Meteoroid impact triggers bright flash on the moon

Cape Canaveral, Florida: An automated telescope monitoring the moon has captured images of an 88-pound (40 kg) rock slamming into the lunar surface, creating a bright flash of light, NASA scientists said on Friday.

The explosion on March 17 was the biggest seen since NASA began watching the moon for meteoroid impacts about eight years ago. So far, more than 300 strikes have been recorded.

"It exploded in a flash nearly 10 times as bright as anything we've ever seen before," Bill Cooke, with NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, said in a statement.

A NASA satellite orbiting the moon is now on a hunt for the newly formed crater, which scientists estimate could be as wide as 66 feet (20 meters).

The flash was so bright that anyone looking at the moon at the moment of impact could have seen it without a telescope, NASA said.

After reviewing digital recordings made by one of the program's telescopes, scientists determined the space rock was about 1 foot (0.3 meters) in diameter, and traveling about 56,000 mph (90,123 kph) when it slammed into the moon and exploded with the force of five tons of TNT.

That same night, cameras detected an unusually high number of meteors blasting through Earth's atmosphere as well. Most meteors burn up well before reaching the ground.

But not always. In February, an asteroid estimated to be about 66 feet (20 meters) in diameter exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, damaging buildings and shattering glass, leaving more than 1,500 injured. It was the largest object to strike Earth since 1908.

"The Russian fireball was many orders of magnitude larger and possessed 100,000 times more energy," than the lunar impact, Cooke wrote in an email to Reuters.

He believes the lunar impact and the March 17 meteor shower on Earth are related, the result of both bodies traveling together through a region of space sprinkled with small rocks and dust.

"We'll be keeping an eye out for signs of a repeat performance next year when the Earth-moon system passes through the same region of space," Cooke said.

THE ROAD MADE UP OF WASTE PLASTIC

Pune gets first road made from plastic waste

Pune: It is a known fact that waste generated from discarded plastic items is hazardous to the environment, but what is seldom known is that waste plastic can also be utilised in constructing roads in the city. The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) recently repaired half a km of the road outside Hutchings High School near Old Golibar Maidan.

This was done by integrating plastic with tar known as polymer-modified bitumen, thus making good use of discarded plastic and preventing further damage to the environment.  This move has been carried out with the advocacy of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to prevent the persistent problem of potholes on the roads and to increase the resistance to water at a lower construction cost.

New initiative
PCB Vice President, Prasad Kedari said, "It's comparatively cheaper than the usual road making cost and since it is on a trial basis we are planning to carry it out on roads that are not used extensively. This is our new initiative." Such road constructions were earlier carried out in the South and this is the first time it has been experimented in the city. "By using plastic we are recycling it and preventing further damage to the environment," he added.

According to the contractors, 90 per cent of bitumen is amalgamated with 10 per cent of plastic that includes everyday waste ranging from carry bags to miscellaneous items like biscuit and gutka packets. These products are shredded into small pieces and mixed with the liquid before laying it on the road. Contractors say that the cost of the entire process is not more than Rs. 325 per metre.

"Even if 10 per cent plastic is mixed, it could save up to the equivalent quantity of bitumen. We'll have to wait and see if it provides any better results," said R Khetarpal, the contractor who has undertaken the project.

If the project is successful then the board that holds eight wards including Ghorpadi, Market Yard and MG road in the Cantonment area, covering almost 20 km of the road, will repair all roads with polymer-modified bitumen.

Is plastic better?
Plastic-cum-tar roads is 25 per cent better than unmodified roads and is almost 200 per cent resistant to soaking up water. The maintenance cost of the road is very low, while its durability is high. The roads reportedly need no repairing for at least five years. 

European data watchdogs target Google over privacy

Six European data protection agencies are contemplating legal action over Google's privacy policy.

The threat comes as a four-month deadline to change the policy expires with Google making "no change" to the policy.

Google's perceived failure to act is being looked in to by data watchdogs in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK.

In a statement, Google said its privacy policy "respects European law".

'Full engagement'

In late October 2012, a European Commission working party reported that Google's privacy policy did not meet Commission standards on data protection.

The report said Google should do more to let users see what information was held about them, provide tools to manage this data and take more care to ensure it did not store too much data about users.

The investigation was kicked off by Google's decision to update its privacy policy so it had one set of guidelines for every service it ran.

Google was given four months to comply with the working party's recommendations to bring the policy into line with European law.

"After this period has expired, Google has not implemented any significant compliance measures," said French data watchdog CNIL in a statement. CNIL headed the probe into the privacy policy.

In addition, said CNIL, Google was warned about the potential for action on 19 March in a meeting with officials from six data watchdogs. "No change," was seen following this meeting, said CNIL.

As a consequence, all six data protection bodies were now opening new investigations into Google and how it handled privacy. The UK's Information Commissioner confirmed it was looking at whether the policy complied but said it could not add further comment because the investigation was ongoing.

A Google spokesman said: "Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services."

"We have engaged fully with the DPAs involved throughout this process, and we'll continue to do so going forward," added the spokesman.

News of the action comes as Google's privacy director, Alma Whitten, steps down from her job. Ms Whitten was appointed as the search giant's first privacy director in 2010, following a series of mistakes by Google that had led to user data being exposed.

China's Communist Party and its more than two-million-man army aren't supposed to like video games.

Home-video consoles, that were growing in popularity through the 1990s, were officially banned in 2000 for fear that they were corrupting Chinese youth.

It was a kind of King Canute communism -- an attempt to hold back the rising tide of capitalism and the inflow of Western cultural products.

Of course, in the end it failed and the shrill warnings about "electronic heroin" were drowned out by consumer demand.

Consoles remained available on the grey market and the gaming industry simply moved online.

Today it's an industry that's worth more than 50bn Chinese RMB ($7.9bn; �5.2bn) a year and the Communist Party and its army are now well and truly in on the act.

Since its public release a few months ago, Glorious Mission, a video game initially designed for and by the Chinese military, has been downloaded more than a million times.

It might look like just another shoot 'em up blood-fest but it is, in fact, China's latest propaganda tool.

Why China's military has turned to gaming

By John SudworthBBC News, Shanghai

Continue reading the main story

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China's Communist Party and its more than two-million-man army aren't supposed to like video games.

Home-video consoles, that were growing in popularity through the 1990s, were officially banned in 2000 for fear that they were corrupting Chinese youth.

It was a kind of King Canute communism - an attempt to hold back the rising tide of capitalism and the inflow of Western cultural products.

Of course, in the end it failed and the shrill warnings about "electronic heroin" were drowned out by consumer demand.

Consoles remained available on the grey market and the gaming industry simply moved online.

Today it's an industry that's worth more than 50bn Chinese RMB ($7.9bn; £5.2bn) a year and the Communist Party and its army are now well and truly in on the act.

Since its public release a few months ago, Glorious Mission, a video game initially designed for and by the Chinese military, has been downloaded more than a million times.

It might look like just another shoot 'em up blood-fest but it is, in fact, China's latest propaganda tool.

Military dreams

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Most young boys, from the bottom of their hearts, want to be a soldier ”

Gu KaiGiant Network Technology

It was designed as a training aid for Chinese soldiers and state-run television has show pictures of ranks of them merrily gaming away, controlling virtual People's Liberation Army troops in various battlefield scenarios.

Interestingly, the virtual enemy they're taking on appears at times to bear at least a passing resemblance to the US and its allies, raising questions about exactly what real-life scenarios they're training for.

But whatever the effect on soldiers, the decision to make the game available to the wider public was taken in order to instil patriotic values, the "core values" of the military, according to army sources.

Gu Kai, vice-president of the software developers behind the game, Giant Network Technology, says that he believes the game will help drum up new army recruits.

Online gaming is extremely popular in China

"I would hope that somebody will play the game and fulfil their dream," he says.

"Most young boys, from the bottom of their hearts, want to be a soldier. They like to fight, they like to win, and if this video game can make that dream come true, I won't be surprised."

The propaganda appears, in places, less than subtle. One of the game's stages recreates the "fiery atmosphere of camp life", according to one news report.

War of ideas

In one Shanghai internet cafe, almost every one of the 100 or so terminals is busy with someone locked in intense online combat with a wide variety of foes; goblin, alien or human.

One young man says he spends more than 10 hours a week in here, and he agrees that online games might be a powerful tool for influencing thoughts and ideas.

"It's possible," he says. "Most of the players here are young. A military video game could make you feel familiar with and then develop an affinity for the army."

Glorious Mission, then, is a swift about-face for the Chinese military as well as a sign that China isn't just censoring the internet, banning search terms and deleting posts which it does routinely, but also now trying to harness its power.

The country already has an army of Communist Party bloggers posting comments in support of the government.

The seemingly rehabilitated gaming industry is simply the latest weapon.

Gu Kai says that the officials he's met are no longer opposed to gaming

This year, reports on state media suggest that the authorities might be about to officially abandon their moral scruples about the gaming industry altogether, with the consoles ban apparently coming up for review.

Gu Kai from Giant Network Technology tells me that he thinks China is now well and truly over it.

"I've met some of the officials," he says. "They stopped worrying about video games years ago."

"Most of them are promoting gaming as a new, hopeful and fast growing industry. At least here in Shanghai all the officials are very open and supportive."

China isn't the first to design a video game for military training purposes - Glorious Mission bears some resemblance to a game made 10 years ago, as a tool for the US military and also as a lure for army recruitment.

But influencing the thoughts of the wider public and attempting to mould and foster nationalist sentiment and loyalty is a more ambitious fight, and in China's virtual world, it's a fight that's likely to intensify.

World’s strongest magnet is 500,000 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field

The world’s strongest magnet has been created and sits in the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. According to researchers, it has the potential to revolutionize scientific research. The custom built split magnet took $2.5 million to complete, and operates at 25 Tesla – which is 500,000 times stronger than our planet’s magnetic field. If are ever caught in one of these devices, let’s just say you probably won’t live to tell the tale.

The previous world’s strongest magnet was only 17.5 Tesla and was set in France in 1991. The scientists will be using the magnets to probe the unusual properties of materials under extreme conditions of heat and pressure. The strong magnetic fields should make it easier for researchers to observe atoms or molecules much more easily then if they were under less extreme conditions. I wonder what sort of breakthroughs we’ll get from this device. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

The tallest buildings in India revealed

Standing tall at 254 metres (833 ft), the 61-floored Imperial Tower (I & II) are the tallest buildings in India. The Imperial is a twin-tower residential skyscraper complex in Mumbai that were the tallest buildings in the country till June 2012 when Palais Royale topped out. The towers are located at the sea front in Tardeo, South Mumbai. Construction was completed and the towers were inaugurated in 2010. (Photo by Krupasindhu Muduli via Wikimedia Commons)





Palais Royale is still under construction – it is a skyscraper located on the land previously owned by Shree Ram Mills Ltd. in Lower Parel, Mumbai. The luxury building has 100 apartments with areas of 8,700 square feet (810 m2) and 14,000 square feet. With a floor plate of 500,000 square feet, the premises will have amenities like a cinema house, spa, cricket pitch, badminton court, football pitch and three swimming pools. It has 88 lakh square feet of total residential space. [Photo by Tejas Itraj (on Panoramio) , via Wikimedia Commons]









Lodha Bellissimo is a tower currently topped out located in Mumbai, India. With a height of 222 meters (728 ft), the expected floor count is 53 floors. The construction is expected to be completed by late 2012. (Company website)







Vivarea (Towers 1, 2 and 3) in Mumbai stand at 200 metres (656 ft) tall and boast 45 floors.The 193m (633 ft) tall Ashok Towers D (pictured) in Mumbai has 49 floors. (Photo by Uniconnect via Wikimedia Commons)

With 40 floors and a height of 191 metres (627 ft) The Ruby in Mumbai comes in next. Orchid Woods (1, 2 and 3) share the next spot with a height of 190 metres (623 ft). The buildings have 55 floors each. Urmi Estate in Mumbai has a height of 182 metres (597 ft) and boasts 45 floors.

Pictured left: Planet Godrej is located in South Mumbai on plot of 9-acre (3.6 ha) at Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. Planet Godrej is one of the tallest towers in India. The tower is 181 m (594 ft) and 51 floors high.

(Photo: Company website)

Three buildings share the same ranking at 15, 16 and 17. Sunshine Tower (40 floors)and Imperial Heights (1 and 2) in Mumbai share the same height of 180 metres (591 ft).

(Photo: Company website)

At Rank 18, is perhaps the most-talked about buildings in recent times. Antilia (pictured) is the 27-floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to businessman Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries. According to some media reports, a full-time staff of 600 maintains the residence, reportedly the most expensive home in the world. The building is named after the mythical Atlantic island of Antillia.

The Antilia building is situated on an ocean-facing 4,532 square metres (48,780 sq ft) plot at Altamount Road, Cumballa Hill, South Mumbai.

(AFP PHOTO/Indranil MUKHERJEE)

At No 19 is 36-floored Vasant Grandeur (172 metres or 564 ft ) in Mumbai, followed by Raheja Legend (167 metres). It is followed by Springs (160 metres) and the 160-m Rustomjee Elanza (1, 2 & 3) - Pictured).

[Photo: Company website]




With 40 floors and a height of 191 metres (627 ft) The Ruby in Mumbai comes in next. Orchid Woods (1, 2 and 3) share the next spot with a height of 190 metres (623 ft). The buildings have 55 floors each. Urmi Estate in Mumbai has a height of 182 metres (597 ft) and boasts 45 floors.

1. Pictured left: Planet Godrej is located in South Mumbai on plot of 9-acre (3.6 ha) at Mahalaxmi, Mumbai. Planet Godrej is one of the tallest towers in India. The tower is 181 m (594 ft) and 51 floors high.

   (Photo: Company website)less 

2. Three buildings share the same ranking at 15, 16 and 17. Sunshine Tower (40 floors)and Imperial Heights (1 and 2) in Mumbai share the same height of 180 metres (591 ft).

   (Photo: Company website)

3. At Rank 18, is perhaps the most-talked about buildings in recent times. Antilia (pictured) is the 27-floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to businessman Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries. According to some media reports, a full-time staff of 600 maintains the residence, reportedly the most expensive home in the world. The building is named after the mythical Atlantic island of Antillia.

   The Antilia building is situated on an ocean-facing 4,532 square metres (48,780 sq ft) plot at Altamount Road, Cumballa Hill, South Mumbai.

   (AFP PHOTO/Indranil MUKHERJEE)less 

4. At No 19 is 36-floored Vasant Grandeur (172 metres or 564 ft ) in Mumbai, followed by Raheja Legend (167 metres). It is followed by Springs (160 metres) and the 160-m Rustomjee Elanza (1, 2 & 3) - Pictured).

   [Photo: Company website]

5. At No. 25 is the 158-metre tall RNA Mirage (pictured). (Image: RNA company website)

10 Best Flyovers in India

Transport play an important role in the development of a nation. India has a wide and heavy network of road transport which connects all the major cities. The Expressways, Cloverleaf interchanges, Bridges, Tunnels and Flyovers have make metros of India more sophisticated in nature. To handle the heavy traffic and for uninterrupted connectivity the beautiful flyovers are constructed in all the metro cities of India. All the flyovers have been constructed with new technologies with noise and dust barriers. Delhi and Chennai has maximum number of flyover in India and also known as “The city of flyovers”. Jaipur,Lucknow and Guwahati also has best flyovers to minimize the traffic of the city. Visit to know Newly constructed flyover of Indian cities

Thane Flyovers -Mumbai: Mumbai known as “The City Never Sleep” has 44 existing flyovers and 16 new flyovers has already been proposed to come to reduce traffic at different location of the dream city. These flyovers provide at least some relief to the Mumbaikers. One of the best flyover in Mumbai is thane flyover. Mumbai also has one of the best bridge in India that is bandra-worli sea-link.Hebbal Flyover -Bangalore: Bangalore The ‘Garden city of India‘ has some of the great flyovers. Bangalore electronic city flyover is 2nd biggest flyover in India. Hebbal Flyover is the best one and double road flyover is one of the worst flyover in India, has a signal on it, first of its kind in the world.Visweswarayya  Flyovers -Hyderabad: The twins cities Hyderabad and Secunderabad has recently registered its name in the book of records for having the longest flyover in the nation. It is 11.6 km long and India’s longest flyover and the road will be the India’s longest expressway.Varachha Flyover -Surat: Flyover in Surat have been a great success story in decongesting traffic movement. Varachha flyover was the longest flyover in India.AIIMS Flyover-Delhi: The Capital city of India, Delhi is using State-of-the-art technologies for its flyover projects to minimize construction activity at busyintersections. Commonwealth Games traveler will remember Delhi as the green city of beautiful flyovers.AJC Bose Flyovers -Kolkata: APC Road & AJC Bose road taken together is the longest road in Kolkata. AJC Bose road flyover is 1.8 km in length and one of the most important and longest flyover in Kolkata.Lucas Flyover -Chennai: Chennai is also known as “The city of flyovers”. It has maximum number of flyovers in India, few of them are Anna Flyover, Chennai Airport Flyover and  Lucas Flyover. The famous and grand flyover “kathipara Junction” a cloverleaf shaped flyover is new face of Chennai.Memnagar Junction Flyover  -Ahmedabad: Ahmedabad is one of the beautiful city in Gujarat, it is ready to fly over those congested city roads. After Ahmadabad being developed as science city, its main focus is to improve its infrastructure.Chiriyatand  Flyovers-Patna : Flyovers in Patna are very helpful to reduce the surging traffic pressure on its boring road. Patna is one of the great city in Bihar and  one of the oldest living city in India. Mahatma Gandhi Setu on river Gange is the longest river bridge in India.University Flyovers -Pune: Pune, one of the famous city for its greenery, natural beauty, surrounded mountains and for romantic weather. Pune thegreen city has good diversions to handle the traffic and University circle flyover is the best example.University flyover is the longest and best flyover in pune.