Science & Technology

SHANGHAI, July 20 (Xinhua) -- China's research icebreaker Xuelong set sail from Shanghai Friday, marking the country's 9th Arctic expedition.

A team of 131 researchers, along with foreign scientists, will make the two-month trip of 12,300 nautical miles.

During the expedition, Xuelong will conduct research in Chukchi Rise and the Canada Basin in the Arctic Ocean and is expected to return to Shanghai before the end of September.

Virginia Beach, Jul 20 (AP); Google says it will string a trans-Atlantic cable from France to Virginia.

The web giant said in a statement this week that the undersea cable will land stateside in Virginia Beach. It's expected to become operational in 2020.

Google said the project will better serve customers with an expanded network. Internet traffic across the Atlantic is among the busiest.

The cable will also support growth of Google Cloud. And it will land in relative proximity to Google's planned data center in northern Virginia.

SHANGHAI, July 17 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese research group on Tuesday announced progress in developing a drug to treat Alzheimer's disease.

GV-971 was developed by Ocean University of China, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica under Chinese Academy of Sciences and Green Valley Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, after a 21-year study.

A phase three clinical trial is the last test before reaching the market.

In the trial, participants took 450 mg GV-971 orally twice a day for 36 weeks, which proved effective in improving cognition.

BEIJING, July 12 (Xinhua) -- China's C919 large passenger plane project has entered into a new major phase with intensive flight tests in multiple sites around the country, announced its developer the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China (COMAC).

The No.102 C919 plane landed at Dongying Shengli Airport in east China's Shandong Province Thursday, after its first long-distance flight from the final assembly line in Shanghai, COMAC said.

Before this flight, the aircraft has completed multiple tests and had modifications made for the upcoming test missions.

PTI; Balasore (Odisha), Jul 16 : Supersonic cruise missile BrahMos was today successfully test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur.

The missile was launched at about 10.15 am from the launch complex three of the ITR and successfully flew in its pre-set trajectory meeting its mission objectives, Defence Research and Development (DRDO) sources said.

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) -- An international team of astronomers found that Uranus was hit by a massive object roughly twice the size of Earth which caused the planet to tilt and came with its freezing temperatures, according to new research.

The study published on Monday in the Astrophysical Journal confirmed a previous study which said that Uranus' tilted position was caused by a collision with a massive object, most likely a young proto-planet made of rock and ice, during the formation of the solar system about four billion years ago.

Christopher Pyne. Australian Defence Industry Minister, has announced purchase of six Triton military surveillance drones from US at a cost of about $7 billion – more than $1 billion each.

In an interview with Fairfax Media, Christopher Pyne said that the “unmanned vehicle travels about 11,000km in its range…” and “can go up for a day or more at 60,000 feet”. He said that the fleet “will cover South China sea”.

“we cover about 10% of world’s surface in Australia in reconnaissance and surveillance for our allies, particularly for United States”, said Pyne.

PTI Washington; Jun 18, 2018 23:01 IST

President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the Pentagon to create a new US “space force,” which would become the sixth branch of the American military and would ensure “American dominance” in space.

“I’m hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces,” Trump said.

“We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the space force, separate but equal,” he added.

BALASORE: India on Sunday Successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Long Range Ballistic Missile Agni-5 with a strike range of 5,000 km from Dr Abdul Kalam Island off the Odisha coast.

The surface-to-surface missile was launched with the help of a mobile launcher from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Dr Abdul Kalam Island in the Bay of Bengal at 9.48 am, defence sources said.

This was the sixth trial of the state-of-the-art Agni-5. The missile covered its full distance during the trial which was a total success, they said.