‘Water from Air’ served at Hockey WC Odisha
Watergen, the atmospheric drinking water devices (AWG), had recently partnered with Hockey India to provide fresh, high quality, mineralized and safe drinking water created from ambient air at the two venues, where matches were played from January 13-29, 2023, free of cost.The company placed its various products including GEN-L which creates up to 6000L of water from air, GEN-M Pro which creates up to 900L of water, and GENNY which can produce up to 30L in both stadia for general public use as well as in the VIP lounge and office areas. Together, these machines generated over 2 lakh litres of water.
NASA’s Perseverance Rover drops fourth sample on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover has dropped a fourth sample tube on the Martian surface. The tube contains one of the ten samples that will be considered for a journey back to the Earth as part of the space agency’s Mars Sample Return Program.The Perseverance Mars Rover took 43 six-inch-long cylindrical titanium sample containers to Mars. Among these, 38 will be filled with different kinds of samples collected from the Martian surface while five “witness tubes” will be kept empty to document the cleanliness of the sampling system throughout the mission.
MIT engineers develop paper-thin solar cells
Researchers at MIT have developed an ultra-thin and ultra-light solar cell that can be used to turn almost any surface into a solar power source. The flexible solar cells are much thinner than human hair and are glued to a lightweight fabric to make it easier to install them on any fixed surface.The researchers used nanomaterials in printable electronic inks to create this novel solar cell device. They used a “slot-die coater” to deposit layers of electronic materials onto a substrate that is only 3 microns thick. They then used a screen-printing technique to print an electrode and deposit on the substrate to complete the solar cell. At this point, the printed module is about 15 microns in thickness, and researchers can peel off the plastic substrate to get the device. For comparison, human hair is around 70 microns thick on average.
3 Indian-origin women scientists recognized
Three Indian-Origin women are among 60 scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians who have been selected as Australia’s Superstars of STEM. It is an initiative that aims to smash society’s gender assumptions about scientists as well as increase the public visibility of females and non-binary people. In 2022, among those recognized as Superstars of STEM include three Indian-Origin women- NeelimaKadiyala, Dr. Ana Baburamani, and Dr.Indrani Mukherjee. Apart from the Indians, female scientists of Sri Lankan origin have also been selected for recognition.
World’s first nasal COVID vaccine cleared
Bharat Biotech International Limited announced recently that its COVID-19 intranasal vaccine iNCOVACC (BBV154) has received approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) under the ‘Restricted Emergency Use’ for ages 18 and above in India.As per the press release from the vaccine maker, iNCOVACC, a recombinant replication-deficient adenovirus vectored vaccine with a pre-fusion stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, is the world’s first intranasal vaccine to receive both primary series and heterologous booster approval.Bharat Biotech’s intranasal vaccine is to be used as a heterologous booster dose against the currently available COVID-19 vaccines.
New penguin colony found in Antarctica
After spotting bird poop using satellite mapping technology, British scientists are reported to have found a never-before-seen emperor penguin colony at Verleger Point in West Antarctica. The brown-coloured droppings were easily identifiable as a stain on ice, as per researchers. The frozen ice guano is not smelly, unlike the pungent smell of penguin colonies that breed on rocks.Housing around 1,000 adult birds, in 500 pairs with their young, there are only 66 emperor penguin colonies known to exist on the Antarctica coastline, half of which were discovered through satellite images.
Earth’s inner core rotating slower
Research says that Earth’s solid inner core, a hot iron ball, has stopped spinning faster than the planet’s surface and might now be rotating slower than it.The Earth’s core is roughly 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) below the surface we live on, this “planet within the planet” can spin independently because it floats in the liquid metal outer core.Exactly how the inner core rotates has been a matter of debate between scientists – and the latest research is expected to prove controversial.
Scientists discover Earth-sized planet
Scientists from NASA have discovered an Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone, where liquid water could potentially exist on its surfaces.The scientists used NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and have identified an Earth-size world, called TOI 700 e. The world is 95 per cent Earth’s size and likely rocky.Astronomers previously discovered three planets in this system, called TOI 700 b, c, and d. Planet d also orbits in the habitable zone. But scientists needed an additional year of TESS observations to discover TOI 700 e.
Triassic Ichthyosaur was the largest animal ever
The largest animal that is living at present is the blue whale. Now, new evidence shows that the super-predator was larger than a blue whale and it roamed the seas between 200 and 250 million years ago.Although, evidence shows that this creature was from the Triassic period and scientists believe that its evolution was expedited in some way due to its massive size. Scientists believe that ichthyosaur had a two-meter-long skull. The creature was estimated to be 21 meters long, which made it a super-predator for the time.The jaw-bone was measured to be around 96 centimetres long, the researchers said that based on the size of the bone, the super-predator could have been between 20 to 25 meters, larger than the previous specimen found in 2004.
Mission to study Sun by June-July
Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) recently handed over to ISRO, the Visible Line Emission Coronagraph (VELC), the primary payload on board Aditya-L1, which is India’s first dedicated scientific mission to study the Sun, to be launched by June or July.IIA said it has successfully finished assembling, testing and calibrating the VELC, which is the largest and one of the most technically challenging of the seven payloads/telescopes that will fly on Aditya-L1, at its CREST campus.ISRO will now conduct further testing of VELC and its eventual integration with the Aditya-L1 spacecraft, it said in a release.
Impacts of sea level rise will hit humans early: Study
A study has said that the biggest inundation will happen after the first two metres of sea level rise, which would cover more than twice the land as was predicted in older elevation models. The highest level of impact would happen after the sea level rises by several metres. The study used high-resolution measurements of land elevation. The measurements were taken from NASA’s ICESat-2 lidar satellite, launched in 2018, to improve upon models of sea level rise and inundation. The radar-based data are, however, less precise, researchers have said.
Over 90 fossil nests in India uncovered
Researchers have uncovered 92 nesting sites containing a total of 256 fossil eggs in central India’s Narmada Valley belonging to titanosaurs, which were among the largest dinosaurs to have ever lived.The Lameta Formation, located in the Narmada Valley of central India, is well-known for fossils of dinosaur skeletons and eggs of the Late Cretaceous Period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago, the researchers said.Detailed examination of these nests allowed researchers at the University of Delhi, New Delhi and colleagues to make inferences about the life habits of these dinosaurs. They identified six different egg species, suggesting a higher diversity of titanosaurs than is represented by skeletal remains from this region.
-Team ScienceNow
