China commissions world's largest radio telescope

New Zealand's research institute in Antarctica is scaling back the number of projects planned for the upcoming season, in an effort to keep the continent free of coronavirus, it was reported on Tuesday.

The government agency, Antarctica New Zealand, told the BBC on Tuesday that it was dropping 23 of the 36 research projects.

Only long-term science monitoring, essential operational activity and planned maintenance will go ahead.

The upcoming research season runs from October to March.

"As COVID-19 sweeps the planet, only one continent remains untouched and (we) are focused on keeping it that way," Antarctica New Zealand told the BBC.

The organisation's chief executive Sarah Williamson said the travel limits and a strict managed isolation plan were the key factors for keeping Scott Base - New Zealand's research facility - virus free.

"Antarctica New Zealand is committed to maintaining and enhancing the quality of New Zealand's Antarctic scientific research. However, current circumstances dictate that our ability to support science is extremely limited this season" she said.

Earlier in April, Australia announced that it would scale back its activity in the 2020-21 summer season.

This included decreasing operational capacity and delaying work on some major projects.

New Delhi, Jan 26: Google on Sunday marked India's 71st Republic Day by dedicating a doodle illustrating the country's rich cultural heritage that permeates and unites the diverse nation.

From its world-famous landmarks like the Taj Mahal and India Gate, to the wide array of fauna such as its national bird (the Indian peafowl), to classical arts, textiles, and dances, the doodle, designed by Singapore-based artist Meroo Seth, brings together the rich cultural heritage of the country.

Republic Day marks the completion of India's transition towards becoming an independent republic after its constitution came into effect. The governing document had taken nearly three years of careful deliberation to finalise, and its eventual enactment was joyfully celebrated across the country.

While the Constitution was adopted by the Indian Constituent Assembly on 26 November 1949, it came into effect on January 26 -- a day when Declaration of Indian Independence (Purna Swaraj) was proclaimed by the Indian National Congress back in 1929, as opposed to the Dominion status offered by the British Regime.

Festivities embody the essence of diversity found in one of the world's most populous nations, celebrated over a three-day period with cultural events displaying national pride.

Last year's doodle on Republic Day, designed by artist Reshidev RK, had featured Rashtrapati Bhavan in the background along with a display of the country's iconic monuments and heritage.

Twitter has joined efforts to do away with racially loaded terms such as master, slave and blacklist from its coding language in the wake of the death of African-American George Floyd and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests.

The project started even before the current movement for racial justice escalated following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd in police custody in May.

The use of terms such as "master" and "slave" in programming language originated decades ago. While "master" is used to refer to the primary version of a code, "slave" refers to the replicas. Similarly, the term "Blacklist" is used to refer to items which are meant to be automatically denied.

The efforts to change these terms in favour of more inclusive language at Twitter were initiated by Regynald Augustin and Kevin Oliver and the microblogging platform is now backing their efforts.

"Inclusive language plays a critical role in fostering an environment where everyone belongs. At Twitter, the language we have been using in our code does not reflect our values as a company or represent the people we serve. We want to change that. #WordsMatter," Twitter's engineering team said in a post on Thursday.

As per the recommendations from the team, the term "whitelist" could be replaced by "allowlist" and "blacklist" by "denylist".

Similarly, "master/slave" could be replaced by "leader/follower", "primary/replica" or "primary/standby".

Twitter, however, is not the first to start a project to bring inclusivity in programming language.

According to a report in CNET, the team behind the Drupal online publishing software started using "primary/replica" in place of "master/slave" as early as in 2014.

The use of the terms "master/slave" was also dropped by developers of the Python programming language in 2018.

Now similar efforts are underway at Microsoft's Github and LinkedIn divisions as well, said the report.