1) Oldest leukaemia case found.
Scientists have discovered what may be the oldest known case of leukaemia in an approximately 7,000-year-old skeleton of a woman from a Neolithic graveyard in Germany.
Researchers used high-resolution computer tomography to detect indications of the blood cancer in the skeleton of a woman who died between 30 and 40 years of age.
2) India to launch Indonesian satellite LAPAN A2/ Orari.
- India will launch Indonesia’s second multi-spectral remote sensing satellite LAPAN A2/ Orari.
- The satellite will be launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on September 27, 2015.
About LAPAN A2/ Orari satellite:
- It is Indonesia’s domestically-made satellite and is successor to LAPAN A1/ Tubsat satellite.
- It was produced entirely by the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) of Indonesia in 2012.
- Satellite on its board is equipped with an automatic packet reporting system to aid disaster mitigation especially for monitoring floods, changes in the sea level and movements of the population.
- It will orbit the Earth along the equator with an altitude of 650 kilometers. It will encircle the Earth 14 times a day and travel at 7.5 kilometers per second.
Functions: It will work to monitor land usage, ship movements, sea resources, fishing explorations, natural resource and disaster mitigation.
3) IIT Kharagpur develop `Sparsh Transliteration System` and `Baishakhi` keyboard.
- IIT Kharagpur`s Communication Empowerment Lab researchers have developed a software that is capable of converting Indian languages into Braille.
- Named Sparsh Transliteration System, it can convert texts from languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Kannada, Oriya, etc.
- The highlight feature of the software states that once the text has been converted, it can be printed out using any Braille printer.
- In addition to Sparsh, the IIT-KGP lab has also developed a `Baishakhi` keyboard, which features voice commands. It will help visually impaired users to type in English and Bangla. Users will be able to listen whatever they will type, bringing conversation closer to the visually challenged world.
- The keyboard is developed to help carry out various day-to-day activities on PC, like browsing interenet, sending emails and the likes.
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4) WhatsApp, the messaging service Facebook bought for $19 billion in 2014, hit a major milestone.
- The service now has 900 million (90 crore) monthly active users worldwide.
- That means WhatsApp added 100 million users in the past six months, after announcing crossing the 800 million mark in April of this year. This milestone also means that WhatsApp has seen a 50% increase since August of 2014, when it hit 600 million users.
- It is well known that Facebook, acquired the mobile messaging service WhatsApp for $19 billion, making it the company`s largest acquisition in February 2014.
WhatsApp founder: Jan Koum
Facebook founder: Mark Zuckerberg