication of the sound's structure in
time.
9. In the auditory cortex, however, about half the neurons use rate coding, which instead conveys the
structure of the sound through the density and rate of the neurons' spiking, rather than the exact timing.
10. Neuroscientists previously have speculated that the transformation from temporal coding to rate coding
may explain the perceptual boundary experienced between rhythm and pitch.
The BioSure HIV Self Test
1. The rst HIV self-testing kit that allows people to get a result in just 15 minutes at home has gone on
sale in the UK.
2. The BioSure HIV Self Test, which claims to have a 99.7 per cent accuracy rate, works in a similar way to
a pregnancy test, measuring levels of antibodies in a person's blood.

3. The test detects antibodies on a small drop of blood, taken from the nger-tip using a lancet. These
antibodies are often only detectable three months after the HIV infection is caught.
Two-way manned trips to Mars possible with electric solar sail
1. Electric solar wind sail could make two-way manned Mars ights possible by making fuel available in
Mars orbit, researchers claim.
2. In the heart of this scheme is the electric solar wind sail (E-sail) which provides propellant-less
transportation within the solar system, thus enabling economical asteroid mining.
3. The E-sail, which was invented in Finland in 2006, utilises long, charged tethers to convert natural solar
wind momentum ux into spacecraft thrust.
4. After nding a suitable water-bearing asteroid, a mining unit using the E-sail can be sent to extract the
water from asteroid soil.
5. Water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen and liqueed, and the liquid hydrogen/oxygen (LH2/LOX)
mixture can be used as fuel.
6. The E-sail vehicle can ferry the extracted water and fuel to the orbits of Earth or Mars to be used to ll
the tanks of manned vehicles travelling between Earth and Mars, researchers said.
7. According to Pekka Janhunen, a researcher in the Finnish Meteorological Institute, and colleagues the
E-sail could provide essentially free logistics in the solar system outside of Earths magnetosphere.
8. Due to the exponential nature of the rocket equation, intermediate fuelling reduces the launch mass
dramatically.
9. During the trip, asteroid-mined water could also be used as radiation shielding of the manned module to
reduce the launch mass further.
10. With cheap propellant available in Mars orbit, there is also the option of fully propulsive landing on
Mars which eliminates the need of a massive and expensive heat shield.
11. The E-sail facilitated Manned Mars Initiative (EMMI), could provide a fundamentally new, economically
sustainable way to approach manned Mars ights, researchers said.
12. The running costs of the EMMI are not expected to much exceed those of maintaining the International
Space Station, they said.
Mobile of 2020: The latest on the 5G era
1. Automated organization, multi-RAT and multi-layer heterogeneous networks, those are what are being
requested in mobile of 2020, what will be the 5G era - the rst meaningful unied wideband mobile
communication system.
2. A recent systematic overview discussed progress on 5G research and highlighted the network
architecture and techniques which could be employed in the future 5G systems.
3. 4G LTE systems, supporting up to 100Mbps data rate, at least in laboratories, have been globally
deployed and are oering several multimedia services such as HD video, but with the mobile internet and
internet of things (IoT), current 4G systems may not satisfy the explosive growth of mobile data, massive
device connection, and a variety of emerging services and application scenarios.
4. It is assumed that 5G systems would oer maximum 1Gbps user experienced data rate, tens of Gbps
peak data rate, tens of Tbps/km2 trac volume density, millisecond level of end-to-end latency and support
500+km/h mobility.
5. 5G would permeate every corner of our life and build a truly user-centralized information eco-system.
6. The world's major developed countries and regions have already launched the 5G research projects in
order to seize the leadership of the coming 5G era.

7. The new paper presents an overview of potential network architecture and highlights several promising
techniques which could be employed in the future 5G systems by deeply analyzing 5G requirements and
current research.
8. These techniques include non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), massive multiple input and multiple
output (MIMO), cooperative communications and network coding, full duplex (FD), device-to-device (D2D)
communications, millimeter wave communications, automated network organization, cognitive radio (CR),
and green communications etc.
9. The state-of-art and implementation issue of these techniques are also addressed.
10. The quest to improve the spectral eciency has been regarded as the most important but yet challenging
task in the design of future wireless communication systems.
11. Global wireless communications would suer from the "Spectrum crisis" and radio spectrum resource has
gradually become the bottleneck of development of broadband wireless communications.
12. There are two main ways to overcome this problem: one is to develop the rich millimeter wave
frequency spectrum, the other is to fully utilize current spectrum resource by the cognitive radio technique.
Scientists discover reset 'button' for body clock
1. Scientists have found a molecular reset button for our internal body clock, a discovery that may allow
for new treatments of sleep disorders and cognitive and metabolic abnormalities, commonly associated with
jet lag and shift work.
2. According to the study led by researchers at McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal, the body's
clock is reset when a phosphate combines with a key protein in the brain.
3. In eect, light stimulates the synthesis of specic proteins called Period proteins that play a pivotal role
in clock resetting, thereby synchronising the clock's rhythm with daily environmental cycles.
4. This study is the rst to reveal a mechanism that explains how light regulates protein synthesis in the
brain, and how this aects the function of the circadian clock," said senior author Nahum Sonenberg, a
professor in McGill's Department of Biochemistry.
5. In order to study the brain clock's mechanism, the researchers mutated the protein known as eIF4E in
the brain of a lab mouse so that it could not be phosphorylated.
6. Since all mammals have similar brain clocks, experiments with the mice give an idea of what would
happen if the function of this protein were blocked in humans.
7. The mice were housed in cages equipped with running wheels. By recording and analysing the animals'
running activity, the scientists were able to study the rhythms of the circadian clock in the mutant mice.
8. The clock of mutant mice responded less eciently than normal mice to the resetting eect of light.
9. The mutants were unable to synchronise their body clocks to a series of challenging light/dark cycles for example, 10.5 hours of light followed by 10.5 hours of dark, instead of the 12-hour cycles to which
laboratory mice are usually exposed.
10. While we can't predict a timeline for these ndings to be translated into clinical use, our study opens a
new window to manipulate the functions of the circadian clock," said Ruifeng Cao, a postdoctoral fellow in
Sonenberg's research group and lead author of the study.
May 2015
DNA repair map of the entire human genome created
1. When the common chemotherapy drugs cisplatin or oxaliplatin hit cancer cells, they damage DNA so
that the cells can't replicate.
2. But the cells have ways to repair the DNA. The cancer drugs aren't as eective as patients need.

3. Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have
developed a method for nding where this DNA repair happens throughout all of human DNA.
4. The ndings, published in the journal Genes & Development, oers scientists a potential way to nd and
target the proteins cancer cells use to circumnavigate therapy.
5. The benet of this new method could be more eective and better tolerated classes of cancer
therapeutics.
6. The research, led by Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and
Biophysics, marks the rst time scientists have been able to map the repair of DNA damage over the entire
human genome.
7. When DNA is damaged, cells use many enzymes to cut the strand of DNA and excise the damaged
fragment.
8. Then, other enzymes repair the original DNA so that the cells can function properly.
9. Previously, Sancar's lab used puried enzymes to discover how this process happens in DNA damaged
by UV irradiation and by chemotherapeutic drugs such as cisplatin and oxaliplatin.
ISRO carries out series of cryogenic engine development tests
1. After successful test of the high thrust cryogenic engine recently, a series of development tests on the
engine are being carried out to validate the performance and to prove its design, Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO) has said.
2. Successful long duration hot test (635 seconds) of high thrust cryogenic engine (CE20) was carried out
on April 28 at ISRO Propulsion Complex in Tamil Nadus Mahendragiri.
3. The achievement is considered as a major milestone in the development of next generation launch
vehicle, GSLV MkIII, ISRO said.
4. The CE20 cryogenic engine is being indigenously developed by ISRO to power the cryogenic stage of
GSLV MkIII launch vehicle, ISRO has posted on its Facebook page.
5. The completion of successful long duration hot test has once again proved ISROs capability in
mastering the complex cryogenic technology, it said.
How Stem cells get their identity
1. Scientists at the University of Copenhagen have identied one mechanism that explains how some stem
cells choose to become a given cell type: the cells combine specic sets of proteins at precise positions along
the DNA.
2. When these particular groups of proteins are combined, the gates are opened so that certain groups of
genes can now be used, giving the cells a new identity.
3. Scientists have now identied one of these combinations, which drive the cells along the path that allow
them to become organs such as liver and pancreas.
4. Scientists have now identied one of these combinations, which drive the cells along the path that allow
them to become organs such as liver and pancreas.
5. This latest research could lead scientists to a better understanding on how to generate insulin-producing
cells in the laboratory to use as therapy for Type I diabetes.
New state of matter discovered
1. Scientists have discovered a new state of matter that appears to be an insulator, superconductor, metal
and magnet all rolled into one.
2. The research could help develop new molecular materials that are superconductors at even higher

temperatures, researchers said.

3. An international team of researchers made the discovery by studying a superconductor made from
carbon-60 molecules or buck balls.
4. The team found the new state after changing the distance between neighbouring buckyballs by doping
the material with rubidium, physicsworld.com reported.
5. The study shows that the material has a rich combination of insulating, magnetic, metallic and
superconducting phases including the otherwise unknown state, which has been dubbed as JahnTeller
metal.
6. The study, led by Kosmas Prassides of Tohoku University in Japan, provides important clues about how
the interplay between the electronic structure of the molecules and their spacing within the lattice can
strengthen interactions between electrons that cause superconductivity.
7. Superconductors are a large and diverse group of materials that oer zero resistance to electrical
currents when cooled below a critical temperature (TC).
8. Superconducting lattices of fullerides C60 plus three alkali-metal atoms have been studied for
more than two decades, and provide an interesting test bed.
9. This is because the distance between fulleride molecules and hence the electronic properties of the
material can be adjusted by applying pressure to the material or doping it with dierent kinds of atoms.
10. The research involves caesium fulleride (Cs3C60) in a face-centred-cubic lattice with a Cs3C60 molecule
at each lattice site.
Antarcticas research stations in icy grip
1. More than 50 scientists are gathering in Hobart in Tasmania this week for a series of workshops on
techniques to more accurately forecast sea ice levels in the polar region, aiming to save millions of dollars in
shipping costs.
2. They will also hope to avoid a repeat of the problems suered by the Akademik Shokalskiy, the research
vessel caught in a sudden freeze in December 2013.
3. Rod Wooding, from the Australian Antarctic Division, said last year ships couldnt get anywhere
near the Australian research site, Mawson station, requiring a years worth of supplies and fuel to be own
in by helicopter.
4. [That] is inadequate for the long-term sustainability of the station, Wooding said. Other national
programs have had similar problems, the French in particular, the Japanese also.
5. Scientists were initially puzzled by the increasing sea ice around the continent, which reached record
levels in September 2014, but have concluded it is very largely driven by changes in wind.
6. Those changes of wind are driven by the depletion of ozone in the stratosphere and the increasing
greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
7. The El Nino phenomenon, too, drives changes in pressure which drives changes in wind which drives
changes in sea ice.
8. Antarctica is also surrounded by ocean, leaving sea ice completely free to expand however it wants
to, in contrast to the Arctic region, which is landlocked by Russia, Greenland and northern Canada.
9. Australia is tendering to replace its icebreaking vessel, the 25-year-old Aurora Australis. Worby said
more accurate forecasts would help to understand what level of ice breaking capability would be needed
in the future.
10. Its quite hard to forecast but whatever eort we put in to improving our ability to forecast sea ice
will ultimately pay dividends in terms of savings for national programs.

Isro Nasa to jointly study global ecological changes

1. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) and Nasa are jointly working on the NISAR satellite
designed to observe and take measurements of some of the planets most complex processes, including
ecosystem disturbances and natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.
2. Talking to HT, Isro chairman Dr Kiran Kumar said, Our target is 2020-21. The satellite will be built by
us and will be launched here. The payloads will be built by Nasa.
3. The Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission is a joint project to co-develop and launch a
dual frequency synthetic aperture radar satellite.
4. The satellite will be the rst radar imaging satellite to use dual frequency and it is planned to be used
for remote sensing to observe and understand natural processes of the Earth.
5. Data collected from NISAR will reveal information about the evolution and state of the Earths crust,
help scientists better understand our planets processes and changing climate, and aid future resource and
hazard management.
Scientists identify active volcanism on Venus
1. Scientists have discovered hot lava ows on Venus, providing evidence for active volcanism on Earths
neighbour planet.
2. ESAs Venus Express, which completed its eight-year study of the planet last year, used a near-infrared
channel of the spacecrafts Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) to map thermal emission from the surface
through a transparent spectral window in the planets atmosphere, and spotted localised changes in surface
brightness between images taken only a few days apart.
3. Lead author Eugene Shalygin from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in
Germany said that they had now witnessed several events where a spot on the surface suddenly gets much
hotter, and then cools down again.
4. These four hotspots were located in what are known from radar imagery to be tectonic rift zones,
but this is the rst time we have detected that they are hot and changing in temperature from day to day. It
has been the most tantalising evidence yet for active volcanism.
How galactic spiral arms form revealed
1. A new study has provided a deeper insight into how galactic spiral arms are formed and how gas can be
funneled inward toward the galaxys center, which possibly hosts a black hole.
2. Astronomers making a detailed, multi-telescope study of a nearby galaxy have discovered a magnetic
eld coiled around the galaxys main spiral arm.
3. The scientists studied a galaxy called IC 342, some 10 million light-years from Earth, using the National
Science Foundations Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and the MPIfRs 100-meter Eelsberg radio
telescope in Germany. Data from both radio telescopes were merged to reveal the magnetic structures of the
galaxy.
4. The surprising result showed a huge, helically-twisted loop coiled around the galaxys main spiral arm.
Such a feature, never before seen in a galaxy, was strong enough to aect the ow of gas around the spiral
arm.
5. The new observations provided clues to another aspect of the galaxy, a bright central region that may
host a black hole and also is prolically producing new stars. To maintain the high rate of star production
requires a steady inow of gas from the galaxys outer regions into its center.
Real-time identication of algal blooms
1. The real-time assessment and species identication of algal blooms, which add colour to the oceanic
waters, has been made possible by using a satellite-based remote sensing technique.
2. The new approach will help ocean researchers in quickly identifying algal blooms without venturing

into the water.

3. The present analysis has been carried out by utilising species-specic response of phytoplankton from
remote sensing reectance spectra obtained with a Satlantic underwater proling radiometer.
4. The capability of species identication in near real time can help in planning eld campaigns for
guiding the ship to an appropriate location for in situ measurements.
What is algal bloom?
1. Algae are photosynthetic microorganisms that are found in most habitats
2. Algae vary from small, single-celled forms to complex multi-cellular forms.
3. An algal bloom is a rapid increase in the density of algae in an aquatic system.
4. Algal blooms sometimes are natural phenomena, but their frequency, duration and intensity are
increased by nutrient pollution.
5. Algae can multiply quickly in waterways with an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus,
particularly when the water is warm and the weather is calm.
Are algal blooms harmful?
1. Algae are a natural component of the aquatic food chain and are typically not harmful to people.
2. However, the overabundance of algae in a bloom can be aesthetically unappealing and harmful to the
environment.
3. If the types of algae that produce toxins reach high concentrations, then native aquatic organisms,
livestock, pets, and perhaps even people who come in contact with the toxins, can be aected.
4. When algal blooms block vital sunlight from reaching benecial underwater plants that provide food
and a place to live and grow for sh and other animals, the ecosystem can be negatively impacted.
5. Algae become stressed and die when they deplete the nutrient supply or move from freshwater into
saltier waters.
6. Decomposition of dying algae can reduce levels of dissolved oxygen in the water, which sh and other
aquatic animals breathe.
India ooded with unsafe xed dose combination (FDCs) drugs
Lets rst discuss FDCs
1. The development of xed-dose combinations (FDCs) is becoming increasingly important from a public
health perspective.
2. Such combinations of drugs are being used in the treatment of a wide range of conditions and are
particularly useful in the management of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, which are considered to be the
foremost infectious disease threats in the world today.
FDCs status in India
1. Millions of unapproved formulations and products of xed dose combinations (FDCs) available in India
in three therapeutic areas analgesia, anxiety/depression and psychosis are unsafe and at times dangerous
or even lethal, as in the case of anti-psychotic.
2. In contrast, 98 per cent of metformin FDCs to treat diabetes has been approved by the Central Drugs
Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
3. Approval by CDSCO has been made mandatory for FDCs since 1961. Several amendments to the rules,

particularly the last one in 2002, have only made it explicitly clear.
4. Yet, the proportion of unapproved FDC formulations did not decrease overall after May 2002.
Why its not safe
1. Multiple formulations [in the four therapeutic areas studied], most without CDSCO approval [for
ecacy and safety], included drugs banned, restricted, or never approved internationally owing to adverse
eects.
2. Over 12 per cent of nonsteroidal anti-inammatory drugs (NSAID) FDCs sales volume contain drugs that
have either been withdrawn from the market or have had their use restricted
3. Also, many NSAID FDCs available in India contain muscle relaxants and enzymes that have been
approved as a single dosage form in the U.S. and UK but never as a xed dose combination.
4. Most of the FDC formulations available in India [in the four therapeutic areas studied] were unavailable
in either UK or the U.S.
5. The researchers found that over 73 per cent of the 124 NSAIDs (analgesia) FDC formulations marketed
in India were unapproved.
Net neutrality panel sees no progress
1. The rst meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT to discuss Net neutrality could make
little headway on Thursday after several members questioned the selective invitation to three private service
providers and presence of BJP MP Nishikant Dubey as a special invitee.
2. Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad reiterated that the government was committed to ensuring
non-discriminatory access to Internet for all citizens.
Lets discuss net neutrality in detail
What is net neutrality?
Net neutrality is a principle that says Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat all trac and
content on their networks equally.
How does net neutrality aect you?
The internet is now a level-playing eld. Anybody can start up a website, stream music or use social
media with the same amount of data that they have purchased with a particular ISP.
But in the absence of neutrality, your ISP might favour certain websites over others for which you
might have to pay extra.
Website A might load at a faster speed than Website B because your ISP has a deal with Website A that
Website B cannot aord.
Its like your electricity company charging you extra for using the washing machine, television and
microwave oven above and beyond what you are already paying.
What is an OTT?
OTT or over-the-top refers to applications and services which are accessible over the internet and ride
on operators' networks oering internet access services.
The best known examples of OTT are Skype, Viber, WhatsApp, e-commerce sites, Ola, Facebook
messenger.
The OTTs are not bound by any regulations. The Trai is of the view that the lack of regulations poses a
threat to security and theres a need for governments intervention to ensure a level playing eld in terms

of regulatory compliance.
Why now?
Late last month, Trai released a draft consultation paper seeking views from the industry and the
general public on the need for regulations for over-the-top (OTT) players.
The objective of this consultation paper, the regulator said, was to analyse the implications of the
growth of OTTs and consider whether or not changes were required in the current regulatory framework.
India to have 70 super computers for high-level research
1. The super computer will help India do research in dierent elds ranging from climate, defence and
other areas, which a normal computer is ill-equipped for.
2. The computer would have a capacity (speed) of half petaop to 20 petaop, but by the time the project
reaches its full peak, the speed of the super computers can go up to 50 petaop.
3. A petaop is a measure of a computers processing speed and can be expressed as a thousand trillion
oating point operations per second.
4. The project, which costs around Rs 4,500 crore is in its nascent stage. It will come up with association
of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Department of Information and Technology (DIT).
5. The government has formed modalities to discuss nitty- gritty of the project. However, sources pointed
out that it is expected to take seven years for the project to complete.
Micro rockets' to capture cancer cells
1. A group of scientists from India and Germany claimed to have created "micro rockets" out of carbon
nanotubes to selectively capture tumour cells from a large population of blood cells.
2. It is dicult for clinicians to trap the few nasty cancer cells swimming stealthily alongside billions of
healthy blood cells and diagnose cancer armatively.
3. The researchers used a chemical 'fuel' to propel these rockets up or down in an articial cell suspension.
4. Scientists earlier used microuidic devices to capture and isolate tumours but the devices did not serve
the purpose eciently.
5. It is dicult to detect tumour cells in cancer patients as for every millilitre of blood, only 10-100
tumour cells appear in a sea of about a billion normal blood cells.
6. The micro rockets could become a potential tool for non-invasive liquid biopsy at an early stage of
metastasis.
TB: India study conrms Xpert diagnostic tests superiority
1. For the rst time in India, the superiority of Xpert MTB/RIF over smear microscopy for bacteriological
conrmation of pulmonary TB and in diagnosing MDR-TB (Multi Drug Resistant-TB) patients before initiating
any treatment has been proved in a large-scale study undertaken in 2012-2013.
2. The latest study, the largest in the world, found that using Xpert molecular test as an initial diagnostic
test for TB in public health facilities increased the rate of TB case notication by 16 per cent and of
bacteriologically conrmed TB by 39 per cent.
3. Also, the rifampicin-resistant TB case notication increased by vefold, notes a paper published
recently in the journal PLOS ONE. Dr. K.S. Sachdeva, Additional Deputy Director General of the Central TB
Division, New Delhi is the rst author.
4. The study was undertaken in 18 TB programme units eight in rural areas (3.9 million population), six
in the urban areas (3.4 million population) and four in tribal and hilly areas that are dicult to reach (1.5
million population).

5. The study was implemented in two phases baseline and intervention. The baseline phase used smear
microscopy to diagnose TB in over 10,500 presumptive pulmonary TB patients; the intervention phase used
Xpert diagnostic testing on over 70,500 presumptive pulmonary TB patients.
6. Unlike smear microscopy, Xpert has excellent sensitivity and specicity to TB and can return results in
less than two hours. Besides diagnosing TB, Xpert can tell if a subject has rifampicin drug resistance.
7. The results strongly suggest that Xpert can substitute smear microscopy as an initial diagnostic test to
diagnose more number of TB cases and also for diagnosing rifampicin resistance.
8. The vefold increase in identifyingrifampicin resistant cases became possible only because Xpert was
used for testing drug resistance in all presumptive TB patients.
9. Conventionally, drug susceptibility testing is oered rather selectively to patients who have already
been diagnosed as suering from TB and who run a high risk of having drug resistance.
10. Also, almost one-third of rifampicin resistant TB cases were detected by using Xpert in treatment nave
cases.
11. In India, the prevalence of rifampicin resistance in new TB cases is estimated to be around three per
cent.
12. Generally, drug resistance comes up in those who have been irregular in taking TB medicines or in those
who have stopped medication midway through the treatment.
13. This nding demonstrates the potential impact of extending universal DST [drug susceptibility testing] to
all presumptive TB cases under routine programme conditions in improving case nding of TB as well as
rifampicin-resistant TB, particularly in areas where drug-resistance in treatment nave cases is of substantial
concern, the authors state.
14. The study has another important implication. Regardless of prior treatment history, treatment for
MDR-TB can be initiated immediately in those patients who are found to be rifampicin resistant through Xpert
diagnostic testing, they note.
15. As per the WHO guidelines, there is no need for a repeat drug susceptibility testing for MDR-TB in the
previously treated TB patients.
16. In the case of those who have never been on anti-TB treatment earlier, the researchers say that there is a
strong case for initiating second-line treatment for TB when Xpert result is positive for rifampicin
resistance.
17. Though the WHO guideline requires a parallel conrmatory testing for drug susceptibility using liquid
culture for new cases, the question is whether it should be done away with based on the latest study results.
18. The current WHO guideline for a conrmatory drug testing is based on a positive predictive value of
60-65 per cent. But for the rst time, this study has had a high positive predictive value of 91.3 per cent for
new cases (treatment nave cases).
19. It is now for the RNTCP to decide whether more research is required before doing away with the need
for a conrmatory susceptibility testing in new cases or to issue fresh guidelines based on the results of this
study.
Cisco visual networking index (VNI)
1. The Internet protocol (IP) trac in India will quadruple between 2014 and 2019 at a pace of 33 per
cent annually, spurred by rising usage of mobile data and additional networked devices, among others, Cisco
said.
2. According to the 10th annual Cisco visual networking index (VNI) forecast, the annual IP trac will
grow 4-fold from 2014 to 2019, a compound annual growth rate of 33 per cent.
3. In India, IP trac will reach 4.0 exabytes per month in 2019, up from 967 petabytes per month in
2014.

4. The US-based networking solutions rm sees the average xed broadband speed in India growing
2.9-fold to 12 Mbps in 2019 from 4.0 Mbps in 2014.
5. The number of networked devices, it said, will increase to 1.6 billion from 1.1 billion in the same
period.
6. The expected drivers are surging mobile data consumption, proliferation in networked devices, faster
broadband speed and higher usage of videos.
7. Collectively, these variables are expected to help IP trac in India grow at a compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) of 33 per cent as against a corresponding global CAGR of 23 per cent.
8. We are clearly headed towards a new era in Internet communications as the Internet of Everything (IoE)
gains momentum, with M2M connections predicted to triple, reaching 10.5 billion by 2019. Cisco (India and
SAARC) Managing Director (Global Service Provider Business) Sanjay Kaul said.
9. Mobile data trac is expected to grow 67 per cent and reach 1.1 exabytes per month in 2019, up from
88 petabytes per month in 2014.
10. We look forward to tracking the IoE economy in coming years and its impact on healthcare, agriculture,
manufacturing, retail, transportation and other key industries.
11. Smartphones will account for 40 per cent (651.4 million) of all networked devices in 2019 compared
with 13 per cent (139.8 million) in 2014, and 74 per cent of all networked devices will be mobile-connected in
2019, it added.
June 2015
First facial recognition ATM developed
1. Chinese researchers have successfully developed the rst automated teller machine (ATM) with facial
recognition technology to reduce the risk of theft.
2. The developers include Tsinghua University and Tzekwan Technology, a Hangzhou rm in eastern
Chinas Zhejiang province that provides security protection for nancial transactions.
3. Tzekwan chairman Gu Zikun, an anti-counterfeit technology expert, believes the technology will curb
ATM-related crimes.
4. China currently relied mostly on imported ATM technology, the report said, but the new machine,
which combines high-speed banknote handling, improved counterfeit-bill recognition and facial recognition,
was wholly Chinese.
Large Hadron Collider restarts experiments after two-year upgrade
1. The hunt for dark matter moved a step closer as theLarge Hadron Colliderbegan experiments for the
rst time in 27 months.
2. The huge collider, which has undergone more than two years of upgrades, to give it double the power,
will now run non-stop for the next three years.
3. Scientists are hoping the extra energy will reveal particles that have never been seen before and
discover super-symmetry, currently the best candidate for dark matter.
The Large Hadron Collider: Shedding light
1. All particles can be divided into force or matter, but physicists now believe all particles come in pairs.
2. Each matter particle should have a matching force particle and each force particle a matching matter
particle.
3. It is these missing partners that scientists believe are most likely to be dark matter.

4. Although nobody knows what dark matter is, it is thought to make up about 85 per cent of the
Universe's mass, keeping stars and planets in their galaxies.

5. Dark matter cannot be seen but its huge impact can be viewed through telescopes because it bends light
around galaxies creating a ring of star light known as gravitational lensing.
6. "Now that we have found the Higgs Boson that means our standard model of the universe is complete,
but our description of the universe still has its aws and holes, scientist said.
World's 'most precise' quantum thermometer designed
1. Researchers from the UAB and the University of Nottingham, in an article, have xed the limits of
thermometry, i.e., they have established the smallest possible uctuation in temperature which can be
measured.
2. The researchers have studied the sensitivity of thermometers created with a handful of atoms, small
enough to be capable of showing typical quantum-style behaviours.
3. The researchers characterized these types of probes in detail, devices which could provide an estimation
of the temperature with a never before seen precision.
4. To do so, they combined thermodynamic tools with quantum metrology, which deals with ultra-precise
measures in quantum systems.
5. The physicists searched to nd the maximum precision which could be achieved in a real situation, in
which measuring time could be very brief given unavoidable experimental limitations.
6. In the study, they also observed that these thermometers could maintain a constant sensitivity in a wide
range of temperatures by sacricing some of their precision.
Connection between brain and lymphatic system discovered
1. Textbooks of medicine say that there is no direct connection between the brain and the lymphatic
system.
2. Yet, a paper published recently in the journal Nature refers to the discovery of exactly such a
connection.
3. It is quite a startling discovery in itself, it gains signicance because it could lead to a breakthrough in
the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimers disease, multiple sclerosis etc.
4. The lymphatic system consists of vessels that carry a transparent uid, the lymph, which helps rid the
body of toxins and other unwanted substances.
5. It also forms an important part of the bodys immune system. Until now, it was believed that this
system is not connected to the brain.
6. In a stunning discovery based on study of mouse brain, the researchers from University of Virginia have
identied connections between the lymphatic system of the mouse and its brain.

7. The group has discovered a similar structure in human dura (tissue that covers the brain), but write in
the paper that further studies will be necessary to fully characterize the location and organization of
meningeal lymphatic vessels in the human central nervous system.
Computer that operates on water droplets developed
1. A computer that operates using the unique physics of moving water droplets has been developed by an
Indian-origin scientist and his team.
2. The computer is nearly a decade in the making, incubated from an idea that struck Manu Prakash, an
assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, when he was a graduate student.
3. The work combines his expertise in manipulating droplet uid dynamics with a fundamental element of
computer science an operating clock.
4. The droplet computer can theoretically perform any operation that a conventional electronic computer
can crunch, although at signicantly slower rates.
5. We already have digital computers to process information. Our goal is not to compete with electronic
computers or to operate word processors on this, Prakash said.
6. Our goal is to build a completely new class of computers that can precisely control and manipulate
physical matter.
7. The presence or absence of a droplet represents the 1s and 0s of binary code, and the clock ensures that
the entire droplets move in perfect synchrony, and thus the system can run virtually forever without any
errors.
8. Prakash said the most immediate application might involve turning the computer into a
high-throughput chemistry and biology laboratory.
9. Instead of running reactions in bulk test tubes, each droplet can carry some chemicals and become its
own test tube, and the droplet computer oers unprecedented control over these interactions.
Lonely galaxy discovered on edge of the void by Hubble Telescope
1. The Hubble Telescope has captured an astounding image of a lonely galaxy oating on the edge of
a grim abyss. Galaxy, known as NGC 6503, has found itself in a lonely position, at the edge of a strangely
empty patch of space called the Local Void.
2. NGC 6503 is 18 million light-years away from Earth in the northern circumpolar constellation of Draco.
It spans some 30,000 light-years, about a third of the size of the Milky Way.
3. The Local Void is a huge stretch of space that is at least 150 million light-years across. It seems
completely empty of stars or galaxies.
4. The galaxys odd location on the edge of this never-land led stargazer Stephen James OMeara to dub
it the Lost-In-Space galaxy in his 2007 book, Hidden Treasures.
Methane in Mars rocks suggests possibility of life
1. In a clue to possibility of life below the surface of Mars today, an international team of researchers has
discovered traces of methane in Martian meteorites.
2. For the study, the researchers examined samples from six meteorites of volcanic rock that originated on
Mars.
3. All six samples also contained methane, which was measured by crushing the rocks and running the
emerging gas through a mass spectrometer. The discovery hints at the possibility that methane could be used
as a food source by rudimentary forms of life beneath the Martian surface.
4. Even if Martian methane does not directly feed microbes, it may signal the presence of a warm, wet,
chemically reactive environment where life could thrive.

5. However, our research provides a strong indication that rocks on Mars contain a large reservoir of
methane, Parnell pointed out.
ISROs GAGAN to provide navigational support to Railways
1. ISRO has said it will provide navigational support to the countrys Railways through GAGAN
(GPS-aided geo-augmented navigation) system.
2. ISRO will provide satellite-generated information to the railways through space technology-based tools
that will provide safety at unmanned level crossings.
3. GAGAN is an indigenous navigational guide system developed by ISRO on the lines of GPS system of the
U.S.
4. GAGAN was jointly developed by the ISRO and Airports Authority of India (AAI) with a view to assist
aircraft in accurate landing.
5. The GAGAN signal is being broadcast through two Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites GSAT8
and GSAT10.
6. With the use of GAGAN software system, a tr ain would know the location of any unmanned level
crossing and soon a a warning signal can be given.
UN food agency launches digital platform on family farming
1. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a digital platform where people can access
valuable information, data and legislation on the contribution of family farmers worldwide.
2. This is an important move on the part of the United Nations (UN) food agency, as family farmers
contribute immensely to food security and global poverty eradication.
3. Globally, more than 90 per cent of farms are (either) operated by an individual or a family,
(producing) about 80 per cent of the worlds food (and) occupying around 70-80 per cent of farm land.
4. The underlying reason for the UN to launch the International Year of Family Farming (IYFP) last year
was to stress its importance in both developed as well as developing nations
5. By gathering vital information on family farming trends, the Family Farming Knowledge Platform will
allow governments to build stronger policies in favour of family farmers.
6. It will also help in holding policy dialogues with farmers organisations.
7. It was discussed and endorsed by the International Steering Committee of IYFF and the main
international networks of family farmers.
8. They all expressed the need for sharing knowledge on family farming and gather together a huge
amount of information which is already available on the web, but is scattered.
Indias only double coconut tree articially pollinated

1. One of the rare and globally threatened species of palm, the double coconut (Lodoicea maldivica) tree
was planted at the botanical garden in 1894 and the articial pollination is a result of decades of work by
scientists of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI).
2. The tree took almost a hundred years to mature and when it started owering, we started looking for
this particular palm species in this part of world.
3. We collected some pollen from palms from Sri Lanka but could not successfully pollinate it. Finally,
with the help of pollen from another tree in Thailand, the pollination process was successful.
4. The Double Coconut tree not only bears the largest seed known to science weighing around 25 kg
but this unique species is also the longest surviving palm which can live for as long as 1,000 years.
5. Successful pollination means that we can have another Lodoicea maldivica in the country.
6. The palm tree is located in the large palm house of the Botanical Garden which has the largest
collection of palms in South East Asia with around 110 palm species.
7. Legend bestows the seed with the power to bring good fortune to its owners. There has also been a
tradition of making kamandals [drinking vessels] from the double coconut by bisecting the shell.
Brightest early galaxy named after Ronaldo
1. Scientists have discovered the brightest galaxy in the early universe that contains the rst generation of
stars, and have nicknamed it after popular Portuguese football player Cristiano Ronaldo.
2. These massive, brilliant, and previously purely theoretical objects were the creators of the rst heavy
elements in history the elements necessary to forge the stars around us today, the planets that orbit them,
and life as we know it.
3. The newly found galaxy, labelled CR7, is three times brighter than the brightest distant galaxy known
till now. The name was inspired by 30-year-old Ronaldo, who is known as CR7.
First electric plane gets wings
1. The world's rst electric passenger aircraft to gain an airworthiness certicate has been produced by
China.
2. The BX1E has a 14.5-meter wingspan and a maximum payload of 230 kgs. It can y at an altitude of
3,000 meters.
3. The electric aircraft can charge fully within two hours, allowing a ight time of 45 minutes to one hour,
at a maximum speed of 160 km per hour.
4. The plane was designed by Shenyang Aerospace University and Liaoning general aviation academy in
the northeastern Liaoning Province.
HAL delivers Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft body
1. The orbiter spacecraft module structure of the proposed Chandrayaan-2 mission built by it has been
delivered to the ISRO Satellite Centre, Bengaluru, according to Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

2. Chandrayaan-2, the countrys second lunar mission since 2008, is likely to come up in 2017 or 2018
and will have a lander and a rover to explore Moon's surface.
3. HAL said the lunar spacecraft is a two-module conguration having the orbiter craft and the lander
craft.
4. ISRO has said it will launch the mission using the more powerful rocket GSLV-MkII tted with the
indigenous cryogenic engine.
5. HAL has provided hardware for ISRO's communication satellites as well as operational PSLV rocket and
its higher siblings GSLV-MKII and MKIII (or LVM3).
Mars orbiter scores 100 rounds

1. The Indian Mars orbiter spacecraft completed its 100th orbit around Mars. It is also gradually coming
out of the blackout it had entered earlier this month.
2. The payloads on the spacecraft are to be re-started in a few weeks. They were last operated on May 27
to put the spacecraft in an autonomous mode.
3. MOM remains healthy and all its payloads are performing satisfactorily, ISRO said. The Mars Colour
Camera has taken 405 frames so far.
4. The spacecraft's health data is now being received," ISRO said adding the orbiter now had an elliptical
orbit of 474 km and 71, 132 km from the red planet.
5. Since early June, the Mars Orbiter and Mars were moving behind Sun as viewed from Earth. Two-way
signals were disrupted by solar activities.
Robot controlled by thoughts and brain signals developed
1. A robot that can be controlled with your thoughts and brain signals has been developed, says new
research.
2. The robot is developed by researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland.

3. The robot can be controlled remotely through brain signals and can perform various tasks.
4. Nine disabled people and 10 healthy people in Italy, Germany and Switzerland took part in the task of
piloting a robot with their thoughts.
5. For several weeks, each of the subjects put on an electrode-studded hat capable of analysing their brain
signals.
6. The person at the controls, as if moving in place of the robot, was able to interact with whoever the
robot crossed paths with.
Rainwater could help Indians save money: NASA data

Enlarge view here

1. Collecting rainwater for vegetable irrigation could reduce water bills, increase caloric intake and even
provide a second source of income for people in India, according to a new study by scientists looking at NASA
satellite data.
2. The study is based on precipitation data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint
mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which provided observations of rainfall
over the tropics and subtropics from 1997 to 2015.
3. Rainwater harvesting is not a new concept, but researchers said it is a largely untapped resource in
India.
4. In the new study, the team examined the possibilities if Indians collected precipitation in cheap
200-gallon tanks that they could easily engineer to t in densely populated urban areas, such as many of
Indias growing cities.
5. The team used data sets provided every three hours from 1997 to 2011 to determine how much
precipitation, on average, was available for collection and supplementation in each of the six test cities:
Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Srinagar.
6. They estimated each person would require an average of about 35 gallons of water per day. For an
average household of ve people, demand would be about 178 gallons daily.
7. After a one-year payback period, rainwater harvesting for vegetable irrigation would provide a protof
between 1,548 and 3,261 rupees per year and a total cost savings of between 2,605 and 4,522 rupees per year.