• Indian Institute of Technology Madras researchers have found an association between a particular tissue-remodelling enzyme called ‘MMP7’ and risk of hypertension.
• Hypertension, a common disease in India, is associated with remodelling of heart tissues. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) play a crucial role in such hypertension-induced heart tissue remodelling, which results in alterations in the structural and mechanical support to blood vessels. This directly results in an increased risk for cardiovascular diseases.
• MMPs are a group of enzymes that have been found to be associated with degradation of extracellular matrix proteins (that provide structural support to the cells), during regular tissue growth.

• The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named a star and its planet with Indian names:
  • Bibha or HD 86081 is a yellow-white dwarf star in the constellation Sextans. It is bigger and more massive than our Sun. The star has been named ‘Bibha’ in honour of a pioneering Indian woman scientist Bibha Choudhury, who discovered subatomic particle, pi-meson. ‘Bhibha’ also means “a bright beam of light” in Bengali.
  • Santamasa or HD 86081b is a planet revolving around ‘Bibha’ has been named as ‘Santamasa’ to reflect the cloudy nature of its atmosphere. ‘Santamasa’ is the Sanskrit term for ‘clouded’.

• The World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified its first biosimilar medicine – trastuzumab – for treatment of breast cancer. The medicine, supplied by Samsung Bioepis NL B.V. (Netherlands), was assessed by WHO and found comparable to the originator product in terms of efficacy, safety and quality.

Biosimilars: They are much less expensive versions of innovator biotherapeutics while keeping the same effectiveness. They are usually manufactured by other companies once the patent on the original product has expired.

Biotherapeutics: Biotherapeutics are pharmaceutical products derived from biological and living sources. They include therapeutic vaccines, blood, blood components, cells, gene therapies, tissues and other materials.

WHO Prequalification: Prequalification is a service provided by WHO to assess the quality, safety and efficacy of those products that address global public health priorities.

• This is a clock designed by researchers at California Institute of Technology and NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that will give more accurate and precise time than currently used atomic clocks.
• Atomic clocks are used around the world to precisely tell time. Standard atomic clocks in use today, based on the atom cesium, tell time by "counting" radio frequencies.
• The new clock design builds upon two types of optical atomic clocks already in use. The first type is based on a single trapped charged atom, or ion, while the second uses thousands of neutral atoms trapped in what is called an optical lattice.
• Instead of using a collection of many atoms, the new design uses 40 atoms -- and those atoms are precisely controlled with laser tweezers.

• EChO Network, a national program, has been launched to train a new generation of educators and students who can identify and solve problems in an interdisciplinary manner and who can listen to our natural world and tackle real-world problems in medicine, agriculture, ecology, and technology.
• The initiative has drawn in partners from Government, industry and academia, with the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Govt. of India steering the program under the guidance of Prof. Shannon Olsson, Director, EChO Network. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Hindustan Unilever Limited, RoundGlass, India Climate Collaborative, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP) are the founding partners of the EChO Network.

• Researchers at the ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Dehradun have come up with a way to monitor soil erosion and decrease in carbon content in soil by correlating it with levels of radioactive cesium in soil.
• Radioactive cesium technology is a more rapid and less expensive method for soil erosion studies in the severely intensive croplands. It gives more accurate results for all types of erosion studies including historic, comparative and long-term soil and soil organic carbon erosion.
• For measuring cesium levels in soil, gamma spectroscopy technique is used. Different sites were found to have varying levels of cesium pointing at different degrees of soil degradation in different sites. By applying various formulas, the cesium loss was then used to calculate erosion and associated carbon loss in soil.
• This method can help in monitoring the effects of soil erosion and effectiveness of soil conservation strategies.

• Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) - Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) under the ‘Make in India’ initiative, have developed two diagnostic kits:

Japanese Encephalitis (JE) ELISA Kit (IgM)

• The kit is helpful for assessing the active infection of JE virus in the swine population which predicts the outbreak of JE in the humans.
•  As compared to the commercial kit available in the market at a price of Rs. 52,000; the ICAR-IVRI developed is available for the farmers at a minimal price of Rs. 5,000 only.
• Each kit is meant for testing around 45 samples.

Bluetongue: Sandwich ELISA for detection of Antigen

• With the help of the Kit, the Bluetongue Virus can be controlled with the vaccination of susceptible animals, vector control and quarantine of infected animals with the good management practices.
• Apart from the vaccination, the early diagnosis and isolation of the infected animals are one of the commonly suggested preventive methods for controlling the spread of the disease.
• Bluetongue (BT) Virus: The Bluetongue (BT) virus is an insect-transmitted viral disease of domestic and wild ruminants that includes the camelid species. The disease is widespread among the sheep, goats, cattle, buffaloes and camels in the country.

• The Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) researchers have developed algorithms that enable novel applications for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and deep learning to solve engineering problems.
• The researchers are going to establish a startup to deploy their AI Software called 'AISoft' to develop solutions to engineering problems in varied fields such as in thermal management, semiconductors, automobile, aerospace and electronic cooling applications.
• AIsoft was used to solve thermal management problems and found to be nearly million-fold faster compared to existing solutions currently used in the field.

• GEMINI (Gagan Enabled Mariner’s Instrument for Navigation and Information) is a portable receiver linked to ISRO-satellites, that is “fail-proof” and warn fishermen of danger.
• The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), a Hyderabad institute collaborated with Accord, a private company, to develop this receiver.
• GEMINI works on GAGAN developed by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India and is an India-made global positioning system and relies on the positioning system by ISRO’s GSAT satellites.
• With this device, fishermen outside the signal range of their phone companies can also access warnings and alerts.

• A new compound of plutonium (Pu) with an unexpected, pentavalent oxidation state — Pu (V) has been discovered by scientists.
• The new compound is solid and stable, and may represent a transient phase in radioactive waste repositories.
• They figured it as Pu (V), pentavalent plutonium, a never-observed-before form of the element.
• Plutonium is an unstable element and is tricky to transport, store and dispose of, but the find could lead to new ways to tackle those problems.