Tuesday 29 May 2012
Monday 28 May 2012
Four Farming Communities Receive Awards for Conservation of Biodiversity
For the year 2012 the Plant Genome Saviour Community Awards are being given to four farming communities for their contribution in saving traditional plant varieties.
Shyamsunder Sister Nivedita Sangha, Burdwan, West Bengal gets the award for developmental services to rural and agricultural sector including conservation and preservation of traditional rice varieties.
Pokkali Rice Farming Community, Ernakulam, Kerala receives the award for organic farming system for sustainable growth of rice in low saline phase. Pokkali variety selected and conserved by farmers is inherently tolerant to salinity and submergence.
Wayanad District Development Action Council, Wayanad, Kerala is engaged in overall development of the tribal communities of Wayanad and adjoining districts in Malabar Agro-biodiversity hot-spot of India. It has conserved traditional landraces of rice and encouraged traditional agricultural system. The conservation efforts of the Council not only promoted bio-diversity, indigenous and cultural diversity but also played an important role in enhancing the food and nutritional security.
Tamil Nadu Hill Banana Growers’ Federation, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu is working in the Pulney hills in Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu, which is the home of famous Virupakshi Hill Banana. The community revived this banana as it is tolerant to the bunchy-top virus disease with their conservation and preservation.
Punjab to become 'e-Panchayat' state
The Punjab government plans to put data of all its 12,776 village panchayats on its official website by year end.
“Punjab will become an e-Panchayat state till the end of this year by putting all the data of panchayats on the website of our department," Rural Development and Panchayat.
He said websites of all Zila Parishads and Block Samitis are complete and work on that of the Panchayat Department website — to be launched in its regional language 'Punjabi'— is on.
Village panchayat websites will have details of famous personalities, popular and historical places while the panchayat department website will have contact numbers, educational qualifications of its members and related information.
Other information to be available on a click include distance of village from main cities and main roads, overall information about village, schools, colleges, hospitals, community centres and centre and state-sponsored schemes going on in the villages.
Sunday 27 May 2012
India adds Rubella in immunisation programme
Rubella, with symptoms like measles, is a viral disease that infects pregnant women leading to babies being born with a variety of congenital defects.
India has decided to introduce a new combination vaccine in its national immunisation programme to protect children against measles and Rubella (German measles).
Both pregnant women and children will be vaccinated with it. The programme is scheduled to begin july 2012.
The National Technical Advisory Group of Immunisation (NTAGI) has already approved the introduction of a Rubella vaccine in its last meeting.
Rubella is a viral disease that infects pregnant women and leads to babies being born with cardiac, cerebral, ophthalmic and auditory defects.Rubella primarily affects the foetus if the mother is infected in the first three months of pregnancy, experts say.
The Union Health Ministry so far believed that Rubella did not affect Indians. Now, the Ministry estimates that around 30,000 abnormal children are being born annually because of Rubella.Till now, most cases of Rubella got wrongly labeled as measles because both the diseases have similar symptoms and manifestations.
All women in the childbearing age are at risk of developing Rubella. Experts say, if a woman gets Rubella in the early months of her pregnancy, there is an 80% chance that her baby will be born deaf or blind, with a damaged heart or small brain, or mentally retarded. This is called Congenital Rubella Syndrome (CRS).Miscarriages are also common among women who get Rubella, while they are pregnant.
The virus may affect all organs and cause a variety of congenital defects. Infection may lead to foetal death, spontaneous abortion or premature delivery.Usually, Rubella virus strikes in winter and spring and causes a slight fever, a rash on the face and neck, and (when teenagers or adults get the disease) swollen glands in the back of the neck and arthritis-like symptoms in the joints.
It is spread from person to person through the air, by coughing, sneezing or breathing. The incubation period of rubella is 14 days, with a range of 12-23 days.
First cloud physics laboratory coming up at Mahabaleshwar
India's first laboratory to study formation of clouds and their interaction with the environment is taking shape at the popular hill station of Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra. The High Altitude Cloud Physics Laboratory started functioning from an IMD office in the hill station about 100 km from Pune. The location of the research centre, about 1,500 m above the mean sea level, would give scientists an opportunity to study the clouds and study its interaction with the environment. "The lab will be equipped with a large number of state-of-the-art equipment to measure all the micro-physical properties of the clouds and rain as well as environmental conditions such as the aerosols, winds, temperature, humidity at high temporal intervals. Mahabaleshwar offers a unique location for the experiment at the hill station receives nearly 500 mm of rains every year while the surrounding plains are usually drought prone. This year, Satara district, where the hill station is located is experiencing one of the worst droughts of recent times. Weather scientists have been by flying an aircraft fitted with observation instruments inside clouds to study how the aerosols in the atmosphere influence the cloud formation and bring rain. There were, however, limitations on the number of samples taken on cloud properties and other environmental parameters due to the number of flights that can be carried out, officials said. They said it was necessary to set up a lab where long term continuous measurements of clouds could be made and where clouds were found at the ground level. Construction of the laboratory is expected to start after the monsoons in October, and is likely to be completed by June next year
India to set up bio-diversity authority
The authority will keep a check on inflow of external pests while importing agricultural and animal products
The Cabinet has approved a Bill that aims to set up National Agriculture Bio-diversity Authority to keep a check on inflow of external pests while importing agricultural and animal products.
The National Agriculture Bio-diversity Bill will replace the Destructive Insects and Pest Act of 1914.
The Bill will have provisions to protect the country's bio-diversity through stricter norms for import of agricultural, animal and fish products.
The proposed law will ensure streamlining of all plantation quarantine issues like pest-diseases and the threats of bio-terrorism either man-made or natural.
Friday 25 May 2012
NASA hails SpaceX launch as 'a new era' for spaceflight
In a pivotal moment for private spaceflight, a towering white rocket lifted a cone-shaped capsule into space early 23 May 2012 on a mission to the International Space Station.
Space X Falcon 9 rocket carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space after a 3:44 a.m. EDT launch from Cape Canaveral, marking the first time a private company has sent a spacecraft to the space station.
The mission is considered the first test of NASA plan to outsource space missions to privately funded companies now that its fleet of space shuttles is retired. SpaceX aims to prove to NASA that its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule are ready to take on the task of hauling cargo -- and eventually astronauts.
Background
SpaceX was founded in June 2002 by PayPal and Tesla Motors co-founder Elon Musk who had invested $100 million USD of his own money by March 2006. In January 2005, SpaceX bought a 10% stake in Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. On 4 August 2008, SpaceX accepted a further $20 million USD investment from the Founders Fund.
Space Vehicles
SpaceX is manufacturing two main space launch vehicles: the Falcon 1, which made its first successful flight on 28 September 2008, and the large Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV)-class Falcon 9, which flew successfully into orbit on its maiden launch on 4 June 2010. A Falcon 5 launcher was also planned, but its development was stopped in favor of the Falcon 9. SpaceX also developed the Dragon, a pressurized orbital spacecraft that is launched on top of a Falcon 9 booster, that can carry cargo, and is in the process of being human-rated.
FALCON 9 OVERVIEW
The Falcon launch vehicle family is designed to provide breakthrough advances in reliability, cost, flight environment and time to launch.The primary design driver is and will remain reliability, as described in more detail below. In providing our launch and placement services, we recognize that nothing is more important than getting our customer's satellite or other spacecraft safely to its intended destination.
Like Falcon 1, Falcon 9 is a two stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene (RP-1) powered launch vehicle. It uses the same engines, structural architecture (with a wider diameter), avionics and launch system
First Stage
The Falcon 9 tank walls and domes are made from aluminum lithium alloy. Space X uses an all friction stir welded tank, the highest strength and most reliable welding technique available. Like Falcon 1, the inters tage, which connects the upper and lower stage for Falcon 9, is a carbon fiber aluminum core composite structure. The separation system is a larger version of the pneumatic pushers used on Falcon 1.
Nine Space X Merlin engines power the Falcon 9 first stage with 125,000 lbs-f sea level thrust per engine for a total thrust on lift off of just over 1.1 Million lbs-f. After engine start, Falcon is held down until all vehicle systems are verified to be functioning normally before release for lifto ff.
Second stage
The second stage tank of Falcon 9 is simply a shorter version of the first stage tank and uses most of the same tooling, material and manufacturing techniques. This results in significant cost savings in vehicle production.
A single Merlin engine powers the Falcon 9 upper stage with an expansion ratio of 117:1 and a nominal burn time of 345 seconds. For added reliability of restart, the engine has dual redundant pyrophoric igniters (TEA-TEB).
MERLIN ENGINE
The main engine, called Merlin, was developed internally at SpaceX, but draws upon a long heritage of space proven engines. The pintle style injector at the heart of Merlin was first used in the Apollo Moon program for the lunar module landing engine, one of the most critical phases of the mission.
DRAGON OVERVIEW
Dragon is a free-flying, reusable spacecraft being developed by SpaceX under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. Initiated internally by SpaceX in 2005, the Dragon spacecraft is made up of a pressurized capsule and unpressurized trunk used for Earth to LEO transport of pressurized cargo, unpressurized cargo, and/or crew members.
The Dragon spacecraft is comprised of 3 main elements: the Nosecone, which protects the vessel and the docking adaptor during ascent; the Spacecraft, which houses the crew and/or pressurized cargo as well as the service section containing avionics, the RCS system, parachutes, and other support infrastructure; and the Trunk, which provides for the stowage of unpressurized cargo and will support Dragon’s solar arrays and thermal radiators.
Monday 21 May 2012
Indian Black Eagle was Spotted after 90 Years in the Aravali Biodiversity Park
The Indian Black Eagle was spotted in the Aravali Biodiversity Park after a gap of 90 years. The bird was last seen in 1920-21 by Basin Edwardes.
The Indian Black Eagle is usually found, along the base of the Himalayas from Himachal to Bhutan, northeast peninsula in Odisa, in the south Assam hills to the Lushai hills, , in northeast Pakistan, the northeastern and southeastern Ghats and Sri Lanka.
India accounted for 47 Per Cent of Measles Deaths in 2010
As per a recent World Health Organisation (WHO) study, Published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, on 23 April 2012, India accounted for about 47 percent of measles deaths in 2010, while Africa recorded 36 percent of deaths due to the same disease. The study revealed that the death rates from measles went down by 74 percent between 2000 and 2010, but it missed the WHO target of 90%.
The shortfall was largely attributed to deaths in India and Africa where the virus kills thousands a year. Africa and India two key regions of the world where a large number of cases related to Measles come into light significantly under performed which led the WHO to miss its target. The Americas and Europe accounted for less than 1 percent each of the Measles cases.
The WHO study described that even with 74 percent drop in cases of measles, it killed an estimated 139200 people across the world in 2010, down from just over 535000 in 2000.
What is Measles?
Measles is a viral disease and transmitted when an infected person breaths, coughs or sneezes. There is no specific treatment for it and a person’s natural immunity allows them to recover in 2-3 weeks. It can lead to severe complications in particulary indigent demographics like malnourished children and people with weak immunity and can cause serious complications including blindness, encephalitis, severe diarrhoea, ear infections and pneumonia. The disease can be prevented by immunisation and experts say increasing vaccination rates to above 95 percent worldwide and keeping them up is the only way to eradicate measles.
Indian Navy inducted Russian-Origin Nuclear Submarine INS Chakra
The Indian Navy on 4 April 2012 inducted a Russian-origin nuclear submarine, INS Chakra, into its flotilla. The nuclear submarine has placed India into the elite group of nations which operate nuclear vessel.
The Akula-II class submarine K-152 Nerpa, renamed INS Chakra-II, is on a 10-year lease from Russia at a cost of nearly 1 billion dollar.
Defence minister AK Antony formally inducted the 8000-ton vessel as India is looking forward to strengthen its position in the Indian Ocean region. Apart from India the other nations which possess the capability to operate nuclear vessel includes US, Russia, France, the UK and China.
The induction of INS Chakra in the Indian Navy is strategically very important given the fact that China over the last few years has been aggressively indulged in taking the Indian Ocean Region within its clout. Besides, its growing belligerence in the entire Asia-Pacific region has also been a reason of grave concern for Indian security establishment. The INS Chakra will offer India a defining strategic edge over its conventional rivals China and Pakistan.
- INS Chakra (Photo credit: obelix4)
Asteroid may smash Earth satellites: Nasa
A 150-foot-wide , 140,000 tonne asteroid may come so close to Earth next year that it might destroy communications satellites.
The asteroid, DA14, discovered by astronomers at LaSagra Observatory in Spain, is estimated to come near enough to Earth on February 15, 2013, that it could disrupt geosynchronous satellites.
While Nasa have said the chance of the asteroid hitting Earth is 0.031%, if it did it would hit with the force of a 2.4 megaton explosion, similar to the mysterious Tunguska event of 1908 which levelled hundreds of square miles of Siberian forest. The asteroid's exact orbital path is being determined by Nasa and astronomers are erring on the side of caution in case it does come in contact with a satellite.
While the asteroid is currently a 'fuzzy little blob' , as seen through telescopes, 2012 DA14 may eventually come to pass 33,796km away from the Earth putting synchronous satellites in the firing line, the paper said. "The orbit for 2012 DA14 is currently very Earth-like , which means it will be very close to Earth on a regular basis. The detonation of the 140,000 tonne rock would not end civilization but would potentially cause massive loss of life if it hit a populated centre.
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"]
Description: Trees were knocked down and burned over hundreds of square km by the Tunguska meteoroid impact. Note: This image is public domain, from the Leonid Kulik expedition in 1927 [/caption]
Laser wipes paper clean for reuse
Engineers have developed a way of using lasers to remove ink from paper so it can be reused in printers and photocopiers.
The new technique could drastically reduce the number of trees cut down to produce paper and even provide a cheaper alternative to recycling, said Julian Allwood, who led the research team at the University of Cambridge.
The researchers used short pulses of laser light to delete words and images that have been printed on paper. The laser vaporises the toner ink without damaging paper and opens up the prospect of future computer printers and photocopiers having an "unprint" function to allow paper to be reused."The process works on a wide range of toners. It does not damage the paper so the feasibility for reusing paper in the office is there
They found that while lasers that used ultraviolet light and infrared light were all effective at removing the ink, the most efficient was using a visible green laser. This removed the ink without causing any physical damage to the paper or discolouration.
Filters can be used to capture the vaporised ink, which is given off as a gas. They calculate that reducing the cost to £16,000 would make the device valuable in most offices by reducing the need to buy paper.
They also believe that it could be kinder to the environment by reducing the need to use as many chemicals to recycle paper and cutting carbon emissions savings of up to 79 percent.
Sunday 20 May 2012
Grove capital of the world
Devara Kaadu (Sacred Forest) is a small forest like grove marked as the adobe of the local deities. Coorg has many hundred such sacred groves scattered all over the region. In fact every village would have such a place of worship. Some of them are sprawling mini forests with many hundred acres of span, while the rest are of smaller scales anything from an acre upwards.
For example the groves are left un touched. The trees and never pruned, no paths are cut into the groves, not even the fallen trees, leaves or twigs are cleared. In short a Devara Kaadu stays as a miniature forest close to the village.
Inside the Devara Kaadu there are shrines dedicated to various deities. These are typically a simple open shrines with the image of the god installed on the stone platform. The paths inside the Devara Kaadu is restricted to accessing these shrines for worship.
Many places practice complex and age-old rituals and customs that are not very easy to understand and explain. While superficially a Devara Kaadu appears as a religious institution associated with the spiritual and emotional needs of the village folks of Coorg, the underlying principles demonstrate a far more complex relation between people and Nature.
The significance has made United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) designate Coorg as the ‘grove capital of the world’. The whole idea is to preserve the tradition of Devara Kaadu in Coorg.
Country's biggest resting shelter for elephants coming up in Haryana
The first-of-its kind rehabilitation centre for ageing and sick elephants coming up in Yamunanagar in Haryana. The centre will be operational by end of this year.
The centre, spread over 450 acres, is situated alongside Kalesar wildlife sanctuary. Apart from being a home to the 'disabled' jumbos, the centre would also offer medical-cum-resting facilities to them.
With this, Haryana would become the fourth state in the country after Orissa, Kerala and Karnataka to have a home for pachyderms.
But, the Yamunanagar centre would be the largest in the country for providing medical-cum-resting facility to elephants, where elephants can "check in" for some time to rejuvenate and get back to work.
In Haryana, the project was planned on around 450 acres of Ba Santaur village in Yamunanagar district and was supposed to be started in 2009. There was a delay of three years because of lack of co-ordination between central and state government agencies.
The project was planned by the Centre for the first time in the country in 2006 on the lines of the 'Project Tiger' for the rehabilitation and recapturing of ailing and destitute pachyderms -- both domesticated and in the wild.
Saturday 19 May 2012
The edge of the solar system is filled with a turbulent sea of magnetic bubbles. The finding changes ideas about the distant region and how the rest of the galaxy interacts with the solar system.
The two Voyager spacecraft, which have spent more than three decades travelling toward the outer boundaries of our solar system, found unexpected changes in the magnetic field that extends outward from the Sun. This discovery was made once they reached the heliosheath, as the outer part of the solar system is called.
The long sausage-shaped magnetic bubbles are approximately 160 million kilometres wide. A computer model was used to crunch data from the spacecraft to postulate their existence, as they cannot be seen with the eye.
They make the area very turbulent, “just like the bubbliest parts of your jacuzzi,” said University of Maryland astronomer James Drake. The finding means that damaging galactic cosmic rays entering the solar system from the rest of the galaxy must first pass through the sea of bubbles, causing them to bounce around like inside a pinball machine before finally entering the solar system.
Scientists have long measured the rays, which can have damaging health effects for astronauts, but this could change theories about the rays and how they reach us from interstellar space. Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 reached the heliosheath in the past decade and are still travelling through it.
Sunday 6 May 2012
Tagged cuckoos complete journey
Tracking devices devices fitted to five cuckoos have revealed the remarkable annual journey of a bird that heralds the arrival of the UK's spring.The male birds were fitted with the satellite tags in May of 2011 by scientists from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO).
Two of the birds, Lyster and Chris, arrived in UK this week - the first cuckoos to have their migration mapped. After a 10,000 mile trip, Lyster was seen 10 miles from where he was tagged.Phil Atkinson, head of international research at the BTO, explains how the study could help conserve the cuckoo.
In the UK, the population of the birds has declined by half in the last 20 years