General Awareness : Science & Tech September, 2014

(General Awareness For Bank's Exams)

Science & Tech

September - 2014

INS Sumitra to be commissioned tomorrow

INS Sumitra , a new-generation naval offshore patrol vessel (NOPV) built by Goa Shipyard Ltd., will be commissioned by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Robin K. Dhowan, in Chennai.
The state-of-the-art warship will join the Eastern Naval Command in Chennai for maritime surveillance and coastal security.
This largest offshore patrol vessel of the Navy will be the fourth in its class, built on an in-house design of the shipyard.
The ship carries most sophisticated weapons such as guns, heavy-calibre super rapid gun mount, rapid-fire Russian AK630 guns, Kavach chaff launchers and the Sanket electronic warfare system and electronic sensors.

Toyota launches ‘Innova Limited Edition 2014’

Toyota Kirloskar Motor launched ‘Innova Limited Edition 2014’ for the festive season. Only 1,500 units of the new Innova LE, in an exclusive brand new colour — Bronze Mica Metallic — besides Silver Mica Metallic, will be available till November.
It is based on the existing Gx Grade and comes with the options of seven and eight seater in both Euro III and Euro IV engines, a release from the company said.
Available in the diesel variant, the price starts from Rs.12,90,947 to Rs.13,00,710 (ex-showroom New Delhi).
Innova LE will be available at Toyota showrooms at select cities whereas in other cities, Innova Limited Edition accessory package will be available.

MH17 hit by high speed objects: report

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A Malaysian passenger jet blew up in mid-air over eastern Ukraine after being hit by numerous “high speed objects,” according to an interim report published on the disaster that claimed 298 lives.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 “broke up in the air probably as the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that penetrated the aircraft from outside,” said a highly anticipated report by the Dutch Safety Board.
The findings appear to back up claims that the Boeing 777, which crashed in July as it was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was hit by shrapnel from a missile.
“There are no indications that the MH17 crash was caused by a technical fault or by actions of the crew,” the report said.
Kiev and the West have accused pro-Russian separatists of shooting down the plane with a surface-to-air BUK missile supplied by Moscow. But Russia blamed government forces for the attack.

NASA to send first 3D printer into space station

NASA is all set to send the fourth SpaceX Cargo Mission, that would carry among other equipments a 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on September 20.
Space Exploration Technologies Corp’ (SpaceX) Falcon-9 rocket will launch a Dragon cargo spacecraft loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of scientific equipment and supplies, the U.S. space agency said in a statement.
It will also carry a small flowering plant related to cabbage that would allow scientists to study plant growth and adaptations in space.
It will be the fifth trip by a Dragon spacecraft to the orbiting laboratory.
The spacecraft’s 2.5 tonnes of supplies and materials are critical for the implementation of 255 science and research investigations that will occur during the station’s Expeditions 41 and 42.
Besides, the spacecraft will carry science payloads like the ISS-Rapid Scatterometer to monitor ocean surface wind speed and direction.

Web portal on Ganga rejuvenation launched

As part of its efforts to make the Ganga rejuvenation programme a mass movement, the Ministry of Water Resource launched a web portal to connect with the public on the ambitious project of the NDA Government.
The bilingual website has a provision to receive feedback from the public, where suggestions can be given about the Ganga Rejuvenation Plan.
The public can also upload files up to the size of 4 MB along with their suggestions, a press release issued in Delhi said.
Launching the website, Union Minister for Water Resource Uma Bharti said the launch of the website was an important tool to connect the public with the gigantic task of Ganga rejuvenation.

Environment Minister launches online portal for zoos

Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change PrakashJavadekar launched an online portal for grant of recognition to zoos and monitoring of zoos.
He also launched an E- archival and retrieval management system for the Central Zoo Authority and a book on “Zoos in India 2014,” an official statement said.
The portal for grant of recognition and monitoring of zoos envisages maintaining and providing real-time information about the recognition and evaluation process.
The portal aims to reduce the bottlenecks of manual recognition system and fully automates the recognition process, the statement said.

First water clouds found outside solar system

Scientists have discovered the first evidence of water ice clouds on an object outside of our own solar system, about 7.3 light-years away from Earth.
Water ice clouds exist on our own gas giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — but have not been seen outside of the planets orbiting our Sun until now.
The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters .— PTI

INS Sindhurakshak

The second Board of Inquiry (BOI) constituted by the Defence Ministry to probe the feasibility of reusing INS Sindhurakshak has recommended decommissioning of the kilo-class submarine.
The submarine was finally retrieved from the waters in June 2014 and handed over to the Navy. Since then it has been anchored at the Naval Dockyard in south Mumbai.

ISRO: Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM)

India created history on 24th September becoming the first country to successfully get a spacecraft into the Martian orbit on its maiden attempt.
Indian Space Research Organization’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft started orbiting the red planet at 7.47am, but it was only 12 minutes later —because of a time delay in radio signals travelling the 680 million km that scientists at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network in Bangalore, could erupt in joy as Prime Minister NarendraModi stood a happy witness.
Through its journey since November 5, 2013 when PSLV-C25 lifted off from Sriharikota with the spacecraft in its nosecone, MOM has had a perfect journey.

New brain cell discovered

Researchers have discovered a strange new type of brain cell that sends signals by bypassing the cell body altogether.

Neurons come in different shapes and sizes but the basic blueprint consists of a cell body, from which protrudes spindly appendages called dendrites and axons.
Dendrites are branchlike structures that receive signals from other nerve cells and deliver them to the cell body. The neuron then processes the signals and zaps along information to the next cell via a long projection called the axon.
The newly discovered cells, however, have a different, and until now, unknown process. In these cells, the signals skip the cell body altogether, instead travelling along an axon that project directly from one of the dendrites.
The new cells were discovered in the hippocampus of a mouse. Humans have the same general brain structure and types of hippocampus cells as mice. The hippocampus is home to extensively branched neurons called pyramidal cells because of their triangular cell bodies.

After Mars mission GSLV-MkIII is ISRO’s next project

The flush of the successful Indian Mars manoeuvre will take a while to wear off. Team ISRO has, meanwhile, got down to brass tacks and expects to get one of its biggest projects off the mark this calendar year — GSLV-Mark III.
The first flight of the new vehicle is being considered for October-end if good weather holds, said ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan. The stages of the vehicle are being put together at Sriharikota.
The date of its launch depends on an earlier flight of the PSLV-C26, which will put into orbit the third regional navigation spacecraft, the IRNSS-1C. If the PSLV is flown in the week starting October 9 as planned, GSLV-MkIII can follow on the second launch pad a fortnight after it, Dr. Radhakrishnan said. The C-26 vehicle is also getting assembled at Sriharikota.

Earth’s water is older than the solar system

Up to half the water on Earth is likely older than the solar system, raising the likelihood that life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, according to a study.
The research in the journal Science found that “a significant fraction” of the water on Earth was inherited from interstellar space, and was there before the Sun was formed some 4.6 billion years ago
Researchers can tell where the water comes from by examining the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, in water molecules. Water or ice that comes from interstellar space has a high ratio of deuterium to hydrogen, because it forms at such low temperatures.
But scientists have not known how much deuterium was removed in the process of the Sun’s birth, or how much deuterium-rich water-ice the solar system would have produced when it was first born.
Scientists simulated the origin of a planet under conditions where all the deuterium from space ice has already been eliminated.