General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - August 2015

Aug 2015

Dec 20, 2019

Scientists Find Iron Snow in Earth's Core

The Earth's inner core is hot, under immense pressure and snow-capped, according to new research that could help scientists better understand forces that affect the entire planet.
The snow is made of tiny particles of iron – much heavier than any snowflake on Earth's surface – that fall from the molten outer core and pile on top of the inner core, creating piles up to 200 miles thick that cover the inner core.
This may sound like an alien winter wonderland, but it is akin to how rocks form inside volcanoes.

Dec 19, 2019

Genome Extracted from Ancient Gum

Danish scientists have managed to extract a complete human DNA sample from a piece of birch pitch which is about 5,700 years old, used as a kind of chewing gum.
The Stone Age sample yielded information to determine the source's sex, what she had last eaten and also told them she probably had dark hair, dark skin and blue eyes.

India World's Third Largest Producer of Scientific Articles

According to a latest US report, India emerged as the world's third largest publisher of science and engineering articles.
China, which accounts for 20.67 per cent of all global publications in scientific articles, is at the top position, followed by the US at 16.54 per cent, as per the statistics compiled by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).
The data released stated that in 2008, India published 48,998 science and engineering articles. This increased to 1,35,788 articles in 2018 and the country now accounts for 5.31 per cent of the total world publications in science and engineering.
In China, the number of global scientific publications increased from 2,49,049 in 2008 to 5,28,263 in 2018.
The other countries which made it to the top 10 list are Germany (1,04,396), Japan (98,793), UK (97,681), Russia (81,579), Italy (71,240), South Korea (66,376) and France (66,352).

Dec 18, 2019

Star Named after Indian Scientist, Exoplanet Gets a Sanskrit Name

A yellow-white dwarf star in the constellation Sextans, located 340 light years away, was named Bibha, which means "a light beam" and refers to Bibha Chowdhuri, a pioneering Indian scientist who was the first woman researcher-faculty at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1949.
Bibha's exoplanet was christened Santamasa, a Sanskrit word that means "clouded", which refers to the nature of the exoplanet's atmosphere.
The names of the two astronomical bodies were announced by the Paris-based International Astronomical Union (IAU) along with the names of 111 sets of exoplanets and host stars.
Bibha and Santamasa symbolise what the physical and lighting conditions of the HD 86081 system could be.
Earlier this year, IAU, which is celebrating 100 years of its existence, threw open IAU100 NameExoWorlds campaigns assigning various countries with the task of naming a star and its exoplanet.

Dec 17, 2019

Europe's Cheops Telescope Will Profile Distant Planets

Europe launched a space telescope to study far-off worlds.
Called Cheops, it's a different kind of mission to previous efforts in that it won't be trying to find new planets.
Rather, it's going to follow up the discoveries of others, to see if it can reveal new insights - such as whether these distant objects are likely to be rocky or gas-rich.
The telescope rode to orbit on a Russian Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.
Cheops (short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite) is a joint endeavour of 11 member states of the European Space Agency (ESA), with Switzerland in the lead.

Dec 15, 2019

Russia's Arktika Completes Test

Russia's nuclear-powered icebreaker Arktika, a symbol of Moscow's ambition to tap the Arctic's potential, returned to Saint Petersburg after a two-day test run. Destined to transport LNG from the Arctic, the vessel is 173 metres long and 15 metres high. The run tested its functioning and manoeuvrability.

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