1. ___________ scientists identified a new bird-like species of dinosaur that lived nearly 71 million years ago and was about the size of a person. It has been named as the Albertavenator curriei, in honour of famous palaeontologist Philip J. Currie ?
2. A group of scientists started a new expedition aimed at unlocking secrets of lost continent _______________________, which is mostly submerged and believed to have sunk after breaking away from Australia 60 - 85 million years ago.
- Expedition is called Expedition 371 and is funded by National Science Foundation and the International Ocean Discovery Program.
- Team includes over 30 scientists aboard JOIDES Resolution, a massive scientific drilling ship. Duration of trip will be approx 2 months.
3. According to study at University of _______________, Castor bean plants can prove very useful in fighting soil pollution as these plants can absorb toxic heavy metals from soil from these polluted areas due to industrial pollution.
4. An _________ Researchers discovered a new species of giant ocean sunfish, heaviest type of bony fish that can weigh over two tonnes and grow to 3 metres long. It has been named as hoodwinker (mola tecta) ?
5. India's 2nd and _____________'s First Zika Virus Case has been reported (First in Ahmedabad in May 2017).
- Zika virus is vector borne disease transmitted primarily by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, same mosquito that transmits dengue. It is also sexually transmissible. It can cause serious birth defects Including neurological disorders and foetal deformation (Microcephaly) in which infants are born with abnormally smaller heads.
6. Indian astronomers from Pune Based Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) identified extremely large supercluster of galaxies located in the direction of constellation Pisces, named ______________, a starrs supercluster 4 billion light years away from Earth and may contain mass equivalent of 20 million billion suns. ?
7. India’s first dedicated space observatory __________________ along with Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope have detected a massive coronal explosion on Proxima Centauri, sun’s closest star neighbour ?
8. Ministry of Science and Technology launched ___________, an indigenously developed low-cost hearing screening device for newborns. It has been developed by a School of International Biodesign (SIB) startup. It aims to minimise hearing loss damage and uses brain-stem auditory evoked response ?
9. NASA is developing DART (______________) as first-ever mission that will deflect a near-Earth asteroid, to be built and managed by John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
- It will work on kinetic impactor technique, that involves sending one or more large, high-speed spacecraft into path of an approaching near-earth object to shift its orbit to defend against future impact.
- Target for DART is an asteroid called Didymos that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022 and then again in 2024. Asteroid Didymos (Greek word for twin) is an asteroid binary system that consists of Didymos A (780 metres), and Didymos B (160 metres)
10. NASA’s Juno spacecraft became first space probe to successfully comlete a flyby into _____________’s giant storm known as Great Red Spot, a massive storm (cyclone) measuring about 16,000 km in diameter. It is largest known storm in solar system.
11. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft unveiled a set of new maps of _________ and its largest moon Charon on occassion of 2 year anniversary of its flyby . ?
12. Researchers at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) ___________ have developed an organic-inorganic hybrid material which is fire and rust resistant. It was synthesised by combining polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane (POSS) and diphenylalanine ?
13. Researchers at ___________'s Cardiff University have produced world's most detailed scan of brain's internal wiring -
- Scan shows fibres in white matter called axons (brain's wiring which carry billions of electrical signals).
- Scan showed direction of messaging and also density of brain's wiring.
- This detailed scan of brain’s wiring will help increase understanding of a range of neurological disorders and can be used instead of invasive biopsies
14. Researchers at University of Edinburgh (_____________) stated that surface of Mars has chemical compounds called perchlorates that can kill bacteria, when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. This has given a blow to hopes of finding alien life on surface of Mars.
15. Researchers discovered a very distant galaxy , which is over 1000 times brighter than our Milky Way Galaxy. To measure this galaxy, researchers used Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) in ____________ ?
16. Researchers from San Antonio Catholic University of ____________ discovered novobiocin compound that could be used as a potential drug to fight Zika virus infection. Researchers found that novobiocin compound shown phenomenal recovery results in mice with 100 % cure rate.
- It was also found that commonly used malaria drug hydroxychloroquine can block Zika virus from crossing placenta and getting into the foetus and damaging its brain.
17. Researchers in _______ produced specific human antibodies in laboratory by treating patient-derived B cells with tiny nanoparticles coated with both CpG oligonucleotides and an antigen, paving way for rapid development of new vaccines to treat a wide range of infectious diseases ?
18. Scientists at Purdue University in ___________ (including Karthik Ramani of India) have developed new artificial intelligence (AI) software called SurfNet that can create three dimensional (3D) models from 2D photographs. It can be of great use in robotics, object recognition and even self-driving cars ?
19. Scientists from Cornell University (_____________________) announced that world’s 6 smallest spacecrafts dubbed as Sprites ever launched are successfully travelling in low Earth orbit and communicating with systems on Earth.
- Sprites were launched on June 23, 2017 by Indian rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) as part of Breakthrough Starshot project designed to test technologies that would eventually be used for interstellar missions. These are smallest spacecrafts to establish contact with ground stations. Sprites are built on a single 3.5*3.5 centimeter circuit board and weigh 4 grams each.
- Breakthrough Starshot space program is launched under US $100 million Breakthrough Initiatives, announced by Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking to develop and launch practical interstellar space missions. It aims to demonstrate proof of concept for light-propelled spacecraft that could fly at 20 % of light speed. Its main objective is to send one-gram chips to star systems beyond the solar system in search of extraterrestrial intelligence.
20. Scientists from ETH Zurich in __________ developed a 3D-printed soft silicone heart that closely resembles and functions like human organ. It is not exact biological replica of actual, but can help to save lives of people who suffer from cardiac failure ?
21. Scientists from Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER) ______________ have developed gelator that can suck up oil and congeal it. Gelator is a hydrophobic material with property of oleilophilic (oil-loving) and takes up oil when it comes in contact with it.It can be used to recover marine oil spills with a simple, efficient and cost-effective method ?
22. Scientists from ____________ for first time will chase shadow of moon using 2 WB-57F research jets during upcoming total solar eclipse in USA, to capture clearest ever images of Sun’s outer atmosphere (Corona).
- It is needed as Corona of sun (gaseous envelope surrounding sun) is heated to millions of degrees, but lower atmospheric layers like photosphere are only heated at a few thousand degrees.
- Total solar eclipse will provide rare opportunity for scientists to study the sun's atmosphere. During this eclipse, moon will completely cover the sun and perfectly blocking its light so that faint corona is easily seen against dark sky
23. Scientists from _____________claimed that vaccine can protect against the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhoea. They found that Men B jab vaccine originally developed to stop an outbreak of meningitis B can protect from gonorrhoea ?
24. Scientists from Northwestern University (___________________) created miniature versions of Saturn, complete with rings, by electrifying tiny droplets of fluids.
- When a drop of electrically conductive liquid is exposed to an electric field, droplet formes two electrically charged poles that can get pulled towards sources of electric field, taking on cone shapes. If pull is strong enough, tips of the cones can spray jets of droplets. This effect is known as electrospraying.
25. Scientists from Oregon Health and Science University (______________) successfully edited genes of human embryos to correct defective DNA that cause inherited diseases, using CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology to alter human DNA in single-cell embryos, which allows specific sections of DNA to be altered or replaced ?
26. Scientists from Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in ________________ developed world’s Most sharpe and Precise laser, that can be useful for various applications such as optical atomic clocks, radioastronomy, precision spectroscopy, testing theory of relativity and carry out new precision measurements on ultracold atoms.
- Theoretically, laser light has only 1 colour, wavelength or frequency. In reality, however, there is always a certain linewidth. This newly developed laser has linewidth of only 10 miliHertz (0.01 Hz), closer to ideal laser than ever before.
27. Scientists from _______________'s Harvard Medical School for first time encoded a small movie clip in DNA of living bacterial cells and then played it back. They used CRISPR gene-editing technique to encode and retrieve reconstructed frames of a classic 1870s racehorse in motion sequence of photos into genome of common bacteria E. coli. Film stored in DNA of bacteria was also well preserved and was intact even in new generation of bacteria ?
28. Scientists from _______________'s Harvard University have developed a super strong, flexible adhesive material inspired by glue secreted by slugs that sticks to biological tissues without causing toxicity. It is biocompatible and binds to tissues with a strength comparable to the body's own resilient cartilage. ?
29. Scientists from University of Cambridge (______________) developed super-stretchy and strong artificial (synthetic) spider silk, almost entirely (98 %) composed of water. Spider silk is one of strongest materials for applications such as making eco-friendly textiles and sensors. ?
30. Scientists from University of Cambridge (______________) spotted smallest star discovered so far, named as EBLM J0555-57Ab.
- It was identified by SuperWASP, a planet-finding experiment run by several universities. EBLM J0555-57Ab is located about 600 light years away and is slightly larger than Saturn in size.
- It is as small as stars can possibly become as it has just enough mass to enable the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium at its centre.
31. _________ unveiled India’s first Bio-CNG (bio-methane) bus at Urja Utsav bio-energy programme organised by Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
- Biomethane is a naturally occurring gas which is produced by anaerobic digestion of organic matter such as dead animal and plant material, manure, sewage, organic waste, etc.
