General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - August 2015

Aug 2015

Apr 13, 2021

Every Year 5,200 Tonnes of Extraterrestrial Dust Fall on Earth

Every year, 5,200 tonnes of extraterrestrial dust fall on Earth.
This gentle rain of bits of comets and asteroids far outweighs larger meteorites that hit the planet. Only about 10 tonnes of larger space rocks land on Earth annually.
Despite the large quantities, it's hard to detect space dust or track its annual accumulation in most places due to precipitation that washes dust away. And in most places, dust originating on Earth swamps dust from space.
But in Adélie Land, Antarctica, near the French-Italian Concordia research station, snowfall is very predictable and there is very little terrestrial dust. Over 20 years, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) physicist Jean Duprat and his colleagues have made six expeditions to the area to collect particles. The layers of space dust are well enough preserved in the region for researchers to estimate how much fell year after year.

Apr 12, 2021

UAE Names its First Female Astronaut Noura Al-Matroushi

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) revealed its next two astronauts, which includes the Kingdom's first-ever woman astronaut, that it plans to send for the future manned space missions at a state program. Noura al-Matroushi, the UAE's first female astronaut, and her counterpart Mohammed al-Mulla were identified by the ruler of Dubai, also the Prime Minister and vice president Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
The two astronauts, selected from among 4000 applicants across seven sheikhdoms, will commence training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, US.

Apr 08, 2021

Astronomers Discover Three New Galaxy Clusters

Dr. McDonald's team identified 11 cluster candidates around X-ray, radio, and mid-IR-bright sources, including six well-known clusters, two false associations of foreground and background clusters, and three new candidates: CHIPS 1356-3421, CHIPS 1911+4455 and CHIPS2155-3727.
With additional follow-up data from NASA's Chandra X-ray telescope, they confirmed two candidates: CHIPS 1356-3421 and CHIPS 1911+4455.
CHIPS 1911+4455 is similar in many ways to the rapidly-star-forming Phoenix cluster, but with a highly disturbed X-ray morphology on large scales.
This cluster invites further study, however, as it has a twisted shape with two extended arms, whereas all other rapidly-cooling clusters are circular.

WhatsApp Roles out New Features for Entrepreneurs

WhatsApp announced two new features to make it easier for people to know what's available and for entrepreneurs to quickly sell their products on WhatsApp for Business.
The company said that it is now providing businesses the ability to create and manage their catalog from WhatsApp web/desktop rather than just mobile phones.
Since many businesses manage their inventory from a computer, this new option will make it quick and easy to add new items or services so their customers know what's available.

Apr 07, 2021

Biden, Congress Roll Out Plans to expand National Science Foundation

The idea of massively expanding the budget and mission of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to help the United States out-innovate China is gaining political momentum in Washington, D.C.
In Congress, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–NY) is preparing to introduce a revised version of bipartisan legislation that would create a technology directorate at NSF and boost its funding by $100 billion. The changes address fears voiced by academic leaders that the new unit might disrupt the agency's culture and dilute NSF's ability to support basic research at universities.
In March, President Joe Biden lined up behind the concept, including both the new directorate and a $50 billion bump for NSF in his $2.3 trillion proposal to upgrade the nation's aging infrastructure. And late last month, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D–TX), chair of the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, also backed both a new directorate and a larger NSF budget as part of a bill reauthorizing programs at the agency, which currently has an $8.5 billion budget.

Apr 06, 2021

IIT Kanpur Develops Touch-sensitive Watch for the Visually Impaired

A professor and a research associate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, (IIT-K) have developed a novel touch-sensitive watch for the use of visually impaired people to sense time accurately. The watch was developed by prof. Siddhartha Panda and Vishwaraj Srivastava of IIT Kanpur.
The watch we have developed is a haptic watch with a tactile interface that makes it easy for visually impaired people to read the time easily.

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