Science

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has revealed a concept design that can carry a rover onto the Moon’s surface. This robotic ‘pallet lander’ concept can carry gears and rover of weight up to 300 kg.  The concept of the lander, which is a sort of space pallet, is dead simple. As it is still a concept, no name has been assigned to it. So, as of now, space pallet will do. It is basically a space-faring delivery truck that will help NASA to uncover new scientific discoveries. The concept design emerged during studies around the VIPER mission. The concept pallet would liftoff atop a commercial launch vehicle like Falcon 9 rocket. The vehicle would take it into a trans-lunar injection trajectory. A few days later, the concept space pallet would perform the required maneuvers. It will involve landing site selection, attitude control, braking and a soft touchdown with its solar panels facing the sun.

After landing on the surface, the lander will decide its own course of action for the next couple of hours. It would take images of the lunar surface and characterize its surroundings for researchers on Earth. After spending around 8 hours, it would shut down permanently. Yes, it has not been designed to survive the lunar night. Weeks-long nights on Moon are generally freezing and airless cold. It is very expensive to provide the required power and heating infrastructure that helps lander survive in such an atmosphere. However, any kind of presence on the surface is a powerful resource.

There are not many details about the kind of equipment that will be onboard. The US space agency is working closely with commercial partners to eventually transport science and technology payloads to the lunar surface. Though the concept space pallet is only for rover payloads, researchers could work upon this idea for the future human lander. NASA is aiming to explore the moon as much as possible and this why it is planning to send humans by 2028.

For the first time in 19 years, a team of scientists has discovered a new density of the HIV Virus, which can cause AIDS. The new subtype of deadly virus belongs to Group M of HIV-1 subtype L. The new strains of HIV can mutate over time like other subtypes of HIV. This is the first subtype of Group M HIV to be identified after guidelines for identifying HIV subtypes were established in 2000. As per Abbott Laboratories, it is essential to know what kind of HIV strain is in circulation to ensure the tests used for the diagnosis of the disease are effective. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious, said that the discovery of new HIV strain has provided a complete overview of HIV evolution.

Doctors said that the new strain of HIV is just an outlier and people should not panic about it. Scientists asserted that at least three cases of new HIV subtype must be detected to identify it. The first two cases of new subtype were detected in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1983 and 1990.  Both two strains were quite unusual and were different from other HIV subtypes. The third case of the new Group M subtype was found in 2011 in Congo during the study conducted to prevent mother-child transmission of the virus. Researchers found all three cases to be affected by the same strain of the virus but at that time, there was no technology to determine it as the new subtype.

Scientists of Abbott Laboratory and the University of Missouri have studied through for years to recognize the new strain of HIV as subtype L of Group M. However, it is quite uncertain that how this variant of the virus will impact the body. Around 36.7 million people are suffering from life-threatening disease of AIDS across the world as per the statistics of WHO. Almost 1.8 million people have been newly diagnosed with HIV in 2016, reported UNAIDS. The discovery of new subtype L of HIV reminds us that we need to research further into the mutating virus to end the pandemic of HIV.

NASA’s astronauts aboard the International Space Station have very little to do for fun but they never leave any opportunity to celebrate, even when they are high above the earth. The astronauts Jessica Meir, Andrew Morgan, and Christina Koch recently celebrated the current season of the MLB World Series by playing baseball inside the ISS. A video has been released which shows Meir tossing a pitch to Andrew Morgan. The ball can be seen floating inside the ISS due to the lack of gravity. Morgan used a short pipe-like object as a baseball bat to smack the ball back to Meir.

Christina Koch than picks a microphone to announce that they are proud to be from Houston, home of the nation’s astronaut corps. Koch also talked about the moon mission under which NASA is planning to land a man and woman astronauts near the lunar south pole by 2024. The corps is based at Lyndon B Johnson Space Center in Houston. It is the US space agency’s center for human spaceflight, where human spaceflight research, training, and flight control are conducted. However, the agency’s headquarter is based in Washington. The baseball match played by the three astronauts was to celebrate the World Series between the Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals.

Meir has also posted a photo of a baseball floating in the ISS’s seven-window Cupola module with the beautiful blue planet in the background. “This 28,160 km per hour fastball found its way to the ISS’ cupola,” Meir tweeted. We must tell you that the International Space Station circles Earth at about 28,160 km/h or 17,500 mph. This is not the first sports-related activity carried out inside the ISS. Earlier in March this year, astronauts shared images of ballparks that they clicked from space to celebrate the opening of the MLB’s 2019 regular season. The ISS astronauts had shared a video on Twitter that showed what 30 MLB ballparks would look like from space. The first pitch from space was thrown in 1995 to coincide with the opening pitch for the 5th game of the 1995 World Series.

A Japanese HTV cargo wagon is ready for its launch. The liftoff is on Tuesday according to U.S. time. It aboard a Sony-developed laser communications terminal, a powerful H-2B rocket, transporting six new lithium-ion batteries, some other equipment, and freshwater to the International Space Station. This freighter is unpiloted, set for its launch from the Tanegashima Space Center, at 2133:29 GMT. The spaceport is largest rocket-launch complex in Japan. Carved from rocky outcrops, located on the southeast coast of Tanegashima, it is overlooking the Pacific Ocean. HTV supply ship also called Kounotori 8. A Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, powerful H-2B rocket will drag Kounotori 8 into the orbit, heading southeast of the pacific on a 15-minute flight. Launch time is set for 6:33 a.m., according to Japan Standard Time on Wednesday. It is approximately the time when the earth’s rotation will bring Tanegashima launch complex under the international space station’s orbital plane.

H-2B rocket is around 186-foot-tall i.e., 56.6-meter. It is set to roll out Tuesday from Launch Pad No. 2 situated at Tanegashima. The launch crew will connect the freighter’s mobile transporter to ground electrical and fluid supplies. Liquid Oxygen and Super-Cold Liquid Hydrogen will be powering both the stages of the launcher and will be flowing into the rocket around an hour before the launch. The rockets main engine, stage LE-7A, will ignite during the final seconds of the countdown. After this four strap-on rocket boosters will ignite and generates around 2.5 million pounds of propulsion, to push the launcher off the pad. Then the rocket’s guidance computer will direct the rocket to the southeast so that it aligns with the orbital plane of ISS. After this stage, four strap-on boosters will burn out completely and unload around two minutes after launch. At this stage, the rocket’s payload fairing, which will be shielding the HTV supply ship, will be separated at approximately T plus 3 minutes and 40 seconds.

The crew of six-persons present inside the space station will be unpacking 5,313 pounds of cargo present inside the ships’ pressurized logistics carrier. In the meantime, robots present out of the station will extract a pallet from the Kounotori’s unpressurized cargo bay. Unpressurized cargo bay consists of 6 li-ion batteries to enhance the ISS’s power system.

Just add Space to any word, and suddenly any mundane word is way sexier than it was before. For example, Space Laws, Space Marriages, Space Babies, and even Space Archaeology! Now adding up to this list is Space Crime.  Tons of news stories have speculated upon what could have been the world’s first space crime. Recently in a letter to NASA and a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, Summer Worden indicted her estranged partner, Anne McClain, who is an astronaut, of identity theft. The two agree that astronaut accessed Summer’s bank account while on-board the International Space Station. But according to McClain’s lawyer, this is something astronaut had always been doing during the couple’s relationship, and McClain persistently denies that she did anything wrong. Authorities are still inspecting the case.

Although this situation is pretty tame, identity theft is a severe concern and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Nonetheless, no one in this condition was in immediate danger. McClain doesn’t even use or moved funds around. Also thanks to signed Intergovernmental agreement that according to which the U.S. has jurisdiction in this situation. According to the agreement that if a crime is committed on the space station, and if it does not affect any other party then the crime remains under the jurisdiction of the nation who committed the crime. But according to the knowledge about human behavior that too on Earth, there is no reason that human won’t act poorly in space also. Space crime that appears poised is anticipated to get messy. There are going to be lawbreaking and cases of negligence, and human still doesn’t have any system to deal with that yet.

It would be smart to establish rules before a significant space crime is committed. According to Gangale likens space crime resembles the earthquakes, i.e., we know it’s coming, but we don’t know what we can do about it, at least not yet. There can be opportunities that we can completely reform our criminal justice system. However, the scenario is we are more likely going to adapt terrestrial laws to handle space crime. Although declaring that human rights can be applied in the space could be our first step, but laying out other explicit rights. for instance, right to oxygen, hence lack of it would be certain death. Also, rights to external communication, as a spaceship commander who can cut off travelers’ abilities to call for help.

Today, Google released a new Migration tool for its Anthos based Hybrid cloud platform. To promote Hybrid cloud platform service based on Anthos Platform, the company released this new tool. With the new Migration tool, enterprises can easily migrate to Google’s Hybrid Cloud platform. With the ability to transfer the data from on-premises to a hybrid cloud, the tool will help enterprises to switch to the cloud platform of Google. The company released an Anthos based Hybrid cloud platform last year, which runs on the Kubernetes container orchestration software framework.

The cloud platform is designed to allow the companies to run unmodified apps on the cloud and also on-premises. The system will be helpful for the companies to choose the suitable working environment in multiple places. With the unmodified apps running on the on-premises hardware and also virtually on public cloud to access from other computers. Anthos based applications are deployed in the software components and are helpful to work on the individual components for easier processing. With this system, the developers can use a single set of tools and push the updates to all of the software programs conveniently. Kubernetes is helpful to manage the large cluster of container apps deployed on the network.

Eyal Manor, Google Cloud’s vice president of engineering, said that With the Migrate for Anthos tool, the customers could easily migrate and manage the container apps for the enterprises. He also said that the new approach would help Google to modernize the existing infrastructure investments. Not just the Anthos, but Google is providing ways to migrate the virtual machines directly to Compute Engine Service. The Computer Engine Service is based on traditional cloud servers, making it useful for Virtual Machines. Along with this tool, Google also released an update for Service Mesh Infrastructure Layer.

 

When it comes to managing businesses, one thing which every business person want to pay fewer taxes. However, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and other big companies might be on the verge of paying more taxes in Europe. Recently the French Parliament passed a bill which stated that big tech companies would have to pay a more significant amount of taxes. There has been a hard situation for many big companies because they had always been under the radar of French government for paying higher taxes. Under this new proposal, the French government is expecting to earn $543 million more of tax revenue.

Europe is getting quite serious about putting a high rate of taxes on big companies because they might receive an enormous amount of revenues. However, for big tech firms, the problem doesn’t end here because other countries in Europe are also trying to walk on the path of French. UK government is also planning to bring the same tax legislature for such prominent companies which will bring them more revenue. Boris Johnson, who is expected to be elected as the next prime minister of Britain is also in support of this new tax legislation.

There have been many cases of data scandal where tech companies like Google, Facebook had to pay billions of dollars in penalty. Now, after bringing new rules like GDPR, Europe is trying to strengthen its tax structure for big companies. However, things like tax havens have always worked for them because in such a situation a company registers in those continents where tax slabs are zero, and companies show that they are operating from there. Some experts think raising tax rates are going to increase more problems since more companies would use tax havens for saving millions of dollars.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will ban single-use plastics by as soon as 2021. While speaking during a press conference at Quebec’s Gault Nature Reserve, Mr Trudeau said the government has not yet prepared the list of items to ban. But Canada’s government intends to analyze which plastics seem harmful for the environment and it will declare the list accordingly. Thus the government is taking steps ahead on a science-based perspective to determine which items to eliminate as of 2021. The Prime Minister noted that the government will make an obligation for businesses to regulate what plastics they produce and sell.

The Canadian leader added it is difficult to attempt to explain to his children why dead whales are emerging on seashores. Even more, most of the times plastic is liable for their death as they have stomachs jammed with plastic bags. Mr Trudeau said as parents when they go to the beach with kids, they have to seek a place free from garbage like straws and bottles. As per the executive, it is a problem that requires some action and calls it as a global issue. Thus Mr Trudeau said he is very pleased to announce that as early as 2021, Canada will ban damaging, single-use plastic throughout Canada.

Canada is a country having the longest coastline in the world. Citing this, the PM said Canada is a prime position to make a move against plastic pollution in the ocean. According to Mr Trudeau, many other countries are trying to combat plastic pollution and Canada will be one of them. On the other hand, the Canadian government reveals less than 10% of the nation’s plastic is recycled. Besides, people in Canada dump more than three million tons of plastic waste every year. Thus the Canadian Prime Minister has announced plans to tackle the issue. He has even framed a few means that the country will undertake to limit plastic waste.

NASA sent cargo shipment to the International Space Station last month, with the necessary supplies and also the cube-shaped robot to help the astronauts onboard. The robots were named as astrobees, and now the space agency has shared the first images of the robots helping the astronauts in daily routine. Amongst the shared images, we can see a cube-shaped robot, named as “bumble.” NASA also shared some more information about how these cube-shaped robots work and help the astronauts and what is the significance of sending these robots on the International Space Station.

The main aim of the robots is to help the astronauts in tedious tasks, which would take most of the times. With the help of robots like Bumble, the astronauts can complete specific tasks without actually involved in the same and without spending much time. Most of the everyday functions which would require manual labor like inventory management, moving around cargo, and using cameras to document experiments. The Spacebees robots are designed to work in the Microgravity environment at the International Space Station so the astronauts won’t face any issues with the maneuver of these small robots.

In the images shared by NASA, we can spot Bumble Robot with astronaut Anne McClain. She performed specific experiments in collaboration with the ground control with Bumble. The tests include the experiments to confirm the working condition of the features like propulsion, cameras, avionics, docking, and ability to transfer data in the microgravity environment. The docking system enables the robots to return to the docking station once they’ve completed the assigned tasks or need to charge the batteries. All of the Astro bees robots utilize the electric fans to navigate through the weightless environment. Also, they can fly freely in the International Space Station.

In South China, a spectacular discovery has been done by scientists regarding rare and precious fossils. Mysterious life forms that were caught underground half a billion years ago are now the focus of scientists for research. Near Danshui River, a bed of around 30,000 fossils has been found and paleontologists have dated these fossils back to Cambrian period i.e. 518 million years back. It is a rare fossil bed and known as Lagerstätte. About 4,351 specimens of the epic find have been analyzed by the researchers. In this analysis, about eight different algae and 101 multicellular species have been identified. From these species, 53 percent are totally new for the scientists. These new species could help to know more about the explosion of animal life on our planet.

It is believed that multi-cellular life may have emerged about 635 million years ago i.e. in the Ediacarian Period. Discovery of these new species sounds like one of the major animal phyla which may have been seen on the fossil records in about 25 million years in the world. These species must have diversified to produce all the multi-cellular lives present today. With time, the tissues degrade. As a result of this, the fossil records are rather patchy and are confined to very few shale beds around the globe. Other shale beds are found in Burgess Shale, in Canada, in Sweden, in Chengjiang in China, Australia, Greenland, etc.

During the Cambrian period, shale beds were present in the form of fine silt mud on the seafloors. The creatures in the oceans died and fell on the seafloor. They were then buried by the silt falling on it. Their bodies were preserved by a slow but long geological process. Pressure and heat hardened the silt into shale to some extent. Such an incredible process of preservation captured all the impressions of these soft-bodied creatures and we can study it after millions of years. There are fossil fuels of box jellies, anemones, jellyfish, sponges proliferate, branched algae, etc. which are missing from other deposits. Paleontologists believe that this is the best of best discoveries till now.

Before a few months, the scientists were bracing for a collapse in the number of butterflies, but, they are seen everywhere now, in thousands of numbers. In La Cienega near Westfield Mall or in Santa Anitaor along the 105 freeway, butterflies are seen flapping their wings in large numbers. In southern California, these attractive creatures are being found almost everywhere. They are being called Painted Ladies and seen migrating across the state in high numbers. This migration of the butterflies is not a new thing. These Painted Ladies migrate from Mojave and Colorado deserts of southeastern California as the winters end and spring starts. Every year they travel on the same path and fly to Sacramento en route to Oregon, Washington and are also seen in Alaska.

This year, many butterflies, 2-3 inches long, are also huge parts this journey. After the year 2005, it has been the first time when these butterflies have crossed a population of 1 billion. An ecologist at UC Davis, Art Shapiro, who is tracking butterflies for about 50 years in the state, says that no one notices these Painted Ladies when they are scarce. But when they are in abundance, everyone notices them. The conservation director at Gardens in Palm Desertat and The Living Desert Zoo, James Danoff-Burg encountered a group of these butterflies and said that it was magical to see them. They were flying parallel with her in the date palms. She felt like a princess in Disney at that time.

Many other people have witnessed this beautiful plight offered by the Butterfly migration. Researchers used to say that the butterflies are declining for decades. However, this explosion of Painted Ladies in California is good news against this declining crisis. But there is a cause of worry for sure. Butterfly populations are being hit and about 20 species are disappearing at a faster rate, as per an ecologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, Matt Forister. When compared to 40 years of data, the iconic orange-and-black insects had dropped by 85% in numbers.

Houseplants were being used as a home décor are also helpful in improving your health. Such plants not only make the rooms look beautiful but can contribute to the indoor environment as well. Due to such reasons, many people choose houseplants and it is becoming an obsession, especially in cities. The importance of being close to nature is huge and people are now trying to create such an environment inside their homes.

These six houseplants are the best for cleaning indoor air. It includes Mums Chrysanthemum, Peace Lily Spathiphyllum, Snake Plant Sanseveieria, Aloe Vera Aloe barabensis, Boston Fern Nephrolepis exaltata and Rubber Tree Ficus elastic. These houseplants can bring life to the home and indoor environments.

The weathers in cities, suburban areas, etc. are polluted and so, people feel the need to go close to nature. When they can build a natural environment in the home itself, then what is the need to worry? There are a variety of interesting plants available in the market, which beautify the homes and make the environment healthy as well.

Science says that adding greenery to your house helps in reducing stress levels. It reduces depression. It humidifies a dry apartment. As per NASA, houseplants purify the inside air in a natural way. The apartments which are not ventilated properly have lots of stagnant air and pollution in them. Such apartments can lead to sick building syndrome as per NASA and EPA. This syndrome can lead to low moods and even symptoms like nausea, headaches, dizziness, eyes or nose irritation, etc.

As per the reports from NASA, 30 % of the newly designed indoors have issues with indoor pollution, though the ventilation seems good enough. Furnishings, synthetic building materials, upholstery, cleaning products, other electronic gadgets like ACs, refrigerators, etc. increase indoor pollution, may it be an office or an apartment. The above-mentioned houseplants are the best solution for this. NASA scientists have researched on these plants and then approved them.

The cluster of stars formed nearly one billion years ago transformed into a long stellar system. The stellar system of the stars created by the gravity of our milky way galaxy is flowing like a river in our Milky Way. The scientists and astronomers spotted the stream of stars just now and announced the news. The same stream of stars was seen already like a bunch of stars, but later it was found that the stars were hiding in the plain sight.

As of now, the star cluster stellar system is passing from near the earth. The approximate distance from the stars and the earth is 330 light years, and that is freaking close in the astronomical calculations. The astronomers and physicists found out that the stars were moving in the cluster and passing from one corner of our galaxy to another angle. According to the scientists, this river of stars could help them calculate the mass of milky way, and that’s something stellar that scientists want to spot. 3-D mapping data from Gaia, the spacecraft of the European Space Agency detected the stars first and determined their size. The cluster or stellar system as scientists prefer to say is 1,300 light-years long and 130 light years wide.

According to the data, scientists concluded that the stars moved in the group at the same speed and at same direction over time. At first, they thought it’s just a cluster of stars, but then the speed and direction of the stars confirmed that these are the part of Star River. There are many stellar systems in the space that are moving around, but difficult to spot because of the camouflage. But the rare occasion of them moving near the earth helped the scientists to detect the same. They were hiding in the plain sight from last one billion years.