About 25 scientists/technicians will be stationed at this new station.
NEW INDIAN RESEARCH CENTER IN ANTARCTICA
Tuesday, April 13, 2010 | By CHEMGENE
India is in process of setting up a new research station on Larsemann Hills, East Antarctica, to carry out scientific studies on atmospheric, biological, earth sciences etc.
About 25 scientists/technicians will be stationed at this new station.
About 25 scientists/technicians will be stationed at this new station.
NANO TECHNOLOGY CENTRES IN INDIA
| By CHEMGENE
The Union Government has already supported seven Centres for Nano Technology in various institutions within the country. A separate independent institute of Nano Science and Technology is set up at Mohali. The Union Government also proposes to support a Centre for Nano Science and Technology as part of an existing institute in Bangalore.
The proposed Centre for Nano Science and Technology at Bangalore will focus on research on novel nano-materials. This Centre will be set up by May 2010. The proposed budget for this Centre is Rs. 113 crore for the remaining period of the XI Plan. However, no funds have been released so far, as the project is yet to receive sanction of the Government.
STEM CELL BANKING IN INDIA
| By CHEMGENE
Stem cell banking is being done in the private sector in the country. In addition, the Government is providing support to the public-funded institutions to generate human embryonic stem cell lines and their storage for research purpose.
The Department of Biotechnology and Indian Council of Medical Research have jointly formulated guidelines for stem cell research and therapy. The guidelines also include cord blood banking and human embryonic stem cell banking. Region-wise public consultation is in progress on these guidelines.This was stated by Shri Prithviraj Chavan, the Minister of State (I/C) for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences in the Lok Sabha.
FIRST HUMAN GENOME SEQUENCING IN INDIA
| By CHEMGENE
The sequencing of first human genome in India by Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB), Delhi, a constituent laboratory of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has helped our country join the league of select countries undertaking advanced research in the area of genomics.
The sequencing of human genome requires high computational capability and technological know-how in handling sophisticated machines and analyzing huge volumes of data. CSIR generated the human genome sequence data using commercially available reagents and next generation sequencing instruments. The assembly and mapping of the human genome was indigenously accomplished by effectively integrating complex computational and bioinformatics tools with high throughput analytical capabilities using super computers at CSIR-IGIB. The computational and bioinformatics know-how have been developed at CSIR over the last decade. The cost of human genome sequencing done at CSIR-IGIB is comparable with similar recent efforts world over. This was stated by Shri Prithviraj Chavan, the Union Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences in the Rajya Sabha .
VERTICAL-LAUNCH VERSION OF BRAHMOS TEST-FIRED SUCCESSFULLY
| By CHEMGENE
The vertical-launch version of supersonic BrahMos cruise missile was successfully test-fired by the navy from a warship in the Bay of Bengal off the coast of Orissa. With this test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory
BrahMos aerospace chief A Sivathanu Pillai told that the missile was launched from Indian Navy ship INS Ranvir and it manoeuvred successfully hitting the target ship. It was a perfect hit and a perfect mission. With this test, India has become the first and only country in the world to have a manoeuvrable supersonic cruise missile in its inventory.
The software of the missile, which has a range of 290 kms, was improved and proved its capability of manoeuvrability at supersonic speeds before hitting the target.
The test-firing was part of the pre-induction tests by the Navy as moves are afoot to deploy the vertical-launch version of the missile in ships. The weapon system has been designed and developed by the Indo-Russian joint venture company.
All the three Indian Navy’s Talwar class ships, under construction in Russia, have been fitted with vertical launchers and many other ships will also be equipped with them.
The navy had earlier carried out several tests of the BrahMos but most of them had been done from inclined launchers abroad INS Rajput. The missile is already in service with the Navy and its Shivalik class frigates have been equipped with it.
BrahMos has also been inducted into the Army and preparations are on to develop its air-launched and the submarine-launched versions.Valleys Of Neptune
INDIA TEST FIRES NUKE CAPABLE PRITHVI-II AND DHANUSH MISSILES
| By CHEMGENE
‘Prithvi-II’ ballistic missile, which has a maximum range of 295 km, was successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur, about 15 km from Balasore, off the Orissa coast.
The indigenously developed surface-to-surface missile was test fired at around 0548 hours from a mobile launcher from the ITR launch complex-3.
The test firing of the short-range, surface-to-surface ballistic missile, which has already been inducted into the armed forces, was a user trial by the Indian army.
The sleek missile is “handled by the strategic force command”, the sources said. Prithvi, the first ballistic missile developed under the country’s prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), has the capability to carry 500 kg of warheads and is thrusted by liquid propulsion twine engine.
It uses an advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory and reach the targets with few meter accuracy. It has a length of 9 meters with 1 metre diameter.
The entire trajectory of this days trial was tracked down by a battery of sophisticated radars and an electro-optic telemetry stations were positioned in different locations for post-launch analysis, they said.
A naval ship had been anchored near the impact point in the down range of Bay of Bengal and long-range tracking radar (LRTR) as well as a multi-function tracking radar (MFTR) had been deployed to track the missile’s trajectory.
‘Dhanush’ missile test fired India on 27th March 27, 2010 successfully test fired its ship-based ballistic missile ‘Dhanush’, with a range of 350 km, from a naval vessel off the Orissa coast.
The missile was fired from INS-Subhadra in the Bay of Bengal near Puri by Indian Navy personnel as part of user training exercise, Defence sources said.
The nuclear-capable ‘Dhanush’, a naval version of ‘Prithvi’, was test-fired at 0544 hours.
The missile followed the pre-designated trajectory with text-book precision and two naval ships located near the target have tracked the splash.
According to the sources, the 350-km range missile will give Indian navy the capability to launch a missile on enemy’s targets with great precisions The sophisticated radar systems located along the coast monitored entire trajectory of the vehicle.
The single stage missile is powered by liquid propellants. It is 10-metre long and weighs six tonnes. It has one metre diameter and can carry 500 kg warhead.
NASA LAUNCHES LATEST HIGH-TECH WEATHER SATELLITE
| By CHEMGENE
The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-P (GOES-P) lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at 2357 GMT yesterday on a Delta IV rocket which will carry the weather-watching satellite to its orbit around 35,406 kilometre above the Earth’s surface.
“GOES-P is on its way into orbit to begin a 10-year mission to keep a watchful eye on our world,” NASA said on Thursday on the satellite’s launch blog, noting that all systems were performing “exactly as expected.”
Once it reaches its orbit, GOES-P will collect and send back to Earth data that will be used by scientists to monitor weather, make forecasts and issue warnings about meteorological incidents
The satellite will also detect ocean and land temperatures, monitor space weather, relay communications and provide search-and-rescue support.
GOES-P is the latest in a long line of GOES satellites, the first of which was launched in 1975.
The satellite will drop its letter suffix for a number, becoming GOES-15 once it is in space.
MOVING TOWARDS ‘THE GOD PARTICLE’ AT LHC
| By CHEMGENE
Scientists are stepping up efforts to detect the elusive ‘God Particle’ by triggering collision of two proton beams in the world’s largest atom smasher located on the Franco-Swiss border on the outskirts of Geneva.
The two proton beams, set in motion in opposite directions of two 27-km long pipes of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in November last year, are currently moving at 3.5 trillion electron volts (TeV) with each beam of the protons going around the device 11,000 times every second.
Physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), that houses the LHC, will make attempts to collide the two beams at 7 TeV, to create conditions similar at the time of the Big Bang -that is believed to have created the universe.
Indian scientists will join their counterparts from across the world who would observe the collisions as they happen.
When the proton beams collide, 800 million collisions persecond would take place and powerful detectors installed atthe site would gather data of each of the collisions.
It is the analysis of this data that could lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson, also called as the ‘God particle’, that is believed to have existed when the universe was born, said Prof Satyaki Bhattacharya of Delhi University who is involved in the LHC experiment.
Researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a theory that doubles the number of particle species in the universe.
For scientists at CERN and elsewhere, the beginning of high-energy collisions will end a long period of working without any real data.
Other results may point to “hidden worlds” of particles and forces that we are oblivious to because they do not interact with everyday matter.
The LHC is expected to make new discoveries about the laws of physics at the highest energies and smallest scales ever probed.
CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said scientists hope by the end of this year to make discoveries into the mysterious dark matter that they believe comprises a quarter of the wholeuniverse.
The better understood visible universe makes up only 5 percent of the universe.
Dark matter has been theorised by scientists to account for missing mass and bent light in faraway galaxies.
They believe it makes galaxies spin faster.
A separate entity called ‘dark energy’ makes up the remaining 70 per cent of the universe, and this is understood to be associated with the vacuum that is evenly distributed inspace and time.
It is believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe.
After two years of running, the LHC will be shut down forabout a year and specialists will install improvements andmake changes to enable the collider to operate at its designenergy of 7 TeV in each direction to produce collisions of 14TeV.
The two proton beams, set in motion in opposite directions of two 27-km long pipes of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in November last year, are currently moving at 3.5 trillion electron volts (TeV) with each beam of the protons going around the device 11,000 times every second.
Physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), that houses the LHC, will make attempts to collide the two beams at 7 TeV, to create conditions similar at the time of the Big Bang -that is believed to have created the universe.
Indian scientists will join their counterparts from across the world who would observe the collisions as they happen.
When the proton beams collide, 800 million collisions persecond would take place and powerful detectors installed atthe site would gather data of each of the collisions.
It is the analysis of this data that could lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson, also called as the ‘God particle’, that is believed to have existed when the universe was born, said Prof Satyaki Bhattacharya of Delhi University who is involved in the LHC experiment.
Researchers will sift through the subatomic debris of proton collisions for signs of extra dimensions that will bolster belief in “supersymmetry”, a theory that doubles the number of particle species in the universe.
For scientists at CERN and elsewhere, the beginning of high-energy collisions will end a long period of working without any real data.
Other results may point to “hidden worlds” of particles and forces that we are oblivious to because they do not interact with everyday matter.
The LHC is expected to make new discoveries about the laws of physics at the highest energies and smallest scales ever probed.
CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said scientists hope by the end of this year to make discoveries into the mysterious dark matter that they believe comprises a quarter of the wholeuniverse.
The better understood visible universe makes up only 5 percent of the universe.
Dark matter has been theorised by scientists to account for missing mass and bent light in faraway galaxies.
They believe it makes galaxies spin faster.
A separate entity called ‘dark energy’ makes up the remaining 70 per cent of the universe, and this is understood to be associated with the vacuum that is evenly distributed inspace and time.
It is believed to accelerate the expansion of the universe.
After two years of running, the LHC will be shut down forabout a year and specialists will install improvements andmake changes to enable the collider to operate at its designenergy of 7 TeV in each direction to produce collisions of 14TeV.
LHC RESEARCH PROGRAMME GETS UNDERWAY
| By CHEMGENE
Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the Large Hadron collider research programme. Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator said in a official press release of CERN.
“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”
“With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson,” said ATLAS collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti. “The fact that the experiments have published papers already on the basis of last year’s data bodes very well for this first physics run.”
“We’ve all been impressed with the way the LHC has performed so far,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, “and it’s particularly gratifying to see how well our particle detectors are working while our physics teams worldwide are already analysing data. We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics like the origin of mass, the grand unification of forces and the presence of abundant dark matter in the universe. I expect very exciting times in front of us.”
“This is the moment we have been waiting and preparing for”, said ALICE spokesperson Jürgen Schukraft. “We’re very much looking forward to the results from proton collisions, and later this year from lead-ion collisions, to give us new insights into the nature of the strong interaction and the evolution of matter in the early Universe.”
“LHCb is ready for physics,” said the experiment’s spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we have a great research programme ahead of us exploring the nature of matter-antimatter asymmetry more profoundly than has ever been done before.”
CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have “re-discovered” the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run.
For supersymmetry, ATLAS and CMS will each have enough data to double today’s sensitivity to certain new discoveries. Experiments today are sensitive to some supersymmetric particles with masses up to 400 GeV. An inverse femtobarn at the LHC pushes the discovery range up to 800 GeV.
“The LHC has a real chance over the next two years of discovering supersymmetric particles,” explained Heuer, “and possibly giving insights into the composition of about a quarter of the Universe.”
Even at the more exotic end of the LHC’s potential discovery spectrum, this LHC run will extend the current reach by a factor of two. LHC experiments will be sensitive to new massive particles indicating the presence of extra dimensions up to masses of 2 TeV, where today’s reach is around 1 TeV.
“Over 2000 graduate students are eagerly awaiting data from the LHC experiments,” said Heuer. “They’re a privileged bunch, set to produce the first theses at the new high-energy frontier.”
Following this run, the LHC will shutdown for routine maintenance, and to complete the repairs and consolidation work needed to reach the LHC’s design energy of 14 TeV following the incident of 19 September 2008. Traditionally, CERN has operated its accelerators on an annual cycle, running for seven to eight months with a four to five month shutdown each year. Being a cryogenic machine operating at very low temperature, the LHC takes about a month to bring up to room temperature and another month to cool down. A four-month shutdown as part of an annual cycle no longer makes sense for such a machine, so CERN has decided to move to a longer cycle with longer periods of operation accompanied by longer shutdown periods when needed.
“Two years of continuous running is a tall order both for the LHC operators and the experiments, but it will be well worth the effort,” said Heuer. “By starting with a long run and concentrating preparations for 14 TeV collisions into a single shutdown, we’re increasing the overall running time over the next three years, making up for lost time and giving the experiments the chance to make their mark.”
“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”
“With these record-shattering collision energies, the LHC experiments are propelled into a vast region to explore, and the hunt begins for dark matter, new forces, new dimensions and the Higgs boson,” said ATLAS collaboration spokesperson, Fabiola Gianotti. “The fact that the experiments have published papers already on the basis of last year’s data bodes very well for this first physics run.”
“We’ve all been impressed with the way the LHC has performed so far,” said Guido Tonelli, spokesperson of the CMS experiment, “and it’s particularly gratifying to see how well our particle detectors are working while our physics teams worldwide are already analysing data. We’ll address soon some of the major puzzles of modern physics like the origin of mass, the grand unification of forces and the presence of abundant dark matter in the universe. I expect very exciting times in front of us.”
“This is the moment we have been waiting and preparing for”, said ALICE spokesperson Jürgen Schukraft. “We’re very much looking forward to the results from proton collisions, and later this year from lead-ion collisions, to give us new insights into the nature of the strong interaction and the evolution of matter in the early Universe.”
“LHCb is ready for physics,” said the experiment’s spokesperson Andrei Golutvin, “we have a great research programme ahead of us exploring the nature of matter-antimatter asymmetry more profoundly than has ever been done before.”
CERN will run the LHC for 18-24 months with the objective of delivering enough data to the experiments to make significant advances across a wide range of physics channels. As soon as they have “re-discovered” the known Standard Model particles, a necessary precursor to looking for new physics, the LHC experiments will start the systematic search for the Higgs boson. With the amount of data expected, called one inverse femtobarn by physicists, the combined analysis of ATLAS and CMS will be able to explore a wide mass range, and there’s even a chance of discovery if the Higgs has a mass near 160 GeV. If it’s much lighter or very heavy, it will be harder to find in this first LHC run.
For supersymmetry, ATLAS and CMS will each have enough data to double today’s sensitivity to certain new discoveries. Experiments today are sensitive to some supersymmetric particles with masses up to 400 GeV. An inverse femtobarn at the LHC pushes the discovery range up to 800 GeV.
“The LHC has a real chance over the next two years of discovering supersymmetric particles,” explained Heuer, “and possibly giving insights into the composition of about a quarter of the Universe.”
Even at the more exotic end of the LHC’s potential discovery spectrum, this LHC run will extend the current reach by a factor of two. LHC experiments will be sensitive to new massive particles indicating the presence of extra dimensions up to masses of 2 TeV, where today’s reach is around 1 TeV.
“Over 2000 graduate students are eagerly awaiting data from the LHC experiments,” said Heuer. “They’re a privileged bunch, set to produce the first theses at the new high-energy frontier.”
Following this run, the LHC will shutdown for routine maintenance, and to complete the repairs and consolidation work needed to reach the LHC’s design energy of 14 TeV following the incident of 19 September 2008. Traditionally, CERN has operated its accelerators on an annual cycle, running for seven to eight months with a four to five month shutdown each year. Being a cryogenic machine operating at very low temperature, the LHC takes about a month to bring up to room temperature and another month to cool down. A four-month shutdown as part of an annual cycle no longer makes sense for such a machine, so CERN has decided to move to a longer cycle with longer periods of operation accompanied by longer shutdown periods when needed.
“Two years of continuous running is a tall order both for the LHC operators and the experiments, but it will be well worth the effort,” said Heuer. “By starting with a long run and concentrating preparations for 14 TeV collisions into a single shutdown, we’re increasing the overall running time over the next three years, making up for lost time and giving the experiments the chance to make their mark.”
Famous Chemists
Tuesday, April 6, 2010 | By CHEMGENE
At age 8, he entered the local cathedral school, starting in the fifth grade, distinguishing himself in physics and mathematics, and graduating as the youngest and most able student in 1876.
At the University of Uppsala, he was unsatisfied with the chief instructor of physics and the only faculty member who could have supervised him in chemistry, Per Teodor Cleve, so he left to study at the Physical Institute of the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm under the physicist Erik Edlund in 1881. His work focused on the conductivities of electrolytes. In 1884, based on this work, he submitted a 150-page dissertation on electrolytic conductivity to Uppsala for the doctorate. It did not impress the professors, like Per Teodor Cleve, and he received a fourth class degree, but upon his defence it was reclassified as third class. Later, extensions of this very work would earn him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Amedeo Avogadro was born in Turin to a noble family of Piedmont, Italy.
He graduated in ecclesiastical law at the early age of 20 and began to practice. Soon after, he dedicated himself to physics and mathematics (then called positive philosophy), and in 1809 started teaching them at a liceo (high school) in Vercelli, where his family had property.
In 1811, he published an article with the title Essai d'une manière de déterminer les masses relatives des molécules élémentaires des corps, et les proportions selon lesquelles elles entrent dans ces combinaisons ("Essay on Determining the Relative Masses of the Elementary Molecules of Bodies and the Proportions by Which They Enter These Combinations"), which contains Avogadro's hypothesis. Avogadro submitted this essay to a French journal, De Lamétherie's Journal de Physique, de Chimie et d'Histoire naturelle (Journal of Physics, Chemistry and Natural History) so it was written in French, not Italian. (Note: In 1811, northern Italy was under the rule of the French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.)
In 1820, he became professor of physics at the University of Turin. After the downfall of Napoléon in 1815, northern Italy came under control of this kingdom.
He was active in the revolutionary movements of 1821 against the king of Sardinia (who became ruler of Piedmont with Turin as his capital). As a result, he lost his chair in 1823 (or the university officially declared, it was "very glad to allow this interesting scientist to take a rest from heavy teaching duties, in order to be able to give better attention to his researches")[citation needed].
Eventually, Charles Albert granted a Constitution (Statuto Albertino) in 1848. Well before this, Avogadro had been recalled to the university in Turin in 1833, where he taught for another twenty years.
Little is known about Avogadro's private life, which appears to have been sober and religious. He married Felicita Mazzé and had six children.
Some historians suggest that he sponsored some Sardinian revolutionaries, who were stopped by the announcement of Charles Albert's constitution.
Avogadro held posts dealing with statistics, meteorology, and weights and measures (he introduced the metric system into Piedmont) and was a member of the Royal Superior Council on Public Instruction.
In honor of Avogadro's contributions to molecular theory, the number of molecules in one mole was named Avogadro's number, NA or "Avogadro's constant". It is approximately 6.0221415 × 1023. Avogadro's number is used to compute the results of chemical reactions. It allows chemists to determine the exact amounts of substances produced in a given reaction.
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