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

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

For saving Asian vulture from fatal drugs (Free Available)
GSA T -15 set to replace INSA T -3A, 4B (Free Available)
Scientists developing battery-free pacemakers (Only for Online Coaching Members)
IISc: cleaning rivers using a nano-composite (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Ozone Depletion by Refrigerators, Automobile ACs Small but Measurable (Only for Online Coaching Members)

After successfully campaigning for the ban on multi-dose vials of painkiller drug diclofenac in veterinary use, conservationists have stepped up pressure for withdrawing two more drugs, which they say, are fatal for Asian vultures.
It was recently that the authorities slapped a ban on the 30 ml multi-dose vials of the drug, which was largely responsible for the decline of the vultures, which used to feed on bovine carcasses.
The bird conservationists pointed out that “twenty years ago there were tens of millions of vultures in the Indian sub-continent. They provided a valuable ecosystem service by disposing of millions of tonnes of waste carrion from dead cattle each year.
Nowthey, and the services they provided, are nearly all gone,” according a publication of Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE), a consortium of eleven organisations.
The “three species of Gyps vultures endemic to South and Southeast Asia, oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis), long-billed vulture (G. indicus) and slender-billed vulture (G. tenuirostris), are the worst affected and are threatened with glob-al extinction after rapid population declines, which began in the mid-1990s.

GSAT -15, the mainly communications satellite being put in space next week, will replace two older space-craft that will likely expire in the coming months.
Its 24 transponders are solely in the Ku band and will cater to DTH (direct-to-home) television first, besides supporting the thousands of VSAT operators who provide broadband services; and DSNG (digital satellite news gathering) for TV news channels.
GSAT -15 will not add new transponder capacity to thecountry; it will ‘ensure sustainability of service ‘for the capacity-hungry DTH sector’.
It will also carry the third GAGAN satellite navigation transponder as a back-up for airlines and other users of augmented GPS-based systems.
GSAT -15, weighing 3,164 kg, will be launched in the wee hours of November 11 (IST) from Kourou in French Guiana (in South America) on the European Arianespace’s Ar-iane-5 launcher.
GSAT -15 will be flown along with Saudi Arabia’s Arabsat-6B/Badr-7.