sci tech january 2015 2

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Notes by RAJESHNAYAK on www.kiwipaper.com

Content

Wave energy could prove to be more steady, cheaper renewable energy s 1

Bridge gap between planning and engineering to shift to sustainable m 2

Countries rushing to ban Styrofoam food containers 4

India denies Gilead patent for hepatitis C drug, sofosbuvir 5

New antibiotics found from soil a breakthrough against drug resistanc 6

Is America the right partner for India to deal with antimicrobial res 7

NASA curiosity rover smashes Mars rock 8

Fukushima rice passes radiation tests for first time since disaster 9

Bovine TB: culling of badgers less effective strategy for controlling 10

WHO approves use of meningitis vaccine on infants 10

Scientists discover 'safe' GMOs 11

How will science aid development in India in near future? 12

Real pride of ancient indian science 14

NASA explores inflatable spacecraft technology 15

Question corner: What is the difference between GSLV and PSLV? 17

Charles Townes, Nobel winner for co-inventing laser, dies aged 99 18

Gilead licences Strides to make, distribute AIDS drug in 112 countries 20

Novel mechanism may lead to better TB control 21

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Content

Hubble captures images of Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation' 22

Scientists without a scientific temper 23

Testing for pesticide residues in vegetables 25

'EU should curb mercury emissions from cremations' 26

First nuclear bomb set off the Anthropocene 27

Neutrino Observatory project may get nod soon 29

'ISRO working on aspects of manned mission' 29

Scientists find promising new antibiotic 30

Rosetta hints at 'key to life' on comet's core 32

Mythology and science 32

Researchers to look at farm practices, 'superbugs' link 33

What will be the India-based Neutrino Observatory's impact? 34

Bt cotton not to blame for farm distress: scientists 35

Obama calls for stronger, standardised online data protection 37

Here is our big fat problem 38

Ice deposits waxed, waned on Mars: study 41

Weak backbone 42

Researchers produce two biofuels from single algae 43

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Content

Statins can reduce heart disease risk in women 44

NASA's Opportunity rover completes 11 years on Mars 45

All you wanted to know about: Black Box 46

ISRO gears up to launch IRNSS 1D 47

Innovation - make it smart and frugal 48

New antibiotic kills pathogens without resistance 50

Giant leap for ISRO 51

Scientific Research to be the Engine for 'Make In India' in Years to Come 56

India already a world leader in 'Space': Dr Jitendra Singh 59

The Academic Performance Indicators Regime and Its Follies 60

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Notes by RAJESHNAYAK on www.kiwipaper.com Page 1

Wave energy could prove to be more steady, cheaper renewable energy s Wed, Jan 14, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

Power generated by waves can be can be forecast with a high degree of accuracy withoutmuch variability for hours at a time, which is a huge advantage for any renewablesource, says study

Energy from ocean waves is more reliable and could prove cheaper, say scientists.Oregon State University (OSU), in its findings published in the journal RenewableEnergy [2] , has asserted that wave energy in areas with high potential, such asnorthwestern Pacific, will be comparatively stable and can be integrated into the gridat lower costs, especially wind power. This study was a collaboration of researchers atOSU, the University of Victoria, and industry.

According to the report [3] , power generated by waves can be can be forecast with ahigh degree of accuracy without much variability for hours at a time. This is a hugeadvantage for any renewable source since power from renewable sources is intermittentand unreliable. The study examined the hypothetical addition of 500 megawatts ofgenerating capacity in the region by 2025, which would be comparable to approximatelyfive large wind farms.

The predictability is also important for grid integration of renewable power. Ted Brekken,associate professor, College of Engineering at OSU, opined, "By producing wave energyfrom a range of different sites, possibly with different types of technology, and takingadvantage of the comparative consistency of the wave resource itself, it appears thatwave energy integration should be easier than that of wind energy."

However, wave energy is not a commercially viable, not even in the Pacific Northwest,but like any technology, costs would come down with more deployment. The PacificNorthwest has some of the US' best wave energy resources, and is home to the NorthwestNational Marine Renewable Energy Center, supported by the U.S. Department ofEnergy. "Wave energy off the West Coast has incredible potential. Now we have reachedan important step in the leasing process for the nation's first grid-connected facility infederal waters to test commercial-scale wave energy devices." said Walter Cruickshank,acting director, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), a US governmentagency.

It is imperative that new forms of energy like wave energy are explored and developfor economic growth especially to diversify the energy portfolio for any country.

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Bridge gap between planning and engineering to shift to sustainable m Mon, Jan 19, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The Eighth Regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport forum held at Colomboin November 2014 gave an interesting insight into policy formulation, implementationand management of environmentally sustainable transport systems.

Among significant discussions at the conference was the one at BAQ-EST on the crisisof air pollution and global health burden that has already reached alarming levels. Allnations are already revising their vehicle emission norms. Euro VI norms, which arenow in place, are so stringent that there cannot be a Euro VII. The European Union isnow trying to reduce vehicular emissions through modal shift towards the use of publictransport, cycling and walking.

BAQ-EST also threw light on developing nations like India which see two sides of thisreality. On the one hand, our cities are still developing with urbanisation of new areas.On the other hand is our increasing capacity to spend which leads more and more peopleto buy private cars.

At a session hosted by Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment,Director General Sunita Narain had explained, "Unlike developed nations which havealready developed their cities in a pattern which encourages use of private vehicles andare now looking to reduce vehicle dependency through car restraint measures, we havethe opportunity to choose the appropriate pattern of development which can keep thedependence on personal motorised vehicles at its minimum. Developing nations of theworld now face the challenge of transforming their pattern of development to encourageuse of public transport, cycling and walking."

The Bali declaration had set the vision of "Three Zeros--Zero Congestion, Zero Pollution,and Zero Accidents towards Next Generation Transport Systems in Asia". Bali visionhighlighted the commitment of member nations to encourage sustainable mobilityoptions through policy, planning, design, enforcement, operation, administration andawareness measures.

While most nations are working towards policy formation, almost all of them are facingproblems in implementation and improvements on the ground. As a first step, countrieshave started acknowledging that policies need to encourage sustainable mobility options.In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, a lot of effort has gone intopreparing policies for introducing integrated land use and transport planning throughtransit-oriented development, roadmaps for preparing transportation plans, encouraginguse of public transport, policies for encouraging use of non-motorised transport andpedestrianisation. These countries have also attempted to make policies for car restraintthrough mechanisms of travel demand management. However, most of these countries

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face common problems such as difficulties in working in existing cities, lack of technicalexpertise, lack of general awareness, inter-departmental and inter-project issues alongwith lack of funding and need for reform in other policies.

When we analyse the reports of all these countries, we realise that all their efforts arebeing carried out in isolation rather than working on them in conjunction. They areconcentrating on construction of only a few infrastructure projects, rather thanimplementing the whole strategic plan of environmentally sustainable transport.

In the current institutional setup in countries, policies for promoting and adoptingsustainable transport are already in place. It is time that the intergovernmental forumfor environmentally sustainable transport in Asia now starts focusing on internalrestructuring and capacity building of its institutions. They must also start sharingknowledge regarding capacity building of agencies and implementation of projects witheach other.

One of the main reasons for this disconnect between policy formulation and implementationcan be attributed to planning mechanisms of member countries. If we look back intothe history of these countries, we see that almost all of these countries were initiallycolonised by traders largely from Europe. Our planning systems, which originated fromour colonial past, are still grappling to adapt to the changing needs. Back then, the ideasof planning and governance were derived from an anarchist line of thought, whichwould require the governmental agencies to implement the ideas of the decision makersand hence, the implementation would largely depend on engineers. After independence,the same government agencies now have to work towards technical support for decisionmaking, policy formulation, and then implementation, while the work is still largelydone by engineers and is still implemented by identifying specific infrastructure projects.The compartmentalisation of work has led to a disconnect between the intent of thepolicy and the actual infrastructure work implemented.

To understand this better, let us take the example of road retrofitting works. A planningapproach would understand a road as a complex environment made of physical entitiesembedded in the natural environment, socio-cultural beliefs of citizens of the city andits communities manifest in various spaces, memories of the people embedded in variousparts of the road, existing and future infrastructure needs and surrounding buildings,uses and activities. This approach would try to find out a set of solutions to balance allcomponents, without getting into engineering details of each component.

On the other hand, an engineering approach would try to break this complex environmentinto simplified components. It would then take the physical components and infrastructurerequirements to prepare construction manuals. It would leave the other aspects for theconcerned professionals to look into.

Both these approaches have benefits only when they complement each other, rather

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than competing with each other.

Various member countries of the intergovernmental forum are trying to address problemsthrough a planning approach. It requires a lot of initiative towards public participation,stakeholder consultation, sustainable planning, awareness building, educating, operation& management and enforcement. When the same countries report on implementation,they only consider engineering solutions as deliverables and leave the rest to somethingthat cannot be addressed. This gives a clear indication of the disconnect between planningand implementation which is guided by a simplified engineering approach.

To sum it up, the intergovernmental forum for environmentally sustainable transportneeds to now look at institutional restructuring and capacity building of its associatedgovernmental agencies to marry both approaches and achieve transition towardsenvironmentally sustainable transport.

Countries rushing to ban Styrofoam food containers Fri, Jan 9, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

Use of the compound in making cups and plates dangerous as hot liquids cause partialbreakdown of styrofoam, thus releasing toxins into food items

Countries across the world are gradually beginning to accept styrofoam or the materialmost widely used to make disposable cups and plates as a serious hazard to theenvironment. This is the reason why various countries are mulling bans on use ofstyrofoam. Environmental Protection Administration in Taiwan has recently announcedthat it aims to impose a nationwide ban on the use of Styrofoam cups. "The agency hasmapped out draft measures restricting the use of expanded foam plastic to manufacturedrink containers such as styrofoam cups, of which more than 200 million are used peryear, but only about 20 percent are recycled," says a report published in Taipei Times.Meanwhile, the mayor of New York City in the US has announced a citywide ban onthe material. Before this, in 2011, according to ABC News, the U S Department ofHealth and Human Services had added styrene, a synthetic compound in styrofoam, toits list of known or possible carcinogens.

Styrofoam--a silent killer?

Styrofoam or expanded polystyrene foam is a non biodegradable substance. A paper,published in the Journal of Environmental Sciences [2] says that styrene can adverselyaffect humans in a number of ways, which raises serious public health and safetyquestions regarding its build-up in human tissue. Although there is evidence that styrenecauses cancer in animals, it has not yet been proven to cause cancer in humans.

Use of the compound to serve food and drinks is particularly dangerous because hot

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foods and liquids actually start a partial breakdown of the styrofoam, causing sometoxins to be absorbed into our bloodstream and tissues.

Besides this, the non-biodegradable nature of the substance makes it a menace for theenvironment. Marine pollution and threat to wildlife are other serious problems.

India denies Gilead patent for hepatitis C drug, sofosbuvir Fri, Jan 16, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

Companies that have not signed any licence agreement with US pharma giant are nowfree to produce generic versions of the drug

The Indian Patent Controller, on Thursday, rejected one of Gilead's key patent applicationsfor the drug Sofosbuvir, used to treat hepatitis C (HCV). People campaigning foraffordable medicine have welcomed the decision.

The oral drug first received regulatory approval in the US in November 2013, and hasbeen priced by Gilead at US$84,000 for a treatment course ($1,000 per pill) in the US.It has caused a worldwide debate on the pricing of patented medicines. Interestingly,a study from Liverpool University showed that sofosbuvir could be produced for aslittle as $101 for a three-month treatment course. Sofosbuvir is a nucleotide analoginhibitor that blocks a specific protein needed by the hepatitis C virus to replicate itself.

Gilead has signed voluntary licence agreements with multiple generic producers inIndia--Cadila Healthcare Ltd, Cipla Ltd, Hetero Labs Ltd, Mylan Laboratories Ltd.,Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, Sequent Scientific Ltd and Strides Arcolab Ltd. But theseagreements impose many restrictions, including which countries can access the drugsproduced under these licences, as well as invasive restriction on medical providers andpatients with respect to distribution and use of the drug.

With the patent being denied, other companies that have not signed the licence are nowfree to produce the drug. Entry by additional generic manufacturers should increasethe open competition needed to bring prices down dramatically, especially in thosecountries that have been excluded from the voluntary licence agreement, and therebyincrease access to the medicine. Health activists said the move will improve access tothe drug. Executive director of Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Access Campaign,Manica Balasegaram, says, "India's status as the 'pharmacy of the developing world'is once again in the spotlight and this is a good opportunity for generic producers inIndia to swiftly ramp up production to levels needed to treat the 185 million peopleinfected with hepatitis C worldwide." "The move to reject Gilead's patent applicationreally opens up the playing field, so we hope to now see many other generic companiesstarting to produce more affordable versions of this drug. The bottom line here is thatIndia's patent law doesn't give monopolies for old science, for compounds that are

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already in the public domain. Gilead's strategy of charging as much as US$84,000 pertreatment for a drug that is predicted to be simple and cheap to produce, and is nowun-patentable in India, has been exposed for what it is - seeking to squeeze as muchprofit out of the sick as possible," said MSF.

Tahir Amin, lawyer and director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge(I-MAK.org) which opposed the patent application, said, "This is a happy day for themillions of people who urgently need hepatitis C treatment across the globe. Peoplewith hepatitis C everywhere should be able to have access to this treatment, but millionsof our friends in middle-income countries have been left out in the cold by Gilead. Thisdecision provides hope that people in countries that have been excluded from Gilead'slicensing deals will be able to access low-cost generic versions of sofosbuvir."

New antibiotics found from soil a breakthrough against drug resistanc Thu, Jan 8, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The discovery of new class of antibiotics has ended 25 years of wait

Though still in its infancy, a discovery recently made in the domain of medicine, isbeing seen as a breakthrough for the medical fraternity.

Scientists have found new antibiotics that will be able to kill an array of germs thathave become resistant to existing drugs. Not only this, the new method of growingbacteria has potential to yield more antibiotics in future. This was declared in a studythat was published in journal Nature on Wednesday. Despite the world inching closerand closer to a post-antibiotic era, the last worthy discovery in the domain was madelong back in 1987.

Titled, 'A new antibiotic kills pathogen without detectable resistance' the study claimsthat experts believe it may prove to be a game changer. The much needed discovery,however, has not been tested on humans yet. But the method was found to be effectiveon mice.

A cure hidden in dirt

The new class of antibiotic, uncovered by screening 10,000 bacterial strains from thesoil, has been called teixobactin. The antibiotic will be investigated further in animalsbefore being tested on humans. Kim Lewis, the lead author of the research and a professorat Northeastern University in Boston said, "If all goes well, we will be in clinical trialstwo to three years from now to prove its efficacy."

The research has appeared when the whole world community is under-stress to dealwith drug resistance because of widespread and increasingly indiscriminate use ofexisting antibiotics. Due to this unregulated use, bacteria in recent years have acquired

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mutations and new genes that render them more resistant to drugs.

Promising 'un-cultured' bacteria

The problem was getting compound because scientists were unable to find new antibiotics.One of the main barriers in the way of this innovation was inability to tap the vaststorehouse of "un-cultured" bacteria. The research paper says that approximately 99per cent of all species in external environments do not grow under laboratory conditionsmeans they are un-cultured, but they are quite promising source of new antibiotics.

These scientists developed several methods to grow "un-cultured" organisms bycultivation in their natural environment and for this, they created a "subterranean hotel"for bacteria. One bacterium was placed in each "room" and the whole device was buriedin soil. It allowed the unique chemistry of soil to permeate the room, but kept the bacteriain place for study.

It is known to all that innovation of antibiotics in the early 20th century had transformedmedicine and also the public health.

Is America the right partner for India to deal with antimicrobial res Thu, Jan 29, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The joint statement issued by the US President Barack Obama and Prime MinisterNarendra Modi on Sunday covers antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as an area of healthcooperation. The two leaders committed to multi-sectoral actions to counter the emergenceand spread of AMR and cooperation in training of health workers in preparedness forthreats of infectious diseases. Both the leaders also agreed to focus on science andtechnology partnerships to counter resistant bacteria and promote the availability,efficacy and quality of therapeutics.

Commenting on the development, Ramanan Laxminarayan, vice-president (researchand policy) with the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), a public-private initiative,said, "This is a very welcome development that recognises that the US and India facea common threat of resistance. Much progress needs to be made in both countries andthis is an opportunity to work together."

But first a vital question: is the US the right choice for India to build a partnership within order to counter AMR? Let us look at US and the European Union (EU) on how theyhave been addressing use of antibiotics in food-producing animals, which contributesto the development of AMR. With an objective of eliminating medically importantantibiotics as growth promoters, the US has largely relied upon voluntary measures tocurb the misuse of antibiotics in livestock and poultry, and that too in 2012-13 afterhaving debated the matter for about 40 years when the Food and Drug Administration

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(FDA) issued guidance for industry on labelling of antibiotics to remove growthpromotion claims. So, in practice antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) can still be usedas there is no mandatory law to ban it. The executive order by President Obama inSeptember 2014, also talks about continuing with FDA's measures.

EU's legislation-based approach

The EU, meanwhile, has adopted a legislation-based approach. It banned the use ofAGPs in animal feed about a decade ago in 2006 and antibiotics can only be administeredtherapeutically under the supervision of a veterinarian. Laxminarayan said, "The USexecutive order does call for the phasing out of AGPs. This faces challenges from thelivestock industry that does not recognise the impact of use of antibiotics on resistanceeven in the face of growing evidence. India has not taken this issue seriously enoughand needs to act before AGP use gets out of hand." When asked if India can learn muchbetter from the EU than the US, Laxminarayan said, "Certainly a lot from the EU butthe political challenges in the EU are quite different and there is greater recognition ofthe AGP problem."

In a related development this week, India challenged before World Trade Organization(WTO) its October, 2014 ruling [2] , which forces India to lift the ban on imports ofpoultry products from the US. Also, as part of India's first regulatory move on thisissue, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has proposed ban onAGP use in food-producing animals. Experts at Delhi-based non-profit, Centre forScience and Environment, supports both developments because this will safeguardIndian consumers from poultry products made with high inputs of antibiotics. Curtailingchicken meat imports from the US would also prove more meaningful to the proposedcooperation.

NASA curiosity rover smashes Mars rock Thu, Jan 15, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

NASA scientists will now have to find a new target from which to pull up a sample foranalysis

NASA's curiosity rover on Mars has smashed up the latest rock it has tried to drill.The test drilling cracked the target rock, Mojave, and dislodged pieces of it. The robot'spower tool split the stone slab into several pieces as it hammered down to make a testhole.

Scientists working on the NASA mission will now have to find a new target from whichto pull up a sample for analysis. "The rover team is evaluating whether an alternatetarget location in this area would make an appropriate site for sample-collection drilling,"NASA said in a press release.

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The agency is planning a close-up investigation of the resulting rock fragments withfreshly exposed surfaces.

"On Earth, field geologists carry rock hammers to crack rocks and expose fresh surfaces,but this is an unusual opportunity in a Mars rover mission," the release said.

Fukushima rice passes radiation tests for first time since disaster Tue, Jan 6, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The earthquake that hit Japan nearly four years ago had forced the country to stop exportof fish and other produce from the area near Fukushima nuclear plant

Fukushima rice, for the first time since 2011 when a nuclear disaster had hit Japan, haspassed radiation tests. The rice had failed the test in 2012 and 2013 and had to bedestroyed.

Fukushima official Tsuneaki Oonami, according to a Reuters report, said that about360,000 tonnes of rice, nearly all of last year's harvest, had been checked and none hadtested above the 100 becquerels per kilogram limit set by the government. "The factthat the amount of rice that does not pass our checks has steadily reduced in the lastthree years indicates that we're taking the right steps," Oonami who heads the departmentthat oversees Fukushima rice farming further said.

The earthquake and the tsunami that hit Japan nearly four years ago had caused ameltdown of three reactors of the Tokyo Electric Power Company and even forced thecountry to stop export of fish and other produce from the area. A report published inFood Safety News says that since the disaster, rice planting had resumed in the areaaround the nuclear facility known as the "no-go" zone, which has been redefined toallow access where radiation levels are relatively low. Some farmers and other residentsnear where the rice paddies are located had to be evacuated and are now only allowedin during the day.

Nearly a month ago, it had been reported that the first rice crops cultivated on anexperimental basis near the plant were served at the cafeterias of the environmentministry. However, before this, a few media reports had pointed out that the debriscleanup work by Tokyo Electric Power Company at the Fukushima No 1 nuclear plantmay have led to the contamination of rice crops in nearby areas.

In August last year, Japan had decided to resume the export of rice varieties from thearea, which had been banned since the disaster.

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Bovine TB: culling of badgers less effective strategy for controlling Fri, Jan 16, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

New study suggests that testing cattle is more effective

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London's School of Biological andChemical Sciences used computer modelling to conclude that regular and frequenttesting of cattle for bovine tuberculosis could eventually lead to eradication of thedisease.

According to an article [1] on the university website, the study found that in a regionwhere 3,000-15,000 cows may have been infected with the disease, culling of badgerscould account for a reduction of only 12 in the number of infected cattle.

Research has shown that cows and badgers interact frequently, leading to transmissionof TB between the two species. Wildlife protection groups have been protesting theculling of badgers for several years.

Matthew Evans, professor of ecology at the university, said, "Of the available bovinetuberculosis control strategies, we believe that how frequently cattle are tested andwhether or not farms utilise winter housing have the most significant effect on thenumber of infected cattle."

The research concluded that of effective disease control strategies, cattle movementmust be controlled and the practice of housing farm cattle together in winter should bediscontinued to bring down transmission rates.

The research has been published [2] in Stochastic Environmental Research and RiskAssessment.

WHO approves use of meningitis vaccine on infants Wed, Jan 14, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The inexpensive and safe vaccine MenAfriVac can now be used in routine immunisationdrives

The World Health Organization has allowed the use of meningitis vaccine MenAfriVacon infants in Africa. The vaccine, which is inexpensive and effective, has been in usesince 2010 and is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India Ltd. The move wouldallow the use of the vaccine for routine immunisation of children.

In a news release dated [1] January 9, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, "Inthe four years since its introduction in Africa, MenAfriVac(r) has had an immediate and

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dramatic impact in breaking the cycle of meningitis A epidemics, leading the safe,effective technology to be approved by WHO through its prequalification process foruse in infants, and paving the way for protecting millions more children at risk of thedeadly disease."

Meningitis is a major killer in Africa, particularly in the "meningitis belt" of sub-SaharanAfrica which stretches from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west. The vaccine,which costs less than half a dollar, was tailor-made for Africa under the MeningitisVaccine Project -- a partnership formed in 2001 between non-profit PATH and WHO--afterthe disease killed 25,000 people in its worst ever outbreak in 1996-97.

Scientists discover 'safe' GMOs Thu, Jan 22, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The synthetic organisms need amino acids to survive

American scientists claim to have developed "safer" genetically modified organisms(GMOs) that cannot spread in the wild. These GMOs have been created using syntheticbiology. "What we've done is engineered organisms so that they require syntheticamino acids for survival or for life," Farren Isaacs of Yale University, who led one ofthe two studies [1] , told BBC.

According to a report by the news service, GMOs are used in Europe, the US and Chinato produce drugs or fuels under restricted industrial conditions. They can also be usedto remove pollutants from contaminated areas. However, strict measures are requiredto test them in the open.

Researchers say their findings are a "milestone" in synthetic biology. George Churchof Harvard Medical School, who led the other study, said that the scientific communityneeds to develop robust biocontainment mechanisms for GMOs to protect naturalecosystems. This work provides such a foundation by relying on synthetic metabolites,he adds.

There are, however, different views on the necessity for such trials. Huw Jones of theRothamsted Research in Hertfordshire, which carries out research on GM plants, toldBBC that these were research-stage ideas to prevent the unintended spread of GMmicrobes from contained industrial units. "I see no need for this in crop plants that areanyway risk-assessed and approved for field cultivation and for use in food and feed,"he added.

Julian Savulescu, an ethicist at the University of Oxford, agreed that the research wouldmake GMOs and synthetic organisms safer as they would need to be fed special food(synthetic amino acids) to survive, but warns that all risk can never be removed. "There

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is still a small chance of some natural event enabling these organisms to change so asto be able to survive in the wild," he said.

How will science aid development in India in near future? Wed, Jan 7, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

The theme of the 102nd session of the Indian Science Congress--Science and Technologyfor Human Development--happens to echo the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government'semphasis on "development". Down To Earth talked to experts at the conference onhow science is likely to contribute to human development in the next few years and theachievements so far. Edited excerpts of their interviews

Space research S Arunan, project director, Mars Orbiter Mission, ISROSpace technologies like satellites already contribute to the society and are behindconsumer services such as ATM, television, weather forecasting and navigation. Satelliteslike the Mars orbiter have indirect benefits through innovations in energy storage. Indiais part of an international coordination group of 12 countries that have set 2030 as adeadline for colonising Mars. The scientific community in India is also developing aplan on what the country would want from Mars. The community needs to give therequirements to ISRO which would then plan the next move. Another mission is likelyin 2018, 2020 or 2022. Chandrayan 2 launch is also scheduled in the next few years.

Agriculture Arun K Pandey, professor, Department of Botany, University of Delhi(sectional president, plant sciences)Researchers are trying to develop crops which would grow well in changed climate inthe future. They are looking for plants which grow better in, say, higher carbon monoxideor in sunny conditions. For example, sugarcane grows better in sunny environment. Inthe coming years, wasteland development would be of paramount importance andresearchers are looking for crops which can grow in degraded land. In the future,emphasis has to be on using natural products. For this we need to quickly createinventories of plants, animals and microbes in India. This would help us identify wildrelatives of cultivated plants which can be used for useful traits.

Archaeology Vasant Shinde, Vice-Chancellor, Deccan College, Pune (archaeology,spoke in the symposium Future of the Past)There is much to learn from archaeology. In the future, we could learn from the watermanagement systems of ancient people. The next few years are likely to throw light onthe mystery around the origin of ancient Indian civilizations like the Harappan civilization.We have not been able to analyse the genetic makeup of this community as they buriedtheir dead in moist conditions and the DNA has not survived. We are now using

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innovative techniques like studying the genetic material of microbes present in theremains in the hope that the human DNA would also be present in them. The techniquehas worked well in other scenarios.

Energy, technology Ravi Pandit, Chairman, KPIT, Pune (industry representative, hegave lecture on 'Innovate and Make in India')In the next few years, we are likely to see a change in the way energy is used and stored.The focus is likely to be on renewable like solar, wind and biogas. Storing this energyis also going to see changes. Energy would need to be generated and consumed in adistributed manner. Just like the milk cooperatives, we can look forward to hydrogencooperatives. The shift to this energy would happen in both homes and in applicationslike transport.

We (KPIT) are developing technologies to use such renewable energy in transportsector. Personalised technologies like 3D printing would be more in use.

Life sciences M K Jyoti, former dean of life sciences at the University of Jammu(sectional president animal, veterinary and fishery science)In the next decade, we have to address the problems created by development. Developmentis inevitable, but we have to develop in a cautious manner. We need to find ways ofovercoming the effects of imbalanced developments. In case of fisheries, we are growingonly invasive species. Jammu was rich in Mahaseer fish, but dams have restricted themovement of the fish and the population has dwindled. This was the dominant fish tilla decade back. In the recent floods, we are talking about rehabilitating humans andanimals but no one is talking about fish. In the future, we need to build hatcheries andbreed fish artificially. Once we lose the water due to development, we cannot thinkabout fish.

Technology Atul Padalkar, founder and principal of Flora Institute of Technology, Pune(sectional president, engineering science)In the next decade, efforts have to be made to develop low cost technologies. In thefuture, we can look forward to indigenous hydrocarbon-based technologies for refrigerationand air conditioning. This would be help combat climate change.

History and science Vijay Bhatkar, creator of the first supercomputer in India andChancellor of India International Multiversity

There is so much to be learnt from the history of science. In the next few years, innovationis going to be the way forward. We would go back to our roots. The cow would becomean important part of our lives. People are looking for something different and the cowis the source of health foods. Work towards exploiting this is already being carried out.

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Real pride of ancient indian science Mon, Jan 19, 2015Down to Earth, science & tech,

I write this with considerable impatience and one question. Do we really have the timeto waste on controversies like what ancient India did or did not achieve by way ofscientific discoveries? This is when there is the huge unfinished agenda to use the bestof science to tackle current challenges and crises.

At the recently concluded annual ritual of the Indian Science Congress, the Unionscience and technology minister drew solace from the fact that ancient India hadmathematical prowess--we gifted the Pythagoras theorem and algebra to the world.There is truth in this, no doubt. But this is about the past. At best, it tells us to be proudof our legacy. But what does it tell us about what needs to be done to innovate for ourneeds?

There is no doubt that Indian science is losing ground; every indicator shows this. Theranking of our top scientific educational institutions is consistently falling and ourachievements are fewer by the day. Most importantly, Indian scientists are nowhere tobe seen in the world you and I inhabit. This is when our modern world requires scienceto be integrated into every aspect of daily life.

This is also the problem I have with the current controversy about Vedic science--whetherwe flew aircraft or mastered plastic surgery is immaterial for modern India. Whatmatters is ancient Indians understood the science and art of settlement planning,architecture and governance of natural resources. This is the history we need to learnbecause it tells us what we must do right. These are the real symbols of ancient India'sscientific prowess.

Take water, for instance. Traditionally, we built highly sophisticated systems, whichvaried to suit different ecosystems, for harvesting every drop of water. Archaeologicalexcavations near Allahabad have found evidence of early Indian hydraulic engineering.Dating back to the end of 1st century BC, the Sringaverapura tank is a remarkablesystem to take the floodwater of Ganga into a set of desilting chambers, including waterweirs, to clean the water for drinking. It can be a matter of belief that Lord Ram drankwater from this tank. But it is a fact that the technological system is so evolved that itwould put to shame all public works engineers of today's India.

Dholavira, a settlement off the coast of Gujarat, dates back to the Indus Valley civilization.Archaeologists have found this desert city had built lakes to collect monsoon runoff,bunds and inlet channels to divert water, and intricate drainage system for storm water,drinking water and waste. Today, we cannot even build city roads that do not get floodedeach monsoon, or protect lakes for storing rainwater.

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Till the time the British came to India, the water traditions were in vogue. Britishgazettes speak of these systems, at times with awe, calling us a hydraulic society. SirWilliam Willocks, a British irrigation engineer, who was called in 1920 to advise theadministration on how to handle famines, said the best answer was to go back to theingenious system of flood management of Bengal. This was never done, of course.

Ancient Indians also understood the art of water governance. Kautilya's Arthasastra,written around 300 BC, has details of how tanks and canals are to be built and managed.The key was to clarify the enabling role of the state--the king--and the management roleof local communities. The kings did not have armies of public works engineers; theyprovided fiscal incentives to communities and individuals who built water systems.The British changed all this, by vesting the resource with the state and creating largebureaucracies for management.

The British rulers also changed the tax system; collection of revenue became paramount,even during droughts. There was little then to invest in community assets. The declinecame quickly and was cemented by polices of independent India. This is the history ofresource management we need to learn.

But if we must be proud of our water heritage and relearn its art and science, then wemust also reject its ills--the focus on rituals and the evils of the caste system. We aresuch a dirty nation today--look at the untreated sewage in our rivers and garbage on ourstreets--because we come from a society where waste is an "untouchable" business. Aslong as we can live with the idea of manual scavenging--somebody from a "lower" castewill carry our excreta away--we will never get a clean India.

If we must glorify the past, we must be proud of our present. This is what we need tolearn. Quickly.

NASA explores inflatable spacecraft technology Mon, Jan 5, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

NASA explores inflatable spacecraft technology

Devising a way to one day land astronauts on Mars is a complex problem and NASAscientists think something as simple as a child's toy design may help solve the problem.Safely landing a large spacecraft on the Red Planet is just one of many engineeringchallenges the agency faces as it eyes an ambitious goal of sending humans into deepspace later this century.

At NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, engineers have beenworking to develop an inflatable heat shield that looks a lot like a supersized versionof a stacking ring of doughnuts that infants play with. The engineers believe a lightweight,

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inflatable heat shield could be deployed to slow the craft to enter a Martian atmospheremuch thinner than Earth's.

With goals, the challenges Such an inflatable heat shield could help a spacecraft reachthe high-altitude southern plains of Mars and other areas that would otherwise beinaccessible under existing technology. The experts note that rockets alone can't beused to land a large craft on Mars as can be done on the atmosphereless moon. Parachutesalso won't work for a large spacecraft needed to send humans to Mars, they add.

"We try to not use propulsion if we don't have to," said Neil Cheatwood, the seniorengineer at Langley for advanced entry, descent and landing systems. "We make useof that atmosphere as much as we can, because it means we don't have to carry all thatfuel with us."

NASA's leaders acknowledge that getting humans safely to and from Mars as early asthe 2030s will poses extreme challenges. The agency's scientists acknowledge theyalso must design new in-space propulsion systems, advanced spacesuits, long-termliving habitats aboard spacecraft even communication systems for deep space. Workis proceeding, sometimes fitfully.

When an unmanned private rocket destined for the International Space Station explodedin October soon after lift-off from Wallops Island, Virginia, numerous scientificexperiments went up in flames with it. But one NASA experiment that Orbital SciencesCorp. originally invited aboard for a second-generation inflatable spacecraft never madeit for lack of time to get it together, NASA officials say.

Limitations of technology now That experiment calls for testing how second-generationinflatable spacecraft technology performs upon re-entry in Earth's atmosphere. Thetest is important because NASA officials believe an inflatable heat shield could be whathelps them land astronauts on Mars and return larger loads of supplies from theInternational Space Station. The experiment is now scheduled to go up on the nextAntares rocket in 2016.

New technology is needed to get astronauts to Mars because the type of spacecraft thatwould land humans would be much larger than anything that's landed on the planetpreviously. Current heat shield technology weighs too much to be on larger spacecraft,which means scientists can't land anything much larger than the rovers that have beensent there previously.NASA has relied on parachute-based deceleration on Mars sincethe Viking program in the 1970s.

Engineers at Langley have been working on the inflatable technology for about a decade,and believe it is close to being ready for operational use. "If I had the budget and wehad the funding to do it, I think we could get as large a scale as needed for humans infive to ten years," Dr. Cheatwood said.

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Because the inflatables are made of lightweight material and filled with nitrogen, moreroom is left aboard a spacecraft for science experiments and other things astronautswill need. The inflatable is covered by a thermal blanket of layers of heat-resistantmaterials.

"The idea is that you would have something that could be packed up, put in a very smallvolume and then deployed into a very large size," Anthony Calomino, principalinvestigator for materials and structures for hypersonic re-entry at Langley.

Smaller scale, inflatable experiments have been launched on rockets before, but neverinto orbit. That work was recently part of a NASA review in October. The informationgathered from those earlier projects will be applied to the upcoming, larger-scaleexperiment in 2016.

It still won't be large enough to protect a spacecraft carrying astronauts, but NASAscientists believe the technology is sound.

"When you first tell people you're going to do an ... inflatable spacecraft, they have intheir minds something really floppy like a jellyfish and it's really not that way," Dr.Cheatwood said. "They're very durable ... This is a technology that I think is ready touse, whether it's for humans in 20 years on Mars or whether it's a large robotic missionsooner than that."

Question corner: What is the difference between GSLV and PSLV? Thu, Jan 1, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Question corner: What is the difference between GSLV and PSLV?What is the difference between GSLV and PSLV?

ANUJ SAINI

New Delhi

Both PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) and GSLV (Geosynchronous SatelliteLaunch Vehicle) are the satellite-launch vehicles (rockets) developed by ISRO. PSLVis designed mainly to deliver the "earth-observation" or "remote-sensing" satelliteswith lift-off mass of up to about 1750 Kg to Sun-Synchronous circular polar orbits of600-900 Km altitude.

The remote sensing satellites orbit the earth from pole-to-pole (at about 98 degorbital-plane inclination). An orbit is called sun-synchronous when the angle betweenthe line joining the centre of the Earth and the satellite and the Sun is constant throughoutthe orbit.

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Due to their sun-synchronism nature, these orbits are also referred to as "Low EarthOrbit (LEO)" which enables the on-board camera to take images of the earth under thesame sun-illumination conditions during each of the repeated visits, the satellite makesover the same area on ground thus making the satellite useful for earth resourcesmonitoring.

Apart from launching the remote sensing satellites to Sun-synchronous polar orbits,the PSLV is also used to launch the satellites of lower lift-off mass of up to about 1400Kg to the elliptical Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).PSLV is a four-staged launch vehicle with first and third stage using solid rocket motorsand second and fourth stages using liquid rocket engines. It also uses strap-on motorsto augment the thrust provided by the first stage, and depending on the number of thesestrap-on boosters, the PSLV is classified into its various versions like core-alone version(PSLV-CA), PSLV-G or PSLV-XL variants.The GSLV is designed mainly to deliver the communication-satellites to the highlyelliptical (typically 250 x 36000 Km) Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO). Thesatellite in GTO is further raised to its final destination, viz., Geo-synchronous Earthorbit (GEO) of about 36000 Km altitude (and zero deg inclination on equatorial plane)by firing its in-built on-board engines.

Due to their geo-synchronous nature, the satellites in these orbits appear to remainpermanently fixed in the same position in the sky, as viewed from a particular locationon Earth, thus avoiding the need of a tracking ground antenna and hence are useful forthe communication applications.

Two versions of the GSLV are being developed by ISRO. The first version, GSLVMk-II, has the capability to launch satellites of lift-off mass of up to 2,500 kg to theGTO and satellites of up to 5,000 kg lift-off mass to the LEO. GSLV MK-II is athree-staged vehicle with first stage using solid rocket motor, second stage using Liquidfuel and the third stage, called Cryogenic Upper Stage, using cryogenic engine.

S.P.S. JAIN, former Member Engineering, Indian Railways, Greater Noida, UttarPradesh

P.K. JAIN, Deputy Director, Satellite Communication, ISRO, Bengaluru

Charles Townes, Nobel winner for co-inventing laser, dies aged 99 Thu, Jan 29, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics with Russian physicists Aleksandr M.Prokhorov and Nicolai G. Basov.

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Charles H. Townes' inspiration for the predecessor of the laser came to him whilesitting on a park bench, waiting for a restaurant to open for breakfast.

On the tranquil morning hours of April 26, 1951, Townes scribbled a theory on scrappaper that would lead to the laser, the invention he's known for and which transformedeveryday life and led to other scientific discoveries.

Townes, who was also known for his strong religious faith, famously compared thatmoment to a religious revelation.

The 99-year-old Nobel Prize-winning physicist died on Thursday.

In 1954, his theory was realised when Townes and his students developed the laser'spredecessor, the maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation)."I realised there would be many applications for the laser," Townes told Esquiremagazine in 2001, "but it never occurred to me we'd get such power from it."

The laser paved the way for other scientific discoveries that revolutionize everythingfrom medicine to manufacturing, including DVD players, gun sights, printers, computernetworks, metal cutters, tattoo removal and vision correction.

"Charlie Townes had an enormous impact on physics and society in general," StevenBoggs, the chairman of the physics department at Berkeley, said Wednesday.

Townes shared the 1964 Nobel Prize in physics with Russian physicists Aleksandr M.Prokhorov and Nicolai G. Basov.

A devoted member of the United Church of Christ, Townes drew praise and scepticismlater in his career with speeches and essays investigating the similarities between scienceand religion.

"Science tries to understand what our universe is like and how it works, including ushumans," Townes wrote in 2005 upon being awarded the Templeton Prize worth morethan $1.5 million for his contributions in "affirming life's spiritual dimension."

"My own view is that, while science and religion may seem different, they have manysimilarities, and should interact and enlighten each other," he wrote.

Born on July 28, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina, Townes found his calling duringhis sophomore year at Furman University and went on to earn a master's degree fromDuke University in physics and a doctorate at the California Institute of Technology.

Demonstrating that masers could be made to operate in optical and infrared capacities,Townes and his brother-in-law, the late Stanford professor Arthur L. Schawlow, jointlypublished a theory in 1958 on the feasibility of optical and infrared masers, or lasers.

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A laser controls the way that energised atoms release photons, or light particles.

"I feel that very rarely have I done any work in my life," he told Esquire . "I have agood time. I'm exploring. I'm playing a game, solving puzzles, and having fun, andfor some reason people have been willing to pay me for it."

Townes is survived by his wife and four daughters, Linda Rosenwein, EllenTownes-Anderson, Carla Kessler, and Holly Townes.

Gilead licences Strides to make, distribute AIDS drug in 112 countries Tue, Jan 20, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Strides will be able to launch its product by mid-2016

U.S. pharmaceutical major Gilead Sciences has signed a licensing agreement withBengaluru-based Strides Arcolab, under which Gilead has extended non-exclusiverights to Strides to make and distribute Tenofovir Alafenamide (TAF), both as a singleagent product and in combination with other drugs.

This is seen as a goodwill creation exercise by sections of the Indian pharmaceuticalindustry as multinationals have been increasingly viewed with scepticism in developingmarkets.

TAF is a novel nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor used in human immunodeficiencyvirus (HIV) patients in the treatment of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).TAF is awaiting U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, and is expectedto go to market by year-end.

A statement from Strides said the licence extends to 112 countries, which togetheraccount for more than 30 million people living with HIV. Strides will receive a technologytransfer from Gilead, enabling it to make low-cost versions of TAF for developingcountries.

Strides will be able to launch its product by mid-2016. TAF has demonstrated highantiviral efficacy at a dose 10 times lower than Gilead's Viread (tenofovir disoproxilfumarate), as well as an improved renal and bone safety profile, the statement said.Gilead pursuing different model for developing markets

Today's announcement follows last week's rejection of Gilead's patent applicationfor its blockbuster drug sofosbuvir by the Indian patent office. Sofosbuvir is considereda breakthrough drug in the treatment of Hepatitis C and Gilead's application coveredthe metabolites of sofosbuvir. The main patent application for the product is still pendingand Gilead is to appeal against the decision.

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In September, 2014, Gilead signed agreements with seven Indian generic drugmanufacturers licensing them to make sofosbuvir to supply it to 90 countries. Sofosbuviris priced at $84,000 per patient in the U.S., and the effective price for generic versionis around $900 and a 10 per cent royalty.

"Gilead's chosen voluntary licensing model is refreshing, and will certainly earn itgoodwill. It ensures protection of intellectual property (IP) and simultaneously ensuresaccess to medicines,'' D. G. Shah, Secretary-General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance(IPA), told The Hindu . "Today, its TAF licensing announcement is just an extensionof its existing model for developing markets. ''

Other multinational pharmaceutical giants such as GSK opt for a price differentiatedmodel for developing markets mainly for their older products, which Merck uses thediscounted model, pricing its drugs at 75 per cent of U.S. prices.

"Pharmaceutical multinational prefer Indian manufacturers over other genericmanufacturing destinations like South Africa and Brazil because India is alreadysupplying generics to 200 countries and has proven capability, cost-effectiveness andquality,'' Mr. Shah said.

Novel mechanism may lead to better TB control Thu, Jan 8, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

A recent finding by scientists of a novel mechanism in which one of the proteins ofMycobacterium tuberculosis suppresses the adaptive immune response in the host couldlead to development of new drugs to control the disease.

The team of scientists led by Dr. Sangita Mukhopadhyay, Group Leader, Laboratoryof Molecular Cell Biology at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics(CDFD) has found that Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein ESAT-6 suppresses host'sprotective functions. They identified that ESAT-6 directly binds with host moleculebeta-2 microglobulin and inhibits antigen presentation to CD8 T-cells which play a keyrole in protective immune response mechanism of the host.

Dr. Sangita said the CD8 T-cells recognise the infected immune cells and directly killthem.

The ESAT-6 protein through its interaction with the host molecule would delay orinhibit the CD8 T-cells immune response, which was important to control the disease.

The novel mechanism involving the interaction between ESAT-6 and beta-2 microglobulinnot only shed new light on host-pathogen relationship, but could open up new avenuesfor development of novel drugs or vaccine for TB therapy, she added.

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Dr. Sangita said beta-2 micro globulin would be free to do its protective role once theinteracting domain gets neutralised and the process would help in antigen presentationand activation of CD8 T-cells.

The work of the CDFD team was published in October 2014 issue of PLoS Pathogens.

The scientists are now planning to develop an ESAT-6-beta-2m crystal structure fordesigning of small molecule inhibitor. "Once that is done, we can go for in-vitroexperiments initially and animal studies subsequently", she added.

She said there was a need to develop newer drugs for TB in view of the growingincidence of multi-drug resistance to the disease.

Quoting WHO statistics, she said about 2.3 million cases occur annually in India,one-fifth of global incidence, with one death occurring every 23 seconds. It has alsohas one of the highest number of multi-drug-resistant patients.

As estimated by WHO, 300,000 people die from TB each year in India.

There were about 1.5 million deaths in the world in 2013 -- about one death every 21seconds.

It is estimated that about 40 per cent of Indians are infected with TB bacteria, the vastmajority of whom have latent rather than active TB disease.

Hubble captures images of Eagle Nebula's 'Pillars of Creation' Wed, Jan 7, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has revisited the famous Eagle Nebula'sPillars of Creation and has captured high-definition images.

The telescope had earlier captured the three impressive towers of gas and dust in 1995,which revealed never-before-seen details in the giant columns and now the telescopeis kickstarting its 25th year in orbit with an even clearer, and more stunning, image ofthese beautiful structures.

The captured image is part of the Eagle Nebula, otherwise known as Messier 16 andalthough such features are not uncommon in star-forming regions, the Messier 16structures are by far the most photogenic and evocative ever captured.

The recent images show the famous pillars, capturing the multi-coloured glow of gasclouds, wispy tendrils of dark cosmic dust, and the rust-coloured elephants' trunks withthe newer Wide Field Camera 3, installed in 2009.

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In addition to this new visible-light image, Hubble has also produced a bonus image,which is taken in infrared light, penetrating much of the obscuring dust and gas andunveils a more unfamiliar view of the pillars, transforming them into wispy silhouettesset against a background peppered with stars.

Although the original image was dubbed the "Pillars of Creation", this new image hintsthat they are also pillars of destruction. The dust and gas in these pillars is seared byintense radiation from the young stars forming within them, and eroded by strong windsfrom massive nearby stars. The ghostly bluish haze around the dense edges of the pillarsin the visible-light view is material that is being heated by bright young stars andevaporating away.

The infrared image shows that the reason the pillars exist is because the very ends ofthem are dense, and they shadow the gas below them, creating the long, pillar-likestructures and the gas in between the pillars has long since been blown away by thewinds from a nearby star cluster.

Scientists without a scientific temper Sat, Jan 17, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner in science in the last 85 years -- largelybecause of the lack of a scientific environment in the country

Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term 'scientific temper' in his book The Discovery ofIndia , which was published in 1946. He was also the President of the Association ofScientific Workers of India (ASWI), which was registered as a Trade Union, and withwhich I was closely associated with in the 1940s and the early 1950s. (This may be theonly example of a Prime Minister of a democracy being the President of a Trade Union.)One of the objectives of ASWI was to propagate scientific temper. It was very activein the beginning, but fizzled out by the 1960s as the bulk of scientists in the country,including many who were occupying high positions, were themselves not committedto scientific temper which calls for rationality, reason and lack of belief in any dogma,superstition or manifest falsehood.

The conclusion that our very own scientists -- who would be expected to be leaders inthe development of scientific temper -- did not possess scientific temper themselves andwere just as superstitious as any other group was supported by another incident in 1964.Following a statement by Satish Dhawan (who later became Secretary, Department ofSpace), Abdur Rahman (a distinguished historian of science) and I, set up an organisationcalled The Society for Scientific Temper, in January 1964, the founding members ofwhich included distinguished scientists like Francis Crick, a Nobel Prize winner. Formembership to the society, the following statement had to be signed: " I believe that

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knowledge can be acquired only through human endeavour and not through revelation,and that all problems can and must be faced in terms of man's moral and intellectualresources without invoking supernatural powers ."

We were disillusioned when we approached scientist after scientist and all of themrefused to sign the statement. Clearly they were devoid of scientific temper. Followingthis disillusionment, I persuaded Professor Nurul Hasan, then Education Minister, tohave the following clause included in Article 51A in the 42nd Amendment of theConstitution in 1976: "It shall be the duty of every citizen of Indian "to develop thescientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform."

This should have woken up our scientists and reminded them of their duty vis-a-visscientific temper, but I do not believe that the situation in this respect is any better, eventoday, than what it was 50-60 years ago. Let me cite three examples.

During the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, then Human ResourcesDevelopment Minister Murli Manohar Joshi asked the University Grants Commissionto issue a circular to all universities stating that they should start a degree course inastrology. For this, he said, a special grant would be given. My colleague ChandanaChakrabarti and I filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging this dispensation.Our lawyer was Prashant Bhushan. The petition was admitted but was eventuallydismissed (as could be expected), for belief in astrology -- which is totally unscientificand irrational and has been repeatedly shown to be a myth -- is widespread, with thosewho dispense justice also not being immune to it. Not one scientist came forward insupport of us; nor did any of the six national science academies we have, on which asubstantial amount of public funds are spent every year. Our supporters, who even sentus unsolicited funds to fight the case, were all non-scientists. In fact, recognising theabove inadequacies of our science academies and their insensitivity to science-relatedsocial problems in general, I resigned from the fellowship of three of our scienceacademies in 1993.

The second example would be the silence of our scientists and the six science academieswhen, last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing a group of scientistsin Mumbai, claimed that organ transplantation was known in ancient India -- he gaveGanesha with his elephant head and human torso as an example.

The third example would be the much publicised symposium on "Ancient Sciencesthrough Sanskrit" at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai, which was heldearlier this month. At this meeting, it was said that India had jumbo aircraft (60 x 60feet; in some cases 200 feet long) that flew between continents and planets 9,000 yearsago (some 4,500 years before Harappa and Mohenjo-daro). Not only that, it was alsoclaimed that we had a radar system better than the present one, based on the principlethat every animate or inanimate object emits energy all the time. And in the 21st century,"fusion of science and spirituality will happen because of the law of inter-penetration,"

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it was said. I doubt if any serious academic would have heard of this law which wouldnot make any sense. These and many other absurd claims made at the symposium werean insult to the several real scientific accomplishments of ancient and medieval India.

None of our so-called scientists of note and scientific academies has raised a voiceagainst these claims. Surely, the distinguished scientists who organised the ScienceCongress knew what was likely to be said at the symposium, but, perhaps, they believedin it all or were pressurised politically. Therefore, there is a strong case for the annualIndian Science Congress to be banned (as I also argued in my article in The Hindu,"Why the Indian Science Congress meets should be stopped" (Open Page, September30, 1997), or its name to be changed to Indian Anti-science Congress.As regards the science academies, they can easily be wound up without any damagebeing caused to Indian science. India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner inscience in the last 85 years - largely because of the lack of a scientific environment inthe country, of which scientific temper would be an important component.

Testing for pesticide residues in vegetables Thu, Jan 8, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Testing for pesticide residues in vegetables

Vegetables cultivated in Kerala have been found safe for consumption according to thelatest test reports from Pesticide residue testing laboratory at Vellayani under Keralaagricultural University (KAU).The reports based on tests conducted on samples collected from farmers' fields invarious districts during the first half of 2014 says 99 per cent of the vegetables cultivatedby Kerala farmers are safe to eat as they do not contain any hazardous chemicals.

The only exception was some of the vegetables produced in some areas ofThiruvananthapuaram District as some samples of amaranthus, chilli, bittergourd,snakegourd and cowpea contained pesticide residues above permitted levels.

Notably, the vegetable samples collected from Kasargod and Idukki, the districts onceunder the scanner for alleged indiscreet use of chemicals, have been found to containno pesticide residues at all.

Dr.Thomas Biju Mathew, under whose supervision the testing procedure took place,says "the main pesticides found in these vegetable samples were chloreperifos andcunalfos."

After the testing process and analysis of results farmers were advised to avoid indiscreetuse of pesticides and insecticides and stick to scientific practices for effective pest and

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disease management.

The latest results vindicate the after effect of farmers adhering to the advice.

Vice-Chancellor, Kerala Agricultural University, Dr.P.Rajendran attributed the positivedevelopment to increased public awareness on the need to produce, buy and eat safefood.

"The persistent efforts of our pesticide residue lab and publication of test results havemade the producers and buyers more and more conscious about the importance of safefood and need to adhere to scientific practices," he says.

KAU's lab also offers free testing of vegetables produced by farmers.

They only have to bring one kg each of the vegetables packed in materials other thanpla

'EU should curb mercury emissions from cremations' Tue, Jan 13, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Increased cremation, as shortage of land makes burial expensive, has coincided with arise in emissions of the toxic metal from fillings in teeth.

Environment campaigners are calling for curbs on mercury emissions from humancremations as part of pollution controls that EU authorities will debate this month.

Increased cremation, as shortage of land makes burial expensive, has coincided with arise in emissions of the toxic metal from fillings in teeth. An average cremation releases2 to 4 grammes of mercury, data compiled by U.S. researchers shows.

Mercury is associated with mental development problems. After entering the air andthen falling in rain it becomes concentrated in fish that, if eaten during pregnancy, cancause harm to unborn children.

Some 2,00,000 babies are born in the EU annually with mercury levels harmful to theirdevelopment, public health researchers have found.

The European Environment Bureau, which is coordinating NGOs in Brussels in anincreasingly polarised debate on air quality, says crematoria should be included in newstandards on incinerating waste. One option would be removing teeth from corpsesbefore cremation, although the campaigners acknowledge that may raise ethical issues.

"What matters is to deal with protecting the living environment from extremely hazardouspollutants," Christian Schaible, a senior EEB policy official, said.

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Of the 28 EU states, so far only Germany has a mercury emissions limit, although theEU has regulated large coal power plants - the biggest source of mercury pollution.Sweden and Denmark have banned mercury in dental fillings.

Draft EU air quality legislation from 2013 included national ceilings for pollutants andemissions from medium-sized combustion plants (MCPs), theoretically includingcrematoria.

The new European Commission, the EU executive, last year proposed abandoningnational targets and debate on MCPs, at the request of member states, excludes crematoria.

Keen to counter Euroscepticism, particularly in Britain, which has objected to nationaltargets on several issues, the Commission says it is preventing over-regulation.

The EEB will take part in debate on the waste issue with representatives of theCommission, EU nations and industry between January 19 and 22.

Separately, the European Parliament votes on Thursday on an objection to the Commission'splan to scrap some environmental proposals, including on waste and air quality.

Even before the Commission's new plan, the NGOs say the national ceilings wereinadequate and did not deal with mercury.

Data from the Cremation Society of Great Britain show that in Europe in 2012, thehighest rate of cremations was in non-EU Switzerland, at 85 per cent, followed byDenmark with 77 per cent and Britain with 73 per cent.

First nuclear bomb set off the Anthropocene Wed, Jan 21, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

When, precisely, did the 12,000-year-old, Holocene epoch transition into the Anthropocene,an epoch of catastrophic human-led change that threatens Earth's future?

Did it begin several millennia ago with agriculture and altered carbon dioxide levels?Was it spurred by the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s with the increasing useof fossil fuels?

Now, two recent scientific papers say the Anthropocene could be pinned down to aprecise moment on 16, July 1945, the day the world's first nuclear bomb exploded inAlamogordo, New Mexico.

The atomic bomb represents an instantaneous shift into another geological epoch, muchthe way the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary is placed at the moment a meteoriteimpacted the Yucatan Peninsula (triggering, among other changes, the extinction ofdinosaurs 66 million years ago), says a paper in the latest edition of journal Quarternary

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International .

The Alamogordo explosion, followed soon by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs inAugust 1945 and other bombs "detonated at the average rate of one every 9.6 days until1988" produced markers across the globe in the form of radionuclides, found in allcontinents and in polar ice on both poles.

Physical and chemical markers -- especially in deposits in rock strata and their fossilcontents -- are vital tools in defining epochal boundaries as they signal substantialchanges in the Earth system.

The Alamogordo explosion also signalled the beginning of the "Great Acceleration,"the phase of massive economic growth and environmental changes post World War II,also associated widely with the beginning of the Anthropocene.

In another paper in Anthropocene Review scientists describe unprecedented globalshifts that the mid-20 century Great Acceleration spurred: global average surfacetemperature increased by nearly 0.9degC; atmospheric concentrations of the three greenhousegases - carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane - reached levels well above themaximum observed at any time during the preceding Holocene; and biodiversity lossmay be approaching mass extinction rates.

The first atomic bomb "provide a unique signal of the start of the Great Acceleration"with the release of radioactive isotopes that spread worldwide and entered the sedimentaryrecord, says the paper. "In little over two generations - or a single lifetime - humanity...has become a planetary-scale geological force," says the paper.

A third paper in Science that coincided with these studies, says that in this phase, theEarth crossed four out of nine "planetary boundaries": climate change, loss of biosphereintegrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen)."These transgressions mean that the risk of destabilising the global environment isincreasing with obvious risks for human well-being," Will Steffen, professor at theStockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University and the lead author of the secondtwo papers said in an email to this Correspondent.

"We need new technologies to de-couple economic growth from environmental impact.And we need to solve global equity issues, stabilising or reducing consumption in thewealthy countries to allow further development elsewhere to bring people out of poverty,"he noted.

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Neutrino Observatory project may get nod soon Sat, Jan 3, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Neutrino Observatory project may get nod soonApproval for the India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) Project in Theni, TamilNadu, is likely to be announced soon, highly placed sources have told The Hindu .

The INO is a Rs 1,600-crore science project conceived nearly 15 years ago and can putIndia on the world map in the field of neutrino physics. It will house a massive irondetector which will be placed more than a kilometre below the surface of the earth.With a weight of nearly 50,000 tonnes, it will be the largest particle detector in theworld, by present standards.

Scientists from nearly 25 institutions across India are involved in this project, and itpromises to engage engineers and the industry as the massive detector and tunnel wouldbe built up indigenously, the source said.

In fact, setting up this observatory would mean a revival of a lost opportunity for Indiabecause in 1965 pioneering Indian scientists at the Kolar Gold Field (KGF) observatorywere among the first in the world to discover traces of the atmospheric neutrinos.

With the closure of KGF mines in the mid-1990s, experimental research on neutrinoscame to an end in India.

Now the field has grown and diversified. Initially thought to be a massless particle, theneutrino is now believed to come in three types and have a small mass as well. In thiscontext, fundamental questions such as the mass ordering of different types of neutrinocould be answered by experiments planned at the INO.

Subsequently, in 2002, R. Davis (USA) and M. Koshiba (Japan) were awarded theNobel Prize for their work in this field.

'ISRO working on aspects of manned mission' Sun, Jan 4, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

'ISRO working on aspects of manned mission'

'Pride of India Expo' showcases cutting-edge technologies

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working on developing technologyfor manned space mission, Dr. K. Radhakrishnan, former head of ISRO, said during apublic interview here on Saturday. He was interviewed by senior space scientist Pramod

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Kale at the 102nd Indian Science Congress inaugurated by Prime Minister NarendraModi at the Mumbai University.

He said ISRO was working on various aspects of a manned mission such as minimisingfailure rate, developing an escape system, providing environment and life supportsystem for the crew.

Meanwhile, as a part of the Indian Science Congress, Union Minister for Science andTechnology Harsh Vardhan inaugurated a mega science and technology exhibition atthe city's MMRDA ground at Bandra-Kurla Complex.

The exhibition named 'Pride of India Expo' showcases the cutting edge technologies,leading scientific products and services, path-breaking research and developmentinitiatives, schemes and achievements of India's leading public and private sectors,government departments, research labs and educational institutions, a press release bythe Press Information Bureau said.

The exhibition will be open from January 4 to January 7.

Scientists find promising new antibiotic Thu, Jan 8, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

The bacterium, Eleftheria terrae, yielded an entirely new sort of antibiotic

Using a novel technique to culture soil bacteria that previously could not be grown inthe laboratory, a team of U.S. scientists has isolated a promising new antibiotic to whichresistance may not develop easily.

The research, published this week in Nature , comes at a time when there is growingalarm both at the spread of antibiotic-resistant microbes and the failure to find newclasses of antibiotics in recent decades.

During the 'golden age of antibiotics' from about 1940 to around 1960, scientists wereable to find a number of new drugs by carefully screening soil bacteria, looking foranti-microbial activity. However, they were able to examine only bacteria that couldbe grown in the laboratory and more than 99 per cent of the bacterial species in the soilresisted such efforts, with the result that such leads eventually petered out.

Dr. Kim Lewis, director of the Antimicrobial Discovery Center at the NortheasternUniversity in the U.S., and colleagues used an 'isolation chip' (iChip) developed atthe university to culture previously uncultivable soil bacteria.

This chip has a larger number of tiny chambers to hold individual bacterial cells. Coveredwith semi-permeable membranes, the chip could be then placed in the soil, allowing

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vital nutrients and growth factors to diffuse into its chambers.

With the iChip, the scientists could grow 10,000 bacterial strains. The extract from onesuch bacterium, provisionally named Eleftheria terrae , yielded an entirely new sort ofantibiotic, teixobactin.

Laboratory tests showed that this molecule was effective against many human pathogens,including drug-resistant ones, that come in the category of gram-positive bacteria.

The drug was "exquisitely active" against a number of hard-to-deal-with bugs, said Dr.Lewis during a press briefing. It might also offer a single-drug therapy for tuberculosis,which currently required prolonged treatment with a multi-drug combination.

Teixobactin worked by binding to highly conserved precursors that bacteria used tobuild their cell walls, according to Tanja Schneider of the University of Bonn in Germany,one of the co-authors of the Nature paper, whose team worked on the drug's mode ofaction.

Even when the susceptible forms of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus and the onethat causes tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis , were grown in the presence oflow doses of the antibiotic, drug-resistant mutants could not be found.

Nor did such mutants evolve after S. aureus cultures were repeatedly exposed tosub-lethal doses of the antibiotic over several days.

It could be that resistance was less likely to develop against antibiotics that targetedprecursors for cell wall synthesis, observed Gerard Wright of McMaster University,Canada, in a commentary published in the same journal.When, on the other hand, the antibiotic acted on bacterial proteins, genes for thoseproteins could mutate and produce resistance.

Resistance against vancomycin, which too binds to cell-wall precursors, did not emergein the clinic till almost four decades after its discovery, he pointed out. Such resistancecame about through genes for a self-protective mechanism used by vancomycin-producingbacteria getting transferred to pathogenic strains.

The bacterium producing teixobactin, on the other hand, was protected by an outermembrane, and so there was no self-resistance mechanism that could be passed on, henoted.

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Rosetta hints at 'key to life' on comet's core Fri, Jan 23, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

The discoveries are detailed in seven papers published by the journal 'Science'Scientists have found further evidence that comets harbor the building blocks of life,and have collected the first close-up data that will help them understand how thesecelestial bodies evolve as they hurtle toward the sun.

The discoveries are the result of months of observation by instruments aboard Europe'sRosetta space probe, which has been flying alongside comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenkosince August. They are detailed in seven papers published Thursday by the journalScience .

"These papers collect the first results, our first scientific analysis of the comet, and setus up for the next year alongside the comet," said project scientist Matt Taylor.One of the most exciting findings is the discovery of a surface covered by complexmixtures of organic materials possibly containing carboxylic acids, which also occurin amino acids essential components for life.

While much of the public attention has been on the fate of of the small lander thatsuccessfully touched down on 67P in November but soon fell silent, scientists say thebulk of their data will be collected by Rosetta itself.

Mythology and science Tue, Jan 6, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Mythology and science

The 102nd Indian Science Congress being held in Mumbai will be remembered for avery long time to come, but for all the wrong reasons. For the first time, the sciencecongress had a session on "Ancient Sciences through Sanskrit". If the Indian ScienceCongress had long lost its eminence as a forum where results of serious science beingdone in the country are presented and discussed in most sessions, the inclusion ofAncient Sciences through Sanskrit has only lowered its standing further. Even as apublic session, there is no real reason whatsoever for it to have been included in theproceedings. At best, a session could have been devoted to the history of Indian sciencewhich has real and substantial achievements to celebrate, with serious scholars workingon the subject presenting papers. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting the tonefor this antiquity frenzy with his implausible claims that cosmetic surgery was practisedthousands of years ago and in-vitro fertilisation-like procedure was resorted to long

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back, and different political leaders following it up with several other incredulous claimswell before the start of the national event, the reason for the inclusion of the sessionbecomes supremely clear. Instead of fostering scientific temper, the congress hasprovided a forum to seed the minds of young people with pseudoscience. Some of thepapers presented were about Indians' "knowledge of making aeroplanes" that couldundertake interplanetary travel, between 7000 and 6000 BC, and "radars" that workedon the principle of detecting energy given out by animate and inanimate objects andfinding out if a body was dead or alive.

Science is grounded on the principle of reproducibility of results. The claims of advancedscience and technology in the ancient world are based on some references in ancientscripts that may be wholly imaginary. Flying, for instance, has caught humankind'simagination across cultures right from ancient times. Such references should be takenfor the myths they are, not as scientific facts. Scientists have been able to create animalchimeras that have cells/organs of different species, much as what Greek mythologydescribes. Should the Greeks then be taken as pioneers in the science of chimeraproduction? Thanks to our understanding of genetics and the ability to fertilise eggsoutside the body, producing designer babies is no longer in the realm of science fiction.Should the creators of the science fiction then be credited with devising the procedures?Compare this with how Sir Arthur C. Clarke documented his idea of communicationssatellites in a concept paper published in 1945. Dozens of geosynchronous satelliteslaunched each year do precisely what Sir Arthur had visualised there.

Researchers to look at farm practices, 'superbugs' link Mon, Jan 19, 2015The Hindu, science & tech,

Researchers at Colorado State University are rolling out a series of projects to trackantibiotic-resistant bacteria in the livestock industry, in an attempt to determine whetherfarm practices are fuelling the rise of "superbugs." Using a $2.25 million grant fromthe U.S. Department of Agriculture, the scientists will focus on the DNA of thesebacteria to help identify and trace back where such organisms become drug-resistant.

Scientists and government regulators have grown increasingly concerned that thewidespread use of antibiotics given to livestock on far

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