• 'He' frogs change into 'she' frogs due to pollutants
• First cervical cancer vaccine introduced in the UAE
• Indian Brains behind Intel Tera Chip
• ISRO to send man into space to orbit earth
• The power of digital libraries
• Success: NASA's five THEMISsatellites launch into space
• Spacecraft transmits evidence of water
• Inner ear implant may bring back sense of balance lost
• Biological clock functions are revealed
• Power outage in Sunita's space home set right
• Wireless sensors extend Internet's reach
• Rolls-Royce in pact with IISc for 'greener' engines
• Human skin crawling with bacteria, researchers say
• Sunita to break women's spacewlk record

• Protein engineering in defence of soldiers
• Antarctic's secrets revealed by melting ice
• Drug May Counteract Down Syndrome
• New Turmeric based drug to fight malaria
• Japanese scientists grow teeth from cells
• Tiny frog in amber may be 25 million yrs old
• Indian American claims solving Einstein's twin pardox
• IIT prof develops pain monitor during anaesthesia
• More evidence found for water on Mars
• Call for "neuroethics" as brain science races ahead
• Parents' genes linked to child's behavior
• Electronic version of fish and chips planned to track sea life
• Sunita Williams is top woman space walker
• Scientists find out why Moonlooks B/W
• Master of miniature engineers many marvels

Protein engineering in defence of soldiers The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), one of the flagship institutions of the country, is in the process of developing a new technology of using protein engineering to protect the health conditions of the Indian soldiers, deployed in higher altitude regions and exposed to extreme conditions of cold, heat, radiation and stress. According to Dr W Selvamurthy, controller of research, DRDO, who was here at the Vellore Institute of Technology University (VITU) to inaugurate a two-day national seminar on 'Protein Science and Engineering' which began on Tuesday, many of the neuro chemical and morphological studies conducted by the DRDO have revealed that high altitude deployment leads to memory loss for the soldiers, besides a 'high altitude pulmonary oedema' that can be corrected using the protein engineering technology. As a first step, a set of bio-markers have already been developed to correct the health defects among the soldiers. Emphasing the fact that the protein science would play a vital role in the overall development of the country, he said using the technology of purification and refolding of the proteins, humanised antibodies to control diabetes (addition of argines for a long lasting effect of insulin), recombinant vaccines against dengue, anthrax and typhoid are also being developed by the DRDO which can provide solutions to many of the public health issues, he said. Giving details about the research initiatives undertaken by the DRDO, Selvamurthy said that the target was to realise self-reliance in the field of therapeutics, develop oral/edible vaccines for infectious diseases, develop cold tolerance and disease resistant high yielding crops which can boost the productivity. ''India would have missed the industrial revolution of the yester centuries, but it is well ahead in leading the IT revolution of the globe,'' he said adding that formation of a knowledge grid of universities and national research laboratories in the country would help in furtherance of developing the country in the knowledge era. The DRDO was planning to involve the universities to share research work on contract basis, towards achieving defence security, he added. He also felt that a combined development of educational institutions, industry and health organisations in the country would alone change the lifestyle of the people to attain the status of a developed nation. According to him, a Rs 18 crore life research centre at the Bharathidasan University in Coimbatore, a centre for higher energy materials in Hyderabad and a centre for microwave technology in Calcutta University have been established by the DRDO under the Tenth Plan. ''India is gearing up to achieve economic, military and knowledge power indicating that the country is emerging as a power hub of knowledge management,'' he said adding that this would enable India to play a vital role in the region. VITU Chancellor G Viswanathan, while presiding over the function, noted that achieving mere literacy would not suffice, as the focus should be on higher education that would pave way for economic growth and technological development in all aspects.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, February 28, 2007

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Frogs that started life as male tadpoles were changed in an experiment into females by estrogen-like pollutants similar to those found in the environment, according to a new study. The results may shed light on at least one reason that up to a third of frog species around the world are threatened with extinction, suggests the study, set to appear in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in May. In a laboratory at Uppsala University in Sweden, two species of frogs were exposed to levels of estrogen similar to those detected in natural bodies of water in Europe, the United States and Canada.

The results were startling: whereas the percentage of females in two control groups was under 50 percent -- not unusual among frogs -- the sex ratio in three pairs of groups maturing in water dosed with different levels of estrogen were significantly skewed. Even tadpoles exposed to the weakest concentration of the hormone were, in one of two groups, twice as likely to become females. The population of the two groups receiving the heaviest dose of estrogen became 95 percent female in one case, and 100 percent in the other. "The results are quite alarming," said co-author Cecilia Berg, a research in environmental toxicology. "We see these dramatic changes by exposing the frogs to a single substance. In nature there could be lots of other compounds acting together." Earlier studies in the United States, Berg explained, linked a similar sex-reversal of Rana pipiens male frogs -- one of the two species used in the experiment -- in the wild to a pesticide that produced estrogen-like compounds. "Pesticides and other industrial chemicals have the ability to act like estrogen in the body," Berg said. "That is what inspired us to do the experiment," she said referring to her collaborator and lead author of the article, Irina Pettersson, also a researcher at Uppsala. The other species examined was the European common frog, Rana temporaria. Some of sex-altered males became fully functioning females, but other had ovaries but no oviducts, making them sterile, Berg explained. The study does not measure the potential impact of pollutant-driven sex change for frog species, but the implications, said Berg, are disquieting. "Obviously if all the frogs become female it could have a detrimental effect on the population," she said. The only immediate remedy, she continued, would be to improve sewage treatment in areas where frogs and other amphibians might be affected to filter out estrogen concentrations coming from contracepti,ve pills and from industrial pollutants.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, February 28, 2007

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Scientists research a world sealed off under the ice shelves for 12,000 years.
THE SEAS around the Antarctic peninsula are among the most mysterious places on earth. What life there is has remained largely a mystery, thanks to a thick cover of ice for the past few millennia. But the collapse of some of these ice sheets has given scientists a rare opportunity for access, and on Sunday they revealed that they had found a thriving underwater world that is being transformed by climate change. As well as new species, the Census of Marine Antarctic Life (CMAL) project found more common ones that were able to survive in the Antarctic because the temperature of the sea is rising. Minke whales were discovered in large numbers. The scientists also spotted a rare beaked whale off the coast of Elephant Island - the famous refuge of Ernest Shackleton's 21-man crew after a doomed attempt to cross Antarctica in 1916. Parts of the sea here were uncovered for the first time in recorded history when the Larsen A and B ice shelves collapsed, 12 and five years ago respectively, due to the higher temperatures linked to human-induced climate change. Scientists said the new survey would help predict what would happen to biodiversity as the world warms up. The Larsen shelf is a fringe of ice in the north-west of the Weddel Sea, extending along the east coast of the Antarctic peninsula. In 2002, scientists watched in shock as 3,250 sq km of 220-metre-thick ice - the Larsen B shelf - fell into the sea. It had been stable for at least 12,000 years. Larsen A, a smaller ice sheet, had collapsed seven years earlier, but this was around 4,000 years old. Global warming was undoubtedly to blame. Julian Gutt, a marine ecologist at Germany's Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, who led the expedition, said the area under the Larsen ice shelf was the least known ecosystem on earth. "So far, we did not have access to such areas, with the few exceptions of drill holes or cracks where people could deploy some remote video cameras." The break-up of the Larsen ice shelves opened up a pristine area of sea floor the size of Jamaica. Researchers spent 10 weeks scouring the 10,000 sq km sea floor for animal life. By probing as far as 850 metres under water, using a remote camera, they collected around 1,000 specimens, including 15 shrimp-like species, known as amphipods, thought to be new to science.

Star attraction
The star attraction is a 10-cm-long crustacean from the amphipod family Shackletonia. Professor Gutt said the new biodiversity information would be fundamental in understanding the functioning of the ecosystem. "The results of our efforts will advance our ability to predict the future of our biosphere in a changing environment." The scientists also found four new species of cnidarians, creatures that are related to coral, jellyfish, and sea anemones. One anemone-like creature was found living on the back of a snail, providing protection in return for transport. In the relatively shallow waters of the Larsen zone, abundant numbers of deep sea creatures that normally live at depths of 2,000 metres or so were found. These included deep sea lilies, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins. The scientists found dense patches of sea squirts and said they were probably able to colonise the Larsen B area only after ice shelf broke in 2002. "We counted a high number of Minke whales," said Professor Gutt. "This means the ecosystem in the open water adapts very fast to the new conditions, because the algae grow. Krill feeds on the algae and whales feed on the krill." This pattern may not be repeated in future, however. Michael Stoddart, leader of the CAML project, said one consequence of the rising global temperatures was a fall in plankton such as algae that grow beneath sea ice, which would have knock-on effects to animals higher up the food chain, all the way up to whales. Other finds in the CAML expedition included clusters of dead clamshells littering an area of the ocean floor near a suspected "cold seep." The expedition team also investigated fish populations in the islands north and west of the Antarctic peninsula. The results of 85 hauls over 19 days show that the biomass of two Antarctic cod species has increased since a survey in 2003, while stocks of Blackfin and Mackerel Icefish have decreased. Gauthier Chapelle, a biologist at the Brussels-based International Polar Foundation, said: "This is virgin geography. If we don't find out what this area is like now, following the collapse of the ice shelf, and what species are there, we won't have any basis to know in 20 years' time what has changed, and how global warming has altered the marine ecosystem."

Courtesy: www.hindu.com, February 27, 2007

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A group of over 130 women in Dubai were yesterday educated about cervical cancer prevention, and the new vaccine Gardasil - the first and only vaccine against cervical cancer.

The American Hospital Dubai introduced the vaccine during a cervical cancer awareness and prevention social event at the Fairmont Dubai yesterday, organised and presented by a multidisciplinary team of American Board certified physicians from the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department, as part of the American Hospital Dubai's community education programme. Cervical cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in women worldwide, after breast cancer. Approximately 2.3 million women are currently diagnosed with cervical cancer, and 800 women die daily as a result of the disease. The annual average of reported cervical cancer cases in the UAE tripled in 2005, compared to reported cases from 1998 to 2004 (Source: Cancer Registry Program). Obstetrics and Gynecologist Dr Rihab Awad, from the American Hospital Dubai, was keen to recommend a number of essential routine screening programs that all women should take on an annual basis, such as pap-tests. 'Pap tests help to detect any abnormal changes in the cells of the cervix. Once an abnormality is spotted it can be removed immediately through a very simple and painless procedure,' she explained. 'I am very glad that so many women attended this event, expressing their interest in cervical cancer prevention and an eagerness to learn,' added Dr. Hiba Muhtasib. 'Although cervical cancer awareness is relatively low in this region, today's event shows that women want to be educated about the risks, and to adopt the necessary changes in their lifestyle to decrease the chances of contracting the disease.' The UAE is the first country in the Middle East to acquire the vaccine through approvals from the Ministry of Health (MOH) in November 2006. The vaccine targets HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) types 6, 11, 16 and 18, which are the most common strains linked to cervical cancer and genital warts. HPV types 16 and 18 are responsible for 75 per cent of all cervical cancer cases. 'Since the approval of the vaccine in November 2006, many women have taken the proactive decision to vaccinate themselves and their daughters,' said Dr. Dawn Owens Robinson, 'The vaccine can be administered to girls from the age of 9 years, with the majority of vaccines targeted towards children, to build, strengthen and increase immunity to cervical cancer.' The cervical cancer awareness and prevention event was organized by the Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of the American Hospital Dubai, and included presentations from American Board Certified Obstetrics and Gynaecology Specialists; Dr Rihab Awad, Dr Dawn Owens Robinson and Dr Hiba Muhtasib, in an effort to educate women on methods of cervical cancer prevention.

Courtesy: www.ameinfo.com, February 26, 2007

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Formerly approved drug imparts lasting learning and memory improvements to impaired mice
Researchers may have finally found a drug candidate for reducing the mental retardation caused by Down syndrome, which afflicts more than 350,000 people in the U.S. Researchers gave low doses of a human drug to mice bred to mimic the learning and memory problems in people with Down syndrome. After as little as two weeks, the impaired mice performed as well as normal ones in learning tests, and the improvement lasted for up to two months after treatment ended. But there is a catch: the drug was taken off the market 25 years ago after being found to cause dangerous seizures in some people. And many compounds that boost learning in mice fail in human trials. Nevertheless, "anyone studying Down's is going to have their socks blown off by this," says geneticist Roger Reeves, a Down syndrome specialist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study. "There hasn't been anything out there that we really could take to patients or that we had a strong possibility of taking into the clinic."

Researchers tested the drug, pentylenetetrazole (PTZ), as well as two other compounds-picrotoxin and a gingko biloba extract called bilobalide-because they all interfere with tiny ion channels on brain cells (neurons). When activated, the channels, known as GABAA receptors, inhibit the cells, making it harder for them to form new synapses, or connections, with neighboring neurons. The deficits of Down syndrome may occur because the brain contains too many such inhibitory signals, says Stanford University neurobiologist Craig Garner, whose group performed the experiments. "In order to learn, you have to have a period during which synapses can get stronger or weaker," he says. "This changing is what's not possible when you have too much inhibition." So Garner, his student Fabian Fernandez, and their colleagues gave their mice either low doses of PTZ mixed with milk, or low-dose injections of picrotoxin or bilobalide, daily for two to four weeks to slightly raise the level of excitation in the brain. Immediately after treatment, the animals' scores on two memory tests-for recognizing objects they had seen before or remembering how they last entered a maze-were on par with normal mice; two months later, they still did much better than they normally would, the researchers report in a paper appearing online February 25 in Nature Neuroscience. The treatment "is allowing the normal properties of neurons to work," Garner says. "This slowly over time leads to an improved circuit." Reeves says there may be other ways to treat Down syndrome, but "you can see your way to clinical testing most easily from here," because researchers identified specific chemicals. "It's hugely promising," he says. "Maybe it will have a big effect, but we don't know that." The inhibition model is plausible, but still unproved in people, he notes, and until researchers better understand the mechanisms by which the compounds work, "I'm wary of rushing into the clinic." Garner says clinical trials of PTZ could begin in the next year or two, and evaluating them might take five to 10 years. He notes that although PTZ is nearly 100 years old and was used to treat psychiatric disorders and later dementia, researchers never concluded it was effective. It also caused seizures (at doses 100-fold higher than those given to the mice), so the FDA revoked its approval in 1982. In Down syndrome, chromosome 21 is present in three copies instead of two. Similarly, the mice used in the study have a duplicated piece of chromosome 16. As in Down syndrome, these animals have malformed facial bones and problems forming new memories. Reeves notes that many researchers have long considered Down syndrome too complex to crack, but the study "serves as notice to the neuroscience community that there are a lot of interesting things to do here. This is not some vague, mega complex issue."

Courtesy: www.sciam.com, February 25, 2007

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Just recently, Intel developed a 'Tera Research Chip' to deliver supercomputer-like performance while consuming less electricity. And, it was a team of Indian engineers at the Intel India Development Center (IIDC) in Bangalore that played a key role in the development of this fingernail-sized chip. The team comprises 20 members, and was led by Vasantha Erraguntla, an Intel veteran, who contributed almost half of the work that went into the chip in terms of logic, circuit and physical design, while the rest was done at the company's other lab located at Oregon. Talking about the achievement, Erraguntla said it feels great to lead and be part of a team that is contributing to Intel's global innovation and to the future of technology. The capabilities of Indian engineering talent have been established without a doubt. The 80-core chip is the result of Intel's "Tera-scale computing" research aimed at delivering Teraflops (trillions of calculations per second) performance for future PCs and servers. It is the world's first programmable processor from a single, 80-core chip, using only 62 watts of electricity, less than many single-core processors today. IIDC was set up in 1998, and is Intel's largest non-manufacturing site outside of the US. Reportedly, Indian engineers at IIDC work on the design of chips and chip sets, reference designs, system software and packaging technologies, and have full ownership of the development of key Intel chips for the server and mobile market.

Courtesy: www.techtree.com, February 23, 2007

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The next big thing in medicine for malaria is most likely on your kitchen shelf. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore are readying for human trials to develop an affordable and non-toxic drug to fight malaria, a disease that strikes about two million Indians every year. The drug will be laced with a component of turmeric, the traditional Indian spice and home remedy also known to have anti-cancer properties. "The new drug could hit markets in two years,'' G Padmanabhan, former IISc director and project head told the Hindustan Times in Hyderabad. "There is no need for Phase-1 trials to assess drug toxicity, since turmeric is eaten raw.'' With Rs one crore funding from the department of biotechnology, the Phase-II human trials are set to begin this year on 100 volunteers each at the malaria-hotspots of Rourkela in Orissa and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh. Half of the reported malaria deaths in India are from Orissa, and 95 per cent Indians live in malaria-risk areas.

www.hindustantimes.com, February 20, 2007

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The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is preparing to send a man into space to orbit around the earth ahead of its more ambitious plans of moon and Mars missions in future. ''This is a step in the direction of future plans of ISRO to send man to the planetary targets like moon and Mars,'' Mylswamy Annadurai, ISRO's project director for Chandrayaan-1, said from Bangalore on Monday. ''Currently, ISRO has no plans to send a man to the moon. But we are preparing ourselves to send a man to the space to orbit around earth and bring him back after some days,'' Annadurai said. Chandrayaan-1, India's first unmanned moon mission, is expected to be launched early next year. ''The efforts to send man is to acquire the required technologies for a human space mission. The initial phase have begun to synergise the required efforts for the same,'' Annadurai said. ''Once we succeed in our effort, the next incremental step will be to look for the planetary targets like moon, Mars.'' ''If an Indian has to go to the moon, then that depends on what data we gather from Chandrayaan-1 and possibly another unmanned mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-2,'' he said. If resources (data) substantiate the requirement for human presence on moon or Mars, ''then we will be ready for it,'' the scientist said.

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, February 20, 2007

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Japanese scientists grow teeth from cells Japanese researchers said on Sunday they had grown normal-looking teeth from single cells in lab dishes, and transplanted them into mice. They used primitive cells, not quite as early as stem cells, and injected them into a framework of collagen, the material that holds the body together. After growing them, they found their structures had matured into the components that make teeth, including dentin, enamel, dental pulp, blood vessels, and periodontal ligaments. They were "arranged appropriately when compared with a natural tooth," the researchers reported in the journal 'Nature Methods'. The teeth grew and developed normally when transplanted into a mouse, said Takashi Tsuji of the Tokyo University of Science in Chiba, Japan and colleagues. They said their method was the first to show an entire organ could be replaced using just a few cells. "To restore the partial loss of organ function, stem cell transplantation therapies have been developed," they wrote. "The ultimate goal of regenerative therapy, however, is to develop fully functioning bio-engineered organs that can replace lost or damaged organs after disease, injury or ageing." The researchers went after the "organ germ" -- the early cells made using partially differentiated cells known as epithelial and mesenchymal cells. In this case the cells were taken from what is known as the tooth germ, the little bud that appears before an animal grows a tooth. "Our reconstituted tooth germ generates a complete and entirely bio-engineered tooth," they wrote. "This study thus provides the first evidence of a successful reconstitution of an entire organ via the transplantation of bio-engineered material," they added. "Our present findings should also encourage the future development of organ replacement by regenerative therapy."

Courtesy: www.newindpress.com, February 20, 2007

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by S. Ramani

A COMPUTER, enabled by software to function as a digital library, can hold the content of thousands of books, periodicals and course notes; but it is not widely understood that it can also hold hundreds of hours of television recordings and slide presentations. It is important to store such content in digital libraries to make valuable learning resources available on demand on the campus, round-the-clock and throughout the year. This would vastly increase the impact of educational TV, attracting a large number of students to programmes they do not currently watch because they are available only on a fixed time schedule. Consider a student preparing for next week's exam on, say, physics. He would surely watch a video programme that explains some of the things he needs to understand well, if he knows that a relevant programme exists and is accessible at that moment. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a TV programme or video should naturally be worth a lot. Distance education universities have recognised the value of the medium and have put a lot of effort into it. Brick-and-mortar colleges also need to use educational TV, which can bring vivid visuals that a student is not likely to see in his college and in his day-to-day life. It can bring material that has been planned and prepared at considerable cost, and has been designed to hold the student's attention. This can involve photographs and video clips of historical value. It can also bring views through telescopes, microscopes, and endoscopes, animations of explanatory value, and images shot from aircraft or satellites. Most importantly, TV can bring inspiring talks and interviews with eminent intellectuals.

Making TV programmes available on demand over the Internet is an interesting possibility, but this is best done where there is maintainable and affordable broadband access to the Internet. The dream of having such access in every college will take several years to materialise. Currently, campuses without adequate bandwidth to the Internet can only download short video clips, not full-length TV lectures or programmes. In comparison, it is easy to access educational TV at any college campus equipped with an inexpensive satellite TV dish, which brings high quality images. But the only way to make the received programmes available on demand within the campus is to set up a local archive, such as a digital library. The current shortage of quality faculty makes the audio-visual medium all the more important. This medium empowers local teachers by giving them the means to enrich their own lectures. Selected parts of TV recordings can be used by a local teacher along with information in text form, questions and diagrams and photographs put together by him, to create interactive multi-media lessons. The power of such lessons is that they put the student into an active state, having to react frequently to the material presented, answering questions and making choices as to what to skip or to see next. They also give the student a sense of achievement by displaying a selected measure of his success in answering questions. Colleges should, of course, ensure that they do not violate any copyrights belonging to commercial TV channels when they use or adapt what comes over such a channel. Ideally, every teacher, at least at the college level, should have access to training, software and time to create his/her own interactive teaching modules, using the available video clips selectively. This is essential to ensure that TV empowers the teacher rather than compete against him for student attention. However, the ideal of teachers becoming creators of interactive multi-media content has not been reached in most educational institutions.

Get connected
Some colleagues ask the author why TV programmes cannot be disseminated through DVDs alone. The answer is, the DVDs containing video material are like bicycles - each one being possibly good for a few individual users who can share it, but not for a whole college with several hundred students. A digital library run by dedicated library staff and made accessible through every PC on the campus is a necessity. Selecting the programmes required, acquiring them, and creating and maintaining an organised collection are major responsibilities that only dedicated staff can handle. The best solution is to expand libraries to include recorded TV programmes in their collections and include descriptions of their contents in their library catalogues. Online library catalogues are rapidly searchable through an easy-to-use search engine. They are valuable to let students find what they need, when they need it. Optimal use of online resources would require colleges to have an adequate number of PCs connected through a good Local Area Network, or LAN. Most college administrations have recognised the need for this. The fact that PCs are essential to teach computer skills valued in the job market is driving colleges to acquire them. Digital libraries can make these PCs valuable to mainline education as well, by offering video content in all subjects covered in the course curriculum.

Courtesy: www.hindu.com, February 19, 2007

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A miner in the state of Chiapas found a tiny tree frog that has been preserved in amber for 25 million years, a researcher said. If authenticated, the preserved frog would be the first of its kind found in Mexico, according to David Grimaldi, a biologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the find. The chunk of amber containing the frog, less than half an inch long, was uncovered by a miner in Mexico's southern Chiapas state in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. A few other preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas appears to be of the genus Craugastor, whose descendants still inhabit the region, said biologist Gerardo Carbot of the Chiapas Natural History and Ecology Institute. Carbot announced the discovery this week. The scientist said the frog lived about 25 million years ago, based on the geological strata where the amber was found. Carbot would like to extract a sample from the frog's remains in hopes of finding DNA that could identify the particular species, but doubts the owner would let him drill into the stone. "I don't think he will allow it, because it's a very rare, unique piece," said Carbot. Grimaldi of the American Museum of Natural History called the idea of extracting DNA "highly, highly unlikely," given that - as other scientists have noted - genetic material tends to break down over time.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, February 19, 2007

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Five THEMIS satellites crucial to understanding solar winds and space storms which can affect spacecraft and astronauts have successfully launched into space from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA has reported that they've taken multitasking to new heights and have launched the five THEMIS satellites aboard a single Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 6:01 p.m. EST. The Delta II rocket raced into space on the flaming power of three rocket stages and nine solid rocket motors, after which the THEMIS satellites soon after dispersed around Earth to monitor auroras like the Northern Lights. NASA reports that they are "undertaking the mission to investigate what causes auroras in the Earth's atmosphere to change in appearance and dissipate. Discovering why the light of auroras can fluctuate and fade will provide scientists with important details on how the planet's protective magnetosphere works and on the sun-Earth connection".

According to NASA, THEMIS is a mission to investigate what causes auroras in the Earth's atmosphere to dramatically change from slowly shimmering waves of light to wildly shifting streaks of color. Discovering what causes auroras to change will provide scientists with important details on how the planet's magnetosphere works and the important Sun-Earth connection. An excerpt from the THEMIS mission information linked in the previous paragraph explains why the mission is important:

During substorms, the solar wind overloads the magnetosphere with too much energy and the stretched magnetic field lines snap back like an enormous slingshot, energizing and flinging electrically charged particles towards Earth. Electrons, the particles that carry electric currents in everything from TVs to cell phones, stream down invisible lines of magnetic force into the upper atmosphere over the polar regions. This stream of electrons hits atoms and molecules in the upper atmosphere, energizing them and causing them to glow with the light we know as the aurora. The same electrons sometimes charge spacecraft surfaces, resulting in unexpected and unwanted electrical discharges. And those electrons that enter the radiation belts can ultimately find their energies boosted to levels millions of times more energetic than the photons that comprise the light we can see. Electrons with these energies can damage sensitive electronics on spacecraft and rip through molecules in living cells, potentially causing cancer in unshielded astronauts. Rapidly varying magnetic fields associated with magnetospheric substorms also induce electric currents in power lines that can cause blackouts by overloading equipment or causing short circuits. Although the consequences of substorms are well-known, it is not clear exactly what finally snaps in the overloaded magnetosphere to trigger a substorm. Understanding what happens during substorms is important. "The worst space storms, the ones that knock-out spacecraft and endanger astronauts, could be just a series of substorms, one after the other," said David Sibeck of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., project scientist for the THEMIS mission. "Substorms could be the building block of severe space storms." Just like meteorologists who study tornadoes to understand the most severe thunderstorms, space physicists study substorms for insight into the most severe space storms. "Substorm processes are fundamental to our understanding of space weather and how it affects satellites and humans in the magnetosphere," said Vassilis Angelopoulos, THEMIS principal investigator at the University of California's Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory, in Berkeley, Calif. Scientists propose two possible triggers for substorms, but until now, there has been no way to distinguish between the two models.

You can read the rest of the THEMIS mission information at NASA's site linked above. Let's hope NASA is more than successful as this information will be crucial to future travel into space, the existing space station, an initial moon base and an eventual lunar colony, before humanity eventually spreads further out into the galaxy.

Courtesy: www.itwire.com, February 18, 2007

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An Indian American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Louisiana State University has claimed to have solved Einstein's twin paradox, known as one of the most enduring puzzles of modern-day Physics. First suggested by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago, the paradox deals with the effects of time in the context of travel at near the speed of light. Einstein originally used the example of two clocks - one motionless, one in transit. The paradox has been described using the analogy of twins: if one twin is placed on a spacecraft travelling near the speed of light while the other twin remains earthbound, the unmoved twin would have aged dramatically compared with his interstellar sibling. "I solved the paradox by incorporating a new principle within the relativity framework that defines motion not in relation to individual objects, such as the two twins with respect to each other, but in relation to distant stars," said the scientist Subhask Kak.

In his work, he uses probabilistic relationships to assume that general properties of the universe do not vary by location. His formula completes attempts by others, as well as Einstein himself. Professor Kak, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir, is currently Delaune distinguished professor of Electrical Engineering and professor in the Asian Studies and Cognitive Science programs at LSU, Baton Rouge. Kak said the implications of his resolution will be widespread, generally enhancing the scientific community`s comprehension of relativity and possibly impacting quantum communications. The fact that time slows down on moving objects has been documented and verified over the years through repeated experimentation. But, in the previous scenario, the paradox is that the earthbound twin is the one who would be considered to be in motion - in relation to the sibling - and therefore should be the one aging more slowly. Einstein and other scientists have attempted to resolve this problem before, but none of the formulas they presented proved satisfactory. Kak's findings were published online in the international journal of theoretical physics, and will appear in the upcoming print version of the publication. The implications of this resolution will be widespread, generally enhancing the scientific community's comprehension of relativity. It may eventually even have some impact on quantum communications and computers, potentially making it possible to design more efficient and reliable communication systems for space applications. Kak, a scientist, philosopher and scholar of India, has also transformed the understanding of the nature of Indian civilization and is one of the prominent figures of the contemporary Indian renaissance. He completed his Ph.D. At the IIT, Delhi in 1970. Earlier he taught at IIT, Delhi, Imperial College London, Bell Laboratories and also at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is also the originator of the first test of algorithmic randomness, and of instantaneously trained neural networks (inns) - also called Kak neural networks. He was amongst the first to apply information metrics to quantum systems.

Courtesy: www.zeenews.com, February 18, 2007

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Imagine you are anaesthetised but wake up the very second a surgeon makes his first cut. But in the drug-induced stupor, you can do nothing but hope the surgeons notice your sweat and tears. This is not just an extreme hypothesis but a possibility. That's why Professor GC Ray at the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur has developed an anaesthesia and pain monitor to measure the level of consciousness and pain felt by patients on an operation bed. "This is the first equipment that can assess the level of consciousness and pain felt by a patient under anaesthesia," said Ray, who designed the monitor with Dr Gautam Das of the Phoenix Hospital and Research Center, Kolkata, and Proma Ray at the Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA. Ray has applied for a patent to protect his innovation. "Administering anesthesia does not mean that the consciousness level becomes zero," explained Ray. "Overdose or under-dose of anesthesia are both dangerous. If patients become aware that surgeons are cutting their organs, they cannot even speak or move to express it." The only reactions that can warn anaesthetists to take corrective action are the patient's tears, sweat and a rise in blood pressure. The equipment design began in 2001 and was successfully completed last year. The monitor is being tested for use at the Phoenix Hospital and at the Charnoc Hospital in Kolkata, supervised by team member Dr Das. Previously, the equipment was also tested on male and female volunteers during 10-30 minute long operations. Ray has not yet transferred the technology and said he is disappointed with the lack of support from the IIT. "The technology is simple and uses inputs from measurements like ECG recordings of the heart's electrical activity,'' said Ray. "But the Institute has not encouraged the project."

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com, February 17, 2007

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An orbiting spacecraft has sent back new evidence for the presence of water on Mars. Scientists have long debated whether water flowed on the red planet, with evidence increasing in recent years. The presence of water would raise the possibility of at least primitive life forms existing there. Images from a camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show alternating layers of dark and light-toned rock in a giant rift valley. Within those deposits are a series of linear fractures, called joints, that are surrounded by "halos" of light-toned bedrock, according to researchers from the University of Arizona. Their findings, published in Thursday's edition of the journal Science, were being presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. Lead author Chris H. Okubo said the "halos" indicate areas where fluids, probably water, passed through the bedrock. Minerals in the fluid strengthen and bleach the rock, he said, making it more resistant to erosion than other areas. "On Earth, bleaching of rock surrounding a fracture is a clear indication of chemical interactions between fluids circulating within the fracture and the host rock," Okubo and co-author Alfred S. McEwen reported in the paper. The researchers also said that layered outcrops can indicate cycles with materials deposited by regular episodes of water, wind or volcanic activity.

Courtesy: www.asianage.com, February 17, 2007

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An orbiting spacecraft has sent back new evidence for the presence of water on Mars. Scientists long have debated whether water flowed on the red planet, with evidence increasing in recent years. The presence of water would raise the possibility of at least primitive life forms existing there. Images from a camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show alternating layers of dark- and light-toned rock in a giant rift valley. Within those deposits are a series of linear fractures, called joints, that are surrounded by "halos" of light-toned bedrock, according to researchers from the University of Arizona. Lead author Chris H Okubo said the "halos" indicate areas where fluids, probably water, passed through the bedrock. Minerals in the fluid strengthen and bleach the rock, he said, making it more resistant to erosion than other areas. "On Earth, bleaching of rock surrounding a fracture is a clear indication of chemical interactions between fluids circulating within the fracture and the host rock," Okubo and co-author Alfred S McEwen reported in the paper. The researchers also said that layered outcrops can indicate cycles with materials deposited by regular episodes of water, wind or volcanic activity. Just in December 2006 scientists reported evidence that water may be flowing through Mars' frigid surface. Images from Mars Global Surveyor showed changes in craters that provide the strongest evidence yet that water moved through them as recently as several years ago, and is perhaps doing so even now. The Surveyor previously had spotted tens of thousands of gullies that scientists believed were geologically young and carved by fast-moving water coursing down cliffs and steep crater walls. Scientists decided to retake photos in a search for evidence of recent activity. Two craters in the southern hemisphere that were originally photographed in 1999 and 2001 were examined again in 2004 and 2005, and the images yielded changes consistent with water flowing down the crater walls, according to the study.