Climate Change

GOOGLE TO BUILD LONGEST UNDERSEA CABLE IN THE WORLD

Alphabet’s Google is all set to build the world’s longest undersea cable connecting United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. This undersea cable will boost internet connection capacity in these regions.

It will comprise 12 fiber pairs which will carry traffic quickly & securely between North & South America. Undersea cable, called Firmina, will run from the East Coast of the United States to Las Toninas, Argentina along with additional landings in Praia Grande, Brazil, and Punta del Este, Uruguay.

-Vijay Shankar

IN TWO DECADES JUNO HAS PROVIDED THE FIRST CLOSE-UPS OF JUPITER'S LARGEST MOON

Nasa released Juno spacecrafts' first two images on Tuesday, highlighting Ganymede's craters and long, narrow features possibly related to tectonic faults. One shows the moon's far side, opposite the sun.

"This is the closest any spacecraft has come to this mammoth moon in a generation," said Juno's lead scientist, Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

-Meghna Ghosh

QUANTUM LEAP: THIS MICROSCOPE CAN ZOOM IN ON TINY STRUCTURES PREVIOUSLY NOT VISIBLE!

Australian researchers have found what could be referred to as a quantum leap in medical technology, a microscope that can view tiny biological structures that were not previously visible.

Scientists estimate that this new quantum medical technology can help in viewing the cells better and improve existing microscopes. It could further help in the improvement of medical imaging and technology.

This research was published in Nature. The newly developed microscope is a coherent Raman microscope that allows imaging of molecular bonds within cells with 35 percent more clarity.

The team was led by Caxtere A Cascio of the University of Queensland and tried to improve the capability of existing microscopes by increasing the light intensity that enhances biological imaging. Although this technology is still under development, it has outperformed conventional technologies.

The branch of quantum physics, quantum technology, is used to study the functions of tiny and subatomic particles. This branch has been used for five decades and can be used to enhance maritime and computing capabilities.

The researchers have tried to remove the problem of sound, as it interrupts resolution, sensitivity, and speed in conventional microscopes. While using bright lights seems the only way to remove noise. Still, it can’t be used while investigating living systems, “The bright lasers can severely disturb biological processes,” researchers said in the report.

“Our work will enable order-of-magnitude improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio and the imaging speed,” researchers concluded in the paper. This research is viewed as the next significant achievement after the 2014 Nobel prize-winning work by Eric Betzig, Stefan W Hell, and William E Moerner in chemistry. They were responsible for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.

-Aishwarya Sridhar

70% OF THE SHARK POPULATION WAS WIPED OUT 19 MILLION YEARS AGO BY A 'MYSTERIOUS EVENT'

About 19 million years ago, a mysterious event wiped out about 70 percent of the world’s shark population, found a study published on June 4 in the journal Science. The extent of the shark die-off was twice the number of sharks killed when an asteroid had hit the earth 66 million years ago. The new study was published on June 4 in the journal Science. However, the scientists have no idea about what could be the cause of the shark population going almost extinct. “We happened upon this extinction almost by accident," said Elizabeth Sibert, the lead author of a study and a postdoctoral researcher at Yale’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, in a news release by the Yale University.

According to Sibert, her team decided to build an 85-million-year long record of shark and fish populations. The scientists wanted to understand how the populations varied in the long term and that is when they found this mysterious drop-off. They found that the death toll for the sharks living in the open ocean was much higher compared to those who lived near coastal areas.

However, there is no big ecosystem disruption or climate calamity known at the time but the population of the sharks was drastically reduced.

According to Sibert, the interval is not known of any big changes in the earth’s history, “yet it completely transformed the nature of what it means to be a predator living in the open ocean."

Studying how this drastic extinction affected the remaining shark populations, and if they changed their habitat to avoid the open ocean, can help us understand how the decline in shark population can affect marine ecosystems. According to a study that was published in Nature in January, the shark population living in the open ocean has reduced by 70 percent over the past half-century. The reason for this decline is unsustainable overfishing. However, for the die-off that happened 19 million years ago, humans were not present on the earth.

-Aishwarya Sridhar

ACID RAIN IN SRI LANKA

There is a possibility of acid rain in the island nation as a result of the burning X-Press Pearl container ship in the waters of the Colombo Harbour. Sri Lanka's Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) said acid.

When nitrogen oxide gas is emitted into the atmosphere will mix with water particles in the upper atmosphere to produce nitric acid for the acid rain.

-Jyothi S Talawar

NASA SPACECRAFT'S ROCKS AND DUSTS

NASA'S OSIRIS-REX spacecraft has left the 4.5 billion-year-old near-Earth asteroid Bennu with a sample of rocks and dust it has collected. After orbiting the Sun twice, the OSIRIS-REX spacecraft is due to reach Earth on September 24, 2023.

OSIRIS-REX has captured images and 3D maps of Bennu's rocky terrain studied its makeup and witnessed particles being ejected in space.

-Jyothi S Talawar

JEFF BEZOS AND BROTHER TO FLY TO SPACE IN BLUE ORIGIN FLIGHT

The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has said he will fly to space with his brother on the first human flight launched by his space company, Blue Origin.

In an Instagram post, Mr. Bezos said space flight was something he had wanted to do "all my life". Blue Origin is also auctioning off a seat in the capsule, for someone who will join the pair on the inaugural manned flight. Jeff Bezos is one of the world's richest people.

"On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother," he wrote in the Instagram post. "The greatest adventure, with my best friend." Mr. Bezos's brother Mark called it a "remarkable opportunity" in the video.

Bidding for a seat on the New Shepard - the name of the Blue Origin vehicle - had reached $2.8m when Mr Bezos announced his plan to take the flight. The auction concludes on 12 June.

The New Shepard booster can land vertically on the ground after returning from space. It is named after Alan Shepard, the second person and first US citizen to fly into space.

-Bobler

RAMSETU AND MODERN BRIDGE

The engineers who build the Railway track bridge over the great Salt Lake which connects East America and West America studied the building Technique of "Ram Setu" build by our ancient civil hydraulic engineers 'Nal' and 'Neel'.

When the U.S thought to expand the railways the biggest challenge was to connect East America and West America because of a giant sea-like lake between the two called "The Great Salt Lake".

The challenge before the big engineers was to build a railway track across the lake. Then there was an engineer in the Union Pacific team who read "Ramayan" and he was well aware of "RamSetu". The engineer with his team traveled to India and studied Ramsetu.

Through study they realized unilateral track that is straight, the waves can break the track. The scientific reason behind it was, where the waves have more effect. There you get stability by Zig-Zag design.

-Jyothi S Talawar

INDIAN NAVY LAUNCHES OPERATION SAMUDRA SETU-II

The Indian Navy has again launched Operation Samudra Setu to help in faster transportation of medical oxygen and other requirements from other countries when the country is facing a severe shortage of oxygen to treat critical Covid-19 patients.

Indian Naval warships have been deployed to undertake shipment of liquid medical oxygen-filled cryogenic containers and associated medical equipment to support the nation’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

Operation Samudra Setu was launched in May last year as part of the Vande Bharat Mission to bring nearly 4,000 Indians back home from countries like Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Iran amid the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic.

-Meghna Ghosh

ROCKET CARRYING SPACE STATION CREW FAILS IN MID AIR, CREW SAFE

A booster rocket carrying a Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian and US astronaut on board headed for the International Space Station failed mid-air today, forcing the crew to make an emergency landing.

The rocket was carrying US astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin. Russian news agencies reported that the crew had safely made an emergency landing and were in radio contact and that rescuers were en route to pick them up.

"Search and rescue teams are in the air and heading towards the expected touchdown location for the Soyuz spacecraft returning to Earth carrying two crew members," NASA said in a statement.

-Aishwarya Sridhar