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1000 ancient hieroglyphic rock paintings found in east-central China

May 7, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

New Delhi, May 7 (ANI): Ma Baoguang, a Chinese archaeologist, recently found 1,000 hieroglyphic rock paintings in Yangce Town, Biyang County of east-central China”s Henan province.

Ma and a group of students were there on a dig and found the paintings over an area of 5 square kilometres.

One of the most rare and valuable findings is a Juci Mountain-style rock – a large cambered stone, is 8 meters long and 3.7 meters wide. There are more than 500 small craters of different sizes on the surface of the stone and several relatively larger craters that are 13 to 20 centimeters in diameter and three to seven centimeters in depth. Various lines, forming a very large ancient diagram, connect these craters.

“It is quite incredible that a large stone goat carries ”Hetu and Luoshu” (map of the Yellow River and the book of the Luo River) on its back,” People’s Daily Online quoted Ma as saying. (ANI)

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Manmohan Singh to inaugurate new TN Assembly complex today

March 13, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

New Delhi, Mar 13 (ANI): Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh will inaugurate the Rs.425 crore new Tamil Nadu Assembly complex in Chennai this evening.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Tamil Nadu Governor Surjit Singh Barnala and several central and state ministers will attend the function.

It is the first Assembly building in the world to be designed and constructed as a green building.

The six-storeyed complex would host the Budget session commencing from March 19.

Among the highlights of the new complex would be a mega size dome, 120 feet in diameter and 100 feet in height, with a supporting iron structure.

The civil works of the assembly, for which the foundation was laid in June 2008 by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi were undertaken by city-based ECCI Ltd.

Meanwhile, over 5000 policemen have been deployed to take care of the security. (ANI)

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Cracks on Mars a result of evaporating lakes in ancient times

September 17, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, September 16 (ANI): Networks of giant polygonal troughs etched across crater basins on Mars have been identified as desiccation cracks caused by evaporating lakes, providing further evidence of a warmer, wetter Martian past.

The findings were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by PhD student M. Ramy El Maarry of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

The polygons are formed when long cracks in the surface of the Martian soil intersect.

El Maarry investigated networks of cracks inside 266 impact basins across the surface of Mars and observed polygons reaching up to 250 meters in diameter.

Polygonal troughs have been imaged by several recent missions but, until now, they have been attributed to thermal contractions in the Martian permafrost.

El Maarry created an analytical model to determine the depth and spacing of cracks caused by stresses building up through cooling in the Martian soil.

He found that polygons caused by thermal contraction could have a maximum diameter of only about 65 meters, much smaller than the troughs he was seeing in the craters.

“I got excited when I saw that the crater floor polygons seemed to be too large to be caused by thermal processes. I also saw that they resembled the desiccation cracks that we see on Earth in dried up lakes,” said El Maarry.

“The stresses that build up when liquids evaporate can cause deep cracks and polygons on the scale I was seeing in the craters,” he added.

El Maarry identified the crater floor polygons using images taken by the MOC camera on Mars Global Surveyor and the HiRISE and Context cameras on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The polygons in El Maarry’s survey had an average diameter of between 70 and 140 kilometers, with the width of the actual cracks ranging between 1 and 10 meters.

Evidence suggests that between 4.6 and 3.8 billion years ago, Mars was covered in significant amounts of water.

Rain and river water would have collected inside impact crater basins, creating lakes that may have existed for several thousand years before drying out.

However, according to El Maarry, in the northern hemisphere, some of the crater floor polygons could have been formed much more recently.

“When a meteorite impacts with the Martian surface, the heat can melt ice trapped beneath the Martian crust and create what we call a hydrothermal system. Liquid water can fill the crater to form a lake, covered in a thick layer of ice. Even under current climatic conditions, this may take many thousands of years to disappear, finally resulting in the desiccation patterns,” said El Maarry. (ANI)

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NASA all set to launch infrared eye to hunt for dark asteroids

September 3, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Sydney, September 3 (ANI): NASA is preparing to launch an infrared telescope that will hunt down dark asteroids that have slipped beneath our radar.

According to a report by ABC Science, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft recently arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California ahead of its launch later this year.

With a quartet of infrared sensors and a wide view, WISE is designed to survey the whole sky in infrared light.

It’s not the first telescope to do so, but scientists expect WISE’s observations will be 500 times sharper than a survey conducted in 1980s by IRAS, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, according to astronomer Martin Cohen of the University of California at Berkeley.

The data will be complied into an all-sky infrared atlas, a tome that is expected to include about 300 million objects, including around 100,000 asteroids.

Many of the asteroids seen by WISE will be known objects.

Scientists hope to use the new observations to nail down details, such as an asteroid’s diameter and surface reflectivity.

“With ground-based scopes, it’s just a point source. You can’t tell size directly,” said University of Texas astronomer Dr Robert McMillan who leads Spacewatch, an asteroid-survey project.

“A big object that is dark and a small object that is bright are going to look like they have the same brightness,” he added.

The solar system contains several million asteroids, most of which reside in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

About 7000 asteroids have been identified that cross or come close to Earth’s orbit.

WISE will be able to spot asteroids emitting heat due to direct exposure from the Sun, as opposed to visible-light searches that find asteroids that are reflecting sunlight.

“Those are two different physical effects,” said McMillan. “An asteroid that has very dark colour in invisible light is going to get heated up more, just like a black car in a parking lot is going to get heated up more than a white car,” he added.

Scientists hope to get enough positioning information to follow up targets with ground-based observations.

McMillan expects that WISE will discover a few hundred new asteroids.

The information will be folded into ongoing surveys to map asteroids that could impact Earth and cause widespread damage.

Other WISE targets include brown dwarfs, which are Jupiter-sized stars that never got their nuclear fusion engines running, and ultra-luminous galaxies, which pump out the equivalent of about 1000 Sun-sized stars every year. (ANI)

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Blind people may soon be using their tongues to ‘see’

September 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Melbourne, Sep 2 (ANI): In a groundbreaking innovation, scientists have created an electronic device that may allow blind people to “see” using their tongues.

The extraordinary technology works by taking pictures filmed by a tiny camera, and turns the information into electrical pulses, which can be felt on the tongue.

Tests have shown that the nerves send messages to the brain, which turn these tingles back into pictures.

The tool, called the BrainPort vision device, resembles a pair of sunglasses attached by cable to a plastic lollipop.

Its users have revealed that they can make out shapes, and even read signs with fewer than 20 hours training only.

The scientists behind this innovation say that learning to picture images felt on the tongue is similar to learning to ride a bike.

The device, which collects visual data through a small digital video camera about 2.5cm in diameter, which sits in the middle of a pair of sunglasses worn by the user, could be available for sale later this year.

The information is then transmitted to a hand-held control unit, which is about the size of a mobile phone.

The unit converts the digital signal into electrical pulses and sends this to the tongue via the lollipop that sits on the tongue.

The lollipop contains a grid of 600 electrodes, which pulsate according to how much light is in that area of the picture.

The control unit allows users to zoom in and out and control light settings and electric shock intensity.

“At first, I was amazed at what the device could do. One guy started to cry when he saw his first letter,” News.com.au quoted William Seiple, research director at Lighthouse International, which has been testing it, as saying.

Robert Beckman, president of US-based Wicab which is developing the BrainPort, said: “It enables blind people to gain perception of their surroundings, displayed on their tongue. They cannot necessarily read a book but they can read a sign.”

Beckman is hoping that the device would be used to improve people’s mobility and safety. (ANI)

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‘Thick’ blood causes as well as protects from heart attack, stroke

August 25, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 25 (ANI): Animal studies carried out by researchers at Heidelberg University Hospital have shown that “thick” blood can not only cause heart attack and stroke, but also prevent them.

In their study report, the scientists say that mice with a greater tendency to form blood clots have larger plaques in their vessels, but they are more stable.

Thus, there is less risk that these plaques will rupture and obstruct circulation.

Usually, the more blood coagulates, the greater is the risk of vascular obstruction, and anticoagulants are used to protect against these complications.

However, clinical studies have thus far not proven that an increased clotting tendency also has a detrimental effect for plaque development.

Led by Dr. Berend Isermann, the researchers examined mice with elevated blood fat levels, and a genetic defect that leads to an increase in blood clotting.

They found that the mice developed larger plaques than those without the genetic defect, but the plaques were more stable.

In addition, no vascular obstruction was observed, as the vascular wall expanded to adapt to the new situation.

The negative effect of larger plaques on circulation was compensated by the positive effect of stability and a greater vessel diameter.

However,the long-term use of anticoagulants (in this case, low molecular weight heparin) reversed these advantages- the size of the plaques was reduced, but stability was lost, increasing the risk of complications.

“Our findings were made on mice, but they confirm the results of clinical studies on humans. In addition, in vitro studies show that human cells react similarly to mouse cells,” said Isermann.

The team assumed that the results could be transferred to humans and recommends weighing the advantages and disadvantages of anticoagulants carefully before administering them to a patient.

“Currently, there is no indication that these new observations also apply to drugs that inhibit the function of platelets,” said Isermann.

When deciding on therapy, the cause of the coagulation disorder and the degree of already existing atherosclerosis should be taken into consideration.

Additionally, the researchers recommended using anticoagulants that inhibit specific coagulation factors in order to preserve the positive effects on plaque stability.

Various new drugs that inhibit specific coagulation factors are currently being studied in clinical trials.

“It is important that plaque stability and the influence on atherogenesis are also studied in these trials,” said Isermann.

The study has been published in the journal Circulation. (ANI)

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Why people walk in circles when lost

August 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 21(ANI): It’s true: When people are lost, they walk in circles. That’s the conclusion of a new research which has also found the reason behind it.

Scientists in the Multisensory Perception and Action Group at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, led by Jan Souman and Marc Ernst, have presented the first empirical evidence that people really walk in circles when they do not have reliable cues to their walking direction.

The study has been published in the journal Current Biology.

The boffins examined the walking trajectories of people who walked for several hours in the Sahara desert (Tunisia) and in the Bienwald forest area (Germany). They used the global positioning system (GPS) to record these trajectories.

The results showed that participants were only able to keep a straight path when the sun or moon was visible. However, as soon as the sun disappeared behind some clouds, people started to walk in circles without even noticing it.

Speaking about the study, Jan Souman said: “One explanation offered in the past for walking in circles is that most people have one leg longer or stronger than the other, which would produce a systematic bias in one direction. To test this explanation, we instructed people to walk straight while blindfolded, thus removing the effects of vision. Most of the participants in the study walked in circles, sometimes in extremely small ones (diameter less than 20 metres).”

However, it turned out that these circles were rarely in a systematic direction. Instead, the same person sometimes veered to the left, sometimes to the right. Walking in circles is therefore not caused by differences in leg length or strength, but more likely the result of increasing uncertainty about where straight ahead is.

“Small random errors in the various sensory signals that provide information about walking direction add up over time, making what a person perceives to be straight ahead drift away from the true straight ahead direction,” according to Souman.

Marc Ernst, Group Leader at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics, added: “The results from these experiments show that even though people may be convinced that they are walking in a straight line, their perception is not always reliable. Additional, more cognitive, strategies are necessary to really walk in a straight line.

“People need to use reliable cues for walking direction in their environment, for example a tower or mountain in the distance, or the position of the sun.” (ANI)

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Giant robotic cages may one day roam the seas as future fish farms

August 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, August 19 (ANI): If scientists have their way, giant robotic cages may one day roam the seas as future fish farms, which could help produce greener, healthier, and more numerous fish.

According to a report in National Geographic News, scientists propose that in the future, giant, autonomous fish farms may whir through the open ocean, mimicking the movements of wild schools or even allowing fish to forage “free range” before capturing them once again.

Such motorized cages could help produce greener, healthier, and more numerous fish, just when humans need them the most.

The world’s growing population is devouring seafood as quickly as it can be caught and has seriously depleted the world’s wild fish stocks, warn experts.

Traditional fish farms typically consist of cages submerged in shallow, calm waters near shore, where they are protected from the weather and easily accessible for feeding and maintenance.

But, raising fish in such close quarters can contribute to the spread of disease among the animals, and wastes may foul the waters.

Cages must be moved to keep the waters clean and the fish healthy.

Deepwater cages offer cleaner, more freely circulating ocean water and natural food, which can yield tastier fish.

But, the deep-sea cages must be built to withstand the rigors of the deep ocean. And because they are harder for humans to access, “smarter,” self-sufficient cages could be key.

That’s one reason that Cliff Goudey, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Offshore Aquaculture Engineering Center, is building cages that can move under their own power.

Goudey has equipped an Aquapod cage, produced by Maine-based Ocean Farm Technologies, with a pair of 2.4-meter (8-foot) diameter propellers, which can be steered easily by controllers on a boat to which the cage is tethered.

Aquapods are composed of triangular panels covered with vinyl-coated, galvanized steel netting and come in sizes from 8 to 28 meters in diameter (26 to 92 feet in diameter).

Goudey’s technology gives fish farmers a way to rotate cage locations without towing cages behind boats.

Someday such automated cages could herald an entirely new form of fish farming.

They might be turned loose to mimic natural systems by following carefully chosen ocean currents.

The robotic fish farms could help lead to larger, healthier crops of farmed fish far from crowded coastal areas, where farmed fish both suffer from poor water quality and, by producing waste, add to water woes.

Cages might even generate their own electricity by harnessing solar energy, wave energy, or other forms of renewable power. (ANI)

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Sensory ‘sweet-tooth’ to make ‘E-tongue’ more human-like

August 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 18 (ANI): Scientists in Illinois have given sweet-tooth a “sensory” makeover by developing a small, inexpensive, lab-on-a-chip sensor that quickly and accurately identifies sweetness – an advancement that provides a new approach to an effective “electronic tongue”.

The scientific breakthrough can identify with 100 percent accuracy the full sweep of natural and artificial sweet substances, including 14 common sweeteners, using easy-to-read color markers.

The sensory “sweet-tooth” shows special promise as a simple quality control test that food processors can use to ensure that soda pop, beer, and other beverages taste great, – with a consistent, predictable flavor.

The study has been described at the American Chemical Society’s 238th National Meeting.

The new sensor, which is about the size of a business card, can also identify sweeteners used in solid foods such as cakes, cookies, and chewing gum.

In the future, doctors and scientists could use modified versions of the sensor for a wide variety of other chemical-sensing applications ranging from monitoring blood glucose levels in people with diabetes to identifying toxic substances in the environment, the researchers say.

“We take things that smell or taste and convert their chemical properties into a visual image,” says study leader Kenneth Suslick, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“This is the first practical “electronic tongue” sensor that you can simply dip into a sample and identify the source of sweetness based on its color,” the researchers added.

The research team has spent a decade developing “colorimetric sensor arrays” that may fit the bill. The “lab-on-a-chip” consists of a tough, glass-like container with 16 to 36 tiny printed dye spots, each the diameter of a pencil lead. The chemicals in each spot react with sweet substances in a way that produces a color change. The colors vary with the type of sweetener present, and their intensity varies with the amount of sweetener.

The sensor identified 14 different natural and artificial sweeteners, including sucrose (table sugar), xylitol (used in sugarless chewing gum), sorbitol, aspartame, and saccharin with 100 percent accuracy in 80 different trials. (ANI)

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World’s largest and most technologically advanced telescope to debut on July 24

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): The world’s largest, most technologically advanced telescope is all set to make its formal debut on July 24 in Spain’s Canary Islands.

Known as the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the telescope has a 10.4-meter diameter mirror, and has more light-collecting area than any other telescope.

Perched 7,874 feet above sea level on a mountain on the island of La Palma, the GTC has 6 square meters more light collecting area than any of the roughly one dozen 8- to 10-meter telescopes worldwide.

With a mirror composed of 36 hexagonal segments thought to have the smoothest surfaces ever made, it is also the world’s most technologically advanced optical telescope.

Sensors keep the mirrors aligned to counteract the force of gravity, with the result that they act as a single surface, even as the telescope is rotated and aligned in place.

According to Stan Dermott, chairman of UF’s (University of Florida’s) astronomy department, the GTC’s size and technical attributes enable it not only to gather more light than any other telescope, but also resolve the light into sharper and clearer focus.

“For astronomers, those capabilities make it a powerful tool to study cosmic origins – the early days of the universe and the very early moments in the mysterious births of stars, planets and galaxies,” he said.

“The interpretation of the structure of the disks where new planets form is highly dependent on the quality of the image,” he said, adding that the GTC also will enable the discoveries of new planets, possibly including the first habitable planet.

At the inauguration of the telescope, officials and astronomers from the University of Florida, the only US institution that is part of the project, will join more than 500 astronomers, journalists and celebrities in a ceremony presided over by Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia. (ANI)

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Herschel’s first insight into space reveals spectacular results

July 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Paris, July 11 (ANI): The Herschel Space Observatory has carried out the first test observations with all its instruments, revealing spectacular results, finding water and carbon and revealing dozens of distant galaxies.

These observations show that Herschel’s instruments are working beyond expectations. They promise a mission of rich discoveries for waiting astronomers.

On June 24, Herschel’s Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) was trained on two galaxies for its first look at the Universe.

The galaxies showed up prominently, providing astronomers with their best images yet at these wavelengths, and revealing other, more distant galaxies in the background of the images.

The pictures show galaxies M66 and M74 at a wavelength of 250 microns, longer than any previous infrared space observatory, but still the shortest SPIRE wavelength.

SPIRE is designed to look at star formation in our own Galaxy and in nearby galaxies. It will also search for star-forming galaxies in the very distant Universe.

Because these galaxies are so far away, their light has taken a very long time to reach us; so by detecting them, we are looking into the past and learning how and when galaxies like our own were formed.

Herschel’s primary mirror is 3.5 m in diameter, nearly four times larger than any previous infrared space telescope.

These images prove that Herschel enables a giant leap forward in scientists’ ability to study celestial objects at far infrared wavelengths.

Scientists used Herschel’s Heterodyne Instrument for the Far-Infrared (HIFI) on June 22 to look for warm molecular gas heated by newborn massive stars in the DR21 star-forming region in Cygnus.

HIFI provided excellent data in two different observing modes, returning information on the composition of the region with unprecedented accuracy and resolution.

It works by ‘zooming in’ on specific wavelengths, revealing different spectral ‘lines’ that represent the fingerprints of atoms and molecules and even the physical conditions of the object observed.

This makes it a powerful tool to study the role of gas and dust in the formation of stars and planets and the evolution of galaxies.

Using HIFI, scientists observed ionized carbon, carbon monoxide, and water in DR21.

These different molecular lines contribute to a more complete understanding of what is happening deep in space.

The high quality of these first observations promises great new insights into the process of star formation.

Following these images, Herschel is now in the performance verification phase, where the instruments will be further tested and calibrated. (ANI)

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Incisionless procedure ‘reverses weight gain after gastric bypass surgery’

June 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 30 (ANI): Scientists have offered an incisionless procedure to reverse weight gain after gastric bypass surgery.

To perform the procedure, known as ROSE (Restorative Obesity Surgery, Endolumenal), a small, flexible endoscope and tools are inserted through the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach pouch during an outpatient procedure.

The tools, developed by USGI Medical Inc., are used to grasp, fold and stitch tissue to reduce both the diameter of the stomach opening and the volume of the stomach pouch. No cuts are made into the patient’s skin.

Santiago Horgan, MD, professor of surgery and director of the Center for the Treatment of Obesity at UC San Diego, looked at the six-month outcomes from a national registry of 116 patients who underwent the procedure.

The data showed that 88 percent of the patients stopped regaining weight after ROSE.

Overall, these 96 patients lost an average 18 percent of their excess weight six months after the procedure. For the purposes of the registry, excess body weight is defined as anything over a body mass index rating of 55.

One patient in the study lost 66 pounds or 84 percent of her excess weight during that six-month time period. Patients who were most successful losing weight after their original gastric bypass had the best results following the ROSE procedure.

This subset of patients dropped 29 percent of their excess weight during the six months after ROSE.

“We believe this registry represents the largest collection of data showing the effectiveness, safety and durability of the ROSE procedure,” said Horgan.

“There are not many options to repair a failing gastric bypass. Invasive procedures to restore the anatomy are complicated and risky for most patients. In comparison, there were no significant complications associated with ROSE and most of the patients lost clinically relevant amounts of weight,” Horgan added.

The data was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgeons. (ANI)

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Scientists call for measures to enable safe design of nanomaterials

June 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 21 (ANI): A new research has called for measures to enable safe design of nanomaterials because of the increased likelihood of people coming into direct contact with these materials in recent times.

The recent explosion in the development of nanomaterials with enhanced performance characteristics for use in commercial and medical applications has increased the chances of people coming into direct contact with these materials.

There are currently more than 800 products on the market, including clothes, skin lotions and cleaning products, claiming to have at least one nanocomponent, and therapeutic nanocarriers have been designed for targeted drug delivery inside the human body.

Human exposure to nanomaterials, which are smaller than one one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, raises some important questions, including whether these “nano-bio” interactions could have adverse health effects.

Now, researchers at UCLA and the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI), along with colleagues in academia and industry, have taken a proactive role in examining the current understanding of the nano-bio interface to identify the potential risks of engineered nanomaterials and to explore design methods that will lead to safer and more effective nanoparticles for use in a variety of treatments and products.

In a research review, the team provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on the physical and chemical properties of nanomaterials that allow them to undergo interactions with biological molecules and bioprocesses.

“What we have established here is a blueprint that will serve to educate the first generation of nanobiologists,” said Dr. Andre Nel, leader of the team.

The review article examines the variety of ways in which nanomaterials interface with biological systems and presents a roadmap of the physical and chemical properties of the materials that could lead to potentially hazardous or advantageous interactions at the nano-bio interface.

A better understanding of the biological impact, combined with appropriate stewardship, will allow for more informed decisions about design features for the safe use of nanotechnology.

“We are committed to ensuring that nanotechnology is introduced and implemented in a responsible and safe manner,” said Nel.

“Based on our rapidly improving understanding of nano-bio interactions, we have done a thorough examination of the literature and our own research progress to identify measures that could be taken for safe design of nanomaterials,” he added.

“Not only will this improve the implementation and acceptance of this technology, but it will also provide the cornerstone of developing new and improved nanoscale therapeutic devices, such as drug-delivering nanoparticles,” he explained. (ANI)

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Reducing gasoline emissions will benefit human health

May 29, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 29 (ANI): A new study has shown that shown that a biofuel eliminating even 10-percent of current gasoline pollutant emissions would have a beneficial impact on human health.

While the focus of a shift from gasoline to biofuels has been on global warming, such a shift could also impact human health.

A grant from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) has produced a novel and comprehensive “Life Cycle Impact Assessment” (LCIA) to measure the benefits on human health that might result from a switch to biofuels.

Although there are a number of uncertainties that must be addressed for a more accurate picture, these early results show that a biofuel eliminating even 10-percent of current gasoline pollutant emissions would have a substantial impact on human health, especially in urban areas.

Assessments of the life cycle impacts of emissions from gasoline-run motors in the US on a county-by-county basis show that the heaviest damage (darkest coloring) is concentrated in urban areas, especially Los Angeles, New York and Chicago.

Nonetheless, Thomas McKone, an expert on health risk assessments and EBI researcher Agnes Lobscheid, were able to prepare an LCIA for reduced gasoline use based on the damage to human health that emissions from gasoline burning can cause.

For a baseline, they used a 10-percent reduction in gasoline use.

In assessing the impact of these emissions on human health, they looked at “disability adjusted life years” or “DALYs,” which is a combination of two common damage factors in LCIAs – years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLLs) and the equivalent years of life lost due to disability (YLDs).

“In looking at emission impacts on health, we have the capacity to carry out county-level resolution measurements for both direct and indirect emissions,” said McKone.

Measured emissions at county-level resolution included direct particulate matter and indirect fine particles (2.5 micrometers in diameter or smaller) produced from emissions of sulfate and nitrite gases, volatile organic compounds and ammonia, plus ozone, toxic air pollutants, emissions to surface and ground water, and emissions to soil.

“We found that for the vehicle operation phase of our LCIA, the annual health damages avoided in the US with 10-percent less gasoline-run motor vehicle emissions ranges from about 5,000 to 20,000 DALY, with most of the damage resulting from primary fine particle emissions,” said McKone.

“While county-specific damages range over nine orders of magnitude across all US counties most of the damage, as you would expect, is concentrated in urban populations with the highest impact in the Los Angeles, New York and Chicago regions,” he added. (ANI)

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‘Cyclone Aila’ claims 35 lives in West Bengal, Kolkata limps back to normal

May 26, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Kolkata, May 26 (ANI): West Bengal capital Kolkata is limping back to normal a day after ‘Cyclone Aila’ brushed past it at a distance of 50 km.

The size of the cyclonic system was so large – with a maximum diameter of 250-350 km – that when the core crossed the coast, the city was already reeling from its impact with wind speeds of 120 kmph.

At least 35 people have been killed across the state, 15 of them in Kolkata and Howrah and 20 others in South Bengal districts. Over 1500 trees lie uprooted across the main thoroughfares in the city, several electric poles have keeled over, electricity, water supply and cable connections have been disrupted in several pockets across the metropolis.

Office goers, however, are making efforts to go to work even as the public transport system is crawling back to normalcy.

The main problem is the blocked roads. Uprooted trees are being cut and cleared at a snail’s pace by corporation staff who have not responded adequately to the crisis. Only about 75 civic personnel have been at work since yesterday evening with just 26 axes, 30 machetes and just one gas cutter, trying to clear away the over 1000 uprooted trees.

The storm which started around 1.30 p.m. Monday and lasted till 8.30 p.m., with a couple of hours lull around 3 p.m., rendered Kolkata immobile. Roads were blocked, public transport collapsed, all to and fro flights were cancelled and even the dependable metro crashed.

The last cyclone, the Great Calcutta Cyclone, wrecked the city on October 5, 1864. About 60,000 people were killed then. By Ajitha Menon (ANI)

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Mars was windy, wet and wild in ancient times

May 22, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 22 (ANI): The instruments aboard the Rover Opportunity, which are studying the Victoria Crater on Mars, has revealed more evidence of the red planet’s windy, wet and wild past.

According to Steve Squyres, Cornell professor of astronomy and the principal investigator for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission, Opportunity’s two-year exploration of Victoria Crater – a half-mile wide and 250 feet deep – yielded a treasury of information about the planet’s geologic history and supported previous findings indicating that water once flowed on the planet’s surface.

The data shows that water repeatedly came and left billions of years ago.

Wind persisted much longer, heaping sand into dunes between ancient water episodes. These activities still shape the landscape today.

At Victoria, steep cliffs and gentler alcoves alternate around the edge of a bowl about 0.8 kilometers in diameter.

The scalloped edge and other features indicate the crater once was smaller than it is today, but wind erosion has widened it gradually.

“The impact that excavated the crater millions of years ago provided a golden opportunity, and the durability of the rover enabled us to take advantage of it,” said Squyres.

Imaging the crater’s rim and interior, Opportunity inspected layers in the cliffs around the crater, including layered stacks more than 10 meters (30 feet) thick.

Distinctive patterns indicate the rocks formed from shifting dunes that later hardened into sandstone, according to Squyres and 33 co-authors of the findings.

Instruments on the rover’s arm studied the composition and detailed texture of rocks just outside the crater and exposed layers in one alcove called “Duck Bay.”

Rocks found beside the crater include pieces of a meteorite, which may have been part of the impacting space rock that made the crater.

Other rocks on the rim of the crater apparently were excavated from deep within it when the object hit.

These rocks bear a type of iron-rich small spheres, or spherules, that the rover team nicknamed “blueberries” when Opportunity first saw them in 2004.

The spherules formed from interaction with water penetrating the rocks.

The spherules in rocks deeper in the crater are larger than those in overlying layers, suggesting the action of groundwater was more intense at greater depth.

Opportunity’s first observations showed interaction of volcanic rock with acidic water to produce sulfate salts.

Dry sand rich in these salts blew into dunes. Under the influence of water, the dunes hardened to sandstone.

Further alteration by water produced the iron-rich spherules, mineral changes and angular pores left when crystals dissolved away. (ANI)

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Scientists unveil simpler-to-manufacture ‘broadband’ cloaking technology

May 21, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 21 (ANI): Purdue University researchers claim that they have created a new type of invisibility cloak that works for all colors of the visible spectrum, making it possible to cloak larger objects than before.

Research leaders Vladimir Shalaev and Anne Burnett say that their new design may also pave the way for practical applications in “transformation optics”-such as the creation of “hyperlenses” for microscopes 10 times more powerful than those existing presently; computers and consumer electronics that use light instead of electronic signals to process information; advanced sensors; and more efficient solar collectors.

Purdue University researchers claim that they have created a new “broadband” cloaking technology that may usher in “hyperlenses” for microscopes 10 times more powerful than those existing presently

According to them, their new design is simpler than those previously made.

The researchers point out that while previous cloaking designs have used exotic “metamaterials”, which require complex nanofabrication, the new design is based on a “tapered optical waveguide”.

The significance of their work lies in the fact that waveguides represent established technology, including fiber optics, used in communications and other commercial applications.

During their study, the researchers used their specially tapered waveguide to cloak an area 100 times larger than the wavelengths of light shined by a laser into the device.

It was an unprecedented achievement because previous experiments with metamaterials have been limited to cloaking regions only a few times larger than the wavelengths of visible light.

Shalaev said that the fact that their new method enabled them to dramatically increase the cloaked area, the technology offered hope of cloaking larger objects.

“All previous attempts at optical cloaking have involved very complicated nanofabrication of metamaterials containing many elements, which makes it very difficult to cloak large objects. Here, we showed that if a waveguide is tapered properly it acts like a sophisticated nanostructured material,” the researcher said

Given that the waveguide is inherently broadband, the research team believes that it may be used to cloak the full range of the visible light spectrum.

The researchers have thus far been able to cloak an object about 50 microns in diameter, or roughly the width of a human hair, in the center of the waveguide.

“Instead of being reflected as normally would happen, the light flows around the object and shows up on the other side, like water flowing around a stone,” Shalaev said.

A research article describing their work has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters. (ANI)

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Scientists report major breakthrough in lithium battery technology

May 19, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 19 (ANI): Scientists have laid the groundwork for a lithium battery that can store and deliver more than three times the power of conventional lithium ion batteries.

Research work into this technology is being done by an NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) funded lab at the University Of Waterloo, In Ontario, Canada.

The prospect of lithium-sulphur batteries has tantalized chemists for two decades, and not just because successfully combining the two chemistries delivers much higher energy densities.

Sulphur is cheaper than many other materials currently used in lithium batteries.

It has always showed great promise as the ideal partner for a safe, low cost, long lasting rechargeable battery, exactly the kind of battery needed for energy storage and transportation in a low carbon emission energy economy.

“The difficult challenge was always the cathode, the part of the battery that stores and releases electrons in the charge and recharge cycles,” said professor Linda Nazar of the University of Waterloo.

“To enable a reversible electrochemical reaction at high current rates, the electrically-active sulphur needs to remain in the most intimate contact with a conductor, such as carbon,” she added.

The Canadian research team leap-frogged the performance of other carbon-sulphur combinations by tackling the contact issue at the nanoscale level.

Although they say the same approach could be used with other materials, for their proof of concept study they chose a member of a highly structured and porous carbon family called mesoporous carbon.

At the nanoscale level, this type of carbon has a very uniform pore diameter and pore volume.

Using a nanocasting method, the team assembled a structure of 6.5 nanometre thick carbon rods separated by empty three to four nanometre wide channels.

Carbon microfibres spanning the empty channels kept the voids open and prevented collapse of the architecture.

Filling the tiny voids proved simple.

Sulphur was heated and melted. Once in contact with the carbon, it was drawn or imbibed into the channels by capillary forces, where it solidified and shrunk to form sulphur nanofibres.

Scanning electron microscope sections revealed that all the spaces were uniformly filled with sulphur, exposing an enormous surface area of the active element to carbon and driving the exceptional test results of the new battery.

“This composite material can supply up to nearly 80 percent of the theoretical capacity of sulphur, which is three times the energy density of lithium transition metal oxide cathodes, at reasonable rates with good cycling stability,” said Dr. Nazar. (ANI)

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Now, a tissue scaffold that regrows cartilage, bone

May 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): In a novel study, MIT scientists have developed a new tissue scaffold that can stimulate bone and cartilage growth when transplanted into the knees and other joints.

Lead researchers Lorna Gibson, of the MIT, and Professor William Bonfield, of Cambridge University, said that the scaffold could offer a potential new treatment for sports injuries and other cartilage damage, such as arthritis.

“If someone had a damaged region in the cartilage, you could remove the cartilage and the bone below it and put our scaffold in the hole,” said Gibson.

The scaffold has two layers, one that mimics bone and one that mimics cartilage. When implanted into a joint, the scaffold can stimulate mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow to produce new bone and cartilage.

The technology is currently limited to small defects, using scaffolds roughly 8 mm in diameter.

The study conducted using goats showed that the scaffold successfully stimulated bone and cartilage growth after being implanted in their knees.

Gibson said that the new scaffold could offer a more effective, less expensive, easier and less painful substitute for treating cartilage injuries.

The findings appear in the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research. (ANI)

Filed Under: Science News Tagged With: arthritis, biomedical materials research, Bone marrow, bonfield, cambridge university, cartilage bone, cartilage damage, cartilage growth, diameter, gibson, goats, joints, knees, mesenchymal stem cells, new technology, novel study, professor william, scaffold, Scientists, sports injuries

British village may have been a huge pottery industry in Roman times

May 2, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

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Washington, April 27 (ANI): The discovery of two pottery kilns from the Roman era in Otford, a village in Kent, UK, could lead to a revaluation of their time in Britain, as it had not been thought that the firing of pottery – a huge industry in Roman times – was carried out in this area./pp
According to a report in the kent.co.uk, Sevenoaks archeologist Diarmaid Walshe spearheaded the dig of the kilns, which are around 4m in diameter./pp
He believes if scientific analysis proves his finds are kilns, Otford could have been at the centre of an industry that supplied pottery to Roman settlements all over the South East./pp
If they are pottery kilns, it’s very important because, according to experts, there were no pottery kilns in this area, said Walshe./pp
We can’t confirm it yet, but on the face of it they do appear to be pottery kilns because we’ve got massive quantities of pottery sitting in there, he added./pp
Pottery was like plastic is today. It would have been used from day to day. It could confirm Otford was a very important centre in Roman Britain and the South East because it would have been a large centre of production, he explained./pp
Although Walshe admitted that the structures could in fact turn out to be bread ovens, the further discovery of a puddling pond nearby seems to add weight to his theory./pp
He explained that the puddling pond, around 20m by 10m, would have been used for processing the clay before moulding and then firing it in the kilns./pp
Items such as roof tiles would almost certainly have been made there and transported around the region./pp
This would have been a large scale industry, said Walshe. (ANI)/p

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