- Scientists have analysed the Wedderburn meteorite and verified the first natural occurrence of a mineral called 'edscottite‘.
- Edscottie is a rare form of iron-carbide mineral that’s never been found in nature.
- Earlier analysis of the meteorite have revealed traces of gold and iron, along with rarer minerals such as kamacite, schreibersite, taenite, and troilite.
- The edscottite mineral is named in honour of meteorite expert and cosmochemist Edward Scott from the University of Hawaii.
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News in Short
News in Short - 28-December-2019
Andhra Pradesh government to soon decide on three capitals
Date: 28 December 2019 Tags: Infrastructure- The cabinet of Andhra Pradesh will be meeting soon to discuss the proposal for decentralisation of capital through creation of three capital cities for the state.
- An expert panel had recommended that the State government should develop Amaravati, Visakhapatnam and Kurnool as the legislative, executive and judicial capital cities instead of pooling up everything in one mega city.
- The previous government helmed by N. Chandrababu Naidu had decided to create a new capital at Amaravati, whose foundation stone was laid by the Prime minister.
ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan to be compensated
Date: 28 December 2019 Tags: Appointments & Resignations- The Kerala government has decided to give ? 1.3 crore as compensation to former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, who was falsely implicated in the 1994 espionage case.
- The compensation is in addition to the ? 50 lakh provided by the government to the former scientist on a Supreme Court order and the ? 10 lakh recommended by the National Human Rights Commission.
- The espionage case pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.
Mysterious crunch in Earth’s magnetic field creates new type of Aurora Borealis
Date: 28 December 2019 Tags: Space- Scientistshave observed an aurora caused solely by a compression of the magnetic field of the Earth.
- Although researchers are not quite sure why this magnetic crunch happened, they think it might have been a solar storm in the region where Earth’s magnetic field meets the particles of the Sun.
- The bright, colourful lights of the aurora come from collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun and gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, like nitrogen and oxygen.
- Earth’s magnetic field usually deflect these particles, but the field is weaker at the planet’s poles. So, some particles sneak through producing the aurora borealis near the north pole.
Malaria causing mosquitoes using legs to fight off insecticides
Date: 28 December 2019 Tags: Miscellaneous- Researchers have shown that proteins in the legs of malaria carrying mosquitoes help them develop resistant to insecticides.
- Study noted that insecticide resistant populations of two malaria carrying mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii, express a family of binding proteins situated in their legs.
- The researchers proved that the binding protein, SAP2, was found elevated in resistant populations, and further elevated following contact with pyrethroids, the insecticide class which is used on all bed nets.