Success! China's astronaut Trio returned to earth safely

        The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft touched down safely after a successful 13 day mission. This was the most complex and longest space missions in China's history. This successful completion of this mission helped in making a giant leap in country's effort in building a space station by 2020.

Microsoft to enter tablet market on monday

       Microsoft is expected to make its long awaited entry into tablet market on monday. they are going to make this leap by using british-designed microchips wich powers most of the smart phones and tablets today, instead of chips from intel. British designed ones use less power hence increasing battery life. Its the main advantage of british designed ones over intel chips. This leap may mark an end to the long historic alliance between Microsoft and Intel. Some reports suggest that Microsoft will introduce an own-brand tablet before licensing software to other third party manufactures such as hp, just like google's "Nexus" Android smart phones.
Anyway, will it be worthy enough to compete with i-pad? Wait and see

Under-Sea Gold

              Everysummer, a handfull of fortune seekers hunt for gold in the bottom of Bering Sea. They spend hours under frigid, rocky sea floor, hunting gold from decomissioned sea rigs. Once rigs become barely sea worthy, it will be decomissioned and sea will do the rest. With gold price at all time heights, some may go home rich and some others with bare hands.

Sun Blasts Huge Magnetic Wave towards Earth; Expected to hit on June 16th

         An active region on the sun has erupted, blasting a dynamic magnetic bubble(Coronal Mass Ejection - CME) of energetic plasma in the direction of earth. It is powering through space at a staggering speed of 1,360 kilometers per second(about 3 million miles per hour). A NASA spacecraft, one of two solar satellites called the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory(STEREO) which is orbiting sun in the opposite direction observed the CME expansion.
         On June 13, AR1504(Active Region 1504) erupted, producing a flare along with a CME. It is expected that this CME will hit Venus on June 15th, Earth on June 16th and Mars on June 19th. Today's generated CME, launched from the same location is also predicted to slam into Earth's magnetic field on June 16th. It could potentially result in a geomagnetic storm.

                                      Have a look at anatomy of Coronary Mass Ejection(CME)

             CME's magnetic field can compress and distort the magnetic field of earth, called the magnetosphere. If the rotation of the CME's magnetic field i aligned correctly, it may become "geoeffective", causing the CME's magnetic field to connect with earth's magnetic field, resulting in geomagnetic storm, causing the injection of energetic solar particles into magneto sphere and a rapid release of stored energy. This could often result in spectacular display of Aurorae at high latitudes and some interference to modern technology. For example, Communication interference may occur, airliners may be directed away from polar regions and even electrical surge may be detected in national power grids may be detected.

Florida tornado warnings

Hurricane season has come early this year. Tornado warnings has started in Florida. Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado are expected to see large hail and damaging winds. Watch for it.

NRO to give two powerful telescopes intended as spy satelites to NASA

         National Reconnaissance Office(NRO) announced that they are goin to give two very powerful telescopes intended as spy-satelites to NASA. Its NASA's job to place both telescopes into orbit. Actually its a huge relief to NASA because NASA have a powerful telescope named "Hubble" for space research but as they decommisioned space shuttle program its not possible to perform repairing works on Hubble. So after some time NASA would be forced to ditch it down into pacific ocean. So to continue with space research Nasa should find a new solution as soon as possible. NASA was proceeding with another space telescope program but that project is now over shedule as well as over budget. NASA could use these two satelites instead of ageing Hubble.
            Experts say, these two telescopes are 100 times more powerful than Huble as they have extra reflecting surfaces and larger lenses. Instead on turning eyes on rough nations NASA could turn it away from earth into deep space. Thus these telescopes will be useful to both NRO and NASA.
           As you guessed, there is a hitch, a huge hitch. These telescopes are powerful than Hubble and can be used to focus distant strs. But they don't have spectrometer or such hardwares to process huge amounts of data collected. NASA should develop such hardwares before the launch. NASA doesn't have enough fund for it. Along with that, such programs need engineers, more workers that also need more funds. Such projects requier annual recurring funds. Like that there are many many problems. Hope NASA would find a solution soon. Otherwise it will be a huge blow not only for NASA but also for our Scientific World.

VOLVO; self-driven cars head down spanish motorways

       Everbody says that autonomous driving is just a science fiction, but the fact is that the technology is already here. Self-driven Volvos equipped with cameras, radars and laser sensors head down motorways on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain. The convoy of 4 self-driven cars was led by a professional driver in a truck and drove about 200km(124 miles) in public under normal conditions. The convoy included a lead truck, a self-driven truck and 3 cars, Volvo said in a statement. The test was performed on May 22, 2012.

Apple's News"Spaceship" Headquarters

      A new "Spaceship" Headquarters for Apple Inc is getting ready in Cupertino, Calif. It is considered as one of the best Office Buildings in the world. It can handle 13000 workers and it is shrouded by 6000 trees. This building is very energy efficient and it is powered by its huge solar roof panels. The Sun Roof on Apple's New Headquarters maybe one of the US's, and world's, biggest solar installations.
       This new "Spaceship" like headquarters is expected to start functioning in 2015. Apple has also confirmed that it will construct a three-story office block at its European headquarters in Cork, Ireland, recruiting for 500 jobs in the Irish city as it looks to expand its business across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa.

World Environment Day Special; Bharathapuzha; A river which dried up due to excess removal of sand illegally

           For constructions purposes sand is used in a large scale. As construction field is kicking up, the demand for sand is increasing in an unprecedented scale. Price of sand has increased in such a way that selling of sand has become one of the most profitable business. So eventually many mafias have started smuggling sand in huge amounts for money. Removal of sand in large scale from rivers will cause many environmental problems like drying up of river, lowering of water table, scarcity of water etc. Authorities know about this issue but they are not taking any necessary actions preventing this. These mafias give bribes to responsible officers to influence them or prevent them from taking actions against smuggling of sand.
           Many rivers in South India have died up and many more are in the edge of death. "Bharathapuzha" is one of such rivers. Present condition of Bharathapuzha is depicted in the image above. Bharathapuzha has now dried up and literally we can walk through the river to cross it. Water from this river is used for irrigation purposes. Many towns and villages depend on this river for drinking water. As this river gets dried up, thousands of people suffer scarcity of water.
            Bharathapuzha is located in Kerala State(India). It is the longest river in Kerala. I am living in the bank of this river and i can see many many trucks carrying sand from this river daily. Even now, trucks are passing by smuggling sand.