Technology

Debris in the ocean, such as plastic and glass, has been having a life-threatening global impact on marine life.

Nearly 700 species of marine animal have been recorded as having encountered man-made debris according to the most comprehensive impact study in more than a decade.

Researchers at Plymouth University found evidence of 44,000 animals and organisms becoming entangled in, or swallowing debris, from reports recorded from across the globe.

Former ISRO chairman Dr. K. Radhakrishnan has said the Mangalyaan mission had stirred a lot of interest among the youngsters as they appreciated the organization’s work through their messages on social media.

Dr. Radhakrishnan stressed that children should be taught science in such a way that they take it up as an activity and added that the lesson from the Mangalyaan mission had been to accept failure and analyze the reason behind it.

Researchers have developed a new candidate for malaria vaccine with the help of algae-produced malaria parasite protein.

Paired with an immune-boosting cocktail suitable for use in humans, the algae-produced protein generated antibodies in mice that nearly eliminated mosquito infection by the malaria parasite.

Besides its effectiveness as a protein producer, algae is an advantageous tool for developing vaccines because it is cheap, easy and environmentally friendly.

A new research has revealed that moths evade enemy sonar with a flick of the tail.

The research showed that luna moths spin their trailing hindtails as they fly, confusing the sonar cries bats use to detect prey and other objects.

The collaborative work between University of Florida and Boise State University researchers was a first step in determining why bats are lured into striking a false target.

A team of scientists has unveiled the first comprehensive maps and analyses of the epigenomes of a wide array of human cell and tissue types.

Epigenomes are patterns of chemical annotations to the genome that determine whether, how, and when genes are activated and because epigenomes orchestrate normal development of the body, and disruptions in epigenetic control are known to be involved in a wide range of disorders from cancer to autism to heart disease, the massive trove of data is expected to yield many new insights into human biology in both health and disease.

A new study has revealed that Indo-European languages that comprises from English to Greek to Hindi, first emerged ca. 6500 years ago.

Linguists have long agreed that languages from English to Greek to Hindi, known as ‘Indo-European languages’, are the modern descendants of a language family which first emerged from a common ancestor spoken thousands of years ago.

A team of scientists has introduced needle-free vaccination that can stimulate the immune response of the human skin.

Vaccination is an effective method of stimulating the human body’s immune system to fight against various pathogens (e.g. bacteria, viruses) and worldwide vaccination needs safe, easy-to-use and inexpensive tools for vaccine administration. The skin immune system is a promising target as the skin lies directly in front of us.

A team of scientists has created a potential long-acting HIV therapeutic.

New molecule, which shows promise for controlling HIV without daily antiretroviral drugs, foils a wider range of HIV strains in the laboratory than any known broadly neutralizing HIV antibody and is more powerful than some of the most potent of these antibodies.

In addition, the molecule safely protected monkeys from infection with an HIV-like virus during a 40-week study period. Together, the data suggest that the molecule could, with further research, be used to subdue HIV in humans.

A new study has recently revealed that Neanderthal groups assigned some of their tasks according to the gender.

Study performed by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), analyzed 99 incisors and canine teeth of 19 individuals from three different sites (El Sidron, in Asturias – Spain, L’Hortus in France, and Spy in Belgium), reveals that the dental grooves present in the female fossils follow the same pattern, which was different to that found in male individuals.

Analyses showed that all Neanderthal individuals, regardless of age, had dental grooves .

NASA’s spacecraft has captured a solar shockwave in action for the first time ever.

On Oct. 8, 2013, an explosion on the Sun’s surface sent a supersonic blast wave of solar wind out into space. This shockwave tore past Mercury and Venus, blitzing by the Moon before streaming toward Earth. The shockwave struck a massive blow to the Earth’s magnetic field, setting off a magnetized sound pulse around the planet.

A new study has provided a deeper insight into how the amount of galaxy’s mysterious dark matter determines the size of its central black hole.

The research of football-shaped collections of stars called elliptical galaxies provides new insights into the connection between a galaxy and its black hole. It finds that the invisible hand of dark matter somehow influences black hole growth.

Ants do not go outside to do their business when nature calls and may use the corners of their nests as ‘toilets’, a study shows.

“For ants, which like us live in very dense communities, sanitation is a big problem,” said lead researcher Tomer Czaczkes from the University of Regensburg, Germany.

Little research has been done on ant sanitary behaviour, so the authors of this study conducted an experiment to determine whether distinct brown patches they observed forming in ants’ nests were feces.

A team of scientists has produced malaria vaccine candidate from algae that prevents transmission of the malaria parasite from host to mosquito.

Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine used algae as a mini-factory to produce a malaria parasite protein, which paired with an immune-boosting cocktail suitable for use in humans, generated antibodies in mice that nearly eliminated mosquito infection by the malaria parasite.

Exactly 85 years after Pluto’s discovery, the NASA spacecraft set to encounter the icy dwarf planet this summer has spotted small moons orbiting Pluto.

The moons, Nix and Hydra, are visible in a series of images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft at distances ranging from about 201 million-186 million km.

The long-exposure images offer New Horizons’ best view yet of these two small moons circling Pluto which professor Clyde Tombaugh discovered at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona Feb 18, 1930.