trusciencetrutechnology@blogspot.com
Volume 2019, Issue No.3a, Dated: March 16, 2109, Time: 11:34:34 AM
March 16, 2109: Walnut tree felling, 4000 Madhya Pradesh villages face acute drought, spinning star spitting bright flashes of radio waves, Nebraska after "bomb cyclone" storm, Asia's largest cob dryer, laser light million miles away to orient, 1.3GV cloud.
Professor Dr. Kotcherlakota Lakshmi Narayana,
M.Sc. (Math. Phys.), M.Sc. (Nucl. Phys.), Ph. D. (AU), Int. Edu & Res. (Sweden 1964-65)
While returning from Sweden, spent a few days in England, Paris, Egypt and etc. countries,
Visited USA about 12 Universities, several National Laboratories and Institutes for four months.
Sept.to December 1988. and in 1989 visited Japan for about
10 days, and South Korea Conf. in Physics for a week in 1989.
[Retd. Prof of Physics; Shivaji University, Kolhapur - 416004]
Residential Address: 17- 11-10, Narasimha Ashram, Official Colony,
Maharanipeta. P. O., Visakhapatnam-530002, A.P. Mobile: 09491902867.
kotcherlakota_l_n@hotmail.com; DOB:23-07-1940.
lakshminarayana.kotcherlakota@gmail.com
.
ABSTRACT
Mar 16 2019 10:07AM: Walnut tree felling: Tehsildar among several officials suspended in Shopian. They were suspended for remaining silent and not taking any action against the fellers who unauthorised, hacking down of 51 walnut trees in the area. // 01:21 PM: Ahead of summer, 4000 Madhya Pradesh villages face acute drought. 17 March 2019: A particularly odd, spinning star has woken up, and it's spitting bright flashes of radio waves at us again. // 14:15 IST: Pune drone start-ups wins top innovation prize in global contest. Won the top innovation prize in an international contest which saw the participation of 401 start-ups from 18 countries. // 17 March 2019: Historic floods hit Nebraska after "bomb cyclone" storm. Large parts of Nebraska and the U.S. Central Plains were underwater on Saturday after a late-winter "bomb cyclone" storm triggered historic flooding along the Missouri and Platte rivers. // 18 March 2019: C10orf11 is the newly-identified gene that only affects eyebrow colours. // March 19, 2019: 14:20 IST: Kaveri Seeds sets up corn cob drying facility in Telangana; stock up 3%. The plant is Asia's largest and the first of its kind cob dryer. // 8:51:12 pm: Water-resistant electronic skin with self-healing abilities created Scientists have created a self-healing electronic skin inspired by jellyfish. // 17:43 PM IST: Scientists Turn Seawater Into Hydrogen Fuel, In Amazing Discovery That Can Stop Climate Change. // India will see tech revolution soon, thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Niti Ayog giving its nod to the use of artificial intelligence in the fields of agriculture, health care and education and rural development. It will open up new avenues for employment for both technology experts and social scientists. // Brazilian physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser has been awarded the 2019 Templeton Prize, worth $1.4 million, for his work blending science and spirituality. // March 20, 2019: 6:01 PM: New Nanomaterial Could Abandon Bone Marrow Transplantation in the Future. It is based on nanofibers of polycaprolactone, which is biocompatible self-dissolvable material. // Tremors felt in some Agency areas for a few seconds and tribals struck with fear, at around 7.30PM on Wednesday. S.Kota, Araku and Ananthgiri route experienced tremors in their region. Mild tremors were also felt in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, measuring 4.9R at 4 PM on Wednesday. // Chilean lake disappears as rainfall drops, scattered with bones of cows and horses, and wiped out Santiago's play ground, and Lake Aculeo from the map. Once boasting a depth of six meters the water level dwindled from 2011 and by last May the lake dried up completely. // The development of optical tweezers enabled scientists to move and manipulate tiny objects like nanoparticles, using the radiative pressure from a sharply focussed beam of a laser light. Nano-patterned object reorienting itself to remain in a beam of light, with the light source can be millions of miles away. // 22 March, 2019: 1:47 pm IST: In Chile, a group of scientists are watching twin stars being born. The scientists, from Japan, Sweden & US, are observing a molecular cloud that’s on its way to forming a binary star system, the astronomical equivalent of twins. The molecular cloud will eventually collapse under its own weight, and two protostars will start to form among the gas and dust. The telescopic array observed at high spatial resolution a star-forming region called IRAS07299-1651, which is located about 5,500 light years away and full of gas and dust. // March 24, 2019: For the first time in world, researchers at GRAPES-3 muon telescope facility in Ooty have measured the electrical potential, size and height of a thundercloud that passed overhead on December 1, 2014, and at 1.3 gigavolts (GV) this cloud had 10 times higher potential than a previous record. // The new events are known as GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823, in reference to the dates they were detected. GW170729, detected in the second observing run on July 29, 2017, is the most massive and distant gravitational-wave source ever observed. Almost all black holes formed from stars are lighter than 45 times the mass of the Sun. //
DETAILS:
Mar 16 2019 10:07AM: Walnut tree felling: Tehsildar among several officials suspended in Shopian. They were suspended for remaining silent and not taking any action against the fellers. An official suspended Tehsildar, Naib Tehsildar, Patwari and Lambardar of Keegam tehsil flowing the unauthorised hacking down of 51 walnut trees in the area.
16 March 2019: A jewel of the Andaman Sea. They sailed around the islands of Sumatra and the Andaman Sea, and followed the coastline up from Malaysia, into the waters of Thailand and then into the Phang Nga. After days of exploration, the island village’s founder, Toh Baboo, stumbled upon Koh Panyi. The island offered excellent protection against the elements and had plentiful fish, so Toh Baboo raised a flag from the island’s summit. From three original families, the village has expanded to become home to 1,485 people, all descended from the island’s original settlers. As the number of residents grew, so this village on stilts expanded, even getting its own school with a playground and a mosque with a gleaming dome and minarets, all floating above water.
16 March 2019: 01:21 PM: Ahead of summer, 4000 Madhya Pradesh villages face acute drought. Chief Minister Kamal Nath's stronghold Chhindwara is another district where water management has failed and 145 villages bear the brunt of the crisis.A report by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department says 40 rivers that provide water to these villages have gone dry and the micro-watershed management is in complete disarray. Most parts of the state have experienced 20 to 50 per cent deficient rainfall for the past two years. More than 21,293,000 hectares of the rivers' catchment area is parched on the nearly 2,19,0000 km length of these rivers. The department says efforts are continuing to recharge the micro-watersheds through the course of these rivers.
16 March 2019: 06:44 AM: This start-up uses codes, robots and tech-toys to close AI education gap. It employs Google’s AIY kit and Amazon Deep Lens along with an array of robots, including MekaMon, Sphero, little Bits Anki Cozmo, Nintendo Labo and Lego Boost, to simplify coding and learn about AI in a fun way. So far, the team has visited 15 villages in Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram and Madurai districts.
16 March 2019: 06:44 AM: This start-up uses codes, robots and tech-toys to close AI education gap. It employs Google’s AIY kit and Amazon Deep Lens along with an array of robots, including MekaMon, Sphero, little Bits Anki Cozmo, Nintendo Labo and Lego Boost, to simplify coding and learn about AI in a fun way. So far, the team has visited 15 villages in Virudhunagar, Ramanathapuram and Madurai districts.
16 March, 2019: The sea in Visakhapatnam was roaring with huge waves, possibly a sequel to the Earthquake occurrence in Indonesia. 17 March 2019: Earthquake of magnitude 5.5 hits Indonesia's Lombok region at 07:07 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) on Sunday. The latest one struck about 10km.
Mar 17, 2019: 14:15 IST: Pune drone start-ups wins top innovation prize in global contest. The company, located at Bhau Institute, College of Engineering Pune (COEP) campus, has developed a software that works across off-the-shelf drones from various vendors, enables intelligent fleets and seamless integration with business applications. Won the top innovation prize in an international contest which saw the participation of 401 start-ups from 18 countries.
Mar 17, 2019: 14:15 IST: Pune drone start-ups wins top innovation prize in global contest. The company, located at Bhau Institute, College of Engineering Pune (COEP) campus, has developed a software that works across off-the-shelf drones from various vendors, enables intelligent fleets and seamless integration with business applications. Won the top innovation prize in an international contest which saw the participation of 401 start-ups from 18 countries.
17 March 2019: A particularly odd, spinning star has woken up, and it's spitting bright flashes of radio waves at us again. The stellar spinner is a magnetar, which is a type of neutron star, a Manhattan-size remnant of a larger star, and the densest type of object besides black holes that we've detected anywhere in the universe. This particular magnetar is called XTE J1810–197. It's one of only 23 magnetars and one of just four radio magnetars ever discovered, and it first turned up in 2004. Then, in late 2008, it went dormant and no longer emitted radio waves. On Dec. 8, 2018, it woke up again, and it's a bit changed. The researchers who spotted its awakening reported their finding in a paper uploaded March 6 to the preprint server arXiv. Astronomers have long believed such magnetars carry magnetic fields more than a million times more intense than typical neutron stars and more than a quadrillion times more powerful than Earth's own. Those magnetic fields seem to be the source of intense flashes of electromagnetic energy we can detect from Earth as the magnetar spins.
17 March 2019: Historic floods hit Nebraska after "bomb cyclone" storm. Large parts of Nebraska and the U.S. Central Plains were underwater on Saturday after a late-winter "bomb cyclone" storm triggered historic flooding along the Missouri and Platte rivers, causing two deaths, tearing apart homes and swallowing roadways. The National Weather Service predicted dangerous flooding would continue through the weekend in Nebraska and in south and west central Iowa, particularly along the Missouri River.
18 March 2019: 11:25 AM: Sea erosion worries people in Byndoor. Fear has gripped the people as sea erosion as severely affected the Trasi-Hosapete-Kanchugodu stretch in Byndoor taluk of Udupi district. The sea erosion that was noticed on Thursday has intensfied and has already swallowed 200-metre long shore. Trees have been washed away due to the fury of the waves. The fishermen had anchored over 200 fishing boats in the region. Boats, nets and engines have been damage due to sea erosion. “If the sea erosion continues, then the boats will have to be shifted to the safer areas,” said fishermen. Houses are also facing the threat in the region. The fishermen suspect that the Sustainable Coastal Protection and Management Project taken up near Trasi resulted in sea erosion in the region.
18 March 2019: Solar lanterns to light up all polling booths in Odisha’s Kendrapara. District administration decided to junk older, kerosene-lit lanterns. Odisha’s Kendrapara district administration has decided to procure solar lanterns for all 1,438 polling stations to replace kerosene lanterns there. The lanterns are estimated to cost Rs 250-300 apiece. A procurement committee has been constituted to purchase around 1,600 of them through tender-bidding.
18 March 2019: 11:25 AM: Sea erosion worries people in Byndoor. Fear has gripped the people as sea erosion as severely affected the Trasi-Hosapete-Kanchugodu stretch in Byndoor taluk of Udupi district. The sea erosion that was noticed on Thursday has intensfied and has already swallowed 200-metre long shore. Trees have been washed away due to the fury of the waves. The fishermen had anchored over 200 fishing boats in the region. Boats, nets and engines have been damage due to sea erosion. “If the sea erosion continues, then the boats will have to be shifted to the safer areas,” said fishermen. Houses are also facing the threat in the region. The fishermen suspect that the Sustainable Coastal Protection and Management Project taken up near Trasi resulted in sea erosion in the region.
18 March 2019: Solar lanterns to light up all polling booths in Odisha’s Kendrapara. District administration decided to junk older, kerosene-lit lanterns. Odisha’s Kendrapara district administration has decided to procure solar lanterns for all 1,438 polling stations to replace kerosene lanterns there. The lanterns are estimated to cost Rs 250-300 apiece. A procurement committee has been constituted to purchase around 1,600 of them through tender-bidding.
March 18, 2019: 13:15 IST: For the new study, researchers from China, the Netherlands, Australia, Britain and the US analysed samples of 6,513 European individuals, and graded colours into four categories: red, blond, brown and black, Xinhua reported. They found that eight genes, previously known pigmentation genes, could affect both eyebrow and hair colour, such as gene variant MC1R, responsible for both blond eyebrows and red hair. In addition, C10orf11 is the newly-identified gene that only affects eyebrow colours.
Mar 19, 2019: 09:54 IST: More than 1,000 feared dead as Cyclone Idai ravages three countries in Africa. More than 1,000 people were feared dead in Mozambique four days after a cyclone slammed into the country, submerging entire villages and leaving bodies floating in the floodwaters, the nation’s president said. It struck Beira, an Indian Ocean port city of a half-million people, late Thursday and then moved inland to Zimbabwe and Malawi with strong winds and heavy rain.
Fig.1 Cyclone Idai ravages three countries in Africa.
But it took days for the scope of the disaster to come into focus in Mozambique, which has a poor communication and transportation network and a corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy.
March 19, 2019: 14:20 IST: Kaveri Seeds sets up corn cob drying facility in Telangana; stock up 3%. The plant is Asia's largest and the first of its kind cob dryer. The plant is Asia's largest and the first of its kind cob dryer. This plant has a bio mass, double pass dryer Corn cob drying unit, which is fully automated and has the best and state of art infrastructural capability. The capacity of the cob drying facility is 1,456 Mt per cycle which is distributed across 36 Bins.
March 19, 2019: 8:51:12 pm: Water-resistant electronic skin with self-healing abilities created Scientists have created a self-healing electronic skin inspired by jellyfish, that could be used in to develop a range of devices from water-resistant touchscreens to aquatic soft robots. They succeeded in this endeavour by creating a gel consisting of a fluorocarbon-based polymer with a fluorine-rich ionic liquid. When combined, the polymer network interacts with the ionic liquid via highly reversible ion-dipole interactions, which allows it to self-heal. What makes our material different is that it can retain its shape in both wet and dry surroundings.
Mar 19, 2019: 17:43 PM IST: Scientists Turn Seawater Into Hydrogen Fuel, In Amazing Discovery That Can Stop Climate Change. The team team layered nickel-iron hydroxide and nickel sulfide on top of a nickel foam core, basically creating a barrier to slow down the corrosion. Without the extra nickel coating, the device would only last about 12 hours through the electrolysis. With it however, it's good for more than a thousand hours.
March 19, 2019: 8:51:12 pm: Water-resistant electronic skin with self-healing abilities created Scientists have created a self-healing electronic skin inspired by jellyfish, that could be used in to develop a range of devices from water-resistant touchscreens to aquatic soft robots. They succeeded in this endeavour by creating a gel consisting of a fluorocarbon-based polymer with a fluorine-rich ionic liquid. When combined, the polymer network interacts with the ionic liquid via highly reversible ion-dipole interactions, which allows it to self-heal. What makes our material different is that it can retain its shape in both wet and dry surroundings.
Mar 19, 2019: 17:43 PM IST: Scientists Turn Seawater Into Hydrogen Fuel, In Amazing Discovery That Can Stop Climate Change. The team team layered nickel-iron hydroxide and nickel sulfide on top of a nickel foam core, basically creating a barrier to slow down the corrosion. Without the extra nickel coating, the device would only last about 12 hours through the electrolysis. With it however, it's good for more than a thousand hours.
19 March 2019: India will see tech revolution soon, thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Niti Ayog giving its nod to the use of artificial intelligence in the fields of agriculture, health care and education and rural development. It will open up new avenues for employment for both technology experts and social scientists.
19 March, 2019: Brazilian physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser has been awarded the 2019 Templeton Prize, worth $1.4 million, for his work blending science and spirituality. The 60-year-old researcher has suggested that science and spirituality represent complementary expressions of humanity’s curiosity around the unknown. My mission is to bring back to science, and to the people that are interested in science, this attachment to the mysterious, to make people understand that science is just one other way for us to engage with the mystery of who we are. His views that science and religion can be complementarian, that science does not cover all valid knowledge, and that science would even have spiritual roots are uncommon among influential scientists in Brazil; and the fact that he is outspoken about them makes him singular.
19 March, 2019: American Karen Uhlenbeck won the Abel Prize in mathematics for her work on partial differential equations. Her theories have revolutionised our understanding of minimal surfaces, such as those formed by soap bubbles, and more general minimization problems in higher dimensions.
20 March, 2019: The third and final supermoon of the year will light up the sky on March 20. March's full moon also happens on the same day as the spring equinox, welcoming in the season. The last time these two things happened on the same day was March 1981. The moon will appear brighter and bigger in the night sky and hopefully no clouds and inclement weather will obscure the view. No matter what timezone you're in, look out for the supermoon at 9:43 pm ET on Wednesday. The asteroid, 2019 EA2, will zip by Earth at 190,246 miles away -- closer than the moon. It's 79 feet in diameter, slightly larger than the asteroid that streaked through the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013.
20 March, 2019: The third and final supermoon of the year will light up the sky on March 20. March's full moon also happens on the same day as the spring equinox, welcoming in the season. The last time these two things happened on the same day was March 1981. The moon will appear brighter and bigger in the night sky and hopefully no clouds and inclement weather will obscure the view. No matter what timezone you're in, look out for the supermoon at 9:43 pm ET on Wednesday. The asteroid, 2019 EA2, will zip by Earth at 190,246 miles away -- closer than the moon. It's 79 feet in diameter, slightly larger than the asteroid that streaked through the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013.
20 March 2019: 08:40 PM: Modi govt clears mega defence project, March 20, 2019: Indian Army to get 10 lakh 'made in India' hand grenades. In 2017, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India had said that around 40% of the Indian Army’s ammunition will not last more than 10 days in a war.
March 20, 2019: 19:42 IST: NASA probe finds water-bearing minerals near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Using early spectral data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft orbiting the asteroid, the team identified infrared properties similar to those in a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites. Using early spectral data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft orbiting the asteroid, the team identified infrared properties similar to those in a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites.
March 20, 2019: 6:01 PM: New Nanomaterial Could Abandon Bone Marrow Transplantation in the Future. It is based on nanofibers of polycaprolactone, which is biocompatible self-dissolvable material. Earlier, the same research group has already worked with this material: by adding antibiotics to the nanofibers, scientists have managed to create non-changeable healing bandages. To increase the hydrophilicity of the material, a thin layer of bioactive film consisting of titanium, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen (TiCaPCON) was deposited on it. The structure of nanofibers identical to the cell surface was preserved. These films, when immersed in a special salt medium, which chemical composition is identical to human blood plasma, are able to form on its surface a special layer of calcium and phosphorus, which in natural conditions forms the main part of the bone. Due to the chemical similarity and the structure of nanofibers, new bone tissue begins to grow rapidly on this layer. Most importantly, polycaprolactone nanofibers dissolve, having fulfilled their functions. Only new "native" tissue remains in the bone.
March 21, on the day of Holi 2019, India will witness the last Supermoon of the year. According to astronomy, the full moon on March is special and rare and will coincide with the Spring Equinox. The phenomenon is generally known as ‘Super Worm Equinox Moon’. According to timeanddate.com, it can be spotted at 7:12 am on March 21, in India. The Equinox is the moment when the length of day and night become equal and the sun’s rays fall directly on the earth’s equator. At this time, the earth is neither tilted towards the sun nor away from the sun making the sunrise at due east and sunset at due west, with days and night counting roughly 12 hours each. When the moon is at its closest point to the earth, it is called ‘perigee’ and when a full moon coincides with a perigee, it is called Supermoon. The moon’s closeness to Earth makes it look up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than a full moon.
March 20, 2019: 19:42 IST: NASA probe finds water-bearing minerals near-Earth asteroid Bennu. Using early spectral data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft orbiting the asteroid, the team identified infrared properties similar to those in a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites. Using early spectral data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft orbiting the asteroid, the team identified infrared properties similar to those in a type of meteorite called carbonaceous chondrites.
March 20, 2019: 6:01 PM: New Nanomaterial Could Abandon Bone Marrow Transplantation in the Future. It is based on nanofibers of polycaprolactone, which is biocompatible self-dissolvable material. Earlier, the same research group has already worked with this material: by adding antibiotics to the nanofibers, scientists have managed to create non-changeable healing bandages. To increase the hydrophilicity of the material, a thin layer of bioactive film consisting of titanium, calcium, phosphorus, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen (TiCaPCON) was deposited on it. The structure of nanofibers identical to the cell surface was preserved. These films, when immersed in a special salt medium, which chemical composition is identical to human blood plasma, are able to form on its surface a special layer of calcium and phosphorus, which in natural conditions forms the main part of the bone. Due to the chemical similarity and the structure of nanofibers, new bone tissue begins to grow rapidly on this layer. Most importantly, polycaprolactone nanofibers dissolve, having fulfilled their functions. Only new "native" tissue remains in the bone.
March 21, on the day of Holi 2019, India will witness the last Supermoon of the year. According to astronomy, the full moon on March is special and rare and will coincide with the Spring Equinox. The phenomenon is generally known as ‘Super Worm Equinox Moon’. According to timeanddate.com, it can be spotted at 7:12 am on March 21, in India. The Equinox is the moment when the length of day and night become equal and the sun’s rays fall directly on the earth’s equator. At this time, the earth is neither tilted towards the sun nor away from the sun making the sunrise at due east and sunset at due west, with days and night counting roughly 12 hours each. When the moon is at its closest point to the earth, it is called ‘perigee’ and when a full moon coincides with a perigee, it is called Supermoon. The moon’s closeness to Earth makes it look up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than a full moon.
20 March, 2019: Tremors felt in some Agency areas for a few seconds and tribals struck with fear, at around 7.10 PM on Wednesday. S.Kota, Araku, Borra Junction, Damuku and Ananthgiri route experienced tremors in their region. Bomb explosion sound and nearly five seconds, people ran out of their homes. Vizianagaram zillah Srungavarapukota also experienced tremors.
Mild tremors were felt in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, measuring 4.9R at 4 PM on Wednesday.
20 March, 2019: Neutron Star Speeding at 4 million km an hour located about 6500 light years away, J0002 spins at 8.7 times a second, producing pulse of gamma rays, with each rotation. It has a narrow dart-like tail, allows to trace it to the birth place, pulsar J0002, in the constellation Cassiopeia, and lies about 53 light years from the centre of a Supernova called CTB1, was discovered in 2017. The rapid motion through interstellar gas results in shock waves that produce the tail of magnetic energy and accelerated particles detected at radio wavelengths using VLA. Tail extends 13 light-years and points back to the centre of CTB-1. it is moving five times faster than the average pulsar, and faster than 99% of those with measured speeds. It would eventually escape from our galaxy.
20 March, 2019: Chilean lake disappears as rainfall drops, scattered with bones of cows and horses, and wiped out Santiago's play ground, and Lake Aculeo from the map. Once boasting a depth of six meters the water level dwindled from 2011 and by last May the lake dried up completely. Drastic decrease in rainfall may be the cause. Average of 14 inches in Central Chile dropped in 2018, fallen by half. Global warming may be a cause for further fall of water level.
20 March, 2019: The development of optical tweezers enabled scientists to move and manipulate tiny objects like nanoparticles, using the radiative pressure from a sharply focussed beam of a laser light. Nano-patterned object reorienting itself to remain in a beam of light, with the light source can be millions of miles away (Nature Photonics).
20 March, 2019: Chilean lake disappears as rainfall drops, scattered with bones of cows and horses, and wiped out Santiago's play ground, and Lake Aculeo from the map. Once boasting a depth of six meters the water level dwindled from 2011 and by last May the lake dried up completely. Drastic decrease in rainfall may be the cause. Average of 14 inches in Central Chile dropped in 2018, fallen by half. Global warming may be a cause for further fall of water level.
20 March, 2019: The development of optical tweezers enabled scientists to move and manipulate tiny objects like nanoparticles, using the radiative pressure from a sharply focussed beam of a laser light. Nano-patterned object reorienting itself to remain in a beam of light, with the light source can be millions of miles away (Nature Photonics).
March 21, 2019: 9:38 AM: Canada, China, Mexico and the European Union slapped import duties ranging from 10% to 25% on U.S whiskey and bourbon last year, resulting in a 11% drop in U.S. whiskey exports in the second half, according to a report from the Distilled Spirits Council. For the first six months of 2018, whiskey exports grew 28% compared to the same period in 2017, partly helped by companies like Jack Daniels maker Brown-Forman Corp, fast-tracking shipments overseas, especially to Europe, before the tariffs kicked in. Overall for the full-year 2018, whiskey exports rose 5.1% to $1.18 billion, a significant drop from the 16 percent rise seen in 2017.
Mar 21, 2019: 11:33 am IST: Volvo to add in-car sensors to prevent drunk driving. Swedish carmaker Volvo hopes to reinforce its reputation for safety-first driving by installing cameras and sensors in its cars from the early 2020s, monitoring drivers for signs of being drunk or distracted and intervening to prevent accidents.
March 21, 2019: 11:19 AM IST: 100-megapixel mobile image sensors coming this year, but 192-megapixel will take years. Qualcomm says smartphone makers are trying to surpass full-frame DSLR cameras with new image sensors and computational photography.
Mar 21, 2019: 11:33 am IST: Volvo to add in-car sensors to prevent drunk driving. Swedish carmaker Volvo hopes to reinforce its reputation for safety-first driving by installing cameras and sensors in its cars from the early 2020s, monitoring drivers for signs of being drunk or distracted and intervening to prevent accidents.
March 21, 2019: 11:19 AM IST: 100-megapixel mobile image sensors coming this year, but 192-megapixel will take years. Qualcomm says smartphone makers are trying to surpass full-frame DSLR cameras with new image sensors and computational photography.
21 March, 2019: 09:51 AM: With recurring earthquakes, Palghar becomes the Alaska of India. In fact, India’s Palghar has been observing similar earthquake conditions like America’s Alaska. This region in America is very prone to earthquakes. In the year 2019 itself, Alaska has witnessed 98 earthquakes till now. The intensity of these quakes ranged from mild to great earthquakes.
March 21, 2019: 07:36: Hyderabad Metro rolls into IT hub as Governor flags off Ameerpet-Hitec city stretch. The trains will stop at Madhura Nagar, Yousufguda, Jubilee Hills Road No 5, Durgam Cheruvu and Hitec City. The train operations began at 4 pm on Wednesday. The commencement of operations on this route is expected to cater to thousands of techies who travel to the IT cluster. Officials expect that 50,000 to one lakh people will avail the service on this route every day.
March 21, 2019: 17:51: The human cost of growing cotton in Telangana. Siddipet, which is the bastion of the ruling TRS, has witnessed one of the highest number of farmer suicides in the state. Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in 2018, found that since 2014, an overwhelming 81.4% of suicides in the state were of farmers who cultivated cotton. The study based on 700 cases also stated that 93% of those who killed themselves were marginal farmers. RSV’s study also revealed that 520 of them were tenant farmers.
21 March 2019: NASA is gearing up to send a helicopter to the Red Planet. "the Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency's Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Plane". 22 March, 2019: 1:47 pm IST: In Chile, a group of scientists are watching twin stars being born. The scientists, from Japan, Sweden & US, are observing a molecular cloud that’s on its way to forming a binary star system, the astronomical equivalent of twins. The molecular cloud will eventually collapse under its own weight, and two protostars will start to form among the gas and dust. The telescopic array observed at high spatial resolution a star-forming region called IRAS07299-1651, which is located about 5,500 light years away and full of gas and dust.
21 March 2019: NASA is gearing up to send a helicopter to the Red Planet. "the Mars Helicopter, a small, autonomous rotorcraft, will travel with the agency's Mars 2020 rover mission, currently scheduled to launch in July 2020, demonstrate the viability and potential of heavier-than-air vehicles on the Red Plane". 22 March, 2019: 1:47 pm IST: In Chile, a group of scientists are watching twin stars being born. The scientists, from Japan, Sweden & US, are observing a molecular cloud that’s on its way to forming a binary star system, the astronomical equivalent of twins. The molecular cloud will eventually collapse under its own weight, and two protostars will start to form among the gas and dust. The telescopic array observed at high spatial resolution a star-forming region called IRAS07299-1651, which is located about 5,500 light years away and full of gas and dust.
Mar 23, 2019: 10:58 am IST: Cyclone lashes remote Australian coast with wind, rains. A vast and powerful cyclone made landfall on Saturday along a remote stretch of the northern Australian coast. Most of the sparsely populated area has been evacuated, with more than 2,000 people put up in temporary accommodation in the Northern Territory capital Darwin, and the nearby town of Katherine. But with the cyclone bringing wind gusts of up to 250 km/h (155 miles per hour), and with flash flooding expected as heavy rains meet hard-baked lands recently hit by drought, authorities have issued safety warnings for the small number of people who have stayed put.
Mar 23, 2019: 11:23 IST: Hisar toddler rescued from borewell after 48 hours.
23 March 2019: 10:22:53 AM: It’s the solar storm which is heading towards our planet Earth. But, nothing serious, as scientists say that it is a small storm and no big light show can be expected. The flare left the sun this week and is due to arrive at planet at around 2 p.m. EDT on March 23. The solar storm is too weak and any light show would be limited to Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Norway and other far northern spots.
Mar 23, 2019: 11:23 IST: Hisar toddler rescued from borewell after 48 hours.
23 March 2019: 10:22:53 AM: It’s the solar storm which is heading towards our planet Earth. But, nothing serious, as scientists say that it is a small storm and no big light show can be expected. The flare left the sun this week and is due to arrive at planet at around 2 p.m. EDT on March 23. The solar storm is too weak and any light show would be limited to Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Norway and other far northern spots.
March 24, 2019: For the first time in world, researchers at GRAPES-3 muon telescope facility in Ooty have measured the electrical potential, size and height of a thundercloud that passed overhead on December 1, 2014, and at 1.3 gigavolts (GV) this cloud had 10 times higher potential than a previous record. The muon intensity dipped, briefly in a manner correlated with the thunderstorm. Muon and other particles are produced when cosmic rays bombard air particles surrounding the Earth. A positively charged muon falls through a cloud, it looses energy. While, a negatively charged muon gains energy, when falling through the cloud, and gets detected. About 184 thunderstorms were studied from April 2011 to December 2014, along with ground based electric field monitors, and seven events correspond to a large muons intensity, of about 0.4%. The potential of the cloud, on December 1, 2014, was approximately, 1.3GV. The 25 year old puzzle of terrestrial gamma bursts, huge flashes of light that accompany lightnings, has been explained. Muon intensity variation measured was related to thundercloud potential.
Mar 24, 2019: A cleric who allegedly solemnised the wedding of two Pakistani Hindu minor girls, who were reportedly abducted and forcefully converted to Islam, was arrested on Sunday, as the teenagers approached a court in Pakistan's Punjab province seeking protection.
24 March 2019: Yahoo News UK: Miracle postman 'died for 21 minutes' and came back to life, on his way to the morgue. Joao Araujo, 48, suffered a cardiac arrest at the wheel while taking his wife to work. After six hours of trying to bring him back, doctors told his family he had died. Nurses were transporting him from intensive care to the morgue when they noticed he was moving, and tests revealed Mr Araujo’s heart had spontaneously started beating again.
March 25, 2019, 13:58 [IST]: Why 2019 will be an election of the Indian woman. the 2019 Lok Sabha elections could be the first time in India's history that women's turnout will be higher than men's.
25 March 2019, 07:50 AM: Four new gravitational waves detected from black hole mergers. The US-based LIGO and Europe-based VIRGO gravitational-wave detectors have recorded gravitational waves from a total of 10 black hole mergers and one merger of neutron stars. The new events are known as GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823, in reference to the dates they were detected. GW170729, detected in the second observing run on July 29, 2017, is the most massive and distant gravitational-wave source ever observed. Almost all black holes formed from stars are lighter than 45 times the mass of the Sun.
24 March 2019: Yahoo News UK: Miracle postman 'died for 21 minutes' and came back to life, on his way to the morgue. Joao Araujo, 48, suffered a cardiac arrest at the wheel while taking his wife to work. After six hours of trying to bring him back, doctors told his family he had died. Nurses were transporting him from intensive care to the morgue when they noticed he was moving, and tests revealed Mr Araujo’s heart had spontaneously started beating again.
March 25, 2019, 13:58 [IST]: Why 2019 will be an election of the Indian woman. the 2019 Lok Sabha elections could be the first time in India's history that women's turnout will be higher than men's.
25 March 2019, 07:50 AM: Four new gravitational waves detected from black hole mergers. The US-based LIGO and Europe-based VIRGO gravitational-wave detectors have recorded gravitational waves from a total of 10 black hole mergers and one merger of neutron stars. The new events are known as GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823, in reference to the dates they were detected. GW170729, detected in the second observing run on July 29, 2017, is the most massive and distant gravitational-wave source ever observed. Almost all black holes formed from stars are lighter than 45 times the mass of the Sun.
March 25, 2019: The classic story was that supernovae, the explosions that tear some stars apart at the end of their lives, are the culprit. Those explosions should briefly reach energies intense enough to create the heavier elements. The dominant theory for how this happens is turbulence. As the supernova tosses material into the universe, the theory goes, ripples of turbulence pass through its winds, briefly compressing out flung stellar material with enough force to slam even fusion-resistant iron atoms into other atoms and form heavier elements.
March 26, 2019: 07:08 IST: Lack of jobs, rising prices are India's top concerns ahead of polls: Survey. The unemployment rate is currently estimated to be at a 45-year high, reaching 7.8% in urban areas and 5.3% in rural ones, according to a leaked National Sample Survey Office report for 2017-18.
26 March 2019: Heat wave grips Kerala, claims three lives. The state government has declared a natural disaster, issued alerts and circulated precautionary guidelines. Kerala is now battling a heat wave. The state has lost three lives to it and has had 125 people sought medical assistance owing to rising temperatures.
27 March, 2019: Warning to Mamata? 100 TMC MLAs will join BJP soon, says defector.
Mar 27, 2019: 09:32 IST: Thunderstorm in Guwahati throws election rallies out of gear. A thunderstorm lashed Guwahati and western Assam on Tuesday noon throwing campaign schedules out of gear. At around 1.30 in the afternoon, the sky turned ominously grey over the city with strong winds rattling and blowing away insecure structures.
March 27, 2019: Army to get first ‘Make in India’ M777 Howitzer gun by year-end; it’s a big boost! a new M777 Howitzer gun, assembled, integrated and tested at the Mahindra Defence facility will be ready for rollout.
29 March, 2019:nLow soil moisture posing threat in most river basins. At least half of 16 river basins have been found to be low in soil moisture across India, says a study.
Mar 27, 2019: 09:32 IST: Thunderstorm in Guwahati throws election rallies out of gear. A thunderstorm lashed Guwahati and western Assam on Tuesday noon throwing campaign schedules out of gear. At around 1.30 in the afternoon, the sky turned ominously grey over the city with strong winds rattling and blowing away insecure structures.
March 27, 2019: Army to get first ‘Make in India’ M777 Howitzer gun by year-end; it’s a big boost! a new M777 Howitzer gun, assembled, integrated and tested at the Mahindra Defence facility will be ready for rollout.
29 March, 2019:nLow soil moisture posing threat in most river basins. At least half of 16 river basins have been found to be low in soil moisture across India, says a study.
29 Mar 2019: 01:46 PM IST
- The Indian Himalaya has between 2-4 million Himalayan springs, and they are drying up
- Mukherji is a coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report
30 March,2019: Hyderabad on Saturday recorded 40.2C, night temperature was 24.1C. The entire week is likely to be hot may rise upto 41C, rain and thunder showers would occur in the evening on Sunday nd Monday.
31 March, 2019: Ocean heat records high in 2018 in the upper 700 meters.
31 March, 2019: IIT Madras converts petrolum waste toluene into useful products, by a green oxidant and water used for converting toluene into Benzoic acid. The binaphthyl bound to platinum nanoparticals acts as a stabiliser, and can be used for five times.
31 March, 2019: Nanomagnet assembly to take make upefficient logic gate, and can complment CMOs devices.
31 March, 2019: Ocean heat records high in 2018 in the upper 700 meters.
31 March, 2019: IIT Madras converts petrolum waste toluene into useful products, by a green oxidant and water used for converting toluene into Benzoic acid. The binaphthyl bound to platinum nanoparticals acts as a stabiliser, and can be used for five times.
31 March, 2019: Nanomagnet assembly to take make upefficient logic gate, and can complment CMOs devices.
Acknowledgment
The author, Professor Dr. K. Lakshmi Narayana is indebted to Late Prof. K. R. Rao D.Sc.(Madras) D.Sc.(London) for his guidance and inspiration to present these articles on my website. He is grateful to his mother Late Mrs. Peramma Rangadhama Rao for her sustained interest in my ventures.
