EDUCATION AND TECHNOLOGY

India on January 31, 2015 successfully test indigenously developed launch boat based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Agni-5 from Wheeler Island off the coast of Odisha. Agni-5 is a missile capable of nuclear surface to surface.


Agni-5 missile is a three-stage solid fuel missile with a strike range of over 5000 kilometers and capable of carrying nuclear warheads over a ton. It is about 17 meters long, 2 meters wide and has a launch weight of about 50 tons.


The missile hit the target point within a few meters of accuracy with the help of based on high precision ring laser gyro inertial navigation (RINS) and the navigation system more modern and accurate Micro (MINUTES) system.

This release was the third test development long-range missile. The first and second tests were conducted on April 19, 2012 and September 15, 2013 from the same base. It will be included Agni-5 services post few more judgment.

At present, India in its arsenal serial Agni Agni-1 has 700 km range Agni-2 with 2000 km range Agni-3 and Agni-4 with 2500 km range to more than 3,500.

The House of Commons of Great Britain on February 3, 2015 voted for the bill amending Act Embryology Authority (HFEA), 1990 Human Fertilisation and to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three people.
The donation procedure was controversial mitochondria 382-128 votes. The method includes receiving a small amount of sound called mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) of the donor woman in the usual nuclear DNA from his mother and father.

Now the project has to be approved by the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, to implement the donation procedure mitochondria.
If the project is approved, then the UK will become the first country in the world that allows the procedure.
Importance of the Bill
The action is aimed at preventing serious hereditary diseases transmitted from mother to child. This procedure will help you give a permanent hereditary problems has passed from generation to generation change.
This change in the law of IVF could help 2,500 women of reproductive age in Britain with inherited mitochondrial diseases.

Procedure donation mitochondria:

The process of donating mitochondria includes two different processes.

Procedure 1:

First, an embryo from two eggs fertilized with the sperm of the intended parents and other donors is created.
Then the pronuclei containing the genetic information is eliminated from both parents but only embryos are maintained.
Finally, a healthy embryo is created by adding pronuclei of parents to the donor embryo, which ultimately is implanted in the uterus.

Procedure 2:

First, the eggs are collected both mothers, namely the mother with damaged mitochondria and a donor with healthy mitochondria.
Then, most of the genetic material is removed from both eggs.
Finally, the genetic material of the mother is inserted into a donor egg that can be fertilized by sperm.
What kind of defects can be treated through the procedure?
Generally, defects in mitochondria results in diseases such as muscular dystrophy, heart, kidney and liver failure and various muscle weakness. But the technique could prevent children carry the hereditary problems such as egg or human embryo would be altered before being transferred to the mother.

Why opposes the procedure?

Critics claim that technical crosses a fundamental scientific frontier and changes made in the embryos will be passed on to future generations and lead to the creation of designer babies.
Furthermore, the Catholic and Anglican in England, say the idea of ​​procedure unsafe or unethical as it involved the destruction of human embryos.
Comment
If the bill does become law leading to the births of babies with the procedure unquestionably be a success for Britain, which has long been a leader in display technology. World's First Baby In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Louise Brown was born in the UK on July 25, 1978.

Who: The rare triple conjunction of Jupiter moon
What: Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope NASA
When: January 24, 2015

Hubble Space Telescope NASA captured the rare occurrence of the three largest moons of Jupiter namely races Europa, Callisto and Io across the face of the gas giant planet bands. This was a rare occurrence, as the event occurs once or twice in a decade.


NASA gave this information on February 5, 2015.

The moons in the pictures captured by the camera are color coded. The ancient craters filled surface of Callisto is brown; smooth icy surface of Europa is yellowish-white; and volcanic surface sulfur dioxide Io is orange.

The Hubble images were captured by the Wide Field Camera 3 in visible light Hubble on January 24, 2015.

These so-called three Galilean moons complete orbits around Jupiter with durations ranging from 2 days to 17 days. They were named in honor of the 17th century scientist Galileo Galilei, who discovered four large moons, namely, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto with a telescope. Jupiter has 60 moons.

About the Hubble Space Telescope:

Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The telescope is managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland, while Hubble science operations are conducted by the Institute of Space Telescope Science (STScI) in Baltimore.

Study Process:

Who: Researcher
What: New 3D vaccine
When: December 2014
Why: For cancer and infectious diseases

Researchers found new 3D vaccine for cancer and infectious diseases. The vaccine is able to self-assemble into a 3D structure and manipulate immune cells, teaching them to attack cancer as well as infectious disease.

The research paper was published in Nature Biotechnology from senior author David Mooney of Harvard University in December 2014.

The Process:

The vaccine is composed of nanoscale silica rods, which are administered via injection. Once inside the body, the rods group together into a scaffold-like structure. This structure is then able to draw in immune cells and teach them how to take on threats to the body. Rather than introducing a weakened version of the disease in order to expose the immune system to it, this works on the immune cells directly.
Previous research used a dime-sized scaffold in mouse models, attempting to reprogram dendritic cells. These cells are responsible for locating specific antigens on the surface of cancer cells, and then calling in an attack if they find anything that needs to be eliminated.
This vaccine was successful in slowing down tumor progression in the mice, and 90% of them outlived control mice who did not receive the cell reprogramming.
In the current paper, the scaffold was deconstructed into the vaccine, and spontaneously assembled once inside the organism. Two groups of mice with lymphoma received either the scaffold vaccine or a traditional bolus injection that just exposed the immune system to the antigens and medications.
At the end of 30 days, 60% of the mice who received the bolus injection were still alive, while 90% of the mice who received the scaffold vaccine lived.

German researchers successfully combined the sunlight from an empty Solar Tower Telescope on Tenerife, Canary Islands with light laser frequency comb (LFC) to enable the search for Earth-like planets in distant space accurately and easily.

Who: German researchers
What: Combined solar telescope with laser frequency comb
When: The findings published in February 17, 2015
Why: To hunt for Earth-like planets in deep space

This development was published in the New Journal of Physics on February 17, 2015 and the study was led by Rafael Probst, a doctoral student at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Germany.

To search for Earth-like planets in space distance accurately, researchers first combined sunlight from an empty Solar Tower Telescope on Tenerife, Canary Islands, with the light of a CFL.

Both lights are then combined into a single mode fiber (SMF) by an optical multiplexer.

In this, obtained found that improved by a factor of about 100 over a fiber transmission accuracy temporarily separated.

The development of this new technique would allow the analysis of the measurement of speed universe by observing distant quasars.

In addition, researchers also believe that LFC will allow them to measure the Doppler effect much more accurately and thus increase the chances of detecting habitable planets, Earth-sized.

What is the laser frequency comb (LFC)?

Laser frequency combs (LFC) were conceived a decade ago as tools for precision spectroscopy of atomic hydrogen.
It was created by a laser emitting pulses of continuous light, containing millions of different colors, often covering almost the entire visible spectrum.
When different colors are separated based on their individual frequencies, form a comb-like finely spaced lines representing individual frequency graph.
The comb may then be used as a rule to accurately measure the frequency of light from a wide range of sources such as lasers, atoms or stars.

World Health Organization (WHO) in the fourth  week of February 2015 approved rapid test kit ReEBOV Antigen for Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EVD) that can give results in 15 minutes.
The test kit developed by Corgenix in the United States (US) has been approved for use in West African countries.

Who: ReEBOV Antigen rapid test kit

Where: For use in Western Africa

What: Approved by World Health Organisation (WHO)

When: Fourth week of February 2015

Why: To identify Ebola-infected patients

The key feature of rapid test kit is that it can correctly distinguish patients infected with Ebola patients not infected with Ebola. You can identify about 92 percent of patients infected with Ebola and 85 percent of patients not infected with the virus.

Characteristics of rapid test kit Antigen ReEBOV:

It's quick and easy test that can be used in rural African settings
The test simply detects the Ebola protein instead of testing for genetic material of the virus - its nucleic acid.
It is less definitive, but it can correctly identify about 92 percent of patients infected with Ebola and 85 percent of those not infected with the virus.
The test is small, cheap and portable, but is less sensitive than the gold standard test used to diagnose early stage Ebola.
Ebola hemorrhagic fever since its emergence in West Africa has claimed more than 6,000 lives. The main reason for so many deaths was the early detection of EVD.
The current available evidence takes about four to six hours to detect EVD but delays in transporting samples to laboratories and get back results can mean a diagnosis takes several days.
Although the number of cases declined, but still rapid test can help in the campaign to identify patients infected with Ebola and lead to early treatment