Sci&Tech, Medical and Envir.: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Nov, 2011

A chance to do real science

If doing real science is the best and most enjoyable way to learn the subject, a unique opportunity awaits students
The chosen experiment will be performed in 2012 by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
they will be required to follow the rigours of structuring an experiment, as full-fledged scientists do: from raising a novel scientific question in the field of biological or physical sciences to stating the hypothesis and the manner in which the experiment should be conducted; they are even required to state the expected outcome.
The research of the two global winners one from each age group — 14-16 years and 17-18 years — will be live streamed worldwide on YouTube, and the winners could be individuals or teams. They will also be able to take a zero-G flight, and either tour the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) facilities and watch the launch of the rocket carrying their experiments
The initiative presented by YouTube and Lenova, in cooperation with three space agencies — NASA, JAXA, and the European Space Agency (ESA) — will go beyond igniting a passion for science.

State looks to run its buses on biofuel

The State Government had sought technology approval from the Centre for using ethanol-blended fuel for all buses of the State road transport corporations (RTC).
Ethanol extracted from sugarcane was being used to run around 1,500 buses in the State, particularly in the jurisdiction of the Mysore depot.
If the Centre issues the necessary approval, all 23,000 RTC buses in the State would be run on ethanol-blended fuel. “This would be a revolutionary step in checking pollution,”
Using ethanol extracted from sugarcane and jatropha oil as alternative fuel would also benefit farmers producing the two agricultural commodities

Robots to help sick, elderly move

Toyota has said it will start selling robots that help the sick and elderly people walk and balance themselves better, aiming for commercial products sometime after 2013.
Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's biggest automaker, also showed an intelligent machine with padded arms that can help health care workers lift disabled patients from their beds and then carry them around.

India facing heavy burden of neglected tropical diseases

Rapid-growth economies such as India still had a high proportion of morbidity, with more than 290 million Indians suffering from Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs).
These NTDs include visceral leishmaniasis, also known as “kala-azar”; lymphatic filariasis which causes elephantiasis; leprosy; dengue fever; rabies; and soil transmitted helminth.
12 to 17 per cent of all intestinal worm infections globally occurred in India and were often associated with hookworms, whipworms and Ascaris worms.
With more than half of the major NTDs attaining endemic proportions in India and South Asia, the economic loss attributed to these diseases was significant
there have been some major success stories in India, and among them was the de-worming drive in Bihar between February and April this year
The presence of a sophisticated biotech industry implied the potential for public-private partnerships, the results of which would not only bring benefits to the poor in India but to the poor globally
A good example of international coordination in this regard was a partnership between India, Bangladesh and Nepal in a drive to control leishmaniasis, which occurred heavily in the border areas between these nations.

China ready for landmark space launch

China will early on Tuesday launch an unmanned spacecraft for a docking exercise with the Tiangong-1 space laboratory module, which was put into orbit last month, marking a first for the country's rapidly growing space programme and a key step ahead of the planned launch of a permanent space station by 2020.
the launch of the Shenzhou-8 spacecraft
China becoming only the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to accomplish this feat.
Scientists from China and Germany will together conduct 17 experiments on the spacecraft.
China has also offered both financial assistance and technical expertise to developing nations to launch their satellites, spreading its presence by offering its technology at a price far less than that offered by Western countries.
In recent months, China's Great Wall Industry Corporation (GWIC) has signed deals and launched communication satellites for countries ranging from Pakistan and Bolivia to Nigeria.

Google offers free website for SMBs

Google India on Wednesday launched a unique initiative to help small and medium businesses (SMBs) to get online with a free website, personalised domain and hosting.
Called ‘India Get Your Business Online,' it aims to break down the barriers that stop small businesses from getting online — by offering a quick, easy and free tool to set up and host a website.
Our aim is to help five-lakh SMBs in India to get online in the next three years through this programme
SMBs can logon to www.indiagetonline.in and use the tool to get a get a free, easy-to-build website and web hosting for one year. After a year, website owners will have to pay a charge depending on the services they opt for if they wish to renew their domain name.
India is home to an estimated 80-lakh SMBs, but only about four lakh have an online presence

Savannahs and forests in a battle of biomes

Climate change and other human-driven factors could pit savannahs and forests against each other by altering the elements that stabilise the two.
The habitats, or biomes, could increasingly encroach on each other.

Ovarian cancer spreads due to abdominal fat

A large pad of fat cells, extending from the stomach and covering the intestines, provides nutrients that promote the spread of ovarian cancer.
The fatty tissue, rich in energy-dense lipids, is an energy source for the cancer.

Key enzyme involved in aging process found

Caloric restriction slows down aging by preventing an enzyme, peroxiredoxin, from being inactivated.
This enzyme is also important in counteracting damage to our genetic material, delaying age-related diseases.

Collective farming by women in Kerala

Kerala women's collective farming initiative, billed as the largest livelihood venture of the kind in the country by transforming women labourers into master cultivators, is all set to emerge as a role model for the entire country under the 12 {+t} {+h} Five Year Plan.
After group farming, another revolutionary initiative by Kudumbashree, an innovative community based women-oriented initiative, Government of Kerala to fight poverty caught the attention of many.
This is basically a livelihood initiative to enhance the quality of life in the society, especially among the weaker sections.
“It could bring about an all-round improvement in the lives of women who were merely workers and now they are successful cultivators,”
The women are into cultivation of paddy, tuber crops, food crops, vegetables, spreading a silent revolution in State by earning extra to help themselves and families.
Some of the groups have literally turned barren tracts of lands into highly fertile fields.
“This time, we will not go to market to buy rice as we have stocked enough for the family for the first time in my life,'' says Omana, from Idukki district.

Natural inputs, multicropping advised for Vidharbha region

The names Vidharbha or Wardha immediately evoke memories of farmers' suicides.
Several reasons such as growing only one crop, total dependence on monsoon, lack of infrastructure and irrigation facilities, small land holdings, poor marketing, and insensitive government policies towards farmers are attributed to this.
Termed as a national shame due to the gross indifference of the Government, it is true that the region recorded the highest suicide rates among farmers.
But still a sizeable number of ryots continue to farm their lands and are able to overcome the crises by using natural inputs and trying different crops and cultivation techniques
“We explored other alternatives for using as inputs and learnt to make our own liquid manure from compost. I constructed a simple four chamber system using brick and mortar to store cowdung.”
Water is mixed with the dung in one of the chambers and the slurry is released in the subsequent chambers. After some days the mixture is released along with flowing water into the fields.
“Since the slurry is black in colour and helps the crops to grow well, we named it as black liquid manure,”
He also advocates the use of Sanjeevak or Jeevamrut, fermented liquid manures, made from cow dung and urine.
About 200 litres of any one of them can be mixed with irrigating water to be applied to the field.
For better crop growth, diluted Jeevamrut can also be sprayed on the crops at an interval of 20 days after sowing.
One of the main reasons for the crop failure and accumulating debts from the farmers' side is going in for monocropping using chemicals.
Many farmers cultivated only cotton. Be it two or five acres, the lure of big money in a short time attracted many to grow cotton.
They did not bother to enquire about the crop suitability for their area, whether water is available or not etc. When the crops died so did many farmers.

Autistics' strengths can be useful in research

Can some people with autism do well in science, and add value to research done by non-autistic adults?
many autistic adults have certain exceptional and unique capabilities that even very intelligent non-autistic adults may lack. And such capabilities, when properly harnessed, would be of tremendous value to science.
“From a young age, they may be interested in information and structures, such as numbers, letters, mechanisms and geometrical patterns — the basis of scientific thinking.” But it is important to note that not all can do well in research, and research is one of the many areas where some autistics can do well.
But what makes him extol their capabilities so emphatically?
For instance, Michelle Dawson, a research assistant with autism, with no formal training in psychiatry or cognitive neuroscience, provided excellent feedback on papers
Ms. Dawson has co-authored 13 papers and several book chapters!
“Ms. Dawson does not have a scientific degree, but she has learned and produced enough in a few years of reading neuroscience papers to conduct certain types of research,” he writes. “At this point, she deserves a Ph.D.”
Several research studies have shown that their “strengths can be directly useful in research.” But it is important to remember that not all autistics will do well in research.
Autistics have other extraordinary strengths, and can outperform others when it comes to perception tasks. “Spotting a pattern in a distracting environment” is one such example. This is because they can process visual information far better than others. Same is the case with auditory skills.
Since data is vital and so very crucial to science, and given their varied abilities to read and remember them, autistics can sometimes simply walk over others when it comes to interpreting data.
Some people also exhibit good memory — able to recall what they have read ten days ago
Hence autistics and non-autistics approach a problem from two totally different directions. They can complement each other in amazing ways when working together as a team.

Excess fat

When we take excess water or proteins our body eliminates them, but when we take in excess fat it is stored in our body. Why?
Nearly 15-20 per cent of the body weight in humans is constituted by lipids. Among the lipids the most abundant are triglycerides (neutral fats), which form 85-90 per cent of the total body lipids. They are stored in the adipose tissue made of lipocytes (fat storing cells) and serve as most predominant energy reserve of the body.
An increase in concentrations within the blood triggers lipase enzymes located in fat tissue, to grab the fatty acids and convert them into a fat molecule (triacylglycerols) for storage.
There are two main reasons for fat being the fuel reserve of the body; (1) Triacylglycerols (TG) are highly concentrated form of energy, yielding 9 kilocalories (9 Cal/g), in contrast to carbohydrates and proteins that produce only 4 Cal/g. This is because fatty acids found in TG are in the reduced form. (2) The TGs are non-polar and hydrophobic in nature, hence stored in pure form without any association with water (anhydrous form). On the other hand, glycogen (a polysaccharide called human starch) and proteins are polar molecules. One gram of glycogen combines with two grams of water for storage.
If this much of energy were to be stored as glycogen (instead of fat), then the weight of the person would increase by at least 55kg! This clearly explains why fat has been chosen as a fuel reserve during evolution.
Fats can also support the body's energy needs for long periods of food deprivation. In extreme case, humans can fast and survive for 60-90 days, and the obese persons can survive even longer periods than this.
Hibernating animals provide good example for utilizing fat reserve as fuel. For instance, polar bears go on hibernation for about seven months
The ruby-throated humming birds fly non-stop between New England and West Indies (2,400 km) at a speed of 40 km/h for 60 hours. This is possible only due to the stored fat.

Hanta virus: NIV team collects samples

A scientist from National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, arrived at Chityalapalli village of Choppadandi mandal in Karimnagar district on Tuesday to collect samples from the family members of a person undergoing treatment for Hanta virus
Doctors detected the virus while treating a patient
- Humans may be infected with hantaviruses through rodent bites, urine, saliva or contact with rodent waste products.
- Human infections of hantaviruses have almost entirely been linked to human contact with rodent excrement, but recent human-to-human transmission has been reported with the Andes virus in South America.
- The name hantavirus is derived from the Hantan River area in South Korea, which provided the founding member of the group: Hantaan virus (HTNV), isolated in the late 1970s by Ho-Wang Lee and colleagues