New tree frog genus discovered in forest of north-eastern India

Professor Sathyabhama Das Biju, popularly known as the frogman of India, and his team of researchers discovered a new genus of tree hole-breeding frogs in the forests of India’s northeast and China. The team comprised PhD students of Biju and researchers from National Centre for Cell Science (Pune), University of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and American Museum of Natural History (USA). The findings were published on 20 January 2016 in a paper titled Frankixalus, a new rhacophorid genus of tree hole-breeding frog with oophagous tadpoles in the international journal PLoS One. The genus has been named Frankixalus after Professor Franky Bossuyt of Vrije Universiteit Brussel for his contribution to amphibian research.

NASA equips Curiosity to fire laser on its own

For the first time, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover can fire its onboard laser all by itself, mission scientists say. New software is enabling ChemCam, the laser spectrometer on Curiosity, to select rock targets autonomously – the first time autonomous target selection is available for an instrument of this kind on any robotic planetary mission. The ChemCam aboard Curiosity “zaps” rocks on Mars and analyses their chemical make-up. While most targets are selected by scientists, the rover itself now chooses multiple targets per week. To select a target, the software uses adjustable criteria specified by scientists

Da Vinci's first record of laws of friction discovered

Scientists have identified a page of scribbles in a tiny notebook dating back to 1493 as the place where Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci first recorded the laws of friction. The detailed study of notes and sketches by Leonardo also shows that he went on to apply this knowledge repeatedly to mechanical problems for more than 20 years. The research by Ian Hutchings, professor at University of Cambridge in the UK, is the first detailed chronological study of Leonardo’s work on friction, and has also shown how he continued to apply his knowledge of the subject to wider woek on machines. It is widely known that Leonardo conducted the first systematic study of friction, which underpins the modern science of ‘tribology’, but exactly when and how he developed these ideas has been uncertain until now. Hutching has discovered that Leonardo’s first statement of the laws of friction is in a tiny notebook measuring just 92mm × 63mm. the book is now held in the Victoria and Albert Museum in the UK, contains a statement scribbled quickly in Leonardo’s characteristic “mirror writing” from right to left.

Europe and Russia jointly launched ExoMars 2016

On 14 March 2016, Europe and Russia launched an unmanned spacecraft named ExoMars 2016, to smell Mars atmosphere for gassy evidence that life once existed on the Red Planet, or may still be. ExoMars 2016, the first of a two-phase Mars exploration, was hoisted from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on a Russian Proton rocket. With its suite of high-tech instruments, the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) shall arrive at the Red Planet on 19 October 2016 after completing a seven month long journey of 496 million kilometers through space. A key goal of the mission is to analyse methane, a gas which on Earth is created in large part by living microbes, and traces of which were observed by previous Mars mission.

What is ExoMars?

                The ExoMars programme is a joint endeavour between European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. The primary goal of the ExoMars programme is to address the question of whether life has ever existed on Mars. This relates to its name, with the ‘exo’ referring to the study of exobiology – the possible existence of life beyond Earth (sometimes also referred to as astrobiology).