(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | October: 2015

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Genes help fish cope with warming oceans

  • In a first, the genetic mystery of why some fish are able to adjust to warming oceans has been unlocked.
  • Higher levels of certain stress and immune genes help fish cope with warming temperature in water over the years, the findings showed.
  • Researchers examined how the fish’s genes responded after several generations living at higher temperatures predicted under climate change.
  • Using cutting-edge molecular methods the research team identified 53 key genes that are involved in long-term, multi-generational acclimation to higher temperatures.
  • The findings appeared in the journal Nature Climate Change.
  • The project involved rearing coral reef fish at different temperatures for more than four years, and then testing their metabolic performance

New Technique Can Reveal Age of Moon Rocks

  • Researchers are developing instruments and methods for measuring the age of rocks encountered during space missions to the Moon and planets.

  • Many of the techniques used to date rocks on Earth are not practical in spaceflight, but a technique called laser ablation resonance ionisation mass spectrometry can avoid the need for sophisticated sample preparation.

  • A team led by Dr F Scott Anderson from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, US, has now demonstrated that this technique can successfully date an Earth rock - the Duluth Gabbro - that is analogous to the rocks that cover one-third of the lunar nearside.

  • Their results imply that events from Solar System history that are recorded on much of the visible face of the Moon can one day be dated directly by instruments aboard a lunar lander.

  • Dating the Duluth Gabbro was approximately 30 times more analytically challenging than our previous experiment, dating the Martian meteorite Zagami, noted co-author Dr Jonathan Levine from the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York.

Archaeologists discovered two human bones about 100,000 years old in China

  • Archaeologists announced that they have discovered two human bones about 100,000 years old in Central China’s Henan province.

  • The limb bones were unearthed in May at the Lingjing historical site in Xuchang, said Li Zhanyang, a researcher at the Henan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, who led the excavation.

  • Li said the two fossils were discovered not far from each other. Both belong to a young person, maybe even the same person, Li said.

  • There are several bite marks on the fossils.

  • So far, bone fossils from at least nine people have been discovered at the Lingjing historical site, including old and young, making it the largest site of discovered human fossils since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

  • Fossils from “Xuchang Man” were unearthed at the site, and two almost complete human skulls were dated back 100,000 years.

  • The Xuchang Man fossil consisted of 16 pieces of skull with protruding eyebrows and a small forehead. More astonishing than the completeness of the skull was that it still had a fossilized membrane on the inner side, so that scientists could track the nerves of the Paleolithic ancestor.

  • In addition to the bone fossils, more than 1,000 fossilized animals and stone implements have been found at the site.

Humans can be able to live on moon in next decade: NASA

  • According to a NASA-funded study, humans may be able to live on the moon in a little more than a decade from now. The study outlines a plan to again take human missions to the moon, media reported.

  • The announcement was made on July 20 — the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 crew’s first steps on the lunar surface — The Verge (an American news and technology media network) reported.

  • The, study, undertaken by NexGen Space LLC, lays out a detailed roadmap for when and how to take the next step for a landing.

  • A robotic return to the moon could happen as soon as 2017, if NASA were to adopt the plan right away. Rovers would scout the lunar poles for hydrogen in 2018 and prospecting could begin by 2019 or 2020.

  • Robotic construction of a permanent base would begin in 2021 in anticipation of landing humans on the moon later that year, it said.

  • The study said the space agency can do it all within the existing budget for human spaceflights. The way for NASA to do this is to adopt the same method that it is using for re-supplying the International Space Station - a public-private partnership with companies like SpaceX, Orbital ATK or the United Launch Alliance.

  • SpaceX currently charges NASA about $4,750 for every kilogram of supplies sent to orbit aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, far less than the cost by the Apollo-era Saturn V ($46,000 per kilogram) or even the space shuttle ($60,000 per kilogram).

  • While the study does use SpaceX’s next generation rocket, the Falcon Heavy, as an example in its plans to get to the moon, SpaceX claims the Falcon Heavy will be as cheap or cheaper per kilogram than the Falcon 9.

  • NASA is already planning to go back to the moon with its next generation rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), but there are no plans to land.

  • By using commercial partners, NASA could reduce the number of planned SLS launches from 12 to around three, reducing the cost of the programme while still developing the technologies necessary to support it, the study said.

  • The study was vetted by a 21-person independent review team made up of former members of NASA’s administration, members of the commercial spaceflight community and four former NASA astronauts.

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