(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) Science & Technology | August : 2014

August-2014
Drones to guard India’s forests and wildlife

Unmanned aerial vehicles or drones will soon fly over India’s forests to monitor poaching, track wildlife and even count the population of tigers.
Scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) are coming up with a series of such drones which are being customised indigenously to suit different types of forest landscape.
Under a joint collaboration with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and international environment body WWF, they are preparing a detailed project report for introducing drone monitoring in 10 wildlife-rich areas across the country.
A drone can be put on autopilot mode and sent as far as 40-50 km deep into the forest where it can record images and videos and transmit them on a real-time basis. Its movement can also be controlled through a GPS-based system. Such drones were recently tested successfully in Panna Tiger Reserve and Kaziranga forest.
Drones can also be used for night surveillance and tracking of many elusive and shy animals like the red panda and snow leopard, which are very rarely seen by the human eye in their natural wild habitat. Travelling at a speed of 40 km per hour, the drones can be used for around 40-50 minutes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said it’s ethical to use unproven Ebola drugs and vaccines in the outbreak in West Africa provided the right conditions are met.
The U.N. agency issued the statement after holding a teleconference with experts to discuss the issue.
The WHO said that people can ethically receive such treatments but sidestepped the questions of who should get the limited drugs and how that should be decided.
In the biggest-ever outbreak of Ebola, two Americans have gotten an experimental Ebola treatment never tested in humans and two more treatments were reportedly on their way to treat two Liberia doctors. The developments have raised ethical questions about whether it’s right to use untested treatments in people sickened by a disease that has no licensed treatment.

Along with this, the Geological Survey of India has been working on area-specific forecasting of landslides.
India is on the verge of developing a new climate prediction model exhibiting climatic fluctuations on decadal timescales that have large societal implications, ShaileshNaik, Secretary to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, has said.
Addressing the media, Mr. Naik said scientists of various agencies led by the India Meteorological Department were on the final stage of establishing a model that could forecast the subtleties of climate with a fair degree of accuracy.

Indigenously built stealth anti-submarine warfare corvette INS Kamorta was commissioned into the Eastern Fleet of the Indian Navy at a grand ceremony.
Commander ManojJha read the commissioning warrant in the presence of Defence Minister ArunJaitley, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral R K Dhowan, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Eastern Naval Command Vice Admiral SatishSoni, Controller of Warship Production and Acquisition Vice Admiral A Subedar and Chairman and Managing Director Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Rear Admiral (retd) AK Verma.
Following the breaking of Commissioning Penant, National Flag and Navy Ensign were hoisted for the first time on the ship.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) put up a presentation on safety standards for airline representatives that revealed some glaring lack of safety procedures by leading carriers.
BMW launches updated version of X3
German luxury carmaker BMW, launched the updated version of its sports utility vehicle X3.
The new X3 is available only in diesel option, and is being locally produced at the company’s Chennai plant.

There are no dusty bookshelves or piles of textbooks in the library of Florida’s newest university. Welcoming its first students this week, Florida Polytechnic University’s new library houses not a single physical book.
The ‘bookless’ library is not the first in America: Library Journal also cites a bookless public library in Bexar County, Texas, a school library in Minnesota and two NASA libraries.