• Planet 70% bigger than Jupiter found
• Cheap method to identify cancer could save millions

• India can have base on Moon: ISRO chief
• India launched the first Indian Arctic Expedition

India should start working on a programme to set up a base on the moon so that the country is not left behind in this race, the chief of Indian space agency ISRO said. "Global players have declared that by 2020, they will have their bases on the moon. I don't think India can afford to be lagging behind in that," Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair told a book release function here last night. "Given an opportunity, ISRO would be able to do it in due course. ISRO as an organisation, with the help of many other institutions, will be able to take up these challenges." Nair, also secretary in the Department of Space, said ISRO is currently defining technologies needed for India's first manned mission to space scheduled for 2015. "We have to do the work ourselves and develop very sophisticated technologies for making the capsule which can withstand the space environment and provide living conditions for human beings in space," he said. "If everything goes well, by 2015, Indian astronauts will be in an Indian capsule around the planet earth... From the earth to the moon is again a long journey. We may go to 500-600 km now. But to travel to three-and-half lakh km and come back safely is a herculean task." The function marked the release of "Touching Lives: The Little Known Triumphs of the Indian Space Programme", a book authored by retired IAS officer SK Das.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, August 19, 2007

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In a path-breaking discovery, astrophysicists in the UK have found the biggest known planet orbiting another star. The 'transiting' planet - meaning one that passes in front of its parent star as seen from Earth - is about 70% larger than Jupiter, reports BBC News website. But the new body has a much lower mass than Jupiter - the biggest planet in our solar system - making it of extremely low density. Details of the work are to appear in the latest edition of the Astrophysical Journal. The new exoplanet, called TrES-4, is located in the constellation of Hercules and was discovered by a team working on the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES). TrES-4 circles the star GSC02620-00648, which lies about 1,435 lightyears away from Earth. Being only about 7 million km from its parent star, the planet is also very hot, about 1,327°C. Because of the relatively weak pull exerted by TrES-4 on its upper atmosphere, some of the atmosphere probably escapes in a curved comet-like tail. "TrES-4 is the largest known exoplanet," said lead author Georgi Mandushev, from the Lowell Observatory. It is so big, in fact, that its size is difficult to explain using current scientific models of superheated giant planets. "We continue to be surprised by how relatively large these giant planets can be," says Francis O'Donovan, a graduate student in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) which operates one of the TrES telescopes. "But if we can explain the sizes of these bloated planets in their harsh environments, it may help us better understand our own solar system planets and their formation." By definition, a transiting planet passes directly between the Earth and the star, blocking some of the star's light and causing a slight drop in its brightness. "TrES-4 blocks off about 1% of the light of the star as it passes in front of it," said Mandushev. "With our telescopes and observing techniques, we can measure this tiny drop in the star's brightness and deduce the presence of a planet there." Planet TrES-4 makes a complete revolution around its parent star every 3.55 days, so a year on this planet is shorter than a week on Earth. The TrES, is a network of three 10cm telescopes in Arizona, California and the Canary Islands. In order to accurately measure the size of the TrES-4 planet, astronomers used the 0.8m telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, the 1.2m telescope at the Whipple Observatory, also in Arizona, and the 10m Keck telescope in Hawaii. The largest planet in the solar system, Jupiter, has been explored on several occasions by robotic spacecraft, most notably during the early Pioneer and Voyager fly-by missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. The latest probe to visit Jupiter was the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft in late February 2007.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, August 08, 2007

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New Delhi, 3 August. Union Minister for Science and Technology and earth Sciences Kapil Sibal today launched the first Indian Arctic Expedition as he handed over the National Flag to Rasik Ravindra, Director of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa who will lead a team consisting of Dr. S. M. Singh, Scientist from NCAOR, Dr. S. Shivaji, Dy. Director from CCMB, Hyderabad, Dr. C. G. Deshpande, Scientist from IITM, Pune and Dr. Dhruv Sen Singh, Lecturer, from University of Lucknow. At a formal sending off ceremony in New Delhi the Minister wished the team success in their planned scientific endeavours. To begin with the team will initiate the following three projects in collaboration with the Norwegian Polar Research Institute. The first Indian Arctic expedition marks a beginning of long term scientific research by Indian scientists in yet another arena of global scientific collaborative research in the difficult polar regions, since the first Indian scientific expedition landed in Antarctica in 1981. Currently, Norway, Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, have their research stations in Ny-Alesund for Arctic research.

Courtesy: www.jansamachar.net, August 03, 2007

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A cheap method to detect cervical cancer using vinegar, cotton gauze and a bright light could save millions of women worldwide, experts reported Friday.In a study published in the Lancet, researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France, together with colleagues from Tamil Nadu in India, said that a visual screening test to look for the early signs of cervical cancer reduced the numbers of cases by a quarter. "This is a landmark study," said Dr Harshad Sanghvi, medical director at Jhpiego, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, which has worked on preventing cervical cancer in poor countries. Sanghvi was unconnected to the Lancet study. Cervical cancer is largely preventable. It causes about 250,000 deaths every year and is the second-most common cancer in women. Nearly 80 per cent of those women are in the developing world. The test is done by a nurse or trained healthcare worker who washes a woman's cervix with vinegar and qauze using a speculum to hold it open. After one minute, any pre-cancerous lesions turn very white and can be seen with the naked eye under a halogen lamp. Officials used the technique among a group of 49,311 women, in Dindigul district, India, from 2000 to 2003. When pre-cancerous lesions were found, healthcare workers gave immediate treatment to destroy the abnormal cervical tissue. Another 30,958 women received standard care. They were told to watch for signs and symptoms of cervical cancer and encouraged to visit healthcare facilities where screening was available. These women were tracked from 2000 to 2006.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, August 03, 2007

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