News in Short

• A group of researchers from Australia has formulated a genetic test that could detect people’s susceptibility towards developing glaucoma.
• Glaucoma is characterised by progressive damage and degeneration of the optic nerve which also causes gradual loss of vision.
• There is still no proven cure for the disease, but treatment can reliably slow or halt deterioration in most cases.
• Glaucoma is a genetic disease and the best way to prevent the loss of sight from glaucoma is through early detection and treatment.

• India will set up the World's highest gamma-ray telescope in the newly formed Union Territory of Ladakh this year.
• The telescope named  Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment Telescope (MACE) is also India's largest gamma-ray telescope. MACE will be situated at the campus of Indian Astronomical Observatory in Hanle, Ladakh.
• The MACE is a project collaboration between four premiere Indian institutes- Baba Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) along with the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL).

• Ultra-high-energy particles have blasted up through the ice of Antarctica, setting off detectors in the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment.
• These events, along with several additional particles detected later at the buried Antarctic neutrino observatory IceCube, don't match the expected behaviour of any Standard Model particles.
• The particles look like ultra high-energy neutrinos. But ultra high-energy neutrinos shouldn't be able to pass through the Earth.
• Neutrinos are the faintest particles we know, which are difficult to detect and nearly massless.

• The NASA spacecraft called Kepler has witnessed an unusual super-outburst from a previously unknown dwarf nova.
• The star system in question consists of a white dwarf star with a brown dwarf companion about one-tenth as massive as the white dwarf
• A white dwarf is the leftover core of an aging Sun-like star and contains about a Sun's worth of material in a globe the size of Earth.
• A brown dwarf is an object with a mass between 10 and 80 Jupiters that is too small to undergo nuclear fusion.
• They are so close that the white dwarf's strong gravity strips material from the brown dwarf, sucking its essence away like a vampire.

• The Centre is all set to sign an accord with the banned Assam-based insurgent group National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB).
• The accord will provide for some political rights to the Bodo tribals living in Assam and some economic package for the community.
• However, the territorial integrity of Assam will be maintained and the key demand of the NDFB, which is either a separate state or a UT, is not going to be entertained.