First Ever Black Hole Image Captured

It measures 40 billion km across ! This massive black hole is three million times the size of the Earth. And 500 million trillion km away. But scientist ware able to capture the whole thing in one frame.Yes astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole.
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10 April 2019, the images of the black hole was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope. It’s a network of eight linked telescopes. But Katie Bouman 29-year-old computer scientist was behind the impossible.Dr.Bouman’s algorithm rendered the collected image and construct the final image. She has been working on this project for the last three years.
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Different telescope took images from different section.But the black is self larger than the size of our entire Solar System.So Dr. Bouman and others developed a series of algorithms that converted telescopic data into one whole image.Image was published on 10 April 2019. This picture give us the opportunity see the an actual blackhole, which is “unseeable” to the naked eye.

Three-person Baby Boy Born in Greece

A baby was born on Tuesday April 9, 2019 through an experimental form of IVF in Greece.The procedure uses an egg from the mother, sperm from the father and another egg from a donor woman.The baby will carry a tiny amount of genetic makeup from the donor woman as mitochondria have their own DNA. Mother and baby both are in good health.

Nearly every cell of the body has mitochondria that convert food into use-able energy.But there is also speculation (claim has not been tested) mitochondria may have a role in a successful pregnancy too.The patient had endured four unsuccessful cycles of IVF.

President of the Institute, Dr Panagiotis Psathas said:”We are very proud to announce an international innovation in assisted reproduction, and we are now in a position to make it possible for women with multiple IVF failures or rare mitochondrial genetic diseases to have a healthy child.

Norwegian Aluminum Plants Hit by Cyber-Attack

19 March 2019 one Norwegian aluminum firm name Hydro became the latest victim of cyber attack. As a safety measure digital systems at the firm’s smelting plants has been turned off. Firm inform in a press briefing –  that the IT systems in most business areas are impacted and they are still running their investigation about the attack.

A local source reported that the cyber-attack was caused by a relatively new form of ransomware known as LockerGoga, but the plant’s official did not comment on this.

For now the plant had to switched to manual operations. Hydro is also getting help from Norway’s state cyber-security agency to resolve this issue.

Osaka Metro Websites Offline After Translation Errors

Osaka metro’s network had to temporarily put their foreign language site offline – after an unusual problem on 19 March 2019. The website’s user notice the English translation was not correct. As a result “Sakai Muscle” and “Osaka Metro” became the Japanese hashtags trend.

Some of the errors are-
“Sakaisuji” translated as “Sakai muscle”.
“Dobutsuen-mae” translated as “Before the Zoo”.
“Daikokucho” translated as “Powerhouse Town”.
“Taishibashi-Imaichi” translated as “Prince Bridge Now City”.
“Tengachaya” translated as “World Teahouse”.
Microsoft translation program is use to translate metro’s all non-Japanese pages.

To be on the safe side the Chinese, Korean and Thai language website also has been taken offline to avoid confusion.In the mean time as a temporary solution visitors to the English language page are automatically redirected to the main Japanese site.

Facebook, Instagram Down for 14 Hours

Facebook, Instagram were down for almost 14 Hours starting on late March 13 and ended 14 March. According to Facebook’s status page – the outage started on Wednesday (Eastern Time) 11am. The outage impact it’s user from posting or login in to Facebook. But Facebook confirmed – that it was not a DDoS attack.It was actually a server configuration change that started the problem.

The whole time Facebook and Instagram ware updating their users with latest information through Twitter.

What is DDoS Attack ?

DDoS OR Distributed Denial of Service is a cyber-attack. It targets websites and online services.The attacker overwhelm the target (websites OR online services) with more traffic than the server or network can accommodate. As a result the intended users of the website/online-services cannot access them properly.

Uganda and Social Media Tax

July 2018 Uganda’s finance minister David Bahati imposed tax on daily internet uses.  His action take affects more than 60 online platforms including Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. To use those sites, peoples or Uganda are expected to pay a tax of 200 Ugandan shillings a day. His original reason was to tackle the online “idle talk” and raise revenue for the government.

Now the latest data shows – the internet subscriptions to such sites and services fell by more than 2.5 million and internet based business are suffering.

Stem Cell Transplant Cures a Man From AIDS Virus

Stem cell transplant cures a man from AIDS virus. The report was published online by the “Nature”. The patient was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and he was taking HIV control drugs. Then he developed Hodgkin lymphoma (type of cancer). in 2016 he had a stem cell transplant to cure his cancer.

He was lucky – as his doctor found donor who has a gene mutation that confers natural resistance to HIV (only 1 per cent of people descended from northern Europe have inherited this mutation from both parents. And they are immune to most HIV). After that he stop taking the HIV control drug and after 18 months of transfer there is no trace of the virus.

This is a  dangerous procedure and have failed in other patients. Timothy Ray Brown of USA was the first successful patients who was treated with this therapy. He also known as the “Berlin patient,”

US Polar Vortex

United States has been crippled under extreme cold weather – phenomenon known as polar vortex. School, office and many other services has been closed. Moren than 20 people died. People has been instructed – not to stay outside, not to take deep breath and even not to talk, as the extreme cold air can cause serious damage.

What is Polar Vortex
Polar vortex, is a circulation of strong, upper-level winds.These winds tend to keep the bitter cold air locked in the Arctic regions. The wind normally surround the northern pole, moving in a counterclockwise direction – a polar low-pressure system.  Some times this vortex can move down farther south. Which makes that region cold.

Singapore HIV Health Record Exposed

Personal health information of 14,200 Singaporean citizens has been exposed. This is the second time it happen.Singapore’s Ministry of Health confirmed that these  people are all  HIV-positive.

The records were exposed by Mikhy K Farrera Brochez. Mikhy has been living in Singapore for eight years and last year he was deported for fraud and drug-related offenses. He said he gained unauthorized access to the ministry’s HIV Registry, his partner Ler Teck Siang. Ler Teck Siang used to a top the level management of the Ministry of Health’s National Public Health Unit.

It was not sure where Mikhy K Farrera Brochez posted the records. But Ministry was able to stop the process.

A Protein in The Blood Identified That Could Predict Alzheimer

Researchers developed a simple blood test that shows evidence of brain damage due to Alzheimer’s almost seven years before any kind of cognitive changes occur. Research was conducted at German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Tübingen and Washington University at St. Louis.

Samples of blood collected from 243 people all in their in their 40s or 50s. A protein called “neurofilament light chain”, was the main target. It provide structural support to neurons. High levels of this protein in the blood typically indicates brain damage. People of took parts in the research – had some amount of neurofilament light chain in their blood.

But people who has Alzheimer’s gene in their systems started getting more of this protein in their blood. At a faster rate than those who dont have the Alzheimer’s gene. If all goes ok, this test could be used to identify patients who will develop dementia in future. So these people can start taking anti Alzheimer drug even before things go bad.

Google Hit With $57M Fine by European Union

Jan 21, 2019 Monday France’s The National Data Protection Commission fined Google 50 million euros ($57 million). According to the commission for ad personalization for users, Google shows “lack of transparency, inadequate information and lack of valid consent”. This is one of the biggest regulatory enforcement action.

Commission mention in their report that – Google donor properly informed their
users why they collect data for advertisement. And user need to spend time to find – how and why Google use their data. In response to this fine. Google said they are studying the decision and planning their next step.

Learn more  –  How Google Collect and Use Our Personal Information