My Photo Album-23: "Suri feeding birthday cake to Aravind"

The photo was taken on Aravind's birthday. After he cut the cake, Suri was feeding Arvind. See the joy in Aravind's face. He radiates joy wherever he goes. How simple a child's life is! How great it would be if one could become a child again! The next best thing is to keep children like Aravind by you so that you become young at least in spirit. (It is an old photo; must be several years old; I came across it while looking for something else. Immediately I put it in my bag deciding that it should find a place in my blog.)

Eyecatchers-104: "Man donates blood 150 times!"

Suresh Kamdas broke the myth that donating blood frequently lowers a person's immunity, making him prone to infections.

The 75-year-old, who first donated blood in 1962, is part of a select club of centurion donors. He has donated blood over 150 times. And now he has taken on the task of propagating the benefits of frequent voluntary blood donation.

Excerpt from "Man donates blood 150 times and breaks a myth" by Kounteya Sinha/TNN.
The Times of India, Chennai, June 14, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Kounteya Sinha, TNN and The Times of India.

Facts & Figures-47: "Mental Depression in the USA"

With all their riches and modern gadgets, one in five persons between the age group of 12 and 20 suffer from mental depression in the USA.

A study says that 27% people in the USA find it difficult to concewntrate on anything they do.

It has been estimated that in the year 2000 alone, due to mental depression, a loss of $ 300 crore has been incurred.

39% males and 22% females hafve been severely affected by mental depression in the USA.

Based on news item in Dina Malar, Tamil daily, Madurai, September 9, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "Major Depressive Disorder":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(clinical)

Grateful thanks to Dina Malar and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

S&T Watch-27: "Accidental Fungal Growth leads to Cancer Drug"

A drug developed using nanotechnology and a fungus that contaminated a lab experiment may be broadly effective against a range of cancers, US researchers reported.

The drug, called lodamin, was improved in one of the last experiments overseen by Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher who died in January. Folkman pioneered the idea of angiogenesis therapy - starving tumours by preventing them from growing blood supplies.

Lodamin is an angiogenesis inhibitor that Folkman's team has been working to perfect for 20 years. His colleagues say they developed a formulation that works as a pill, without side-effects, reports New Scientist.

Tests in mice showed it worked against a range of tumours, including breast cancer, neuoblastoma, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, brain tumours known as glioblastomas and uterine tumours.

It helped stop so-called primary tumours and also prevented their spread, Ofra Benny of Children's Hospital, Boston, and Harvard Medical School and and colleagues reported.

"Using the oral route of administration, it first reaches the liver, making it especially efficient in preventing the development of liver metastasis in mice," they wrote in their report. "Liver metastasis is very common in many tumour types and is often associated with a poor prognosis and survival rate," they added.

The drug was known experimentally as TNP-470, and was isolated from a fungus called Aspergillus fumigatus fresenius.

Harvard's Donald Ingber discovered the fungus by accident while trying to grow endothelial cells - the cells that line blood vessels. The mold affected the cells in a way known to prevent the growth of tiny blood vessels known as capillaries - Reuters.

Excerpt from "Accidental Fungal Growth Results in New Cancer Drug" that appeared in The Times of India, Chennai, July 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Reuters and The Times of India.

Environment-12: "Chlorine Check"

Many recent pollution prevention efforts in the pulp and paper industry have focused on getting rid of the use of chlorine for bleaching, a process which helps to increase the brightness of the paper. Elemental chlorine (that is, pure chlorine) or chlorine dioxide is generally used for bleaching but, in the process, large amounts of chlorinated pollutants such as dioxins - a persistent organic pollutant with very high cancer-causing potential - are released into the water. Hence, there is an increasing trend worldwide to reduce the use of both elemental chlorine and chemical containing chlorine.

Two bleaching processes, which are increasingly being adopted by Western nations are elemental-chlorine-free (ECF) bleaching and total-chlorine-free (TCF) bleaching. In India, most of the paper and pulp companies are small or medium ones. Hence, there is little scope for investment in pollution-prevention technologies.

Courtesy: "Down to Earth" (sorry, other details not available).

Grateful thanks to Down to Earth.

A Thought for Today-129:

Grateful thanks to Paolo Nao and www.public-domain-photos.com for the above photo.

Is it so bad to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

My Photo Album-22: "Suri with his kids"

Suri with his kids. I think it was taken in a photo studio some 25 years back.

My Photo Album-21: "Suri with his kids"

Suri with his kids. I think it was taken in a photo studio some 25 years back.

Facts & Figures-46: "Nauseating Figures"

1. About 65% of Indians defecate in places such as fields, railway tracks and abandoned or unfinished constructions.

2. Globally 1.2 billion people defecate in the open, and more than half of them are Indians.

3. About 2 lakh tonnes of faeces is discharged per day in the open in India.

4. On an average, a gram of excreta can contain about a crore viruses, 10 lakh bacteria, 1000 parasites cysts and 100 worm eggs.

5. 1000 children die daily of diarrhoea or other gastro-intestinal diseases.

6. Proper sanitation can reduce risk of diarrhoea by 40%; malnutrition and retardation growth by 60%; cholera by 72%; schistosomiasis (caused by blood flukes) by 77% and blindness by 25%.

Courtesy: The Week, August 31, 2008.

Grateful thanks to The Week.

Letters-40: "Is this Your Phone?"

1. It is strange that you deliberately mislaid nearly a thousand cellphones across the world just to see how honest people were. ["Excuse Me, Is This Your Phone?", Reader's Digest, August 2007"]. Unattended cellphones could be dangerous - they can be used to cause blasts. It is surprising that people first picked up the phones and went on to return them, risking their lives and that of others. The best course would have been to alert the police about an unattended object. - Divyang Purohit, via email.

2. That you recovered 654 out of 960 "lost" cellphones proves that an overwhelming majority of people the world over, are still guided by an inner personal code of Honesty. It is heartening that there are people in Mumbai who may not have scored a "pass" in the politeness test, but are honest. - Dr.R.K.Malhotra, New Delhi.

3. In June, I lost my cellphone at a wedding reception. Since my phone was "not reachable" I sent an SMS to it. Minutes later I got a call from the finder - a guest at the same reception who had already got back home to a nearby town. He insisted on coming back all the way to my hotel and handing over the lost phone, even though it would be midnight by the time he got to me. He refused any reward or travel expenses. My phone is now more precious - it is a symbol of honesty and goodness. - D.Petersen Priyakumar, via email.

Courtesy: Reader's Digest, October 2007.

Grateful thanks to Divyang Purohit, Dr.R.K.Malhotra, D.Petersen Priyakumar and Reader's Digest.

S&T Watch-26: "Machines may outsmart humans by 2050"

Machines might catch up with human reasoning capabilities by the year 2050. At the Intel Developer Forum held in San Francisco, Justin Rattner, chief technology officer, Intel, demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel's research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robotic hand. Based on a novel sensing modality used by fish, this hand can 'feel' objects before it even touches them. The other demonstration was a completely autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can rocognise faces and interpret and execute commands using motion planning, manipulation, perception and artificial intelligence.

Rattner also demonstrated powering a 60-watt light bulb without the use of a plug or wire of any kind. This has been made possible by a wireless resonant energy link that promises to deliver wireless power safely and efficiently. The technology relies on strongly coupled resonators-a principle similar to the way a trained singer can shatter a glass using her voice.

Intel researchers are also investigating how millions of tiny micro-robots, called 'catoms', could build shape-shifting materials. If used to replace the case, display and keyboard of a computing device, this technology could make it possible for a device to change physical form in order to suit the specific way you are using it. A mobile computer, for example, could be tiny when in a pocket, change to the shape of an earpiece when used as a mobile phone, and be large and flat with a keyboard for browsing the Internet or watching a movie.

Courtesy : Electronic For You September 2008

Facts & Figures-45: "400 TV Channels in India!"

The Govt of India has given permission for 400 TV channels.

Courtesy: Ananda Vikatan, Tamil Weekly, September 10, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Ananda Vikatan.

My Photo Album-20: "Dad with my kids"

Dad with my kids. This was taken by a photographer-friend more than 20 years back.

Letters-39: "Bihar Floods"

1. Every year hundreds of people die, thousands become homeless and infrastructure worth millions is washed away in Bihar floods. By the time people overcome the trauma, the floods come raging again. Unfortunately, the Centre and the Bihar government are indifferent to the people's plight. Instead of forestalling the calamity by constructing a dam, the administration remains a mute witness to the catastrophe. - Tejeshwi Sharma, Stockholm.

2. The Bihar government has neither the strategy nor the executive mechanism to manage the floods. The story is the same this year too - it begins with an aerial survey of the flooded areas by the Prime Minister and his entourage. It is followed by an announcement of financial aid and material relief by the Centre and some agencies. Whether it reaches the afflicted areas in time is a moot point. - Prem Chand, New Delhi.

3. The Prime Minister has done the right thing by declaring the floods in Bihar, caused by a breach in the Kosi embankment, a national calamity. Unfortunately, flood management seems to be nowhere in the agenda of governments. What is important now is to think of measures to prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy. If China could tame the ferocious Yangtze river, there is no reason why India cannot tame the Kosi or the Godavari. What is needed is a commitment to the cause. - R.Unni Krishnan, Kochi.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Chennai, September 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to M/s.Tejeshwi Sharma, Prem Chand, R.Unni Krishnan and The Hindu.

Eyecatchers-103: "Laptops in Space Infected"

NASA confirmed that laptops in space had been infected with the virus Gammima.AG.

Courtesy: Harper’s Weekly, Sep 2, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Harper's Weekly.

India Watch-12: "Bihar Floods"

1.2 million people were left homeless by monsoon floods in Bihar.

Courtesy: Harper's Weekly, Sep.2, 2008

Grateful thnaks to Harper's Weekly.

Eyecatchers-102: "Who is calling?"

"Do not use mobile phones while driving; the caller could be Yama, the King of Death" - Advertisement from the local traffic police.

S&T Watch-25: "Brain Chemical and Obesity"

Researchers studying people with a rare genetic disorder have identified a brain chemical that may play a role in appetite and obesity, a finding they say could lead to drugs to help some obese people. Previous animal studies had pointed to this chemical as helping regulate appetite and weight, but the new study is the first to show such a role in people - Reuters.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Chennai, August 29, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "OBESITY":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity

Grateful thanks to Reuters, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

S&T Watch-24: "Secrets of Immortality"

Scientists working on mechanisms that determine lifespan increasingly believe that the secrets of immortality could be tantalisingly close, a survey has suggested. The survey of anti-ageing research has concluded that a longevity pill to "cure" ageing remains a possibility.

Scientists argue there is no known scientific reason why ageing cannot be prevented. The goal is seen as being similar to preventing age-related diseases - PTI.

Courtesy: PTI and The Hindu, Chennai, August 29, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "IMMORTALITY":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortality

Grateful thanks to PTI, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Eyecatchers-101: "Ankle Alerts"

Convicted South Korean sexual offenders are required to wear electronic tracking devices around their ankles from September 1, 2008.

Courtesy: The Hindu, Chennai, August 29, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "SEXUAL ABUSE":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuser

Grateful thanks to The Hindu and Wikipedia.