Indian researchers developed a device to monitor body stats in real time

                Researchers have developed the first flexible wearable device capable of monitoring both biochemical and electric signals in the human body in real time. The Chem-Phys patch records electrocardiogram (EKG) heart signals and tracks levels of lactate, a biochemical that is a marker of physical effort, in real time, researchers said. The device can be worn on the chest and communicates wirelessly with a smartphone, smart watch or laptop. It has a wide range of applications, from athletes monitoring their workouts to physicians monitoring patients with heart disease. Researchers including Amay J Bandodkar, A M Vinu Mohan and Rajan Kumar from University of California San Diego (UC San Diego) in the US built the device, which includes a flexible suite of sensors and a small electronic board.

Faintest early-universe galaxy found

                Scientists have detected the faintest early-universe galaxy yet, located about 13 billion light years away from earth. This new object could help astronomers understand the “reionisation epoch” when the first stars became visible. Gravitational lensing and a special instrument on the 10-metre telescope at the W M Keck Observatory in Hawaii, enabled the team to see the incredibly faint object. It would not have been visible if the light from the galaxy was not magnified by the gravitational lens, said Kuang-Han Huang, a researcher at University of California, Davis.

Japan successfully tested its first stealth fighter X-2 jet

                On 22 April2016, Japan successfully tested the first stealth fighter jet. With this, the country joins a select group of world military powers wielding the radar-dodging technology. The domestically developed single-pilot prototype X-2 jet took off from Nagoya airport in central Japan on its maiden test flight. It safely landed at Gifu air base, north of Nagoya airport, after a 25- minute flight with no particular problems. Japan still has one of the world’s most advanced defence forces and the development of the stealth fighter comes as it faces new fighter comes as it faces new security challenges in the form of China’s expanding force posture. At present, only the USA, Russia and China have been internationally recognized as having successfully developed and flown manned stealth jets.

Nasa set to put in the sky an array of new X-planes

                NASA scientists are preparing to put in the sky an array of new X-planes or experimental aircraft – including a quiet supersonic jet – to demonstrate advanced technologies that will push back the frontiers of aviation. Goals include showcasing how airliners can burn half the fuel an degenerate 75% less pollution during each flight as compared to now, while also being much quieter than today’s jets – perhaps even when flying supersonic.

                NASA’s renewed emphasis on X-planes is called “New Aviation Horizons”. The plan is to design, build and fly the series of X-planes during the next 10 years as a means to accelerate the adoption of advanced green aviation technologies by industry. “If we can build some of these X-planes and demonstrate some of these technologies, we expect that will make it much easier and faster for US industry to pick them up and roll them out,” said Ed Waggoner, NASA’s integrated aviation systems programme director.

                Design work already has begun on QueSSt, short for Quiet Supersonic Technology. A preliminary design contract was awarded in February to a team led by Lockheed Martin. If schedule and funding holds, this new supersonic X-plane could fly in the 2020 timeframe, NASA said

Hoped for Particle just a 'Blip'

                A great “might have been” for the universe, or at least for the people who study it, disappeared Friday. Last December, two teams of physicists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider reported that they might have been traces of what could be a new fundamental constituent of nature, an elementary particle that is not part of the Standard Model that has ruled particle physics for the last half-century. A bump on a graph signaling excess pairs of gamma rays was most likely a statistical fluke, they said. But physicists have been holding their breath ever since. If real, the new particle would have opened a crack between the known and the unknown, affording a glimpse of quantum secrets undreamed of even by Einstein. On Friday, physicists from the same two CERN teams said that under the onslaught of more data, the possibility of the particle had melted away.

Vitamin-driven battery for cheaper electronics

                Scientists have created a new vitamin-driven battery that is long-lasting and has a high voltage, paving the way for cheaper consumer electronics that are easier on the environment. The battery is similar to many commercially available high-energy lithium-ion batteries with one difference. It uses flavin from vitamin B2 as the cathode – the part that stores the electricity that is released when connected to a device. “We have been looking to nature for a while to find complex molecules for use in a number of consumer electronic applications,” said Dwight Seferos from University of Toronto in Canada. While bio-derived polymers – long-chain molecules – for one of the electrodes, allowing battery energy to be stored in a vitamin-created plastic, instead of costlier, harder to process and more environmentally-harmful metals such as cobalt.

An App to magnify phone screen

An application that can magnify a smartphone screen to potentially benefit low-vision users has been developed by researchers. The smartphone application projects a magnified smartphone screen to GoogleGlass, which users can navigate using head movements to view a corresponding portion of the magnified screen, researchers said.

The technology can benefit low-vision users, many of whom find the smartphone’s built in zoom feature to be difficult to use. “When people with low visual acuity zoom in on their smartphones, they see only a small portion of the screen, and it is difficult for them to navigate around – they do not know whether the current position is in the centre of the screen or in the corner of the screen,” said Gang Lou from Harvard Medical School. People with low vision often have great difficulty reading and discerning fine details. Magnification is considered the most effective method of compensation for visual loss, researchers said.