(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) Science & Technology | November : 2014

November-2014

Virgin Galactic spacecraft appears to have broken apart in flight

The head of the federal agency examining fatal crash of a Virgin Galactic passenger spaceship during a test flight in California’s Mojave Desert confirmed that the vehicle had broken apart in flight.
“The debris field indicates an in-flight breakup,” Christopher Hart, acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), told Reuters
“We’ll know that for certainty when we look at all the sources we have,” he said.
The NTSB is leading the investigation into Friday’s crash of SpaceShip Two, which was undergoing its first powered test flight since January when it crashed, spreading debris over a 5-mile (8 km) swath of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles.
Citing a source familiar with the nascent investigation, the report said video and early data was focusing on “aerodynamic forces” that could have led to its downing.

Wearing Google Glass may cause ‘blind spots’ in vision: study

Wearing Google Glass may partially obstruct peripheral vision, causing blind spots that could interfere with daily tasks such as driving, a new study has found.
Peripheral visual field is a main component of vision and essential for daily activities such as driving, pedestrian safety and sports.
Conventional spectacle frames can reduce visual field, sometimes causing absolute blind spots, and head mounted devices have even more pronounced frames, researchers said.

Government ‘cautious’ about tapping nuclear energy for power generation

Power, Coal and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal said nuclear energy offers potential, but the government will remain “cautious” about tapping it for power generation.
Speaking at the India Economic Summit, Mr. Goyal reiterated the government’s aim to provide 24x7 power supply to all citizens by 2019, adding that the sector is likely to attract investment of about USD 250 billion in the next 4-5 years.
On nuclear energy, Mr.Goyal pointed out that the US and many European nations have stopped setting up nuclear plants. “This government would like to be cautious so that we are not saddled with something only under the garb of clean energy or alternate energy; something which the West has discarded and is sought to be brought to India,” he said.
Asked about the logjam that has emerged due to the Nuclear Liability Law, the minister said, “Nuclear has potential and opportunities for India. This government is opening to all options... in nuclear, we are seized of the problem and we are already trying to see how we can address nuclear liability restrictions.”
He also pointed out that as yet there is no estimate on the life-cycle costs of nuclear power right up to de-commissioning stage.
Mr. Goyal’s observations assume significance because so far countries promised contracts for nuclear reactors had been pressurising India to change its nuclear liability law.
The US, France and, to a lesser extent, Russia are upset because nothing has moved since 2008 when then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured 10,000 MW of reactors to two US companies, six reactors to French company Areva and up to 16 plants by Russia’s Atomstroyexport.
The commitment was in exchange for ending India’s isolation from the civil nuclear commerce mainstream after the first nuclear explosion in 1974. As a result, the US along with France and Russian helped India secure an exemption from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.

French Scientists find mechanism for spontaneous HIV cure

As many as 1,482 French scientists unveiled the genetic mechanism by which they believe two men were spontaneously cured of HIV, and said the discovery may offer a new strategy in the fight against AIDS.
In both asymptomatic men, the AIDS-causing virus was inactivated due to an altered HIV gene coding integrated into human cells, they wrote in the journal Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
This, in turn, was likely due to stimulation of an enzyme that may in future be targeted for drug treatment to induce the same response, they said.
“This finding represents an avenue for a cure,” study co-author Didier Raoult of the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) told.
Neither of the men, one diagnosed HIV positive 30 years ago and the other in 2011, have ever been ill, and the AIDS-causing virus cannot be detected with routine tests of their blood.
In both, the virus was unable to replicate due to DNA coding changes that the researchers proposed were the result of a spontaneous evolution between humans and the virus that is called “endogenisation”.
“We propose that HIV cure may occur through HIV endogenisation in humans,” they wrote. The teams said they did not believe the two patients were unique or that the phenomenon was new.

The Antarctic ozone hole stands steady: scientists

The Antarctic ozone hole reached its peak size in September, stretching to 24.1 million square kilometres, almost the same size as last year’s peak, scientists say.
The ozone hole, which forms annually in the August to October period, had peaked to 24 million square kilometres in September last year.
In comparison, the largest ozone hole area recorded to date on a single day was on September 9, 2000, at 29.9 million square kilometres.
The ozone layer helps shield life on Earth from potentially harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can cause skin cancer, damage plants and phytoplankton — the top of the oceanic food chain.
“The good news is that our measurements show less thinning of the ozone over the South Pole during the past three years,” said Bryan Johnson, a researcher with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
“However, the rate at which ozone thins during the month of September has remained about the same for the past two decades. A decrease in this rate will be an important sign of recovery,” said Johnson.
South Pole balloon-borne ozonesonde observations measured a minimum amount of 120 Dobson Units of ozone this year on September 29. Ozonesonde measurements of 250 Dobson Units in August are common just before the rapid destruction of ozone in September, researchers said.

European Space agency published first picture from the surface of a comet

The European Space Agency published the first image taken from the surface of a comet and said that its Philae lander is still “stable” despite a failure to latch on properly to the rocky terrain.
The lander scored a historic first Wednesday, touching down on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a decade-long, 6.4 billion-kilometer (4 billion-mile) journey through space aboard its mother ship Rosetta.
Scientists’ jubilation was slightly dampened because the harpoons which were meant to anchor the lander to the surface failed to deploy, causing it to bounce twice before it came to rest on the comet’s 4 kilometer-wide body, or nucleus.
“Philae is stable, sitting on the nucleus and is producing data,” Gerhard Schwehm, a scientist on the Rosetta mission, told The Associated Press. “The lander is very healthy.”
The photo sent back to Earth shows a rocky surface, with one of the lander’s three feet in the corner of the frame.
Scientists are still analyzing what effect the two bounces had on the spacecraft and plan to release further details at a news briefing at 2 p.m.
Communication with the lander is slow, with signals taking more than 28 minutes to travel some 500 million kilometres (300 million miles) between Earth and the Rosetta orbiter.
Schwehm said it may still be possible to fire the harpoons but that this would be done only if it doesn’t imperil the lander.

Role of El Nino in heat build-up in Indian Ocean: Study

The Indian Ocean has been warming at a rate faster than thought before (1.2 deg C during the past century). It is also the largest consistent contributor to the global ocean warming trends. Recent studies show that a warm Indian Ocean can in turn modulate the Pacific conditions including the El Nino events. So basically, such large warming over the Indian Ocean has implications on the global climate.
The western Indian Ocean, traditionally thought to have cooler sea surface temperatures (SSTs) than the central and eastern Indian Ocean, is surprisingly showing an even stronger summer warming trend over the whole of the 20th century than the central and eastern Indian Ocean.
The warming is significantly so large that it may alter the monsoon circulation, monsoon rainfall over the ocean and land, marine food webs and fisheries (western Indian Ocean is one of the most productive oceans) and global climate including the El Nino.
A recent study focused on the causes for this warming and found that it was mainly due to El Nino events, which are getting stronger and more frequent during recent decades, possibly due to a changing climate.
These El Nino events weaken the summer westerly (blowing from west to east) winds over the Indian Ocean.
Winds have the effect of cooling the sea surface. Strong winds cause evaporation and loss of latent heat from the ocean leading to cooling. When the winds are weakened the opposite happens — the ocean warms.
The study published recently in the Journal of Climate was undertaken by Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune and co-authored by Ritika Kapoor, Pascal Terray and Sebastien Masson.
This work is part of an Indo-French collaboration, carried out under the National Monsoon Mission set up by the Ministry of Earth Sciences.

Bone marrow stem cell treatment has no added benefit

Bone marrow stem cell treatment has no added benefit over the conventional treatment in paralysis, also known as stroke, reveals a study conducted by AIIMS.
According to the study, people suffering from ischemic stroke should exercise caution while opting for stem cell therapy of any kind until more controlled studies come to the fore.
The study financed by the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, was conducted over a period of six years between 2008 and 2014 and had sample size of 120 patients, all of whom had suffered from stroke.
Of the 120 patients, 60 patients were assigned to receive conventional treatment and the rest were assigned to bone marrow stem cells treatment besides the conventional treatment.
“While half of the patients underwent conventional treatment, the other half underwent stem cell aspiration from hip bone. Bone marrow cells were infused into the veins of their forearms,” the study stated.
On an average 28 crore bone marrow cells were injected of which blood forming stem cells were on average 29 lakhs per patient. Later, the patients faced difficulties in using arms and legs.
They were assessed at an interval of 3, 6 months and 12 months and the difficulties they experienced doing various activities of daily livings were measured using two scales which revealed that stem cell treatment is safe but there is no added benefits over the conventional treatment method.

Agni-II ballistic missile test-fired from Wheeler Island

India test-fired the nuclear weapon-capable Agni-II ballistic missile for its full strike range of 2,000 km from Wheeler Island off the Odisha Coast. Personnel of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC) fired the surface-to-surface missile from a mobile launcher..
The 20-metre-tall Agni-II zoomed to an altitude of 600 km and began its descent before splashing near its pre-designated impact point in the Bay of Bengal with “two-digit accuracy.”
A battery of sophisticated radars, electro-optical systems and telemetry stations along the east coast tracked the trajectory and monitored various parameters of the missile from the launch till the terminal phase during the 14-minute flight. Two downrange ships recorded the final event as the dummy warhead detonated.
The exercise was carried out as regular user training under the supervision of missile scientists from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which designed and developed the weapon system. The two-stage missile has been inducted for military use and can carry a one-tonne payload.
V.G. Sekaran, Director-General, DRDO (Missiles and Strategic Systems); M.V.K.V. Prasad, Director of Integrated Test Range; Lakshminarayana, Project Director; senior DRDO scientists; and Army officials were present.
A top DRDO official lauded the SFC team for displaying clockwork precision. “This gives lot of confidence in a combat kind of situation,” he said.
Terming Agni-II a workhorse, the official said the overall mission objectives were met precisely. The navigation, guidance and control aspects of this class of missile were proven once again.

NASA tests 3D-printed parts for rocket engine

NASA has successfully tested 3D manufactured copper parts for rocket engines and found they could withstand the heat and pressure required for space launches.
Aerojet Rocketdyne (AR) at NASA’s Glenn Research Centre in partnership with NASA successfully completed the first hot-fire tests on an advanced rocket engine thrust chamber assembly using copper alloy materials.
This was the first time a series of rigorous tests confirmed that 3D manufactured copper parts could withstand the heat and pressure required of combustion engines used in space launches, NASA said.
In all, NASA and AR conducted 19 hot-fire tests on four injector and thrust chamber assembly configurations, exploring various mixture ratios and injector operability points and were deemed fully successful against the planned test programme.
“The successful hot fire test of subscale engine components provides confidence in the additive manufacturing process and paves the way for full scale development,” said Tyler Hickman, lead engineer for the test at Glenn.
The work is a major milestone in the development and certification of different materials used in this manufacturing process, NASA said.
According to AR, copper alloys offer unique challenges to the additive manufacturing processes. The micro-structure and material properties can be well below typical copper.
So they have worked through a regimented process to optimise and lock down processing characteristics and have performed rigorous materials tests to know how the alloy performs structurally.

Two Akash missiles tested again

Two Akash Surface-to-Air supersonic missiles were fired in quick succession by Indian Air Force personnel to destroy one fast moving Banshee unmanned aerial vehicles and a simulated electronic target at the Integrated Test Range at Chandipur, in Odisha.
While one missile hit and destroyed the target in a low altitude near boundary mission, the other missile war head detonated in the vicinity of the simulated target in a far boundary high altitude exercise.
Friday’s flight trials were preceded by simultaneous launch of two Akash missiles against flying targets.
The current series of tests, which culminated, were conducted for acceptance of new production lot of the missiles. In all, nine missiles were tested since November 17 as part of the training exercise for IAF personnel.

CO2 emissions must be zero by 2070 to prevent disaster: U.N.

The world must cut CO2 emissions to zero by 2070 at the latest to keep global warming below dangerous levels and prevent a global catastrophe, the U.N. warns.
By 2100, all greenhouse gas emissions — including methane, nitrous oxide and ozone, as well as CO2 — must fall to zero, the United Nationals Environment Programme (UNEP) report says , or the world will face what Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists have described as “severe, widespread and irreversible” effects from climate change.
The UNEP report published is based on the idea that the planet has a finite ‘carbon budget’. Since emissions surged in the late 19th century, some 1,900 Gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 and 1,000 Gt of other greenhouse gases have already been emitted, leaving less than 1,000 Gt of CO2 left to emit before locking the planet in to dangerous temperature rises of more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.
Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP’s chief scientist, told The Guardian that scientific uncertainties about the remaining carbon budget had diminished and the real uncertainty now was whether politicians had the will to act.
“The big uncertainty is whether you can put enough policies in place from 2020-2030 — in the critical window — to allow the least-cost pathways [to lower emissions and temperatures] to still stand a chance of being followed,” she said. “The uncertainties have shifted from the science to the politics.”
All scenarios in the UNEP report now require some degree of ‘negative CO2 emissions’ in the second half of the century, through technologies such as carbon capture and storage or, possibly, controversial, planetary wide engineering of the climate known as geo-engineering. UNEP is “extremely interested” in the subject and is planning a report in the months ahead.
Consideration should also be given to compensatory schemes for investors in fossil fuels companies to address the ‘stranded assets’ issue, Ms. McGlade added.

Western Ghats facing significant conservation concerns: IUCN

World Heritage Sites such as the Western Ghats, Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, Kaziranga National Park and Sundarbans are facing significant conservation concerns, according to an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment.
The IUCN World Heritage Outlook report, released at the ongoing World Park Congress at Sydney, had assessed 228 World Heritage sites for natural values.
While none of the seven Indian sites qualified to be included in the ‘good’ category, the Great Himalayan National Park, Nanda Devi and Valley of Flowers National Parks and Keoladeo National Parks were assessed as ‘good with some concerns’. There were no Indian sites in the ‘critical’ category.
The report attempted to “recognise well-managed sites for their conservation efforts and encourage the transfer of good management practices between sites” and identified the “most pressing conservation issues affecting natural World Heritage sites and the actions needed to remedy those issues.”
The 39 serial sites of Ghats, which were inscribed in 2012 “amid some controversy”, are “under increasing population and developmental pressure that requires intensive and targeted management efforts to ensure that not only are existing values conserved, but that some past damage may be remediated,” it said.
The sites that are “traditionally conserved by small populations of indigenous people leading sustainable lifestyles”, face many challenges. The serial sites of Ghats are spread across Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

NASA successfully installs first zero-gravity 3D printer on ISS

NASA successfully installed the world’s first zero-gravity 3D printer on the International Space Station (ISS) to help astronauts experiment with additive manufacturing in microgravity.
NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore installed the 3D printer, designed and built by Made in Space, inside the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) on the ISS.
The printer was launched in September aboard the SpaceX 4 resupply mission to the ISS.
“This is a very exciting day for me and the rest of the team. We had to conquer many technical challenges to get the 3D printer to this stage,” said Mike Snyder, lead engineer of California-based startup Made in Space, in a statement.
The goal of the 3D Printing in Zero-G technology demonstration is an experiment to explore the use of additive manufacturing technology as a reliable platform for sustained in-space manufacturing.
The first phase of printing will include, among other things, a series of engineering test coupons which will be returned to Earth for analysis and compared to control samples which were made with the same 3D printer while it was at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Centre in Huntsville, Alabama, prior to launch.
“This experiment has been an advantageous first stepping stone to the future ability to manufacture a large portion of materials and equipment in space that has been traditionally launched from Earth surface, which will completely change our methods of exploration,” said Mr. Snyder.
The science collected from this printer will directly feed into the commercial printer flying up in 2015, which will enable a fast and cost-effective way for people to get hardware to space.