Hellacious Lava Fountains on Jupiter’s Moon Io: Curtains of Fire

Pooja Kashyap

Within a two-week period Io, Jupiter’s moon, experienced two massive outbursts in August 2013. Astronomers speculated that these volcanic eruptions could be regular phenomenon that can spew materials in huge quantities above the surface. If we talk about ratio, it could be somewhere from one huge outburst per one or two years but Io suggested more than this. Io is the innermost moon out of the planet’s four large Galilean moons. It is more than 3,600 km across. It is the only space body that is known so far, by…

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Japan to create Space Force to Monitor Debris: The Fourth Battlefield

Pooja Kashyap

Space debris are affecting our vital services and if it continuous to do so then time is not far when we would no longer be able to communicate, the financial markets would be paralyzed, no TV, no internet, no phone calls, no satellites, life would come to a halt, literally! Satellite collisions would initiate the catastrophic snow balling effect amplifying the cascade of destruction. The movie Gravity did call for some serious thinking about the impacts that debris can cause. Although the movie had some serious flaws but that is…

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Glucose Sensor in Brain Discovered: Controlling Blood-Sugar Level

Pooja Kashyap

Experts at Yale School of Medicine have identified a control switch of glucose within brain that has a direct linkage with both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Ventromedial nucleus (VMN, or ventromedial hypothalamus, VMH) is a nucleus of the hypothalamus that contains an enzyme called the prolyl endopeptidase. This enzyme initiates a chain of steps that assist in controlling the levels of glucose in blood stream. Researchers envision that this finding would help them in leading towards new treatments for diabetes.

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New Spray-on Solar Cells: Thin-film Photovoltaic Technology

Pooja Kashyap

In an interesting way, a group of researchers at the University of Sheffield was able to develop perovskite solar cells with the help of spray-painting process. Although the process is not new but using perovskite as a spraying material is being employed for the first time. Sheffield’s experts from the department of Physics and Biological Engineering have already used the spray-painting process to fabricate solar cells but the material used was organic semiconductors. In 2012, the researchers were able to successfully demonstrate the efficiency of photovoltaics based on organometal halide…

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Earlier Asteroid Impacts led to the formation of Earth’s Crust: Geological Evolution

Pooja Kashyap

Last year we talked about how meteor impact led to pastoral revolution and now recent research on Earth’s surface revealed that the planet was in a constant reprocessing process due to the huge asteroid impacts. The new approach utilizing the terrestrial bombardment model based on lunar and terrestrial data disclosed that asteroid collisions where the game changer which caused evolution of the topmost layers of Earth during its initial stages, which happened around 4.5b years ago. Yvonne Pendleton, NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) Director added that repeated…

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Color changing Ice Cream: Fruit-flavoured treat invented by a Physicist

Pooja Kashyap

In an interested way in doing something unconventional, a Spanish physicist pioneered in preparing magical ice cream that changes color as it is tasted in a cone. Wanting to do something different from the usual research work, the engineer, professor and physicist Manuel Linares thought of doing something in the line of cookery. His love for ice cream and fascination towards the phenomenon, which causes its change in color under fluorescent lights, compelled him to create an ice cream that varies in color as per the temperature and acids found…

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Building 3D Products in Space: Printing the Metals of the Future

Pooja Kashyap

One of the major drawbacks of 3D printing is its lack of ability to use varied types of materials in printing a particular product. The same inability has been hindering 3D printing in space travel as well, where at times, situation demands fabrication of certain parts from several different materials. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) space scientists in collaboration with researchers from Caltech and Penn State University have been working closely to resolve this problem of bringing 3D printing closer to space travel. They developed a process that allowed for…

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Damaged Robot learns to Hobble Quickly: Coping with Limb Loss

Pooja Kashyap

Last year, a set of researchers at the Sorbonne University, Paris created a hexapod that was able to figure out how to walk even after one of its legs was malfunctioned, just like animals do. The robot was very much dependent on an experimental discovery to carry out the best gait to surmount the caused damaged. This meant that it analyzed then entire stuff that has been programmed into it to figure out the best possible way. Although, this worked fine but it consumed nearly 20 minutes every time it…

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Flexible and Enduring Rechargeable Battery: Reshaping landscape for Wearable Devices

Pooja Kashyap

In an effort to reshape the battery landscape, Imprint Energy, a California based startup is fabricating flexible and rechargeable batteries, which can be printed using the very common industrial screen printers. The firm envisions to market the ultrathin zinc based polymer batteries to wearable electronics manufacturers and pitch the same in medical field, robotics and military for environmental sensors and smart labels.

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Black Holes morph into White Holes: Space-Time Loops cause Big Bounce

Pooja Kashyap

As per a recent theory, supernova explosions could be the dying throes of black holes that were formed soon after the Big Bang. The phenomenon called black holes have been the most flabbergasting observable fact of the universe and until now, there has been no concrete evidence as to what is on its other side and what happens to the matter that it engulfs. However, two physicists have gone ahead and postulated that these black holes have an expiry date too and that they morph into ‘white holes’ explosively dispersing…

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DARPA’s Guided Bullets: Revolutionizing Rifle Accuracy or Developing Tools for RoboSoldiers

Pooja Kashyap

In an interesting ammunition research development program, DARPA has come about with a technology that could change mid flight direction of bullet only to hit the target down. Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance program under DARPA brought about the first live-fire tests showing the in-flight guidance of .50-caliber bullets. EXACTO is able to demonstrate the maneuvering of bullet’s direction while it’s in mid flight only to counter balance the aim that is being set by the sniper. Agency released the following video depicting the test flight of 0.50-caliber bullets that were…

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US military to develop a Reusable Unmanned Spacecraft: The Experimental Spaceplane project

Pooja Kashyap

The US military is looking forward to create an affordable and efficient robotic space plane that has an ability of embarking payloads directly into the orbit. DARPA has already granted the design contract to three firms namely, Boeing, Masten Space Systems and Northrop Grumman. For the initial stage of the Experimental Spaceplane project, also called the XS-1, the firms have collaborated with similar other aerospace companies. For instance, Boeing is working with Blue Origin, Masten is teaming up with XCOR Aerospace and Northrop Grumman is collaborating with the Virgin Galactic.…

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World’s Largest Wind Solar Hybrid: Saving Over $2 Million in Energy Costs

Pooja Kashyap

Lately, in Jamaica wind-solar array has been installed, which happens to be the world’s first such arrangement. This hybrid array boasts of providing the maximum renewable energy density of any technology on the market. Energy limit of more than 106,000 kWh is expected to churn out yearly. WindStream Technologies, the renewable energy tech firm envision that the longevity of the project is around 25 years and the energy cost savings is graphed to go beyond $US 2 million. However, the return on investment will start showing itself within the consequent…

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Sleep Deprivation leads to Memory Errors: Getting Brainwashed

Neha Shukla

We already know the importance of a good night’s sleep. Taking around 8 hours of sound sleep is considered essential for the body, as it is the time when the brain gets rid of its toxins. But in today’s fast paced life, people often have to give up on their sleep to catch up with other work. This lack of sleep has been already reported as a public health epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Habitability is Dependent on Ocean: Water bodies Influence Climate Stability

Neha Shukla

There is a lot of research work going to find traces of life on other planets and to find elements that are essential requisites for sustaining life on other Earth-like planets. All the research done so far using computer simulations were more focused on the atmosphere of these alien planets with Earth-like habitable climates. 

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