Appan Innovation Center

NASA’s VOYAGER 1 space probe crosses milestone 25 Billion KM distance from earth.

Before refrigerators existed, people would preserve products that needed to be kept cold, such as milk, by putting frogs in them.

In the past, each community had its own method of preservation. The ancient Russian and Finnish communities found a magnificent and very clever solution to this milk preservation: Throwing brown frogs called 'Rana temporaria' into milk...
A scientific study conducted in 2013 proved that this method worked. It was revealed that proteins such as Brevinin 1Tb synthesized from the skins of frogs (and other amphibians) restricted the life of some bacteria. Thus, the Russians and Finns discovered, albeit through trial and error, that they could fight bacteria by adding proteins produced from the skins of frogs to their milk.

साउथ कोरियामा आत्महत्यासँग सम्बन्धित एक अनौंठो घटना सार्वजनिक भएको छ। नगरपालिकाका लागि काम गर्दै आएको एउटा रोबोटले आत्महत्या गरेको छ।
डेली मेलका अनुसार साउथ कोरियाको गुमी सिटी नगरपालिकामा काम गर्दै आएको उक्त रोबोटले आफूलाई भर्याङ्गबाट तल खसालेको हो। भर्याङ्गटबा तल खसेको रोबोट निष्क्रिय अवस्थामा फेला परेको प्रहरीले जनाएको छ। घटना पछि प्रहरीले यसबारे जाँच सुरु गर्ने बताएको छ।उक्त रोबोटले गुमी सहरका नागरिकहरूलाई पछिल्लो १ वर्षदेखि प्रशासनिक काममा बिहान ९ बजेदेखि साँझ ६ बजेसम्म सहयोग गर्दै आएको थियो। उक्त रोबोटसँग सरकारी परिचयपत्र पनि थियो।
रोबोट केही समयदेखि कामका कारण तनावमा भएकाले आत्महत्या गरेको हुन सक्ने अनुमान गरिएको छ।
साउथ कोरियामा सरकारी कार्यालयहरूका प्रत्येक १० कर्मचारीमध्ये एकजना रोबोटले सेवा दिँदै आएका छन्।

In 1850, a farmer discovered a hidden village that was later found to be older than the Great Pyramids of Egypt. Archaeologists estimated that approximately 100 people once lived in this village, named Skara Brae, also known as the "Scottish Pompeii." The houses were interconnected by tunnels, and each dwelling could be sealed with a stone door.

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पृथ्वीको सतहभन्दा ७०० किलोमिटर तल भेटियो सबैभन्दा ठूलो महासागर

काठमाडौँ । पृथ्वीको सतह भन्दा ७०० किलोमिटर तल सबैभन्दा ठूलो महासागर अवस्थित रहेको वैज्ञानिकहरुले पत्ता लगाएका छन् । अमेरिकाको इलिनोइस राज्यका अनुसन्धानकर्ताहरूले यो पत्ता लगाएका हुन् ।

यसमा सबै महासागरको कुल पानीको तुलनामा तीन गुणा बढी पानी रहेको उनीहरुले बताएका छन् । पृथ्वीमा पानी कहाँबाट आयो भनेर खोजी गर्दा वैज्ञानिकहरूले यस महासागरको बारेमा पत्ता लगाएको रिपोर्टमा बताइएको छ ।

यो महासागर पृथ्वीको सतह मुनि निलो चट्टानमा लुकेको छ । खोज टोलीका वैज्ञानिक स्टिभ ज्याकबसनले चट्टान स्पन्ज जस्तै छ जसले पानीलाई अवशोषित गरिरहने बताए । २ हजार सिस्मोमिटरबाट ५ सय भूकम्पको अध्ययन गरी यो महासागर पत्ता लागेको हो ।

जब पृथ्वी मुनि बुलन्द छालहरू ओसिलो चट्टानबाट गुज्र्छन्, तिनीहरूको गति सुस्त हुन्छ । सिस्मोमिटरबाट यी छालहरू अध्ययन गरेपछि महासागर पत्ता लागेको हो ।

यस खोजको बारेमा जानकारी पहिलो पटक सन् २०१४ मा दिइएको थियो । यो कुरा एक वैज्ञानिक पेपर 'डिहाइड्रेसन मेल्टिङ एट द टप अफ द लोअर मेन्टल' मा रिपोर्ट गरिएको थियो । तर, अहिले यो अनुसन्धान भाइरल भइरहेको छ । यस महासागरको उत्पत्तिपछि पृथ्वीमा पानीको उत्पत्तिबारे नयाँ सिद्धान्त फेला परेको छ ।

धेरै रिपोर्टहरूमा यो दावी गरिएको छ कि धूमकेतु पृथ्वीसँग ठोक्किएपछि यसको प्रभावका कारण पानी उत्पन्न भएको थियो । यद्यपि, पृथ्वीको सतह मुनि रहेको महासागरबाट, यो सम्भव छ कि समयसँगै पृथ्वी मुनिबाट समुद्रहरू निस्किएका छन् ।

वैज्ञानिक जेकबसनले यो महासागर पृथ्वी मुनि रहनु आवश्यक रहेको बताए किनभने यो सतहबाट बाहिर आयो भने पृथ्वीमा पानी मात्र रहनेछ । हिमालका अग्ला चुचुराहरू मात्र जमिनको नाममा बाँच्न सक्नेछन् ।

मुसलधारे पानी होस्, केतलीबाट निस्केको बाफ होस् वा ब्लक पिसेर तयार पारिएको बरफको रसिलो गोला होस् । पानीका यी तीन प्रकारलाई रसायनशास्त्रमा H₂O भनिन्छ । H₂O को अर्थ पानीको अणु हो । अणु कुनै पनि पदार्थको एकाइ हो ।

यो हाम्रो शरीर कोशिकाहरु मिलेर बनेको जस्तै हो । यसको मतलब कोशिकाहरू हाम्रो शरीरको एकाइ हुन् । H₂O अर्थात पानी तीनवटा परमाणु मिलेर बनेको हुन्छ । त्यहाँ दुई हाइड्रोजन परमाणु र एक अक्सिजन परमाणु छन् । त्यसैले यसको नाम H₂O राखिएको हो ।

Incredible new image of Sagittarius A*


In case you’ve never heard of it, Sagittarius A* is the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way around 26,000 light-years away from Earth. The new image has captured the magnetic field structures spiraling around the black hole for the first time by using the polarization of light. This image was taken by the Event Horizon Telescope, a collaboration that uses radio telescopes around the world to form a combined array the size of Earth, large enough to image a black hole. The image has captured the magnetic field structures spiraling around the black hole, similar to those of another black hole called M87*, suggesting "strong, twisted, and organized" magnetic fields might be a common feature among black holes.

Image Credit: EHT Collaboration

This year’s Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry Louis Brus showed that the strange properties of tiny particles are quantum effects.

Louis Brus was working at Bell Laboratories in the US, with the long-term aim of making chemical reactions happen using solar energy. To achieve this, he was using particles of cadmium sulphide, which can capture light and then utilise its energy to drive reactions. The particles were in a solution and Brus made them very small, because this gave him a larger area on which the chemical reactions could take place; the more a material is chopped up, the greater the surface area it will expose to its surroundings.

During his work with these tiny particles, Brus noticed something strange – their optical properties changed after he had left them on the lab bench for a while. He guessed that this could be because the particles had grown, so to confirm his suspicions he produced cadmium sulphide particles that were just about 4.5 nanometres in diameter. Brus then compared the optical properties of these newly made particles with those of the larger particles, which had a diameter of about 12.5 nano- metres. The larger particles absorbed light at the same wavelengths as cadmium sulphide generally does, but the smaller particles had an absorption that shifted towards blue.

Just like his 2023 co-laureate Alexei Ekimov, Brus understood that he had observed a size-dependent quantum effect. He published his discovery in 1983 and then started investigating particles made from a range of other substances. The pattern was the same – the smaller the particles, the bluer the light they absorbed.

The optical changes revealed that the substance’s characteristics had completely changed. A substance’s optical properties are governed by its electrons. The same electrons also govern the substance’s other properties, such as its ability to catalyse chemical reactions or conduct electricity. So when researchers detected the changed absorption they understood that, in principle, they were looking at an entirely new material.

There was just one problem. The methods Brus had used to fabricate nonparticles generally resulted in unpredictable quality. Quantum dots are tiny crystals (see illustration) and the ones that could be produced at that time often contained defects. They were also of varying sizes. It was possible to control how the crystals were formed so the particles had a given average size, but if researchers wanted all the particles in a solution to be about the same size they had to sort them after they were made. This was a difficult process that hindered development. This was a problem that Moungi Bawendi – also awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry – decided to solve.

Read the story of this year’s chemistry prize in full: https://bit.ly/3rpwdre

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 has been awarded for experiments with light that capture the shortest of moments.

This year’s physics laureates Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier have conducted experiments that demonstrate a method for producing pulses of light that are brief enough to capture images of processes inside atoms and molecules.

Electrons’ movements in atoms and molecules are so rapid that they are measured in attoseconds. An attosecond is to one second as one second is to the age of the universe.

Attosecond pulses make it possible to measure the time it takes for an electron to be tugged away from an atom, and to examine how the time this takes depends on how tightly the electron is bound to the atom’s nucleus. It is possible to reconstruct how the distribution of electrons oscillates from side to side or place to place in molecules and materials; previously their position could only be measured as an average.

Attosecond pulses can be used to test the internal processes of matter, and to identify different events. These pulses have been used to explore the detailed physics of atoms and molecules, and they have potential applications in areas from electronics to medicine.

For example, attosecond pulses can be used to push molecules, which emit a measurable signal. The signal from the molecules has a special structure, a type of fingerprint that reveals what molecule it is, and the possible applications of this include medical diagnostics.

Now that the attosecond world has become accessible, these short bursts of light can be used to study the movements of electrons. It is now possible to produce pulses down to just a few dozen attoseconds, and this technology is developing all the time.

The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”

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Magnificent View of the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter!

Image credit: Rami Ammoun.

The Giant leap of a frog!

On September 6th, 2013 a frog was flung into the air and captured by a NASA camera during the LADEE shuttle launch in Virginia.