• Indian Scientist Develops Solar Vaccine Cooler
• Kalam Backs New Solar-Powared Fridge, an Indian Brainchild
• Now, Get Disaster Alerts on Your Cell
• NASA Conducts Mission to Study Sun Eruptions
• Sound Is An Image
• New Image Gives Insight into Colliding Galaxies
• India Starts to Prepare Hazard, Risk Maps
• Air India to Emerge as Asia's Airline
• Jupiter Tiny Spot Goes from White to Red

• India does its 1st Cryogenic Rocket Test
• 40 Million Indian Internet Surfers Expected by March 2007
• Sun in 3-D: a New Frontier in Solar Research
• VSNL to Lead India-Europe Submarine Link Project
• DRDO Must Get its Act Together: Services Brass
• Radar Helps Locate Meteorite in Kansas
• IITs Retain Rank as World's Third Best Tecj Varsities
• Acupuncture can Cure 461 Diseases

Indian Scientist Develops Solar Vaccine Cooler

Resurgence of polio in parts of India could be attributed to faulty storage of vaccines, but an Indian scientist has invented a solar vaccine cooler for use in rural parts where electricity is in short supply. SolarChill, a vaccine cooler developed by Rajendra Shende under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), promises to be viable eco-friendly solution, which replaces the lead batteries and the ozone depleting chloro-fluro-carbons used in conventional refrigerators. Paris-based Shende, the head of UNEP's OzonAction Branch, is in the capital to deliver two units of SolarChill to its first Indian customer -- President A P J Abdul Kalam, who proposes to intall them at the clinic in the Rashtrapati Bhavan complex. "SolarChill does not use lead batteries or kerosene used in conventional solar chillers. Instead, we use the sun's energy to create a thick layer of ice which helps in maintaining temperature in the cooler between minus two degrees and eight degrees celsius," Shende told PTI. Shende hit upon the idea during his travels in Burkina Faso in 2000. "I thought that if we could develop a vaccine cooler that uses the solar energy so abundant in Burkina Faso and other developing countries, it would be a boon for vaccination programmes implemented there," he said. Shende said he thought of an affordable, eco-friendly version of solar coolers as he was already working with WHO on ozone depletion. "As the lead batteries are toxic, difficult to carry, and need replacement every three to five years, we decided to utilise to create ice box within the refrigerator that will provide the required insulation even during night," Shende said adding in the absence of the sunshine, SolarChill can sustain for four to five days. He said the cooling unit, too, did not use regular freon-based chemicals, which deplete ozone and add to global warming. One unit can serve the vaccine needs of some 50,000 people. The units will be available for commercial manufacture by 2007, Shende said. Shende's idea was jointly taken up by UNEP, UNICEF, WHO, the Danish Technological Institute, Greenpeace, GTZ Proklima, and Programs for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH). Refrigeration companies Vestfrost and Danfoss took part in the development of SolarChill, which took place in Senegal, Indonesia and Cuba.

Courtesy: www.hindu.com, October 31, 2006

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In a major breakthrough in its space programme, India on Saturday, successfully conducted the first test of its indigenously developed cryogenic rocket engine at a facility at Mahindragiri in Tamil Nadu. "We had a very successful first cryogenic stage test at Mahindragiri at 6:20 pm. It is a major milestone in the development of rocket systems in the country," Indian Space Research Organisation Chairman G Madhavan Nair said. The test at ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Centre at Mahindragiri lasted for 50 seconds, he said. "Only developed countries have this stage. We have also qualified now," Nair said. "We will go for one more long duration test in the next three or four weeks which will make it ready for flight." The cryogenic rocket engine that ISRO successfully tested on Saturday, was equivalent to the "Russian stage" supplied earlier, Nair said.

Courtesy: www.expressindia.com, October 29, 2006

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An idea that germinated on the dusty streets of Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in the mind of a prominent Indian scientist will finally see fruition this Wednesday when Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam becomes the first global citizen to acquire two refrigerator-cum-vaccine coolers, totally powered by the sun. The SolarChill uses a breakthrough technology aimed at making the process of refrigeration accessible even to the remotest parts of the world and hence help several social causes like the vaccination projects of the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Rajendra Shende, the head of the OzonAction Unit of the United Nations Environment Programme and the brain behind the idea, remembers clearly the moment when the idea struck him -during a bus ride in the western African nation of Burkina Faso in 2000. "Looking out of our bus window at the children of the rural poor and thinking about their fragile health, it occurred to me that plenty of sunshine does not mean plenty of health. Some children, carrying their sick younger brothers and sisters, were looking at us as if we were from other planets. "I thought that if we could develop a vaccine cooler that uses the solar energy so abundant in Burkina Faso and other developing countries, and if we develop a vaccine cooler that uses the solar energy so abundantly available there, and non-CFC (ozone-friendly), non-HFC (climate-friendly) refrigerants, it will be an environmentally perfect product," Shende said in Paris, just before leaving for New Delhi for the high-profile acquisition by the Indian president who has been keeping a close tab on the breakthrough development.

Shende says that the president has been keenly following the progress of the project ever since he heard about it over a year ago. "When I informed him about the project, he was very keen and requested me to keep him informed on the progress. The president could see the huge importance of SolarChill for the developing countries, particularly in saving the lives of the rural children and women who do not have access to electricity and effective vaccines," recalls Shende. And when the project was finally complete and the team was looking for high-profile platforms for the launch of the project, Kalam was the unanimous choice. "It was found to be important to get SolarChill known to the world community. I recalled my discussions with the president in 2005 and wrote to his office. I was immediately informed that the president is not only keen to install and operate two units in the clinic of the presidential complex (around Rashtrapati Bhavan) but was very keen to buy these units and not to get them free," says Shende. The first use of the SolarChill is for facilitating the preservation of vaccines in far-flung and remote areas that don't have access to not only electricity but also other fuels like kerosene. The vaccine coolers so far being used in immunization programmes work inefficiently due to non-availability or inadequate supply of grid electricity. Even when kerosene is used for the vaccine cooler, supply of kerosene is not certain in many areas and moreover kerosene is also a contributor to global warming and pollution. The technology has already made waves around the world, winning the prestigious 2006 Cooling Industry Awards in the category "Environmental Pioneer" for refrigeration in London earlier this year. The project is truly international since it involves a total of seven international organisations from all over the world. Besides the UNEP, the partners in the project include Greenpeace International, UNICEF, World Health Organisation (WHO), GTZ Proklima, Programmes for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH) and the Danish Technological Institute. Shende is obviously thrilled by the success of the project. "Receiving the Cooling Industry Awards is an important statement by industry leaders in refrigeration and air-conditioning that they recognize the importance, innovation and societal benefits of SolarChill. UNEP and the other partners would like to thank the organizers and the jury panel members for this award."

Over the last six years, the partnership has developed a versatile refrigeration technology that operates on solar energy; uses environmentally safe refrigerants, bypasses the use of lead batteries, and can also be plugged into the electricity grid. SolarChill is applicable for emergency relief in natural or human made disaster zones. It has been field-tested in Cuba, Indonesia and Senegal. The SolarChill technology is publicly owned and will soon be freely available for any company in the world interested in producing the units. Once it receives WHO approval, the Partners will work with interested refrigerator manufacturers, ministries of health and environment, foundations and others to have it commercialised and deployed across the globe. Shende says that though solar refrigeration per se is not a new concept, SolarChill is a real breakthrough. What the SolarChill partnership was trying to achieve is to adopt the concept for vaccines preservation and making it simple for use in rural, remote and least developed areas where electricity is not available or where the electric supply is irregular. Such situation causes the efficacy of the vaccines to diminish. Hence even administered vaccination programmes may not achieve their goals. The partnership also decided to avoid the need to convert the direct current (DC) solar electricity to alternate current (AC) electricity by designing the DC motor that would run the compressor. The need for the storage batteries was also to be done away with by designing the effective insulation that would maintain the temperatures to keep the vaccines effective during the night when solar light is not available. The product was developed in four years, through collaborative efforts, field-tested and is now undergoing WHO approval process. "The power of partnership has produced the product that is pro-poor. Power of nature could be nurtured to improve the way we make choices for the sustainable development. For the first time in the history of technology transfer the partnership of seven international agencies, and NGOs and technical institutes has developed a technology that is in public domain. It would be made available to those who wish to use it," says Shende.

Courtesy: www. hindustantimes.com, October 30, 2006

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The burgeoning population of Internet users in the country has opened up a large market for search engine companies. According to a recent study conducted jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, a research organisation, the Internet user base in India is likely to cross the 40-million mark by March 2007. "Next to mobile phones, I think Internet is one of the more accessible and sticker medium. That is what is going to drive the use of advertisers of the medium in the market," said IAMA President Dr Subho Ray. With the increasing number of internet users in India, the medium has become yet another platform for marketing with tremendous growth potential which is yet to be fully tapped. "Somebody is looking for information on car... say, a marketer. I want my results to be shown when that person is looking for information of the car, because I am getting the right person at the right time. This kind of advertising is called the search engine advertising. And it's growing tremendously in the last few years in India," said Pinstorm Founder and CEO Mahesh Murthy. "Online advertising has come to about four to five percent of the entire advertising spent. The Indian market which is rupees 15,000 crores, the spent could be Rs 600 crore. It's a 150 million dollar right now and the market that is growing overtime. So, it's tremendously large size but its not just market within India that is really important. The other important thing is that lots of Indian companies... Just like world outsourced to India. The world is beginning to outsource marketing services to India," added Mahesh Murthy. According to the study, some of the big spenders on search engine advertisings aimed at the Indian audience are Naukri, 99acres, Jeevansathi, eBay, Monster and JobsAhead whose total annualised spending amount to 52 million dollars. The study also found that over one billion searches are made in a month, with over 300 million searches with ads on them and with almost five million clicks on advertisements every month.

Courtesy: www.newindipress.com, October 28, 2006

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India's remotest villages will now be better prepared to face another tsunami or any natural calamity. A Bangalore-based private software company, Geneva Software Technologies, along with the ministry of science and technology has developed the world's first-of-its-kind multilingual disaster alert system Natural Disaster Information System (NDIS) that will transmit tsunami and cyclone warning through mobile phones in the form of SMS, within 30 seconds of a weather satellite or an earthquake observatory giving an alert signal. The SMS alerts will be sent in over 100 languages, including 14 regional languages like Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Hindi and Oriya. The SMS alerts will be followed by voice alerts on the mobile phones as well as fixed phones. Till now, all disaster alert systems have failed because most warnings are conveyed through TV and radio which could be switched off, alerts are mostly in English, multi-lingual disaster alert systems are complex as it requires GPRS and high-end Java phones and users need to subscribe for the service. Interestingly, with NDIS, the messages will reach any mobile without the need to download alert applications and fonts and works on even basic handsets. The multi-lingual messaging software used by NDIS is compatible with most types of cellphones used in Asia and is compact enough to be stored on a subscriber identity module (SIM) card. Science and technology ministry contributed $880,000 to the product's development. This is how it works: The NDIS server first receives the warning from the meteorological department alert system before converting it into an SMS in two seconds. In the next 19 seconds, the software translates the alert into multiple languages. In 30 seconds, the SMS reaches the user. S&T minister Kapil Sibal said, "This is an amazing technology. It could help people in the time of disasters like tsunami. It will take some time before the SMS alerts facility is made available to the common man. "The proposal has been sent to the ministry of home affairs, which is the nodal ministry for handling disaster management." Existing text-messaging technology requires that both sender and receiver have devices that use Unicode, the standard international system for representing characters on a digital screen. But in rural areas of developing countries, few people can afford Unicode-compliant handsets.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, October 28, 2006

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An artist's rendition of the STEREO spacecraft panels suggests its path into orbit. The twin observatories will fly as mirror images of each other to obtain unique "stereo" views of the sun's activities. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins U. Applied Physics Lab)

NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft - the first mission designed to capture the sun in 3-D - successfully launched at 8:52 p.m. EDT on October 25, 2006, aboard a single Delta II vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. The two nearly identical spacecraft, designed, built and operated for NASA by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, MD, separated from the launch vehicle 25 minutes after lift-off. After receiving the first signal from the spacecraft 63 minutes after launch, mission control personnel at APL confirmed each observatory's solar arrays successfully deployed and were providing power to the spacecraft. The initial radio signals were forwarded to the APL-based STEREO Mission Operations Center from NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Canberra, Australia. During a two-year mission, the twin observatories will explore the origin, evolution and interplanetary consequences of coronal mass ejections. These powerful solar eruptions are a major source of the magnetic disruptions on Earth and a key component of space weather, which can greatly affect satellite operations, communications, power systems, and the lives of astronauts in space.

Placing STEREO into Orbit
For the next few weeks, the spacecraft will fly in an elliptical orbit that extends from Earth to just beyond the moon. During this time, mission operations personnel at APL will place the spacecraft in flight mode, turn on and check out all instruments and subsystems, and ensure all systems are operating nominally in preparation to begin their data collection efforts. In approximately two months, mission operations personnel at APL will synchronize spacecraft orbits and direct one observatory to its position ahead of Earth. In approximately three months, the second observatory will be redirected to its position trailing Earth. Just as the slight offset between your eyes provides you with depth perception, this placement will allow the STEREO observatories to obtain 3-D images and particle measurements of the sun. During lunar swingbys, the spacecraft will use the moon's gravity to redirect themselves to their appropriate orbits - something the launch vehicle alone can't do. This is the first time lunar swingbys have been used to manipulate orbits of more than one spacecraft. Each STEREO observatory is carrying two instruments and two instrument suites, providing more than a dozen instruments per observatory. APL designed and built the spacecraft platform housing the instruments. When combined with data from observatories on the ground or in space, STEREO's data will allow scientists to track the buildup and liftoff of magnetic energy from the sun and the trajectory of Earth-bound coronal mass ejections in 3-D.

Courtesy: www.joplinindependent.com, October 26, 2006

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Twin spacecraft known as STEREO, for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, lifted off on Thursday on a two-year mission will help them understand why these eruptions occur, how they form and what path they take.
Twin spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida early on Thursday, on a mission to study huge eruptions from the sun that can damage satellites, disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth and endanger space walking astronauts. The two spacecraft, known as STEREO, for Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, lifted off on Thursday, stacked one on top of the other, aboard a single Delta II rocket. The lift off was delayed by several minutes after launch managers became concerned late in the countdown that winds could blow toxic material over populated areas should there be an accidental explosion. However, the winds became acceptable about 15 minutes before launch, permitting the rocket to soar off the launch pad with a roar. Scientists hope the 550 (m) million US Dollar, two-year mission will help them understand why these eruptions occur, how they form and what path they take. The eruptions, called solar flares, typically blow one (b) billion tons of the sun's atmosphere into space at a speed of one (m) million miles per hour (1.6 million kilometres per hour). The phenomenon is responsible for the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, the luminous display of lights seen in the upper latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. The two observatories will provide scientists with the first-ever three-dimensional view of the sun by working in tandem, like a set of eyes, in different orbits. NASA hopes information about the solar flares helps the astronauts who fly to moon and eventually Mars in the coming decades. Astronauts exposed to the eruptions can receive a year's worth of radiation. The spacecraft's launch was delayed several times this year because of technical problems. Scientists plan to release movies and other images created by the STEREO spacecraft to the public, though viewers may need to use the type of 3-D glasses worn for special movies.

Courtesy: http://www.eitb24.com/portal/eitb24/noticia/en/sci/tech/three-dimensional-view-of-sun--nasa-conducts-mission-to-study-sun?itemId=B24_17325&cl=%2Feitb24%2Fnuevas_tecnologias&idioma=en, October 26, 2006

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Tata group seems to be on a roll. Its long-distance telephony and Internet services firm Videsh Sanchar Nigam has forged an alliance to construct a high capacity submarine cable linking India, West Asia and western Europe. Expected to be commissioned in mid-2008, the link will ensure availability of telecom and Internet bandwidth, demand for which is growing at an exponential pace. The over 10,000 km cable, connecting Mumbai with France, will cost the consortium of five players including VSNL to the tune of $350-400 million. A company source says VSNL will be the biggest shareholder in the network with an investment of up to $150 million over the next 18 months giving it managerial and operational control. Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, Telecom Egypt and Telecom Italia Sparkle and VSNL have signed a memorandum for the construction of the network. The move comes at a time when bandwidth requirement in India is expected to grow at 70% in the next five years. Bandwidth demand in West Asia is also growing at 70-80% and there is a spurt in demand from North Africa on the back of substantial growth in mobile telephony. Says a VSNL executive, "The expansion is to ensure that we are ready with new capacity when the additional demand comes in." Industry specialists say despite adequate capacity available in India, new bandwidth is necessary as enterprise customers like telecom and Internet-based businesses buy up more than one link to build redundancies in the system. Globally, it is a norm to have bandwidth capacities of 2.5-3 times the actual demand because of multiple backup requirements of customers. There is also belief that the increasing FDI in and out of the country will also bring in new demand for bandwidth from firms. For example, it is expected that Tata Steel which recently announced acquisition of Corus will buy international bandwidth to set up communication links between India, UK and Netherlands. The system that will connect India, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Italy and France is expected to be ready by mid-2008 and the construction contracts will be awarded in the next two months. It will have proposed design capacity of at least 2.56 terabits per second.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, October 24, 2006

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This gadget has gone from select luxury to mass necessity in no time. Only to get charged with ever newer paradoxes.

It is estimated that India has more than 130 million mobile phone owners today. That is a 130 million more than there were eleven years ago, in 1995, when the first mobile phones were introduced in Delhi.

A large number of the people who own a mobile in India today are probably those who have never had a phone of their own before. For most of them, the mobile phone is their first intimate connection with telephony. It does not sit, like the old bakelite telephones used to, on something that could almost be called an altar-in homes, shops or offices, often placed under protective lock and key.

Instead, it travels in pockets where it forms suggestive bulges, or is flashed out of handbags like an alluring accessory. It sings, it emits light, it spies, is spied upon, takes pictures and writes poetry. It offers everything from sage advice to pornography. It is a node in a social network, a diary, a music machine, a shop, a gambler's addiction, a confessional and a betrayer. It gleams down at us from illuminated billboards on flyovers. It drives the plot line of the latest movie, changes the course of a cricket match, and transforms political fortunes. Nowadays, we even measure our days and nights, as well as our meagre incomes, by 'talk time'.

Before the '90s of the last century, the telephone god was a remote and formidable deity. It took seven years to bring a phone home, ten minutes to get to a phone (perhaps to a neighbourhood phone booth) and five minutes (or more, depending on the state of the exchange) to get through to the person you wanted to speak to. It never took long to hang up. There is no reason to look back on those decades of disconnect with anything remotely resembling nostalgia, if anything it should prompt us to look at our own more 'connected' time with care and acuity.

The recent global mobile phone boom is directly linked to the wars that have devastated Central Africa, which holds the largest reserves of coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of mobile phones and laptop computers. The reason why this becomes vital to think about is the fact that some of the companies involved in the mobile phone boom that is currently under way in India have been named by human rights groups and UN investigating agencies as having directly benefited from Central African coltan wars. A mobile phone isn't just a device a politician uses to talk to his paramour, it isn't just the cool new gadget that lets you play a hundred tunes or snap your dog's pictures-it's generalised usage within information-hungry societies such as ours, a provocation for thinking about many things that one doesn't automatically associate with the ephemera of phone calls. These can include the political economy of technology, ownership and monopoly issues, the tragic reality of distant and enduring wars as well as the uncomfortable proximity of surveillance.

Amongst the things that the mobile phone made possible in India was a dramatic increase in all sorts of formal as well as informal surveillance processes. Phone tapping had always lurked as a tool of political control, but the mobile phone made telephonic surveillance far more generalised than it had ever been before. The unsuccessful prosecution case against S.A.R. Geelani in the December 13 Parliament attack case was entirely based on the manipulation of transcripts and translations of illegal mobile phone interceptions made by the Delhi Police.

If one reads the court records carefully, it becomes apparent that the police and other investigating agencies (and their personnel) routinely resort to mobile phone surveillance, with the collusion of the phone companies, for all sorts of reasons that range from the flippant and the banal (a little 'freelance' detective work on the side to satisfy suspicious husbands about the call records of their wives) to the paranoic and the bizarre (generally to do with the chimera otherwise known as 'national security'). The mobile's promise of an unhindered liberty of conversation between ordinary people is shadowed by the lengthening shadow of the nosy-nanny state.

In fact, thinking about the mobile phone opens up a series of contemporary paradoxes. The mobile phone in Indian cities sits across a strange intersection, where decades of artificially and arbitrarily maintained telephone scarcity meet a new consumerist hysteria, where anxieties about privacy meet new public intimacies. We see it advertised both as a status symbol as well as a basic need. It becomes a measure that protects young single women in the city who now travel freely after dark knowing that they can always call for help if harassed or attacked, as well as a means with which men attack and violate women by circulating images taken with mobile phone cameras without prior consent.

The mobile phone and its increasingly ubiquitous presence in our lives demand that we think carefully not only about the information that politicians share with each other on their mobiles but also about the politics of information itself. This becomes necessary because our intimate conversations are no longer protected from scrutiny, because our images can travel from hand to hand without our consent and because our sense of privacy is constantly violated by the unwelcome attention of the tele-marketeer, the phone spammer and the phone stalker. In these circumstances, the very political question of who has the authority to speak, and who has the power to listen in on what gets said, becomes the very personal question of what happens when you take a call on your mobile. Think carefully the next time you hear an annoying or pleasing ringtone, or the next time your caller ID flashes on someone else's phone. Do you want to take, or make, this call?

Courtesy: OutLook India, October 16, 2006

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The armed forces' brass had two specific messages for PM Manmohan Singh on Wednesday. One, corruption scandals in defence deals should not be allowed to derail modernisation plans. And two, DRDO must get its act together, instead of delivering too-little, too-late. Sources said the PM was told during the combined commanders' conference that long delays in procurement of desperately-needed military hardware and software, coupled with tardy progress in DRDO projects with unrealistic timeframes, was causing a steady depletion in the war-waging potential of the armed forces. Navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash, for instance, stressed that episodes like the recent CBI kickbacks case in the Rs 1,160-crore Barak deal would send the wrong message that it's better to avoid taking decisions rather then they coming back to haunt you later, said sources. Any paralysis in decision-making would not augur well for the future of India's defence preparedness, he said. The Navy, of course, is quite upset that one of its former chiefs, Admiral Sushil Kumar, has been named as an accused by CBI for legitimately favouring the top-notch Israeli Barak-I anti-missile defence system in 1999-2000 over the still-unsuccessful indigenous Trishul system.

IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, in turn, pointed to the long delays in the indigenous 'Tejas' Light Combat Aircraft, as well as the acquisition process for 126 multi-role combat aircraft from abroad, to buttress this point, said sources. Grappling as it is with a rapidly-depleting fighter strength, the IAF will lose its long-standing combat edge over Pakistan in a few years from now, warned ACM Tyagi Pakistan, as it is, is on course to get 36 or more advanced F-16s, apart from upgradation of its existing 32 F-16s, from the US. This will be supplemented by a large number of JF-17 'Thunder' fighters jointly developed with China. The PM, on his part, said the government would ensure a "balanced development"of the country's defence capabilities.In pursuing the modernisation of the armed forces, "we seek the optimal blend of developing and producing indigenously and sourcing from elsewhere". "Transparency in procurement is a desirable objective, both for good governance and national security. Reports critical of such processes can demoralise the Services, where they are untrue, and must be directly addressed, where they are true,"he said. The forces certainly need reassurance that the frequent eruption of defence scandals will not hit their modernisation plans.

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, October 19, 2006

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A seemingly violent collision of two galaxies is in fact a fertile marriage that has birthed billions of new stars, and an image released on Tuesday gives astronomers their best view yet. The new image of the Antennae galaxies allows astronomers working with the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope to distinguish between new stars and the star clusters that form them. Most of these clusters, created in the collision of the two galaxies, will disperse within 10 million years but about 100 of the largest will grow into "globular clusters" -- large groups of stars found in many galaxies, including our own Milky Way.The Antennae galaxies, 68 million light years from Earth, began to fuse 500 million years ago.A light year is the distance light waves travel in one year -- about 6 trillion miles.The image serves as a preview for the Milky Way's likely collision with the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, about 6 billion years from now.

Courtesy: www.yahoo.com, October 17, 2006

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Scientists were excited when they pulled a 154-pound meteorite from deep below a Kansas wheat field, but what got them most electrified was the way they unearthed it. The team Monday uncovered the find 4 feet under a meteorite-strewn field using new ground-penetrating radar technology that someday might be used on Mars.It was that technology which pinpointed the site and proved for the first time that it could be used to find objects buried deep in the ground and to make an accurate three-dimensional image of them. "It validates the technique so we can use something similar to that instrument when we go to Mars," said Patricia Reiff, director of the Rice Space Institute. Such GPR systems had been used in the past to locate smaller meteorites through the ice in Antarctica. But until the Kansas dig, the technology had not been successfully used for ground detection in heavy soils - like on Mars - to find meteorites or water there. The dig was likely the most documented excavation yet of a meteorite find, with researchers painstakingly using brushes and hand tools to preserve evidence of the impact trail and to date the event of the meteorite strike. Soil samples also were bagged and tagged and organic material preserved for dating purposes. "When we find a piece of meteorite, each one is a new sentence we add to the book to understand the evolution of the solar system," Essam Heggy, planetary scientist at the Johnson Space Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. Even before they had the pallasite meteorite out of the ground, the scientific experts at the site were able to debunk prevailing wisdom that the spectacular Brenham meteorite fall occurred 20,000 years ago. Its location in the Pleistocene epoch soil layer puts that date closer to 10,000 years ago. "We know it is recent," said Carolyn Sumners, director of Astronomy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, as she surveyed progress on the dig. "Native Americans could have seen it."

The expedition was put together by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and led by meteorite hunters Steve Arnold and Philip Mani. Johnson Space Center's Lunar and Planetary Institute, the Rice Space Institute at Rice University and George Observatory in Houston also sent researchers. Fewer than 1 percent of the meteorites discovered on earth are pallasite meteorites, known for their crystals embedded in iron, Mani said. Sophisticated metal detectors at the site initially detected what had been thought to be the largest pallasite meteorite ever discovered. But ground-penetrating radar showed that the object was only a steel cable. The Brenham field was discovered in 1882. Scientists have since traced pieces of the shower as far away as Indian mounds in Ohio, indicating the meteorites were traded as pieces of jewelry and ceremonial artifacts. The site was largely forgotten in recent decades until Arnold and Mani leased eight square miles of it and began looking deep below the surface. More than 15,000 pounds of meteorites have been recovered from the area. This week's find will end up as part of a new exhibit on comets, meteors and asteroids at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The museum will pay about $50,000 for it, Sumners said. It is valued at more than $100,000, she said. Landowner Alan Binford watched with interest as the scientists freed the meteorite, bagging clumps of his rich Kansas farmland around it."I didn't figure there would be that much scientific value," he said. "I never thought about them going to this extent. It is interesting history."

Courtesy: www.yahoo.com, October 17, 2006

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India has launched a major initiative to prepare hazard, risk and vulnerability maps at microscale for early warning and effective disaster risk reduction and management. The move to have microscale maps is to make the task of risk assessment and analysis much more accurate and fast. This assumes significance, as natural calamities cause a substantial loss of GDP in south Asian countries every year. Studies show 2 to 16 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of South Asian countries is lost every year due to natural disasters. They also show a dollar spent on mitigating disasters saves five dollars to be spent subsequently on relief and rehabilitation. In such a scenario, countries in the Asia region, which is considered one of the most critical disaster hotspots in the globe. Disaster losses must be prevented or mitigated and kept at the minimum. Finding it is more prudent and economical to invest in prevention, mitigation and preparedness, there has been a complete shift in the policy of these countries for dealing with disasters. India too has decided to mainstream the disaster risk reduction into the process of development and not treat it as just a matter of relief and rehabilitation. This will be pursued vigorously in the 11th Plan, now under formulation, the sources said. Realising the importance of disaster risk reduction, a Saarc disaster management centre has been opened here recently to serve member countries by providing policy advice and facilitating capacity development provision and exchange of information. As part of the initiative, the centre will collect, compile, document and disseminate data, information, case studies, indigenous knowledge and good practices relating to disaster management particularly from the member countries. It will collaborate with other centres, particularly Saarc Meteorological Research Centre, Saarc Coastal Zone Management Centre and Saarc forestry sector to achieve synergies in programmes and activities. According to Union home minister Shivraj Patil, "Recent advances in the field of science and technology have opened up enormous possibilities for developing an efficient system of disaster risk reduction and management. It is possible to prepare hazard, risk and vulnerability maps at micro scale which can make the task of risk assessment much more accurate and fast." Mr Patil said it is possible to track atmospheric depression and predict weather and climatic conditions at local levels with reasonable degree of accuracy.

Courtesy: www.asianage.com, October 16, 2006

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The prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have retained their number three rank among the world's 100 best technology universities, where the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) also find a place. The IITs, which were on number three slot last year also, came next to MIT, Boston, and California University, Berkeley, both in the US, according to a survey conducted by the Times Higher Education Supplement. It placed Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) at number 68, sandwiched between Hong Kong University and Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The new technology survey showed academic opinion about the top places for science and engineering and puts IIT ahead of Imperial College, London, which comes in at number four. However, in last week's rankings by THES on overall global excellence, IIT had slid to number 57, seven places lower than in 2005. According to a spokesman of the Times Higher Education Supplement, the latest technology table emerged following an assessment of 3,703 academics, who had been asked to rate universities in their area of specialisation.

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com.com, October 15, 2006

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Seventy five years after the legendary father of civil aviation J.R.D.Tata flew in a Puss Moth from Karachi to Mumbai (October 15, 1932) the growth of Air India is synonymous with the growth of civil aviation. The minister for civil aviation, Mr Praful Patel, said, "The platinum jubilee celebrations of Air India's entry into 75 years of operation is also a significant achievement for Indian aviation as its growth can be rightly held synonymous with Air India's development and progress." The minister launched the very elegant Platinum Jub-ilee celebrations with a specially designed laser show beamed on the landmark Air India building much to the delight of the city's people that were on the roads on a Sunday evening and were lucky to see the show. A specially designed emblem was also unveiled to mark the 75 years. Mr Patel said "Despite increased competition from other international players in the country, I firmly believe in the legacy of the Air India brand to tackle all challenges and capitalise on opportunities." Air India's chairman and managing director, Mr V. Thulasidas recalled J.R.D. Tata's historic flight and said "it's been a memorable journey for Air India." He said since then the airline has never looked back. "With the acquisition of 68 new state-of-the-art aircraft we aim to become the largest international air carrier in Asia." Air India has expanded its fleet by inducting 22 aircraft on dry lease during the past three years, pending delivery of the 68 new aircraft. The preceding three years has seen phenomenal growth on the European and US sectors. Air India was nationalised on August 1, 1953 and bec-ame the first all-jet airline in 1962. Today it has grown into India's largest international airline with a worldwide network of passenger aircraft and cargo services which includes Air India Express, India's only international low cost carrier.

Courtesy: www.asianage.com, October 15, 2006

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A four-year research by a doctor with the Chinese Acupuncture Clinic Research Center in north China's Tianjin city has concluded that acupuncture can cure 461 diseases. Du Yuanhao, 43-year-old doctor, came to this conclusion after finishing his study on acupuncture functions. According to Du's findings, acupuncture treatment is mainly effective against diseases related to the nervous system, the digestive system, the genitourinary system, muscles, bones and skins, such as stroke, diarrhoea, enteritis, dementia and skin rashes. The points for acupuncture are in flesh, and that is why the treatment can be effective to diseases in muscles and skins, Du said. "Besides, points are rich in nerves. Thus it can also cure diseases in the nervous system and other systems whose functions are directly controlled by nerves." Although acupuncture is convenient and with fewer side effects compared with other forms of medical treatment, it couldn't cure every disease. As for these 461 diseases, Du noted, its effects are different. The professor is now working at classification for the 461 diseases. "I am going to categorise them into three levels - those that could be cured solely by acupuncture, those to which acupuncture is the major treatment and those with acupuncture as assisting treatment. Acupuncture is part of traditional Chinese medicine with a history of over 2,000 years. It involves insertion of fine metallic needles on the body to relieve pain and cure diseases.

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com.com, October 15, 2006

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Just a little more than a ywear ago, the small spot on Jupiter was a pale white; now it matches the reddish hue of its bigger sibling, the Great Red Spot, and boasts 400 mph winds, according to new data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Both spots are actually fierce storms in Jupiter's atmosphere. While the red spot - at three times the size of Earth - is much more noticeable, strange things are happening to the smaller spot.Scientists aren't quite sure what's happening to the smaller storm, nicknamed the Little Red Spot or Red Spot Jr. but officially called "Oval BA." It probably gained strength as it shrunk slightly, the same way spinning ice skaters go faster when they move their arms closer, said

NASA planetary scientist Amy Simon-Miller. Her findings from the Hubble data were published in the astronomical journal Icarus. As the storm has grown stronger it's probably picked up red material from lower in the Jupiter atmosphere, most likely some form of sulfur which turns red as part of a chemical reaction, she said. The color change took astronomers by surprise. And now they figure more surprises are in store as the solar system's largest planet goes into hiding from Earth's prying eyes until January, moving behind the sun. "We found that Jup