Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 4, 2014 at 10:14am

India 's First Ocean Moored Observatory in Arctic
In a big boost to India’s scientific endeavours in the Arctic region, a team of scientists have successfully deployed IndARC, the country’s first multi-sensor moored observatory in the North Pole, which will provide for an increased understanding of the response of the Arctic to climatic variabilities and their influence on the Indian Monsoon system.

Designed and developed by scientists from the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) and National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), the observatory has been deployed in the Kongsfjorden fjord of the Arctic, roughly halfway between Norway and the North Pole. It was deployed from the Norwegian Polar Institute’s research vessel R V Lance.

The observatory is presently anchored about 1,100 km away from the North Pole at a depth of 192 m and has an array of ten state-of-the-art oceanographic sensors strategically positioned at discrete depths in the water column. These sensors are programmed to collect real-time data on seawater temperature, salinity, current and other vital parameters of the fjord.

According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the data acquired would be of vital importance to the Indian climate researchers as well as to the international fraternity. In addition to providing for an increased understanding of the response of the Arctic to climatic variabilities, the data would also provide a good handle in our understanding of the Arctic processes and their influence on the Indian monsoon system through climate modelling studies.

The Kongsfjorden is an established reference site for the Arctic marine studies and has been considered as a natural laboratory for studying the Arctic climate variability, as it receives varying climatic signals from the Arcitc/Atlantic in the course of an annual seasonal cycle. “India has been continuously monitoring the Kongsfjorden since 2010 for understanding response of the fjord to climate variability at different time scales. The temperature and salinity profiles of the fjord, water column nutrients and diversity of biota are being monitored throughout the spring-summer-fall seasons,” a statement from the ministry said.

There exists a great need to know on how the fjord system is influenced by, or responds to exchanges with the water on the shelf and in the deep sea outside during an entire annual seasonal cycle. In particular, there is a need for continuous observations of the water transport into the interior part of the fjord.

“One of the major constraints in such a study has been the difficulty in reaching the location during the harsh Arctic winter and obtaining near-surface data. The IndARC observatory is an attempt to overcome this lacuna and collect continuous data from depths very close to the water surface as well as at different discrete depths,” it said.

The statement said the deployment is a testimony to the capabilities in installing underwater observatories.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 4, 2014 at 10:05am

Right to Research Foundation to promote Indian researchers started by scientists

A group of scientists and academicians have started the Right to Research (R2R) Foundation to support foreign-educated and trained Indian researchers to help them find suitable jobs, upon their return to the country.

To start with, R2R Foundation has set up dry lab facilities, to engage around 25 researchers. The researchers will be engaged in research thought process across inter-disciplines, and find good avenues in India

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 2, 2014 at 10:48am

Elaborate visual and acoustic signals evolve independently in a large, phenotypically diverse radiation of songbirds

Abstract of a study:

The concept of a macroevolutionary trade-off among sexual signals has a storied history in evolutionary biology. Theory predicts that if multiple sexual signals are costly for males to produce or maintain and females prefer a single, sexually selected trait, then an inverse correlation between sexual signal elaborations is expected among species. However, empirical evidence for what has been termed the ‘transfer hypothesis’ is mixed, which may reflect different selective pressures among lineages, evolutionary covariates or methodological differences among studies. Here, we examine interspecific correlations between song and plumage elaboration in a phenotypically diverse, widespread radiation of songbirds, the tanagers. The tanagers (Thraupidae) are the largest family of songbirds, representing nearly 10% of all songbirds. We assess variation in song and plumage elaboration across 301 species, representing the largest scale comparative study of multimodal sexual signalling to date. The researchers consider whether evolutionary covariates, including habitat, structural and carotenoid-based coloration, and subfamily groupings influence the relationship between song and plumage elaboration. They find that song and plumage elaboration are uncorrelated when considering all tanagers, although the relationship between song and plumage complexity varies among subfamilies. Taken together, they find that elaborate visual and vocal sexual signals evolve independently among tanagers.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1788/20140967.ab...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 2, 2014 at 10:47am

Life-Threatening Events During Endurance Sports : Is Heat Stroke More Prevalent Than Arrhythmic Death?

A study was conducted

Overall, 137,580 runners participated in long distance races during the study period. There were only 2 serious cardiac events (1 myocardial infarction and 1 hypotensive supraventricular tachyarrhythmia), neither of which were fatal or life threatening. In contrast, there were 21 serious cases of heat stroke, including 2 that were fatal and 12 that were life threatening. One of the heat stroke fatalities presented with cardiac arrest without previous warning.

In the study cohort of athletes participating in endurance sports, for every serious cardiac adverse event, there were 10 serious events related to heat stroke. One of the heat stroke–related fatalities presented with unheralded cardiac arrest. The results put in a different perspective the ongoing debate about the role of pre-participation electrocardiographic screening for the prevention of sudden death in athletes.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109714027533

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 1, 2014 at 9:47am

Pune's landslide : what the environmentalists say:
Environmentalists have expressed concern over the uncontrolled deforestation of private forests in southern Maharashtra. They said the trend of hilltop farming, developing farm houses, roads, installing wind mills and mining is causing deforestation in Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts.
Experts have also said that razing tree cover in the Sahyadri mountain ranges will invite landslides in southern Maharashtra.
A disaster like the massive landslide that buried Malin village in Pune district on Wednesday is waiting to happen in the region if forests are repeatedly encroached up, warned people who have been working towards protecting the environment for more than two decades.

landslide in Maharashtra's Ambegaon and last year's flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand may in reality indicate a trend likely to recur across the country - as over the years huge tracts of 'dense' forests having the capacity to hold soil and protect slopes have been lost.

Most of the increase in forest cover has been in 'open forest area'. This is non-dense forest, barely enough to be considered a green patch that may reap ecological benefits decades later.  Environmentalists call it a recipe for disaster as India keeps clearing 'dense' forest cover having the capacity to hold soil/ protect the slopes for various projects.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 1, 2014 at 9:28am

Vision-correcting display
UC Berkeley computer and vision scientists are developing computer algorithms to compensate for an individual's visual impairment, and creating vision-correcting displays that enable users to see text and images clearly without wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses. The technology could potentially help hundreds of millions of people who currently need corrective lenses to use their smartphones, tablets and computers. One common problem, for example, is presbyopia, a type of farsightedness in which the ability to focus on nearby objects is gradually diminished as the aging eyes' lenses lose elasticity.

More importantly, the displays could one day aid people with more complex visual problems, known as high order aberrations, which cannot be corrected by eyeglasses, said Brian Barsky, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and vision science, and affiliate professor of optometry.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 1, 2014 at 6:07am

A virus that lives in the human gut has just been discovered, and to the surprise of scientists, it can be found in about half the world's population, according to a new study.
The new virus, which the researchers have named crAssphage, is a type of virus known as a bacteriophage that infects bacteria.
While it's not yet clear exactly what the virus does, scientists are eager to find out whether it promotes health or influences susceptibility to certain conditions.
The study is published on July 24, 2014 in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 31, 2014 at 6:04am

Bio-degradable plastic from rice starch:

Researchers in Finland have transformed rice starch into a temporally stable, optically transpa... with a high degree of mechanical strength and good thermal resistance. This important step towards bioplastics made from simple and sustainable resources has potential applications in food packaging and biomedical materials.

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/GC/c4gc00794h#!divAbstract

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 30, 2014 at 11:03am

Two men who were HIV-positive appear to have cleared the virus, registering undetectable levels after bone marrow transplants in Sydney. The research was presented at the Towards an HIV Cure Symposium, which is part of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne.
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Abstract...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 30, 2014 at 11:01am

Scientists have developed nanomaterials capable of simultaneous photodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy to treat tumors. When illuminated under specific wavelengths, these nanomaterials are able to produce reactive oxygen species and heat at the same time, killing tumor cells. This research has been published in the journal Advanced Materials.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/adma.201400703/
Gold nanoechinus can sensitize formation of singlet oxygen in the first and the second near-infra red (NIR) biological windows and exert in vivo dual modal photodynamic (PDT) and photothermal therapeutic effects (PDT) to destruct the tumors completely. This is the first literature example of the dual modal nanomaterial-mediated photodynamic and photothermal therapy (NmPDT & NmPTT) induced destruction of tumors in NIR window II.

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