News on Science, Technology and Research in India
A group of researchers led by Prof. S. Krishna Prasad, along with Dr Shankar Rao of the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), Bangalore, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India has made major headway in developing such a cellulose-based smart screen from discarded ground nutshells.
Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh and Minister for Road Transport and Highways Shri Nitin Gadkari witnessed the demonstration of Fire Detection and Suppression System (FDSS) developed by DRDO for Passenger Buses at DRDO Bhawan here today 09 Nov 2020. Demonstrations were given on Water Mist Based FDSS for Passenger Compartment and Aerosol Based FDSS for engine fire. They were also briefed about the various other programs and systems.
Hoofed animals like horses and rhinos evolved from a strange sheep-sized animal that looked like a cross between a pig and a dog and roamed in India almost 55 million years ago, researchers have claimed.
The species were found in the coral reef in the Lakshadweep islands and have since been studied. The findings have been published in Zootaxa, an international peer-reviewed journal.
The schemes are SERB – POWER Fellowship and SERB – POWER Research Grants. These schemes are aimed to promote women researchers in regular service in academic and research institutions to take up research and development (R&D) at the highest level through these two categories of research support.
The Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite being developed by the US Space Agency NASA and the Indian Space Agency ISRO is expected to be launched in the year 2022. This will be the first such radar imaging satellite in the world to use two frequencies simultaneously. Not only this, it will also be the world’s most expensive Earth Imaging Satellite. In this sense, it will also be special in many ways. The countries had reached an agreement in 2014 for this joint mission.
A team of researchers at the Epigenetics Lab at Bengaluru-based National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) headed by Dr P V Shivaprasad work on a family of viruses called Geminiviridae that infects a wide range of plants. In a new study, they have identified a previously unknown step in the arms race. Here the weapon used by the plant and the virus is in the form of a few small but important changes to proteins.
Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch the first satellite of this year from Sriharikota on November 6 when its PSLV-C 49 rocket will lift off with an earth observation (surveillance) satellite Risat-2BR2 and 10 foreign commercial satellites from the first launchpad.
A new study conducted by Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) to investigate internal waves has solved a longstanding mystery about the role of oceanic processes in keeping the deep Andaman Sea (AS) warm. The study confirmed that deep waters (below 1,200 m) in the Andaman Sea are warmer (about 2°C) than that of the Bay of Bengal. The study is important to interpret the response of the ocean to climate change by understanding the distribution of temperature, both near the ocean surface and Deep Ocean.
For long, scientists have been intrigued by the decrease in the rate at which stars were formed in galaxies after it peaked about 8-10 billion years ago. They have now deciphered the mystery behind this decline in star formation activity by measuring the atomic hydrogen of the galaxies.
