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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 9:10am

India is home to the largest number of bird species in the world. Preliminary findings of a recent global event — Great Backyard Bird Count — have put India on top of the list of 127 countries which sent their entries through pictures and videos.
In its report, 'Want to see a wide variety of birds? Head to India', the daily said, "India's emergence as a bird-watching hot spot underscores the rising worldwide popularity of the pastime." It put India on top with 765 species. The US came second with 637 species (till February 22).

The GBBC is jointly organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and the Bird Studies Canada. Though the US and Canada have been participating in the event since 1998, the first ever such 'global' bird count was organized in 2013 when participants from 110 countries sent their entries during February 15-18 last year.

Bird watchers from all seven continents had last year reported and documented 4,258 species from about 180 bird families. Mexico had topped the 2013 GBBC list with 645 species followed by the US (638), India (544), Costa Rica (508), Colombia (424), Australia (383), Panama (371) and Peru (325).

The second version of the global bird count, updated till February 28, however, showed that participants from 127 counties this time found 4,296 species with India reporting the highest number of 819 species followed by Mexico (683), USA (644), Costa Rica (609), Australia (501), Colombia (397), Panama (278) and Peru (138).

The event was launched in 1998 as the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time. Participants during the event period send snapshots of birds as their entries which are subsequently analyzed and documented by the organizers before displaying final results of the GBBC.

The participants will unite once again next year during February 13-16 to see how many of the world's 10,240 bird species can be found.

Final results of the four-day Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), held between February 14 and 17, are yet to be announced but the data analyzed and updated till February 28 shows that the final order may not change India's position.

A US newspaper, The Kansas City Star, flagged the preliminary findings of the global bird count first on February 22.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 8:50am

Bio-batteries that run on sugar to power smartphones for 10 days
Scientists have developed a new battery that consumes sugar to generate electricity enough to power a smartphone for 10 days at a time.

The bio-battery designed by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has a greater output per weight than the typical lithium-ion batteries used in most electronics.

The prototype version has the potential to be lighter and more powerful than the batteries typically found in today's portable electronic devices, including smartphones.

In the body, sugar is converted into energy in a process called metabolism, which decomposes sugar into carbon dioxide and water while releasing electrons.

Bio-batteries produce energy though the same conversion process by capturing the electrons that are generated in the decomposition of sugar with the same tools that the body uses.

As bio-batteries use materials that are biologically based, they are renewable and non-toxic, making them an attractive alternative to traditional batteries that need metals and chemicals to operate.

"By using the lithium-ion battery, for example, your phone can only last for one day, but in the future it will use sugar as the fuel then the phone could last 10 days," said Zhiguang Zhu, a researcher at Virginia Tech.

The new bio-battery gets its efficiency by using a novel system of enzymes, which are proteins that help the reaction to take place, Inside Science News Service (ISNS) reported.

The system uses two active enzymes that liberate two pairs of electrons from the sugar, while 10 other enzymes help to reset the reaction inside the bio-battery.

Once the reaction is reset, the active enzymes release another quartet of electrons.

After six cycles, the bio-battery extracts all of the energy bound in the sugar molecule, along with carbon dioxide and water.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 8:33am

Imaging dynamics of small biomolecules inside live cells
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2014/03/03/imaging.dynamics.small....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 8:30am

Scientists use laser-powered mind control to make flies flirt
Neurons treated with a heat-activated protein were activated with infrared lasers to trigger courtship behaviour
Neuroscientists have successfully controlled a fly’s behaviour with thermogenetics – a new technique that uses lasers to remotely activate brain neurons.
Using the ­whimsically named Fly Mind-Altering Device (also known as FlyMAD), researchers were able to trigger complex courtship behaviour in a target fly, essentially causing the insect to ‘fall in love’ with a ball of wax.

The research, led by Barry Dickson of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Virginia, is similar to optogenetics; a method that activates neurons using light and that has previously been used to control behaviour in mice.

However, while optogenetics require fibre-optic cables to be embedded into mice skulls to activate the genetically-altered neurons, thermogenetics achieves the same effect by using infrared lasers to deliver the ‘instructions’ directly to the fly’s brain.
Scientists have previously influenced fly behaviour by adding a heat-activated protein called TRPA1 to neurons associated with certain actions. When flies modified in this way are placed in a hot box the targeted neurons activate and trigger certain behaviours.

FlyMAD, however, uses a video camera to track the fly as it moves around a box before directing an infrared laser at the insect and activating the parts of its neural circuit that control courtship.
http://www.nature.com/news/laser-beam-makes-flies-flirt-1.14794

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 8:23am

Break-up of the supercontinent Gondwana about 130 Million years ago could have lead to a completely different shape of the African and South American continent with an ocean south of today’s Sahara desert, as geoscientists from the University of Sydney and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences have shown through the use of sophisticated plate tectonic and three-dimensional numerical modelling. The study highlights the importance of rift orientation relative to extension direction as key factor deciding whether an ocean basin opens or an aborted rift basin forms in the continental interior.
What Sculpted Africa’s Margin?
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113085773/what-sculpted-afric...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 2, 2014 at 9:31am

'Don't Know Much About Science'
One in four Americans believes that the Sun revolves around the Earth.
What is noticeable is that other countries are trending upward in the acquisition of scientific knowledge, but the United States has remained more or less at a standstill. And in response to scientific questions that contradict established doctrine, Americans performed markedly worse, unless a qualifying preface such as "according to scientists" was appended to the questions
the study suggests that Americans value science as a career and the scientific community very highly. We don't know what scientists do -- 65 percent claimed they didn't know. In short, though we don't possess a lot of scientific knowledge, and though few of us know what scientists do, we think very highly of them and want our children to become scientists.
The NSF study confirms that the media's coverage and portrayal of science does not mirror the value we place on it. Less than 2 percent of traditional news coverage is related to science and technology, with coverage of Steve Jobs' passing, the end of the Space Shuttle program, Facebook's IPO and the Mars Curiosity rover taking the lion's share.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melanie-fine/dont-know-much-about-sci...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 2, 2014 at 9:23am

Chronic insomnia results from a difference in brain function according to research reported by Dr. Rachel E. Salas, an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues in the Feb. 28, 2014, edition of the journal Sleep.

The researchers demonstrated that chronic insomniacs have more plasticity in the motor cortex of the brain. This finding not only explains the reason insomniacs cannot sleep but also explains the high level of muscular movement involved in sleep when insomniacs do sleep.
http://www.examiner.com/article/johns-hopkins-researchers-find-brai...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 1, 2014 at 7:04am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 28, 2014 at 6:49am

Dropleton—a “Quantum Droplet” That Acts Like a Liquid
Physicists in Germany and the US have created a new composite "quasiparticle" that could help probe the quantum mechanics of many particles working together.
It behaves a bit like a liquid droplet and described it as a quasiparticle - an amalgamation of smaller types of particles. It
could be useful in the development of nanotechnology, including the design of optoelectronic devices. These include things like the semiconductor lasers used in Blu-ray disc players.

The microscopic quantum droplet does not dawdle. In the physicists' experiments using an ultra-fast laser emitting about 100 million pulses per second, the quantum droplet appeared for only about 2.5 billionths of a second.

That does not sound like much, but the scientists said it is stable enough for research on how light interacts with certain types of matter.

A previously known example of a quasiparticle is the exciton, a pairing of an electron and a "hole" - a place in the material's energy structure where an electron could be located but is not.

The quantum droplet is made up of roughly five electrons and five holes. It possesses some characteristics of a liquid, like having ripples, the scientists said.

Quantum physics is a branch of physics that relates to events taking place on the tiniest scale. It is essential in describing the structure of atoms.

Particles are the basic building blocks of matter. They include things like subatomic entities such as electrons, protons, neutrons and quarks. Only rarely are new ones found. The laser experiments were performed using a semiconductor of the elements gallium and arsenic, revealing the new particle, albeit fleetingly.

"The effects that give rise to the formation of dropletons also influence the electrons in optoelectronic devices such as laser diodes," physicist Mackillo Kira of the University of Marburg in Germany, one of the researchers.

Agencies

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 27, 2014 at 8:11am

Children of older dads face more health problems
Children with older fathers are significantly more likely to develop conditions such as autism, ADHD and bipolar disorder and consider suicide, according an analysis of 2.6 million people’s health records.
Scientists at Indiana University found that a child born when their father is 45 was 3.5 times more likely to have autism, 13 times more likely to have ADHD and 25 times more likely to have bipolar disorder than the child of a 24-year-old man.

Suicidal behaviour and substance misuse was twice as likely, according to the study, which is published today in the journal JAMA Psychiatry
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/children-of-older-dads-fa...

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