1. According to researchers from University of Southampton (______________), extreme global warming event named Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) that occured 56 million years ago was driven by massive CO2 emissions from volcanoes during formation of North Atlantic Ocean.
- This caused doubling of CO2 in less than 25 thousand years because of CO2 emissions from volcanoes. PETM was most rapid and extreme natural global warming event of last 66 million years and lasted for around 150 thousand years. It increased global temperatures by at least 5 degrees Celsius.
2. As per Massachusetts Institute of Technology (_________)'s study titled Thresholds of catastrophe in the Earth System, Earth’s sixth mass extinction may become a reality by 2100 due to increasing carbon pressure on oceans.
- In past 540 million years, Earth has seen 5 mass extinction events. By 2100, about 310 gigatons of carbon will have been added to oceans, a potential 'tipping point' for ecological disaster.
3. Bengaluru - based biotech startup Bugworks Research became India’s and Asia’s first to receive international CARB-X (_____________) grant for its antibiotic research and development.
- CARB-X is an international partnership set up in 2016 to focus on innovations to improve diagnosis and treatment of drug-resistant infections. It grew out of Barack Obama’s 2015 Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (CARB) initiative.
4. Breakthrough Listen project detected 15 FRBs (____________) coming from a dwarf galaxy about 3 million light years away from earth, with help of Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia.
- FRB is brief, bright pulse of radio emission from distant galaxies. It was first detected in 2007 with help of Parkes Telescope in Australia.
5. Department of Science and Technology (DST) will fund a project to develop _________ in order to tap into next big advance in computing technology.
- It increases computational power beyond attainable limits of traditional computer. It employs complex principles of quantum mechanics to store information in ‘qubits’ (quantum bit) instead of the typical binary ‘bits’ of 1 and 0.
6. ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan) completed 3 years in Martian orbit, already having outlived its original lifespan. Mangalyaan was launched on board of PSLV C25 rocket on November 5, 2013 and entered Mars orbit on _____________, 2014 ?
7. ________ scientists from Lambung Mangkurat University found world's smallest squirrel in Borneo rain forest, named Bormean pigmy. It is 73 mm long and weighs about 17 grams ?
8. International Astronomical Union (IAU) named 2 mountain ranges on icy dwarf planet ____________ as Tenzing Montes and Hillary Montes, after Tenzing (Nepal) Norgay and Edmund Hillary (New Zealand) who were first mountaineers to reach summit of Mount Everest in 1953. These are among 14 other names officially approved for naming 14 geographical features on Pluto ?
9. International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has downgraded conservation status of ___________ from “endangered” to “vulnerable”, that was continuing since 1972.
- Species are endangered if they are fewer than 2,500 with high rate of decline. Vulnerable Species are those with population under 10,000 and declining at rate of 10% over 3 generations.
10. NASA’s $3.9 bn Cassini spacecraft ended its 20-year-long journey after Plunging into ______________’s atmosphere. Cassini's mission began in 1997, reaching the planet in 2004 ?
11. NASA’s SDO (_____________) captured images of 2 significant Solar Flares emitted by Sun, powerful bursts of radiation classified as X2.2 flare and 2nd is X9.3 flare.
- X9.3 flare was the largest flare in the current solar cycle which began in December 2008 and heading towards 'Solar Minimum'.
- Solar Minimum is such phase of the solar cycle when these eruptions on the sun are increasingly rare, but they can be intense.
12. Researchers discovered a new species of edible freshwater fish while exploring Pampa river in Pathanamthitta in _____________. Newly found fish could possibly be farmed on a commercial scale. It has been named Labeo filiferus (L.filiferus) and belongs to Labeo genus. ?
13. Scientists at University of California (___________) identified 27 distinct types of human emotions, Instead of earlier of just 6 possible emotions - happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear and disgust ?
14. Scientists discovered an underwater natural city built by octopuses and named it as Octlantis, in ____________. Octlantis was found where octopuses were found gathering for fights in 2009 ?
15. Scientists for first time observed Optical polarisation phenomenon (polarised light emitted by rapidly rotating stars), using HIPPI (____________).
- It was predicted by Indian astrophysicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in 1946.
- Optical polarisation phenomenon is a measure of the orientation of the oscillations of a light beam to its direction of travel.
- HIPPI was used to detect polarised light from Regulus, one of brightest stars in night sky about 79 light years away. It was observed that Regulus is rotating so quickly with a spin rate of 96.5% of angular velocity (approximately 320 kilometres per second).
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for his theoretical studies of physical processes of importance to structure and evolution of stars.
16. Scientists from Brown University (___________________) created first map of water trapped in uppermost layer of Moon’s soil, using NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper onboard of India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Map builds on initial discovery of water and related molecule – hydroxyl (consists 1 atom each of hydrogen and oxygen) in lunar soil in 2009 ?
17. Scientists from Cardiff University (______________) discovered a new way to produce methanol from methane using oxygen from the air. Methanol is an important chemical often used as fuel in vehicles. New technique uses freely available air, inexpensive chemicals and an energy efficient methanol production process ?
18. Scientists from University of Manchester (___________) created world’s first molecular robot - millionth of a millimetre in size. It is made up of just 150 carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms which are basic building blocks required to form molecules. Such molecular robots can be used for medical purposes, advanced manufacturing processes and even building molecular factories and assembly lines ?
19. Scientists successfully detected gravitational waves for 4 time coming from merger of 2 massive black holes. It was for first time, these waves were simultaneously detected by US-based LIGO (_________________________________) and Italy-based Virgo detectors. First 2 detections were made in September and December 2015 and 3rd time it was detected in January 2017 ?
20. US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved a new ____________ treatment, called Kymriah. Each dose of Kymriah contains patient's own immune cells that are genetically modified using a virus. This therapy is known as chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy (CAR-T), gives the cells the ability to recognize and kill the source of cancer ?