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The impacts of annual ban on trawl fishery will be assessed The marine ecosystems of eastern Arabian Sea would soon become the stage for a series of biogeochemical and biological studies, which are expected to throw light into the ocean dynamics and economy. The Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE), Kochi, and the Integrated Coastal and Marine Area Management – Project Directorate, Chennai, both functioning under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, have drawn up a three-year-programme to study the coastal seas of western India. The researchers have primarily identified health of sea, carbon credit, biological productivity, trawl ban effects and oceanography as the thrust areas for the research. Under the category health of sea, the researchers would assess ecosystem status of western coastal India for biological resources which are influenced either by natural processes or man-made effects. The green house gas emissions from the ecosystems would be assessed for r...

Scientists study DNA from mummies found at a burial site DNA from mummies found at a site once known for its cult to the Egyptian god of the afterlife is unwrapping intriguing insight into the people of ancient Egypt, including a surprise discovery that they had scant genetic ties to sub-Saharan Africa. Scientists on Tuesday said they examined genome data from 90 mummies from the Abusir el-Malek archaeological site, located about 115 km south of Cairo, in the most sophisticated genetic study of ancient Egyptians ever conducted. The DNA was extracted from the teeth and bones of mummies from a burial ground associated with the god Osiris. The oldest were from about 1,388 BC during the New Kingdom, a high point in ancient Egyptian influence and culture. The most recent were from about 426 AD, centuries after Egypt had become a Roman Empire province. “There has been much discussion about the genetic ancestry of ancient Egyptians,” said archeogeneticist Johannes Krause of the Max P...

T. rex's long, conical teeth generated an astounding 431,000 pounds per square inch of bone-failing tooth pressures The giant Tyrannosaurus rex pulverised bones by biting down with forces equalling the weight of three small cars while simultaneously generating world record tooth pressures, according to a new study. Researchers, including those from Florida State University in the U.S., said that T. rex could pulverise bones — a capacity known as extreme osteophagy that is typically seen in living carnivorous mammals such as wolves and hyenas, but not reptiles whose teeth do not allow for chewing up bones. They found that this prehistoric reptile could chow down with nearly 8,000 pounds of force, which is more than two times greater than the bite force of the largest living crocodiles. At the same time, their long, conical teeth generated an astounding 431,000 pounds per square inch of bone-failing tooth pressures. This allowed T. rex to drive open cracks in bone during r...

Heavy rain on Mars may have reshaped the Red planet’s impact craters and carved out river-like channels on its surface billions of years ago, a new study has found. Changes in the Martian atmosphere made it rain harder and harder, which had a similar effect on the planet’s surface as seen on Earth, scientists said. The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars has geological features like the Earth and the Moon, such as craters and valleys, many of which were formed through rainfall. Although there is a growing body of evidence that there was once water on Mars, it does not rain there today. In the new study, Robert Craddock and Ralph Lorenz from Johns Hopkins University in the U.S. show that there was rainfall in the past — and that it was heavy enough to change the planet’s surface. Valley networks on Mars show evidence for surface run-off driven by rainfall. “Many people have analysed the nature of rainfall on the Earth, but no one had thought to apply the physics to understanding...

Drug-resistant E. coli become sensitive to antibiotics when H2S synthesis is inhibited Indian researchers have unravelled the mechanism by which hydrogen sulphide (H2S) gas produced by bacteria protects them from antibiotics and plays a key role in helping bacteria develop drug resistance. And by blocking/disabling the enzyme that triggers the biosynthesis of hydrogen sulphide in bacteria, the researchers from Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune, have been able to reverse antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria; E. coli bacteria were isolated from patients suffering from urinary tract infection. The results were published in the journal Chemical Science. Antibiotics kill by increasing the levels of reactive oxygen species (oxidative stress) inside bacterial cells. So any mechanism that detoxifies or counters reactive oxygen species generated by antibiotics will reduce the efficacy of antibiotics. “Hyd...

A new mission to Saturn’s moons Titan or Enceladus to find signs of life beyond Earth cannot be ruled out as NASA says it is reviewing 12 proposals for future unmanned solar system mission to be launched in the mid-2020s. The proposed missions of discovery — submitted under NASA’s New Frontiers programme —will undergo scientific and technical review over the next seven months, the US space agency said in a statement on Friday. Selection of one or more concepts for Phase A study will be announced in November. At the conclusion of Phase A concept studies, it is planned that one New Frontiers investigation will be selected to continue into subsequent mission phases. Investigations for this announcement of opportunity were limited to six mission themes — comet surface sample return; lunar South Pole-Aitken basin sample return; ocean worlds (Titan and/or Enceladus); Saturn probe; Trojan tour and rendezvous; and Venus in situ explorer “New Frontiers is about answering the biggest ques...

Indian Institute of Astrophysics releases digitised images of the sun for researchers and science enthusiasts Every day, since 1904, staff at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in Tamil Nadu have aimed their telescope at the sun, freezing the images of its disc. This data, spanning a hundred years and more, has now been digitised by astrophysicists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, and made available to the public. Apart from use in academic studies of long term behaviour of the sun, the data can be used to better understand sunspot activity which impacts climate and affects telecommunication systems. It also throws light on major events in the past which had an impact on the earth’s magnetic field. “From that knowledge we may understand the current and future events with greater precision. This also allows us to predict future [sunspot] activity levels with better accuracy,” says Dipankar Banerjee, IIAP, the Principal Investigator. While ‘spectroheliograms’ we...

This could be used in applications such as tunable laser, LEDs and white light display Dr. Vikram Singh, former research scholar in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras won the BIRAC Gandhian Young Technological Innovation (GYTI) Award 2017 for his work on producing white light emission using natural extracts. Dr. Singh and Prof. Ashok Mishra from the Department of Chemistry, IIT Madras used a mixture of two natural extracts — red pomegranate and turmeric — to produce white light emission. The researchers used a simple and environment-friendly procedure to extract dyes from pomegranate and turmeric. While polyphenols and anthocyanins present in red pomegranate emit at blue and orange-red regions of the wavelength respectively, curcumin from turmeric emit at the green region of the wavelength. White light emission is produced when red, blue and green mix together. This is probably the first time white light emission has been generated using low-cost, edible natural dyes. The r...

In a new BBC series, Prof. Hawking claims that time is running out for the Earth and humanity. Humans will need to colonise another planet within the next 100 years to survive climate change, asteroid strikes and overpopulation, according to renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking. In a documentary, Expedition New Earth — part of the BBC’s new science season Tomorrow’s World — Prof. Hawking and his former student Christophe Galfard will travel the world to find out how humans could survive in outer space. In the series, Prof. Hawking claims that time is running out for the Earth and humanity will need to leave the planet for its survival. The shows aims to find Britain’s greatest invention, by asking the public to vote on the innovation which has been the most influential in their lives, The Telegraph reported. Last month, Prof. Hawking had warned that the aggressive instincts of humans, coupled with the fast pace of growth in technology may destroy us all by nuclear or b...

Evidence of defence mechanism that involved manipulating the function of one of the virus’s genes, turning virus against itself. Our ancestors may have eliminated a primordial Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) type virus around 11 million years ago, according to a new study that examined fossil DNA to find out when ancient viruses were at their peak. Researchers from The Rockefeller University in the United States suggest that our primate ancestors evolved a defence mechanism that involved manipulating the function of one of the virus’s genes, turning the virus against itself. Providing a wealth of insight “Analysing viral fossils can provide a wealth of insight into events that occurred in the distant past,” said Paul Bieniasz, from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the U.S. “This study is an example of how viruses themselves can provide the genetic material that animals use to combat them, sometimes leading to viral extinction,” said Dr. Bieniasz. Retroviruses, a c...

Archana Sharma, a Senior Scientist at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, is the only Indian scientist who was involved in the path-breaking discovery of Higgs Boson particle in 2012. Her journey from Jhansi to CERN, the Mecca of Particle Physics, has been remarkable and a story of inspiration for many aspiring Indian scientists. Ms. Sharma finished her post-graduation from the Banaras Hindu University and received her doctorate from Delhi University after which she moved to Geneva for her post doctoral research. Author and co-author of over 600 publications, Ms. Sharma is invited regularly for talks in international conferences and public addresses in various science and technology events. Recently nominated a Distinguished Lecturer at the US-based IEEE, she has collaborated with events at the ILO Geneva and World Communication Forum Davos as spokesperson for diversity, excellence in scientific communication. In an exclusive chat with The Hindu, she spoke about her journey ...

Transformational technologies arise from pure science. If India wants to nurture the next big invention, it must ramp up support for research Our lives are being transformed by technology daily. We are keenly aware of new tools like smart phones and the Internet, but much more lies under the surface. Novel devices, materials and technologies have brought enormous benefits to our physical well-being in the context of medicine, housing, nutrition, security and sanitation, and to our mental well-being by transforming communication and socialisation. Though we are happy to purchase smart devices and use medical equipment, we are less curious about how those technologies came into existence. This is ironic because India played a remarkable role, even under colonial rule, in planting the seeds of basic research from which they grew. For example, a currently promising breakthrough in testing for cancer, diabetes, asthma and malaria arises from ‘resonant Raman scattering’ and has its roots ...

Based on traditional knowledge of Cholanaickan tribe A medicinal plant endemic to the southern parts of Western Ghats and Sri Lanka could offer scientists the key to new herbal formulations and modern drugs for the treatment of cancer and wounds and burns. Scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI) here have confirmed the multiple therapeutic properties of Neurocalyx calycinus used by the Cholanaickan tribe, one of the particularly vulnerable groups in Kerala, to treat inflammations and wounds. The researchers have filed for a patent on a novel herbal drug formulation possessing wound-healing, burn-healing, anti-cancer, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, immuno- enhancing, platelet-augmentation and anti-oxidant effects. The scientists came to know of the miracle plant in 1988 during a biological survey deep inside the Nilambur forests. The team led by S. Rajasekharan, former Head, Ethnomedicine and Ethnopharmacology division, JNTBRI,...

The tool helps in early detection of diabetic macular edema Early diagnosis of certain eye diseases and studying the early progression of the diseases has now become possible, thanks to the work carried out by a team of researchers from three institutes — IISER, Kolkata, L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, and BARC, Visakhapatnam. The researchers used the retinal data captured by a well-established imaging method in ophthalmology (optical coherence tomography or OCT) and applied an algorithm based on a statistical biomarker tool for early detection of diabetic macular edema. The results were published in the Journal of Biomedical Optics. Disease progression Early diagnosis of eye diseases and quantification of disease progression has been a challenge. For instance, the human retina has 10 layers and subtle morphological changes in these layers do not lead to a change in thickness that can be detected by OCT imaging. But OCT images do contain data on subtle refractive index va...

‘Jia Jia’ can chat, make specific facial expressions and her maker sees in her a future of cyborg labour in the country. “Jia Jia” can hold a simple conversation and make specific facial expressions when asked, and her creator believes the eerily life-like robot heralds a future of cyborg labour in China. Billed as China’s first human-like robot, Jia Jia was first trotted out last year by a team of engineers at the University of Science and Technology of China. Like a proud father Team leader Chen Xiaoping sounded like a proud father as he and his prototype appeared Monday at an economic conference organised by banking giant UBS in Shanghai’s futuristic financial centre. Mr. Chen predicted that perhaps within a decade, artificially intelligent robots like Jia Jia will begin performing a range of menial tasks in Chinese restaurants, nursing homes, hospitals and households. “In 5-10 years there will be a lot of applications for robots in China,” Mr. Chen said. With flowing...

High-resolution maps of major agroecological zones are available from 2000 onwards. The maps will be updated every year For the first time, high-resolution maps of irrigated areas of India from 2000-2015 have been prepared using remote sensing data. The maps were validated with ground-based survey data. High-resolution irrigated water maps are essential for estimation of irrigation water demand and consumption on a spatial scale, crop productivity assessments and hydrologic modelling. The maps were developed by a team led by Dr. Vimal Mishra from the Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The results were published in Scientific Data, a journal from the Nature group. While the irrigation maps developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) are of low resolution, the high-resolution maps of International Water Management Institute (IWMI) are available for just one year and do not cover the entire country. “So we developed annu...

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps is set to become the first African-American crew member aboard the International Space Station (ISS) when she flies to the orbital post in May next year, the U.S. space agency said on Thursday. NASA assigned veteran Andrew Feustel and Epps to missions aboard the ISS in 2018. Feustel will launch in March 2018 for his first long-duration mission, serving as a flight engineer on Expedition 55 and later as commander of Expedition 56. Epps will join Feustel as a flight engineer on Expedition 56 and remain on board for Expedition 57. “Each space station crew brings something different to the table, and Drew and Jeanette both have a lot to offer. The space station will benefit from having them on board,” said Chris Cassidy, chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston. Epps earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1992 at LeMoyne College in her hometown of Syracuse, New York. She went on to complete a master’s of science in ...

“Penitentes” — formed by erosion — are bowl-shaped depressions with spires around the edge and indicate presence of an atmosphere. Scientists have found evidence of Earth-like snow and ice features on Pluto, using a model similar to what meteorologists use to forecast weather on our planet and a computer simulation of the physics of evaporating ices. “Penitentes” which are formed by erosion, are bowl-shaped depressions with spires around the edge, and are several metres high. The groundbreaking research, done in collaboration with researchers at NASA and Johns Hopkins University, indicates that these icy features may exist on other planets where environmental conditions are similar. “The identification of the ridges of Tartarus Dorsa as Penitentes suggests that the presence of an atmosphere is necessary for the formation of penitentes, which would explain why they have not previously been seen on other airless icy satellites or dwarf planets,” said Professor John Moores, from ...

The image from late 2016 obtained at a distance of about 1.2 million kilometres from Saturn shows a hexagon-shaped jet-stream which is fully illuminated. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has captured a stunning image of Saturn, showing the whole northern region of the ringed planet bathed in sunlight. The image from late 2016 obtained at a distance of about 1.2 million kilometres from Saturn shows a hexagon-shaped jet-stream which is fully illuminated. The planet appears darker in regions where the cloud deck is lower, such the region interior to the hexagon, NASA said. Mission experts on Saturn’s atmosphere are taking advantage of the season and Cassini’s favourable viewing geometry to study this and other weather patterns as Saturn’s northern hemisphere approaches Summer solstice. The view looks towards the sunlit side of the rings from about 51 degrees above the ring plane, according to NASA. The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft’s wide-angle camera on September 9, ...

The atomic clock was programmed to add an extra second to 2017 to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth’s rotation. A ‘leap second’ was added to the Indian clock at 5:29.59 hours on Sunday to synchronise with the Earth’s rotational clock. As the atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) here struck 23:59:59 last night, it was programmed to add an extra second to 2017 to compensate for a slowdown in the Earth’s rotation. Adding a second barely has an impact on the daily life, but it does matter in the fields of satellite navigation,astronomy and communication. “The Earth and rotation around its own axis is not regular, as sometimes it speeds up and sometimes it slows down due to various factors, including earthquakes and moon’s gravitational forces. As a result, astronomical time (UT1) gradually falls out of sync with atomic time (UTC), and, as and when the difference between UTC and UT1 approaches 0.9 seconds, a leap second is added to UTC through atomic clocks world...