Sci&Tech, Medical and Envirnoment:

Authorities fear the spread of a contagious avian virus as crows have been dropping dead in cities and towns across Jharkhand over the past fortnight due to a mysterious disease.
The State Animal Husbandry Department has requested people not to touch any dead crow. It first came to notice in Jamshedpur when crows dropped dead near some water bodies.

The Rapid Metro Rail Gurgaon Limited has tied up with non-government organisation Surge to implement a special water recharging technique to ensure effective water regeneration that will finally help in increasing depleting water levels in Gurgaon.
Gurgaon has been experiencing water shortage for quite some time now
Rainwater regeneration with the proposed technique will be carried out at various locations on the RMGL route
Gurgaon has alluvium soil, which is considered good for water recharge.

European scientists on Tuesday said they had identified a new way by which the malaria parasite survives in human blood, a finding that marks the latest laboratory advance against the disease.
they had identified genes in the Plasmodium falciparum parasite which produce enzymes called kinases.
Thirty-six kinases are needed for the parasite to develop in human blood cells, a key part of its complex life cycle
We are now looking for drugs that... stop the protein kinases from working. If we find these drugs then we will have a new way of killing the malaria parasite
Earlier this month, a team at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said they had discovered a single microscopic channel through which P. falciparum must pass in order to infect red blood cells.
Intrusion depends on the interaction between a specific molecule on the parasite, called a ligand, and a specific receptor on the surface of the blood cell. Blocking this interaction prevents the parasite from breaching the cell wall.
In October, early results from clinical trials among African children showed that the world's first malaria vaccine cut infection rates by roughly half. The so-called RTSS vaccine

Global temperatures in 2011 are the 10th highest on record with countries like Pakistan, Thailand, Myanmar and the U.S. were among the worst hit by extreme weather events, said U.N.'s meteorological agency
World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said the year had been the hottest with a La Nina climatic event, which has a cooling influence, and warned that the Earth was rapidly moving towards an over two degree Celsius rise in average temperatures.
The 13 warmest years have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997.