(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | March: 2017

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics (Free Available)
Solar-powered purifier developed by researchers (Free Available)
Anticancer agent promotes regeneration of damaged heart muscle (Free Available)
Decades old radioactive glass used to examine the Moon’s formation theory (Free Available)
Comet hunters have a chance to spot comet 45P (Free Available)
First indigenously built AEW&C, Netra, inducted in IAF (Free Available)
ISRO to create history with launch (Free Available)
1.1 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution in India (Free Available)
UAE looks to transport people to the Red Planet (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Google a step closer to rolling out a network of balloons to provide Internet (Only for Online Coaching Members)
First DNA computer capable of detecting several antibodies in the blood (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Scientists have 3D-printed small, soft bio-bots with living tissues (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Scientists have discovered why the crystallised iron core of the Earth remains solid (Only for Online Coaching Members)
The risk of running out of rare earth metals led to deep sea mining (Only for Online Coaching Members)
Scientists have spotted seven Earth-sized planets (Only for Online Coaching Members)
African black rhinoceros face risk of extincti on (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics

A researcher from India has taken the first definitive step to produce high-speed electronic devices that can operate one million times faster than modern electronics.
The electrons were found to be moving at a speed (frequency) close to 1,015 (one million billion) hertz; the best achievable speed in modern transistors is only 109 (one billion) hertz. The results were published in Nature .
Conventionally, the motion of electrons (conductivity) is achieved by applying voltage. But Dr. Garg and others controlled the motion of electrons inside the solid material by using laser pulses.
Light waves are electromagnetic in nature and have very high oscillation frequency of electric and magnetic fields. This ultra-high frequency of light waves can be used to drive and control electron motion in semiconductors.
The performance of high-speed circuits rely on how quickly electric current can be turned on and off inside a material.
The very short time interval needed to turn silicon dioxide from an insulator to a conductor was possible as the team used high-intensity and extremely short laser pulses and silicon dioxide in the form of a nanofilm. In the bulk form.
Silicon dioxide tends to get damaged by high-intensity laser as the material tends to accumulate heat produced by the laser pulse.
But as a nanofilm, silicon dioxide becomes nearly transparent to laser and absorbs less heat and therefore gets less damaged.

Solar-powered purifier developed by researchers

Researchers have developed a solar-powered purifier, which could provide a highly efficient and inexpensive way to turn contaminated water into potable water for personal use.
The device could help address global drinking water shortages, especially in developing areas and regions affected by natural disasters, researchers said.
The team built a small-scale solar still. The device, called a “solar vapour generator,” cleans or desalinates water by using the heat converted from sunlight.

Anticancer agent promotes regeneration of damaged heart muscle

In a new development, researchers have found out that a cancer drug could promote regeneration of heart tissue.
An anticancer agent in development promotes regeneration of damaged heart muscle. This is an unexpected research finding that may help prevent congestive heart failure in the future.
Many parts of the body, such as blood cells and the lining of the gut, continuously renew themselves throughout a person’s life.
Others, such as the heart, do not. Because of the heart’s inability to repair itself, damage caused by a heart attack causes permanent scarring that frequently results in serious weakening of the heart, known as heart failure.
These molecules are crucial for tissue regeneration, but also frequently contribute to cancer.
Essential to the production of Wnt proteins in humans is the porcupine (Porcn) enzyme, so-named because fruit fly embryos lacking this gene resemble a porcupine. In testing the porcupine inhibitor, the researchers noted a curiosity.
Based on their initial results, the researchers induced heart attacks in mice and then treated them with a porcupine inhibitor. Their hearts’ ability to pump blood improved by nearly twofold compared to untreated animals.

Decades old radioactive glass used to examine the Moon’s formation theory

Scientists have used decades-old radioactive glass, found blanketing the ground after the first nuclear test bomb explosion, to examine theories about the Moon’s formation about 4.5 billion years ago.
Researchers from University of California San Diego in the U.S. examined the chemical composition of zinc and other volatile elements contained in the green-coloured glass.
It is called trinitite, which were radioactive materials formed under the extreme temperatures that resulted from the 1945 plutonium bomb explosion.
Scientists have long suggested that similar chemical reactions took place when a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized planetary body produced debris that formed the Moon.
The analysis found similarities between the trinitite and lunar rocks.

Comet hunters have a chance to spot comet 45P

Comet hunters have a chance to spot comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova in the next few days using binoculars or a telescope, NASA said.
“It’s the first of a trio of comets that will, between now and the end of 2018, pass close enough to Earth for backyard observers to try to spot and for scientists to study using ground-based instruments,” the U.S. space agency said.
It’s named Comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková after the astronomers who discovered it in 1948: Minoru Honda, Antonín Mrkos, and Ludmila Pajdušáková.
45P is a short-period comet, with an orbit that takes it around the Sun and out by Jupiter about every 5-1/4 years. This weekend’s encounter will be the comet’s closest with Earth, passing by at a distance of about 12.4 million kilometres, through the end of this century.
The comet will pass by our planet again in 2032 but will be much farther away — at a distance of nearly about 48 million kilometres.
Scientists have taken advantage of 45P’s approach, making observations using powerful ground-based telescopes such as NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility to investigate the gases, dust and ice particles that are released from the comet nucleus and show up in the coma and tail.
By looking for water, methane and other compounds, astronomers get clues about how the comet is put together and where it originated in the cloud of material that surrounded the young sun as the solar system formed.
NASA said ground-based observations also are planned for comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak, which will pass closest to Earth on April 1, and for comet 46P/Wirtanen, passing closest to Earth on December 16, 2018.
By studying this trio of comets, astronomers can learn more about the differences between comets — information they use to fill in the comet family tree.

First indigenously built AEW&C, Netra, inducted in IAF

The IAF has formally inducted the first indigenously built Airborne Early Warning and Control System (AEW&C) Netra developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) at the Aero India exhibition.
These airborne warning systems, capable of long range surveillance, are huge force multipliers. Netra is based on Embraer aircraft and three systems are to be developed.
This system gives a 240-degree coverage of airspace. The three aircraft would be based at Bhatinda, facing the Western border.
As the AWACS is much heavier, it needs a bigger aircraft. They would be based on the Airbus-A330. It has already been shortlisted through a global process and is in the final stages.

ISRO to create history with launch

The launch of 104 satellites on a single PSLV mission is keeping the space community agog.
The entire flight of the PSLV-C37 rocket takes nearly 29 minutes, just four minutes longer than a regular PSLV that may carry one or two satellites.
ISRO has scheduled the launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota in coastal Andhra Pradesh. To date, the highest number of satellites, 37, in a single mission was made in June 2014 by a Russian Dnepr rocket.
Of the 104 on the PSLV, 96 satellites belong to two U.S. customers: 88 Doves with Planet Labs and eight LEMURs with Spire Global Inc. Half the cost of the PSLV was covered by launch fees from the seven customers.
The rocket will release the first passenger, Cartosat-2 series, about 17 minutes after lift-off. The commercial payloads will be released a minute after Indian satellites.
Accommodation of all the satellites within the space available in the last and fourth stage of the rocket was another daunting task; it was handled by using customised components called adapters.

1.1 million people die prematurely each year due to air pollution in India

India’s rapidly worsening air pollution is causing about 1.1 million people to die prematurely each year and is now surpassing China’s as the deadliest in the world, a new study of global air pollution shows.
The number of premature deaths in China caused by dangerous air particles, known as PM2.5, has stabilised globally in recent years but has risen sharply in India, according to the report.
India has registered an alarming increase of nearly 50% in premature deaths from particulate matter between 1990 and 2015, the report says.
Pollution levels are worsening in India as it tries to industrialise, but “the idea that policy-making should be led by government is lacking.
As air pollution worsened in parts of the world, including South Asia, it improved in the U.S. and Europe, the report said, crediting policies to curb emissions, among other things.
Environmental regulations in the U.S. and actions by the European Commission have led to substantial progress in reducing fine particulate pollution since 1990, the report said.
The U.S. has experienced a reduction of about 27% in the average annual exposure to fine particulate matter, with smaller declines in Europe.
A fraction of the width of a human hair, these particles can be released from vehicles, particularly those with diesel engines, and by industry, as well as from natural sources like dust.
They enter the bloodstream through the lungs, worsening cardiac disease and increasing the risk of stroke and heart failure, in addition to causing severe respiratory problems, like asthma and pneumonia.
Although deaths caused by air pollution grew to 4.2 million in 2015 from 3.5 million in 1990, the rate of increase of about 20% was slower than the rate of the population rise during that time.
China also offers an encouraging sign. Premature deaths from particulate matter each year have stabilised at around 1.1 million since 2005, the report said. Still, that is an increase of 17% since 1990, when it was a little more than 9,45,000.
India had yet to undertake sustained public policy initiatives to reduce pollution, said Gopal Sankaranarayanan, an advocate at the Supreme Court who successfully petitioned it to ban licences to sell fireworks in New Delhi last year.
Weak environmental regulation in India leaves India’s citizens with few alternatives other than to petition the courts to take action to protect the public’s health.
The National Green Tribunal, ordered farmers to stop burning their crops in the region around New Delhi in 2015, but the practice still continued last year.
Smoke from the farm fires contributed about one quarter of the levels of the most dangerous air pollution in the Indian capital, environmental experts said.