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Unique night-flowering orchid found
- An orchid that unfurls its petals at night and loses its flowers by day has been found on an island off the coast of Papua New Guinea.
- The plant is the only known night-flowering orchid
- The flowers of the species, Bulbophyllum nocturnum , are thought to be pollinated by midges and last for only one night
- Flowers that open only at night are seen in a small number of plant species, such as the queen of the night cactus, the midnight horror tree and night blooming jasmine.
Bionic eye restores sight
- Limited trials of a bionic eye that could restore sight to the blind have produced “astonishing” results
- The tiny implantable microchip permitted patients, who had given up on seeing again, read a clock and identify daily objects.
- Most of the middle-aged patients were to be treated for retinitis pigmentosa.
- The sensors convert light to electrical signals, which stimulate nerves in the retina to pass down signals to optic nerve which would gap into the brain to form an image.
Crop science innovation meeting
- The meet was organized as part of the business incubation drive designed for the agricultural sector to promote entrepreneurs with the help of latest R&D facilities and vast knowledge available with ICAR.
- The technologies presented at the meet were improved crop varieties and hybrids suited to the diverse agro-ecologies and situations, technologies for eco-friendly and sustainable crop production and protection, crop improvement, health management, bio-resource utilization, bio-safety, value added products, bioinformatics, genomics, biotechnology, farm machinery, land use diversification and energy management.
Climate change, human factors will hit fisheries
- Climate change and other human-led factors will drive many fish species further towards the poles and into deeper waters.
- While fisheries in a few regions, such as the far north, may benefit, many other regions will lose revenues.
Replication of OPERA results is the key
- What makes science so very different from religion? Quite simple — every theory, law and observation in science will be continuously challenged and put to test almost every day. In short, unlike religion, science is not dogmatic.
- What makes science so very different from religion? Quite simple — every theory, law and observation in science will be continuously challenged and put to test almost every day.
- As the OPERA team involved in measuring the speed of neutrinos has already shown, the early arrival was cross-checked for six months and by measuring the speed of more than 15,000 neutrinos before the results were announced.
- When a possible source of error concerning the longer duration (10.5 microseconds) of the proton pulses was raised, the OPERA team repeated the experiment by producing shorter-duration pulses. And the results were identical — neutrinos travelled 60 nanoseconds faster than light.
- Another possible source of error pointed out by scientists concerns the synchronisation of the clocks located at the point of generation of neutrinos (CERN) and at the detector (Gran Sasso).
- any scientists from any part of the world following the correct procedures should be able to get the same results.
Simple traditional practices can help control rising prices
- In the last few years the prices of almost all agricultural commodities shot up by more than sixty per cent.
- one clue on why this problem is becoming intractable - we are too focussed entirely on output prices as a balancing exercise.
- We do not pay enough attention to reduction of cost in most commodities. We need to aim at reducing unit cost of all goods and services in manufacturing as well as agriculture sector.
- Farmers also will not plead for higher prices every year if the cost of their inputs can be controlled and reduced
- While recommending establishment of village knowledge management systems, I pointed out a great tragedy confronting the children of farmers who committed suicides.“I asked them whether they knew about any low cost or non-monetary technologies for reducing pest in cotton, since that is what pushed their fathers to the extreme step with no hope of coming out of their debt. The answer was a loud and repeated NO
- When the cost of failure is low, and chances of success high, only inertia can explain the indifference to such bottom-up grassroots solutions for decades.
- These solutions will reduce cost, check inflationary pressure, and make the poor better off too as they will not suffer from exposure to chemicals.
Tube light flicker
- Why does a tube light not glow immediately on switching on like a CFL bulb?
- Flicker start is a very common phenomenon in the conventional tube lights. However, the modern versions of tube lights (TL) and the compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) do not exhibit this, but they start rather immediately on turning them on.
- However, the modern versions of tube lights (TL) and the compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) do not exhibit this, but they start rather immediately on turning them on.
- Both the tube lights and the CFLs work by the same principle.
- These lamps consist of a fluorescent phosphor coated glass tube filled with a mixture of the inert gas argon and mercury vapour.
- This gas is excited by the energetic electrons emitted from the cathodes provided at the ends of the tube.These excited gas atoms interact with the phosphor material coated on the walls and we receive the light from this glowing phosphor material. Once this process is started, it sustains itself
- The conventional TLs use a magnetic ballast circuit which makes use of self inductance of an iron core choke coil along with a discharge lamp type automatic starter switch to trigger the ballast.And an inductance has a longer time constant and a resultant slower voltage build up for extraction of electrons from the cathode. These features of the ballast circuit often require more than one attempt for the gaseous excitation. This leads to slower start and start-up flickering of the tube lights.
Is the fertilized human egg a person?
- Of the 50 states comprising the USA, several (particularly in the South) have strong religious lobbies that persuade or pressurize the state's policies on a variety of issues, particularly governing human evolution, abortion, research on stem cells and related matters.
- In several states, abortion is illegal. Indeed the issue of a woman's right to abortion went all the way up to the nation's Supreme Court in the year 1973, and its landmark judgment gave a woman the right to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester as a constitutional right.
- Crucial to the argument is the issue of whether the foetus is a “person”. The unborn child is not legally classified as a person
- And if we hold the foetus to be a person, why not the embryo out of which the foetus is formed, or even earlier to it — the fertilized egg a person? If yes, then the Supreme Court's 1973 decision of right to abortion should be overturned.
- Thus, as on today, in the U.S., a human foetus, embryo, fertilized egg or a clone is not a person.
- following attributes as necessary for personhood: be alive, be aware, feel positive and negative sensations, has emotions, has a sense of self, controls its own behaviour, recognizes other persons and has cognitive abilities.
Carbon cycling much smaller in last ice age
A reconstruction of plants' productivity and the amount of carbon stored in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere at the last ice age by scientists greatly increases our understanding of natural carbon cycle dynamics.
Satellite data can help protect bluefin tuna
A new model based on satellite remote sensing data allows the potential presence of bluefin tuna to be tracked through daily updated maps, thus helping to protect endangered stocks and fight illegal fishing.
Ban ‘Dam-999': Karunanidhi
- Karunanidhi on Wednesday made a plea for banning the film ‘Dam-999', saying its release would disrupt the peaceful co-existence of Tamils and Malayalees in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and lead to law and order problems.
- He said that when the case on the Mullaperiyar dam was pending in the Supreme Court, some people had produced a film on the likely outcome of the breach of the dam.
New X-ray strategy to understand molecules
X-rays are a crucial component for studying and understanding molecules, and a new approach may dramatically improve what researchers can learn.
