Day to Day Science

Scientists have discovered five new Jupiter-like planets that are similar in characteristics to our solar system’s biggest planet and orbit very close to their host stars. Researchers from Keele University in the United Kingdom used the Wide Angle Search for Planets-South (WASP-South) instrument — an array of eight cameras observing selected regions of the southern sky, to study five stars showing planet-like transits in their light curve.

A day-long census of birds that arrived at Otteri Lake in Vandalur was carried out by the Forest Department on Friday. The census is an annual feature and focusses on the arrival of new birds and the increase in their numbers compared to the previous years, officials said.

WASHINGTON:  Six Indian-Americans are among a talented group of 106 scientists and engineers who will be honoured by US President Barack Obama with a prestigious award, the highest US government prize for young independent researchers. The Indian Americans selected for the Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers are Milind Kulkarni (Purdue University), Kiran Musunuru (Harvard University), Sachin Patel (Vanderbilt University Medical Centre), Vikram Shyam (NASA), Rahul Mangharam (University of Pennsylvania) and Shwetak Patel (University of Washington), according to a White House statement.

Washington: Sky enthusiasts in parts of Southeast Asia will be treated to a total solar eclipse lasting for over a minute in every location on its path on March 8, 2016 EST (March 9 local time).

Scientists on Thursday said they have for the first time detected gravitational waves hypothesised by physicist Albert Einstein a century ago, in a landmark discovery that opens a new window for studying the cosmos. The researchers said they detected gravitational waves coming from two black holes — extraordinarily dense objects whose existence also was foreseen by Einstein — that orbited one another, spiralled inward and smashed together. They said the waves were the product

A century ago, Albert Einstein hypothesised the existence of gravitational waves, small ripples in space and time that dash across the universe at the speed of light. But scientists have been able to find only indirect evidence of their existence. On Thursday, at a news conference called by the US National Science Foundation, researchers may announce at long last direct observations of the elusive waves.

1729 is the sum of two cubes in two different ways. As numbers go, 1729, the Hardy-Ramanujan number, is not new to math enthusiasts. But now, this number has triggered a major discovery — on Ramanujan and the theory of what are known as elliptical curves.

On his 182nd birth anniversary, we bring to you seven amazing facts about Dmitri Mendeleev and the Periodic Table:

Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, who became the sixth man on the moon when he and Alan Shepard helped NASA recover from Apollo 13’s “successful failure” has died in Florida. He was 85. Mitchell died Thursday night at a West Palm Beach hospice after a short illness, his daughter, Kimberly Mitchell, said. Mitchell’s passing coincides with the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 14 mission, which ran from Jan. 31-Feb. 9, 1971.

New Delhi, Feb 4 (PTI) In a bid to strengthen interaction between India and Europe in the field of molecular biology, the Ministry of Science and Technology today signed an agreement to acquire the status of Associate Member State of European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). Researchers working in India will now be eligible to participate in all EMBO programmes and activities and Indian scientists can apply for its programmes, such as long-term fellowships for postdoctoral researchers, short-term fellowships, courses and workshops, as well as the EMBO Young Investigator Programme.

Maths is a scary subject for many — but for scientist at Universities of York in the US and Turin in Italy, advanced calculations can help improve human health globally. The team used mathematics as a tool to provide precise details of the structure of protein nanoparticles that show great promise as future vaccine carriers and useful in vaccine design.

A long standing environmental mystery appears to have been solved - and it may contain lessons for today's runaway global warming. Scientists have long puzzled over the fact that twenty thousand years ago, carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere fell so low that the earth was enveloped in ice, the era now known as the Ice Age.

New York: In a first, researchers including one of Indian origin have directly converted carbon dioxide from thin air into methanol fuel - a discovery that can create a sustainable fuel source from greenhouse gas emissions in the near future. Methanol is a clean-burning fuel for internal combustion engines, a fuel for fuel cells and a raw material used to produce many petrochemical products.