NASA study points at highest ice sheet melting in 2007

This is real cause for global concern.
A new NASA-supported study reports that 2007 marked an overall rise in the melting trend over the entire Greenland ice sheet and, remarkably, melting in high-altitude areas was the highest at 150 percent more than average. In fact, the amount of snow that has melted this year over Greenland could cover the surface size of the US more than twice.
Marco Tedesco, a research scientist at the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, cooperatively managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland at Baltimore County, used satellite data to compare average snow melting from 1988-2006 with what has taken place this summer.
According to a release issued by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Tedesco found the melting index (an indicator of where melting is occurring and for how long) to be "significantly higher than average" in high altitude areas over 1.2 miles above sea level.
Melting over those areas occurred 25-30 days longer this year than the observed average in the previous 19 years.
"When snow melts at those high altitudes and then refreezes, it can absorb up to four times more energy than fresh, unthawed snow," said Tedesco. "This can affect Earth's energy budget by changing how much radiation from the sun is absorbed by the Earth versus that reflected back into the atmosphere. Refrozen snow can also alter the snow density, thickness and snow-water content." Tedesco's findings were published on Tuesday in the American Geophysical Union's Eos newspaper.
Researchers determine the melting index by multiplying how long melting took place by the area where the increased melting took place. According to Tedesco, melting in April and May of this year in high-altitude areas was very low, but in June melting jumped unexpectedly and led to the record melting index for the year.
"This record melting index in those areas came as a bit of a surprise, showing us, once again, the extreme variability and complexity of these processes," said Tedesco. His expertise in documenting melting trends produced other recent studies on increased snow melting over Greenland and the Antarctic.
The data collected by the Special Sensor Microwave Imagers on the Defense meteorological Satellite Program satellites provided Tedesco with insight into how much of an electromagnetic signal was naturally emitted by snow and ice in areas beneath the satellite overpass. The microwave instruments can detect melting above and below the snow surface. The data were processed at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, in just 24 hours after the satellite overpass, enabling Tedesco to quickly spot changes that could signal a melting trend or new record.
Tedesco's work also confirmed that the melting index this year in lower altitude areas of Greenland, though not record breaking, was higher than average by 30 percent, placing 2007 in fifth place for the highest melting index after 2005, 2002, 1998 and 2004, in that
order.

Mindset sucks Indian science

I am just back from attending the 58^th International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Hyderabad. I must say there was a shocking trend that unraveled itself, opening up the very mindset of Indian scientists. It had to happen there, for all to see!

Indian space scientists were busy ranting about their achievements rather than outlaying their plans hoping to collaborate with scientists from other countries who were there as delegates.

It was almost as a rule rater than exception.

There was this session on satellite services and applications, in which all foreign scientists presented imaginative, though achievable, projects and discussed possibilities of collaboration. These presentations evoked instant responses from the audiences through bright questions that further expanded the scope of future partnerships and technologies.

Then came our Indian guy, someone named P K Jain from Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), appearing like someone with a mission in life to chatter all the achievements that ISRO has to its credit over the past 40 years.

To top it, he looks at the chairperson and says “Sir, I am sorry to rush through the presentation as you can see it is very difficult, nay almost impossible, to present what all we have achieved in the last four decades in just 15 minutes given to me for presentation.”

Wow!

One wonders whether it is an international congress meant to share and discuss future road maps or a platform to pat one’s own back over achievements in the past!

Come to think of it, it is hardly shocking. It is just an extension of the Indian mind. It is the Indian mind!

It also speaks volumes of an in-built Indian psychological complex that reflects a fear of not being acknowledged. And what better chance than an international congress where delgates from almost all space-faring nations have gathered, that too in your own home.

This fear and mounting pressures have also in the past led to a now-common feature in Indian science – plagiarism!

And how does one detect it? It is almost impossible. Thousands and thousands of papers are presented throughout the world and most are available on the net if one knows where to look for it. And you should know that Indian scientists are pretty good at that.

Why science in India suffers may not take too long for any person closely watching the “evolution of science“ in this country, if at all there is such a thing happening in India.

Forget the clichéd reasons given for the suffering of science and the scientific community – lack of infrastructure, inadequate funds, ignoring basic research due to lack of a sound foundation in school and college, dwindling scientific temper or even tendency of the youth to opt for lucrative careers rather than take up challenges posed by daily life for improving conditions of the people.

These are reasons that are easier sucked up by the mind than attack the root cause of why Indian science suffers so chronically that it has hardly got out of the bed it rests in, hoping to recover.

Looks like science would continue to suffer for eternity in India because of the very mindset of the scientists, not because of lack of assets required to boost science and technology anywhere.

Where is the direction of research? Is there dedication to help translate research into applications for people?

Former Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister of India, Prof V K Aatre, taking advantage of his presently being in retirement, mustered up enough courage to say what he would never have dared to while in service as the chief of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). He said: “Where is research in India? Is anyone conducting research here at all? Where are the research labs? Do they exist?”

That, coming from the top man of the defence labs in India is truly something to ponder over, even if it came through his retirement, it did come nevertheless.

Now these are sirens calling out the danger signals.

Aatre also pointed out that no matter how much more funding (the S&T funding in India is a mere 0.8 per cent of the GDP) is added through government sanction, it would hardly be of help because the Indian mindset lacks the spirit of questioning that is mandatory for making good scientists.

India actually provides an ideal set-up for scientists to work on the needs of people, because India is a country where needs out-run the processes meant to meet those needs. But you may never come across heartening cases of people researching towards developing applications that could make day-to-day life more convenient for people.

In fact there are applications. But these are begotten by people from glossy malls where technology wrapped up in devices land up from other countries. Then we crib and cry, not knowing that the fault lies in our own mindset!

That also explains why we are struggling with our “prided” light combat aircraft, Tejas, programme, or even its engine, Kaveri. From the initial proud position of insisting on all-indigenous products, the defence scientists are now forced into submission to accept help from the likes of Lockheed Martin, Snecma and their brood.

The result? The indigenous element would be reduced to around 40-50 percent. Not more!

The lack of indigenous foray into scientific applications has left the field open to foreign technologies coming in and exploiting the gullible masses.

But foreign ka maal is still a much sought after thing among the rural people.

In the process they end up paying many times more than what they would have to pay for indigenised technologies and services. But where are they?

Sad, but true! Science really sucks!

Stomach, the way to you lover's heart, say male chimps

Science Daily writes:
They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and the same could be said for female chimpanzees. Researchers studying wild chimps in West Africa have discovered that males pinch desirable fruits from local farms and orchards as a means of attracting female mates.
Lead researcher, Dr Kimberley Hockings from the University of Stirling's Department of Psychology said: "We believe the males may be using crop-raids as a way to advertise their prowess to other group-members, especially the opposite sex. Such daring behaviour certainly seems to be an attractive trait and possessing a sought-after food item, such as papaya, appears to draw even more positive attention from the females."

The study, which took place in the West African village of Bossou in the Republic of Guinea, is the only recorded example of regular sharing of plant foods by unrelated, non-provisioned wild chimpanzees.

Dr Hockings explained: "It is unusual behaviour as even though the major part of chimpanzees' diets consists of plant foods, wild plant food sharing (defined as an individual holding a food item but allowing another individual to consume part of that item) occurs infrequently. However, in chimpanzee communities that engage in hunting, meat is frequently used as a 'social tool' for nurturing alliances and social bonds.

This research shows that chimpanzees at Bossou use crop-raiding as an opportunity to obtain and share desirable foods, providing further insights into the evolutionary basis of human food sharing. In humans, the pursuit of certain foods is also strongly sex-biased; for example, it has been proposed that men in hunter-gatherer societies acquire large and risky-to-obtain food packages for social strategising and to garner attention."

The researchers found that adult males mainly shared the spoils of their crop-raids with females of reproductive age; particularly with a female within the group who took part in most consortships (where an adult female and an adult male chimpanzee move to the periphery of their community so that the male gains exclusive mating access).

Dr Hockings said: "The male who shared the most food with this female engaged in more consortships with her and received more grooming from her than the other males, even the alpha male. Therefore the male chimpanzees appear to be 'showing off' and trading their forbidden fruit for other currencies, i.e. 'food-for-sex and --grooming'."

The study is published in the September 12 issue of the online, open-access journal PLoS One.

The study was carried out by the following researchers: Kimberley J. Hockings (University of Stirling), Tatyana Humle (University of Wisconsin-Madison), James R. Anderson (University of Stirling), Dora Biro (University Of Oxford), Claudia Sousa (New University of Lisbon), Gaku Ohashi (Kyoto University) and Tetsuro Matsuzawa (Kyoto University).

About wild chimpanzees

Wild chimpanzees have declined by more than 66% over the last 30 years, to a mere 200,000. Although the chimpanzees of Bossou are fortunate enough to be afforded a degree of protection and tolerance by local Manon people, other chimpanzee communities throughout Africa are not so privileged. Chimpanzees and other non-human primates are threatened by an intricate web of factors including unrelenting deforestation and fragmentation, poaching, disease, and capture for the pet trade, all of which threaten their long-term survival in the wild. These are human problems, the solutions to which will benefit both people and chimpanzees.

Cultivated plant foods are shared much more frequently than wild plant foods at Bossou, even though adult male chimpanzees often appear nervous when raiding crops (rough scratching, a self-directed behavioural pattern shown in response to anxiety, was used to quantify levels of anxiety). The shared cultivated fruits are usually large and easily divisible, and adult males are most likely to share such foods obtained in exposed locations and in the presence of local people (which is also associated with increased levels of anxiety).

Citation: Hockings KJ, Humle T, Anderson JR, Biro D, Sousa C, et al (2007) Chimpanzees Share Forbidden Fruit. PLoS ONE 2(9): e886. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000886

SKEPTIC
Scientific American September 2007 issue

Rational Atheism

An open letter to Messrs. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens

By Michael Shermer in Scientific American (Sept 2007 issue)

Since the turn of the millennium, a new militancy has arisen among religious skeptics in response to three threats to science and freedom: (1) attacks against evolution education and stem cell research; (2) breaks in the barrier separating church and state leading to political preferences for some faiths over others; and (3) fundamentalist terrorism here and abroad. Among many metrics available to track this skeptical movement is the ascension of four books to the august heights of the New York Times best-seller list—Sam Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation (Knopf, 2006), Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great (Hachette Book Group, 2007) and Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion (Houghton Mifflin, 2006)—that together, in Dawkins’s always poignant prose, “raise consciousness to the fact that to be an atheist is a realistic aspiration, and a brave and splendid one. You can be an atheist who is happy, balanced, moral and intellectually fulfilled.” Amen, brother.

Whenever religious beliefs conflict with scientific facts or violate principles of political liberty, we must respond with appropriate aplomb. Nevertheless, we should be cautious about irrational exuberance. I suggest that we raise our consciousness one tier higher for the following reasons.

1. Anti-something movements by themselves will fail. Atheists cannot simply define themselves by what they do not believe. As Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises warned his anti-Communist colleagues in the 1950s: “An anti-something movement displays a purely negative attitude. It has no chance whatever to succeed. Its passionate diatribes virtually advertise the program they attack. People must fight for something that they want to achieve, not simply reject an evil, however bad it may be.”

2. Positive assertions are necessary. Champion science and reason, as Charles Darwin suggested: “It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against Christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds which follow[s] from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science.”

3. Rational is as rational does. If it is our goal to raise people’s consciousness to the wonders of science and the power of reason, then we must apply science and reason to our own actions. It is irrational to take a hostile or condescending attitude toward religion because by doing so we virtually guarantee that religious people will respond in kind. As Carl Sagan cautioned in “The Burden of Skepticism,” a 1987 lecture, “You can get into a habit of thought in which you enjoy making fun of all those other people who don’t see things as clearly as you do. We have to guard carefully against it.”

4. The golden rule is symmetrical. In the words of the greatest conscious­ness raiser of the 20th century, Mart­in Luther King, Jr., in his epic “I Have a Dream” speech: “In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrong­ful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” If atheists do not want theists to prejudge them in a negative light, then they must not do unto theists the same.

5. Promote freedom of belief and disbelief. A higher moral principle that encompasses both science and religion is the freedom to think, believe and act as we choose, so long as our thoughts, beliefs and actions do not infringe on the equal freedom of others. As long as religion does not threaten science and freedom, we should be respectful and tolerant because our freedom to disbelieve is inextricably bound to the freedom of others to believe.

As King, in addition, noted: “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.”

Rational atheism values the truths of science and the power of reason, but the principle of freedom stands above both science and religion.

---

Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic (www.skeptic.com). His latest book is Why Darwin Matters (Henry Holt, 2006).

Can India make 'wonder Land' with Nano? Doubtful!

By Rana Indos

The Union Government's budgetary provision of Rs 1,000 crore for the development of nanotechnology in India is a topsy-turvy decision that is an expression of a layman political establishment's flattery of the Indian scientific community.
Suddenly, there is a lot of interest and excitement over nanotechnology, and everybody beginning with Prof C N R Rao, the Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council, and a proclaimed spear-head in the "drive towards nanotechnology in India", is exhibiting it in a child-like fashion over its the future.
Nanoscience deals with study of molecules the size of which range between one nanometre and a 100 nanometre (nm). One nanometre is one-billionth of a metre -- that small! And the excitement stems from revolutionary possibilities of super-miniaturising machines that today fill up an average Indian living room.
For instance, nanotechnology can arrange atoms in such a manner that a microscopic structure of a cannon can be built in nano dimensions. These micro-cannons can be sent into the blood stream of a cancer patient to hunt and destroy cancer cells completely; or nano-particles coated on soldiers' uniforms could be able to provide bullet-proof features to save soldiers from enemy fire.
But mostly, the potential and the promise in this field is towards a huge medical revolution using nanotechnology, that could give us a world that is close to a never-land.
Now this is what has been talked about. It has not yet happened in reality anywhere in the world. But nano-scientists believe it can work.
This explains why Union Science and Technology minister Kapil Sibal pressured the government to take note of this field, especially the strides in nano research made by Japan and USA. He probably rose the fear bar to such an extent that the government finally yielded to provide for the Rs 1,000 crore for the development of nanotechnology -- lest we miss the bus, as has happened for almost always in the past in almost everything except the invention of 'zero'.
All that is not fine.
The problem here is that the government allocation is aiming at setting up six nano centres across India to facilitate catching up with nano resercah the world over.
How are we going to manage that? Where is the human resources in terms of qualified faculty members going to fill these institutions which are planned to be autonomous in nature? Will there be enough students taking up this field and plan to conduct research to make it another IT revolution?
As it is, scientists are cribbing about the lack of interest in science among the Indian youth who are preferring a more lucrative career in IT, management, or some creative field that pays (science for them is not a creative field, though it can be, but may not pay well).
There is a shocking shortage of quality research papers coming from Indian scientists. The research that happens is either mediocre, inconclusive, or inconsequential.
Such a scenario afflicting science in general has led to India not being able to manufacture its own indigenous car engine, leave alone their efforts in struggling to develop an aircraft engine, Kaveri, for an aircraft that again was once dreamt to be a completely indigenous fighter.
Sadly, neither the engine nor the aircraft can be completely indigenous as the foreign contribution in building the aircraft is only growing. Now considering the project delays and the technical snags that the Indian scientists were not able to handle foreign engine makers and aircraft manufacturers are stepping in, aiming to improve upon the existing designs or partly bring in their own designs wherever suited.
And the man who has been screaming from the top of his voice from the roof-tops about this poor trend affecting Indian science is none other than the man who is most excited about these six nano centres coming up -- Prof C N R Rao himself!
As it is, there is hardly any research coming from the universities, which should be playing the key role in rolling out applicable research to be acquired by the industry for commercial applications.
The pressure therefore lies on the few institutions like the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, and the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). But ironically, they themselves are complaining about declining interest of the youth towards science.
Now the Union government is planning more of both these too. This is happening when the new field of nanotechnology is dawning upon us with plans of the six new centres to propel this field.
Everyone is excited about a "perfect future" in which people could probably live for ever, because the verbal claims made over the futuristic prowess of nanotechnology points at something like that.
So typically an Indian response to something as "revolutionary" as nanotechnology -- a layman government, excited scientists, Rs 1,000 crore provision, .......and dreams of living in "Wonder Land"?
But how does one begin, Prof Rao? India might just replay its earlier performances. So just make sure she doesn't!

Cosmetics at the cost of science?

The multi-billion-dollar global cosmetics and skin-care-product industry sometimes is beset by a me-too mindset in which research and development focuses on matching the competition rather than applying sound science to improve products, a scientist told the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

As a result, it could be missing a golden opportunity to provide consumers with more effective products, according to a Stig E. Friberg, Ph.D. a chemist who studies cosmetic ingredients.

As an example, Friberg points out that previously unknown changes occur in the structures of colloids used in skin care lotions. As a result, the lotion sitting in the bottle, he said, is actually different from the same lotion applied to the skin.

Friberg has spent years in fundamental studies of the backbone of any lotion -- a mixture or "emulsion" of oil and water. Along with a third ingredient, a surfactant that keeps the liquids from separating, emulsions are the basis of almost every skin lotion. Although the system may sound simplistic, Friberg said it's not as straightforward as scientists once believed.

Friberg's work has revealed that after application, evaporation causes a lotion's internal structure to change, a fact that has not captured the attention of the skin-care industry. Initially in a liquid phase, the structure transforms while on the skin to a more orderly state, such as a liquid crystalline or solid amorphous phase, that allows for a higher tendency for molecules to enter the skin, he said. Previously, scientists have assumed the structure of an emulsion remains intact as lotions evaporate.

But this isn't the case. "In fact, the appearance of liquid crystalline structures in the emulsion acts as if you have a much higher concentration of the active substance on the skin," said Friberg, who is with the University of Virginia. "Knowledge of the structure change will make the formulation of skin lotions more systematic."

A main goal of the system is to find the best active ingredients for a given emulsion. In the land of lotion, these ingredients do the dirty work by penetrating the skin to protect or improve it. Well known active ingredients are salicylic acid used for complexion and camphor as an analgesic. Lotions on the market today, while effective, are based on limited understanding of how the active ingredients smooth and moisturize the skin. Research therefore has been based primarily on efforts to improve traditional, successful combinations of surfactants, oils and active substances.

In a sense, studying new structures would remove some guess work in manufacturing effective lotions because it would remove an unknown from the equation: companies could work from the template of the new structure rather than one that is nonexistent or, at best, flawed.

"I think it would be possible to save some lab work by knowing what is going on, and it could open a new marketing opportunity," Friberg said.

As for cosmetics, tradition has a head start on science, Friberg said. For instance, the latest interest in skin care -- hydroxy acids, the active ingredients in anti-wrinkle creams -- have been used for thousands of years and date back to Cleopatra, whose bath contained lactic acid (a hydroxy acid) which the classic beauty obtained from sour donkey milk.

"Cosmetics have a very long period of use," he said. "The companies involved have a tremendous knowledge of what works and doesn't work just from experience. Once they show somewhere that something works, then everyone jumps on the bandwagon."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Chemical Society.

Nano (dwarf) may turn Goliath

Nanotechnology is going to be the next greatest revolution in the world. On the eve of India unveiling Bangalore Nano 2007, the first of its kind I would like to help sharing about nano as the next big thing. Read on.
I highly recommend that you go see this page at HowStuffWorks. It's called How Nanotechnology Will Work.
See: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology.htm.

This would help oyu realise the vast and revolutionary potential this field offers us.
Cheers to the future!

Life-form unknown

Unconventional life-forms?

By Al Ian

Looks like we humans are going in circles and arriving at the same place, yet wondering how we haven't found a new way out.
Man's quest for extra-terrestrial life is somwhat on those lines.
We have all along been wanting to find out an ET who is in many ways like us. Many of the ET films that we have been fed with have feasted on that restricted possibility of how an ET would look -- they are all two-footed, upright positioned, with eyes like us and even a nose, and almost inevitably 'learn' to speak the way we do, or, if not, 'demonstrate' their super-human telepathic abilities.
A little more into advanced science, a scientist of an ET seeker is only looking for a carbon-based organism. only because humans are carbon-based.
May be there is a secret, sub-conscious excitement about it. Why should we even expect something which nothing like us? With who we cannot relate at all?
Forget the shape of their bodies, how boring it would be if almost everything about them was completely different?
But that boredom-turning-to-reality has at least got a kick-start.
Intriguing new evidence of life-like structures that form from inorganic substances in space have been revealed in the New Journal of Physics.
The findings hint at the possibility that life beyond earth may not necessarily use carbon-based molecules as its building blocks.
They also point to a possible new ex planation for the origin of life on earth.
Could extra-terrestrial life be found in particles of interstellar dust?
Life on earth is organic. It is composed of organic molecules, which are simply the compounds of carbon, excluding carbonates and carbon dioxide.
Now, an international team has discovered that under the right conditions, particles of inorganic dust can become organised into helical structures.
These structures can then interact with each other in ways that are usually associated with organic compounds and life itself.
V.N. Tsytovich of the General Physics Institute, Russian Academy of Science, in Moscow, working with colleagues there and at theMax-Planck Institute for Extra-terrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany and the University of Sydney, Australia, has studied the behaviour of complex mixtures of inorganic materials in a plasma.
Plasma is essentially the fourth state of matter beyond solid, liquid and gas, in which electrons are torn from atoms leaving behind charged particles.
Until now, physicists assumed that there could be little organisation in such a cloud of particles. However, Tsytovich and his colleagues demonstrated, using a computer model of molecular dynamics, that particles in a plasma can undergo self-organisation as electronic charges become separated and the plasma becomes polarised.
This effect results in microscopic strands of solid particles that twist into corkscrew shapes, or helical structures.
These helical strands are themselves electronically charged and are attracted to each other.
Quite bizarrely, not only do these helical strands interact in a counter-intuitive way in which like can attract like, but they also undergo changes that are normally associated with biological molecules, such as DNA and proteins, say the researchers.
They can,for instance, divide, or bifurcate, to form two copies of the original structure. These new structures can also interact to induce changes in their neighbours and can even evolve into more structures as less stable ones break down, leaving behind only the fittest structures in the plasma.
So, could helical clusters formed from interstellar dust be somehow alive?
"These complex, self-organised plasma structures exhibit all necessary properties to qualify them as candidates for inorganic living matter," says Tsytovich. "They are autonomous, they reproduce and they evolve."
The researchers hint that perhaps an inorganic form of life emerged on the primordial earth, which then acted as the template for the more familiar organic molecules we know today.

Plastic poison?

Plastic Drink Bottles risky?

An independent panel of scientists convened by the Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) of the National Toxicology Program (NTP) will review recent scientific data and expects to reach conclusions regarding whether or not exposure to a widely used chemical, Bisphenol A (BPA) is hazardous to human development or reproduction.
The NTP is located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health.

The expert panel met in March, 2007 and worked for 2.5 days to review and assess the more than 500 scientific BPA-related studies cited in the report.

Because of the length and complexity of this evaluation, the panel was unable to complete its review and has scheduled this second meeting to review and revise the draft expert panel report at and write its summary, conclusions and critical data needs.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a high production volume chemical used in the production of polycarbonate plastic and several types of resins. Polycarbonate plastics are widely used in a variety of products including food and drink containers, CDs, DVDs, electrical and electronic equipment, automobiles, sports safety equipment.

Resins are used as a protective lining in metal food and drink containers and water supply pipes. In vitro and animal data indicate that BPA may mimic the natural female sex hormone, estradiol. Exposure to the general population can occur through direct contact to BPA or by exposure to food or drink that has been in contact with material containing BPA.

The Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR) selected this compound for evaluation because of its high volume of production, widespread human exposure, evidence of reproductive toxicity in animal studies, and public interest and concern.

The CERHR was established by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as part of the National Toxicology Program in 1998. CERHR convenes a scientific expert panel that meets in a public forum to review, discuss, and evaluate the scientific literature on a selected chemical.

CERHR selects chemicals for evaluation based upon several factors including production volume, extent of human exposure, public concern, and the extent of published information from reproductive and developmental toxicity studies.

The 417 page draft report is available at http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/chemicals/bisphenol/BPA_Interim_DraftRpt.pdf

Heart matter

Heart Attack Treatment Lacking, Study Finds

Far more of today's heart attack patients receive emergency angioplasty treatment or clot-busting drugs to re-open their clogged heart arteries than even a decade ago, a new study finds.
But 10 percent of patients who could benefit from this urgent treatment -- which is known to save lives and prevent lasting damage to the heart muscle -- don't get it at all, the study shows.

And the chance of missing out on lifesaving emergency treatment was highest among those patients whose heart attack symptoms don't include typical symptoms like chest pain, those who didn't reach the hospital until six or more hours after the start of their attack, women, people over age 75, and non-white people.

The study, published in the American Journal of Medicine by a team led by cardiologists from the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center and the Yale University School of Medicine, is based on data from 238,291 patients who had had a type of heart attack for which this therapy is appropriate between 1994 and 2003.

It's the most current and comprehensive look at the use of emergency "reperfusion" -- a term that describes treatments that can break up blood clots and other blockages in the tiny blood vessels of the heart and restore blood flow to the heart muscle.

In the ten-year study period, the percentage of patients who could have received emergency reperfusion but didn't declined from more than 20 percent to 10 percent -- a notable achievement that the authors attribute to the increasing evidence of the benefit of emergency angioplasty, and the rise in the availability of the treatment at American hospitals and concerted national efforts to improve care.

The database used for the study, called the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction, includes detailed information about each patient's condition that can be used to determine if they would meet the criteria to receive emergency angioplasty or treatment with fibrinolytic (clot-busting) medications.

But it's those details that reveal the troubling gap between the number of patients who could have received the treatments, and those who actually did.

"We may never be able to get to 100 percent, but 10 percent of eligible patients going untreated is still too many," says first author Brahmajee Nallamothu, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine at the U-M Medical School. "We hope our study highlights the opportunities to improve care and particularly some of the "at-risk" subgroups still less likely to receive reperfusion therapy despite eligibility, so that we can focus our clinical efforts on them."

Adds senior author Harlan Krumholz, M.D., S.M., "This study has good and bad news. We have definitely made progress in treating appropriate patients, but our findings indicate that we need to improve further to be sure that no patient who could benefit from this treatment is missed." Krumholz is the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine in the Section of Cardiovascular Medicine and director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation.

The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Genentech, Inc. provided the researchers access to the registry, which it sponsors.

To track the changes in acute (emergency) reperfusion therapy over time, the researchers divided the study data into three time periods: June 1994 through May 1997, June 1997 through May 2000, and June 2000 through May 2003.

The rise in emergency angioplasty was fastest from the first time period to the second; the rate of increase leveled off from the second time period to the third. Correspondingly, the number of patients receiving medication-based reperfusion dropped over the study period.

This is an appropriate shift, says Nallamothu: shifting patients from clot-busting medications to emergency angioplasty may save 12 to 20 lives for every 1,000 heart attack patients treated, if the angioplasty is performed in a timely manner.

The study involved patients who had a particular type of heart attack, called STEMI, for ST-elevated myocardial infarction. Emergency angioplasty is considered the best immediate treatment for STEMI. However, the study did not look specifically at the time that elapsed from the moment the STEMI patient arrived at the hospital to the time when the reperfusion treatment began. This is often called "door to balloon time" because of the use of tiny artery-opening balloons in the angioplasty procedure.

Hospitals around the nation, including U-M and Yale, are taking part in a national campaign to reduce this time interval for patients who receive emergency angioplasty, and studies have shown that patients who are treated within an hour or two of arrival at the hospital do better in the long term than those who wait longer for angioplasty.

But the fact that 10 percent of possible emergency angioplasty candidates still aren't even getting the procedure at all is a significant issue of its own, the authors say. Increasing its use in these patients could save up to an additional 30 lives for every 1,000 heart attack patients treated when performed in a timely manner.

In fact, the authors state that hospitals should be judged in part by their ability to deliver acute reperfusion to as many candidate patients as possible. "Our findings support the incorporation of a measure of reperfusion use into national quality improvement efforts," they write. An American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association task force has endorsed this same idea.

In the meantime, the study results again point to the importance of rapid response to heart-attack symptoms by individuals and their loved ones -- and the need to recognize that chest pain may not occur in everyone who has a heart attack.

In the study, patients who came to the hospital with no chest pain but with other symptoms of heart attack were less than one-third as likely as those with chest pain to get emergency reperfusion treatment. Patients who waited six or more hours before they reached the hospital were 40 percent less likely to get emergency reperfusion.

Reference: American Journal of Medicine, Vol. 120, No.8, August, 2007

Energy needs

Stepping out of 'dark ages'


By Galileo

So, many among the Mumbaikars feel the city is going back into the 'dark' ages. Its a new phenomenon. Mumbai hardly had power cuts like it does now, especially in the suburbs.
May be, that way, some Mumbaikars are justified to feel that they are going backwards instead of forward.
But what about Bangalore, the 'Science Capital' of India?
It is time to call it the shame of modern India. Why on earth should the city be termed as 'Science Capital of India' while offerring no imaginative solutions to overcome the power problems its has been suffering over the decades now.
If Mumbaikars feel being pushed into the dark ages, just imagine the plight of Bangaloreans. Probably, they have got used to the dark ages by now.
And why just Mumbai or Bangalore, or for that matter any urban centre in an apparently resurgent India, what about the huge rural hinterland? Who is to strive for 'power' there?
Our learned politicians are doing every bit they can to achieve power, but still no power to light up the homes of the millions living in villages?
Amidst this scenario, Bangalore recently hosted Solar India 2007, a conference tat brought several international players in solar energy on a single platform.
One of the delegates was a person named Pranav R Mehta. He happens to be the Director (India operations) for a California-based company named Space Island Group Inc. In his remarkable presentation, he made an even more remarkable offer - that India exploit the solar power given to them from space at just 10 cents (about Rs 4?) per kilowatt-hour. And this rate is to remain unchanged till the year 2030.
The company, formed by a group of former astronauts and technocrats, plans to launch two solar satellites which would be placed in a geo-stationary orbit. This means that the satellites woud constantly be above a particular reference point on Earth. In other words, the satellite's revolution around the Earth would take the same time as the earth's rotational time.
The two satellites that would be loocated in space about 22,000 miles altitude, and each over opposite sides of the Earth, would store solar power procured from the high radiation conditions that prevail in space and send it down to Earth through microwave signals.
Specialised antennae spread across the globe would receive the signals, convert the microwave signals into electricity and distribute it in the immediate localituies or a unit household.
Mehta says, this is a revolutionary technology that would emulate the direct-to-home (DTH) television concept in bringing electricity from solar power.
Which means transmission and distribution losses that have bugged countries like India would be completely eliminated.
The company has already spoken to the Ministry of new and Renewable Energy to accept power through this mode and also play the role of a 'broker' in helping set up the antennae in other countries to help rural areas there be electrified.
The deal is tempting, because India's projected energy requirement by the year 2031-32 would be about 800,000 MW, while its is 160,000 MW at present. imagine the costs incurred if India had to meet the projected requirement using the conventional energy sources. It would be in the region of an estimated $570 billion.
Also, solar power procured this way could ensure meeting at least 90 per cent of the energy needs in the country.
Now when such an offer comes by, it is up to the 'power'ful politicians to prove what their real aims are - power retention or 'power' to the people.
Since imaginative solutions are failing us, it is time we at least opened our ears to crativity coming from abroad. At least some consolation to the ultra-patriotic that it was ultimately an Indian who carried this concept to them.
Whay say?

Behavioural Pattern

Man, victim of religion?

By Sher Leopold

Terror has a strange effect.
Not only does it influence an individual in the obvious manner, that is through driving fear in the hearts of the weaker ones, but it also introduces confusion in the minds of people, including those who boast of being tough-hearted.
The prevailing conditions are driving everyone to suspect everyone else of having terror links. The most targetted are those belonging to a particular religion, I mean Islam.
Most unfortunate, but true, though such suspicions are rank baseless, stretching it as far away as possible from ground realities.
Remember, the infamous communal clashes? A more 'decent' way to identify who is a Muslim and who is not, is first from whether he has grown a beard, and the second is the darkened mark on the forehead resulting from the contact that part of the body a Muslim makes with the ground while praying.
The gross way is to force the man to drop his pants and everything inside to reveal whether he is circumcised or not.
What do you say to that?
There cannot be a more primal mind than that in determining who belongs to what, because that almost always resides in the mind and the heart, not in the features of the body.
Firstly, Muslim men are not the only ones who get circumcised. There are some other communities too. Besides, in several countries including India doctors prescribe circumcision for a male baby, though the theory is doing a ding-dong of sorts on whether it is actually good or not.
Lately though, the medical fraternity is against it. But there may be a time when it comes up again.
It is remarkable how religion induces irrational behaviour, making the individual a victim of an overpowering sense to belong somewhere.
That leads to a convincing understanding on why so many around the world relate growing a beard to being a Muslim, and therefore a probable suspect in the terror sphere. But in doing so, they easily forget that almost all the terrorists including those who caried out the 9/11 attacks were completely clean-shaven, as far as official understanding goes.
So deep has religion driven wedges within the human community that it has come to a point where hatred towards each other has today become a cliched feature. Talks revolve around that as and when it gets aroused.
However, there is a strong resurgence of everything scientific, luckily. Take for instance, the consumption of red meat, a sure-fire give-away of such consumers belonging to particular religions, like Islam or Christianity, though quite a few Hindus do too.
Lately, there is a decline in red meat consumption after medical researches proved its connection with Coronary Heart Disease. Where does religion appear in that?
Hindus might have a we-told-you-so attitude with a complete feeling of vindication while seeing red meat consumption on the decline. But they forget that coconut which is widely consumed by them, especially those hailing from the coastal regions, and gains mythical values during pujas is equally harmful to health, and is found to be a major contributor to the bad cholestrol that leads to vascular problems.
The human body's maintenance has much to do with science, while the human mind qualifies as the best candidate for spritual nourishment.
Between these two, religion has increasingly gained notoreity of being a divisive factor, though there are ongoing efforts to influence people that sprituality is a part and parcel of religion.
Sadly, for them, they completely miss the point that religion has nothing to do with spirituality.
And that is what the Vedas have proved - that knowledge is supreme.
Or else, we would continue to adhere to a miserable existence of mutual suspicion and hatred, as is happening around.

Harry Potter Terror

Harry Potter-terror link?

Could Harry Potter be guarding the secrets of the British government's post 9/11 response to the terrorist threat" Judith Rauhofer of the University of Central Lancashire seems to think so.Rauhofer has made a study of JK Rowling's fictional child wizard and suggests, in a research paper published today in Inderscience's International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry, that the author draws several subtle parallels with contemporary society. She believes this is part of the adult appeal of the books.

Book five in the series was the first Harry Potter book to be written entirely after the terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania, and Washington on September 11, 2001. "Until then, the Harry Potter series could be seen as nothing more than a simple story of good versus evil," says Rauhofer, a Research Fellow in Law. "JK Rowling's work then evolved into something more after 9/11, a social commentary on current events, in fact."

Rauhofer believes that with the Harry Potter series Rowling has created a parallel world highlighting many of the steps taken by the British government, which she says are mostly unfair and unjustifiable, in the name of the war on terror. For instance, in the fifth book, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", all wizards are issued with emergency pamphlets. "Most people who received the UK government's "Preparing for an-emergency" pamphlet through their letterbox in 2004 will recognize the irony of Rowling's plot detail here," says Rauhofer.

Several key plot features hint at parallels between the wizard world and our muggle world, says Rauhofer. The marginalizing of an ethnic group, for instance, by the muggles themselves, identity issues with Death Eaters masquerading as others, detention without trial of Knight Bus conductor Stanley Shunpike on suspicion of Death Eater activity, interception of Arthur and Molly's post while in The Burrow in the name of safety, and many other examples.

Marine effect

Assessing Levies For By-catch Could Fund Conservation Measures

Fishing industry lines accidentally catch so many seabirds and turtles that their populations are being threatened. One solution offered by a Cornell researcher and an Australian government scientist is to assess fines when threatened species are caught and killed.

Fishing boats take a toll as seabirds are accidentally caught and killed in fishing nets and lines. (Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University News Service)

That money, the researchers suggest in the August issue of Frontiers in Ecology and Environment, could be used to address other causes of species decline, such as pollution and invasive predators.

This dual approach, they say, would give fishermen financial incentives to find creative ways to avoid catching noncommercial species, known as by-catch, while providing funds to address more hazardous threats to seabirds and turtles. For example, while almost half of all seabirds listed by the World Conservation Union are directly or indirectly threatened by fishing, as many as three-quarters of those species are also threatened by such invasive species as cats and rats at breeding colonies.

"Fisheries are complex, revenue-generating industries, and large majorities are unregulated," said Josh Donlan, a co-author of the paper and a graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell. "Once you add in the cost of doing conservation, this is a win-win situation for a lot of endangered seabirds and sea turtles that are impacted by fisheries' by-catch."

Donlan and co-author Chris Wilcox, a senior research scientist at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, used Australia's Eastern Tuna and Billfish Fishery as a case study to test the benefits and costs of their approach, called compensatory mitigation. The fishery extends from Cape York, Queensland, to the South Australia/Victoria border and targets albacore, yellowfin and bigeye tuna and billfish. However, each year the fishery unintentionally kills 1,800 to 4,500 flesh-footed shearwaters (Puffinus carneipus), a seabird whose entire eastern Australian population breeds on Lord Howe Island, which is within the fishery.

The researchers compared the expected costs and conservation benefits of closing down fishing areas that suffer from other causes of population decline, such as rats eating eggs, chicks and adult birds on the island. Their analysis showed that closing the fishery around Lord Howe Island would cost about $3 million U.S. and increase the growth rate of the shearwater population by about 6 percent. But killing the rats would cost only about $500,000, yet yield a 32 percent increase in shearwater population growth.

In other words, killing the rats would increase the shearwater population per dollar invested 23 times more than closing the fishery.

The researchers say that levies, with higher fees imposed for more endangered species, would make users who earn a profit from common-pool resources pay for the impacts they have on the system. At the same time, they argue, if levy money were given to conservationists to address other threats to seabird or turtle populations, then these conservationists would in turn be made more accountable for producing and quantifying results.

"This idea moves away from strictly charity models of doing conservation [where money is donated to conservationists], to a noncharity model [where those involved are held accountable]," said Donlan.

While compensatory mitigation may not work for all seabirds or threatened species, there remain many species that face multiple threats and could benefit significantly from this approach, he said.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Cornell University News Service.

UFOs

A Book by Michael Hall
Origin of the UFO Phenomenon
By Michael Hall

Focusing on possibly the greatest saga of all time, Origin of the UFO Phenomenon documents many fascinating events long forgotten by today's sound bite generation. It is one of very few books that approaches the subject from a historical perspective. Casting the story in the aura of the past with the mystery already inherent in the phenomenon, Mr. Hall has produced a true to life science fiction thriller. It's chilling, it's mystifying, and it's amazing because it is a very real part of our history.

The stories comprising the book are taken from the best sources available. The first chapters deal with the period from 1896 to 1946 which contain interesting legends and lore. Those years, however, do produce descriptions of not just the classic image of the "flying saucer," but a whole host of strange aerial phenomena that continues to be seen to this day. When the reader comes to 1947, a very shocking and more contemporary story unfolds. That year started the first large "wave" of UFO sightings. The term UFO, however, was yet to be coined, and in the early years saucers or discs were the catch words after a very famous sighting by Kenneth Arnold on June 24th. The phenomena rocked not only the United States but also the world. Beginning in force by July 4th of that year, shiny discs were being seen by hundreds. During that long Independence Day weekend the sightings dramatically increased in frequency from day to day. By July 6th, saucer reports made the front page of the New York Times and would do so for the next three straight days as the military started flying special "saucer patrols" in an attempt to intercept one of the mysterious discs. Every major city and most small towns around North America had sightings which were followed by similar accounts in other countries. Military men, scientists, doctors, lawyers, politicians, engineers, airline pilots, and just everyday citizens were seeing the strange objects, but what were they? Hall's book takes no position, it simply documents the facts.

The reports climbed to as many as a hundred a day from July 6th until July 11th. Then after the 11th, they suddenly declined. As 1947 progressed, only a few sightings were made, but fortunately in the United States the military had laid the groundwork for a very serious investigation of the incidents. By 1948 UFO activity picked up and accounted for some spectacular "classic" cases with a great many reports coming close together in 1949. From that year through 1951 many notable accounts also came to light but unfortunately were not properly investigated. For some unexplainable reason the Air Force had purged its best aeronautical engineers from the project by that point.

By 1952, the most famous UFO wave unfolded. Incidents became so numerous in the United States that in July the Democratic National Convention had to fight for headline space with the flying saucers-especially after they appeared over the White House. Virtually every American newspaper carried the accounts. Where reporters had previously come to take the subject somewhat lightly, by 1952 serious stories made page one features and portrayed notable public figures expressing concern. Fortunately for historians, Air Force Intelligence was then documenting dozens of reports per day via a revived investigation under the very able administration of Captain Edward J. Ruppelt. Ruppelt popularized the term UFO and served as Chief of Air Force investigations on the phenomenon until mid 1953.

Shortly thereafter the UFO saga in the United States becomes much harder to follow. This came about after the 1952 wave scared the United States government into doing something about the situation. They couldn't stop the sightings, but they did think they could discourage interest in the subject and prevent a possible hysteria - a real concern during that very hot period of the Cold War. Thus the book concludes its survey with the end of 1953.

Michael David Hall has previously authored a biography on Indiana Senator Henry S. Lane. In The Road To Washington, Rise of an Indiana Politician, Hall traces the drama that took Lane from the chairmanship of the first national Republican Convention in 1856 to his influence four years later in securing Abraham Lincoln with his party's nomination. Dozens of magazine articles on Indiana history followed that work. Several of those continued Mr. Hall's research on the former Indiana senator, taking him from a congressional legislator who worked with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, to the founder of the Indiana Republican Party, and then on to a powerful Civil War era senator.

Hall holds a B.A. from Illinois College and an M.A. from Western Illinois University in American History. In 1984 he began a museum career at the Illinois State Museum and since 1987 has served as Executive Director of the Montgomery County Historical Society and its Henry S. Lane Historic Home in Crawfordsville, Indiana.

Currently the author is working on a new book, A Time To Remember, The UFO Wave of 1952 and a co-authored article with researcher Wendy Connors for the International UFO Reporter dealing with legendary Project Sign figure, Alfred Loedding. Soon an expanded version of Origin of the UFO Phenomenon will be published, titled UFOs, A Century of Sightings: The Truth Revealed detailing the subject all the way up to present day.

As he pursues his research he finds diversion in aviation history as a part time guide at the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Hall also has interest in the era of the great steam trains, serving as a director at the Linden, Indiana, Monon-Nickel Plate Railroad Museum and Historical Society. Residing in Lafayette, Indiana, with his wife Teresa and their collection of five pampered stray cats, both Mr. and Mrs. Hall developed interests in that area's rich heritage in transportation history spawned by technological influences from nearby Purdue University. In fact, Mr. Hall has taken advantage of his proximity to Purdue to further his studies in history and plans in the near future to complete his Ph. D. in American History.

Interest in the subject of UFOs began quite by accident while working at Purdue on a paper analyzing the effects of American daylight bombing raids on Germany. Mr. Hall then happened across some obscure UFO accounts filed by allied pilots. Called foo-fighters in those days, the stories he found fascinated him. As he came to realize what a huge volume of primary material existed on UFOs in the nation's archives, Hall knew he had an amazing story to tell.

(The author can be reached by e-mail at mdhall@LAF.CIOE.Com).

Societal indifference

Children fall to oblivion! Where's Newton?

By Galileo

Within the last week alone, there have been two sad deaths. All deaths generally are sad, but these ones particularly hurt the most.
They were children, both aged six. While one fell to his death in a Bangalore mall, the other fell into a iron pipe dug 13 feet deep into the ground, for whatever reason, in a village close to Jaipur.
There is absolutely no point in acquiring statistics about how many of our children just go away like that because of careless attitude of people around.
There are plenty of them.
Malls are the svelte entertainment centres that children find hard to resist, what with the range of entertainment and toys on offer.
Six-year-old Aahan Bhandari was no different. Now Garuda Mall, the ill-fated place, has at least four floors with railings attached with glass panes. But leaves a gap between the railing and the escalator hand-grip that moves along with the system. That claimed Aahan's life.
On the crowded fourth floor where people throng to get tickets at the Inox multiplex, Aahan found himself close to this entrapment where he was propelled by the escalator hand-grip and shoved into the opening to his death. He fell 50-odd feet even as his helpless parents and hundreds of others stood as mute witnesses to the tragedy.
A sheer failure of human reasoning, which should have perceived the threat in advance rather than cry over a life snuffed out. Now the mall management headed by Uday Garudachar, plans to set up a net in the opening shaft where hundreds of people lean over the railings to watch events takign place on the ground floor.
This is in the hope of preventing another child from following Aahan.
Now, they do it!
Too late, but OK to prevent further such incidents. But it will always remain too late for Aahan's breaved parents and elder brother.
Same with the six-year-old Suraj who the authorities were able to extricate from the 13-foot iron pipe, only find he was already dead.
He slipped into it while playing nearby with other kids.
That incident may have gone by unnoticed probably because it occurred in a remote village.
But there is no rural science or urban science. There is just science.
It was sheer lack of scientific thinking that led to these incidents.
Plain thinking - and not rocket science - could have saved these young lives. Remember, gravity acceleration is 9.8 metres per second square. That is quite a thud from a height.
Why should only a Newton remind us that gravity continues to exist, even if he doesn't now?

Nimitz issue

A friendly nuclear visit?

By Galileo

It is typically Indian to react. As the USS Nimitz docks off the Chennai port on a friendly visit, mainly for 'rest and recreation' as is given to understand, people in all parts of the country are hopping about over an issue that should have been taken up days in advance of its coming.
Nimitz is a nuclear-powered vessel - a floating city by itself. There remains a possibility that it is carrying nuclear warheads.
Now the issue is about a possibility of a nuclear accident aboard the vessel that may affect thousands of Chennai residents.
I just can't see the point in raising issues about the safety of a nuclear-powered vessel making a port call just a few days before it came in.
That too, over the possibility of a nuclear accident when it is docked.
The possibility remains. But that probability is about the same as any Indian reactor re-enacting a Chernobyl.
If at all there are people raising questions about the safety, they are right in a way. But that should have been pointed out to the Indian government well in advance.
People who nurture fears are justified.
Greenpeace and the Institute of Policy Studies, USA, conducted a study in 1989 revealing that this very same USS Nimitz had reported an official nuclear reactor leak on May 11, 1979.
The study also points out at least 50 nuclear warheads and nine nuclear reactors lying on the ocean bed due to various accidents concerning nuclear-powered warships.
Several years ago, New Zealand had refused permission to a US nuclear powered ship to dock at one of its ports. An expert from that country named Dr Peter Willis had analysed a secret document of the US Navy, termed only as OPNAVINST 3040.58, that he had procured. He had submitted this to New Zealand's committee on nuclear propulsion in 1992 to prove that US reserved full rights to determine whether a nuclear accident did take place on board any of its nuke-powered ships and whether to share that information with the host government.
The US government's take on this is that the host government should be notified of any accident involving the reactor during a port visit. But the US Navy instructs the commanders to reserve their judgment and to first gauge the public reaction and only them decide accordingly whether or not to inform host authorities.
Given this, do you think a nuclear accident on board the Nimitz would make its commander confide with the Indian government or even the local authorities? Even if this is a friendly visit?
And given the possibilities that have been expressed by various people including some retired senior officials involved with India's nuclear programme over fears of leaks, how would one know that radiation-related malignancies subsequently occurring have anything to do with USS Nimitz?
Just plain waking up late I would say. Just so typically Indian.
Meanwhile, the high-and-mighty of the Chennai residents are queuing up to participate in the US Independence Day celebration on board USS Nimitz itself.
Howazzat!!!

Urban environment

New Study Could Bring Relief To Sweltering City Slickers

Sweltering summers in the city may become more bearable in future years, thanks to a new study probing the heat contributed by buildings, roads and traffic.
Researchers at The University of Manchester will use a small plane and a car fitted with advanced equipment to map out the surface temperature of central areas of Manchester and Sheffield.
The data collected will be combined with climate change forecasts to produce a detailed picture of how urban 'heat islands' push up the temperature during the hottest months.
One of the aims of the three-year study is to produce a series of tools, that will help planners, designers and engineers decide the best way of adapting the urban landscape to bring greater human comfort during hot and sticky spells.
The SCORCHIO project (Sustainable Cities : Options for Responding to Climate Change Impacts and Outcomes), is being led by The School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) at The University of Manchester.
The Universities of Newcastle, Sheffield and East Anglia, The Met Office Hadley Centre and The Tyndall Centre, are all working closely with researchers from Manchester on the £550,000 Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded project.
Local authorities, planners, designers and engineers will be working with researchers to help realise the project goals.
As well as increasing levels of human comfort, adapting buildings will also help reduce harmful carbon emissions.
For example, reducing the amount of exterior glass could lower temperatures and cut the demand for electricity-hungry air conditioning systems and desk fans.
At the moment neither the effects on the urban landscape or the heat released by human activities within cities are considered in standard climate change research. But they have been shown to be potentially very significant.
The 2003 heat wave is considered responsible for around 14,800 excess deaths in France and around 2,045 excess deaths in England and Wales -- and researchers believe that projected rates of urban growth may mean that the health risk will increase as the impact of climate change becomes greater.
Research conducted at the Met Office Hadley Centre suggests that the occurrence of such hot summers is now twice as likely as it would have been without human-caused climate change.
Project leader Professor Geoff Levermore, Professor of the Built Environment at The University of Manchester and lead author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Working Group Three Chapter on Buildings said: "Our urban and city areas are becoming increasingly unhealthy, dangerous and uncomfortable to work and live in, and are remarkably vulnerable to global warming.
"Actions by planners, designers and building owners are required in the short term if cities are to avoid becoming ever more vulnerable in the long term.
"For climate change adaptation strategies to be developed for cities and regions in the UK, there is an urgent need for decision support tools to appraise and design adaptation options.
"The science and practice of adaptation of the built environment to climate change is still in its infancy. We hope this project will pave the way for further research and work to address this very important issue."
It's hoped the work will provide a blueprint for the development of computer map-based (GIS) systems, allowing planners and designers to examine possible changes and see the wider impact on the climate of a city or urban area.
Researchers are also aiming to create a new heat and human comfort vulnerability index for typical buildings and their surroundings. This would help identify areas of a city that might become most uncomfortable during a hot spell.
The SCORCHIO project will initially focus on the central areas of Manchester and Sheffield, although other cities have expressed an interest in becoming involved.

(Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Manchester.)

Environment

Welcome To A New Era In Recycling Of Plastics

In an advance toward a new era in recycling of plastics, scientists in Japan are reporting development of a process that breaks certain plastics down into their original chemical ingredients, which can be reused to make new, high quality plastic. That approach fostered recycling of beverage cans, scrap steel, and glass containers, which are melted to produce aluminum, glass and steel.

However, no process has emerged to depolymerize, or breakdown, the long chains of molecules that make up millions of pounds of polymer, or plastic, materials that are trashed each year. Instead, recycling of certain plastics involves melting and reforming into plastic that is less pure than the original.

Akio Kamimura and Shigehiro Yamamoto report invention of an efficient new method to depolymerize polyamide plastics -- which include nylon and Kevlar -- The technology, still at the laboratory-scale stage, does not require costly pressure chambers, extreme temperatures, or high energy inputs. Rather, it uses ordinary laboratory glassware.

The method relies on ionic liquids, liquids that contain only ions (atoms with an electric charge) and are powerful solvents. Researchers used an ionic liquid that changed nylon-6 into its component compound, captrolactam, and could be recycled and reused multiple times. "This is the first example of the use of ionic liquids for effective depolymerization of polymeric materials and will open a new field in ionic liquid chemistry as well as plastic recycling," the report states.

The article, "An Efficient Method to Depolymerize Polyamide Plastics: A New Use of Ionic Liquids," is scheduled for publication in the July 5 issue of ACS' Organic Letters.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by American Chemical Society.

Health

Fuel For Your Body -- And Car

With an increasing percentage of the nation's corn harvest going to ethanol production, some are questioning the wisdom of taking away corn as food for people. But Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist Kurt Rosentrater has a way to at least partially allay that concern: create new foods from an edible byproduct of ethanol production, distiller's dried grains (DDGs).

A typical ethanol plant in West Burlington, Iowa (Big River Resources, LLC). (Credit: Photo by Steven Vaughn)

The new foods could include cookies, breads and pastas that are low in calories and carbohydrates, but high in protein and fiber.

Rosentrater, an agricultural engineer at the ARS North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory, Brookings, S.D, is working on many fronts to find new uses for the growing supply of DDGs as ethanol production roars along. One such front is making a better cookie out of distiller's grains.

Rosentrater is working with Padmanaban G. Krishnan, professor and acting department head of the Department of Nutrition, Food Science and Hospitality at South Dakota State University, and colleagues to make cookies with DDGs flour, substituting it for more than 50 percent of the wheat flour normally used.

The cookies are smaller than those made with all-wheat flour because the high-protein/low-starch combination keeps the cookie batter from spreading as easily as batter made with 100 percent wheat. But the batter bakes consistently. The main problem right now is appeal. The fermentation process used to make ethanol often imparts a bitter off-flavor and odor to distiller's grains. That's why, to date, there have been no commercial foods made with ethanol byproducts.

But DDGs flour is often more nutritious than regular flour, because ethanol processing tends to concentrate the grain's protein and fiber three- to nine-fold.

Research on these uses was done in the 1980s, but interest then waned. Since 2000, there has been only one published study on food products made with distiller's dried grains, other than the studies by Rosentrater and colleagues.

Many new ethanol plants are designed for production of food-grade ingredients. Rosentrater and colleagues are among the few researchers today dedicated to giving them a way to make products that will sell like hotcakes.

ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by USDA/Agricultural Research Service.

Australia Weighs In To Make The Perfect Kilogram

Australian scientists and optical engineers will be making a perfect sphere that may one day re-define the kilogram – and tomorrow they’re taking delivery of the cylinder of silicon from which it will be made.

The roundest object in the world. (Credit: Image credit CSIRO Industrial Physics)

The kilogram is one of seven base units in the International System (SI) used in science, commerce and everyday life. However, it is the only one still defined by a physical object – a lump of metal, known as the International Prototype, sitting in a vault in France. All the others have moved with the scientific times and are defined in terms of a fundamental constant of nature so anyone anywhere can reproduce them and they do not change over time.

Under the auspices of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), near Paris, the decision has been made that international effort will focus on two ways of re-defining the kilogram: one of which involves making a perfect sphere from a single crystal of exceptionally pure silicon.

The work will be done with the close cooperation of Australia’s National Measurement Institute (NMI) and CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Precision Optics (ACPO), which share the same site in the Sydney suburb of Lindfield.

While a physical object will still be necessary for calibrating scales and balances, the silicon atoms in the sphere will always remain the same. It is for this reason that the scientists working on what’s known as the Avogadro Project are collaborating to determine what is effectively the number of atoms in a sphere. Once the number of atoms is known, the definition of the kilogram can be based on it from then on.

“The only people who can make what is likely to be the roundest object in the world are our colleagues at CSIRO’s ACPO,” Dr Barry Inglis, Chief Executive of NMI says.

The best sphere the ACPO team has made had a total out-of-roundness of 35 nanometres. That is, the diameter varies by an average of only 35 millionths of a millimetre, making it probably the roundest object in the world.

Mr Alain Picard of the BIPM, who is bringing the silicon to Australia, says: "My laboratory has maintained the International Prototype kilogram since 1889. We are really pleased that this international collaboration will finally let us improve the definition of the unit of mass by basing it on a physical constant."

Ms Katie Green is part of ACPO’s team of expert optical engineers who will fabricate the spheres and Mr Walter Giardini of NMI lends skills in precision measurement to the project.

It has taken three years to produce the 20 cm long cylinder of silicon. The special silicon, known as monoisotopic silicon, was made in Russia and grown into a near perfect crystal in Germany. It will take something like twelve weeks to make one sphere 93 mm in diameter (the team will make two).

(Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by CSIRO Australia.)

Australia Weighs In To Make The Perfect Kilogram

Australian scientists and optical engineers will be making a perfect sphere that may one day re-define the kilogram – and tomorrow they’re taking delivery of the cylinder of silicon from which it will be made.

The roundest object in the world. (Credit: Image credit CSIRO Industrial Physics)

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The kilogram is one of seven base units in the International System (SI) used in science, commerce and everyday life.

However, it is the only one still defined by a physical object – a lump of metal, known as the International Prototype, sitting in a vault in France. All the others have moved with the scientific times and are defined in terms of a fundamental constant of nature so anyone anywhere can reproduce them and they do not change over time.

Under the auspices of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), near Paris, the decision has been made that international effort will focus on two ways of re-defining the kilogram: one of which involves making a perfect sphere from a single crystal of exceptionally pure silicon.

The work will be done with the close cooperation of Australia’s National Measurement Institute (NMI) and CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Precision Optics (ACPO), which share the same site in the Sydney suburb of Lindfield.

While a physical object will still be necessary for calibrating scales and balances, the silicon atoms in the sphere will always remain the same. It is for this reason that the scientists working on what’s known as the Avogadro Project are collaborating to determine what is effectively the number of atoms in a sphere. Once the number of atoms is known, the definition of the kilogram can be based on it from then on.

“The only people who can make what is likely to be the roundest object in the world are our colleagues at CSIRO’s ACPO,” Dr Barry Inglis, Chief Executive of NMI says.

The best sphere the ACPO team has made had a total out-of-roundness of 35 nanometres. That is, the diameter varies by an average of only 35 millionths of a millimetre, making it probably the roundest object in the world.

Mr Alain Picard of the BIPM, who is bringing the silicon to Australia, says: "My laboratory has maintained the International Prototype kilogram since 1889. We are really pleased that this international collaboration will finally let us improve the definition of the unit of mass by basing it on a physical constant."

Ms Katie Green is part of ACPO’s team of expert optical engineers who will fabricate the spheres and Mr Walter Giardini of NMI lends skills in precision measurement to the project.

It has taken three years to produce the 20 cm long cylinder of silicon. The special silicon, known as monoisotopic silicon, was made in Russia and grown into a near perfect crystal in Germany. It will take something like twelve weeks to make one sphere 93 mm in diameter (the team will make two).

(Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by CSIRO Australia.)

Cheap, green, food-friendly biofuel produced in India

Sweet sorghum makes a cheap and environmentally-friendly biofuel

T. V. Padma
19 June 2007
Source: SciDev.Net

[NEW DELHI] The first commercial batch of biofuel from the stalks of a new sweet sorghum hybrid has been produced this month (13 June) at a distillery in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India.

Ethanol is produced from the sweet juice in the stalk of the sweet sorghum. The researchers responsible for the hybrid say by using sorghum, resource-poor farmers will still be able to use the sorghum grain and protect food security, while earning an additional income from selling the stalks.

This first batch marks a major success for the research consortium that developed the new hybrid, says Belum V. S. Reddy, principal sorghum breeder at the India-based International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Sweet sorghum is a cheap biofuel crop to grow, costing about a fifth of that of sugarcane. It also requires half the water needed to grow maize and about an eighth of that required for sugarcane.

It is also carbon neutral, according to the Latin American Thematic Network on Bioenergy — a project promoting the sustainable use of bioenergy. Sweet sorghum takes in the same of amount of carbon dioxide during its growth that it emits during growth and its later conversion to ethanol and the eventual ethanol combustion.

When sweet sorghum biofuel is blended with petrol it also emits less polluting sulphur and nitrous oxide compared to sugarcane biofuel, according to Reddy.

A major problem for ICRISAT was ensuring availability of sweet sorghum stalks throughout the year. "Different plant types produce different amounts of juice at different times of the year and it is important to have genetic stocks that can produce the same amount of juice throughout the year," says Reddy.

ICRISAT solved the problem by developing hybrids that can be planted at any time of the year.

The team intend to plant at least 4000 acres of the new crop during the next rainy season, according to G. Subba Rao, director of Aakrithi Agricultural Associates of India, a partner in the project.

Clusters of villages have been identified for the planting, and seeds distributed to the farmers. A method has also been designed to collect the stalks from the farmers, which will then be crushed at cluster centres and the syrup transported to the main distillery.

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