News in Short

• Arctic sea ice could be completely gone by 2035, according to a new study that compared present day conditions with those during the last interglacial period some 127,000 years ago.
• Sea ice is different from icebergs, glaciers, and ice shelves, which originate on land, and is important because it helps control global climate.
• Based on the Hadley Centre model, described as one of the most advanced physical representations of the Earth’s climate, researchers found that strong sunlight in the spring created many melt ponds during the last interglacial, which had an important role in sea ice melt.

• India announced a slew of new connectivity measures for the Maldives, including air, sea, intra-island and telecommunications in an effort to help the Indian Ocean Islands deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Among the initiatives announced are an air connectivity “bubble” for travel, a direct ferry service, a submarine cable for telecom connectivity; and assistance for the Greater Male Connectivity project (GMCP) to connect Male to three neighbouring islands, the biggest such project thus far.
• The project, which will consist of a number of bridges and causeways to connect Male to Villingili, Thilafushi and Gulhifahu islands that span 6.7 km, taking much of the pressure of the main capital island of Male for commercial and residential purposes.

• A galaxy, called SPT0418-47, has been discovered recently and is so far away that it took billions of years for its light to reach Earth and so our image of it is from deep in the past.
• A golden halo glinting 12 billion light-years away is the farthest galaxy resembling our Milky Way yet spotted. This was when the Universe was 1.4 billion years old.
• The “baby” SPT0418-47 was picked up by the powerful Alma radio telescope in Chile using a technique called gravitational lensing.

• Russell Kirsch, a computer scientist credited with inventing the pixel and scanning the world's first digital photograph, passed away. He was 91.
• Pixels, the digital dots used to display photos, video and more on phone and computer screens, weren't an obvious innovation in 1957.
• That was among the first images ever scanned into a computer, using a device created by his research team at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. This work "laid the foundations for satellite imagery, CT scans, virtual reality and Facebook.

• The Supreme Court held activist-lawyer PrashantBhushan guilty of contempt for his two derogatory tweets against the judiciary.
• The apex court had on August 5 reserved its verdict in the matter after Bhushan had defended his two tweets, saying they were against the judges regarding their conduct in their personal capacity and they did not obstruct administration of justice.
• On July 22, the top court had issued a show-cause notice to Bhushan after initiating the criminal contempt against him after taking note of a petition.
• While reserving the order in the contempt case, the top court had dismissed a separate petition filed by Bhushan seeking recall of the July 22 order by which the notice was issued against him in a contempt proceeding initiated for his alleged contemptuous tweets against the judiciary.