2 degree C target out of reach'

The UN's former climate chief said the global warming pledge he helped set at the Copenhagen Summit little more than two years ago was already unattainable. "I think two degrees is out of reach," Yvo de Boer, former executive secretary of the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said recently. The target was set by a core group of countries at the Copenhagen Summit in December 2009 and became enshrined by the forum at Cancun, Mexico a year later. But more and more scientists are warning that the objective is slipping away without radical, early cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Cancer killed 5.56 lakh people in India in 2010'

It is a combination of chewing tobacco and smoking, particularly by men, says Prof. Jha, explaining why oral cancer was the leading cause in urban areas. In the case of women, though mortality from cervical cancer was three times higher in rural areas than in urban areas, the rate of cervical cancer deaths was nearly the same in both the areas. Likewise, similar mortality rates were seen in the case of breast cancer in both the areas. But rural women had higher stomach cancer rates compared with urban women. Regional differences A 30-year-old male in northeast had about 11.2 per cent chances of dying from cancer before he turned 70. It was 6 per cent in the case of women. Contrast this with the less than 3 per cent risk for men in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha. Tobacco-related cancer deaths in men in Assam and other northeast States were greater than the national rates of deaths from all cancers. Common and long-term use of tobacco is seen in Assam and other northeastern States, he explains. Big variations in cancers not related to tobacco are seen in India. We have no idea why [this is so]. Further research is required, he says. That will be useful for India and the rest of the world. In the case of cancers common to both sexes, the variation between States was nearly four times. Northeast States, Kerala, West Bengal and Kashmir recorded particularly high rates of these specific cancers. Men and women in the nine poorer States (Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh) had lower risk than the richer States. Role of education Why [this is so] we don't know, he says about the lower risks in the poorer States. On the whole, literacy had played a big role mortality rates doubled in the case of illiterates. Those with secondary and higher education had lower rates of deaths, he says. In illiterate men the death rate was 106 per 1,00,000; for women it was 107 per 1,00,000. In the educated, the death rates are 46 per 1,00,000 in men and 43 per 1,00,000 in women. After taking age into account, the death rates between least and most educated women came out very clearly in oral cancer followed by stomach and cervical cancers. Rates of breast cancer varied little with education, the authors highlight. Cancer in Muslims An interesting find is that in States where Muslim population was higher, cervical cancer risk was much lower.

For instance, Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, which have 75 and 40 per cent Muslim population respectively, have less than a quarter of the national rates of cervical cancer, the authors write. As seen internationally, circumcision in men greatly reduces the chances of sexual transmission of HPV virus. Women also had lower incidence of oral cancer. However, breast and stomach cancers were much higher. Muslim men, however, had higher mortality rates than Hindus in the case of all cancers except liver cancer. Tobacco control Tobacco control is the best vaccine for lung and oral cancer, he stresses. Tobacco is the single most cause of many deaths. Tobacco companies have been beaten in other countries. It is just a matter of time before it happens here. Big tax hike is the answer, Prof. Jha says emphatically. France tripled the price in ten years and the consumption halved and revenue doubled. Mexico has increased tax by 30 per cent. Philippines wants to hike it by 200 per cent. They hope to introduce it next year, he adds. According to him, it is possible to cut many oral, breast and cervical deaths even in rural areas by early detection and treatment. You don't need super-speciality hospitals in rural areas. Basic services to detect and refer them for treatment is enough, Prof. Jha highlights. Changing trends Trends similar to those in developed countries are slowly beginning to emerge. Even though cervical cancer is still the leading cause of cancer deaths in both rural and urban areas, numbers of cervical cancer are dropping in urban areas. However, the number of breast cancer deaths is increasing. Big drivers of breast cancer are the changing trends seen in India late pregnancy and early menarche, he notes. Breast cancer development is similar in rural and urban areas. But deaths are more in rural areas due to lack of early detection. The data for the study was collected by resorting to verbal autopsy in 2004-2005. In verbal autopsy the details of the cause of death in the family are collected from a family member. Though the 2003 figures have been forward projected to 2010, there are lesser chances of gross errors creeping in as nearly 80 per cent of cancer deaths in people older than 15 had a crude previous diagnosis of cancer by a physician, suggesting some medical confirmation of cancers, the authors write. Though verbal autopsy cannot provide correct diagnosis of specific cancers where the organs are close to each other, like stomach, misclassification is less likely in the case of oral, cervical and breast cancers. Since India has only 24 urban population-based cancer registries and just two rural registries, the authors assessed cancer mortality in the Million Death Study (MDS), which is led by the Office of the Registrar General of India. MDS is one of the few large, nationally representative studies of the cause of deaths, including rural areas.

Cool' gas may form, strengthen sunspots

Hydrogen molecules may act as a kind of energy sink that strengthens the magnetic grip that causes sunspots.

Democracy too is Darwinian'

We have just gone through a series of successful elections in several states of India. This has once again shown to the world, and particularly to our own ruling politicians, that we take democracy seriously, and believe in consensus-based decisions. And all of us are delighted that the people of several countries in the Arab world (and Myanmar too) have the opportunity to vote and practice democracy. Is democracy a human invention, thought out by homo sapiens and practiced by us? What do other social animals do? Are there social practices in animal societies that have an evolutionary origin, handed down to us? The field of socio-biology throws not only surprises at us but also teaches us some lessons, asking us to be humble and appreciative of many other animals and even insects like the honeybee we admire and the cockroach we detest. Professor Raghavendra Gadagkar of the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore is a well known eusociologist who specializes in insect group behaviour of wasps and bees. He recently described to us how a colony of wasps or bees organizes itself and optimises resources. He points out that while the colony has a queen, workers and drones, this is no monarchy. The queen does not proclaim what the colony should do. (We call her the queen, rather anthropomorphically, since all she does is sit around and lay eggs, and is pampered by a retinue of assistants'). She too is just a worker, a special type of worker whose job is just to keep on laying eggs. There are no palace intrigues, and she too can be, and is, overthrown or displaced by another egg laying machine'. When the colony is divided into two, the second queen-less part makes its own queen. The queen is of course more important than the average worker, but she is not a dictator whose order the colony must obey. It is a group activity, with each member playing its role by common agreement. Yes, the cockroach, the pest whom we want to smash to death the moment we see it in the kitchen, too forms a congenial society with consensual rules. Dr. Jose Halloy and his group at the Department of Social Ecology at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium has been studying cockroach colonies for over a decade. He has come to the conclusion that cockroaches practice a simple form of democracy. In its society, each insect has equal standing and decisions made by group override those of individuals, and such group decisions govern what the entire group would do. How does one devise an experiment to arrive at such an important conclusion? Halloy's experiment was simple and decisive. He placed the group of cockroaches in a large dish that had three shelters. The cockroaches did much consultation among themselves by touching and probing each other through their antennae, and after such consultation, divided themselves into groups and ran towards the shelters, away from the light (recall they like dark and no light). The surprise was in the result. Each shelter could hold 50 insects. Yet when 50 cockroaches were used in the experiment, they divided themselves into two groups 25 went off to shelter 1 and 25 to shelter 2, leaving shelter 3 vacant. When the researchers brought far larger shelters, each housing far more than 50, the cockroaches formed a single group and all went into a single shelter. Halloy explained the results to mean that a balance is struck between cooperation and competition for resources. Group formation optimizes this balance. As he says: It allows them to increase their reproductive opportunities, promotes sharing of resources like shelter or food, and prevents desiccation by aggregating in dry environments, etc. Mammals also Turning to mammals, we do find democracy, or group decisions that govern the action of the entire colony. Professor Larissa Conradt of the University of Sussex, UK, who has been studying colonies of red deer, finds that individuals benefit if they synchronize their activities and movements, and they have to decide such things collectively.

It is in the interests of the group members to stay together, so that they reproduce more, optimize resources, detect and avoid predators better no different from cockroaches? More recently, Dr. Frans de Waal of the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University, Georgia, U.S., finds increasing evidence for similar group decisions and behaviour in chimpanzee societies too. In his forthcoming book chimpanzee politics, he describes how an alpha male spends a lot of time grooming allies, sharing food with them and keeping them on his side. Such consensus builders form more stable social structures and make group consensus decisions. Would this be the beginning of group politics, I wonder! Conradt and Roper describe, in their paper Democracy in animals: the evolution of shared group decisions ( Proceedings of the Royal Society; B 2007, 274: 2317 ), a game theory model of animal group behaviour. They show that a consensus decision is when the members of a group choose, collectively between mutually exclusive actions. This involves consensus costs, but equally shared decisions result in lowered consensus costs than unshared decisions. Is this not what democracy is about? As we study insects, fishes and mammals, we see the evolution of cooperative and consultative behaviour in many such animal colonies and societies, where the members choose to forego some privileges and bear some costs in order to promote harmony, survival and flourishing of the group-democracy in action. D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

If farmers are the backbone of the economy, then it is fractured'

All human toil is for the mouth, yet the appetite is not satisfied says the Bible. This is true in agriculture too. Our politicians shout, preach from platforms that farmers are the backbone of the country's economy, but in reality, the backbone lies fractured and our politicians are just not bothered. Their attitude is to throw the produce from the broken bone in the garbage dump and import from the U.S. or Australia, says Mr. R. Subbaian, of Kanakkan Thottam in Coimbatore district. Polluted Both the soil and water in Mr. Subbaian's field became polluted due to the chemical waste seepage from nearby dyeing factories into the Noyyal river which runs across his village. Several farmers in the area started selling their lands and moved into the cities as the Government failed to check the pollution or clean up the river. Petitions, demonstrations, nothing seemed to work and the dyeing factories continue their pollution unabated, says the farmer. But unlike others, Mr. Subbaian did not sell his lands. The fields are my extended family and the birds and insects here are my relations, I wanted to stay on and do something. During the course of my search for some information on what crops can be grown in these soils I came to know that Alfalfa (called Kudhirai masal in Tamil) grows well and I decided to cultivate it, he says. The farmer also took to multiple cropping to increase his income. Multiple cropping system is ideal for farmers as it is an effective method of avoiding risk of loss for the farmers. In case one crop fails, the farmers need not worry but can easily tide over the financial crunch through income from the other crops, explains Mr. Subbaian. In fact, much of the crop loss and farmers suicides happen only in areas where there is monocropping. Can you ever show me an instance of failure in multi-cropping? he asks. Mainly organic The crops are mainly grown organically as chemical farming proved to be a failure for him. Though I did chemical based agriculture nearly a decade back, all that it left was debts, which

accumulated to nearly Rs. 30 lakh. One thing I realised in all my life as a farmer is that no government is really interested in helping farmers. The centre is willing to import anything from the West and these countries are ready to dump us with their produce. Our Ministers are only too willing to accept it with open hands at the cost of destroying the lives of crores of farmers' livelihoods, he says. Becoming a debtor How did farmers become debtors and suffer this wretched condition? Is it their own doing? Don't people in other professions take loans and default? But it is only when a farmer fails to make one or two payments that it becomes news, he fumes. He adds, the bank goes in search of him as though he is a terrorist. What happened to the people who swindled crores? That money could have been used to improve agriculture and production for many years. Is anybody bothering about this? The much trumpeted green revolution in reality turned out to be a farce and was not able to either sustain production or improve farmers' lives, according to him. What is the use of only fields turning green? The lives of farmers must also turn green with money. Only then can we accept it as a revolution, says his son Kulandaivel. A sugarcane farmer goes through much hardship and it is the sugarcane mill owner who prospers. A paddy farmer remains poor throughout his life but the rice mill owner expands his mill or even buys two or three additional rice mills. Similarly it is not a cotton farmer but the buyer who flourishes. This is the ground reality. Even a 10-acre farmer is driven to sell his lands for getting money to finance his daughter's wedding, he emphasises. Eye wash According to the Mr. Kulandaivel the Government's campaign that rural India is shining and that too brightly, is just an eye wash. India no longer lives in villages; it lives in cities and cramped towns. The barren fields and almost empty streets in many villages with dilapidated homes are living proof of this, he concludes. Contact Mr. R. Subbaian at 4/5-A, Kanakkan thottam, A.G. Pudur (P.O), Irugur (via), Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu: 641-103, mobile: 0936-3228039, phone:0422-2627072

Lab-created H5N1 viruses removed natural barriers'

In two articles published today (February 2) in Nature , members of the United States National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) have for the first time gone on record explaining the reasons behind their decision to recommend both Science and Nature to publish only the redacted (censored) versions of two studies on H5N1 influenza virus created in the labs. The Board fears that the information can be misused by some if published in full. In an interview to Nature , the acting NSABB chair Paul S. Keim explains the several reasons behind the board's decision. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his colleagues succeeded in producing a mutant H5N1 influenza virus that had the ability to become transmissible by air. The mutant virus was created by combining H5 haemagglutin with genes from the 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus. However, the team was unable to produce a mutant H5N1 virus that could become transmissible by air without combining H5 with H1N1 pandemic strain. So why did NSABB still decide to recommend only a censored version to be published in Nature ? They provide a method for producing a transmissible H5N1 virus, Dr. Keim states. They demonstrate the compatibility of segments of the 2009 pandemic influenza backbone with H5 haemagglutinin to produce a virus that can be transmitted between ferrets [the best animal models that mimic

human influenza effects]. Moreover, the detection in humans last year of a novel H3N2 virus that had reassorted (mixed) in pigs had a great influence in their decision. In nature, pigs act like mixing vessels where various influenza virus strains combine with each to produce a strain that proves to be pathogenic and/or transmissible by air. Compared to the mutant H5N1 virus created by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam (the other team that created a mutant H5N1 virus), the one created by Dr. Kawaoka also lacked virulence. Yet, NSABB decided not to clear it for full-paper submission. The artificial evolution of a new mammal-adapted H5N1 virus, as reported in these two papers, has removed the natural barriers that might have existed, Dr. Keim explains. Dr. Fouchier went about creating the mutant virus by first inserting three mutations in the lab and then passing the virus from one infected ferret to another till it became transmissible by air. Dr. Kawaoka had also used ferrets. Hence both the teams avoided the use of pigs for the virus to reassort (mix) into transmissible and virulent forms. Dr. Keim goes further to explain the rationale for requesting the journals to censor the papers. The laboratory created virus has bypassed the apparent barriers to evolution in the wild, he notes.

Provide 100 days employment only during lean agriculture season'

While the government seems to laud itself claiming that the 100 days National rural employment scheme popularly called as NAREGA is a big success in villages, a study conducted by Bharat Krishak Sangh in Delhi revealed that the expenditure of candidates for Panchayat elections increased 10 fold since work started under the employment scheme, and that most people elected as Sarpanch (Panchayat President) bought a multi utility vehicle within months of being elected. Corruption These are a direct consequence of leakages such as corruption and acceptance of substandard work in our country's agriculture field, says Mr. Ajay Jakhar, Chairman of the Krishak Sangh. Realizing this, I believe Jean Dreze, who is credited with proposing this scheme, was compelled to observe that Narega is a pro-people law implemented by an anti-people system. People who influence and make policy must be aware of ground realities. A policy must not be designed to be implemented by an utopian non-existent system. As a consequence even the good components in half-baked policies are eventually eroded by ill-informed choices and poor governance, he says. It is clear that if the government needs to continue to give direct employment to the masses then this scheme is an acknowledgment of the failure of all rural development schemes since independence. Farming is no more dignified as more farmers look for govt. jobs and bride grooms from the other sectors. Over Rs. 100,000 crore spent on employment generation programmes are definitely not value for money spent; considering opportunities lost and other alternative investment options ignored. If it is an economic stimulus or a subsidy can be debated, says Mr. Jakhar. Rather than such expenditures, investments could have been made in increasing rural prosperity and productivity which would have also created self-employment opportunities. Spin off effect The employment scheme gives a minimum wage rate to anyone ready to do some minimum

labour. It is giving them some safety valve, which is good but the spin off effect for the farmer is that labour shortage has become one of his biggest worries, he adds. We realized this problem and everybody acknowledges it today. We proposed simple terms within the ambit of the scheme to safeguard farmer interest; The 100 day employment will only be guaranteed in the lean agriculture season. Positive consequences of inclusion are: Simple strategy There will be no shortage of labour in the peak season of harvest and sowing. People will get employment in the lean season when there is less opportunity of work. This will ensure higher number of available workdays in a year for the people without extra budgetary support, he exhorts. Cropping patterns change as seasons vary across geographies. Fearful of the central government always generalizing, we further proposed that the District Collector in consultation with State Agriculture University should be directed to notify 150 days of the year when employment cannot be given, says Mr. Jakhar. There is demand from some quarters for enunciating a wage sharing' scheme - labour demanding work can be engaged by the small farmers who will pay 50 per cent of the wages and the balance 50 per cent can be paid by the Government, according to him. In theory, this sounds good like most policies. But in practice the ground reality is that this provision will be exploited for personal gain by influential people in the villages and the proposed benefits will not be available to the genuine small farmers, seems to be his conviction. Provide governance The Government should provide governance and an atmosphere conducive for employment generation rather than provide direct employment. We cannot not quantify or ignore the social cost that India will have to eventually pay for providing jobs to large sections of society who get paid to work less and inefficiently, he says. To interact readers can contact Mr. Ajay Jakhar: at Chairman, Bharat Krishak Samaj, A-1, Nizamuddin West, New Delhi-110013, e-mail : aj@bks.org.in , mobile: 09810144555, phones : 011-65650384 and 46121708.

Stay clear of stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury'

Stay clear of stem cell treatment for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI), warned Professor Alan MackaySim , Director of National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research in Australia. He visited the Mary Verghese Institute of Rehabilitation attached to Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore in early December 2011. He is one of the world's foremost authorities on this subject and the first to try olfactory ensheathing cells on humans with SCI. In an email interview, he explained to S. Vaidya Nathan the current state of stem cell research for treating people with spinal cord injury. What is the current state of stem cell research, especially relating to spinal cord injury? Across the world, we are still in the very early stages of research into stem cells and SCI. Research into the possibility of repairing a damaged spinal cord is taking place in several places. Stem cells are one kind of treatment that is being explored; others are certain drugs and different cell types such as olfactory ensheathing cells on which I work. Most of the research is still based on animal models, mainly rats. In animals, there are a variety of stem cells such as bone marrow stem cells, neural stem cells and embryonic stem cells being tested.

Results have been encouraging, but from here to using them in human beings is a long step away. The accepted path for translating from animal experiments to humans is staged clinical trials, which involve three stages. A Phase I trial is a test of safety, the first step in moving from animals into humans. Phase I trials do not prove anything more, but are a must. We have a Phase I trial of autologous transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cells in persons with chronic SCI. Autologous transplantation means transplanting a patient's own cells; this helps avoid rejection by the immune system, which can occur when foreign cells such as embryonic stem cells are transplanted. There has been a Phase I trial of autologous transplantation of bone marrow stem cells. A Phase I trial using embryonic stem cells was recently discontinued by Geron Corp after transplantation in four patients. What is the pace of progress in this research? We must all understand that research on using stem cells for SCI is proceeding only in baby steps'. This is likely to be the trend in the years ahead, too. The spinal cord is an extremely sensitive part and that is an added factor in the measured pace of work. What has been the objective of your research in this field? It is important to understand the risk of a new treatment and balance that against a hoped-for benefit. In SCI, risks such as losing function, gaining new pain and new/enhanced spasticity must be balanced against benefits that are proven in animals, but may not apply to humans. When going from animals to humans, there are unknowns such as how many cells, where, how and how soon after the injury to transplant them, whether they will work in chronic injury and whether the procedure will damage incomplete injuries. Could you tell us about your Phase I clinical trial in human beings? This involved six persons with complete, chronic injury of the thoracic spinal cord. We took small pieces of tissue from inside their nose and using them, we grew their olfactory ensheathing cells in the lab. Six weeks later, we transplanted their own cells into the injured part of the spinal cord in three people. The three who did not get a transplant acted as controls,' to ensure assessing clinicians did not bias their views. To track whether there were any changes for good or bad, we assessed the six every three months for three years. There were no significant changes in any of the six. All we can say is that the procedure for transplantation of olfactory ensheathing cell is safe. What has been the success rate of using stem cells in animal models? We cannot set out a number, but cell transplantations have restored nerve connections between the brain and the lower spinal cord and improved walking, breathing and other functions in paraplegic rats. What is your advice to people seeking stem cell therapy for spinal cord injury? There are no stem cell treatments in the world today that have been fully tested in all stages of clinical trials. Part of the process of clinical trials is to report the outcomes and open them to public scrutiny for others to judge. Yet treatments' using stem cells for persons with SCI are taking place in several countries, including China, Russia, Brazil and India. Such treatments are not based on scientifically proven evidence that stem cells make a difference, partially or wholly, which means risks and benefits remain unproven. We know illnesses and injuries can change with time and that a few improve without treatment. There is no concrete evidence that it is stem cell treatment that leads to improvement of any sort in a person with SCI. Clinics offering stem cell therapies' do not state what cells they are transplanting, do not provide evidence of how the cells work in animals and whether they work in humans. Statements and testimonials from patients placed on websites or in newspapers are not

evidence'. In this backdrop, it is important that every person with SCI adopts a rational approach. I understand several persons with SCI are spending vast sums on stem cell treatment in the hope of improvement. This is a sad state of affairs. Persons with SCI must not go in for treatment using stem cell or olfactory ensheathing cells in any part of the world, as there is a long way to go to have a scientifically proven approach that also works. The money that is or could be spent on stem cell treatment must be used to improve the quality of life in other ways and not wasted in this treatment now. ( S. Vaidya Nathan is a founding member of Spinal Care India - A Vibrant Life)

Use new frontiers in nano-technology'

The new frontiers in nano-technology, for precise and result oriented delivery systems, can help us, in many specialized areas of agriculture and health. Issues like environmental safety and sustainability, through integrated pest management approaches are very important. Awareness required Increased global awareness, and trade-linked compulsions on good agricultural practices, is required for Global gap standards, for our farmers and entrepreneurs alike, said Mr.Harish Rawat, Union Minister of State for Agriculture, Food processing Industries and Parliamentary Affairs. He inaugurated the second International conference on agrochemicals protecting crops health and natural environment role of chemistry for sustainable agriculture organized at Pusa Campus recently. More demand Demand of food grains in our country would be 257.35 million tons in 2016-17 and 294.97 million tons in 2026-2027. The use of chemicals in agriculture and its adverse impact on the ecosystems is further complicating the overall scenario of food production, safety and sustainability. We have to tread the path with utmost dedication and commitment, he added. Mr. Rawat also felicitated agricultural experts and Industrialists in the conference. Earlier, Prof. V.L. Chopra, Former Member of Planning Commission urged to look into three major areas of concern increasing load of agricultural chemicals causing soil and environmental problems, gradual increase in use of pesticides and lack of general awareness. Need for attention He stressed the need for greater attention of scientists and academicians to address these issues. The conference was jointly organized by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, (IARI), Society for the promotion of Sustainable Agriculture and Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Senior officials of ICAR, National and International organisations and representatives of pesticide industries participated in the conference, according to a press release.

Work towards enhancing production in rain fed areas'

The Director General, ICAR Dr. S. Ayyappan inaugurated an exhibition by the Krishi Vigyan Kendras at Chitradurga and Tumkur. The exhibition was set up by Zonal Agricultural Research Station, National Agricultural Innovation Project and Akshya Food Park. The DG appreciated the efforts of the scientists of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore in developing various farmer friendly agricultural implements and suggested patenting the same. Farmers' interaction He interacted with several farmers, officers of the line departments and the scientists. Dr. Ayyapan elaborated upon the research priorities for climate change and the programmes that are being envisaged to be taken up in the XII Five year plan. He urged the scientists to go for production of quality seed and planting material and at the same time to give more emphasis on value- addition and post- harvest technology. He opined that the production level in India with the average annual rainfall of 400 500 mm is low when compared to other countries where the annual rainfall is less than 140 mm and urged the scientists to develop technologies that suit low rainfall areas and help in increasing the productivity. Market exploitations Dr. K. Narayana Gowda, Vice-Chancellor, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, in his presidential address, emphasized the need for formulating farmers' federations to mitigate the market exploitations. He also said that the University is planning to set up dry land agriculture research station, Diploma college for Chitradurga district and provide more importance for dry farming technologies and agro forestry, according to a press release from ICAR.

World's highest resolution' lunar images released

China recently released a set of world's highest resolution lunar images taken by its second moon orbiter, Chang'e-2, as it braces to launch its next mission to land a rover to explore its surface. China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) recently published a set of full coverage map of the Moon and its images with a resolution of seven meters captured by Chang'e-2. The map and images are the world's highest-resolution lunar images ever published that cover all of the moon, state runs Xinhua news agency quoted Liu Dongkui, deputy chief commander of China's lunar probe project. Stereo camera used The images were photographed by a charge-coupled device (CCD) stereo camera on Chang'e2 from the heights of 100 km and 15 km over the lunar surface between October 2010 and May 2011, the SASTIND statement said. The resolution of the images obtained from Chang'e-2 is 17 times finer than those taken by its predecessor Chang'e-1. If there were airports and harbours on the moon, the Chang'e-1 could just identify them while Chang'e-2 could detect the planes or ships in them, Tong Qingxi, academician with the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said. The scientists also made some adjustments to the original data to more accurately reflect the topographic and geomorphologic features of the moon, a statement by SASTIND said. The scientists have produced 746 moon pictures with the resolution of seven meters, and the total volume of data is about 800 GB, the statement said. Chang'e-2, named after the mythical Moon Goddess is still in orbit and drifted to the second

Lagrange Point (L2) in space more than 1.5 million kms away from Earth after completing its moon mission. According to the new road map China plans to launch a third moon mission, Chang'e-3 to deploy rovers to explore the lunar surface besides sending a probe to Mars next year and to Venus by 2015. It is also in the process of setting up its own manned space station and a Global Position System of its own. PTI 746 pictures have 7 metres resolution The images cover all of the moon

African leaping lizards inspire robot design

University of California, Berkeley, Scientists and students studied how lizards manage to leap successfully even when they slip and stumble, and found that swinging the tail upward is the key to preventing a forward pitch that could send them head-over-heels into a tree. The study is published in Nature today (Jan 5). The scientists subsequently added a tail to a robotic car they named Tailbot and discovered that it's not as simple as throwing your tail in the air. Robots and lizards have to adjust the angle of their tail just right to counteract the effect of the stumble. Given an actively controlled tail, even robots can make a leap and remain upright, according to a University of California, Berkeley press release. We showed for the first time that lizards swing their tail up or down to counteract the rotation of their body, keeping them stable, said team leader Robert J. Full, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. Inspiration from lizard tails will likely lead to far more agile search-andrescue robots, as well as ones having greater capability to more rapidly detect chemical, biological or nuclear hazards. Full and his team used high-speed videography and motion capture to record how a red-headed African Agama lizard handled leaps from a platform with different degrees of traction, from slippery to easily gripped sandpaper. They coaxed the lizards to run down a track, vault off an obstacle and land on a vertical surface with a shelter on top. When the friction on the obstacle was reduced, lizards slipped, potentially causing their body to spin out of control. When the researchers saw how the lizard used its tail to counteract the spin, they created a mathematical model as well as Tailbot to better understand the animal's skills. With a tail but no feedback from sensors about body position, Tailbot took a nose dive when driven off a ramp, which mimicked a lizard's take-off. Tailbot was able to stabilize its body in midairwhen body attitude was sensed and fed back to the tail motor sent. The actively controlled tail redirected the angular momentum of the body into the swing of the tail, just as with leaping lizards, Full said. Our Bureau

Airborne radar to study current active volcano

A one-week NASA airborne radar campaign will help scientists better understand processes occurring under Earth's surface at Kilauea, Hawaii's current most active volcano.

Airplane landing

While landing, the rear wheels of an airplane touch the ground first. Why? V.G. SATHIYANARAYANAN Chennai An aircraft is equipped with tricycle under carriage type landing gear front or nose wheels and the rear ones. It is a safer practice to tilt the plane with nose upward just before the touch down so as to bring the rear or main landing gears in contact with the ground first and then lower the nose slowly a little after. There are various reasons of following this practice. Centre of gravity of the plane lies somewhere in the middle of the fuselage which is close to the rear wheels. It is therefore desirable to bring the rear wheels to the ground first for better controllability of the plane immediately after the touch down. Otherwise, if the plane lands on nose wheels, it would have a tendency to wobble and swing around wildly. The second reason is that the nose wheels/ gears are not that strong so as to absorb the landing impact. Another reason and very important reason is that as soon as the rear wheels touch the runway, a resistive force distributed on both sides equally starts working on the plane. Because of two wheels located apart at adequate distance, it is much easier to control skidding/ going off the runway of the plane just in case there are unequal forces on two sides. S.P.S. JAIN Former Member, Engineering Railway Board, Indian Railways

Amoeba's key clue to plant photosynthesis

Focusing their research on a type of amoeba called Paulinella chromatophora , scientists have homed in on three of the P. chromatophora transferred genes, which encode proteins involved in photosynthesis.

Amplifier helps diamond spy on atoms

An amplifier' molecule placed on the tip of a diamond could help scientists locate and identify individual atoms.

Annual cattle mela to draw more visitors

The annual Kannapuram Mariamman Kangayam cattle fair is scheduled to be held from April 23rd to May 3rd at Kannapuram. It is an annual event that has been taking place since the last 1,200 to 1,300 years. In south Tamil Nadu this grand mela is compared on the lines of Pushkar animal mela held annually in Rajasthan. It is an important occasion for both livestock keepers, breeders and farmers to congregate in large numbers at the fair to display and buy/sell the animals. Expected numbers This year more then 20,000 thousand Kangayam cattle and 100 horse breeds are expected to participate in the event. More then two lakh farmers and visitors are expected to attend this grand mela. Last year a pair of Kangayam oxen was sold for 1,40,000, says Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, Managing Trustee, Senaapathy Kangayam Cattle Research foundation, Kuttappalayam, Kangayam taluk The foundation is presently working on preserving, maintaining native breeds of cattle in Tamil Nadu with special emphasis on Kangayam cattle

We plan to put up a awareness exhibition at the fair explaining the morphogenic characters of the kangayam breed , about the use of native cow dung and urine in zero budget farming. We are going to conduct a demonstration for farmers on making low cost inputs such as amritha karasal, Jeewamritham, panchakaviya ,Bijamritham, vembuasthram and agniasthram , he says. Ethono veterinary training programmes for livestock keepers will be conducted for livestock keepers on treating their cows without any incurring of expense using naturally locally available herbs and plants. Invitees This year the foundation has invited exemplary livestock keepers who were awarded the national breed saviour award by the national bio diversity authority to inaugurate the exhibition. As the date of inauguration may vary, for more details contact Mr. Karthikeya Sivasenapathy, Managing Trustee, Senaapathy Kangayam Cattle Research foundation, Kuttappalayam, Kangayam taluk, Tirupur district 638108, web: www.kangayambull.com, Email: karthikeyaksm@gmail.com, Mobile 9994433456, phones:042 -57294234.

Ant colonies use odour to compete with rivals

A new study has shown that weaver ants share a collective memory for the odour of ants in rival nests, and use the information to identify them and compete, like sports fans knowing each other by their colours.

Antarctic subglacial lake reached

A Russian team has succeeded in drilling through four kilometres (2.5 miles) of ice to the surface of a mythical subglacial Antarctic lake which could hold as yet unknown life forms, reports said Monday. Lake Vostok is the largest subglacial lake in Antarctica and scientists want to study its ecosystem which has been isolated for hundreds of thousands of years under the ice in the hope of finding previously unknown microbiological life forms. Surface reached Our scientists completed drilling at a depth of 3,768 metres and reached the surface of the subglacial lake, an unnamed source told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. Sergei Lesenkov, spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Scientific Research Institute, told AFP in Moscow that there was the possibility of a fundamental scientific development. Lesenkov said that analysis of the composition of gas bubbles discovered in the ice above the lake could help climate change research. Because the lower layer was formed 400,000 years ago, from the composition of the gas it is possible to judge the gas composition in the atmosphere 400,000 years ago and during the time that has passed since the formation of the lake, he said. From there, it is possible to identify and forecast certain climatic changes in the future. This is very important. No official announcement of the breakthrough has been made, although sources said that this was expected to come from the government. If it is true and it's successful, it's a milestone that's been completed. This is a major achievement for the Russians because they've been working on it for years, Professor Martin Siegert, head of the school of geosciences at the University of Edinburgh, told AFP. Finding new life forms

He said that exploring environments such as Lake Vostok would allow scientists to discover what life forms can exist in the most extreme conditions and thus whether life could exist on some other bodies in the solar system. There has long been excitement among some scientists that life theoretically could exist on Saturn's moon Enceladus and the Jupiter moon Europa as they are believed to have oceans, or large lakes, beneath their icy shells. Of particular interest Valerie Massson-Delmotte of the climate and environment laboratory at the French Atomic Energy Commission, said Lake Vostok was of particular interest as it had been formed over the course of 400,000 years. "There is also a strong interest from biologists to study the forms of life that could exist in these extreme conditions which have been separated from the rest of the world environment for several million years," she said. RIA Novosti said that the possibility that the lake existed had first been suggested by a Soviet scientist in 1957. Scientific research drilling in the area started in 1989 and the lake's existence was confirmed only in 1996. But efforts to reach its surface were suspended two years later amid fears that the process could contaminate the waters. After developing new techniques in an attempt to ease environmental concerns, attempts to drill down through the deep ice sheet to the lake's surface resumed. The Russian researchers intend to start drilling again and obtain water samples from the lake for analysis in December after a ten-month break due to harsh weather conditions. The hidden lakes of the Antarctic are seen as one of the final frontiers in exploring the Earth and several teams from other nations are also engaged in similar projects. Still controversial There is still controversy over the methods used by Russia, with Western scientists expressing concern that the kerosene that has been used to prevent freezing ice from closing the borehole risks contaminating samples. Siegert will lead a mission next year to drill into another subglacial lake in west Antarctica called Lake Ellsworth, using a different technique called hot-water drilling. AFP

Arctic sea ice decline linked to snowy winters

Further evidence found of a relationship between melting Arctic sea ice and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere could be used to improve seasonal forecasting of snow and temperature anomalies.

Are there more potentially inhabitable planets?

Astronomers have recently announced that a rocky planet named GJ667Cc, outside our solar system, is potentially inhabitable. It has water, a similar surface temperature as our earth, and absorbs about as much incoming light and energy as our earth does. Chances are that it could support some form of life. To date, it is the fourth such potentially inhabitable planet, all of them outside our solar system. Extrapolation What is habitable? What are the criteria of habitability? In defining them, we go by what we know, and extrapolate from there. And our Mother Earth serves as the model or guide. A planet, then, should have adequate water, energy sources, and conditions that would allow the assembly of complex organic

molecules. Stars are not habitable. The temperature and other conditions are too severe for any stable chemistry to occur. Hence planets are the more likely hosts for life. And in this, Earth is an excellent example. What all does it have? First, it is in the right place, orbiting the sun. The latter is a relatively stable source of energy for us; no major fluctuations or flares in heat, light or other types of radiation which can roast and burn off any life forms on planet earth. In other words, our sun is a benign star, which offers the right type of energy for us. In looking for other potentially inhabitable planets, we need to look at where they are with respect to their suns. Planet's weight matters Next is weight. The planet cannot be too heavy nor too light; too heavy means too far from its sun and thus less energy. Also its atmosphere will be too thick; gravity will keep it too bound to the planet, making the surface too cold. Too light a planet is not that good either not enough (if at all) an atmosphere not only will it be too cold but it will also be vulnerable for assault by meteors and high energy radiation. Our Earth is just the right size. Not only is it able to hold a proper shield as its atmosphere, but its internal core' is also large enough to contain heavy metals, molten and providing a burning heat engine. This allows for geology to operate, providing plate tectonics, and an appropriate crust on the surface nourished by volcanic eruptions from the core. This churning has provided us on earth to have abundant amounts of crucial elements C, H, O, N, and P, and conditions suitable for life chemistry. Metals such as iron in the core make the orbiting earth a spinning magnet, protecting us from harmful cosmic radiation. Its size is right for orbiting the sun in a manner that we have a proper day-night cycle. Too long a cycle or too short would mean the temperature difference between day and night is either too long or too short. And the orbit is better when it is circular and not too elliptical; if the eccentricity is too much, the day-night temperature differential could be too much to bear for the life forms on the planet. Mother earth is just a bit eccentric (just 0.02), not like many other extra-solar planets which are too eccentric to become hospitable. Planets are spinning masses, and several of them tilt a bit around their spinning axis (just as a top does). It is this tilt that provides seasons. Too little a tilt, there will be no seasons and too large a tilt, the seasons will be too extreme. Neither is good for life forms to evolve and stabilize into a proper biosphere. Our Earth is just so tilted that it has allowed life forms to evolve and stabilize. Our moon too plays a role in stabilizing this tilt. An inhabitable planet should thus be expected to be of the right size, right eccentricity and right tilt. A habitable planet should also be long-lived. Life of the type we know on earth has taken billions of years to evolve from the simple single-cell amoeba (3 billion years old) to us. It is these combined properties of Mother Earth that has made her habitable. Thus in looking for other habitable planets, astronomers look for planets with similar properties. Mars, Venus, Saturn or Jupiter do not fit the bill. No trace on Mars Mars does (or did) have water and some chosen regions which might allow some life chemistry to happen, but so far there has been no indication of it. Going outside our solar system, GJ667Cc appears to be likely habitable. How many more can be there? And will they support (have been supporting) not just amoebae but civilizations? Is there any such extraterrestrial intelligent life? NASA had put together a program called Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence or SETI. Dr. Frank Drake had speculated that, in principle, there might be as many as 10 such. Others have brought that down to 2.3.

If there are, what do we tell them? Even if there are only two other civilizations, how do we communicate with them, and in what language? Some have suggested sending signals of waves that are 21 centimeters in length, since that appears to be a universal radiation. If we can pulse it into an appropriate rhythm, perhaps some ETI would to know we are here. But I like what the biologist Lewis Thomas wrote in his Lives of a Cell. He says I would go for Johann Sebastian Bach, all of Bach, streamed out into space over and over again. We would be bragging of course but we can tell the harder truths later. I agree; a prosaic 21 cm radiation does not hold a candle to Bach (or Thyagaraja or Khusro). And we want them to know we are a civilization, after all! D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

Aromatic crops provide good returns in hilly regions

Experiencing unexpected losses in agriculture due to adverse climate or pest attack is a common feature in the life of farmers. Even the best technologies fail when they have to gamble with adverse climate. The problem is all the more acute for those living in hilly regions bordering reserve forest areas. Because apart from the vagaries of climate, farmers also have to keep track of movements of wild animals in their fields which cause sudden and disastrous loss both to the crops and sometimes to human lives. Mrs. Puttiyamma, is a lady farmer of Bargur hills in Erode district of Tamil Nadu, successfully proved that all the above stated facts are not a deterrent when it comes to growing crops in the hills and successfully marketing them. Mrs. Puttiyamma owns about 4 acres of land and is presently growing Rosemary in about half an acre. Rosemary group I was growing ragi and double beans and reaped only a minimum margin. With no alternative I sought other casual jobs to meet my familys basic needs. I heard from sources in my village about MYRADA KVK (Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency Krishi Vigyan Kendra) which is encouraging farmers in our area to grow Rosemary (an aromatic herb) and are also helping them to market the same produce by forming the rosemary group (Group of farmers with common interest being to market Rosemary), she explained. She joined the group and started cultivating the crop. Rosemary thrives well both in irrigated and dry land conditions and is not disturbed and grazed by any wild animal because of its aroma. As it is a perennial crop there is no need for investing money for seeds and land preparation every year and the crop provides a stable income. Harvesting tonnage Mrs. Puttiyamma harvested around 2 tonnes/year of fresh leaves and earned about Rs.20.00 per kg of fresh leaves in the past three years. I have earned about Rs.40,000 per year from 1/2 an acre of land under rain fed condition whereas the returns from rest 3.5 acres of Ragi crop and beans have been only half of this income. My income kindled the interest of other farmers who also started growing the crop, she said. Oil extraction As there has been an increase in the number of farmers who took to Rosemary cultivation the

District Rural Development Agency, Erode funded the establishment of an oil extraction unit nearby. The unit reduced the herbage loss during transport and has been able to increase the income to about Rs.3,600 per acre besides providing employment to the rural youth. The tribals of this region grew crops such as ragi, double beans, tapioca, turmeric and some fruit varieties. But due to constant incursion by wild animals from the bordering reserve forests many of them could not succeed in their farming operations, explained Dr. P. Alagesan, Programme Co-ordinator, Myrada Krishi Vigyan Kendra. When some of the tribals approached us for guidance our team visited the area and after careful study realized that aromatic crops can be safely grown there as the climate is cool and favourable and also the fragrance emanating from these aromatic plants will keep the wild animals at bay, he says. Clear understanding Myrada krishi vigyan Kendra encourages group approach to get fair price to the product. A clear understanding between marketing agencies and growers committee is ensured. The tribals are made to interact with officials Hope an organization in Nilgiris are pioneers in the cultivation and promotion of the crop. In order to get additional revenue in the rosemary field/garden, other long term crops such as Tea, Eucalyptus citridora can be encouraged as a border crop, says Mr.Pachiappan, of the Kendra. The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University conferred an award on the lady farmer. To speak to the farmer readers can contact Dr. P. Alagesan, Programme Co-ordinator, Myrada Krishi Vigyan Kendra, No.272, Perumal Nagar, Puduvalliyampalayam Road, Kalingiyam Post, Gobichettipalayam 638453, Erode District, Tamil Nadu, e-mail : myradakvk@gmail.com, myradakvk@dataone.in, website : www.myradakvk.org, Phone : 04285 241626, 241627.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide hits marine life

Results of the broadest worldwide study of ocean acidification to date say that one-third of atmospheric carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic and affecting marine life.

Australia to become hotter, drier

Australia's climate is warming at an alarming rate and is set to become drier despite recent record floods, with increased drought and fiercer storms if global greenhouse emissions remain within expectations.

Biological computer deciphers images

Scientists have developed a biological computer' made entirely from biomolecules that is capable of deciphering images encrypted on DNA chips.

Bisons adapted to climate change

Ancient bison bones discovered at a Canadian goldmine are helping unravel the mystery about how animals adapt to rapid environmental change, a study reveals. The 30,000-year-old bones were unearthed by University of Adelaide researchers, which helped them analyse special genetic modifications (epigenetic changes) that turn genes on and off without altering the DNA sequence itself. Epigenetic changes can occur rapidly between generations, even without going through standard evolutionary processes. Such epigenetic modifications (the effect of environment on genes) could explain how animal species are able to respond to rapid climate change. Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute researchers, collaborating with University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) have shown that it is possible to accurately measure epigenetic modifications in extinct animals and populations, the journal PLoS ONE reported. They measured epigenetic modifications in 30,000-year-old permafrost bones from the Yukon region in Canada, and compared them to those in modern-day cattle, and a 30-year-old mummified cow from New Zealand, a university statement said. This is the first step towards testing the idea that epigenetics has driven evolution in natural populations. IANS

Both humans, climate affect forest health

A paper exploring nitrogen dynamics found that untangling climate impacts from other factors such as logging, can be difficult. This, even with access to decades of data on a forest's environmental conditions.

Brain adjustment to injured arm in sling

Using a sling or cast after injuring an arm may cause your brain to shift quickly to adjust. The size of brain areas compensating for the injured side increase, and those areas that are not being used due to the cast or sling decrease.

Brain fluid levels and Alzheimer's onset

Cerebrospinal levels of brain fluid appear to be decreased at least 5 to 10 years before some patients with mild cognitive impairment develop Alzheimer's disease. Other spinal fluid levels are later markers of disease.

Cassini captures new images of icy moon

New images of Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, were taken on March 10 by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in a flyby with a close-approach distance of 42,000 kilometres, well suited for global geologic mapping.

Cattle shed waste for composite fish culture

Cause of male baldness found

Scientists have finally identified the culprits that are responsible for causing baldness in men. They are a protein known as prostaglandin D2, also known as PGD2 and its derivative (15dPGJ2). Incidentally, the protein and its derivative were found to show the same effect in mice as well. The results are published today (March 22) in Science Translational Medicine. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that the protein inhibits hair growth. In fact, its level increases immediately preceding the regression phase, they write. Its level in the scalp of balding men increases nearly three times compared to those who are not bald. The absolute level of PGD2 [protein] was 16.3 ng/g tissue in balding scalp and 1.5 ng/g tissue in haired scalp, the paper notes. The scientists tested their hypothesis using explanted human hair follicles in culture for a week. They used different amounts of both the proteins and its derivative to check their effects. At low levels (5 micromolar) of the medium, the protein and its derivative significantly inhibited hair growth. The hair became shorter when 10 micromolar of the protein was used. But at the same concentration, the derivative completely inhibited all hair growth. Different prostaglandins have been known to regulate and increase hair growth. In fact one such prostaglandin has been approved by the FDA to enhance hair growth in human eyelashes. And another is supposed to protect mice from radiation-induced hair loss. But this study has shown that both in mouse and human skin a balance between the two prostaglandins PGE2 and PGD2 is required. There may be other causes for baldness, they note. The study provides the first ray of hope to people who show early signs of balding. The authors suggest that the level of PGE2 should be increased while inhibiting PGD2 signalling. Our findings also suggest that supplemental PGE2 could be therapeutic, they write. They also note that increasing its level in the bald scalp can go as far as overcoming the inhibitory effect of the protein PGD2. The act of inhibiting PGD2 level may prevent miniaturization and provide benefit to those in the process of balding. But they have almost dashed the hopes of people who are already bald. It is unclear whether men who are already bald will regrow hair, they write. A protein, prostaglandin, and its derivative inhibit hair growth

China's irrigation system's carbon footprint

China's groundwater irrigation system is responsible for polluting the atmosphere with more than 30 million tonnes of CO{-2}per year, according to a study.

Circadian rhythms help plants battle insects

Plants whose clocks were in phase with those of insect pests were relatively resistant, whereas the plants whose clocks were out of phase were decimated by the insects feeding on them, according to a study.

Circadian rhythms linked to sudden cardiac death

A fundamental discovery reported today (February 23) in Nature uncovers the first molecular evidence linking the body's natural circadian rhythms to sudden cardiac death. Ventricular arrhythmias, or abnormal heart rhythms, are the most common cause of sudden cardiac death: the primary cause of death from heart disease. They occur most frequently in the morning waking hours, followed by a smaller peak in the evening hours. While scientists have observed this tendency for many years, prior to this breakthrough, the molecular basis for these daily patterns was unknown. The discovery will be the first step towards new diagnostic tools and therapies to prevent or treat the occurrence of this fatal event. The research team led by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine discovered that a novel genetic factor, Kruppel-like Factor 15 (KLF15), links the body's natural circadian rhythm to, and regulates the heart's electrical activity. A lack or excess of KLF15, causes a loss or disruption in the heart's electrical cycle and greatly increases susceptibility to arrhythmias. A lack of KLF15 is seen in patients with heart failure, while its excess causes electrocardiography (ECG) changes such as those seen in patients with Brugada syndrome, a genetic heart rhythm disorder. Our study identifies a hitherto unknown mechanism for electrical instability in the heart. It provides insights into day and night variation in arrhythmia susceptibility that has been known for many years, said Darwin Jeyaraj, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Sudden cardiac death due to electrical instability is the leading cause of death in the United States 700-800 deaths per day. It accounts for 10,460 (75.4 per cent) of all 13,873 cardiac disease deaths in persons aged 35-44 years old in the U.S. New treatments With this understanding, scientists can propose new patient treatments with the goal of reducing incidences of sudden cardiac death. This landmark finding proves that circadian rhythms are an important factor in sudden cardiac death. In addition, it raises the possibility that additional factors may affect the occurrence of sudden cardiac death. Further studies are needed to examine the how additional components of the biological clock can affect electrical stability in the heart. Our Bureau

Climate change affects elk, plants and birds

Reduced snowfall in mountains is causing powerful, cascading shifts in mountainous plant and bird communities through the increased ability of elk to stay at high elevations over winter and consume plants.

Coconut water
How does coconut water form in a coconut? K. PREETAM REDDY Hyderabad Coconut water is the endosperm part of the coconut plant. It is the nutritive tissue for the development of embryos in angiosperms and develops as post-fertilisation structure from the primary endosperm nucleus.

Three types of endosperm have been recognised: nuclear, cellular, helobial. The coconut endosperm is a nuclear type. In very young coconut fruit, the endosperm is found as a clear fluid in which float numerous nuclei of various sizes. This fluid compactly fills the embryo sac in which the embryo is developing. At a later stage, the suspension shows, in addition to free nuclei, several cells enclosing variable number of nuclei. Gradually these cells and free nuclei start settling at the periphery of the cavity and layers of cellular endosperm start appearing. This forms the coconut meat. This meat is very tender enclosing the fluid content called coconut water. At this stage the nut is called tender coconut. The quantity of the cellular endosperm increases further by the divisions of the cells. In mature coconut the liquid endosperm becomes milky enclosed by the cellular part called kernel and it does not contain free nuclei or cells. The percentages of ariginine, alanine, cystine and serine in the protein are higher than those in cow's milk. At the stage in which the coconut water is consumed as a beverage the concentration of sugar is at its maximum and total solids is less when compared with the water found in nut with kernel. The principal constituent is the Potash, the concentration of which is markedly influenced by potash manuring. The concentration of ascorbic acid ranges from 2.2 to 3.7 mg/100cc. The concentration is high in the water of green nut with soft pulp and gradually diminishes as the nut ripens. RASHMI JAIN Gr Noida, Uttar Pradesh

Cold air not good for heart

People with heart disease may not be able to compensate for their bodies' higher demand for oxygen when inhaling cold air, according to Penn State researchers, making snow shovelling and other activities dangerous for some. This study can help us understand why cold air is such a trigger for coronary events, said Lawrence I. Sinoway, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and director of the Heart and Vascular Institute, Penn State College of Medicine in a press release. Breathing cold air during exercise can cause uneven oxygen distribution throughout the heart. But a healthy body generally corrects for this problem and redistributes blood flow, making sure the heart continues to function properly. In people with heart problems such as coronary artery disease this may not be the case, said Sinoway. If you are doing some type of isometric work and you're breathing cold air, your heart is doing more work it's consuming more oxygen, said Sinoway, also director of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at Penn State. Isometric work includes such activities as shovelling snow and carrying a briefcase or laptop bag. The heart works harder when exerted in cold temperatures and the number of deaths due to cardiac arrest peaks during the winter. Demand and supply There are two different things going on here demand and supply, said Matthew D. Muller, postdoctoral fellow at the Heart and Vascular Institute, Penn State College of Medicine. We thought that oxygen demand in the heart would be higher with cold-air breathing and we also thought that oxygen supply would be a little bit impaired. And that's generally what we found. Sinoway, Muller and colleagues reported their results in a recent issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology and in the current issue of the American Journal of Physiology, Heart and

Circulatory Physiology . The study The researchers first studied healthy young adults in their 20s and then studied a group of healthy older adults in their 60s so that they could learn how the heart functions in people without disease. Each subject was monitored for lung function and heart functions during the trials. In order to measure heart function during exercise, the participants performed an isometric, or static, handgrip, which is a manoeuvre known to increase blood pressure. The proof Subjects squeezed the handgrip device and held it still for two minutes, providing a consistent workload on the heart for the researchers to measure. Muller and Sinoway found that there was a supply-demand mismatch in the left ventricle where the heart receives oxygenated blood yet the heart was able to continue functioning appropriately. These findings suggest that healthy humans can adequately redistribute blood to the subendocardium (the blood vessels entering the heart) during the combined stimulus of cold-air inhalation and handgrip exercise, the researchers stated. Our Bureau

Controlling thrips in cardamom effectively Coral reef evolution from ancient time
200 million years ago fish with jaws capable of feeding on corals emerged, but the real explosion in reef diversity did not occur till about 50 million years ago when fishes like today's specialist coral feeders emerged.

Corals may survive acidic oceans

Researchers have identified a powerful internal mechanism that could enable some corals and their symbiotic algae to counter the adverse impact of a more acidic ocean, the journal Nature Climate Change reports. . The good news is that most corals appear to have this internal ability to buffer rising acidity of seawater and still form good, solid skeletons, says Malcolm McCulloch professor at Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Australia. Marine organisms that form calcium carbonate skeletons generally produce it in one of two forms, known as aragonite and calcite. Our research broadly suggests that those corals that have skeletons made of aragonite have the coping mechanism while those that follow the calcite pathway of making the skeletons generally do less well under more acidic conditions, said McCulloch. IANS

Creating piezo, ferroelectric nanostructures

A soft template infiltration' technique fabricates free-standing piezoelectrically active ferroelectric nanotubes and other nanostructures.

Cuttlefish's most acute polarisation vision

Cuttlefish have the most acute polarisation vision yet found in any animal, researchers at the University of Bristol have found, by showing them movies on a modified LCD computer screen to test their eyesight.

Deep-ocean impact of oil-well explosion

At an area 11 km to the south-west of the Gulf of Mexico spill site, a research team found numerous coral communities covered in a brown flocculent material and showing signs of tissue damage.

Dictating human weight, energy levels

Researchers have discovered a key cellular mechanism that may help the brain control how much we eat, what we weigh, and how much energy we have.

Digitalisation of our body functions catching on

Professor Eric Topol of Scripps Health, San Diego, CA has written the book The Creative Destruction of Medicines: How the Digital Revolution will Create Better Healthcare. I chanced to read not the book (yet), but my colleague Dr Sreedevi alerted me to his interview by Ms. Lucy Mckeon; it is exciting with possibilities of the use of digitalisation in medical diagnosis and treatment. The use of digital computer devices in analysing and reporting our body functions is already becoming popular. Indeed, there is an entire two-hour session devoted to the use of smart phones in ophthalmology, in a forthcoming vision research meeting in Florida. (Do not forget that the cell phone is a portable digital computer in itself). Data storage is now done in devices smaller than the bindi that our ladies wear on their foreheads; perhaps, her pulse rate, heart beat and such can be monitored using the bindi . Dr. Ramesh Raskar of MIT has already devised an app in a smart phone ( i-Phone in this case), which allows the user to check his/her eye power. This replaces the traditional eye chart, and allows the user to go directly to an optician and obtain appropriate spectacles or contact lenses. Contact lenses themselves are suitable surfaces on which tiny digital devices can be embedded, with no hindrance to the vision of the user. A group in Spain has put in a pressure-sensing device on the contact lens, which measures fluctuation in the intraocular pressure, real time, thus offering diagnosis for glaucoma. The patient is not needed to come to meet the doctor in the morning and evening just to register the pressure. Another group in Seattle has embedded an entire integrated circuit system on the contact lens. This is powered by the battery of a cell phone in the pocket of the user, with which it communicates via Bluetooth). This device is thus able to access directions via the GPS facility that the phone downloads via the internet. Imagine how useful this device would be for a blind person.

The pocket ultrasound device is another revolutionary one. General Electric, among others (even in China) is marketing this device, no bigger than a Blackberry phone. Dr Topal says I haven't used a stethoscope in two years. I use this pocket ultrasound device so I can see everything in the heart rather than listen to the heart's sound. Dr Topal makes special mention of the use of the data obtained from the human genome project. It is now possible for a person to get the read-out of the entire of 3.2 billion units-long DNA sequence for $20,000, and soon it would be possible to do so for $1000 (Rs. 50,000). And this is but a one-time investment, which can come in handy (as my colleague Dr Santosh Honavar remarked, get it done the moment the baby is born a genetic horoscope, as it were). And this entire personal genome sequence can be stored in a smart card/cell phone memory. Of what use will this personal/ individual specific human genome sequence data be in medicine? With data already available, we can predict whether a given medicine is safe or not, or suitable for you, based on your genotype. Drugs like Metformin for diabetes, Plavix for blood clots, or Tegretol for neurological disorders, are not acceptable for some people because of their genetic background. Thus if we already know the latter, we can prescribe more acceptable alternatives. Dr Topal further points out that there are a lot of people with debilitating, serious illnesses, the causes for which are yet unknown; neither the diagnosis nor the treatment. With the knowledge of the whole genome sequence, he believes that we can determine the root cause and the biologic bases of such idiopathic illnesses. When Ms. Mckeon asked Dr Topol what technological innovation in medicine he is must excited about, he said it is the embedded nanosensor. This would be a nanoparticle-based device that can be injected into your blood stream and made to localize in the wrist, finger or some such place from where it can communicate with your cell phone. And that embedded nano-biosensor can be used to pick up, for example, the first cancer cell that shows up in the bloodstream, which would promote the earliest possible detection of cancer. It could also help with the autoimmune form of diabetes, called Type I which usually affects kids. (or) it can be used to pick up cells in an artery that's starting to crack a week or two before a heart attack (i.e. prevention). We have some really good data to suggest that this will ultimately be possible. Are there any Indian technologies and entrepreneurs working along these lines in India? Yes, the Remidio group in Bangalore (www.remidio.com) has developed hand-held high magnification retina viewer, and a digital fundus imaging device that can look into the whole funds of the eye and help in detecting retinal problems. And another group led by Dagar (dagarsd@gmail.com) now has brailled the cell phone to help the blind not just touch and read words and sentences but see pictures. There must be more, and I would welcome to hear from/about them. D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

Dinosaur Archaeopteryx had black feathers

Archaeopteryx, a winged dinosaur long believed to be the world's first bird, had black feathers, according to a scientific feat reported on Tuesday. The colour of skin and feathers is one of the big unknowns about dinosaurs, and it is left to the imagination of artists, rather than scientists, to depict how these enigmatic creatures looked. Researchers in the United States and Europe pored over a remarkably preserved wing feather in an Archaeopteryx fossil unearthed in a German limestone quarry in 1861.

The shape of the feather indicated that it was a covert,' the term for a feather that covers the primary and secondary wing plumage which birds use in flight. The hunt Their next goal was to hunt for fossilised melanosomes, or pigment-producing parts of a cell. Two attempts to image the tiny, sausage-shaped components measuring just a millionth of a metre long and 250 billionths of a metre wide failed. The breakthrough came with a scanning electron microscope at the Carl Zeiss laboratory in Germany, which revealed hundreds of the structures encased in patches in the feather. The third time was the charm, and we finally found the keys to unlocking the feather's original colour, hidden in the rock for the past 150 million years, said Ryan Carney, an evolutionary biologist at Brown University, in the northeastern U.S. state of Rhode Island. statistically matched against the melanosomes of 87 species of living birds, Archaeopteryx's plumed treasure was estimated to be black, with a 95-percent certainty, the scientists say. Black could have been useful as camouflage, for display or to regulate the body temperature. The alignment of the melanosomes, and tiny overlapping appendages called barbules, are evidence that the wing feather was rigid and durable, rather like the feathers of modern birds. If Archaeopteryx was flapping or gliding, the presence of melanosomes would have given the feathers additional structural support, Carney said. This would have been advantageous during this early evolutionary stage of dinosaur flight. The paper is published by the journal Nature Communications . Archaeopteryx has a hallowed place in palaeontology. A fossil of the creature, discovered 150 years ago, inspired the belief that this was the forerunner of all birds. The raven-sized creature had feathered wings and a wishbone as well as the reptilian features of teeth, clawed fingers and a bony tail. The cherished theory was knocked back last July when Chinese fossil-hunter Xing Xu determined that Archaeopteryx was only one of numerous proto-birds, or feathery dinosaurs, which lived around 150 million years ago. AFP

Earth make-up differs from that of the Sun

Scientists are rejecting a century-old assumption that the earth has the same chemical makeup as the sun. This theory is based on the idea that everything in the solar system in general has the same composition, said Hugh O' Neill, professor at the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University and study co-author. Since the sun comprises 99 per cent of the solar system, this composition is essentially that of the Sun, O'Neill said. As it is easier to measure the chemical make-up of chondritic (stony) meteorites, geologists have long used these to more precisely determine the sun's composition and therefore the composition of the earth, the journal Nature reported. From this, scientists have concluded that the earth has a chondritic composition, according to a university statement. Recent discoveries have shown that the ratio of two of the rare earth elements in earth's volcanic rocks is higher than in chondritic meteorites, said Ian Campbell, professor and study co-author from Research School of Earth Sciences. Campbell spent 20 years researching mantle plumes columns of hot rock that rise from the boundary of the earth's core and are the mechanism that removes heat from the earth's centre. However, mantle plumes simply don't release enough heat for these reservoirs to exist.

As a consequence the earth simply does not have the same composition as chondrites or the sun, he added. IANS

Easily tracking down misplaced objects

IPURSE is a mobile platform that keeps track of tiny RFID (radio frequency identification) tags stuck to or inserted into personal possessions such as mobile phone, camera, etc and helps locate them if they are misplaced or lost.

Electric current
How does electric current pass through wire? K. ANANTHANARAYANAN Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu The atoms form metallic bond with each other to give a closely packed stable structure to the metal. During the formation of these metallic bonds, the valence electrons present in the outermost orbit are completely detached from the parent atom and move freely in the space that lies within the lattice structure of the metal. These free electrons are spread over the entire solid. This large number of free electrons gives metals their values of electrical conductivity. These electrons move freely randomly even without any electric field. Because of the random movement, there is zero net current when there is no electric field. However when a metal wire is connected across two terminals of a voltage source with positive and negative terminals, the source places an electric field across the metal wire. Free electrons are forced to move toward the positive terminal under the influence of this field. This movement of electrons is called current. The free electrons are available in metallic conductors because in conductors the valance band and conduction band overlap and electrons from valance band can go to the conduction band. In the case of insulators the gap between the valance band and conduction band is quite large and hence electrons cannot jump from valance band to conduction band and hence there are no free electrons. Because of the free electrons in conductors, electric current passes through conductors. R.GOPALAKRISHNAN Retired Scientist/Engineer, ISRO

Enhance scientist-ryots interaction to solve problems

The thought that farmers could turn innovators to solve their problems somehow did not seem to appeal to the common man or government. In reality a farmer's job extends beyond more than just growing and selling. In fact in today's scenario agricultural innovation by farmers is the key to addressing growing challenges as there is a growing perception that the emerging demand of the farmers for technological and institutional support is not adequately addressed, says Dr. S. Ayyapan, Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi and Secretary, Department of Agricultural Research (DARE).

First time ICAR for the first time since its inception under the stewardship of Dr. Ayyapan, instituted a separate committee named National Agriculture Innovation Project (NAIP) to validate, document and help farm innovations. The Initiatives of NAIP extended the efforts towards improving rural livelihood of farmers living in less favoured, marginal or more complex environments. New project Another newly proposed project Farmer First' aims to move beyond production and productivity and to recognise the complex, diverse and risk prone realities of majority of the farmers and enhance farmers-scientists contact with multi stake holders participation. Farmer First aims at enriching farmers-scientists interface for technology development and application. It will be achieved with focus on innovations; feedback; multiple stakeholders participation, multi method approaches, vulnerability, and livelihood interventions, explains Dr. Ayyappan. Highly qualified scientists, even if they are committed, are often unaware of the actual needs and problems of poor and marginalised farmers. A huge gap exists in the quality of research output required at the farm level and that being developed in the labs, he says. In contrast to other areas like medicine, agricultural researchers mostly work in isolation from each other and most of their research findings are academic rather than practical. Pro- active role According to him research system should play a pro-active role in reaching out to farmers for getting first hand information, farmers' perceptions, feed back on generated technologies, and develop new and more appropriate processes, methodologies and technologies for diverse farm environment. Indian agriculture embraces diverse actors in its endeavour to feed 1.21 billion people. Small and marginal farmers may be uneducated, but one cannot question the fact that they do possess a deep knowledge about farming and understanding of the complexity of nature and its impact on cultivation, resulting from years of practising agriculture. Vital for food security Small farmers are extremely vital for food security as land holdings are shrinking day by day. The contribution of women farmers is also particularly immense. The innovations in agriculture from scientists to farmer innovators and vice versa need to be validated, integrated and scaled up, he says. A highly placed source at the Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi, not wanting to be identified, expressed a positive opinion on the NAIP and Farmers first project. More practical According to the source this is the first time that ICAR has recognised the innovative side of the farmers and feels that both these projects are more practical and could play a definite role in addressing the critical issues in farming. At present ICAR institutes are working with about 1,000 farm-families involving between two and four villages, engaging each scientist in farm and farmer-oriented activities. The project team undertakes numerous visits as and when required to the villages. Those interested in knowing more can email Dr. Ayyappan at s_ayyappans@yahoo.com

Enzyme's protective role in brain stroke

A key enzyme of sugar metabolism is activated in the brain's nerve cells after a lack of oxygen due to a stroke which results in insufficient oxygen and nutrient supplies in the brain. The enzyme plays a protective role.

Everyday chemicals linked to obesity, diabetes'

Exposure to everyday items such as paint and plastics may to some extent cause weight gain and even raise a person's risk of developing diabetes, a campaign group has warned. In its report, CHEM Trust says that chemicals in the items of daily use are actually partially responsible for the obesity crisis and rising levels of diabetes, particularly in the developed world, a claim dismissed by independent experts. The report, titled Review of the Science Linking Chemical Exposures to the Human Risk of Obesity and Diabetes', has been penned by two academics from the University of North Carolina and Kyungpook National University in South Korea. The two researchers reviewed some 240 research papers to reach the conclusion, The Daily Telegraph reported. The route According to them, these harmful chemicals enter the food chain and build up in the body where these distrust human hormones to encourage the storage of fat, alter appetite and slow the rate at which fat is burned. Unborn babies are at particular risk, the report said, adding that exposure to the chemicals should be reduced and national governments should act to ensure they were replaced with alternatives. The report's co-author, Prof Miquel Porta at the University of North Carolina, said: The epidemics in obesity and diabetes are extremely worrying. The role of hormone disrupting chemicals in this must be addressed. Considerable number The number of such chemicals that contaminate humans is considerable. We must encourage new policies that help minimise human exposure to all relevant hormone disrupters, especially women planning pregnancy, as it appears to be the foetus developing in utero that is at greatest risk. However, experts have described the Greenpeace and WWF-funded charity CHEM Trust's report as inconclusive. Dr Iain Frame, Director of Research at Diabetes UK, said: We welcome the publication of this report, though it is important to emphasise that any possible effect of chemicals on obesity and diabetes is a difficult subject to research and as a result our understanding of it is very limited. Added Prof Richard Sharpe at Medical Research Council's Centre for Reproductive Health at Edinburgh University: There is no direct evidence in humans that any such chemicals cause obesity or type 2 diabetes, although we know that poor diet and overeating may do so. PTI

Exercise triggers adult stem cells in muscle

Certain stem cells in muscle respond to exercise, a discovery that may provide a link between exercise and muscle health. New techniques to rehabilitate injured muscle and prevent or restore muscle loss with age may result.

Factors that may trigger glaucoma

When it comes to whether or not you will develop exfoliation syndrome, an eye condition that is a leading cause of secondary open-angle glaucoma, age, gender and where you live do matter.

Falling water
Why does water appear white when it falls from height? AKSHAY POLA Bidar, Karnataka Water falling from a height appears white due to a phenomenon called non-selective scattering. When water falls from a height with high velocity, lot of tiny water droplets are formed around the falling mass of water due to the bombardment of water with the rocks. These tiny droplets are about 100-1000 times bigger in size when compared with the wavelength of visible light which human eyes can see. (The visible range to which human eye is sensitive is about 0.4-0.7 micro metre, 1 micro metre = 10 raised to the power -6 metre). The light coming from the sun which the humans can see has three primary colours red, green and blue mixed in it. When light rays are incident over the water droplets, they scatter the entire visible range equally in all directions. When the three primary colours red, green and blue are mixed in equal proportions, they produce white colour. Hence, the colour we see after scattering by the water droplets is white. When water falls with a low velocity, very less or even no such tiny droplets are formed around the falling water and hence no scattering takes place. Hence we do not see white falling water at those times. ESWAR R. Research Scholar Indian Institute of Science Bangalore

Fetoscopy technique saves at-risk twin foetuses

If non-identical twins are born from two totally different zygotes (fertilised eggs), identical twins form by the splitting of one zygote (fertilised egg) into two foetuses. Problems can arise when the splitting takes place between four and eight days after the egg is fertilised. What results due to such delayed splitting is that two amniotic sacs containing one foetus each are found inside one placenta. While 85 per cent of such foetuses go on to full term of development and are born as healthy infants, complications can arise in the remaining 15 per cent. Vascular connections Two foetuses sharing the same placenta will by default have vascular connections between them. Blood flows from foetus A to foetus B and back to foetus A. This is the case with 85 per cent of identical twins. But in the remaining 15 per cent (where complications arise), the blood flowing from foetus A to foetus B never returns to foetus A from foetus B. This is because the returning blood vessels from foetus B to foetus A are either absent or deficient, says Dr. S. Suresh, Director of the Chennai-based Mediscan. He is also an adjunct professor at the Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University, Chennai. Blood availability Unequal blood availability in the two foetuses is the central issue. Since blood gets accumulated in foetus B, the foetus tends to pour out plenty of fluid (urine), which then gets collected around the foetus quite rapidly, Dr. Suresh explains. Foetus A, on the other hand, suffers from blood deficiency, less urine and less fluid in the amniotic sac. This is called the Twin Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS). If untreated, there is nearly 100 per

cent chance of losing both the babies due to premature delivery, he warns. The best form of treatment is fetoscopy. In the case of fetoscopy, a 2 mm diameter fetoscope is inserted into the amniotic sac and all the blood vessels between the two foetuses are burned using a laser. All the vessels have to be burnt, else the flow can always reverse, he says. Once the blood supply is cut, each foetus has its own circulation through the placenta. Seven deliveries so far Usually 7 to 8 blood vessels exist between the foetuses. The largest number we have seen is 13, he says. He should know better as he and his team, Dr. Indrani Suresh and Dr. Uma Ram, have done 13 fetoscopies to save identical twins suffering from Twin Twin Transfusion Syndrome during the last 15 months. Of the 13 cases, seven women delivered healthy babies. In the absence of medical intervention in the form of fetoscopy, the chances of both the twins dying due to premature delivery are high. This is particularly so when the TTTS is at stage 2 and above. Treatment is required when it is stage 2 as the chances of premature birth is high, he says. One foetus has more fluid and the other has less. There are five stages of TTTS and it can progress from one stage to another quite quickly. Some may not progress from one stage to another. So they need close expert monitoring, he says. TTTS has its own risk, though. There is 15 per cent chance of miscarriage due to the intervention, he cautions. If it costs about 6 lakhs to 7 lakhs when done abroad, Mediscan charges just Rs.80,000 for the procedure.

FIIs stay invested, but rejig portfolio

In 2011, despite all the activity by FIIs in gross terms, in net terms they neither put anything into equities nor took anything out. A number of companies in which FIIs upped their stake also fell, but less than the 25 per cent fall in the Sensex.

Finding explosives from far with laser beams

A new method has now been developed to detect chemicals inside a container over a distance of more than a hundred metres. Using laser light, the contents of a nontransparent container can be analyzed without opening it.

First international grains conference

Aiming to open up new challenges and opportunities towards improving the quality, safety and nutritional value of grain-based foods, the International Crops Research Institute for the SemiArid Tropics (ICRISAT) has teamed up with the Vienna, Austria-based International Association for Cereal Science and Technology (ICC) to conduct the first ever ICC India International Grains Conference. Specific reference With the theme Developments in grain science and technology to ensure high quality, safe and healthy grain-based foods, the conference brought together grain scientists and technologists,

breeders, millers, bakers, cereal and grain food processors, suppliers and traders to discuss the quality, safety and nutritional value of grain and foods made from cereals, with specific reference to the needs of India and the Indian subcontinent. Growing demand The demand for grains is growing as a number of major global issues continue to impact the world's food security, says ICRISAT Director General William D Dar. He pointed out that grain science and technology has become vital in addressing major concerns such as minimizing grain post-harvest losses, providing people access to quality and safe food, fighting hunger and malnutrition, and improving livelihoods of resource-poor households in the semi-arid tropics. ICC Secretary General and CEO Mr. Roland E Poms, said that while focussing on the Indian context, the program is also globally relevant as it covers such areas as crop improvement, storage, and nutrition processing and analysis for all major cereal grains and products. The NutriPlus Knowledge (NPK) Program of the Agribusiness and Innovation Platform (AIP) of ICRISAT is coordinated the event. Knowledge sharing During the conference, renowned speakers from international and national research institutes, multinational and domestic food companies, entrepreneurs, and food research and consultancy organizations shared knowledge and information on grain and food quality. An expert panel discussion followed and a technical trade exhibition, and a poster paper program was also presented.

First map to show CO over the whole sky

The first map to show carbon monoxide over the whole sky has been made by the Planck mission. Astronomers can use carbon monoxide to identify the cold clouds of hydrogen where stars are born.

Foraging bumblebees cued by honeybees

Bumblebees can use cues from their rivals, the honeybees, to learn where the best food resources are, demonstrating that social learning is not a unique process limited to members of the same species, says a study.

Fukushima: radioactive contamination in ground

Radioactive substances were believed to have sunk 10 cm to 30 cm into the ground after escaping from damaged Japanese nuclear reactors, Kyodo News reported, citing a research institution. Researchers said radioactivity was detected 5 cm beneath the ground three months after the start of the nuclear emergency at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, which was struck by earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. After fires and blasts, the plant released massive amounts of radioactivity into the environment. The Japan Atomic Energy Agency said more recent estimates indicated it had seeped deeper into the ground, possibly washed down by rain, Kyodo reported. Further delay in decontamination works will make the radioactive materials sink deeper into the

ground, and it will impose more burdens on those involved in the decontamination, Haruo Sato, a researcher at the agency's Horonobe Underground Research Center in Hokkaido, was quoted by Kyodo as saying. In some areas of Fukushima prefecture, local officials and concerned parents have already removed the topsoil of school playgrounds. But government-led decontamination has barely started in areas around the nuclear plant, including the no-go zone within a 20-km radius of the facility. The Japanese government has been criticized for awarding the first decontamination contracts to major construction companies that had benefited from building nuclear power plants. The decontamination projects require the government to find sites to store radiationcontaminated soil and other nuclear waste, but Tokyo has already had difficulty in doing so. DPA

Galaxy cluster hidden in plain view

A team of astronomers has discovered the most distant cluster of red galaxies ever observed using FourStar, a new and powerful near-infrared camera on the 6.5-metre Magellan Baade Telescope. The galaxy cluster is located 10.5 billion light-years away in the direction of the constellation Leo. It is made up of 30 galaxies packed closely together, forming the earliest known galaxy city in the universe. The findings will be published in the Astrophysica l Journal Letters. Remarkably, the cluster was completely missed by previous surveys, which searched this region of the sky for thousands of hours and were conducted by all the major ground- and space-based observing facilities, including the Hubble Space Telescope. Despite these intense observations, accurate distances for such faint and distant galaxies were missing until the advent of FourStar. Eric Persson of the Carnegie Observatories led the development of the new camera that enabled these observations. Persson and his team equipped FourStar with five special filters to collect images that are sensitive to narrow slices of the near-infrared spectrum, says a Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC press release. This powerful approach allows them to measure accurate distances between Earth and thousands of distant galaxies at one time, providing a 3-D map of the early universe. The 3-D map revealed the conspicuous concentration of galaxies that existed when the universe was only three billion years old. Our Bureau

Genetic markers may lead to diet strategies

Using two genetic markers, a study identified those insensitive to oral fat and those who may be more susceptible to high-fat diets and obesity. The study could lead to personalised diet strategies to address obesity.

Genetic trail left behind by mice

If carrying insects and small animals on board is commonplace today, could it have been different in the past ten to 12 centuries ago? Not so, going by the evidence provided in a

paper published recently in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. The paper provides an interesting find that rodents carried by the Vikings, the Scandinavian people who raided much of Northern and Western Europe from 8{+t}{+h}to 10{+t}{+h}century, left behind a genetic trail. Looking at the trail the study concludes that mice distribution in Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland parallels the human explorations of these areas. They were able to confirm this by comparing the DNA of modern mice population with the DNA obtained from archaeological material like bones from these places. To understand the spread of mice populations, the study considers two sub species of common house mice. One is the Mus musculus , found in Sweden, Poland and Denmark, while the other is Mus domesticus , members of which are common in Norway, UK, Ireland, France and Germany. In addition to studying the Mitochondrial DNA (the DNA that is present outside the nucleus in a cell), the authors have used four nuclear genetic markers to differentiate between the two subspecies. In the case of Iceland, the DNA of both modern and ancient mice matches the sub species Mus domesticus . This shows that the population that initially reached the island survives till date. In Iceland, the [mitochondrial DNA] data show the arrival and continuity of the house mouse population to the present day, they write. The modern mice of Newfoundland too, belong to the same subspecies as that of Iceland. But whether the Vikings carried the early mice to Newfoundland is not known due to lack of DNA material of early mice. Greenland tells a slightly different story. While the DNA from ancient mice bones here belong to the same sub-species as Iceland, the modern mice that populate this area belong to Mus. musculus . This suggests that the initial population that came to Greenland went extinct. MADHAV VISHNUBHATTA ( The author is a freelancer based in Chennai m adhav.vishnubhatta@ gmail.com )

Good aerobic capacity promotes learning

Aerobic fitness has a favourable effect on cognitive functions. An increase in physical activity raises both aerobic capacity and learning ability in both humans and animals.

Graphene use to boost electronic shelf life

Graphene conducts heat about 20 times faster than silicon. By understanding how heat transfers through a two-dimensional graphene system, its use in semiconductor devices could prolong their life.

Great apes make sophisticated decisions

Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas and bonobos make more sophisticated decisions than was previously thought.

Greenland Ice Sheet's melting threshold

The temperature threshold for melting the Greenland Ice Sheet completely is in the range of 0.8 to 3.2 degrees Celsius of global warming, with a best estimate of 1.6 degrees above preindustrial levels, according to a new study.

Ground reality: the Sherpas and stars of science

Professor Khadg Singh Valdiya is a well known geoscientist working at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre in Bangalore. His recent article in the 25 February 2012 of Current Science is a lament on how the on-the-field geologists are not recognized by the mainstream academic geological community. In the pecking order that is manifest here, they are in the lower rungs of the ladder. Valdiya laments that these are the true discoverers of the mineral and water wealth of the country, yet they go unwept, unhonoured and unsung, and that is the tragedy of being an on-the-field geologist. Expectedly, his article has generated a heated response from fellow geologists and other scientists. Indeed, what he writes is true in other disciplines of science, and perhaps in several other areas as well. Typically in a group of researchers, there is the head, his associates, students and technical assistants. It is the last group that does a lot of the boring dirty work' essential for the progress of the project. Yet they are paid less, generally not given authorship in research papers, nor honoured with awards, Fellowships in scholarly academies and such. An unsaid but practised caste system operates here. Examples Valdiya quotes many instances of the remarkable contributions of such field worker scientists. Even as experts dismissed many potential areas in the country as barren, it was these on-site earth scientists (specialising in structural geology, sedimentology, palaeontology and other related areas) who made as many as 339 discoveries in off-shore and 217 on-shore areas rich in oil and natural gas of magnitude over 650 billion metric tons. More recently, just in the region of Palakollu-Pasarlapudi in the KrishnaGodavari basin, a similar field analysis has revealed the potential of 3.4 billion tons of oil and gas. Not just there but in the Jaisalmer basin in Rajasthan as well. The same is true in the case of uranium deposits, which were discovered most recently by the Atomic Minerals Directorate of India. Yet these scientists/engineers of the Geological Survey of India, Oil and Natural Gas Commission or Atomic Mineral Directorate have not been recognised, honoured, awarded and rewarded as those working in laboratories and institutes, and publishing papers. To quote Valdiya: They work for months on end, away from the comforts of homes and laboratories, in harsh or even perilous terrains..but their finds are treated in the same vein as if unskilled laborers picked up valuables, which were already there. He further points to a further magnificent irony where the Geological Survey of India is sternly guided by not an area-expert but an IAS officer. So is the Chairman of the Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development. He asks I wonder how mainstream scientists would react if IAS officers are made chiefs of CSIR, ICMR, ICAR or DBT. Valdiya's article is yet another wakeup call for not only the scientific community but to policy planners as well. Due recognition should be given to the on-field discovered by the community. They cannot be treated simply as Sherpas' while the bosses take all the glory. Dr Rick O'Donnell, who analysed the education policy of the University of Texas, classifies academic researchers into five categories: Dodgers, Coasters, Sherpas, Pioneers and Stars. He says: Sherpas are the ones who do much of the teaching on a gruelling time table, and are the

ones who have helped to build the reputation of many climbers, famed for their conquest in the Himalayas. (For an excellent analysis of the Sherpas and Stars of Academia, read Prof. Balaram's editorial in the 25/8/2011 issue of Current Science , as also Valdiya's article in its 25/2/2012 issue, both downloadable free on the net). To add to this irony is the tragedy of the result of recent policy shifts by the government, thanks to which private parties are given access to mining, oil exploratory and water resources. Valdia points out that prior to this, autonomous government undertakings such as National Mineral development Corporation, National Coal Development Corporation and Indian Copper Corporation played important role in providing resources, strictly adhering to national (and rational) mineral policy, following rules of scientifically appropriate mining and protecting the environment. With this policy shift, what we see is the unchecked plunder of the earth's precious resources, shameless loot of the nation's wealth, and denial of benefits for the people displaced and adversely affected. I believe Dr Valdia used the phrase unwept, unhonoured and unsung somewhat differently than Sir Walter Scott who did it in his poem Lay of the Last Minstrel. Scott wrote: Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land the wretch, concentred all in self, living, shall forfeit fair renown, and, doubly dying, shall go down to the vile dust, from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonoured, unsung. This applies more to the exploiter than the explorer. D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

Growth of the world's tallest man arrested

The world's tallest man, 8-foot-3-inch tall Sultan Kosen of Turkey, has stopped growing following treatment to stop the production of an excess growth hormone. The hormone is produced by a tumour in the pituitary gland.

Harmful effects of excess sugar intake Health consequences in adults with low birth weight studied
A unique study has found that male adults born more than 20 years ago with low birth weight (LBW) show differences in muscle mass, fat content and diastolic blood pressure compared with those born with normal body weight. The study was done on adults from a rural area (Kaniyambadi) near Vellore, Tamil Nadu. The results were published recently in the European Journal of Endocrinology. In total, 117 adults born at the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, Tamil Nadu between 1986 and 1990 were recruited. Of these, 61 belonged to the low birth-weight category (less than 2.45 kg), while the rest had normal birth weight (between 3.1 kg and 3.5 kg). Low birth weight refers to individuals who weighed less for a given gestational age at birth. The study gains importance as nearly 30 per cent of infants born in India are underweight (less than 2.5 kg). The primary reason for this is the under-nutrition in women before and during pregnancy.

This study, which looked at people who are more than 20 years old, provides vital information on what the long-term health effects are when born with low birth weight. The study has a limitation there is no information on growth parameters collected at regular intervals during the last 20 years, particularly during childhood. Babies who are underweight preserve their body fat at the cost of muscle mass even at the foetal stage. As a result, the muscle mass in these individuals is less than those with normal birth weight. Those adults born with low birth weight had reduced lean body mass than those with normal birth weight, said Dr. Nihal Thomas, Head of the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, CMC, Vellore. He is the first author of the paper. Lean body mass refers to muscle mass. Muscles play an important role in glucose uptake and hence reduced muscle mass may probably increase the possibility of these individuals developing insulin resistance at a later stage. There is more risk of developing diabetes at a later stage when the muscle mass is less, Dr. Thomas said. So reduced lean body mass is an early marker for diabetes. Apart from reduced lean body mass, adults with low birth weight had decreased total mineral content. Males belonging to both groups showed normal insulin sensitivity. However, five males (nearly 10 per) who had low birth weight had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), an early stage of diabetes. However, the study has no information on physical activity of the individuals. According to him, unpublished data shows that there was no difference in physical activity between the two groups. Blood pressure They also found that adults with low birth weight had higher diastolic blood pressure (2 mm Hg) than the control group. According to him, even this small difference is significant. Even though the difference is only 2 mm Hg, this difference is seen at an early age and in those with low Body mass index (BMI), Dr. Thomas said. As they grow this difference would probably become even more significant. Explaining the reason behind the increased blood pressure seen in the LBW group, he said, the nephrone mass in the kidneys appear to be lower and their ability to excrete sodium [salt] is lower. Hence the retention of salt increases blood pressure. The adults who belonged to the low birth weight group were also relatively shorter than the control group. However, the parents of these people were also shorter than the control group. Hence a strong link between weight and height cannot be established.

Heat peaks shrink wheat yields

More intense heat waves due to global warming could diminish wheat crop yields around the world through premature ageing, according to a study published recently in Nature Climate Change. Current projections based on computer models underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process, the researchers warned. In some nations, the grain accounts for up to 50 per cent of calorie intake and 20 per cent of protein nutrition, according to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), near Mexico City. In 2010, drought and wildfires in wheat-exporting Russia pushed world prices of the grain to two-year highs, underscoring the vulnerability of global supplies to weather and climaterelated disruptions. Greenhouse experiments have shown that unseasonably warm temperatures especially at the end of the growing season can cause senescence, the scientific term for accelerated

ageing. Excess heat beyond the plant's tolerance zone damages photosynthetic cells. Fluctuations in wheat yields in India have also been attributed by farmers to temperature, most recently a heat wave in 2010 blamed for stunting plant productivity. To further test these experiments and first-hand observations, a trio of researchers led by David Lobell of Stanford University sifted through nine years of satellite data for the Indo-Ganges Plains in northern India .He subsequently used statistical techniques to isolate the effects of extreme heat on wheat. They found that a 2.0 Celsius increase above long-term averages shortened the growing season by a critical nine days, reducing total yield by up to 20 per cent. These results imply that warming presents an even greater challenge to wheat than implied by previous modelling studies, and that the effectiveness of adaptations will depend on how well they reduce crop sensitivity to very hot days, the researchers concluded. The world's nations, under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), have said that Earth's average temperature should not exceed the pre-industrial benchmark by more than 2.0 degrees C if dangerous warming impacts are to be avoided. PTI

Hominin genome sequenced

Scientists in Germany said recently they have sequenced nearly all the genome of the Denisova people, an extinct human-like species contemporary with the Neanderthals. The work by the Max Planck Society's Evolutionary Anthropology Institute in Leipzig is the first time that full genetic data has been obtained about any of the archaic hominins which roamed the earth until they were displaced by modern people. Svante Paabo, leader of the team, said, We hope biologists will use this genome to track down genetic changes that were important in the development of modern humans' culture and technology. The group worked with less than 10 milligrams of DNA from the finger bone of a female. The bone fragment, found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia in debris 30,000 to 50,000 years old, was the first evidence of the existence of the vanished species. DPA

Horned snake discovered

For the first time, researchers have discovered a new colourful snake which sports horns just above its eyes. The 2.1-feet-long horned snake having a body coloured in striking black and yellow was found in a remote part of Tanzania, East Africa. It's named Matilda's horned viper, or Atheris matildae , after the daughter of Tim Davenport, the Wildlife Conservation Society's Director of Tanzania, DiscoveryNews reported. The researchers, who detailed their finding in journal Zootaxa , said they have no idea why the snake has horns. However, they believe the horns could be helping them protect their eyes, or they might be used in visual displays to attract potential mates. Perhaps they serve a variety of other functions too, the researchers said. Davenport and his colleagues anticipate that the species will be classified as critically endangered and have already established a small captive breeding colony for it. PTI

How bat brains parse sounds for multitasking

Bats use echoes to navigate and to hunt while flying. Neural circuits within the two brain halves allow a bat to navigate or see' its surroundings and at the same time carry on a conversation with other bats.

How black holes grow bigger

Supermassive black holes can grow still bigger by ripping apart double-star systems and swallowing one of the stars, says a new astrophysics study. Black holes are very efficient eating machines, said Scott Kenyon of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics (CfA). They can double their mass in less than a billion years. That may seem long by human standards, but over the history of the galaxy, it's pretty fast. I believe this has got to be the dominant method for growing supermassive black holes, added Benjamin Bromley of the University of Utah, who led the study, reports The Astrophysical Journal Letters . Their work follows up on the 2005 discovery, by a team of CfA astronomers led by Warren Brown, of hypervelocity stars stars that were flung out of the galactic centre by gravitational forces and are travelling fast enough to escape the Milky Way. Hypervelocity stars can travel tens of thousands of times as fast as a bullet. They originate from a binary (double) star system that wanders too close to the Milky Way's central blackhole. Tidal forces capture one star and eject the other, according to an Utah and CfA statement. The star that is captured into orbit around the black hole later becomes fodder for the galactic monster. As many as half of all stars are in binary pairs. The new study looked at each step in the process of a supermassive black hole eating binary stars, and calculated what would be required for the process to match observations. Their theory shows that the Milky Way's supermassive black hole has doubled to quadrupled in mass during the past five billion to 10 billion years by eating stars. IANS

How coral reefs are affected by overfishing

The loss of predatory fish leads to an explosion in sea urchin populations. Excessive grazing by sea urchins damages the reef structure and reduces the extent of crustose coralline algae, which are crucial for reef growth.

How dementia drugs could be used by military

Army leaders in various countries have trialled compounds that can keep soldiers awake and alert, or send them to sleep. Drugs that reduce anxiety, tiredness and memory loss all associated with the treatment of dementia could be used offlabel as cognitive enhancers by military personnel, according to the Royal Society report. While caffeine and nicotine are used routinely to reduce fatigue, British armed forces prohibit other stimulants. The US air force still allows amphetamines in some cases. The military in several countries have tested modafinil, a drug licensed to treat sleepiness in narcoleptics, and found it effective at maintaining performance in the sleep-deprived.

More controversial are drugs that could be used against opponents. The report highlights a natural compound called oxytocin that is released during childbirth and lactation, and is involved in trust and bonding. Drugs based on oxytocin might potentially make adversaries more trusting and willing to give up information. The report calls on the UK government to clarify its interpretation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The authors say the coalition has shifted its interpretation of the convention, suggesting that incapacitating chemicals are permitted for law enforcement. Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2012

How fruit flies stay on course

Insects, equipped with complex compound eyes, can maintain a constant heading in their travels, some of them for thousands of miles. New research demonstrates that fruit flies keep their bearings by using the polarization pattern of natural skylight, bolstering the belief that many, if not all, insects have that capability, a University of Washington release states. If you go out in a field, lie on your back and look up at the sky, that's pretty much what an insect sees, said Michael Dickinson, a University of Washington biology professor. Insects have been looking up at this view forever. Dickinson is the senior author of a paper providing details on the findings, published Jan. 10 in the journal Current Biology . The lead author is Peter Weir, a doctoral student at the California Institute of Technology. The researchers noted that insects such as monarch butterflies and locusts maintain a constant heading while migrating thousands of miles across continents. To assess how insects orient themselves, Weir and Dickinson examined the behaviour of Drosophila melanogaster , a species commonly referred to as a fruit fly, in outdoor lighting conditions in a specially designed arena' atop a building tall enough to be higher than treetops and other visual landmarks. The researchers used a light-cured glue to attach the insects to a metal pin, which was then placed within a magnetic field that allowed the flies to move and rotate naturally but held them in place. Digital cameras tracked flight headings. During the hour before and the hour after sunset, the headings of flies relative to the position of the arena were recorded for 12 minutes. The arena was rotated 90 degrees every three minutes, and when natural light was not altered by optical filters some of the flies compensated for the rotations and maintained a consistent heading. When the arena was covered with a circularly polarizing filter, eliminating natural linear polarization light patterns, the flies did not shift their heading significantly in response to arena rotations. Our Bureau

How good cholesterol turns bad

How cholesteryl ester transfer protein mediates transfer of cholesterol from good' high density to bad' low density lipoproteins has been explained.

How Gulf of Mexico returned to normalcy

An innovative computer model has demonstrated the respective roles of underwater topography, currents and bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico in cleaning up the deepwater methane

plumes after the 2011 oil spill.

How long will India play the catch-up game in science? Huge asteroid to fly past Earth
A 150-foot wide asteroid orbiting the Earth will next year pass so close to our planet it will fly under man-made satellites.

Huge penguin once roamed New Zealand

Fossilised remains of one of the largest penguins ever, an elegant' giant standing 1.3 metres (52 inches) tall, have been found in New Zealand, scientists said recently. The penguin lived 27-24 million years ago, when New Zealand was mostly underwater and consisted of isolated, rocky outcrops that offered protection from predators and plentiful food supplies, researchers said. The first traces of the penguin, dubbed Kairuku Maori for diver who returns with food was found embedded in a cliff at Waimate in the South Island by University of Otago paleontologist professor Ewen Fordyce in 1977. Over the years, Fordyce discovered more complete remains and invited University of North Carolina specialist Dan Ksepka to help reconstruct the lost giant in 2009. They determined the bird was much larger than the biggest modern penguin, the Emperor, which grows up to 1.0-metres, and weighed in at 60 kilograms (132 pounds), twice as much as the Emperor. Fordyce said the bird's large size was an adaption that allowed it to swim further and dive deeper than its modern-day counterparts. AFP

Human activity reverses species diversity

Plant and animal species diversify to occupy specific environmental niches created by several ecological factors. But can a reduction or elimination of environmental niches force the otherwise diversified species to come together and hence resulted in a reduction in species diversity? A study published today (February 16) in Nature proves that reversal in species diversity can indeed result when different environmental niches in a given system, say lakes, are reduced or removed. The study highlights the case of whitefish species seen in 17 Swiss lakes. Reproductive isolation Diversification in the case of whitefish species is manifested in the form of body size and gill rakers (cartilaginous structures that protrude from the gills). The two species large-size species with a few widely spaced gill rakers and small-size whitefish with plenty of densely packed rakers show very clear reproductive isolation. The large-size ones spawn in winter in shallow littoral habitats; the small-sized ones spawn in deeper water in winter. But eutrophication changed the ecosystem in the 17 Swiss lakes. Eutrophication results when

there is excessive plant growth and microbial life due to excessive nutrient supply. The enhanced growth and death of plants and animals result in increased decomposition. This results in depletion of oxygen in the lakes. Oxygen reduction In this case, the reduction in oxygen affected the deep-water spawning whitefish species. It also killed benthic life that served as food for this fish species. These changes compressed the depth range in which whitefish could spawn, thus bringing them closer together to breed. The convergence occurred in the case of lakes that were moderately and strongly polluted, but not in the mildly polluted ones. The coming together of the species to breed resulted in increased [the] gene flow between previously ecologically differentiated species. In theory, natural selection between species can continue, even when gene flow between the species is present, thus keeping the species apart. But in this case, the human intervention was so pronounced that selection could not surpass gene flow between the two distant species. The loss of genetic variability is the proof that diversity loss had indeed taken place. The authors found that reversal of speciation had set in the whitefish species in 13 lakes. Most whitefish assemblages have lower species and functional diversity today than historically, they assert. But it is not just the whitefish that suffered due to eutrophication. The lakes have lost 38 per cent of species diversity, 14 per cent of functional diversity and 28 per cent of functional disparity among species. Eight endemic species and seven distinct populations of species [seen till recently] have become extinct, they write.

Human settlements and Galapagos reptiles

Land and marine reptiles living close to human settlements in the Galpagos Islands were more likely to harbour antibiotic-resistant bacteria than those living in more remote or protected sites on the islands, says a study.

Human shock absorber found

In a pioneering research, scientists claim to have discovered human shock absorber which they say performs the same function in people as shock absorbers do in a car. An international team, led by the University of Sydney, has, in fact, found the molecular structure in the body which functions as human shock absorber, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported. Many applications The scientists say the discovery of the molecule can be used on designing improved versions of a human blood vessel and on repairing skin damage, including burns, and can also be applied to treating cardiovascular disease and emphysema, a lung disease which primarily causes shortness of breath. This exciting discovery answers the mystery of how our bodies accommodate our living tissue without it being torn to shreds by its interaction with so many moving parts, said Professor Tony Weiss, who led the team. Key part dissected In fact, the team dissected a key part of the molecule in elastin, the protein that keeps tissues such as skin, lungs and blood vessels elastic during normal processes such as body movement,

breathing and blood circulation. This finding will benefit our work on designing artificial blood vessels that use replicas of human elastin, to repair and replace human blood vessels, with implications for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. PTI

Human stem cells survive in monkeys with Parkinson's

In a major step forward in treating Parkinson's, a Japanese medical team has claimed that dopamine-generating human stem cells survived for six months in a monkey brain affected by the disease. A Japanese medical team yesterday confirmed that dopamine-generating cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) survived for six months in a monkey brain affected by Parkinson's disease, the Kyodo news agency reported. The first-ever such confirmation for a primate brain marks a step forward in regenerative medicine using iPSCs to treat humans, said the research team including members from the Kyoto University Centre for iPS Cell Research and Application. The team also found the time the monkey spends on making movement increased 10 per cent. The symptoms People plagued with Parkinson's disease develop such symptoms as shaking, rigidity and slowness of movement as their dopaminergic neurons decline. In the absence of measures to prevent the decline of the dopamine-generating cells, iPSC treatment is expected to be useful against the disease. The team derived dopaminergic neurons from human iPSCs, transplanted them into a monkey brain and confirmed that they survived while generating dopamine in the monkey brain for six months. PTI

Hydrogen fuels robot jellyfish

In a technological innovation, scientists in the US claim to have created a hydrogen-powered robot which can move through water just like a jellyfish. A team at Virginia Tech University says that though the robot, nicknamed Robojelly, is in the early stages, it could eventually be used in underwater rescue operations, the Smart Materials and Structures' journal reported. Due to its simple swimming action, jellyfish is an ideal model for a vehicle. And, being fuelled by hydrogen means, in theory, the robot will not run out of energy, the team says. Yonas Tadesse, the lead author of the research, was quoted by the BBC' online as saying, To our knowledge, this is the first successful powering of an underwater robot using external hydrogen as a fuel source. A jellyfish moves using circular muscles in the inside of its umbrella-like bell. As they contract, the bell closes in on itself and ejects water to propel itself forward. When the muscles relax, the bell regains its original shape. To replicate this, the vehicle uses shape memory alloys materials that remember their original shape. These are wrapped in carbon nanotubes tiny straws of pure carbon that are renowned for their electrical properties and coated with a platinum black powder. The robot is powered by heat-producing chemical reactions between the oxygen and hydrogen in water and the platinum on its surface. The heat from the reactions is transferred to the

artificial muscles of the robot, and reshapes them. PTI

Ice age findings forecast problems

Changes in the oxygenation of oceans at the end of the last Ice Age have implications for oceans' future under global warming.

IGCAR develops sensors to inspect defects in materials

Detecting and imaging structural defects like cracks, holes etc, present in components made of ferromagnetic materials like pipelines, railway tracks and tubes has now become easy with optical sensors. These sensors were developed by Dr. John Philip and his team at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam near Chennai. The results of their work were published recently in the Applied Physics Letters journal. The work provides a methodology for extracting defect feature information from optical images, notes the paper. The optical sensor has oil droplets (about 200 nanometres in diameter) containing a few nanoparticles of magnetic materials, about 6.5 nanometres in size. The oil droplets are present as an emulsion with water. Since the sensor contains magnetic particles, it responds to magnetic fields. The sensor is magnetically polarizable, said Dr. Philip, Head of SMART Section at IGCAR. He is the senior author of the paper. The sensor works on the principle that defective regions in a material produce magnetic resistance, and this in turn leads to leakage of magnetic flux (field lines). The leakage of magnetic flux will be right outside the point where the defect in the material is present, Dr. Philip explained. The nanofluid-based optical sensor can detect such leakages. The material whose structural integrity is to be evaluated has to be first magnetised. This can be done by using two strong magnets kept on either ends of the material to be tested. The sensor, which is sandwiched between two glass plates, is kept on top of the magnetised material. The sensor is then illuminated with white light. Magnetic flux passes through the material the moment it is magnetised. The magnetic flux leaks if the material has any structural defects, and the nanofluid inside the optical sensor immediately forms an one dimensional array or chain along the direction of the magnetic field. When it forms an one dimensional array, the spacing between the droplets satisfies the criterion to diffract one particular colour in white light, he said. The colour that is diffracted or reflected depends on the inter-droplet spacing. When the defect is large, the magnetic flux leakage is more, and the spacing between the droplets is smaller. The reflected colour is violet, he explained. Alternatively, if the defect is small, the spacing between the droplets is more and the reflected light is red or orange. While the optical sensor can provide the result immediately, the dimension of the defect can be found using certain modelling. We can map different shapes (geometry) of the defects, Dr. Philip said. Future perspectives include the fabrication of large flexible films for the inspection of large components and development of suitable pattern recognition software for rapid inspection of components, the paper notes.

Advantages The sensor has several advantages over existing techniques. For instance, the optical sensor can be repeatedly used as the one-dimensional array formed in the nanofluid is perfectly reversible. It takes less time to detect flaws in the material, allows direct visual inspection of the defects, and does not destroy the material being tested, he explained. The sensors are very cheap a one inch by one inch sensor would cost just a few hundred rupees.

Igloo
How do igloos protect Eskimos from the severe cold? M. MEGHAMALA Aswapuram, Andhra Pradesh The Igloo is a domed snow house often associated with the Inuit (also known as Eskimos), the native inhabitants of the Canadian Arctic. Igloos are relatively easy to construct, made from materials found in abundance: snow and ice. The igloo is an ingenious invention, very effective in keeping people warm. These are means to reduce heat loss by wind convection and by moisture from precipitation. Hypothetically, if it is 40C outside, the igloo has the potential to warm up to 0C. The major factors that enable to keep Eskimos warm inside the igloos are: 1. Snow and ice work as insulators to trap body heat inside the igloo. Thus, the occupants of an igloo double as a furnace of sorts. 2. The walls block the wind, which is often so bitter that it can make freezing temperatures feel many degrees colder. 3. Insulation capabilities actually increase a few days after construction. Body heat and sun exposure cause the inside of the igloo to melt ever so slightly. When the igloo is unoccupied during hunting expeditions, the melted snow freezes over, turning into ice. Several days of gradual thawing and refreezing turns the entire structure to solid ice, making it not only super strong, but also warmer than ever. RASIK RAVINDRA Director, NCAOR, Goa

Improved ergonomics for wheelchair users

Engineers have developed an ergonomic seat for electric wheelchairs which enables the user to move around frequently. It enhances the freedom of movement of wheelchair users with a range of disabilities.

Improving cassava, the bread of the tropics

Recently I received an email from Mr Bill Gates and was torn between the horns of a dilemma. On one horn, I was all agog with excitement that he seems to know me. The other horn was the worry that it might be the usual spam mail from the ubiquitous rich widow from Cote d'Ivoire, who would share her fortune if only I emailed her my bank details. Curiosity overriding caution, I recklessly opened the mail to find it to be the 2012 Annual Letter from Bill Gates, detailing the activity of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What it described was a remarkable commitment of $2 billion to helping poor farm families, most

of which are led by women, boost their productivity while preserving the land for future generations. Compare this with a total of $3 billion per year spent by the entire world on researching the seven most important crops. Of these, cassava (or tapioca) is one. It is the staple food of about 500 million Africans; Nigeria is the world's largest producer of this tuber. And it has been affected by two virus-infected diseases, both carried by white flies the Cassava Mosaic Disease affecting the (edible) leaves, and the other Brown Streak Disease which rots and kills cassava roots. The Gates Foundation is committing money to help win these and to increase cassava's nutritional content and reduce its inherent toxins. Cassava is eaten in many parts of India as well. We call it Kuchi Kizhangu or Maravallli Kizhangu in Tamil, Kappa in Malayalam, Kavva pendalam in Telugu, Mara Genasu in Kannada and Simla Alu in Hindi. Its powdered form is tapioca, and when it is made into pearls, we call it sago, sabudana or Jawwarisi , and make sabudana vada, upma, payasam and so forth. Just like potato, maize and chillies, cassava too is an import to the rest of the world, a gift by Portuguese sailors who brought it from Brazil to Africa and Asia. Within centuries, it replaced traditional African crops as Africa's most important food crop, and has come to be called Bread of the Tropics and when disease strikes it, it hits the health and livelihood of millions of people. It is thus vital not only to conquer these diseases but also improve the nutritional content in this plant. The book Nutritive values of Indian Food and The Planning of Satisfactory Diets, the Bible of India's Food Science (and perhaps the most useful book published by Indian science agencies for its people), lists that 60 per cent of tapioca is water, and each edible portion offers 157 calories coming from 389 carbohydrates, 1.2 g minerals, 0.6 g fibre, 0.7 g proteins and 0.2 g fat. Thankfully it is rich in calcium. Eating it day in and day out might fill the stomach but not offer enough nutrition. It is towards this challenge that the international group termed Biocassava Plus has been put together, with the aims to (a) increase by six-fold the content and bioavailability of zinc and iron, (b) increase four-fold its proteins content, (c) increase by ten-fold the vitamin A and E content, (d) develop virus-resistant varieties of cassava, (e) delay the post- harvest deterioration of cassava tubers, and (f) decrease by ten-fold its cyanogens content. Item (f) above is particularly important. Raw cassava contains two types of compounds which generate the mortal poison HCN upon decomposition. The indigenous people of Brazil and Africa have found ways to remove the poison. Peeling the roots, soaking them in water for a couple of days, then drying and cooking solves much of the problem. (Is this not eerily reminiscent of the paralysis caused by eating kesari dal ( lathyrus sativus ); fortunately for us, IARI scientists have found ways to make toxin-free varieties of its plants). Tapioca, which is processed from cassava in a similar way, is also safe. Biocassava Plus is an international collaborative endeavour, with team members from the National Root Crop Institute of Nigeria, Kenya Agricultural Institute, and the Danforth Plant Science Center at St Louis, MO, USA. The team has been able to make some exciting advances; one of them is to increase the levels of an enzyme in cassava roots which increases the amounts of protein and free amino acids while reducing residual cyanogen levels ( Narayanan et al., PLoS One 6, e21996, 2011 ) and the other is to use miRNA technology to increase the resistance of the plant to attack by the viruses ( Patil et al, Mol Plant Pathol 12, 3141, 2011 ). These are two fine examples of the use of the latest arsenals of molecular biology in the service of the poor. For a composite review of the advances made in the field, please see Sayre et al, The BioCassava plus program: biofortification of cassava for sub-Saharan Africa. Annu Rev Plant Biolo gy 62, 251-72, 2011.

Such advances in plant sciences cannot be done by selective breeding or grafting alone. We need to use the latest methods of biotechnology be it introducing new genes, knocking out existing genes, adding material to the soil (biofortification), or other such methods. Tests in the lab and in the field, followed by safety studies are essential before releasing it to the world. Biocassava Plus has decided to do all these and expects to release its products only by 2017. And we hope these will be freely available to all, and not be owned by monopolies, since half the controversy today about biotechnologically developed materials is about ownership and monopoly. The Gates Foundation is supporting the activities of Biocassava Plus an example of the commitment of the world's richest to help serve the world's poorest. One therefore expects that it will ensure that Cassava 2.0 will be freely available to all. D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

Incisive research links teeth with diet

You are what you eat is truism that has been given new impetus by cutting edge' research that reveals your teeth are literally shaped by your food.

Increased nitrous oxide due to fertilizer use

Increased fertilizer use over the past 50 years is responsible for a dramatic rise in atmospheric nitrous oxide, a major greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change, says a study.

India's alarming share of global new leprosy cases India's mangrove cover rises
India recorded a net increase of 23.34 sq. km of mangrove cover between 2009 and 2011, thanks to efforts of one of the most industrialised states, Gujarat, in planting and regenerating the ecosystem rich in biodiversity. The new biennial assessment report by the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has commended Gujarat's contribution in planting and regenerating the mangroves, a salt tolerant plant community, which harbours a number of critically endangered flora and fauna species. Compared with 2009 assessment, there has been a net increase of 23.34 sq. km in the mangrove cover of the country. This can be attributed to increased plantations particularly in Gujarat state and regeneration of natural mangrove areas, according to the assessment by the FSI, an arm of Union Environment Ministry. Mangroves in India account for about three per cent of the world's mangrove vegetation. The report says mangrove cover in India is 4,662 sq. km, which is 0.14 per cent of the country's total geographical area. Sundarbans in West Bengal accounts for almost half of the total area under mangroves in the country. The very dense mangrove comprises 1,403 sq. km (30.10 per cent of the total mangrove cover), moderately dense mangrove is 1,658.12 sq. km (35.57 per cent) while open mangroves cover

an area of 1,600.44 sq. km (33 per cent). Mangrove forests are regarded as the most productive wetlands in the world on account of the large quantities of organic and inorganic nutrients released in the coastal waters by these ecosystems. They also act as nurseries for fin fish, shell fish, crustaceans and molluscs. PTI Mangroves in India account for about three per cent of the world's mangrove vegetation

Ink for small, high-performance electronics

A new reactive silver ink prints high-performance electronics on ubiquitous, low-cost materials such as flexible plastic, paper or fabric substrates.

Innovative smart paint for structural safety

An innovative, environment- friendly, low-cost smart paint that, using nano-technology, can detect microscopic faults in wind turbines, mines and bridges before structural damage occurs is being developed.

Insect excreta
Do small insects like mosquitoes and ants excrete solid waste? Are these excreta visible to the naked eye? P.K. VISVESVARAN Chennai Insects feed on different types of food and the nature of their excretory materials mainly depends on the type of foods that they consume. Insects feeding on liquid diet generally excrete liquid waste, whereas insects feeding on solid food produce dark coloured fecal pellets. The excretory substance of an insect is discharged from the anus and it contains the undigested food from the gut and metabolic excretions from the Malpighian tubules, the slender outgrowths of the gut that float freely in the blood. Insect gut is composed of fore-, mid- and hind-guts. The semi-solidified wastes and undigested food wastes move to the hind-gut and become part of the feces. The rectal pads in hindgut reabsorb most of the water, salts and other molecules in the feces. Finally, the remaining undigested food materials and the semi-solid wastes are excreted as feces. Adult mosquitoes of both the sexes feed on nectar and other sugar sources. However, female mosquitoes necessarily feed on blood meal to produce more eggs. The proteins in the blood meal are hydrolyzed in the midgut into free aminoacids which are essential for the synthesis of its egg yolk proteins. Because of the liquid diet, mosquito adults excrete the sticky feces. However, the feces are not visible unless a large number of mosquitoes excrete in a confined area. The excretory wastes of ants cannot be generalized since there are several thousand ant species present and their diets greatly vary. Since ants are social insects that live in colonies, they mostly have an organized waste (including excretory wastes) disposal or utilization. Ant species such as African weaver ants deposit fecal droplets containing a colony-specific material surrounding their nests. A few other ant species maintain external waste heaps outside

their nests. However, these waste heaps are not only meant for the excretory wastes, but also for different wastes from the colony. Hence, it is extremely difficult to see the solid or liquid excretory wastes of small insects, unless they are produced by a group or colony in a confined area. R. SRINIVASAN Entomologist and Head of Entomology Group The World Vegetable Center Tainan, Taiwan

Integrated farming system offers work for more number of days

There is no such thing as a free lunch in the world. Everything has an unseen tag, a hidden agenda attached to it. And so, for farmer's seeds, inputs, labour, all of them have a cost. Where do we go for all these expenditures? Naturally, towards the local money lender. The lender lives in our village or nearby town, knows us well and demands no big procedures like filling forms or collateral. All he insists is our thumb impression on a blank unwritten promissory paper for doling out the money, says a farmer Nagaraju. Living nightmare But when the crops fail and interest repayment defaults the same money lender becomes a living nightmare for the farmer. With nobody to help and not being in a position to explain his side of the story, the farmer suffers in mute agony due to the verbal humiliations hurled on him, and in some cases on the families as well. The mental trauma, social attention, and whisper campaigns behind his back as though he committed a national offence, forces him to end his life to escape the humiliation, says Dr. K. Jagadeeshwara, Associate Director of Extension, University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS), Bangalore. The question of solving this becomes all the more acute when one deals with agricultural labourers. These people are also into the debt web and getting them out of it poses a real challenge. Under Vice Chancellor Dr. K. Narayana Gowda, the department of extension chalked out a comprehensive and practicable programme called Integrated farming system approach (IFS) model for 17 districts in south Karnataka, in 56 villages involving 650 farm families, to ease their debt burden. We selected the beneficiaries on the basis of permanent residency, possession of some acreage of land, records properly maintained, a drive to properly utilize the inputs, with a willingness to take risks, ability to maintain a record of work being done, and provide feedback as and when required. Pilot model This project is a pilot model for us to assess and judge the impact of our intervention. We found the reception to be awesome. Now several farmers are demanding to be included in similar projects as income levels have doubled, says Dr. K. Jagadeshwara. Usually a farmer works for 75 and odd days (during season) and for the remaining period remains idle. But we hope through this project to engage him in work for nearly 300 days a year, explains Dr. Gowda. Important role Apart from helping them to generate income, the project also played an important role in scaling

down caste feelings in all the villages it is being implemented. Farmers are now learning to work in co-operation as they realise that working together can help raise income levels. I worked as a tender coconut seller at the railway station. Today I own animals, do some farming in my meagre lands, and this project has given me hope, added some respect to my life, says Mr. Narasimiah another beneficiary-farmer. Politicians remember us only during elections. I thought my life was doomed. I worked whenever I got some menial work. Mostly it was hunger, debt and frustration. But today thanks to IFS I can also say I am a farmer, says Mr. Venkatesh One thing the project taught me was that suicides are not the answer to our problems. I am confident today because I get moral support and encouragement from the University. When I have a doubt I approach them for guidance. Previously it proved tough for me to maintain the struggle against odds and support my family, he says. Ironies The ironies in these suicides are that farmers who ended their lives owed only a couple of thousands as repayment. A pro-active approach, right suggestions, and personal interaction could have helped prevent this. But there is no use in doing a post mortem. We want to help our farmers and are doing all that is possible to ensure that they are happy, says Dr. Gowda. When this project was discussed with a secretary rank official in the government, the person, requesting anonymity said: Try to replicate The Central Government can try and replicate this model in different villages across the country to study the impact on a national level. But who is to decide on this? Not farmers or scientists but the agriculture Minister at Delhi. Whether he acts or sits on it as usual is a million dollar question. For more information readers can contact Dr. K. Jagadeeshwara at email: jagadeeshade@rediffmail.com, mobile: 09844998799 and Dr. Narayana Gowda at knarayanagowda@yahoo.co.in, phone: 080-233332442.

Integrating microbes into climate models

The models used to understand how Earth's climate works include thousands of different variables from many scientific fields. Microbiology is the latest field.

Intercropping: when rice breeds fish breeds rice

A notable announcement would have been made yesterday at this year's Indian Science Congress at Bhubaneswar, Orissa. The rural, tribal belt of Koraput, Orissa which is rich in floral and faunal diversity would have been formally declared as the eleventh Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) by the FAO-UNDP-GEF group. Each GIAHS is a remarkable land use system or a landscape, rich in globally significant biological diversity. It ranges from the Andean mountain agriculture of Peru, the Ifugao rice Terraces of the Philippines, the Rice-Fish intercropping or co-culture system of inland central China to the Maghrab landscape of Algeria/Tunisia. And, while Koraput is recognized now, the Seppina Bettas system of the use of foliage and leaf-litter system of the Western Ghats in India is waiting to join the GIAHS family. The key feature in each GIAHS is the people living there. The community has, over the centuries understood, appreciated, respected and preserved the surrounding biodiversity of

plants and animals. The gentle wisdom that the people, the tribals, have gathered over the centuries can be captured in the motto everything depends on everything else. How is what they do better than current practice of monoculture of the same plant over tens or hundreds of hectares, where yields are pushed to high levels through the use of fertilizers, pesticides and weed killer chemicals? Is it the scale of the thing? Each tribal person farms over a couple of hectares at best, while agriculture companies do so over hundreds. The argument For tribals, farming is for livelihood while for companies farming is an industry. Thus, what the tribal does in Koraput will not feed billions. To do so, we have to use manufacturing methods so goes the argument. Can the twain never meet? Is GIAHS a romantic, feel-good notion, or can we learn from the tribals and attempt to scale their practices, yet in a Green way? Would that not help in cutting down the use of chemicals that on one hand help production but harm the environment on the other? Can there be a dialogue of wisdoms between the experiential knowledge of local farmers and the technological expertise of external innovators? In order to do so, we need hard scientific evidence of the advantages of tribal practice, say of one of the GIAHS. Happily enough one such analysis has just been published in the December 13, 2011 issue of PNAS (U.S.). Dr. Xin Chen and associates from the Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China have compared the effect on the ecology and environment of two farming practices. One is the traditional Chinese practice of introducing and breeding fish in rice fields essentially rice-fish intercropping or co-culturing (RF). The others are the usual rice monoculture (RM) that we have become used to on one hand, and fish breeding or fish monoculture (FM) the current way. The group conducted a 6-year field survey to assess and compare the ecosystem stability of RM versus RF, using 31 sampling units. They found that RF maintained the same rice yield and constancy (over the 6 years) as RM, but required 68 per cent less pesticide and 24 per cent less fertilizer; clearly more eco-friendly. In parallel, they compared three treatments without pesticide application: RM, RF and FM. First, they found the yield in RF was better than RM when no pesticide was used. In addition to measuring rice yields (in RM and RF) and fish yield in FM, they also focused on the occurrence of rice pests in RM and RF, and on the interaction between rice and fish in RF. First, they found that the yield of rice to be higher in RF than in RM in the absence of pesticide application. Next, they found positive interactions between the rice plant and the fish; the latter benefited rice by reducing insect posts, weeds and disease. As they bumped against the rice plant stems, they caused plant-hopper insects to fall from the plant, which they ate off. Manure from fish And the fish refuse acted as manure and fertilizer for the rice plant. The rice on its part, helped fish grow by offering shade and reducing the water temperature during the hot season anointercropping loop of rice breeds fish breeds rice. I recommend the reader to access the easy-to-read author summary part of this paper through www.pnas.org/ cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas. 1111043108. Chen concludes saying that their study of the rice-fish co-culture system indicates that modern agricultural systems might be improved by adding species to monocultures through such complementary features. One example Here is one example of the possibility of a dialogue of wisdoms. Dr. M S Swaminathan, in his recent Pinnamaneni Lecture in Vijayawada emphasized the three E's in agriculture: economy, ecology and empowerment.

With the Koraput GIAHS, such a fusion of the E's appears possible. And on a different note, the noted rice scientist E A Siddiq tells me that the Central Rice Research Institute at Cuttack is already experimenting with the rice-fish co-culture method under Indian conditions. Happily the dialogue has begun. Intercropping has been a time-honoured method where the two crops benefit each other; farmers in many countries practice it with benefits. In India Right here in India, intercropping of pigeonpea with sorghum, or pearl millet with groundnut has been successful (thanks to ICRISAT), and coffee with pepper has been successful in Karnataka and at the Araku Valley in Andhra Pradesh. How does one translate this on a large scale, across tens and hundreds of hectares? If we succeed in intercropping plants with plants, or plants with animals, modern large scale agriculture could turn greener. Here is a challenge for the coming years. D. BALASUBRAMANIAN dbala@lvpei.org

Is the edifice of radiation protection built on a lie?

Recently, Edward Calabrese, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Amherst found out that Dr Hermann J. Muller, famous radiation geneticist knowingly lied in his Nobel Prize lecture when he claimed that there was no escape from the conclusion that there is no threshold. Calabrese described his discovery in September in Archives of Toxicology and Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis In 1927, Muller discovered that x-ray irradiation produces mutations in male fruit-fly germ cells. For this, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1946. Many believe that Muller's assertion became a corner stone of radiation protection. This is the Linear No Threshold (LNT) concept which assumes that the risk from radiation exposure varies linearly with total dose with no threshold and any dose however small has an adverse effect. Expert bodies accepted this model because of its simplicity in the management of radiation protection programmes. However, it has done much damage to speak of no safe level of radiation' in scaring not only the public, but also those professionally involved in peacetime health physics who have not been involved in high levels and emergency situations, Allen Brodsky, Adjunct Professor of Radiation Science, Georgetown University responded to an e-mail query. In response to an e-mail query Calabrese disclosed that a reviewer of his article on the history of dose-response argued that he had not done a good job on the Muller section and key early radiation mutation studies. Calabrese found that a paper from the University of Rochester by Curt Stern and Casper on fruit-fly irradiation and germ cell mutation was published in 1948 but it was actually completed in August of 1946. This study was very important because it did not support a linear dose response and because it was the strongest study to date...using the lowest dose rate etc. I knew that Muller gave his Nobel Prize lecture on Dec. 12, 1946. So the question was whether Muller was aware of the new findings before his major speech, Calabrese replied By reviewing Stern's correspondence with Muller, Calabrese established that Muller knew of the findings which contradicted his theory a month prior to the Nobel Lecture. Calabrese asserts that Muller's passionate beliefs influenced the way government and society viewed the risks of low doses of radiation. The 1956 recommendations of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) BEAR (Biological Effects of Atomic Radiation) I Committee reflected these views. Regulating ionizing radiation as if there was no safe dose began! James Schwartz, a biographer of Muller, Kenneth Muller, Hermann Muller's grandson and Elof

Axel Carlson, Muller's former student do not agree with Calabrese. Some feel that Calabrese, a supporter of radiation hormesis (beneficial effect) has conflict of interest. The balance of evidence shows that the edifice of radiation protection is not built on a lie. Dr Evan B. Douple, Associate Chief of Research at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, does not think that the LNT hypothesis would have lost its applicability if Professor Muller would not have made the passionate statement in his speech. . by the time the BEIR (Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation) committees of the National Academy of Sciences began updating the risk estimates, the mutation risk was superseded by the risk of cancer. Having been intimately involved with the BEIR VI and BEIR VII studies, I can assure you that the voluminous data reviewed by the committee members that related to supporting or refuting LNT, was not swayed or overly influenced by the shape of a doseresponse curve in the mutation work of Muller, Douple responded. (Dr Douple was Director, Board on Radiation Effects Research, National Research Council) He is not even sure that Calabrese's interpretation and assessment that Muller was deceptive in his presentation is necessarily accurate or fair. Although somatic mutations became a dogma for radiation carcinogenesis, the LNT for carcinogenesis was based on (a) analyses of cancer induction in rodent models, (b) biophysical characteristics of energy deposition, ionizations, and DNA damage in cells, and (c) the early epidemiological studies of cancer in the Japan A-bomb survivors, he clarified in an e-mail. He does not think that the conjecture and personal interpretation of an untestable accusation will have significant impact among the radiation protection community. Prof Ludwig E. Feinendegen, Heinrich-Heine University, Germany thought that the new revelations on low-dose effects in the realm of biological responses are making an impact on the radiation protection community as it appears currently from the defensive manner of their arguments for keeping the LNT model, at least for the time being. Calabrese has done us a great favour by his new paper on Mueller's mistake. That there is no safe level of radiation continues to be a useful assumption in radiation protection. It is yet to be proved as a scientific fact. Douple believes that the exhaustive efforts of those who claim that demonstrating hormesis (beneficial effect) or the presence of thresholds will revolutionize the radiation protection field are misguided. We need to educate the public regarding the importance of acceptable levels of risk'levels that are believed to include risks, but risks for adverse effects that are so small that one would not be able to observe and measure an excess of the effects with a realistic study. Only then will the fear and paranoia associated with radiation effects gradually become less and less and sources for energy production can be fairly and objectively be evaluated, Douple proposed as a realistic way forward. Regulators want dose limits for enforcing radiation protection. What is the threshold dose value they will accept for enforcement? Calabrese and his followers have not yet responded to my query. The French Academy of Sciences, the only scholarly body which has views closer to those of Calabrese on hormesis conceded that on the basis of present knowledge, it is not possible to define the threshold level (between 5 and 50 mSv) or to provide the evidence for it. The dose limit for workers recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) is 20 mSv per year averaged over five years with no year exceeding 50 mSv. The dose levels to radiation workers achievable are so low that the risk from them is negligible. Negligible risk is no risk at all. That we cannot rule out beneficial effects of radiation is also a comforting thought. K.S. PARTHASARATHY Raja Ramanna Fellow, Department of Atomic Energy ( ksparth@yahoo.co.uk )

IT tool finds ancient settlements in Syria

A new computer tool that extracts clues about ancient human settlements from satellite imagery has uncovered thousands of sites in Syria. Earlier, streets and houses in Egypt were found using imageries.

Japan planned review of tsunami risk, but too late

Four days before a tsunami devastated a Japanese nuclear plant, its operator promised a fuller assessment of the risk of such a disaster but not for seven months. The disclosure in a three-page briefing paper obtained by The Associated Press raises questions about whether the utility and regulators were too complacent about studies that suggested a tsunami could overwhelm the defenses at the 40-year-old Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. It also highlights Japan's slow pace of decision-making on an issue that experts had been warning about for at least 20 months. The price If they had made the decision earlier, then they could have been prepared on March 11, said Hideyuki Hirakawa, an Osaka University expert on governance and the sciences. There is absolutely nothing you can do in four days. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude offshore earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed about 19,000 people along Japan's northeastern coast. The surge of water knocked out power at the coastal Fukushima plant, leading to the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Tokyo Electric Power Co. presented the briefing paper at a meeting with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency on March 7. The paper summarized studies that suggested a tsunami as high as 33 feet (10 metres) might hit the plant, much higher than the 20-foot (six-metre) surge it had been designed to withstand. The actual tsunami was even higher 45 feet (14 metres). TEPCO, as the Tokyo-based utility is commonly known, said it would review tsunami preparedness at all its plants by mid-April and present a new assessment of the Fukushima plant by October dates listed on the bottom of the first page under plans for the future. Masaru Kobayashi, who heads the agency's earthquake-safety section, said he saw the estimates for the first time at the March 7 meeting. I told them that a speedy response was necessary, if these numbers are true, he said. But TEPCO spokeswoman Ai Tanaka noted that the government did not order any immediate action. None of the findings were conclusive, she added. The report cited 2010 research at the government's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology as saying that two to three more years would be needed to reassess the tsunami risks for northeastern Japan. As early as June 2009, Yukinobu Okamura, a tsunami expert at the same government institute, warned about the need to look more closely at new evidence that a major tsunami called Jogan had hit North-eastern Japan in the 9th Century. Flawed safety In a related development, Haruki Madarame Japan's nuclear safety chief said the country's regulations are flawed, outdated and below global standards and he was apologizing for their failure to provide better protection. He admitted that Japanese safety requirements such as for tsunami and power losses were too loose. Many officials have looked the other way and tried to avoid changes.

Madarame spoke Wednesday at an inquiry investigating the meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi plant caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. AP

Key malaria parasite protein decoded

The structure and function of a protein that plays a key role in the life of a parasite that killed 655,000 people in 2010, has been cracked.

Kindergarten friendships matter for boys

High-quality friendships in kindergarten may mean that boys will have fewer behaviour problems and better social skills in first and third grades.

Large Hadron Collider's beam energy in 2012

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, has stated that the Large Hadron Collider will run with a beam energy of 4 TeV this year, 0.5 TeV higher than in 2010 and 2011 to deliver maximum possible amount of data.

Less belly fat good for blood vessels

Overweight people who shed pounds, especially belly fat, can improve the function of their blood vessels, according to a new study.

Less carotene protects from parasitic plants

Grain crops that produce less carotene can produce more food, especially in Africa, as they are less affected by parasitic plants. Rice plants that produce less carotene than usual are less infected by the Striga parasite.

Light weight solar cells

Austrian and Japanese researchers recently unveiled solar cells thinner than a thread of spider silk that are flexible enough to be wrapped around a single human hair. The thin-film device, comprising electrodes on a plastic foil, is about 1.9 micro-metres thick, a tenth the size of the thinnest solar cells currently available, the researchers said. One micro-metre is one millionth of a metre. The total thickness of this device is less than a typical thread of spider silk, the researchers said in a report carried by online science journal Nature Communications . Being ultra-thin means you don't feel its weight and it is elastic, said one of the researchers, Tsuyoshi Sekitani from the University of Tokyo. You could attach the device to your clothes like a badge to collect electricity (from the sun)... Elderly people who might want to wear sensors to monitor their health would not need to carry around batteries, Sekitani told AFP.

The research was done jointly by Martin Kaltenbrunner, Siegfried Bauer and other researchers from Johannes Kepler University of Austria as well as Sekitani and other contributors from University of Tokyo. Sekitani said it was possible to make the cells bigger. Power generation by solar cells increases with their size. As this device is soft, it is less prone to damage by bending even if it gets bigger, he said. The team hopes to increase the rate at which the device converts sunlight into electricity and put it to practical use in around five years. PTI The cells are thinner than spider silk and flexible enough to be wrapped around a human hair

Link between H. pylori bacteria and diabetes

The presence of H. pylori bacteria was linked to elevated levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), a biomarker for blood glucose levels and diabetes, especially in obese individuals, in a study.

Livestock, not gazelles, drive FMD outbreaks

There is evidence which supports the view that Mongolian gazelles are not the reservoir of footand-mouth disease (FMD), a highly contagious viral disease that threatens wildlife and livestock in Asia, but livestock in Mongolia.

Living near each other, having same diseases

Domestic cats, wild bobcats and pumas that live in the same area share the same diseases. And domestic cats may bring them into human homes, according to a study.

Long-term space missions impact eyes, brain

Flattening of the backs of astronauts' eyes may be caused by increased pressure of cerebrospinal fluid in microgravity. Brain scans of Nasa astronauts who have returned to Earth after more than a month in space have revealed potentially serious abnormalities that could jeopardise long-term space missions. Doctors examined 27 astronauts who had flown long-duration missions with the US space agency and found a pattern of deformities in their eyeballs, optic nerves and pituitary glands that remain unexplained. The problems are similar to those caused by intracranial hypertension, a rare medical condition that occurs when pressure inside the skull rises and presses on the brain and the backs of the eyes. Medical crews at Nasa and space agencies in Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada are now screening astronauts before, during and after space missions. Astronauts who had flown on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station reported changes to eyesight, with some seeing worse and others better. The proof Brain scans revealed that seven of the 27 astronauts had a flattening of the back of one or both eyes. By making the eyeball shorter, this made the astronauts more long-sighted, which in some

cases reduced or corrected their short-sightedness. Dr Larry Kramer, who led the study at the University of Texas Health Science Centre in Houston, said the impact on astronauts' eyesight might become a new limiting factor to long excursions into space. His results, published in the journal Radiology , suggested the abnormalities were worse and more frequent in astronauts who spent longer in weightless, or microgravity, conditions. Kramer said: Consider the possible impact on proposed manned missions to Mars or even the concept of space tourism. Can risks be eventually mitigated? Can abnormalities detected be completely reversed? The next step is confirming the findings, defining causation and working towards a solution based on solid evidence. Four of the astronauts had swelling around the optic nerve, which could affect the transmission of signals from the eye to the brain and, in the longer term, cause nerve fibres to die off. William Tarver, head of flight medicine at Nasa's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, said no astronauts had been ruled out of flying after the findings, which he said were suspicious but not conclusive of intracranial hypertension. Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2012

Love, chocolate are good for the heart

People who are in loving relationships experience neuro-hormonal changes with positive effects on the body, including the cardiovascular system. Flavonoids in dark chocolates have positive effects on cardiovascular system.

Lunar life from cosmic ray bombardment?

Quantified levels of radiation on the moon's surface from cosmic ray bombardment indicate that the rays cause changes in water ice and can create complex carbon chains the foundations of biological structures.

Malaria parasite's clever ploy

Scientists claim to have solved a 130-year-old mystery by revealing that the malaria parasite adopts a banana shape before sexual reproduction to sneak into spleen, a finding which may pave the way for vaccines against the disease which kills 600,000 people each year globally. Banana shape A team at the University of Melbourne says its finding about how the malaria parasite ( Plasmodium falciparum ) changes into a banana shape before sexual reproduction may explain how the parasite evades the human immune system, thus providing a potential target for vaccine or drug development. Dr Matthew Dixon, who led the team, said the research finally cracked the 130-year-old puzzle, revealing how the most deadly of human malaria parasites, Plasmodium falciparum , performs its shape-shifting. In 1880, the banana or crescent shape of the malaria parasite was first seen in the blood of a patient. Using a 3D microscope technique, we reveal that malaria uses a scaffold of special proteins to form a banana shape before sexual reproduction, Dr Dixon said in a release by the university. Targeting proteins

As the malaria parasite can only reproduce in its banana form', if we can target these scaffold proteins in a vaccine or drug, we may be able to stop it reproducing and prevent malaria transmission entirely, he added. PTI

Managing pineapple disease in sugarcane Managing rhinoceros beetle in coconut Man-made factor in Russian heatwave
The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of manmade climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said the scientists, laying to rest a controversy last year over whether the extreme weather was natural or human-induced. The 2010 heatwave broke all records for Russia temperatures in the central region of the country, including Moscow, were around 10 degree C above what they should have been for the time of year. More than 50,000 people died from respiratory illnesses and heat stress during that time. The temperatures also had a substantial impact on that year's Russian wheat harvest, leading to economic losses of more than $15bn. Two studies published in 2011 looked at the causes of the extreme weather, but they disagreed on whether it was a natural event or whether it was a result of anthropogenic climate change. An American team led by Randy Dole of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) suggested that the heatwave was mostly natural in origin. They based that on the fact that there was no basis for anticipating the heatwave given the conditions which applied at that time in Russia, said Myles Allen, a climate scientist at Oxford University. Heatwaves of that nature had happened in the past on a 100-year timescale and there wasn't an obvious significant trend in temperatures in that region or in the statistics of hot temperatures in that region. They came to the conclusion this was an event that was mostly natural in origin. There was no need to induce climate change to explain this event. A separate study by Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin suggested otherwise. What they [said] was that the risk of the heatwave occurring had gone up by a substantial factor, the odds of it occurring were 80 per cent due to the large-scale warming trend and, of course, most of that large-scale warming is attributed to human influences on climate, said Allen. To resolve this apparent conundrum, Allen and his team ran a series of climate models that simulated the weather in different parts of the world, using observed data from the 1960s and the 2000s. This allowed them to observe the frequency of extreme weather events in Russia during each decade, with and without the effects of the warming due to human-induced climate change. What we conclude about the Russian heatwave is that the risk has gone by a factor of three, perhaps not as high as Rahmstorf's estimate, but within error bars consistent with theirs, said Allen. But we also point out that Dole et al's conclusion is also correct in the sense that the size of the human contribution to the event was only perhaps a degree or so, whereas the actual event itself was 10C. In terms of size, the 2010 heatwave was mostly natural. In terms of probability

of the event occurring at all, the risk had been increased caused by human activity. The latest study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters , was carried out with the resources of the Weather at Home project, which runs regional weather models on the idle processing capacity of the home computers of volunteers. To say with any confidence what caused an extreme weather event, such as the Russian heatwave, you need to run not one but a whole series of climate models, said Friederike Otto of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University and an author of the latest research. Our work, using the weatherathome.net project, demonstrates that you don't need a supercomputer to do this, we ask volunteers to run climate prediction experiments on ordinary computers. We show how you can use such an ensemble of simulations to investigate the magnitude and frequency of occurrence of intrinsically unpredictable extreme events. Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2012 In terms of size, the 2010 heatwave was mostly natural The risk had been increased by human activity

Marine Protected Areas keeping turtles safe

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are providing sea turtles with an ideal habitat for foraging and may be keeping them safe from the threats of fishing. 35 per cent of the world's green turtles are found within MPAs.

Mars meteorite found in Morocco

Scientists have claimed that chunks of a meteorite which fell in Morocco last July were from Mars a rare event which happened for the first time in 50 years. It is the fifth time that such Martian meteorite fall has been reported, an event which has occurred every 50 years. The first was in 1815 in France, second in 1865 in India, then Egypt in 1911 and Nigeria in 1962. The latest fall of the fragments of the Martian meteorite took place near Foumzgit in Morocco, following a meteorite shower which is believed to have occurred in July 2011. But, the rock was not found on the ground until December, when collectors began speculating it had come from the red planet. Now, a panel of international experts has confirmed that their suspicion is true. In fact, astronomers believe that millions of years ago something large collided with Mars, spraying rock into space. The rocks then began gliding through the solar system until a piece entered Earth's atmosphere, The Daily Telegraph reported. The piece fragmented as it descended and one large piece reached the ground where it broke up into smaller pieces. The event will provide planetary scientists with valuable samples from Mars that no space mission has ever been able to bring back to Earth, say experts. PTI

Mechanised cotton stripper makes work more easy

Discarding a routine work and trying to do something new is not everybody's forte. Many employed persons who consider their job monotonous or boring, would like a change. But

how many are able to give up their jobs and a steady income and try something else? A farmer, Mr. Mansukhbhai Patel's personal experience may serve as an example and encouragement for many. A tenth standard school dropout, Mr. Patel, born in a poor farmer family, is credited for inventing an updated cotton stripper machine, that revolutionized cotton cultivation in Gujarat, says Prof Anil Gupta, Vice Chairman, National Innovation Foundation, Ahmedabad. Popular Several cotton mills in the region use the machine now. The machine brought down the cost of cotton stripping from Rs.1 per kg to Rs. 1 for 20 kg, thereby generating good income for farmers and also improving the milling quality. The idea of mechanized stripping of rainfed cotton (V:797 variety) from shells came to him during one of his frequent visits to his village. Hailing from a farming family which also grew cotton in a small way, I was familiar with the recurring expense and production delays, Mr. Patel says. The variety does not require much water and grows well in harsh and dry climate. While most hybrid varieties bear ball cotton, which need to be manually picked from the plant, the indigenous variety bears pods that cannot be opened easily. The pods must be picked, and manually cracked open to extract the ball. Being a tedious and cumbersome procedure, mostly women and children engage in it. During the harvesting season, instead of attending schools several children pluck the balls from the field as day labourers. Dedicated effort Mr. Patel kept mulling over the idea for several months and became convinced that he could develop a machine to strip the cotton lint from partially opened bolls. It took two years of dedicated efforts to come out with the first model. Mr. Patel designed, fabricated and demonstrated his first full-fledged cotton-stripping machine in 1994. The demonstration in his village convinced everyone that mechanizing the tedious process is possible. At the end of a meeting organised after the demonstration of the machine, he found himself flooded with confirmed orders for as many as 50 machines. This, despite the performance not being as good as Mr. Patel wanted it to be. The actual supply of machines was easy. Although the customers had been quite impressed at the time of demonstration, the performance under actual working conditions did not satisfy users. All the machines were returned with complaints. It was eventually found that the malfunction was due to a trivial technical problem. I had to refund the money received and suffered a severe financial setback, says Mr. Patel. More changes But he did not give up. He made more changes to the machine over a period of three more years. Last year, he introduced dust collectors and fitted an automatic feeding system to the machine. He also provided wheel-brackets and castors to make the machine portable. Patents have been granted in India and U.S. for this machine. Rural people must try to be innovative. Like Mr. Patel, there are several innovative farmers who, with a little imagination and hours of labour, are trying to make back breaking work easier for their ilk, says Prof. Gupta. Value addition Mansukhbhai's stripping machine innovation was scouted by SRISTI. Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN - West) that took up the task of value addition. Mr. Mansukhbhai could secure a Rs 5,80,000 under Technopreneur Promotion Program (TePP). Gian also arranged for technical assistance from National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.

For more details contact Mr. Mansukhbhai Patel , Chetak Industries, 113, GIDC Industrial Estate, Hansalpur, Viramgam, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Mobile: 9824089035, Ph: 02715-235108.

Mimicking butterfly wings for 'green' fuel

One promising technology for green fuel involves producing clean-burning hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water. Black butterfly wings turned out to be a natural solar collector worth studying and mimicking.

Modified bone drug in fight against malaria

A chemically altered osteoporosis drug may be useful in fighting malaria. The drug readily crosses into the red blood cells of malaria-infected mice and kills the malaria parasite.

Moon-walk mineral discovered in Australia

Tranquillityite the last mineral thought to have been unique to the Moon has been discovered in the remote Pilbara region of Australia. It is named after the Apollo-11 landing site.

More physical activity, better school grades Mouse to elephant in 24 million generations
Scientists have for the first time measured how fast large-scale evolution can occur in mammals, showing it takes 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant.

Muscles' growth when worked makes them unique

We take it for granted, but the fact that our muscles grow when we work them makes them rather unique. Now, researchers have identified a key ingredient needed for that bulking up to take place. A factor produced in working muscle fibers apparently tells surrounding muscle stem cell higher ups that it's time to multiply and join in, according to a study in the January Cell Metabolism , a Cell Press journal. In other words, that so-called serum response factor (Srf) translates the mechanical signal of work into a chemical one. This signal from the muscle fibre controls stem cell behaviour and participation in muscle growth, says Athanassia Sotiropoulos of Inserm in France. It is unexpected and quite interesting. It might also lead to new ways to combat muscle atrophy. Sotiropoulos' team became interested in Srf's role in muscle in part because their earlier studies in mice and humans showed that Srf concentrations decline with age. That led them to think Srf might be a culprit in the muscle atrophy so common in aging.

The new findings support that view, but Srf doesn't work in the way the researchers had anticipated. Srf was known to control many other genes within muscle fibers. That Srf also influences the activities of the satellite stem cells came as a surprise. Mice with muscle fibers lacking Srf are no longer able to grow when they are experimentally overloaded, the new research shows. That's because satellite cells don't get the message to proliferate and fuse with those preexisting myofibers. Srf works through a network of genes, including one known as Cox2. That raises the intriguing possibility that commonly used Cox2 inhibitorsthink ibuprofen might work against muscle growth or recovery, Sotiropoulos notes. Treatments designed to tweak this network of factors might be used to wake muscle stem cells up and enhance muscle growth in circumstances such as aging or following long periods of bed rest, she says. Most likely, such therapies would be more successfully directed not at Srf itself, which has varied roles, but at its targets. It may be difficult to find a beneficial amount of Srf, Sotiropoulos says. Its targets, interleukins and prostaglandins, may be easier to manipulate. Our Bureau

Music training impacts the ageing process

Age-related delays in neural timing are not inevitable and can be avoided or offset with musical training, says a study, the first to provide biological evidence of lifelong musical experience's impact on the aging process.

Nap-deprived tots experience more anxiety, less joy

A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder could be a wake-up call for parents of toddlers: daytime naps for your kids may be more important than you think. The study shows toddlers between 2 and a half and 3 years old who miss only a single daily nap show more anxiety, less joy and interest and a poorer understanding of how to solve problems, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Monique LeBourgeois, who led the study. The results indicate insufficient sleep alters the facial expressions of toddlers exciting events are responded to less positively and frustrating events are responded to more negatively, she said. Sleep tanks For toddlers, daytime naps are one way of making sure their sleep tanks' are set to full each day, she said. This study shows insufficient sleep in the form of missing a nap taxes the way toddlers express different feelings, and, over time, may shape their developing emotional brains and put them at risk for lifelong, mood-related problems. The team assessed the emotional expressions of healthy, nap-deprived toddlers one hour after their normal nap time, and tested them again on another day following their normal nap according to a University of Colorado at Boulder press release. The study, believed to be the first to look at the experimental effects of missing sleep on the emotional responses of young children, indicates the loss of a nap in this case in just 90 minutes may make toddlers unable to take full advantage of exciting and interesting experiences and to adapt to new frustrations, she said. The proof A study using kid-friendly' picture puzzles showed that nap-deprived toddlers completing the solvable puzzles had a 34 per cent decrease in positive emotional responses compared to the

same children completing similar puzzles after their usual midday naps. The study also showed a 31 per cent increase in negative emotional responses of nap-deprived toddlers when they attempted to complete unsolvable puzzles when compared with puzzle-solving attempts after they had napped. In addition, the study found a 39 per cent decrease in the expression of confusion' when nap-deprived toddlers attempted to put together unsolvable puzzles. Confusion is not bad it's a complex emotion showing a child knows something does not add up, said LeBourgeois. Our Bureau

Neanderthals' history acquires a new twist

Results of a DNA study suggest that western European Neanderthals went through a population bottleneck that severely reduced their numbers, leaving western Europe largely devoid of them for some time.

New antibiotic for safer food, healthier cows

Food-borne diseases might soon have to contend with a newly discovered molecule. The new antibiotic, an analogue of the food preservative nisin, also could act as treatment for bovine mastitis.

New imaging technique to detect cancer

A newly developed imaging technique may be able to detect cancers that have spread to the brain even when tumours are small.

New iridescent lizard, sea snake species discovered New light on early bipedalism
If the ability to walk and run on two legs (bipedalism) sets humans apart from apes, could this transition from tree-climbing to terrestrial walking have been smooth? Scientists think not, and the evidence provided in a paper published today (March 29) in Nature , shows why. A partially preserved skeleton of a single foot from a site (Worsanso-Mille) in the central Afar region of Ethiopia provides important evidence of the human ancestor's ability to walk on land while still retaining the ability to climb trees. The taxonomic affinity of the new specimen remains undetermined. The skeletal remains, dated to around 3.4 million years ago, do not match the Australopithecus afarensis early humans (hominins) found between 2.9 million years to 3.6 million years ago. In fact, the fossil shows close resemblance to the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus (about 4.4 million years ago) with a divergent and relatively short big toe, as in the case of apes. By comparing the functional morphology and proportions of several early hominin foot elements, the researchers have built a strong case to test the diversity in bipedalism in early humans. The new species indicates the presence of more than one hominin locomotor adaptation at the beginning of Late Pliocene epoch.

The study also records the presence of more than one early human species in eastern Africa around 3.4 million years ago. Anatomically, the fossil foot falls between modern humans and gorillas, the authors note. While certain features resemble As. Afarensis, it differs from chimpanzees and from African apes. Immaterial of its affinity to any species, the fossil foot while still retaining certain anatomical characteristics of tree climbers, has features that clearly show an ability to walk on land. The foot skeleton represents a hominin despite retaining the grasping capacity, they write. When on the ground it was at least facultatively bipedal, although it may have practised bipedalism in a novel fashion. As a News and Views piece in the same issue of the journal notes, the close resemblance of the fossil to Ar. Ramidus makes a strong case of tree-climbing bipedal early humans roaming eastern Africa from 3.4 million years to 4.4 millions years ago, the same time As. Afarensis walked firmly on the ground. Though other hominins like As. Sediba and Homo habilis had many features that resembled the feet of modern humans, it was not until the arrival of Homo erectus that truly human-like feet finally evolved.

New method for cleaning up nuclear waste

A new crystalline compound can be tailored to safely absorb radioactive ions from nuclear waste streams, say researchers at the University of Notre Dame.

New method for viewing muscle activation

A new signal processing method uses ultrasound imaging, 3-D motion-capture technology and proprietary data-processing software to scan and capture 3-D maps of muscle structure in just 90 seconds.

New report on the state of polar regions

A synthesis of reports from thousands of scientists is the first in 50 years to offer a benchmark for environmental conditions in the polar regions.

New species found on Antarctic sea floor

British scientists have discovered what they claim is a lost world of unknown species nearly 8,000 feet deep on the sea floor off the coast of Antarctica kept alive by undersea volcanoes. A team from Oxford and Southampton universities and the British Antarctic Survey was exploring off the coast of Antarctica and found colonies of marine life, including crabs, an octopus and starfish very new to science, living in the murky depths. The reason their existence is remarkable is that they were found on top of undersea volcanoes called hydrothermal vents, which pump out plumes of black smoke causing temperatures to rise to 380 degrees C hot enough to melt lead. With no sunshine there, they live in complete darkness but the creatures get their energy from breaking down highly toxic chemicals found in the smoke, the Daily Mail reported. The most numerous of the two dozen new species found is a type of yeti crab around 16cm

long, which was piled in huge heaps of up to 600 animals near the vents. Unlike other crabs it has a dense mat of hair on its chest which it is thought to use to grow bacteria to eat. For the first time researchers, using a Remotely Operated Vehicle, have been able to explore the East Scotia Ridge deep beneath the Southern Ocean. Hydrothermal vents are home to animals found nowhere else on the planet that get their energy from breaking down chemicals, said Professor Alex Rogers of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, who led the research. IANS

New technique may boost IVF success rates

A new technique successfully used in mice to identify embryos likely to result in a successful pregnancy could be used in humans, potentially boosting IVF success rates and reducing the number of multiple births.

New way to clean up spent nuclear fuel

Researchers have used metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) to capture and remove volatile radioactive gas from spent nuclear fuel.

Novel study in TN to know gestational diabetes effects

For the first time in the country, 14,000 pregnant women will be screened for gestational diabetes (GDM), and equal number of women with and without gestational diabetes and children born to such mothers would be followed up for 15 years. The screening programme was started two months ago by Dr. V. Seshiah Diabetes Research Institute and Dr. Balaji Diabtetes Care Centre in Chennai, together with the Tamil Nadu government. It is being done at three centres representing rural, semi-urban and urban populations. The three centres are at Thiruvallur, Siadapet and at Dr. V. Seshiah Diabetes Research Institute and Dr. Balaji Diabetes Care Centre. The World Diabetes Foundation is funding the programme. Screening Screening of 14,000 women will be at random and those with gestational diabetes and equal number of women without GDM will be included in the programme, said Dr. V. Balaji, Senior Diabetologist and Director of Dr. Balaji Diabetes Care Centre and Dr. V. Seshiah Diabetes Research Institute. During the first year 7,000 women will be screened and another 7,000 women will be screened next year, bringing the total number of women who would be screened to 14,000. 15-year study The programme will follow-up GDM mothers and children born to them for a period of 15 years (study group). During the same period, equal number of non-GDM mothers and their children will be followed up as controls. For instance, if 2,000 women with GDM are found during the screening, 2,000 non-GDM women will be enrolled as controls. Gestational diabetes hovers at around 16 per cent in India. Studies have shown that children born to women with uncontrolled gestational diabetes are more prone to suffer from childhood obesity and have a higher risk of developing a metabolic syndrome like diabetes during their

adulthood. Similarly, women with uncontrolled gestational diabetes also stand to suffer from diabetes at a later point in their life. In this programme, the glucose level of all women with gestational diabetes will be controlled either through diet manipulation or insulin. Though some studies show that children born to mothers with gestational diabetes are more prone to developing diabetes, there is no hard data to support this. According to Dr. Balaji, this study will be the first to provide long term data of factors that cause diabetes in children even when they are born to women whose gestational diabetes has been controlled. Screening of pregnant women for gestational diabetes will be done immaterial of the gestation period, said Dr. Balaji. This becomes essential as gestational diabetes can be detected as early as at 16 weeks of gestation and even in those who have normal glucose level in the first and second trimester can turn up positive for gestational diabetes during the third trimester. The pilot study conducted by Dr. Balaji, Dr. Seshiah and Dr. Madhuri Balaji together with the State government has been rolled out throughout the Tamil Nadu. Controlling gestational diabetes has now become a national programme and has been implemented in four States, including Bihar.

Novel technique using stem cells revives damaged eye

Treating blindness caused by burns using limbal stem cells harvested from the undamaged eye of the same patient has now become cheaper, easier and safer. Results of a pilot study of the SLET (simplified technique of limbal transplantation)technique conducted at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute on six patients, and published recently in the British Journal of Ophthalmology provides the proof. Blindness arises when burns permanently damage the limbal stem cells found in the eye and causes loss in corneal transparency. In such cases, the stem cells are harvested from the healthy eye and transplanted to the damaged eye. There are currently two ways of using limbal stem cells to cure blindness caused by burns. One is to directly transplant the stem cells to the damaged eye. The other technique cultivated limbal epithelial transplantation (CLET) is to remove a smaller portion (2 mm by 2 mm) of the limbus containing the stem cells and increase (expand) the cells in the laboratory and then transplant them to the damaged eye. While both methods are good at restoring vision in the damaged eye, they have their own disadvantages. In the case of direct transplantation CLAU (conjunctival limbal autografting), almost 50 per cent of the limbus (6 mm to 8 mm length of the limbus), has to be removed from the healthy eye. Excess removal of stem cells from the healthy eye can permanently damage it. At the moment, there is no way of knowing the amount of limbal stem cells found in an [undamaged] eye, said Dr. Virender S. Sangwan, Head of the Cornea and Anterior Segment Services at L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad. Doctors would come to know of the deficiency in the healthy eye in two to three months after the operation. But how the compromised stem cells will manifest in stressful conditions like an eye infection will be known later, he explained. Though the Institute started off by doing direct transplantation (CLAU), it has turned its attention to the safer CLET alternative. Though this procedure is safer, it is expensive and patients have to visit the hospital twice, one to remove the limbus and the other to transplant the expanded stem cells. The new technique (SLET) developed recently by Dr. Sangwan and his team at the Institute and

Dr. Sheila MacNeil at the University of Sheffield, UK combines the best of both methods. While only a small portion of the tissue is removed from the healthy eye (as in the case of CLET), the stem cell expansion takes place not in the lab but in the damaged eye itself. This ensures that the healthy eye is never damaged, the procedure is cheaper and there is less risk of contamination (as the expansion does not take place in a lab). It would cost only half the earlier procedure (CLET), he stressed. If the medium used in the lab provides nutrients for the stem cells, the tear cells do the same job in this case. The doctors began trying the new technique during the later part of 2009 and performed most of the operations in 2010 and 2011. Altogether 15 cases have been done so far, of which ten patients have already completed six months of observation time post operation. The procedure The procedure is quite simple and takes about an hour to perform. In this, the damaged eye is first cleaned and an amniotic membrane is pasted on the cornea using biological glue. The 2 mm by 2 mm limbal tissue harvested from the healthy eye is then cut into eight to nine pieces and placed them on the membrane. Glue is then applied on the cut limbal tissue so that it sticks to the membrane. The eye is then bandaged using soft contact lens. The amniotic membrane acts as a scaffold on which the stem cells grow and expand, Dr. Sangwan explained. It took the same time [as the CLET technique] for the damaged cornea to be repaired. So simple is the procedure that it can be widely adopted by specialists across the country. With extra training, cornea specialists can perform the operation, he assured.

Now, robot project personalised

Imagine going to a local store, picking out a design for a robot to help with some household chores, and having the device built within a matter of hours. That is the vision of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where a five-year, $ 10 million project to bring the power of robots to the average person is just getting started. This research envisions a whole new way of thinking about the design and manufacturing of robots, and could have a profound impact on society, said MIT professor Daniela Rus, leader of the project. The first two designs under consideration for prototypes include an insect-like machine that could be sent to explore a contaminated area, and an arm-extension device that could help people grip things that are out of reach. The idea is eventually to create a library of home robotic designs that customers could choose from at a local store, select a blueprint and customise and build their own device from paper or plastic within 24 hours. This project aims to dramatically reduce the development time for a variety of useful robots, opening the doors to potential applications in manufacturing, education, personalised healthcare, and even disaster relief, said Rob Wood, an associate professor at Harvard University. Another key goal is to eliminate the soaring costs involved with the current manufacture of robots, a lengthy process that involves advanced programming and design knowledge as well as high-tech materials, and instead foster automated production of devices made from common papers and plastics. That way, what used to take years might someday take only hours. AFP

Ocean once covered part of Mars

ESA's Mars Express has returned strong evidence for an ocean once covering part of Mars. Using radar, it has detected sediments reminiscent of an ocean floor.

Oldest evidence of dog domestication

A 33,000-year-old dog skull unearthed in a Siberian mountain cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication.

Our brain can tell real face from imitations

Both the right and the left sides of the brain work together to tell a real face from a facial imitation, says a study co-authored by an Indian-born scientist. Objects that resemble faces are everywhere, but our brains are adept at locating images that look like faces. However, the normal human brain is almost never fooled into thinking such objects actually are human faces. You can tell that it has some faceness' to it, but on the other hand, you're not misled into believing that it is a genuine face, says Pawan Sinha, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). On the left side of the brain, the fusiform gyrus, an area long tied with face recognition, calculates how facelike' an image is. The right fusiform gyrus then appears to use that information to make a quick, categorical decision of whether the object is, indeed, a face, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reports. IANS

Paddy crop records a significant yield with organic inputs

Given the multitude of problems in agriculture today, getting a substantial yield and a good market pose serious concerns for a farmer, but Mr. R. Kulandaisamy, organic entrepreneur and owner of Tari Biotech, Thanjavur says, Increasing yield for any crop is not difficult. My newly developed Organic plus and other natural inputs can easily help a farmer increase the yield without spoiling the environment. Not paper findings My findings are not mere paper theories but practical experiments. I used my inputs in the fields of Mr. S. Ranganathan, General Secretary, Tamil Nadu Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association and Chairman, Centre for Cauvery Delta Development at Perugavazthan village, Mannargudi. We recorded more than two tonnes of paddy from an acre, he says. Mr. Ranganathan readily offered 30 acres for this experiment and during the harvest several farmers, district officials, and scientists from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University were invited see the process and results. Good increase While the scientists' concern was more on how the yield increased using only organic inputs, the farmers paid attention to the number of gunny bags being filled. In fact after the preliminary

introductions and explanations, the eager farmers expressed their astonishment and happiness to learn that the paddy yield recorded a fair increase. So far, for the last several years I could harvest 1 to 1.75 tonnes of grains from an acre. But after applying Mr. Kulandaisamys inputs I harvested about 2. 43 tonnes from an acre. It is 400 kgs more than the usual yield, says Mr. Ranganathan. In addition he agrees that the cultivation cost also scaled down. First time Being a conventional farmer all these years, Mr. Ranganathans experience in organic agriculture according to him was not noteworthy. He says that the medias role in highlighting the awareness and importance of going organic urged me to try it. And he adds that even now I am sceptical as to how the entire country can afford organic inputs, especially with dwindling land and cattle resources. But personally I am convinced and am planning to increase my acreage in the coming years to check whether it is sustainable. I always believe that organic farming is for health, and chemicals for greater production, he says. Many farmers who attended the harvest programme wanted the Government must make such practices popular in other areas of the state also. Need of the hour As a farmer in the delta region growing paddy all my life, this is just what I need. Today for an acre of chemicals I need to spend anything between Rs. 2,500 to Rs. 3,000 as input cost alone. In addition, the labour shortage and low price makes it practically impossible for me to break even. But Mr. Kulandaisamys input for an acre costs Rs. 800 to Rs. 1,000 and I can hope to save some amount on the input, says Mr. Ganesan, from Tirukatupalli village. According to Mr. Kulandaisamy not only paddy but any crop can be grown well using this organic plus input. If farmers are able to follow my suggestion dedicatedly then I can assure that their yield can be increased. Those interested can visit my farm, factory at Thanjavur to see and get convinced personally, he says. University support When contacted, the Vice Chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Dr. P. Murugesa Boopathi expressed surprise on the yield increase and promised to help Mr. Kulandaisamy. It is the duty of the University and our scientists to motivate such persons, he says. Readers can contact Mr. S. Ranganathan on phone at: 04367-252170, mobile: 09442281037, and Mr. Kulandaisamy, website: www.tarigroup.com, mobiles: 98430-59117 and 98434-39909 to know more.

Perils of mobile predictive texting

Predictive text, a marvel of mobile phones that has made it quicker and easier to communicate with people, has been blamed for errors that can sabotage relationships by leaving users fuming. Predictive texting is a facility that makes SMSing faster especially for phones with non-qwerty keyboard. The latest submissions to the DamnYouAutoCorrect website show how the simple predictive text misspelling of the words at Pam's' resulted in a very awkward conversation between a woman and her boyfriend. Instead of typing We need to spend some time at Pam's' user Jenni' mistakenly texted: We need to spent some time apart', prompting a furious reply from her partner, according to the Daily Mail . Modern mobile phones come with a built-in dictionary which enables them to predict what word

a user wants from only a few key presses. Phones can often predict a completely random word often with hilarious results. For example, it is easy to end up asking a friend out for a quick riot (pint) or telling them about being stuck in a Steve (queue). A study in 2009 found predictive text messaging changes the way children's brains work and makes them more likely to make mistakes generally. Scientists said the system trains young people to be fast but inaccurate. Previous research has shown that predictive texting makes people sloppy when it comes to spelling, with many flummoxed by words such as questionnaire, accommodate and definitely. IANS

Peruvian coast highly hit by overfishing

A conservation risk index to reveal the economic-conservation trade-offs of fishing has identified the Peruvian coast, among others, as one of those most biologically and economically vulnerable to overfishing.

PET for more accurate breast cancer diagnosis

A molecular imaging technique with whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) provides a non-invasive means of capturing estrogen receptor expression in estrogen receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Planets bombarded by particles while forming

The formation of planets occurs under constant bombardment from particles ranging from a few nanometres to tens of kilometres in size, according to recent analyses of asteroid samples from the Hayabusa mission.

Plants use catalysis to split oxygen from water

Green plants produce oxygen from water efficiently using a catalytic technique powered by sunlight a process that is part of photosynthesis and so effective that it is Earth's major source of oxygen.

Plastic bag tax to be imposed in N. Ireland

A 5p (GBP0.05) plastic bag tax will be imposed in Northern Ireland from next year. Alex Attwood, environment minister, said we want to demonstrate that the Northern Ireland government is dedicated to the green agenda.

Pregnancy increases risk of heart attack

Heart attacks during pregnancy tend to be more severe, lead to more complications, and also occur for different reasons than commonly seen in the non-pregnant general population, says new research.

Preventing obesity due to low birth weight

Babies born small put on weight later in life if allowed free access to calories. However, when small babies consumed moderately regulated calories during infancy, the propensity to become obese decreases.

Prudent water management practices ensure selfsufficiency

A general opinion prevails among many farmers that more water means better yield. It is not true. In fact, more than 70 per cent of the irrigation water, especially in flood irrigation, evaporates. Only a small quantity reaches the root zone of the plants and gets utilised, says farmer A.L Somala Devi, Mandya district, Karnataka. The University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, conferred the Best Farm Woman award (district level) on her. Economical use of water with proper planning is essential to get a good yield. Especially during the summer months, farmers must go in for optimum use of water and conserve as much as possible, according to her. Strolling around her farm one notices a number of raised mounds of earth on the fields. Preventive bunds These bunds serve two purposes. One, they act as effective check dams and prevent water from running off; two, they prevent the surface soil from getting washed away by the running water, she explains. In addition, she has also dug some small ponds in her farm to store rainwater. She raises coconut, arecanut, sugarcane, paddy, mulberry, ragi and napier grass. Cows and sheep are also reared in her farm. I am a strong believer in traditional farming. I do not use chemicals, which spoil the land. The soil is like a mother's womb and must be nourished and taken care of, she says. Mulching dry leaves in the fields is a regular practice which she says, prevents moisture evaporation and controls weed growth. Vegetables are grown in a small patch. Waste water from the kitchen irrigates the vegetable garden. Grow some vegetables I am surprised when I hear people speaking of malnutrition or increasing food production. If farmers in every village in the country grow some vegetables in their land then the concept of food security for the farmers' family can be solved. The excess vegetables can also be sold, thus fetching the farmer some extra money. The farmer says with a sense of pride that she does not visit the market for buying vegetables. All her kitchen needs are met from her vegetable garden. Personal advice My suggestion to farmers is that they should grow different crops, trees and rear animals in the farm. Do not practise monoculture (growing only one crop), because if any pest or disease attacks the crop then you will face huge losses.

How does she manage any pest attack? She says: As long as farmers know the medicinal value and methods of using neem, basil, parthenium leaves, or cow's urine as pest repellents, the problem can easily be tackled. When there are so many low cost methods and bio-pesticides available, which can be made easily in the farm and are effective, a farmer need not borrow at high interest rates for growing crops. Two main problems Today's agriculture faces two main problems, she says. One pertains to lowering the input cost, and the other, marketing. If these two are solved then our farmers will succeed, she says. Her advice to farmers is that even if one is not fully convinced of practising organic agriculture, he or she can try using both the natural inputs in a piece of land and also grow crops using chemicals in the rest. Seeing is believing. This practice over time can change a farmer's perspective towards organic methods, she says. Cost of inputs Today one cannot do chemical farming alone. Shortage of the inputs and the cost factor really create a problem for farmers. Natural inputs need to be used if we need to come out of excessive spending on chemicals, she argues. Instead of depending on some unknown middlemen to exploit the farmers it would be better if farmers organise themselves into small groups and start some sort of cooperative farming and marketing on their own. For more information readers can contact Mrs. A.L Somala Devi, No 145-Hemmanahalli, Athgoor, Hobali, Maddur taluk, Mandya district, Karnataka:571428, mobile:09845746046.

Pythons, people take turns as hunters, prey

More than a quarter of a Filipino hunter-gatherer group have been attacked by giant pythons. The same hunter-gatherers target the pythons as food, besides competing with them for the same prey deer, pigs and monkeys.

Railway track
In a railway track or road at a curve, the inner track/edge is comparatively less in height then the outer. Why? V.G. SATHIYANARAYANAN Chennai The phenomenon of raising outer rail of the curved track above the inner track is called banking. This is done in the case of roads as well. When a vehicle moves on a straight rail/road, the following three kinds of force act on it: 1) The weight of the vehicle acting vertically downwards, 2) Normal reaction provided by the road, acting upwards, to support the weight of the vehicle, and 3) Frictional force acting between contact area of wheels and road surface which helps the vehicle move forward. This fact holds true for all kinds of vehicles ranging from cycles and trucks to trains. A vehicle moving at a fast speed on a straight rail/road has a large inertia, i.e. tendency to keep moving in the same direction at the same speed. When it takes a circular turn on a curved rail/road, it experiences an additional force, termed as centripetal force, acting towards the

centre of the circle. While rounding the curve as the vehicle has tendency to leave curved path and regain straight line path, force of friction between wheels and ground provides necessary centripetal force. Mathematical calculations show that if the rail/road along the curve is not banked i.e. road is levelled, the maximum permissible speed with which a vehicle can go depends on the above mentioned frictional force. The force of friction is not reliable to provide the required centripetal force as it tends to decrease when the road is wet or tyres of vehicle are worn out. If any attempt is made to run it at a greater speed, the vehicle is likely to skid and go out of track. In order that the vehicle can go round the curved track at a reasonable speed without skidding, the sufficient centripetal force is managed for it by banking the road. On a banked road, the normal reaction provided by the ground acts perpendicular to the ground and which has two components namely 1) The vertical component which balances the weight of the vehicle. 2) The horizontal component which provides necessary centripetal force to the vehicle. Banking of the roads not only eliminates large dependency on frictional forces but also increase the maximum permissible velocity with which vehicles can take circular turn. ROCKY RANJAN BHARTI Warangal, Andhra Pradesh

Rare element detected in three ancient stars

Researchers have detected the element tellurium for the first time in three ancient stars. They found traces of this element which is very rare on Earth in stars that are nearly 12 billion years old.

Reaching new frontiers of space's dark matter

New findings by astronomers mapping the universe on the largest scale ever reveal a universe comprising an intricate cosmic web of dark matter and galaxies spanning more than one billion light years.

Rearing farm animals helps in times of economic distress

Farmers don't need a veterinarian to tell them to rear some animals like pig, goat or poultry to boost their income. They have been doing it for centuries. But they definitely require our assistance and suggestions to maintain their animals in a healthy condition. This becomes more imperative, after the recent Thane cyclone devastated several hundred hectares of fields in Cuddalore and Villupuram areas in Tamil Nadu. Though the government acted swiftly to bring some remedial measures to the people a vast majority of them being farmers the role of our University in it assumes importance, says Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (TANUVASU) Vice-Chancellor, Dr. R. Prabakaran. Sudden change Hundreds of jack and cashew trees got uprooted, acres of paddy destroyed, and in one day the farmer found himself penniless with nothing to support him. Though steps are being taken to replant better hybrid and high yielding trees it will take a

minimum of 3-4 years for them to yield and start giving some income to the affected farmers. But today a farmer needs money, that too as soon as possible. In agriculture it is not possible to earn fast. It takes time and needs patience. But if farmers decide to rear animals like goats, sheep, turkey, guinea fowls and pigs, their income will come quicker, he says. To rear these animals, farmers don't need to invest much. These animals can be reared in open places, in backyards and require minimal care and attention. But their economic returns are quite encouraging. In fact the demand for guinea fowls in Kerala is so huge that our farmers must opt to start rearing them apart from broilers and layers. Present demand for the birds is nearly five lakhs and we hardly supply 3,000 birds. The rest comes from Orissa and other states. A one-day-old chick cost Rs. 45 from private dealers, he adds. Prepared to guide Our University is ready to help interested farmers to set up such vocations. We are prepared to guide and help them right from starting a new venture to getting financial assistance. All farmers need to do is to call, fix an appointment and come over to meet us personally, he explains. According to Dr. Prabakaran if farmers start rearing poultry, they can get a reasonable remuneration to see them through difficult times. For instance, poultries start yielding income from the sixth or seventh month onwards to provide the much needed financial support. Tanuvas has developed new breeds of goat and poultry birds that can usher in good income for the affected farmers. Supplement income Farmers need not despair as new avenues are open to them and they can try to supplement their income until crop prospects are revived and improved, says, Dr. Prabakaran. The Government, for its part, is distributing free milch cows, goats and sheep to help these farmers, and has instructed the University to start conducting exhibitions on different aspects of livestock rearing, maintenance, and more importantly the marketing channels for the same once every three months in different regions. The main objective of organizing such exhibitions is to increase the awareness about the need for rearing some animals to increase income among farmers. While there is no doubt that information relating to farm animals and their maintenance is available both on the net and at several institutes of our university, the sad fact is that not many patronize them, rues Dr. Prabakaran. These regular exhibitions promise to break all that. It is like a proactive action from the scientists to reach the farmers doorsteps and offer all information and guide to him, he says hopefully. Several exhibits The first exhibition is going to be held at Srirangam, Tiruchi, from Feb 24 to 26th and is expected to become popular among farmers. Several stalls are going to be set up, with an aim to provide every opportunity to the livestock farmers to gain knowledge about scientific technologies appropriate to be adopted in the region. . Well organized 50 concept based stalls are going to be set up complete with charts, pamphlets, books, CDs and experts for the farmers to interact with. Live exhibits will also be displayed. Seminars and guest lectures on profitable micro entrepreneurial livestock enterprises are also going to be held on all the three days. Interested readers can call Dr. R. Prabakaran on mobile: 94440-81208, phone: 044-25551574 and 25551575 or email him at karanmgk@gmail.com to get guidance.

Recent geological activity on the moon imaged

New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon's crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon's age of more than 4.5 billion years. A team of researchers analyzing high-resolution images obtained by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) show small, narrow trenches typically much longer than they are wide. This indicates the lunar crust is being pulled apart at these locations. These linear valleys, known as graben, form when the moon's crust stretches, breaks and drops down along two bounding faults. A handful of these graben systems have been found across the lunar surface. We think the moon is in a general state of global contraction because of cooling of a still hot interior, said Thomas Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, and lead author of a paper on this research appearing in the March issue of the journal Nature Geoscience . The graben tell us forces acting to shrink the moon were overcome in places by forces acting to pull it apart. This means the contractional forces shrinking the moon cannot be large, or the small graben might never form. The weak contraction suggests that the moon, unlike the terrestrial planets, did not completely melt in the very early stages of its evolution. Rather, observations support an alternative view that only the moon's exterior initially melted forming an ocean of molten rock. In August 2010, the team used LROC images to identify physical signs of contraction on the lunar surface, in the form of lobe-shaped cliffs known as lobate scarps. The scarps are evidence the moon shrank globally in the geologically recent past and might still be shrinking today. The team saw these scarps widely distributed across the moon and concluded it was shrinking as the interior slowly cooled. Based on the size of the scarps, it is estimated that the distance between the moon's center and its surface shank by approximately 300 feet. The graben were an unexpected discovery and the images provide contradictory evidence that the regions of the lunar crust are also being pulled apart. This pulling apart tells us the moon is still active, said Richard Vondrak, LRO Project Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. LRO gives us a detailed look at that process. As the LRO mission progresses and coverage increases, scientists will have a better picture of how common these young graben are and what other types of tectonic features are nearby. The graben systems the team finds may help scientists refine the state of stress in the lunar crust. It was a big surprise when I spotted graben in the far side highlands, said co-author Mark Robinson of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, principal investigator of LROC. Our Bureau

Red meat bad for heart and linked to cancer

A new study has found that red meat consumption is associated with an increased risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Substituting fish, poultry, nuts and legumes lowers the risk, the study found.

Restored wetlands not equal to original ones

Once a wetland is degraded, it does not recover its normal assemblage of plants or its rich stores of organic soil carbon, which both affect natural cycles of water and nutrients, for many years.

Re-writing solar system history?

The early days of our solar system might look quite different than previously thought, claim physicists. In its research, a team at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory used more sensitive instruments to find a different half-life for samarium, one of the isotopes used to chart the evolution of the solar system. Shrinks chronology It shrinks the chronology of early events in the solar system, like the formation of planets, into a shorter time span, said team leader Michael Paul in the Science journal. It also means some of the oldest rocks on Earth would have formed even earlier as early as 120 million years after the solar system formed, in one case of Greenland rocks, he added. According to the research, everything in our solar system formed from star dust several billion years ago. Some of this dust was formed in giant supernovae explosions which supplied most of our heavy elements. One of these is samarium-146. Unstable heavy element Samarium-146 is unstable and occasionally emits a particle, which changes the atom into a different element. Using the same technique as radiocarbon dating, scientists can calculate how long it's been since the Sm-146 was created. Because Sm-146 decays extremely slowly on the order of millions of years many models use it to help determine the age of the solar system. The number of years it takes for an isotope to decrease by half is called its half-life. Since Sm-146 emits particles so rarely, it takes a sophisticated instrument to measure this halflife. PTI

Rising shareholder activism

Minority shareholders are no more content playing a passive role; the active ones are questioning and engaging corporate managements to change their ways. They have begun forcing a poll on contentious resolutions. In some cases they moved courts

Role of Y chromosome in inherited coronary artery disease

Men develop coronary artery disease (CAD) approximately ten years earlier than women. Does the Y chromosome, which is found only in males, have any role in this? A study published today (February 9) in The Lancet journal does show that the Y chromosome plays a role. But not every male shares the same risk of developing coronary artery disease, though. Only those belonging to one of the 13 ancient lineages (haplogroup I) were found to be carriers of coronary artery disease risk. Haplogroup I is associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease, the authors write. Carriers of haplogroup I are at 50 per cent increased risk of CAD compared with men having

different variants. The study also revealed that the increased risk is not mediated by traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as high systolic blood pressure and HDL cholesterol. No role Also, the association between haplogroup I and increased risk of CAD was independent of age and other socioeconomic and lifestyle risk factors such as body-mass index, diabetes, smoking, alcohol consumption, and socioeconomic status. Predictive value But the authors caution that the haplogroup I on its own is unlikely to offer sufficiently high positive predictive value of coronary artery disease. But they also state in the same breath that the relative estimates of coronary artery disease risk in carriers of haplogroup I are not trivial from the genetic association analysis point of view. Most importantly, the study found that men with haplogroup I showed downregulation (where the cells are made less sensitive to a hormone or another agent) of adaptive immunity that provides much more sophisticated immune response. Previous studies have shown that dysfunction of immune response is a well established contributor to atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease. Those with haplogroup I were particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, the authors state. It took longer time to suppress HIV, and these people showed accelerated progression from HIV state to full-blown AIDS. Mortality from AIDS was also significantly higher in those not belonging to haplogroup I. But it does not stop with downregulation of adaptive immunity. It upregulates inflammatory response pathways in the immune system cells. This heightened inflammatory response affects cardiovascular system. Carriers of haplogroup I would have probably arrived from the Middle East around 25,000 years ago and spread throughout Europe, the authors postulate. This is based on the absence of this variant in indigenous populations outside Europe. The study best fits the north-south gradient in west Europe where death from CAD is much higher in the northern populations in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. The prevalence of haplogroup I in these countries is 15 per cent to 40 per cent. However, the prevalence of this variant in people from countries like France, Spain and Switzerland in the south of west Europe is lesser. Data for this study was obtained from two large studies in the UK the cross-sectional British Heart Foundation Family Heart Study, and the prospective West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study. Nearly 90 per cent of the more than 3,200 men participating in these two studies belonged either to haplogroup I or another variant.

Rubber-mixed bitumen for roads Running hot and cold in the deep sea
During an expedition in 2010 off Costa Rica, scientists found hot hydrothermal vent systems intersecting cold seeps of methane, which is extremely rare.

Sampling the Pacific for signs of Fukushima

A scientific team has found that following Fukushima, the concentrations of several key radioactive substances were elevated but varied widely across a Pacific study area, due to the complex marine environment.

Satellite reveals sea turtle feeding hotspots

Satellite tracking of threatened loggerhead sea turtles has revealed two previously unknown feeding hotspots in the Gulf of Mexico important habitats for at least three separate populations of the turtles.

Saturnlike ring system around a star spotted

Saturn has a ring system. Now a team has discovered a ring system around a sun in the constellation Centaurus similar to Saturn's. Data from the SuperWASP and All Sky Automated Survey projects was used.

Saving snow leopard using stem-like cells

The production of embryonic stem-like cells from the tissue of an adult snow leopard may lead to cryopreservation of genetic material for cloning and other assisted reproduction techniques.

Science lessons now on mobile phones

From textbooks to your mobile screens, now science will be at everyone's fingertips! Vigyan Prasar and IGNOU together have launched a free SMS service for mobile users that delivers content on science and related areas. The application Science@Mobile was launched on February 29 as part of the two-day National Science Day celebrations by Amit Roy, Director of the Inter-University Accelerator Centre. I believe society without the appreciation and knowledge of science is incomplete. If we do not understand the power and application behind a phenomenon, we would live in darkness and consider it black magic. So the spread of knowledge on science is very important, he said. The number of mobile phones in the country have touched almost a billion. The penetration of mobiles has been immense, so the service would be of great help to create the right culture for science, Roy said. Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organisation under the Department of Science and Technology, and the IGNOU jointly introduced this service to tap into the potential of mobile phones to popularise science even into rural areas where mobile phones have made substantial penetration. Science@Mobile' will provide all types of information on science subjects including news, important days and events, facts, humour, quotes, about scientists, health tips and green tips to its subscribers free of cost. In addition, the content has been grouped into three categories with the first one not requiring any science background, second one requiring basic science literacy, while the third is for people with science background. Users can subscribe to the service by messaging SCIMBL to 092230516161 or clicking the link provided at Vigyan Prasar website. The service currently is available only in English. Efforts to provide SMSs in Hindi is in progress and will be available within a week or little more, said O P Sharma, Project Coordinator of Science@Mobile service.

National Science Day is celebrated on February 28. This is to celebrate the day in 1928 when Indian scientist Sir C V Raman announced the discovery the Raman Effect in light scattering which won him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. PTI A free SMS service for mobile users delivers content on science and related areas

Scientists need communication skills and patience

Today, inspite of surfeit of information available, communication skills still seem lacking among experts. Take the example of two scientists from the same department going to meet an official. Both the persons may go separately without even being aware they may bump into each other while waiting to meet the concerned official outside his room. While this sort of attitude may be common among the research fraternity, this becomes a handicap when it comes to farmers. Knowledge sharing and institutional support must go together to help farmers get sustainable income, says Dr. V. Rajagopal retired Director, Central Plantation and Crops Research Institute (CPCRI), Kasaragod. Takes time Farmers take time to understand a concept in their own way and they often mull over it before attempting it. It takes time to convince a farmer and for that good communication skills and patience become imperative. Experts must be ready to share, hone their talking skills to help transfer of technology to the fields from the labs, he says. While educating farmers about some emerging expertise making them understand, accept, adopt, and to work is a challenging task. Scientists need to exert extraordinary efforts to bring knowledge and happiness to hostile farmers. There should be a continuous farmers-scientists interaction to instil the much needed confidence in the farmer to continue with farm activities uninterrupted, he adds. Dr. Rajagopal explained how CPCRI approached the problem through caring, reaching, and teaching as a mission. Scientists visited farmers personally to impart technical knowledge. Twin benefits In turn, we also learnt the indigenous traditional knowledge (ITK) from them and the synergy between modern technologies and the ITK proved beneficial for both of us, he explains. The Institute developed several production, protection, and processing technologies to improve coconut yield, besides other inter crops, and to enhance income for coconut growers. These technologies apart from being demonstrated at the Institute farm, were also taken directly to the farmers' own fields through the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) as a participatory approach. The coconut farmers were given adequate training and skill development through an International project funded by the Asian Development Bank for three years. A total of 792 farmers in two villages, formed as community based organizations (CBOs), reaped the benefits of the technologies, says Dr. Rajagopal. Recording the findings A systematic extension activity was carried out by recording the farm profile, yield and income prior to, and after the interventions adopted by the farmers. International standards were applied for impact analysis of a project. About 25 success stories were documented from India, including an NGO (PK Thampan Foundation, Kochi) involved in the project.

Among the several enterprising farmers who benefited by our scientists' interaction is one Mr. P.V.Koran from Pallikara. The farmer adopted an intensive integrated mixed farming in his 0.32 ha coconut farm. Besides intercrops pepper, turmeric, yam, banana, he maintains two Jersey cows and different varieties of fodder grass, says Dr. Rajagopal. Net income The farmer earns a net income of Rs.93,775 from the vegetables, milk, and fodder and gets an average of 10litres milk per day. Once he harvested more than five tonnes of turmeric. Likewise, pepper and banana also gave good yield with remunerative price. Vermicompost Encouraged by these advantages he got from the enterprises, Koran also ventured into vermicomposting, using the coconut wastes in the garden. He was the recipient of US $ 250, along with a certificate as best mixed coconut farmer among eight countries. Being a farmer my income today increased rapidly only because of my constant interaction with the institute's scientists. They had the patience and time to make me understand about new technologies and were very friendly in their approach, says the farmer. For more details readers can contact Mr. P.V. Koran at Pallippuzha house, Pakkam post, Pallikkara, Kasaragod District, Kerala: 671 316, Phone: 0467-2410044 and Dr. Rajagopal at email: rajvel44@gmail.com, phone: 09441200217.

Scouting innovations in fisheries and aquaculture

Innovation has been the foundation of civilization and civilization is constantly influenced by new developments. In our country with a long tradition in fisheries and aquaculture, fisheries and fish farmers have innovated a number of techniques and technologies and continue to innovate to sustain their livelihoods, says M.C.Nandeesha, Dean, Fisheries College and Research Institute, Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu. With a view to harnessing the innovative potential of people at the grass root level, an initiative has been undertaken by conducting a nationwide essay competition for fishers and fish farmers. Objectives The objectives are: to document significant innovations made by fishers and fish farmers in fisheries and aquaculture. Recognize innovators and strengthen partnerships between fishers, fish farmers and development professionals and scientists. Increase awareness on the benefits of farmer participatory research in innovation as well as in extension with a view to increase fish production The competition is open to fishers and fish farmers from all parts of the country. The innovations have to be described with all details supported with drawings, pictures, etc. Farmers can take assistance of others in providing description, if necessary. Essays can be written in any language with which the farmer is comfortable. Inclusion of an english translation is preferable but not mandatory. Last date for submission is February 29. Last date The best innovators, selected by a panel of judges with interest in farmers innovation, will be awarded three prizes: First: Rs.25,000, second: Rs.15,000 and third Rs.10,000. In addition, best entries would be chosen for inclusion in a special publication to be brought out under the title Farmers as scientists: examples from Indian fisheries and aquaculture. Further based on the levels of partnership additional plans to expose innovators to the best innovations around the world would be explored.

For further queries and submission of essays, please contact : Dr.D.Sukumar, Co-ordinator, farmer/fishers innovation documentation (FID), email : sukuds@gmail.com, Tuticorin: 628008, mobile: 9443844820 Tamil Nadu. "We are seeking, partnership to make this initiative a national movement. Those interested to join can email us at Dean, at mcnraju@gmail.com and deanfcri@gmail.com, Phone: 0461-2340154, mobile: 9442551957 adds Mr. Nandeesha.

Seaweed as alternative to land-based biofuel

Diverting crops to produce fuel will limit food resources and drive up costs. Marine macroalgae common seaweed can be grown more quickly than land-based crops and harvested as fuel without sacrificing usable land.

Shedding light on the evolution of plants

A crucial step in plant evolution gave rise to the plastid, which is the specialized compartment where photosynthesis takes place in cells. This happened 2.4 billion years ago.

Slapped skin
Why does the place where one is slapped look red? SALMAN SAEED Kadapa, Andhra Pradesh Lewis in 1927 described triple response to skin injury. The triple response is a result of a firm strong stroke across the skin like a slap or pencil point slash. It contains a series of responses: 1. red reaction; 2. flare; 3. wheal. The red reaction: It is due to filling of the smallest vessels of the skin, called the capillaries. It is as a result of release of histamine from the damaged skin which dilates these capillaries. The red reaction outlines the stroke and is sometimes called as red line. It is not mediated by nerves. Histamine is a polypeptide (complex protein), present in skin, intestines and lungs, i.e., at the surfaces in contact with the outside world. When it is released it causes allergic skin reaction, urticaria, bronchial asthma and ulcers in stomach. Flare: Flare is the phase after red reaction and is due to filling of smaller arteries of skin called arterioles. Arterioles are larger than capillaries. Flare is an irregular red area around the red line. The skin temperature in the flare region is raised because of increased blood flow. It is mediated by nerves. As flare is due to nerves, the arterial filling is long lasting, may spread around and may remain for a few hours. Wheal: Wheal means, a suddenly formed elevation of the skin surface. If the skin stroke is strong enough a raised area appears extending from red line but within the flare area. Eventually, the raised area may develop into a blister. This is due to further increase in blood filling of both capillaries and arterioles. This response is again due to histamine. Some individuals are unusually prone to develop a striking triple response. This response is common to wide variety of skin injuries like a slap, slash, firm pressure and also to chemicals like creams and ointments. DR. R. RAM Associate Professor Nephrology, NIMS

Hyderabad

Smelling the roses with one's eyes

A new study reveals for the first time that activating the brain's visual cortex with a small amount of electrical stimulation actually improves our sense of smell. The finding was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. In particular we wanted to test the idea that activation of brain regions primarily dedicated to one sense might influence processing in other senses. We found that electrically stimulating the visual cortex improves performance on a task that requires participants to identify the odd odour out of a group of three. This study shows that on a basic level the brain structures involved in different senses are really quite interconnected in everyone. This cross-wiring' of senses is found in people with synesthesia, a condition in which people see the colour of numbers or smell words, or hear odours for example, says Dr. Johan Lundstrom at Monell Chemical Senses Center. TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) was directed towards the visual cortex to improve visual perception. Since TMS alters brain activity in a targeted area, it provides a powerful test of the hypothesis that visual cortex activation changes olfactory perception. Our Bureau

Soil fertility managment to sustain production

Agricultural production in India has increased through green renaissance, growing high-yielding varieties of crops and adopting scientifically improved soil fertility management, water management, plant protection and crop husbandry technologies during the past three decades. Integrated approach Because of such integrated approach, we have been able to increase the agricultural production manifold, particularly in case of food grain crops from 50 million tones in 1950 to more than 220 million tonnes, which in turn has ensured near self-sufficiency in food for our ever-growing population. However, the production has reached a plateau during the past few years for certain obvious reasons. Although we continue to grow high yielding varieties, we are unable to increase the crop production during the past few years as significantly as we did during the last three decades. Why has it been so? Maximum potential The high-yield cum high-quality varieties of crops can perform to their maximum genetic potentials, only if they are grown in fertile, healthy and productive soils with appropriate water management and crop protection measures. We must avoid not only under-fertilization but also over or distorted fertilization to realize the full benefits from the crops. Balanced soil fertility management through integrated nutrient management involving judicious combinations of manures, fertilisers and biofertilisers must be done to ensure normal growth and high productivity of the crops. Next to soil management is water conservation. We should harvest and conserve the rain water received during the monsoons for farming at commercial scales throughout the year. Future scope

Scope for extending the area for agriculture is limited due to diversion of more lands every year for non-agricultural purposes. However, we have very good varieties and hybrids with highyield and high-quality potentials in almost all crops already on hand. There is not much scope to make further significant break-through in the genetic potentials of the varieties of the crops in near future. So, the only possible scope to maximize crop production with the available varieties is to enhance and sustain the productivity through integrated and balanced soil fertility management practices. Dr. K. Kumaraswamy former ProfessorDepartment of Soil Science TNAU, Coimbatore

Solar radius measured precisely

A group of scientists from Hawaii, Brazil and California has measured the diameter of the Sun with unprecedented accuracy by using a spacecraft to time the transits of the planet Mercury across the face of the Sun in 2003 and 2006. They measured the Sun's radius as 696,342 km (432,687 miles) with an uncertainty of only 65 km. This was achieved by using the solar telescope aboard a NASA satellite, thereby bypassing the blurring caused by Earth's atmosphere that occurs when observations are made from the ground, notes a University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy Press Release. The measurements of the Sun's size were made by University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy scientists. They used the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) aboard NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) to make the measurements. Transits of Mercury occur 12-13 times per century, so observations like this allow us to refine our understanding of the Sun's inner structure. The team is preparing to observe the transit of Venus across the Sun on June 5. They expect these observations will improve the accuracy of their solar size measurement even further. Our Bureau

Soy products may help lower blood pressure

Soy-based food products' benefits are steadily beginning to emerge. Eating foods that contain isoflavones a key compound in soy milk, tofu, green tea and even peanuts every day may help young adults lower their BP.

Spider silk conducts heat just like metals

Spider silks particularly the draglines that anchor webs in place conduct heat better than most materials, including very good conductors such as silicon, aluminum and pure iron and 1,000 times better than silkworm silk.

Strength of aerogel
A pound of aerogel, an amazing, ultra lightweight material, is enough to build a boat capable of carrying half tonne loads, says a study. Aerogel, a buoyant material, is among the lightest solid substances on earth. Composed of tiny nano-fibrils, it is derived from plant cellulose and mimics the water strider, an insect which can walk on water on long, thin feet.

Olli Ikkala, from the Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, said aerogels are so light that some of them are denoted as solid smoke. They also have remarkable mechanical properties and are flexible. It can create applications for cleaning up oil spills, helping create sensors to detect environmental pollution, miniaturized military bots, and even children's toys and super-buoyant beach floats. Ikkala pointed out that cellulose is the most abundant polymer on Earth. Cellulose is also a renewable and sustainable raw material that could be used in many new ways. It can be of great potential value in helping the world shift to materials that do not require petroleum for manufacture, Ikkala explained. The use of wood-based cellulose does not influence the food supply or prices, like corn or other crops. We are really delighted to see how cellulose is moving beyond traditional applications, such as paper and textiles, and finding new high technology applications, said Ikkala. IANS

Strong oral carcinogen in smokeless tobacco

(S)-N'-nitrosonornicotine chemial, which is present only in the case of smokeless tobacco products, is a strong oral carcinogen. It is the only chemical in smokeless tobacco known to cause oral cancer.

Students' Space web' experiment to be launched soon

A team of science and engineering students have developed an innovative space web' experiment which will be carried on a rocket from the Arctic Circle to the edge of space this week. The experiment, known as Suaineadh, was developed by a team of 20 graduate and postgraduate students from the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Despite its humble beginnings, Suaineadh could pave the way for the development of a wide range of space construction projects. Weather permitting, it will be launched from the Esrange Space Centre in Northern Sweden on Sunday 18 March or Tuesday 20 March as part of the REXUS (Rocket-Borne Experiments for University Students) programme, a joint Swedish-German venture. When the rocket reaches an altitude of approximately 70km, it will eject the central hub section of the Suaineadh apparatus from its nosecone into a low-gravity environment. The hub will release a two-metre-square web, weighted in four corners, which will begin spinning and deploy a rigid structure maintained by centrifugal force. In low gravity, unlike on earth, the structure would be strong enough to act as a foundation for construction, which could be carried out by specially-designed robots. Design validation According to the University of Glasgow press release, Suaineadh will fall back to earth after several minutes of testing. The Suaineadh team hope that data retrieved from its onboard sensors and cameras will validate their design and improve the next iteration of the module. The launch of Suaineadh is the culmination of three years of collaboration between the students in Glasgow and Stockholm.

Malcolm McRobb, the University of Glasgow postgraduate student leading the project's mechanical design team, said: A web such as this, permanently deployed in space, will give engineers a stable and robust foundation for larger structures to be built on. It will also cut down the amount of equipment that each space mission needs to take into orbit, which will bring down the cost of space construction and help make ambitious projects more financially viable. It could lead to the development of solar sails to allow chemical-free propulsion, orbital solar panels to generate solar power more effectively, or the development of large-scale antennae to help us learn more about the universe. Our Bureau

Students rename GRAIL spacecraft

Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the Moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Montana. Their winning entry, Ebb and Flow, was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011. The names were submitted by fourth graders from the Emily Dickinson Elementary School. Nearly 900 classrooms with more than 11,000 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia participated in the contest. Previously named Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory, or GRAIL-A and -B, the washing machine-sized spacecraft begin science operations in March, after a launch in September 2011. The 28 students of Nina DiMauro's class at the Emily Dickinson Elementary School have really hit the nail on the head, said Maria Zuber, GRAIL principal investigator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. We were really impressed that the students drew their inspiration by researching GRAIL and its goal of measuring gravity. Ebb and Flow truly capture the spirit and excitement of our mission. Zuber and Sally Ride, America's first woman in space and CEO of Sally Ride Science in San Diego, selected the names following the contest, which attracted 890 proposals via the Internet and mail. According to a release from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, the contest invited ideas from students aged 5 to 18 enrolled in U.S. schools. Although everything from spelling and grammar to creativity was considered, Zuber and Ride primarily took into account the quality of submitted essays. With submissions from all over the United States and even some from abroad, there were a lot of great entries to review, Ride said. This contest generated a great deal of excitement in classrooms across America, and along with it an opportunity to use that excitement to teach science. GRAIL is NASA's first planetary mission carrying instruments fully dedicated to education and public outreach. Each spacecraft carries a small camera called GRAIL MoonKAM (Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students). Thousands of students in grades five through eight will select target areas on the lunar surface and send requests for study to the GRAIL MoonKAM Mission Operations Center in San Diego. The winning prize for the Dickinson students is to choose the first camera images. Dickinson is one of nearly 2,000 schools registered for the MoonKAM program, which is led by Ride and her team at Sally Ride Science in collaboration with undergraduate students at the University of California in San Diego. Launched in September 2011, Ebb and Flow will be placed in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 34 miles (55 kilometres). During their science mission, the duo will answer longstanding questions about the Moon and give scientists a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed. Our Bureau

Studying clouds to understand climate

Clouds may reflect radiation from the sun back into space, and they may be a blanket sealing in the heat from Earth. Studying their formation and dispersion may be a key step in climate research.

Sugary solution to Alzheimer's disease

Slowing or preventing the development of Alzheimer's disease may be as simple as ensuring a brain protein's sugar levels are maintained.

Super-Earth unlikely to transfer life

While conditions suitable for life might exist on the so-called Super-Earth' in the Gliese 581 system, it's unlikely to be transferred to nearby planets.

Tadpoles change shape due to herbicide

The world's most popular weed killer, Roundup, can cause amphibians to change shape. Sublethal and environmentally relevant concentrations of Roundup caused tadpoles to alter their morphology.

Tapping windows for efficient, cheap energy

A researcher is tapping windows in high-rise buildings to produce energy cheaply and more efficiently with transparent solar cells. He used transparent carbon nanotubes, which can be sprayed onto windows, to utilise sunlight.

Test tube hamburgers to become a reality in October

Scientists have claimed they would serve the world's first test tube hamburger this October. A team, led by Prof Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, says it has already grown artificial meat in the laboratory, and now aims to create a hamburger, identical to a real stuff, by generating strips of meat from stem cells. The finished product is expected to cost nearly 220,000 pounds, The Daily Telegraph reported. Prof Post said his team has successfully replicated the process with cow cells and calf serum, bringing the first artificial burger a step closer. In October we are going to provide a proof of concept showing out of stem cells, we can make a product that looks, feels and hopefully tastes like meat, he was quoted by the British newspaper as saying. Although it is possible to extract a limited number of stem cells from cows without killing them, the scientists say the most efficient way of taking the process forward would still involve slaughter.

He said: Eventually my vision is that you have a limited herd of donor animals in the world that you keep in stock and that you get your cells form there. Each animal will be able to produce about a million times more meat through the lab based technique than through traditional method of butchery. According to the scientists, making a complete burger will require 3,000 strips of muscle tissue, each of which measures about three cm long by 1.5 cm wide, with a thickness of halfa millimetre and takes six weeks to produce. The meat will then be ground up with 200 strips of fat tissue, produced in the same way, to make a hamburger. To produce the meat, stem cells are placed in a broth containing vital nutrients and serum from a cow foetus which allow them to grow into muscle cells and multiply up to 30 times. The strips of meat begin contracting like real muscle cells, and are attached to velcro and stretched to boost this process and keep them supple. At the moment the method produces meat with realistic fibres and a pinkishyellow tinge, but the scientists expect to produce more authentically coloured strips in near future. The project, funded by a wealthy and anonymous individual aims to slash the number of cattle farmed for food, and in doing so reduce one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. PTI

Testosterone lessens cooperation

Testosterone makes us overvalue our own opinions at the expense of cooperation, new research has found.

The next big thing in small memory devices

New memory chips that are transparent, highly flexible, and heat-resistant could usher in the development of next-generation flash-competitive memory.

To ensure lasting memory

University of Alberta researchers have established that the ability of the brain to rehearse or repeat electrical impulses may be absolutely critical in order to make a newly acquired memory more permanent. U of A psychology professor Clayton Dickson likened the process to someone trying to permanently memorize a phone number, We repeat the number several times to ourselves, so hopefully we can automatically recall it when needed. Dickson, the lead researcher on the project, says that neurons likely rehearse the process for recalling newly installed memories by using the brain's downtime to send and resend signals back and forth, establishing well practiced synaptic connections. Those connections allow the brain to retrieve the memories and rehearsal ensures that they last for a long time, said Dickson. It was previously thought that only biochemical processes like protein synthesis were important for solidifying memories. He says further investigation of this process could be used to improve an individual's memory and as a tool to delete negative or post traumatic memories. The study was published in The Journal of Neuroscience . Our Bureau Repeating brain's electrical impulses is critical to permanent memory.

Travails in medical imaging of bulky patients

Keen observation and analysis of case sheets of patients proved rewarding for Dr Raul Uppot, a young radiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in Boston, U.S. He realised that a tiny fraction of patients are denied medical imaging facilities simply because they are bulky. Radiologists could not provide optimum image quality and accurate diagnoses in their cases. Dr. Uppot and his co-workers reviewed the radiology reports filed between 1989 and 2003 labelled as limited by body habitus meaning limited in quality due to the patient's size. They found that over the 15-year period, the percentage of such reports nearly doubled from 0.10 in 1989 to 0.19 in 2003. It correlated strongly with the increase in obesity in Massachusetts State from 9 per cent in 1991 to 16 per cent in 2001. He presented the study at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA-2004). RSNA appreciated his paper and awarded him the 2004 Research Fellow Trainee Prize of $ 1,000. Dr Uppot observed that in the 15-year-old retrospective study of radiological exams at MGH, the diagnostic information of 0.15 per cent of the five million studies was limited by the body weight of patients. They did not include patients whose examinations were cancelled because they could not fit on the table. Obesity adversely impacts on simple X-ray and other life saving procedures such as CT scans, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The issue was so important that the RSNA held a special focus session on Obesity: The Impact on Radiology during its Annual convention (RSNA 2005) at Chicago. It continues to be important. In a recent review in Vascular Medicine (December 2011) Philip C. Hawley of the Grant Medical Centre, Columbus and Miles P. Hawley, The Ohio State University Medical Center, Columbus, recommended further research on both imaging and outcomes in the area. In Radiology Rounds, a newsletter for Referring Physicians, published by Massachusetts General Hospital, Janet Cochrane Miller noted that fat affects ultrasound images to a greater degree than any other medical imaging modality. At the frequency range normally used (3 to 7 MHz) for abdominal imaging, one cm of fat attenuates 50 per cent of the beam intensity. At lower frequencies attenuation is less; image resolution is also less. Miller estimated that 20 patients in 1,000 may not get the benefit of ultrasound scans because of excess body weight. Corresponding data for MRI scan is one in 1,000; abdominal CT: 4 in 1,000; chest X-ray: 5 in 1,000. Some obese patients are too large to image using even X-ray films of large size. They need multiple cassettes. When they exceed the weight limit for X-ray tables, patients can sometimes be imaged while standing, Miller wrote. To a question whether he expects that the issues he raised in the U.S. will be applicable to India, Dr Uppot who is currently assistant professor, Harvard Medical School, clarified that the issues start with ultrasound imaging at 250 pounds. Census data in India may need to identify the percentage of Indians who reach more than 250 pounds, he added. Relevance to India Has he got any suggestions for the Indian medical community? The Indian medical community should be aware of the issue. In India, as in other Asian and European countries there is great reliance of ultrasound for medical imaging. Of all the imaging modalities, ultrasound is the most sensitive to obesity. Indians who have excessive subcutaneous fat will present challenges to physicians who rely on ultrasound to make diagnosis.

To the query on improvements in producing optimal images of obese patients, Dr Uppot stated that manufacturers of imaging equipment have tried to address the issue by: (1) Increasing weight limits and gantry/bore diameters of their equipment so that patients can fit. (2) Used technology to improve the image quality such as harmonic imaging for ultrasound and (3) and used technology to try to decrease the increased radiation doses for CT in obese patients. The Lancet (November 20, 2010) reported that currently in India, almost 1 in 5 men and over 1 in 6 women are overweight. In some urban areas, the rates are as high as 40 per cent. But I do not know of any Indian publication on the difficulties of imaging obese patients. The medical community in India must appreciate the issues and be prepared to face the challenges of imaging overweight patients K.S. PARTHASARATHY Raja Ramanana fellow, Department of Atomic Energy ( ksparth@yahoo.co.uk )

Two more planets orbiting binary stars discovered

More than 700 planets orbiting a star (extrasolar planets) have been discovered till date. But a planet orbiting two stars was more in the realms of science fiction till recently. Astronomers surprised everybody last September when they reported the first ever discovery of such a planet orbiting two stars (Kepler-16 system). Such a body is called a circumbinary planet. In the case of exoplanets orbiting a star or Earth orbiting the Sun, only the planets are in orbit around the star. But in the case of circumbinary planets, all the three bodies (a planet and binary stars) are in motion. While the planet orbits the binary stars, the gravitationally bound pair of stars (binaries) orbit around each other. If this discovery last year was considered as a rare find, scientists report today (January 12) the discovery of two more circumbinary planets Kelper-34 b and Kepler-35 b. The results are published in Nature . Both the planets orbiting their respective binary stars are low-density gasgiants. Millions of such planets The latest finding proves that a circumbinary planet orbiting two stars is not extremely rare in our galaxy or a freak incident. Three such objects have so far been located from a small sample size of 750 binary star systems. With nearly 2.6 per cent of all Sun-like stars in our galaxy seen in a binary state, the authors estimate that there must be millions of planets orbiting binary stars. The two circumbinary planets were discovered using the Kepler space telescopeace. The 0.95m telescope monitors nearly 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra. Since the planets orbiting the stars are several thousands of Astronomical Units (average distance between Earth and Sun) away, the planetary transit method is used for locating them with certainty. The planetary transit method is based on the premise that a planet passing in front of its star would slightly dim the star's light or produce a miniature eclipse. When such transits occur periodically, the body is confirmed as a planet. But the planetary transit method would be able to detect a planet only if it is either massive or close to its star, or both. Kelper-34 b The Kelper-34 b planet has 22 per cent of the mass of Jupiter and 76 per cent of the radius of Jupiter. The planet takes 289 days to complete one orbit around the binary stars. The two stars (A and B) orbiting each other have an orbital period of 28 days. Star A is brighter and more massive than star B, and hence called a primary star. Three transits were detected in all by the scientists. Of the three, two were made by the primary star A moving across star B, and one by the secondary star B moving across star A.

Kepler 35 b In the case of Kepler 35 b, the transiting planet has 13 per cent of the mass of Jupiter and 73 per cent of radius of Jupiter. The planet takes just 131 days to complete one orbit around the binary stars. The stars (A and B) have an orbital period of 21 days. Four transits by the two stars were detected. Of the four, three were made by the primary star moving across the secondary star, and one transit made by the secondary star moving across the primary star. Too hot for life While Kepler-16 b, which was discovered last year is slightly too cold to support life, both Kepler-34 b and Kepler-35 b are too hot, notes a news item published in the same issue of Nature . The planets orbiting the binary stars experience extreme seasons due to the orbital motion of the two stars. This is because the the light received from their parent stars changes not only during the stars' orbital periods (tens of days) and the planetary orbital period (hundreds of days), but also on much longer timescales through precession [slow changes in the rotational or orbital parameters] of the orbits due to three-body effects. The average amount of stellar energy received by the Kepler-34 b planet is 2.4 times the Earth's insolation, with a variation of 250 per cent. Similarly, in the case of Kepler-35 b, the insolation is 3.6 times the Earth's, with a variation of 160 per cent. It must also be noted that unlike planets in the Solar System, these bodies do not follow the same path on successive orbits. This is due to the gravitational effects between the three bodies.

Uncertain risks torment Japanese in nuclear zone

Yoshiko Ota keeps her windows shut. She never hangs her laundry outdoors. Fearful of birth defects, she warns her daughters never have children. This is life with radiation, nearly one year after a tsunami-hit nuclear power plant began spewing it into Ota's neighbourhood, 60 km away. She's so worried that she has broken out in hives. The government spokesman keeps saying there are no immediate health effects, the 48-yearold nursery school worker says. He's not talking about 10 years or 20 years later. He must think the people of Fukushima are fools. It's not really OK to live here, she says. But we live here. Ota takes metabolism-enhancing pills in hopes of flushing radiation out of her body. To limit her exposure, she goes out of her way to buy vegetables that are not grown locally. She spends 10,000 yen ($125) a month on bottled water to avoid the tap water. She even mail-ordered a special machine to dehusk her family's rice. Not everyone resorts to such measures, but a sense of unease pervades the residents of Fukushima. Some have moved away. Everyone else knows they are living with an invisible enemy. Radiation is still leaking from the now-closed Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, though at a slower pace than it did in the weeks after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. It's not immediately fatal but could show up as cancer or other illnesses years later. The uncertainty breeds fear. Some experts say the risks are quite low outside the 20-km no-go zone, and people can take steps to protect themselves, such as limiting intake of locally grown food, not lingering in radiation hot spots such as around gutters and foliage, and periodically living outside the area. But risks are much higher for children, and no one can say for sure what level of exposure is safe.

What's clear is Fukushima will serve as a test case that the world is watching for long-term exposure to low-dose radiation. More than 280,000 people live in Fukushima city alone, though some have left, and many more live in surrounding towns, including many of the 100,000 who have been evacuated from the nogo zone. People are scared to death, says Wolfgang Weiss, chairman of the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, which is studying Fukushima. They are thinking, Tell me. Is it good or bad?' We can't tell them. ... Life is risky. It hasn't helped that the government has given only the most optimistic scenarios of the risks to avoid mass panic. Public scepticism Public scepticism of government assurances grew when the man appointed as health adviser for Fukushima prefecture, Shunichi Yamashita, repeatedly said exposure to 100 millisieverts of radiation a year was safe. Studies have found that cancer risks rise at an annual exposure of 100 millsieverts or above but aren't statistically detectable at lower levels. Below 100, experts can't say for sure whether it's safe, just that a link to cancer can't be proven. In Fukushima and nearby areas, outside the 20-kilometre evacuation zone, the annual exposure is 20 millisieverts in some places and as high as 50 in others. Before the disaster, people in Japan were exposed to about 1 millisievert of natural background radiation a year; in the United States the average is about 3 millisieverts. The controversy earned Yamashita a nickname Mr. 100 Millisieverts. Toshiso Kosako, a professor at the University of Tokyo's graduate school, stepped down as government adviser last year in a tearful protest of Yamashita's views. Kouta Miyazaki is among those who have lost confidence in the government. The nature of the threat has changed over time. Initially, it was exposure to the large releases of radiation from explosions at the plant. The risk from leaks remains but at a much reduced level. These days, the main danger is less obvious but just as real consuming contaminated food and water and ingesting radioactive particles. Radioactive material has accumulated in gutters where rainwater collects and shrubs with leaves that suck in radiation. The risk is cumulative. The radioactivity in one's body builds up through various activities, including eating contaminated food every day or staying in a hot spot for an extended period. Schools are restricting outdoor activities, and radiation meters dot the streets. Some people are using their own devices to measure radioactivity. At area hospitals, thousands of people are on waiting lists to get their radiation levels measured with whole-body counters. One child at Minami Soma Hospital, southeast of Fukushima, was found with 2,653 becquerels of radioactive cesium. It's a big number, but is it dangerous? Jacques Lochard, an International Commission on Radiological Protection official advising Fukushima prefecture, says the child's exposure could amount to as little as 0.3 millisieverts a year, or as much as 8 millisieverts, depending on how the child was exposed to the radiation. Most residents know is that their bodies are contaminated. What the numbers mean is unanswered. Kunihiko Takeda, a nuclear and ecology expert who has been more outspoken about the dangers than many others, says people become less afraid after he explains the risks. They are freed from the state of not knowing, says Takeda, who has a blog with instructions on how parents can protect their children from radiation. They now know what to do and can make decisions on their own. Still, Lochard says, There is no safe level. It is a small risk but not zero. After the 1986 Chernobyl accident, more than 6,000 thyroid cancers clearly linked to radioactive iodine were found in children and adolescents. A study by Weiss' U.N. committee found

exposure to iodine was lower in Fukushima than at Chernobyl. Still, parents are worried because the Chernobyl cancers didn't emerge until a couple of years later. Nobody can say this is over. I'd be the last to say that, Weiss says. Mayor Shouji Nishida of Date, a city of 66,000 people in Fukushima prefecture, says his community is preparing for the future by relying less on the central government, and by adjusting expectations. He believes 5 millisieverts of radiation a year five times the typical amount of background radiation in Japan is a realistic goal. AP

Under-sea study of sub-seafloor structure

An expedition aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution learnt more about Atlantis Massif, an undersea mountain that formed differently than most oceans' seafloors. Properties of rocks were measured directly in place.

Unifying mechanism for dune patterns found

In a study, a unifying mechanism to explain dune patterns was found, holding implications for identifying when dune landscapes may reach a tipping point under climate change, going from grazing land to barren desert.

Used water disposal in shale gas extraction

There are environmental concerns in extracting natural gas from shale. Water injected into the shale picks up selenium, arsenic, iron, salt and even radioactive particles. The water has to be disposed of properly.

Vaccines that thwart several flu strains

Universal' vaccines, so named for their effectiveness against several flu strains, could for the first time allow for the effective, wide-scale prevention of flu by limiting the influenza virus' ability to spread and mutate.

Violin strings from spider silk

A Japanese scientist said recently he has made violin strings out of spider silk and claims that in the right hands they produce a beautiful sound. Thousands of the tiny strands can be wound together to produce a strong but flexible string that is perfect for the instrument, said Shigeyoshi Osaki, professor of polymer chemistry at Nara Medical University. Osaki, who has been working with spider silk for 35 years, has previously suggested the material could be used for surgical sutures or for bullet proof vests, but his passion for the violin inspired him to create something with a musical twist. In the process of weaving the threads, their shape changes from cylindrical to polygonal, which means they fit together much better, Osaki told AFP.

During the assembly of normal threads there are many spaces between individual fibres, he said.What we achieved left no space among the filaments. It made the strings stronger. This can have all sorts of applications in our day-to-day lives, he said, adding 300 female Nephila maculata spiders had provided his raw materials. The strength and durability of spider silk is not a new discovery, with previous studies showing it can withstand high temperatures and the effects of ultraviolet light. Osaki once produced a rope spun from spider silk that he said could theoretically support a 600 kilogram weight. The strings have a different sound effect. His latest creation is making waves among musicians, who have praised the sonorous quality of the spider silk violin strings for their soft and profound timbre. Professional violinists have said they can tell the difference whether the strings are on a Stradivarius or on Osaki's own $1,200 violin, he said.It's one thing to create scientifically meaningful items, but I also wanted to produce something that would be socially accepted by ordinary people, he said. Details of Osaki's research will be published in Physical Review Letters , a journal of the American Physical Society. AFP

Volcanic eruptions caused Little Ice Age

An unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive volcanic eruptions led to the Little Ice Age (1275-1300 A.D). The sea ice expanded and the Atlantic currents weakened after the eruptions.

Warm weather puts trees on fast forward

Unseasonably high temperatures have coaxed pollen and flowers from American plants, heralding the unusually early arrival of spring in central New York and reflecting a phenomenon happening across the eastern U.S.

Wet clothes
In the rainy season, clothes, when not dried properly, start stinking. Why? JAYALAXMI Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh Many species of plant and animal kingdoms besides those that belong to neither of these two kingdoms (such as bacteria) release their spores and fertilized eggs into the environment as part of their reproductive phase of life. Normally, these spores or eggs are released some time before the monsoons waiting for a ripe opportunity to hatch, germinate or multiply. Such spores and encapsulated eggs (also known as cysts), in abundance, either stay put in the layers of dry soil or keep floating like other dust particles in the atmosphere. Once rainy season advents, the spores and cysts are ready to hatch as the humidity, temperature and other physical conditions are poised well. Though the spores and cysts are in a state of suspended animation, hardly requiring any nutrients, respiration and other physiological processes such as metabolism and growth, the hatched ones are like any other living beings engaged in all kinds of biological processes.

Hence, they do need habitats. The fibrous fabric of the clothes which are not dried properly, come very handy as grounds of attachments for the stability (by anchoring), sustenance, survival and growth of the colonies of the hatched spores and cysts. The wetness of such clothes meets the water requirement of their physiology whereas the fabric enables them have access to the atmospheric oxygen. The dirt on the clothes, the dusty particles in the atmosphere and the dissolved chemical traces in the wetness of the clothes would provide other material needs of the growing colonies. In other words, the improperly dried clothes are living worlds of microscopic life forms. As part of their physiology, these organisms also excrete wastes which contribute to part of the stinking. As these monocellular (single cell organisms) and oligocellular (species with limited number of cell aggregates) are growing, their predators in the atmosphere also feed on them leaving microscopic lumps of nitrogenous, thiolic (sulfur based) and phosphorous substances that add more to the stinking. Clothes which are dried properly would not provide many of the material and physical conditions adequately to the microorganisms for hatching or for survival. Hence, such clothes do not stink that obviously, as the water content, which otherwise serves as medium of material supply, temperature regulator, protective cover, etc, is missing. In seasons other than rainy reason, the spores and cysts are not that populous and abundant in the atmosphere to make use of these features of wet clothes. PROF. A. RAMACHANDRAIAH Editor, Vidyarthi Chekumuki Jana Vignana Vedika, Andhra Pradesh

What affects monsoon onset over Kerala

The prevailing impression among many people is that the monsoon makes a stormy onset over the Kerala coast every year. This dramatic entry by a convective system formation is known as the monsoon onset vortex (MOV). The term onset vortex' is a misnomer, however, and it forms only occasionally and has no influence on the monsoon onset date over Kerala, says Dr. M.R. Ramesh Kumar, Senior Scientist, Physical Oceanography Division, National Institute of Oceanography, Goa. He has recently lead-authored a paper on the onset vortex which has been published in the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Climatology . Earlier studies by others have shown that the North Indian Ocean warms rapidly from March onwards. By May, a large area in the north Indian Ocean attains sea surface temperatures above 29.5 degrees C and this area can be called the Indian Ocean Warm Pool. Moisture covergence This region of warm sea surface temperatures can create large-scale moisture convergence, deep convective clouds and a lowering of surface pressure which are conducive for the formation of a vortex over this area. In a study period extending from 1987-2005, an analysis of MOV and mini warm pool (an area with sea surface temperatures above 30 degrees C over the South Eastern Arabian Sea [SEAS]) revealed that a vortex formed only during 5 years (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004). On the other hand a mini warm pool was observed during most of the years (70 per cent of the cases). In two cases, the vortex formed well in advance, whereas for 3 years, namely, 1998, 1999 and 2001 vortex formation was quite close to the monsoon onset date over Kerala. The studies did not identify the reasons why the MOV formed only in certain years and was absent in other years. In the recent study by Dr. Ramesh Kumar, an analysis of data for the three case study years (1998, 1999 and 2001) showed that in 1998, the mini warm pool formed over an extensive area

of the Arabian Sea well in advance of the formation of an MOV there, but the MOV was only a deep depression. In 1999, the mini warm pool was not as intense as that of 1998 but the MOV which formed became a very severe cyclonic storm, indicating little or no influence of the mini warm pool in this case. Similar was the case in 2001. There was hardly any presence of a mini warm pool during 2000, when there was a normal monsoon onset over Kerala (June 1). There was also no MOV that season. Atmospheric water vapour data obtained from satellite can be used for identifying MOV since mid-tropospheric humidity plays an important role in tropical cyclo-genesis. It was observed that in the onset vortex years (1998, 1999 and 2001) atmospheric moisture values were very high during vortex formation and growth. Hindering effect Dr. Ramesh Kumar states that the vortex sucks in moisture from the atmosphere, to sustain itself and grow, which could have otherwise been precipitated as monsoon rainfall over Kerala. Thus an onset vortex can actually hinder monsoon onset. Another important factor in the initiation of monsoon onset over Kerala was the effect of the vortex on moisture-carrying westerlies prior to monsoon onset. In the 2000 normal monsoon onset season the winds were much better organised prior to onset. For other seasons (1998 and 2001) the presence of the vortex over the Arabian Sea (a deep depression in 1998 and a very severe cyclonic storm in 2001) led to a change in the wind pattern prior to the monsoon onset. Thus, Dr. Ramesh Kumar says that any convective system which forms over the South east Arabian Sea prior to monsoon onset does not help in the strengthening and deepening of the monsoon westerlies, necessary conditions for setting up of a monsoon onset over Kerala.

Winter hunger
Why do we feel hungry very frequently during winter? PRABHAT KUMAR New Delhi The main purpose of intake of food is to supply energy for physical needs. The body maintains a balance between energy expenditure and calorie intake which helps in proper maintenance of body weight. The food we eat is utilized by the body by a process called metabolism (the various chemical reactions occurring in the body's cells to break down food to give us energy and heat), and this works best at normal body temperature (37C). When the ambient temperature drops below certain value, the body generates heat by increasing its basal metabolic rate in order to keep up the body temperature. There are two ways by which this metabolic feat is achieved one, by increasing the breakdown of body's stored fat, and two, by providing the body more fuel to burn in the form of food. Alternately, you can consume more food to meet the increased metabolic demands of the body. A part of our brain, called hypothalamus, controls this automatic regulation. The hypothalamus functions as a thermostat, and it has two discrete centers for regulating the food intake a feeding centre' and a satiety centre', both of them together maintain a judicious balance of feeding behavior. The chief factors which influence these centres are the body weight, the amount of food present in the gut, the amount glucose in the blood and finally the body temperature. Thus in cold weather the feeding centre is stimulated so that food intake is increased. It is worth

noting here that warm weather decreases the appetite to some extent. However, ambient temperature is not a major player in regulating the food intake in human beings, whereas body weight plays a significant role. It is interesting to note that we lose appetite in fever, because raised temperature suppresses feeding center. DR. DHARANI KRISHNAGOPAL Civil Surgeon Specialist Area Hospital, Adoni Andhra Pradesh

World's deepest sea vents reveal unknown creatures

The ocean's deepest volcanic vents, kilometres below the surface, are teeming with life forms never before seen that thrive near super-hot underwater geysers, according to a new study. Eyeless shrimps and white-tentacled anemones were photographed bunched around cracks in the ocean floor spewing mineral-rich water that may top 450 degrees Celsius , researchers reported recently. The vents, called baptised the Beebe Vent Field, were discovered on the Caribbean seafloor in the Cayman Trough. Some five kilometres below the surface, the trench is home to the world's deepest known black smoker' vents, so-called for the cloudy fluid that gushes from them. During an expedition in 2010, a team lead by marine geochemist Doug Connelly of Britain's National Oceanography Centre and University of Southampton biologist Jon Copley used a deep-diving robot submarine to explore the trough. Startling images The researchers also found previously unknown vents on the upper slopes of nearby Mount Dent. This rises some three kilometres from the sea floor. Cameras on the submarine captured startling images of a new species of ghostly-pale shrimp dubbed Rimicaris hybisae that had gathered in clusters of up to 2,000 specimens per square metre. Lacking normal eyes, the shrimp have a light-sensing organ on their backs, presumably to help them navigate in the faint glow of the deep-sea vents, said the study that was published in Nature Communication . A related species, Rimicaris exoculata , has been found living at the edge of another deep-sea vent 4,000 kilometres away on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Elsewhere at the Beebe Vent Field, the scientists saw hundreds of white anemones lining the cracks where warm, copper-rich water seeps from the sea bed. The vents on Mount Dent also thronged with the new shrimp, along with a snake-like fish, an unknown species of snail and a flea-like crustacean called an amphipod. AFP

World's first magnetic soap produced

In a pioneering research, scientists claim to have produced the world's first magnetic soap that is composed of iron-rich salts dissolved in water. A team at Bristol University says that its soap, which responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution, would calm all concerns over the use of surfactants in oil-spill clean-ups and revolutionise industrial cleaning products. For long, researchers have been searching for a way to control soaps (or surfactants as they

are known in industry) once they are in solution to increase the ability to dissolve oils in water and then remove them from a system. The Bristol University team produced the magnetic soap by dissolving iron in a range of inert surfactant materials composed of chloride and bromide ions, very similar to those found in everyday mouthwash or fabric conditioner. The addition of the iron creates metallic centres within the soap particles, say the scientists led by Julian Eastoe. To test its properties, the team introduced a magnet to a test tube containing their new soap lying beneath a less dense organic solution, the Angewandte Chemie journal reported. When the magnet was introduced the iron-rich soap overcame both gravity and surface tension between the water and oil, to levitate through the organic solvent and reach the source of magnetic energy, proving its magnetic properties. Once the surfactant was developed and shown to be magnetic, the scientists took it to Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), the world's flagship centre for neutron science, to investigate the science behind its remarkable property. When surfactants are added to water they are known to form tiny clumps (particles called micelles). At ILL, the scientists used a technique called small angle neutron scattering (SANS) to confirm that it was this clumping of the iron-rich surfactant that brought about its magnetic properties. The potential applications of magnetic surfactants are huge, say the scientists. From a commercial point of view, though these exact liquids aren't yet ready to appear in any household product, by proving that magnetic soaps can be developed, future work can reproduce the same phenomenon in more commercially viable liquids for a range of applications from water treatment to industrial cleaning products, Prof Eastoe said. PTI

Yeast evolves to multicellular variety in 60 days in the lab

The origin of multicellular life is one of the most important milestones in earth's history. And despite it happening independently nearly two dozen times in the past, very little is known about the way the initial evolution from unicellular to multicellular life had taken place. This is because these transitions occurred some 200 million years ago. Short time Contrary to the general perception that this important transition was challenging, and took a long time to happen, scientists have experimentally proved the ease with which this can take place. They achieved the transition in a yeast species in very short span of time 60 days. The multicellular yeast showed many key characteristics of a truly many-celled organism. The first crucial steps in the transition [can take place] remarkably quickly under an appropriate selective condition, the scientists write in their paper published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Organisms, both unicellular and multicellular, have to adapt to changing conditions like temperature, pressure, nutrient supply, oxygen content etc to survive. For instance, failure to adapt to changing climatic conditions resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs. Selection pressure In this case, the scientists used gravity as a selection pressure as it was easy to observe, study and replicate in a lab using test tubes. Such a selection pressure is however not seen in nature. They used gravity to select for primitive multicellularity by allowing clusters of unicellular yeast to settle at the bottom. Clustering yeast settles faster than single cells, and bigger clusters settle faster than smaller clusters.

At the end of the day, those clusters that had settled at the bottom were separated and transferred to a new test tube. After repeating the cycle for two weeks, the researchers could see yeast forming into snowflake-like clusters. Clusters do tend to form in nature by adhesion of cells. While cells in such clusters are genetically distinct, the clusters formed in the lab were found to be genetically identical. Genetically identical cells in a cluster could have formed only by division of mother cells into daughter cells. Proof of division The proof that the clusters were formed by the division of individual cells came through 16 hours of microscopic examination for growth. Cells taken from the clusters proved their hallmark characteristic each cell giving rise to a new snowflake-like cluster [cell]. Cells did not divide at random. While cells in the juvenile stage grew rapidly to multiple cells, and hence helped in increasing the size of the cluster, the fully-grown adult stage was marked by division of the matured cells into daughter cells. The presence of both juvenile and adult stages is a mark of true multicellularity. The fact that single-celled yeast sacrifices its ability to reproduce for the good of a collection of cells makes the transition very challenging. It goes against the grain of Darwinian principles. The scientists also investigated the most vital and crucial question that has been dogging science transition from unicellular to multicellular life. The most important difference between unicellular and multicellular life lies in the size of the daughter cells. While unicellular yeast divides into two daughter cells of similar size as the parent cell, the daughter cells of multicellular yeast were consistently half the size of their parental clusters [cells]. Division of labour Division of labour between individual cells another important characteristic of higher order organisms was seen in the yeast snowflakes. Such is the importance of this characteristic that higher-order organisms have clearly demarcated functions carried out by a specific set of cells. In fact, as the authors write, cellular differentiation is a hallmark of complex multicellularity. Apoptosis Similarly, apoptosis or programmed cell death (where old cells die after a point of time) was witnessed. Though apoptosis is seen even in single-celled yeast and other species, the end purpose of apoptosis witnessed in snowflakes was quite different. It was in response to selective pressure apoptotic cells breaking off from the snowflakes and allowing the rest of the flake to produce greater number of cells within a given time. Bigger clusters settle faster at the bottom and hence become eligible for repeated studies. For instance, apoptosis had evolved so quickly between selection 14 and 60 that the snowflakes at selection 60 were much bigger than that of at 14. This kind of apoptosis has never before been seen in unicellular yeast. All these characteristics seen in the snowflakes demonstrate that multicellular traits readily evolve as a consequence of among-group selection [selective pressure], the researchers write.

Young rivals no threat to adult male songbirds

Older male sparrows don't put much of a fight when they hear a young male singing in their territory, it probably means that younger birds aren't considered much of a threat by other sparrows, a new study has said. However, a male white-crowned sparrow will act much more aggressively if it hears a bird of the same age singing in a territory it claims as its own. Angelika Possel, curator of Ohio State University's Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics and the tetrapod division found this in a study conducted with Douglas Nelson, associate professor of

evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State and director of the laboratory. These male sparrows assess an opponent's fighting ability based on age. And for a mature sparrow, a young male is just not going to scare them, lead author Possel said. The researchers conducted the study in a migratory population of white-crowned sparrows that nested in a state park in Bandon, Oregon from 2008 to 2011. They have been studying this population since 2005. In this study, the scientists mapped out territories of 16 male white-crowned sparrows eight of which had held territories at the park in previous years (identified by bands placed on their legs in previous years) and eight second-year males that had never held a territory there before. Researchers placed a loudspeaker within the birds' territories and played recordings that suggested either a second-year bird or an older, mature bird had invaded their territory. Several measures determined how threatened the birds were by what they perceived as an incursion into their territories. If the male perceives the bird they hear as a greater threat, it will approach the loudspeaker more closely (to confront the rival), take more flights toward the speaker, and sing more songs. Results showed that older birds didn't react as strongly when they heard a recording of a second-year bird than they did to one of an older male. In other words, when they heard the second-year male, they didn't approach the loudspeaker as closely, they didn't fly to the speaker as many times, and they didn't sing as often in response. Other research suggests that younger male birds are less successful at attracting females than older males. That means older males see these young birds as little threat to them and not worth a lot of attention, Poesel said. The results appear online in the journal Biology Letters.

Young stem cells prolong life in mice

After a shot of stem/progenitor cells, mice bred to age too quickly improved their health and lived two to three times longer than expected. The progenitor cells were derived from the muscle of young, healthy animals.

Zebrafish, key to repairing eyes?

The way zebrafish regenerate damaged retinas after injury suggests new strategies to be used in humans with reversible conditions.