General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - December 2018

Dec 2018

Sep 25, 2023

NASA's First Asteroid Samples from Deep Space Land on Earth

In a flyby of Earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from 100,000 km (63,000 miles) out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid.
Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won't know for sure until the container is opened.
The pebbles and dust delivered on September 24 represent the biggest haul from beyond the moon.

Archaeologists in Zambia Discover World's Oldest Wooden Structure

Archaeologists unearthed the oldest known wooden structure, and it's almost half a million years old.
The simple structure, found along a riverbank in Zambia, is made up of two interlocking logs, with a notch deliberately crafted into the upper piece to allow them to fit together at right angles, according to a new study of cut marks made by stone tools.
The oldest wooden structure, before the announcement out of Zambia, was just 9,000 years old. Meanwhile, the oldest known wooden artefact which was discovered in Israel, is said to be a 780,000-year-old fragment of plank.

Sep 23, 2023

Scientists Find New Virus at Depths of Pacific Ocean

A team of scientists from China and Australia exploring the Pacific Ocean have found a new type of virus 8.9 kilometres below sea level.
They found the virus in sediments taken from the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean.
According to the scientists, the virus is part of a previously unidentified family of viruses that's distributed throughout the oceans, which the team is calling Suviridae (or 'Siphoviruses').
It's also a bacteriophage, which means that this virus uses bacteria to make more of itself and cannot make humans its host. They have named this bacteriophage 'vB_HmeY_H4907'.

Sep 22, 2023

OpenAI Launches DALL-E 3 Image Generator with ChatGPT Integration

OpenAI released the third generation of DALL-E, its latest AI art tool. DALL-E 3 uses OpenAI's chatbot- ChatGPT, to create more complex and carefully composed works of art by automatically expanding on a prompt to give the generator more detailed and coherent instruction.
DALL-E 3 allows users to make accurate prompts for generating desired images through ChatGPT's conversational interface. It also lets users refine a creation through prompts generated by ChatGPT. Text generating ability of the AI-chatbot removes some of the complexity required to refine the text that is fed to the program.

Sep 20, 2023

NASA's Parker Solar Probe Gets Closest to Sun

NASA's Parker Solar Probe marked a historic milestone by becoming the first spacecraft to fly through a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly from the sun — a colossal eruption which expels billions of tonnes of plasma.
The audacious probe that was launched in August 2018 now holds the distinction of being the closest human-made craft to the sun.
NASA's Parker Solar Probe spent two days at a mere 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometres) from the sun's scorching surface.

Sep 19, 2023

China Reportedly Develops 'Artificial Liver' That Works Outside the Human Body

Chin has reportedly approved clinical trials for a stem cell-based 'artificial liver'. This development offers hope for millions suffering from liver failure.
This bio-artificial liver, created by a team of Chinese researchers, operates outside the body, performing functions such as detoxification and protein synthesis typically carried out by the liver.
Currently, liver transplantation is the only effective treatment for liver failure. However, the treatment is often limited by a shortage of donors, complex surgeries, high cost, and finally, the need for lifelong immunosuppressants.
The stem cell-based artificial liver aims to support the diseased liver until it regenerates or a suitable graft for transplantation becomes available.

Aditya-L1 Begins Collecting Data

ISRO's Aditya L1 solar mission spacecraft started collecting data that will help scientists analyse the behaviour of particles surrounding the earth.
It said STEPS instrument, one of the seven payloads aboard Aditya L1, began measuring supra-thermal and energetic ions and electrons at distances greater than 50,000 km from Earth. The mission started 110-day journey toward Lagrange Point 1.

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