There may be certain logic to why Trump won, and we completely respect the mandate, but scientists are a worried lot these days because the man who thinks ‘climate change is a hoax’ isn’t too keen on ‘science’ either.
This is why Trump is a bad bet for science
- He thinks climate change is a hoax, his campaign managers have indicated cutting down on NASA’s budget, he isn’t too keen on clean energy and has cast a doom on Paris Accord, which aims to cut down massively on carbon emissions. Even though after being elected as the next US President, he has indicated that he will keep an open mind on Paris Agreement, no one can be sure about the direction in which the wind would finally flow.
- More than 2,300 scientists, including 22 Nobel Prize winners, have written an open letter to Trump requesting him to observe high standards, independence and integrity of research and innovation.
- In America, more than 50 lakh immigrants work as scientists and engineers. Considering Trump’s outlook on immigrants, everyone is naturally worried.
What Has Trump Said
On wind mills: “And it kills all the birds. I don’t know if you know that. Thousands of birds are lying on the ground. And the eagle. You know, certain parts of California — they've killed so many eagles. You know, they put you in jail if you kill an eagle. And yet these windmills [kill] them by the hundreds.”
On wind mills: “So Obama’s talking about all of this with the global warming and — a lot of it’s a hoax, it’s a hoax.”
On climate change: “Solar is very, very expensive. Wind is very, very expensive, and it only works when it’s windy.”
Hence Proved. Einstein Was A Genius: Einstein, in his 1916 Theory of Relativity, had said that gravitational waves exist, however, it took exactly a hundred years for the scientists to sense these gravitational waves that the ‘man’ had talked about a hundred years ago. This piece of news might not ring a bell, but it has been tagged as the breakthrough of the century. The scientists say observing gravitational waves can help them discover how the universe was born and explain some of its catastrophic events over the centuries. It could even offer a fresh insight to the Big Bang.
Wow! Portugal survives 4 days on renewables: On one hand, you have a President who thinks that you shouldn’t use windmills because they work only when there is wind, and on the other hand, you have a country like Portugal that fuelled its entire country’s electric usage by renewables for four consecutive days. It was done in May using hydropower plants, biofuels, wind turbines, solar panels and geothermal heat.
A Rocket That Can Land Back: SpaceX is, frankly, the Apple of space technology. The firm, founded by Elon Musk, has been commended for firing unmanned cargo vehicles to the International Space Station, and if all goes as scheduled, it might even fly NASA astronauts in 2017. The best news that came from the company’s stable was in the form of Falcon 9 rocket, which landed up right using its engines on a landing platform near Cape Canaveral launch pad. Recovering of old rockets and reusable rockets can cut down substantially on costs, and on that front ‘Falcon 9 landing’ is an epic feat.
Will Aliens Login To Facebook? That’s the most obvious question to ask if Facebook founder decided to look for aliens, right? This year, world’s first privately funded alien hunt became a reality when Zuckerberg and physicist Stephen Hawking announced that they will team-up to hunt for aliens under ‘Listen Project’. The project will use the world’s most powerful radio telescopes to record messages from Proxima b, a planet which is thought to have thought the most suitable conditions for promoting extra-terrestrial life. Their association is worth £76 million. Even Russian technology tycoon Yuri Milner is funding the £76 million project.
Zika emergency declared: There is nothing that makes you feel sadder than seeing the children suffer. Be it the kids of war-trodden Aleppo or the ones suffering from Zika, the world saw its delicate darlings suffer a lot. The rapid rise of the Zika infections across many parts of the world forced World Health Organisation to declare a public emergency of international concern over Zika – a mosquito-borne virus that led to a steep increase in the number of babies born with brain defects in Brazil. The outbreak of the virus led to the discovery that Zika infection during pregnancy causes microcephaly in their babies — that results in unusual smallness of their heads — and other severe fetal brain defects. In November, the WHO declared that Zika was no longer a global emergency, but it did not change the global risk assessment even in December. Like most mosquito-borne diseases Zika too is a seasonal disease that could repeatedly return.
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We’ve found earth’s twin...
NASA has discovered our planet’s closest twin yet – giving experts hope there may be an ‘Earth 2.0.’ The space agency, in August, said its Kepler Mission had spotted a “cousin to Earth” in a sun-like star’s habitable zone – the area around a star in which water could pool on an orbiting planet. John Grunsfeld, of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said the discovery of Kepler-452b “brings us one step closer to finding an Earth 2.0”. The planet, which is 60 per cent larger in diameter than Earth, has a 385-day orbit around the Kepler-452 star. Jon Jenkins, mission analysis lead, said: “We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth.” He added its six billion years spent in its star’s habitable zone gave “substantial opportunity for life to arise, should the necessary conditions exist”. The Kepler Mission, launched in 2009, looks for potentially habitable planets. Daily Mirror
Why this is the best Year for Isro?
- Simultaneously launched 20 satellites
- Activated its own NavIC satellite navigation system
- Tested a reusable launch vehicle (RLV) and a scramjet engine
- Put 34 satellites into the orbit. 33 satellites with Indian rockets and one (GSAT-18) by French company Arianespace
- The order book of its commercial arm Antrix Corporation’s stands at Rs.500 crore. Negotiations are on for launch orders for another Rs.500 crore.
- Put the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark II (GSLV-Mk II rocket) with 2-2.5 tonne capacity to geo-transfer orbit in the global market.
- The space agency also commercially used its own multiple-burn technology in its other rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).
- India’s eyes in the skies — a family of remote sensing or earth observation satellites — is said to have given the necessary images to the Indian Army to carry out its surgical strikes on terror camps across the Line of Control (LOC) in September.
- The space agency is also charting a new course in satellite manufacturing via a contract with Alpha Design Technologies Ltd for fabricating two navigation satellites.
- ISRO and its commercial arm, Antrix Corporation, suffered a legal setback. India lost the arbitration case in an international tribunal against Bengaluru-based Devas Multimedia Private Ltd for cancelling its space/satellite contract with Antrix Corporation.