China has successfully placed its “Zhongxing-11″ communications satellite into orbit which was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

What this satellite is for?

The satellite is based on the DFH-4 platform manufactured by the China Academy of Space Technology and features multiple high power fixed and mobile beams and transponder switching capability. It will provide services for commercial broadcasting and communications, meeting the needs of Direct-to-Home, data transmission, digital broadband multimedia and streaming media for clients in the Asia-Pacific region.

Tags: China • International • Science and Technology

With an aim to expand and promote the reach of vaccination, the Union Government has kicked off its four-week special immunization programme in high-risk areas across the nation. The vaccines are being provided free of cost aimed at reaching every child.

• Full immunization prevents approximately 4 lakh deaths from vaccine preventable diseases in the under-five category every year.
• Close to 75 lakh children miss childhood vaccinations each year.
• On a global scale, every fifth child is not immunized.

What is Pentavalent Vaccine?

India had introduced the Pentavalent vaccine expansion in 2011 in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It has now expanded to some other states as well.

Pentavalent vaccine is given to protect children from five diseases:

1. Hib pneumonia and Hib meningitis (Hib = Haemophilus influenzae type b)
2. Diphtheria
3. Pertussis
4. Tetanus
5. Hepatitis B

 India’s Immunization Programme:

Government of India has been running Universal Immunization Programme since 1985 which is currently one of the key areas under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)since 2005. The program consists of vaccination for seven diseases:-

1. Tuberculosis
2. Diphtheria
3. Pertussis (whooping cough)
4. Tetanus
5. Poliomyelitis
6. Measles
7. Hepatitis B

India had declared year 2012-13 as the ‘Year of Intensification of Routine Immunization’.

Objective of this campaign: To improve full immunization coverage and reach all children, particularly in remote, inaccessible and backward areas as well as in urban slums. The present full immunization coverage of children is 61%.

Tags: Diseases • Health • Ministry of Health and Family Welfare • Science and Technology • Socio-Economic

The mortal body of Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh was consigned to flames in his village with full state honors amid mournful emotions.

Sarabjit Singh:

• Indian citizen from Bhikhiwind, Punjab.
• Inadvertently crossed the zero-line, bordering with Pakistan in 1990, in an inebriated state while working in his fields which run along the border.
  Arrested by the Pakistan Rangers and was charged by the Lahore police alleging his role Lahore bombings.
• Tried in the Lahore HC and was sentenced to death in 1991.
• His all mercy petitions were rejected but his death sentence was repeatedly postponed by the Government of Pakistan.
• He succumbed to the serious injuries he received when he was brutally attacked by six fellow prison inmates.
• Punjab (India) assembly declared him a National Martyr.

Tags: India-Pakistan • International • Pakistan • Persons in News

Researchers from IBM have made the world’s smallest movie, made with one of the smallest particles of any element in the universe: atoms. The movie named “A Boy and His Atom” has been verified by the Guinness World Records. To make this movie, researchers used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action.

How scientists did it?

Scientists used 5000 atoms of carbon monoxide and a Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on top of each other). They used the microscope to control a super-sharp needle along a copper surface to “feel” atoms. The needle can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface and thus pull them to a precisely specified location on the surface. The moving atom makes a unique sound that is critical feedback in determining how many positions it’s actually moved. As the movie was being created, the scientists captured still images of the individually arranged atoms, resulting in 242 single frames.

What is STM?

STM is acronym for Scanning Tunneling Microscope.

About STM:

• Invented in 1981 by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM for which both the inventors were given Nobel Prize in Physics.
• An instrument for imaging surfaces at the atomic level.
• Based on the concept of Quantum Tunneling.
• Weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of -268 degrees Celsius
• Magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times

What is Quantum Tunneling?

Quantum tunneling refers to the quantum mechanical phenomenon where a particle tunnels through a barrier that it classically could not surmount. When a conducting tip is brought very near to the surface to be examined, a bias (voltage difference) applied b/w the two can allows electrons to tunnel through the vacuum b/w them. The resulting tunneling current is a function of tip position, applied voltage, and the local density of states (LDOS) of the sample.Information is acquired by monitoring the current as the tip’s position scans across the surface, and is usually displayed in image form.

How this movie is linked with new possibilities in the field of Computer Technology?

The movie shows movements of atoms in a precisely controlled and desired fashion. Developing the world’s smallest movie is not entirely new ground for scientists. They are actually studying materials at the nanoscale to explore the limits of data storage, among other things. The exploration of unconventional methods of magnetism and the properties of atoms on well-controlled surfaces allows scientists to identify entirely new computing paths.

IBM researchers had recently created the world’s smallest magnetic bit. They discovered that it takes 12 atoms to reliably store one bit of magnetic information. On the other hand, the devices that we use take roughly 1 million atoms to store a bit of data on a modern computer or electronic device. If commercialized, this atomic memory could one day store all of the movies ever made in a device the size of a fingernail.

Tags: Entertainment • Science and Technology