(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | July: 2016

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Australian Great Barrier Reef rodent, the first mammal lost due to climate change (Free Available)
Mars Orbiters have for the first time found a seasonal dust storm pattern (Free Available)
Study suggests France flood are related to Global warning (Free Available)
Using satellite based method NASAcame up with new pollution source (Free Available)
3D printing technology getting better (Free Available)
New Biochip for cancer detection (Free Available)
Actions on Air Quality reports says airr pollution is rising (Free Available)
Solar storms may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm Earth (Free Available)
India takes baby steps towards developing a reusable launch vehicle (Only for Online Coaching Members)
CSE puts alarming report on bread (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Digitising data on ‘stolen’ Buddhist relics (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Barack Obama will not apologise for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (Only for Online Coaching Members)
New research opens many possibilities (Only for Online Coaching Members)
NASA led study found out contrast about Antarctica and Arctic ice cover (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Hypersonic test flight promises to shrink world (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Nuclear capable indigenously developed Prithvi-II missile test-fired (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Australian Great Barrier Reef rodent, the first mammal lost due to climate change

Climate change appears to have driven to extinction an Australian Great Barrier Reef rodent, according to a new study, which suggests the species may be the first mammal lost to the global phenomenon.
Extensive searches for the Bramble Cay melomys, a small rat-like animal, have failed to find a single specimen from its only known habitat on a sandy island in far northern Australia.
Researchers said the key factor behind the extinction was “almost certainly” ocean inundation of the low-lying cay, likely on several occasions, over the last decade which resulted in dramatic habitat loss.
The Melomysrubicola, considered the Great Barrier Reef’s only endemic (found nowhere else) mammal species, was first discovered on the cay in 1845 by Europeans who shot the "large rats" for sport.
But the last known sighting, by a professional fisherman, was in 2009. When a 2014 study found no sign of the species, researchers decided to conduct the most extensive survey possible in the hope of conserving the species.

Mars Orbiters have for the first time found a seasonal dust storm pattern

NASA’s Mars Orbiters have for the first time found a seasonal dust storm pattern on the Red Planet — paving the way to improve scientists’ ability to predict hazards there.
Temperature records from Mars orbiters reveal a pattern of three types of large regional dust storms occurring in sequence at about the same time each year during the southern hemisphere spring and summer.

Study suggests France flood are related to Global warning

Torrential rains which caused flooding in France recently bore the unmistakable fingerprint of climate change.
Global warming, especially in the last 50 years, had almost doubled the likelihood of the kind of three-day downpour that burst the banks of the Seine and Loire rivers, they calculated.
At the very least, the probability of such an extreme rainfall event had increased by more than 40 percent.
The Seine hit its highest water mark in three decades, while overflowing tributaries forced evacuations and left tens of thousands of people without power in nearby towns.
In southern Germany, heavy rains also caused flash flooding that swept away houses and cars. At least 18 people were killed in four European countries.
Unlike for France, the evidence was not strong enough to establish a direct link between warming and the destructive rainfall in Germany, the researchers said.
This does not mean that climate change did not play a key role, only that observations failed to line up with the models well enough to draw similarly robust conclusions.
Part of the explanation lies in basic physics. A warmer atmosphere can hold — and discharge — more water. So far, man-made warming has increased Earth’s average surface temperature by about one degree Celsius.
On current trends, that temperature is set to rise by another 2.0 degree Celsius, even taking into account national pledges made by virtually all the world’s nations last year to slash carbon pollution.

Using satellite based method NASAcame up with new pollution source

Using a new satellite-based method, NASA scientists have located 39 unreported and major human-made sources of toxic sulphur dioxide emissions.
The unreported emission sources, found in the analysis of satellite data from 2005 to 2014, are clusters of coal-burning power plants, smelters, oil and gas operations – found notably in West Asia, but also in Mexico and parts of Russia.
In addition, reported emissions from known sources in these regions were, in some cases, two to three times lower than satellite-based estimates.
Altogether, unreported and under-reported sources account for about 12 per cent of all human-made emissions of sulphur dioxide — a discrepancy that can have a large impact on regional air quality.
Sulphur dioxide is a known health hazard and cause of acid rain. Currently, sulphur dioxide-monitoring activities include the use of emission inventories that are derived from ground-based measurements and factors, such as fuel usage.

3D printing technology getting better

Scientists have developed a new interactive 3D printing system that can allow designers to make changes to the model while it is still in the printer.
WirePrint aimed to speed prototyping by creating a model of the shape of an object instead of printing the entire solid.

New Biochip for cancer detection

Scientists have created a hydrogel-based biochip with 3D cells to help diagnose colorectal cancer — the third most common type of cancer.
Bowel cancer i.e. colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer and it develops with minimal clinical symptoms in the early stages. Despite doctors' efforts, the 5-year survival rate does not exceed 36%.
Treatment is only effective, and patients only have a good chance of recovery, if the cancer is detected early.
Diagnostic methods that are currently in use are not sufficient.
Analyses carried out in vitro have low specificity and invasive studies such as colonoscopy are not only traumatic.
they are also not always suitable for an early diagnosis, as they do not give a complete picture of the development and distribution of colorectal cancer.

Actions on Air Quality reports says airr pollution is rising

The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) meeting at Nairobi noted that air pollution has increased by 8 per cent and progress and policies on air quality fall short of what is needed to save millions of lives each year.
The UNEA report “Actions on Air Quality”, said the declining air quality across the globe was threatening to add to the seven million air pollution deaths across the world in what was described as a ‘’global public health emergency.”
A snapshot on the actions on air quality taken by countries across different regions saw India figure high among those with stringent air quality laws and regulations but it was also among those countries where burning of both agricultural and municipal wastes is not regulated and commonly practised.
This underlined the glaring gap between expression of intent and the ground that needs to be covered in implementing the policies.
While India was ranked among countries where major investments have been made in public transport in the last 5 years, it also figures among nations with neither low sulphur fuels (50 ppm) nor advanced vehicle emission standards.
The report noted that “India with major air quality challenges in many cities has established air quality laws besides regulation and implementation strategies for them.”
The report comes close on the heels of World Health Organisation (WHO) findings which listed 13 of India’s cities among the world’s top 20 polluted cities.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner spoke of “reclaiming our air’’ as more and more people around the world are affected by air pollution and the negative health affects.
More than 80 per cent of the people live in urban areas and are exposed to pollutants that exceed the WHO limits and have a bearing on lives, productivity and the economy of the countries concerned, according to the report.
The cost of reducing air pollution in 2010 for India was pegged at $0.5 trillion and $1.4 trillion for China.
However, on an optimistic note, the report said there have been improvements in access to cleaner cooking fuels and efforts point to a growing momentum for change.

Solar storms may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm Earth

Solar storms four billion years ago may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm Earth and seed life despite the Sun’s faintness, new research has revealed.
Some four billion years ago, the sun shone with only about three-quarters the brightness we see today, but its surface roiled with giant eruptions spewing enormous amounts of solar material and radiation out into space.
The eruptions also may have furnished the energy needed to turn simple molecules into the complex molecules such as RNA and DNA that were necessary for life, said NASA researchers.
That means Earth should have been an icy ball. Instead, geological evidence says it was a warm globe with liquid water.
Understanding what conditions were necessary for life on our planet helps us both trace the origins of life on Earth and guide the search for life on other planets.
Until now, however, fully mapping Earth’s evolution has been hindered by the simple fact that the young Sun wasn’t luminous enough to warm Earth.
Scientists are able to piece together the history of the Sun by searching for similar stars in our galaxy. By placing these sun-like stars in order according to their age, the stars appear as a functional timeline of how our own Sun evolved.
Such flares are often accompanied by huge clouds of solar material, called coronal mass ejections or CMEs which erupt out into space. NASA’s Kepler mission has found stars that resemble our Sun about a few million years after its birth.
The Kepler data showed many examples of what are called “superflares” — enormous explosions so rare today that we only experience them once every 100 years or so.
Yet the Kepler data also show these youngsters producing as many as 10 superflares a day.