General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - December 2018

Dec 2018

May 27, 2022

NIT-T Commissions Param Porul Super Computer Centre, Becomes part of NSM

A supercomputer named Param Porul was inaugurated at NIT Tiruchirappalli under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM). The NSM is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST). Param Porul supercomputing facility is established under phase two of the national supercomputing mission to facilitate computational research.
The Param Porul is based on direct contact liquid cooling technology to obtain high-power usage effectiveness and thereby reducing the operational cost. Multiple applications from various scientific domains such as Weather and Climate, Bioinformatics, Computational Chemistry, Molecular Dynamics, Material Sciences, Computational Fluid Dynamics etc. have been installed on the system for the benefit of researchers.

May 26, 2022

Ransomware Attack Delays SpiceJet Flights

Low-cost Indian carrier SpiceJet came under ransomware attack, resulting in several of its flights getting delayed and cancelled. The airline said it was in touch with experts and cyber crime officials on the issue. The airline had earlier said the ransomware attack slowed down morning flight departures, but its IT team rectified the situation.
Many passengers said they were left waiting at the airport or stranded inside the plane with no updates from the airline. Incidentally, this comes just few days after SpiceJet said it hoped to start broadband Internet service on its planes soon.

May 25, 2022

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw Successfully Tests Made-in-India 5G Call at IIT Madras

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw made the first 5G call on a trial network set up at IIT Madras using indigenously-developed telecom gears. Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the country's first 5G test-bed, incubated at IIT Madras, to enable startups and industry players to test and validate their products locally and reduce dependence on foreign facilities.
The government expects commercial roll-out of 5G services to start in the country by August-September 2022.
The 5G test-bed has been developed as a multi-institute collaborative project by eight institutes led by IIT Madras. In the absence of a 5G test-bed, startups and other industry players were required to go abroad to test and validate their products for installation in a 5G network.

May 24, 2022

Indian Railways and IIT Madras Partner to Develop India's First Indigenous Hyperloop

The Ministry of Railways partnered with IIT Madras for the development of a made-in-India Hyperloop system. It has also announced that it'll be setting up a Centre for Excellence for Hyperloop technologies at the aforementioned institution. India has shown interest in Hyperloop tech since 2017, by then Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu. In fact, the ministry also held talks with US-based Hyperloop One, but nothing quite materialised.
IIT Madras's Avishkar Hyperloop which was formed in 2017 had been working on scalability and frugal engineering concepts for the development of a Hyperloop based transportation system for India. The group was one of the top ten finalists at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition of 2019 and was the only Asian team to do so. They also were awarded the 'Most Scalable Design Award' at the European Hyperloop Week in 2021.

Hubble Observes Extremely Distant Globular Cluster

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured an amazing new photo of the globular cluster Liller 1.
Liller 1 is located approximately 30,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius.
Also known as C 1730-333, it lies within the Milky Way's bulge, the dense and dusty region at the Galactic center.
Liller 1 is a particularly interesting globular cluster, because unlike most of its kind, it contains a mix of young and old stars.
According to Hubble astronomers, globular clusters typically house only old stars, some nearly as old as the Universe itself.

May 23, 2022

NatGeo Installs World's Highest Weather Station on Mt. Everest

National Geographic Society installed the "world's highest weather station" on Mount Everest at an altitude of 8,830 metres to automatically measure various meteorological phenomena.
The weather monitoring system, powered by solar energy, is supposed to measure various meteorological phenomena like air temperature, wind speed and direction, air pressure, change in surface height of snow, and incoming and outgoing short and longwave radiation.
The NatGeo team, led by climate scientist Baker Perry from the Appalachian State University in the US, consisted of climbers and scientists, many of whom scaled the world's highest peak while installing the weather station. The team spent a month near Everest and also carried out the maintenance of other stations, including a station at South Col.

Hyderabad-based Skyroot Aerospace Successfully Test Fires Engine of Vikram-1 Rocket

Private sector rocket maker Skyroot Aerospace Private Ltd successfully tested its Vikram-1 rocket's third stage/engine. Named 'Kalam-100' after renowned Indian rocket scientist Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the third stage of Vikram-1 produces a peak vacuum thrust of 100 kN (about10 tons) and has a burn time of 108 seconds.
The rocket stage is built with high-strength carbon fiber structure, solid fuel, Ethylene-Propylene-Diene terpolymers (EPDM) thermal protection system, and carbon ablative nozzle. The rocket stage/engine has no moving parts and a high level of automation in manufacturing.
The rocket's stage was tested at the facilities of Solar Industries India Ltd, one of the investors in Skyroot. This is the largest rocket stage ever designed, manufactured, and tested completely in the Indian private sector.

Share on

TCY Analytics (View Subscription Plans)

Subscribe to GK Updates

I want to receive

GK Tags

August GK, July GK, June GK, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, ENVIRONMENT, BUSINESS AND ECONOMY, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, SPORTS, NATIONAL AFFAIRS, DEFENCE, PERSONS IN NEWS, DAYS AND EVENTS, AWARDS AND HONOURS, GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND SCHEMES, GENDER/ HEALTH/ EDUCATION, ART AND CULTURE, BOOKS AND AUTHORS, TOURISM AND HOTEL INDUSTRY AWARENESS, ART AND CULTURE, LAW AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Start Discussion

On any topic

Take Tests

Compiled from GK updates

Login

Sign Up

Forgot Password

Download TCY App

Unlock All Services And Enjoy The Premium Benefits

US$ 10

US$ 13

US$ 15

US$ 17

US$ 19

US$ 20

US$ 21

US$ 22

US$ 23

US$ 24

US$ 25

US$ 26