General Awareness

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - January 2019

Jan 2019

Jul 14, 2021

China Harvests 1st Batch of Seeds that Travelled Around Moon

China has harvested the first batch of Space rice from seeds that went to a 23-day lunar voyage with China's Chang'e-5 in November.
After being exposed to cosmic radiation and zero gravity, these seeds weighing around 40 gram returned and were harvested at the space breeding research centre of the South China Agricultural University in Guangdong province.
The seeds are now 1 centimeter long, reports said. Guo Tao, the deputy director of the research centre, has said that the best seeds will be bred in laboratories and then will be planted in fields.

Jul 13, 2021

WHO calls for all Studies involving Human Genome Editing to be made Public

The World Health Organization issued new recommendations on human genome editing, calling for a global registry to track "any form of genetic manipulation" and proposing a whistle-blowing mechanism to raise concerns about unethical or unsafe research.
The UN health agency commissioned an expert group in late 2018 following a dramatic announcement from Chinese scientist He Jiankui that he had created the world's first gene-edited babies.
In two reports, WHO's expert group said all studies involving human genome editing should be made public, although the committee noted that wouldn't necessarily stop unprincipled scientists.
"In the field of stem cell research, unscrupulous entrepreneurs and clinics have deliberately misused clinical trial registries by registering procedures they plan to undertake as if they were properly sanctioned clinical trials," the group said, calling for WHO to ensure that all genetic editing research registered in their database are reviewed and approved by an ethics committee.

Jul 12, 2021

New Era of Space Tourism Begins

A billionaire, philanthropist, business tycoon, who is friends with former US President Barack Obama, has close ties to the British royal family, Sir Richard Branson has everything that one could imagine and 17 years ago he dreamed of becoming a space traveller. On July 11, 2021, Branson became an astronaut, ushering in a new era of private space tourism.
Branson boarded his company Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 flight from the Mojave Desert in New Mexico and propelled into suborbital space, where he enjoyed over three minutes of weightlessness in microgravity. He was accompanied by India-born Sirisha Bandla and four other passengers.

Jul 10, 2021

Huawei Inks Largest 4G Automative Deal with Volkswagen Supplier

Chinese conglomerate Huawei has reached a patent license agreement with a supplier of Volkswagen Group. According to reports, it was Luxembourg-based Rolling Wireless.
Huawei expects more than 30 million vehicles to be licensed under its patents based on existing license agreements.
The deal covers 4G connectivity in the vehicles.
The agreement includes a license under Huawei's 4G standard essential patents (SEPs), which covers Volkswagen vehicles equipped with wireless connectivity.
This agreement marks Huawei's largest licensing deal in the automotive industry.

Jul 05, 2021

Two Astronauts at China's New Space Station Make First Spacewalk

Two Chinese astronauts made the first spacewalk outside China's new orbital station to work on setting up a 15-meter (50-foot) long robotic arm.
Liu Boming and Tang Hongbo were out of the airlock as Earth rolled past below them. The third crew member, commander Nie Haisheng, stayed inside.
The astronauts arrived on June 17 for a three-month mission aboard China's third orbital station, part of an ambitious space program that landed a robot rover on Mars in May. Their mission comes as the ruling Communist Party celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding.

Frankenstein Star could be on the Brink of a Startling Transformation

The discovery of a moon-size zombie star transforming into another type of stellar corpse could upend astronomers' understanding of how stars evolve.
The cosmic zombie, an embering core of a dead star, or a white dwarf, is about the size of Earth's moon, making it the smallest white dwarf ever found. Despite being tiny, with a radius of 2,670 miles (4,300 kilometers) compared to our sun's 432,470-mile (696,000 km) radius, the stellar corpse has a ginormous mass of about 1.35 times that of the sun.
Dubbed ZTF J190132.9+145808.7, the white dwarf is located about 130 light-years from Earth; and it is rotating super fast, completing a full revolution every 6.9 minutes. Perhaps even weirder, the star's magnetic field is up to 1 billion times stronger than that of Earth's at its surface, or 900 times the strength of the sun's magnetic field.

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