The Asian Independent 16 Oct to 31 Oct 2019

More documents

Recommendations

Info

20 16-10-2019 to 31-10-2019 TECH www.theasianindependent.co.uk PUNE-A team of astronomers, led by John Paice who is a student at Pune-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy & Astrophysics (IUCAA), has created a high framerate movie of a growing black hole system at a level of detail never seen before. In the process, the team uncovered new clues to understanding the immediate surroundings of these enigmatic objects including violent flaring at the heart of a black hole system, said a study by University of Southampton published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal. The black hole system studied is named MAXI J1820+070 and was first discovered in early 2018. About 10,000 light years away in our own Milky Way, it has the mass of about seven suns. "The movie was made using real data, but slowed down to 1/10th of actual speed to allow the most rapid flares to be discerned by the human eye," said Paice, also a graduate student at University of Southampton and the lead author of the study. "We can see how the material around the black hole is so bright, it's outshining the star that it is consuming, and the fastest flickers last only a few milliseconds—that's the output of a hundred Suns and more Student of Pune-based institute creates violent black hole flare being emitted in the blink of an eye," he elaborated. The IUCAA is an autonomous institution set up by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and is situated in the campus of University of Pune. It promotes Ten years after 'suicide' mission, NASA thirsts for lunar WATER research in astrophysics. Black holes can feed off a nearby star and create vast accretion discs of material. Here, the effect of the black hole's strong gravity and the material's own magnetic field can cause rapidly changing levels of radiation to be emitted from the system as a whole. The radiation was detected in visible light by the HiPERCAM instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias (La Palma, Canary Islands) and in X- rays by NASA's NICER observatory aboard the International Space Station. The HiPERCAM and NICER instruments let the researchers record 'movies' of the changing light from the system at over 300 frames per second, capturing violent 'crackling' and 'flaring' of visible and X-ray light. This is not the first time scientists have found this. A split-second difference between X-ray and visual light has been seen in two other systems hosting black holes but it has never been observed at this level of detail. Dr Poshak Gandhi, also from the University of Southampton, earlier found the same fleeting time signatures in the two previous systems as well. "The fact that we now see this in three systems strengthens the idea that it is a unifying characteristic of such growing black holes. If true, this must be telling us something fundamental about how plasma flows around black holes operate," said Dr Gandhi. WASHINGTON-A decade after NASA sent a rocket crashing into the moon's South Pole, spewing a plume of debris that revealed vast reserves of ice beneath the barren lunar surface, the space agency is racing to pick up where its little-remembered project left off. The so-called LCROSS mission was hastily carried out 10 years ago Wednesday in a complex orbital dance of two "suicide" spacecraft and one mapping satellite. It proved a milestone in the discovery of a natural lunar resource that could be the key to NASA's plans for renewed human exploration of the moon and ultimately visits to Mars and beyond. "The LCROSS mission was a game changer," NASA's chief Jim Bridenstine told Reuters, adding that once water had been found the United States "should have immediately as a nation changed our direction to the moon so we could figure out how to use it." The agency now has the chance to follow up on the pioneering mission, after Vice President Mike Pence in March ordered NASA to land humans on the lunar surface by 2024, accelerating a goal to colonize the moon as a staging ground for eventual missions to Mars. Bridenstine says the moon holds billions of tons of water ice, although the exact amount and whether it's present in large chunks of ice or combined with the lunar soil remains unknown. To find out before astronauts arrive on the moon, NASA is working with a handful of companies to put rovers on the lunar surface by 2022. "We need next to get on the surface with a rover to prospect for water, drill into it, and determine how suitable it is for extraction," said Jack Burns, director of the Network for Exploration and Space Science at the University of Colorado. Instead of launching expensive fuel loads from Earth, scientists say the lunar water could be extracted and broken down into its two main components, hydrogen and oxygen, potentially turning the moon into a fuel arsenal for missions to deeper parts of the solar system. "We wanted to make as large of a hole as possible to get as much materials out of the shadows and into the sunlight," Colaprete said, describing an unusually fast-paced program using technology that had never been used in space before. Engineers and mission leaders used the business phrase "open kimono" about disclosing company information to characterize the program's breakneck development speed and the need for clear and open lines of communication between contractors and NASA. "That almost became a mantra for the project," Colaprete said. The current lunar program is also "forcing some cultural changes" at NASA, he added, which has undergone a series of high-level management changes and delays with the agency's commercial crew program, a publicprivate effort to resume US human spaceflight for the first time since 2011. "People are coming together in a way like they did on LCROSS." Light brighter than the sun to help virtually read 2,000-year-old scrolls LONDON-Scientists at Britain's national synchrotron facility have harnessed powerful light beams to virtually unwrap and decipher fragile scrolls dating back some 2,000 years in a process they hope will provide new insights into the ancient world. The two complete scrolls and four fragments—from the so-called Herculaneum library, the only one surviving from antiquity—were buried and carbonized by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and are too fragile to be opened. The items were examined at the Diamond Light Source facility in Oxfordshire, home to Britain's synchrotron, a particle accelerator in which beams travel around a closedloop path to produce light many times brighter than the sun. "The idea is essentially like a CT scanner where you would take an image of a person, a three-dimensional image of a person and you can slice through it to see the different organs," said Laurent Chapon, physical science director of Diamond Light Source. "We... shine very intense light through (the scroll) and then detect on the other side a number of twodimensional images. From that we reconstruct a three-dimensional volume of the object... to actually read the text in a non-destructive manner," Chapon said. The ink on the scrolls is difficult to see, even through a synchrotron, because it is carbon-based like the papyrus it is written on. But scientists hope the density of the paper will be different where written characters are present. By scanning the fragments where characters are visible, they hope to create a machinelearning algorithm that will decipher what is written on the scrolls. The data generated by the process will be analysed by scientists at Kentucky University in the United States using advanced computing techniques to decipher the scrolls' contents. "The library at Herculaneum was the only library that survived from antiquity and because of that the material inside is extremely valuable," said Brent Seales, professor of computer science at Kentucky University. "Texts from the ancient world are rare and precious, and they simply cannot be revealed through any other known process."
www.theasianindependent.co.uk NEWS 16-10-2019 to 31-10-2019 21 B’desh, Nepal ahead of India as growth in South Asia slows down: WB report Washington : Bangladesh and Nepal are estimated to grow faster than India in 2019, according to the World Bank, which said that overall growth in South Asia is projected to slow down this fiscal in line with a global downward trend. Pakistan’s growth rate is projected to deteriorate further to a mere 2.4 per cent this fiscal year, as monetary policy remains tight, and the planned fiscal consolidation will compress domestic demand, it said. Growth in South Asia is projected to fall to 5.9 per cent in 2019, down 1.1 percentage points from April 2019 estimates, casting uncertainty about a rebound in the short term, the World Bank said in its latest report. The latest edition of the South Asia Economic Focus, Making (De)centralization Work, finds that strong domestic demand, which propped high growth in the past, has weakened, driving a slowdown across the region. Imports have declined severely across South Asia, contracting between 15 and 20 per cent in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In India, domestic demand has slipped, with private consumption growing 3.1 per cent in the last quarter from 7.3 per cent a year ago, while manufacturing growth plummeted to below 1 per cent in the second quarter of 2019 compared to over 10 per cent a year ago. “Declining industrial production and imports, as well as tensions in the financial markets reveal a sharp economic slowdown in South Asia,” said Hartwig Schafer, World Bank Vice President for the South Asia Region. “As global and domestic uncertainties cloud the region’s economic outlook, South Asian countries should pursue stimulating economic policies to boost private consumption and beef up investments,” he said. The report New Delhi/Bengaluru : Passenger vehicle sales slumped 23.7% in September, the 11th straight month of decline, prompting an industry body to flag more job cuts if sales failed to pick up soon. Passenger vehicle sales dropped to 2,23,317 units in September, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) data showed, while passenger car sales dived 33.4% to 131,281 units. SIAM’s data comes as the domestic automobile industry faces a crippling slowdown in demand that has led to production cuts and thousands of job losses. The industry is seeing longest-ever streak of sales decline. “We are preparing for best-case and worst-case scenarios ... worst case there will be more production and job cuts,” said SIAM president noted that South Asia’s current economic slowdown echoes the decelerating growth and trade slumps of 2008 and 2012. With that context in mind, the report remains cautiously optimistic that a slight rebound in investment and private consumption could jumpstart South Asia’s growth up to 6.3 per cent in 2020, slightly above East Asia and the Pacific and 6.7 per cent in 2021. In a focus section, the report highlights how, as their economies become more sophisticated, South Asian countries have made decentralisation a priority to improve the delivery of public services. “Decentralisation in South Asia has yet to deliver on its promises and, if not properly managed, can degenerate into fragmentation,” said Hans Timmer, World Bank Chief Economist for the South Asia Region. “To make decentralisation work for their citizens, we encourage South Asian central governments to allocate their resources judiciously, create incentives to help local communities compete in integrated markets, and provide equal opportunities to their people,” Timmer said. In India, growth is projected to fall to 6.0 this fiscal year. Growth is then expected to gradually recover to 6.9 per cent in fiscal year 2021 and to 7.2 Auto sector crisis deepens Car sales down 33.4% in Sept, passenger vehicles slip 24% Rajan Wadhera. Car and auto component makers have cut thousands of jobs and halted some production as the industry grapples with various challenges amid a broader economic slowdown. The government stepped in last month, announcing a corporate tax rate to boost manufacturing and lift growth. On Friday, SIAM’s Wadhera said it expected some improvement in the situation on the back of the festive season. However, Wadhera refrained from giving out a forecast for future sales, saying SIAM would maintain a cautious stance until October performance numbers are in. Aggregate revenue for listed automobile companies is estimated to have dropped by onefourth in July-September, Crisil, the Indian arm of S&P rating agency, said in a note on Thursday. The drop in auto sales is also expected to hit earnings for insurance companies such as New India Assurance and ICICI Lombard General Insurance in the September quarter. per cent in the following year. In Bangladesh, the real GDP growth is estimated at 8.1 per cent in 2019, up from 7.9 per cent in 2018, the report said, adding that the country’s growth is projected at 7.2 per cent in 2020 and 7.3 per cent in 2021. The garment industry of Bangladesh has benefitted immensely from the ongoing trade tensions between the US and China, Timmer said. “In general, what we see in high frequency data is that Bangladesh is doing better than the rest of the region, especially than India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. We see that in industrial production, we see that in exports,” he New Delhi : Drug firm Torrent Pharma Inc is recalling 73,896 bottles of hypertension treatment tablets from the US and Puerto Rico on account of deviations from current good manufacturing norms, according to a report of the US health regulator. The US-based arm of Torrent Pharmaceuticals is recalling 8,688 bottles of Losartan Potassium tablets USP 50 mg, from the US and Puerto Rico, the Enforcement Report of the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) said. It is also recalling 39,432 bottles of Losartan Potassium tablets, USP in the strength of 100 mg from the US and Puerto Rico, it added. As per the report, Torrent Pharma Inc is recalling 17,088 bottles of Losartan Potassium /Hydrochlorothiazide tablets, said. “So that confirms the story that has been told now many times that the garment industry in Bangladesh is doing very well and very likely that industry has benefited from the trade tensions between the US and China. Interestingly, it’s not just to the US or China, but also to other countries that they have very strong export performance,” Timmer said. In Nepal, GDP growth is projected to average 6.5 per cent over this and next fiscal year, backed by strong services and construction activity due to rising tourist arrivals and higher public spending. In Afghanistan, with improved farming conditions and assuming political stability after the elections, growth is expected to recover and reach 3 per cent in 2020 and 3.5 per cent in 2021. In Bhutan, GDP growth is expected to jump to 7.4 per cent this fiscal year. In Maldives, growth is expected to reach 5.2 per cent in 2019. In Sri Lanka, growth is expected to soften to 2.7 per cent in 2019. However, supported by recovering investment and exports, as the security challenges and political uncertainty of last year dissipate, it is projected to reach 3.3 per cent in 2020 and 3.7 per cent in 2021. “Pakistan’s economy is slowing as the country passes through yet another macroeconomic crisis with high twin deficits and low international reserves. With an IMF Extended Fund Facility supported stabilization program in place, growth is expected to remain low in the near-term,” the report said. “Obviously, the tensions are problematic for the whole region, but as we set off a year ago, the lack of integration into international markets is not just because of a lack of regional integration. Like India, Pakistan is underperforming in all markets and in the world,” Timmer said. Torrent Pharma recalls 74,000 bottles of hypertension drug from US USP 50mg/12.5mg from the same markets. It is also recalling 8,688 bottles of Losartan P o t a s s i u m / Hydrochlorothiazide tablets, USP 100mg/25mg. All these recalls in the US and Puerto Rico by Torrent Pharma Inc are ongoing voluntary class II recalls, USFDA said. The reason for the recalls is, “CGMP Deviations: FDA lab confirmed presence of an impurity, N-Methylnitrosobutyric acid (NMBA) in the finished product above the interim acceptable daily intake level of 9.82 parts per million,” it added.
Page 1 and 2: Email your CV to info@theasianindep
Page 3 and 4: www.theasianindependent.co.uk ASIA
Page 13 and 14: www.theasianindependent.co.uk Nutri
Page 15 and 16: www.theasianindependent.co.uk HEALT
Page 17 and 18: www.theasianindependent.co.uk ENTER
Page 19: www.theasianindependent.co.uk New D
Page 23 and 24: www.theasianindependent.co.uk Ekta

The Asian Independent 16 Oct to 31 Oct 2019

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?