what happening in the world

More Than 24,500 Chemicals Found In Bottled Water says german scientist

2015-07-11T11:40:00.003+05:30

Bottled water has become a bit of a trend – specific brands with unique shapes that tell the world a little something about you. While your bottle of water might make you appear to be a purveyor of optimal hydration, it is also a red flag that you may be exposing your body to an onslaught of chemicals. In a recent study by German researchers, nearly 25,000 chemicals were found lurking in a single bottle of water. Many of these chemicals mimic the effects of potent pharmaceuticals inside your body, according to the study published in the journal PLoS One. The study was broken into two parts. For the initial portion, the researchers tested 18 samples of various commercially sold water bottles from around the globe. Through chemical analyses, they tested the water to determine if it interfered with the body's estrogen and androgen receptors. Tap water was tested as well, for comparison. The researchers were shocked to learn that most of the bottled waters revealed interference with both kinds of hormone receptors; amounts as little as 0.1 ounces inhibited estrogenic activity by 60 percent and androgenic activity by 90 percent. The tap water, on the other hand, showed no activity on either form of receptor. During the second part of the study, the scientists sought to pinpoint which chemicals were the cause of reproductive hormonal interferences. Using other forms of detection to isolate the various chemicals, the researchers found more than 24,500 different chemicals in the bottled waters – including two classes of chemicals, maleates and fumarates, which are known potent endocrine disruptors (hormonally active chemicals). Maleates and fumarates are utilized to manufacture plastic resins, which are used to make water bottles, and they may also appear as contaminants of other plastic chemicals. Despite these alarming results, you don’t have to fear for your life, if you have been toting bottled waters around for years. Good hydration is important, and sometimes, there aren’t other options. As a healthy adult, the occasional sip from the “toxic fountain” of bottled water won’t kill you. However, small children, women of child-bearing age, and pregnant women are at greater risk of poor outcomes when exposed to these chemicals. Effects can include stunted growth, early puberty, premature birth, infertility and early menopause – just to name a few. The remaining population should still exercise caution, as more and more research is discovering that these chemical can also trigger diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Instead, make it a habit to carry a refillable water bottle. Many cities and states are beginning to convert water fountains to more easily accommodate refilling your water bottle. This began as an effort to protect the environment, but following this study, it would appear the benefits are dual fold. Earlier this year the FDA banned bisphenol-A (BPA), a common chemical used to make plastic bottles and linings of cans, from some food-related plastics. The ban also included baby bottles and sippy cups, though manufacturers say they had already eliminated the chemical in their products. It would seem, however, BPA isn’t the only problem when it comes to chemicals leaking into the food supply. Take control of your health. Invest in a reusable water bottle. Choosing bottles made of nontoxic glass or stainless steel are highly recommended to ensure your health and safety. Many manufacturers have begun making glass bottles covered by a rubber cover to prevent breakage and simplify your commitment to health. And, of course there is one more benefit - by choosing to carry a refillable water bottle, you avoid that $2 plus charge every time you’re thirsty.

Strange Buildings

2015-06-22T20:06:00.001+05:30

Pallais Bulles (Cannes, France)

This building is built facing the bay of Cannes. This place is owned by Pierre Cardin. The owner has named it bubble house in which grand parties & festivals are organized.

Nautilus House (Mexico City, Mexico)

This house is built based on aquatic theme thus giving it a shell shape. The family residing in it are fond of nature & this place brings them closer to nature.

Rotating Tower (Dubai, UAE)

This is world’s first building in motion designed by David Fischer. This building constantly changes it’s shape & each floor gets different view all around the day.

Atomium (Brussels, Belgium)

The bulding shaped in elementary iron crystal was built for 1958 exhibition in capital of Europe. Now it is considered one of the most popular attraction of entire continent.

Dancing House (Prague, Czech Republic)

When the building was designed it faced controversies but Czech president Václav Havel hoped that this would become center of cultural activity. This building is now having many offices & restaurant on the roof.

Wonderworks (Pigeon Forge, USA)

This inverted building has everything that way even the trees that makes it look like a house had a disaster. It was built in 1998 & many other such sites were developed across U.S.

Experience Music Project (Seattle, USA)

This building has always been in controversies, including being featured in Forbes’ list of Top 10 Ugliest Buildings in the world. This building is a museum of music history.

National Theater (Beijing, China)

This curved building is in the shape of a super ellipsoid has a total surface area of 149,500 square meters. It has a titanium shell. Half of ellipsoid covered with curved glass to allow daylight and the other part made so that movement on the inside can be seen at night.

Stone House (Guimaraes, Portugal)

The house is actually built between two giant stones. It is said that the idea actually emerged from Flintstones cartoon. It still has doors, windows & roof like a normal house.

Upside Down House (Szymbark, Poland)

This is a rare type of house which stands on it’s roof. Looks like it had been accidentally reversed in natural disaster but actually it is built so fine.

Kunsthaus Graz (Graz, Austria)

This is built in a shape as if it is some alien’s house but this building has examples of various art, design, film and photography. The building also has photo-voltaic cells built into the 1,288 acrylic glass panels on the roof making it environment friendly.

House Attack (Vienna, Austria)

The “House Attack” represents a family home which hits the facade of the museum. This is built in a funny way but has been famous representation of art.

Why smart phones should be illegal for under-16s

2015-05-20T10:06:00.000+05:30

Barely a day goes by without another report pointing to how mobile phones are ruining our children’s lives.

The latest comes from the London School of Economics, which has established that mobile phones have a seriously detrimental effect on the performance of children aged 14 to 16, especially those from less advantaged backgrounds.

In schools where pupils are barred from using their phones during lessons, results among 16-year-olds jumped by 6.4 per cent; in the case of low-achieving and poorer pupils, the improvement doubled.

So startling are these results that the LSE has recommended implementing a ban on mobile phones in all schools — it is currently at the discretion of individual headteachers.

I would go much further. I want to see a ban on the use of smart phones among under-16s altogether.

Why? Simple. Society has a duty to shield young brains from adult experiences they are either too immature to understand, or which might do long-term developmental damage.

You would be mortified if you discovered your 12-year-old drinking alcohol, smoking, taking drugs or having sex.

Yet millions of parents every day allow their children to leave home with something just as toxic and, I would argue, just as damaging as any of these things: a smart phone.

Increasingly, smart phones (those which connect to the internet) are replacing the old-fashioned phones that do little more than make and receive calls.

While the old phones are useful devices for parents to keep in touch with their mobile children, smart phones are a whole different animal.

And having seen the impact smart phones have had not only on my own child but on her peers, too, I’m certain they are bad news.

It’s not just the way the non-stop stream of data creates a permanent distraction — constantly demanding their attention.

Or the fact they stop children from interacting face-to-face (how many groups of teenagers do you see in parks, hunched over their phones, nominally together yet lost in their own separate worlds).

What most horrifies me is the way smart phones take normal, healthy children and turn them into zombies whose principal pre-occupations are not schoolwork, riding a bike or even following the latest chart-toppers, but checking how many ‘likes’ their Instagram picture has amassed, or whether their latest video has amassed sufficient comment.

At a time when young minds should be questioning and expanding, their horizons shrink to one tiny, glowing screen. Forget great art, travel, conversation: all they want to know is what’s the wifi code and where can I get the best signal?

There are physical effects, too. Late nights spent texting instead of sleeping, as the constant stream of inanities keeps them awake. Sore necks and bad posture, as they hunch over their screens. They become fat through sheer inertia.

In sensitive children (and what teenager isn’t?) smart phones create untold anxiety. Do I have enough followers? Why has she got more friends than me?

Bullies, meanwhile, are handed power to terrorise 24 hours a day.

Buying your 11-year-old a smart phone is like handing a toddler a box of matches and expecting them not to set fire to themselves.

If these devices were age-restricted, the benefits to the next generation would not just be academic, but physical and psychological, too. They’d sleep more, exercise more, bitch less, spend more time in the real world and have a better chance of growing up as rounded human beings.

I know age restriction would never fully resolve the issue — just as the ban on selling cigarettes to under-18s doesn’t stop them all from smoking.

But, Lord knows, we have to start somewhere.

No bananas please, we're vegetarian!

2015-05-20T10:03:00.003+05:30

A range of foods, from fruit and packaged cereal to beer and even figs, are assumed to be safe to eat, yet an expert warns that these items can contain animal products.

What is more worrying for vegetarians and vegans is that ingredients lists on packages might list product names, but not what's in them, like the food colouring carmine that is derived from crushed beetles, while few would realise that the pesticides used to spray bananas can contain shellfish.

Vegan campaigner Karin Ridgers, founder of VeggieVision TV, insists that vegetarians should do their homework before eating anything.

Ms Ridgers told MailOnline: 'Read the list of ingredients, and if you are not sure what the ingredient actually is, just research it. You will then know forever.

'I never eat anything unless I can read the ingredients; there are a lot of non-veggie ingredients that I feel everyone would want to avoid, vegetarian or not.'

She added that only way to know if a packaged item is meat-free is if it has an official label.

'Ingredients lists frequently change so always cast an eye over them before buying and keep a look out for The Vegetarian Society approved symbol, The Vegan Society registered symbol or the Viva! Symbol as these products have passed testing to confirm that they are vegetarian-/vegan-friendly,' she said.

Here is a list of the foods you could order in a restaurant, a bar, or in your deli - as well as at the supermarket - that contain stealth animal products.

MISO SOUP

While it might contain tofu, a staple in many vegetarians' diet, miso soup, more often than not, is made with dashi (water, dried, kelp and fish flakes), the backbone of most Japanese cuisine.

Dashi is what gives miso soup, and most other Japanese soups, its strong umami flavour.

PARMESAN

WHAT IS GELATINE?

Gelatine appears in many an ingredient list but what is it actually made of?

According to PETA, gelatine comes from skin, tendons, ligaments and bones of pigs and cows which are boiled in water.

It is rich in collagen and commonly used as a gelling agent in desserts, dips, yogurts, sweets and marshmallows.

It's a little known fact but Parmigiano-Reggiano or Parmesan, is not considered authentic unless it is made with animal rennet – which comes from the stomach lining of calves.

This is a strict regulation which denotes that a cheese is actually Parmesan. Calves' rennet also appears in Pecorino Romano, Grana Padano and Gorgonzola.

FIGS

A surprising addition to this list. While figs themselves are not meat, they may contain insects such as dead wasps in them.

This happens when a wasp pollinates a fig and gets stuck inside the fruit and dies there.

However, when you do bite into the fig, you won't be able to see the dead wasp contained within as an enzyme in the fruit converts the wasp into protein.

VEGGIE RESOURCES

Dummies.com - Lists all the hidden animal ingredients in food

Vegetarian Society - Useful fact sheets on cheese and other products

Barnivore - Comprehensive list on vegetarian and vegan beers, wines and spirits.

Vegan Recipe Club - Curated info on vegan-friendly companies.

Accidentally Vegan - Tumblr account listing foods which are not commercially identified as vegan but safe for non-meat eaters to consume.

PETA - How to shop vegan

BANANAS

Always buy organic as non-organic bananas are sprayed with a pesticide which may contain animal parts.

According to Science Daily, the pesticide Chitosan, which fights bacteria and prevents bananas from over-ripening, is made from shrimp and crab shells.

So although, like figs, the banana itself is still a fruit, the compound used to extend its life is made from animal matter.

Want to be safe? Go organic.

YOGURT

These, especially the non-fat versions such as Muller Light, contain gelatine to add a creamier, richer texture.

Vegetarians are advised to read the label carefully before buying a new brand.

A spokesperson from Müller told MailOnline:'We offer consumers a range of products, from healthier fat free, low-calorie options to thick and creamy, indulgent desserts.

'All of the nutrition information and ingredients, including gelatine, are displayed on pack so consumers can make the best choice for them.'

GUINNESS

Isinglass or fish bladder is used as part of the filtering process in some beers and stouts.

Because the amount used is so minute, the item itself is not listed as part of the ingredients.

The isinglass filters out leftover yeast particles which otherwise will cause the beer to appear cloudy.

A spokesperson from Guinness told MailOnline: 'Isinglass is a by-product of the fishing industry. We use Isinglass in the production of Guinness as a fining agent to help remove yeast from the beer.

'While the brewing process removes the vast majority or all of the Isinglass, we accept that some minor traces of Isinglass may remain in the finished product.

'We are currently trying to evaluate the reputational impact of Isinglass on our brand and product and whether investment should be made to remove this element from our brewing process.'

WHAT IS DASHI?

Dashi is a cooking stock which forms the base of many Japanese soups including miso soup.

It is a light stock made with kombu (dried edible kelp), water, andbonito flakes (fish flakes).

Packed with umami, the stock can also be made without the bonito flakes, but you may need to add seasoning to your food as a good (non-veggie) dashi has so much umami that you won't need to salt your food.

RED SWEETS

Red sweets or any other foods which are coloured with a natural red dye will more often than not contain animal products.

Carmine, which is made from dead crushed up beetles, comes about when the insects are boiled with sodium carbonate or ammonia, which then produces the attractive, bright red dye.

WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE

A condiment which finds its way into many foods and drinks (Bloody Mary, anyone?) Worcestershire Sauce is made from anchovies.

Like the dashi in miso, the fish in the sauce gives it an umami flavour, which is what gives food a more-ish savoury taste.

ORANGE JUICE

Any orange juice claiming to be 'heart healthy' is the real culprit here. Those claims often mean the juice contains Omega-3 fatty acids which come from fish oils.

If an orange juice declares that it contains Omega-3s, vegetarians should check where they come from.

VEGETARIAN OR VEGAN?

Vegetarians do not eat any animals. This includes pigs, chickens, cows, sea animals, and every other animal.

In addition to not consuming any animal flesh, a vegan also doesn’t eat dairy products, eggs, or any other product derived from an animal.

Vegans also avoid using products that have been tested on animals or made from animal skins.

Source: Peta

BREAKFAST CEREALS

There are a number of sugar-coated cereals on the market which contain beef gelatine, extracted from the skin, bones and connective tissues of animals.

Kellogg's Frosted Wheats, for instance, has beef gelatine in it to make the sugar stick to the cereal.

The protein is made from boiling animal parts in water and appears as a binding agent in many products.

READY-MADE PIE AND PASTRY CRUSTS

These are often made with lard, rendered pig fat, rather than butter, which is a dairy product, as the former costs considerably less than the latter, and has a longer shelf-life.

MARSHMALLOWS

Traditionally made with powdered marshmallow root, most commercially manufactured products now used gelatine, in their recipes.

The collagen-rich mixture is what gives the sweet its firm and bouncy texture.

PESTO

Unless there is a clear 'Vegetarian' symbol on the bottle, pesto, while it may seem like the ideal veggie-friendly product, actually isn't.

The basil and pine nut sauce often contains contains Pecorino Romano and Grana Padano, both which, are made with the stomach lining of calves.

A spokesperson for Sacla told MailOnline: 'Our classic basil pesto contains Grano Padano, a traditional Italian cheese which is made with animal products. The pesto is made using traditional Italian ingredients.

'However we are aware of people who are vegetarian so that’s why we developed two pestos which are suitable for veggies.

'One is our organic pesto, and we recently launched free-from gluten and dairy pesto which hit the shelves in March and that is suitable for vegetarians and vegans.'

Ms Ridgers said: 'Take reasonability for your plate; no one else will and vote with your wallet.

'Pick organic and more natural products without scary ingredients, visit your local health food store and chat with the manager.

'They will appreciate the support and explore a whole new world of food with veggie and vegan-friendly ingredients.'

Source: dailymail

House prices soar in Scotland by 15%

2015-05-20T10:00:00.000+05:30

House prices in Scotland soared by almost 15 per cent as owners rushed to sell-up before Nicola Sturgeon's new stamp duty rules kicked in, it emerged today.

Prices north of the border leapt grew by more than any other part of the UK, as the number of mortgages leapt by 50 per cent in just a month.

It suggests there was a stampede by owners of more expensive homes to sell before the SNP's property 'super-tax' was enforced from April.

NUMBER OF FIRST-TIME BUYER MORTGAGES FALLS BY 24 PER CENT

The number of mortgages handed out to first-time buyers shrank by 24 per cent in the first three months of this year compared with the final quarter of 2014, banks and building societies have reported.

But the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), which released the figures, said housing market activity is likely to pick up following the 'slow start' in early 2015.

First-time buyers took out 61,300 home loans in the first three months of the year with a collective value of £9 billion, marking an 11 per cent decrease in the number of loans compared with the same period last year as well as a 24 per cent fall on the fourth quarter of 2014.

But there were signs that by March this year, activity was starting to lift.

Some 23,000 loans were advanced to first-time buyers in March, up 20 per cent on February.

Across the UK, house prices rose by 9.6 per cent in the year to March as the pace of annual growth accelerated across most of the country.

But values soared by 14.6 per cent in Scotland, marking the strongest annual growth recorded there since July 2007.

At £207,000 on average, house prices in Scotland have climbed to a new index record, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The report said the number of mortgages for house sales in Scotland increased by around 50 per cent between February and March and a significant portion of these were for houses costing more than £500,000.

The UK-wide stamp duty system was broken up from April as Scotland was handed its first tax powers for more than three centuries.

Ms Sturgeon vowed to introduce a 'progressive' replacement tax – the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) - which meant many first-time buyers will be better off but middle-income families would be hammered.

When George Osborne announced changes to stamp duty in December, they came into force at midnight on the same day.

But Scotland's reforms were announced months in advance, giving owners time to sell before they were hit.

Under the Scottish rules, buyers pay no tax on the value of homes up to £145,000, then 2 per cent on the value from £145,000 to £250,000.

A 5 per cent tax rate falls on value from £250,000 to £325,000, rising to 10 per cent for £325,000 to £750,000, and then 12 per cent on anything over £750,000.

The ONS said the new tax regime which had long been expected to come into force on April 1 'may have had an impact on the increase in prices'.

Christine Campbell, from estate agents Your Move, said: 'In what would have been an unimaginable trend just a year ago, house prices are now rising faster in Scotland than in London.

'In part this is due to a short-term scramble to avoid the new Land and Buildings Transaction Tax.

'For the top of the market especially, a pre-deadline rush has boosted the average price paid in March, so the latest surge in prices is unlikely to be sustained to quite the same extent in April under the new regime.'

The strong upswing in house price growth north of the border meant that Scottish house prices have grown at a faster rate than those in southern England over the last year.

Alex Johnstone, Scottish Conservative housing spokesman, said: 'While a rise in house prices is good news for those who already own and demonstrates that we have a housing market which, under this UK Government, is growing in confidence, there is a downside.

'A significant increase in the cost of buying a home means many people, especially young families and first-time buyers, will struggle to get on the property ladder.'

But an SNP spokesman said: 'The housing market in Scotland is booming; only this week we have heard form industry experts showing that house prices in Scotland have risen by nearly 15 per cent in the past year.

'The only threat to business, and potentially to house prices across Scotland, comes from the Tories' in-out EU referendum.'

The ONS found that the annual pace of growth has also picked up across the majority of the English regions, with the East recording the largest annual increase in prices within England at 11.4 per cent, followed by London and the South East, which both recorded year-on-year price growth of 11.2 per cent.

Like Scotland, house prices across England also reached a new index high in March, increasing by 9.4 per cent over the last year to reach £284,000 on average.

Several English regions hit new index highs in March, including the East of England, the South East and the South West.

London continues to have the highest average house price in the UK-wide index, at £498,000.

Yorkshire and the Humber was the region to record the weakest annual house price growth, at 4.4 per cent.

In Wales, values have increased by 5.7 per cent over the last year to reach £173,000 on average. In Northern Ireland, prices saw a 7.5 per cent annual uplift, taking typical values to £145,000.

Average house prices in Wales have yet to surpass the index peak they reached in January, while in Northern Ireland, property values are still around 45 per cent below their 2007 levels.

The figures also show that the average first-time buyer faces paying 7.8 per cent more for a property than they did a year ago, with the typical starter home costing £206,000 in March.

squirrel play

2015-05-08T14:33:00.002+05:30

Chemobrain

2015-03-12T18:44:00.004+05:30

Researchers at the University of California have shown for the first time that stem cells can reverse the memory and learning problems that can occur after chemotherapy.

'Chemobrain' or 'Chemofog' are terms used by patients to describe the cognitive dysfunction that follows after cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Cognition is how we process information and how we think.

Patients with cognitive dysfunction are able to do everyday things.

However, they may suffer from memory loss, lack of mental clarity, fatigue, confusion, difficulty in multi-tasking and difficulty in concentrating or focusing on one thing.

Chemobrain can develop gradually over the patients treatment program.

However the overall quality of life is reduced for sufferers and can result in patients feeling demoralised.

It has been estimated that up to 75% of cancer survivors can suffer from Chemobrain long after their treatment has finished.

Given that there are over 12 million cancer survivors in the US alone, this quickly becomes a global problem as more and more people are surviving cancer.

This is a particular concern for paediatric patients who are likely to have to live with the effects of Chemobrain for much longer.

Professor Charles Limoli has shown that by transplantation of stem cells to the skull, the deleterious effects of Chemobrain can be reversed.

The preclinical study involved giving two groups of rats four doses of chemotherapy over four weeks. One group was given adult neural stem cell transplantations after chemotherapy and each group was measured for cognitive function one month later.

The group with the stem cell transplantations was found to have significantly increased cognitive function compared to the group that did not receive the transplant.

Various behavioural tests were carried out in order to assess cognitive function.

It was also shown that the neural stem cells, which were transplanted in the rats, migrated to other areas of the brain and divided into new cells as well as helping stimulate the growth of other cell types in the brain.

The stem cells also appeared to have a protective effect on the host brain cells and aided in repairing any damaged cells and their structural fragments called dendritic spines.

This new study has given much hope to the potential use of such a therapy in treating cognitive dysfunction brought on by chemotherapy and other cancer treatments.

More work needs to be done in this field, nevertheless it has been suggested that a clinical trial using stem cell transplantation could be achievable within the next few years.

source:

the berlin eye

Study of massive preprint archive hints at the geography of plagiarism

2014-12-18T00:20:00.000+05:30

New analyses of the hundreds of thousands of technical manuscripts submitted to arXiv, the repository of digital preprint articles, are offering some intriguing insights into the consequences—and geography—of scientific plagiarism. It appears that copying text from other papers is more common in some nations than others, but the outcome is generally the same for authors who copy extensively: Their papers don’t get cited much.

Since its founding in 1991, arXiv has become the world's largest venue for sharing findings in physics, math, and other mathematical fields. It publishes hundreds of papers daily and is fast approaching its millionth submission. Anyone can send in a paper, and submissions don’t get full peer review. However, the papers do go through a quality-control process. The final check is a computer program that compares the paper's text with the text of every other paper already published on arXiv. The goal is to flag papers that have a high likelihood of having plagiarized published work.

"Text overlap" is the technical term, and sometimes it turns out to be innocent. For example, a review article might quote generously from a paper the author cites, or the author might recycle and slightly update sentences from their own previous work. The arXiv plagiarism detector gives such papers a pass. "It's a fairly sophisticated machine learning logistic classifier," says arXiv founder Paul Ginsparg, a physicist at Cornell University. "It has special ways of detecting block quotes, italicized text, text in quotation marks, as well statements of mathematical theorems, to avoid false positives."

Only when there is no obvious reason for an author to have copied significant chunks of text from already published work—particularly if that previous work is not cited and has no overlap in authorship—does the software affix a “flag” to the article, including links to the papers from which it has text overlap. That standard “is much more lenient" than those used by most scientific journals, Ginsparg says.

To explore some of the consequences of "text reuse," Ginsparg and Cornell physics Ph.D. student Daniel Citron compared the text from each of the 757,000 articles submitted to arXiv between 1991 and 2012. The headline from that study, published Monday in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is that the more text a paper poaches from already published work, the less frequently that paper tends to be cited. (The full paper is also available for free on arXiv.) It also found that text reuse is surprisingly common. After filtering out review articles and legitimate quoting, about one in 16 arXiv authors were found to have copied long phrases and sentences from their own previously published work that add up to about the same amount of text as this entire article. More worryingly, about one out of every 1000 of the submitting authors copied the equivalent of a paragraph's worth of text from other people's papers without citing them.

So where in the world is all this text reuse happening? Conspicuously missing from thePNAS paper is a global map of potential plagiarism. Whenever an author submits a paper to arXiv, the author declares his or her country of residence. So it should be possible to reveal which countries have the highest proportion of plagiarists. The reason no map was included, Ginsparg told ScienceInsider, is that all the text overlap detected in their study is not necessarily plagiarism.

Ginsparg did agree, however, to share arXiv’s flagging data with ScienceInsider. Since 1 August 2011, when arXiv began systematically flagging for text overlap, 106,262 authors from 151 nations have submitted a total of 301,759 articles. (Each paper can have many more co-authors.) Overall, 3.2% (9591) of the papers were flagged. It's not just papers submitted en masse by a few bad apples, either. Those flagged papers came from 6% (6737) of the submitting authors. Put another way, one out of every 16 researchers who have submitted a paper to arXiv since August 2011 has been flagged by the plagiarism detector at least once.

The map above, prepared by ScienceInsider, takes a conservative approach. It shows only the incidence of flagged authors for the 57 nations with at least 100 submitted papers, to minimize distortion from small sample sizes. (In Ethiopia, for example, there are only three submitting authors and two of them have been flagged.)

Researchers from countries that submit the lion's share of arXiv papers—the United States, Canada, and a small number of industrialized countries in Europe and Asia—tend to plagiarize less often than researchers elsewhere. For example, more than 20% (38 of 186) of authors who submitted papers from Bulgaria were flagged, more than eight times the proportion from New Zealand (five of 207). In Japan, about 6% (269 of 4759) of submitting authors were flagged, compared with over 15% (164 out of 1054) from Iran.

Such disparities may be due in part to different academic cultures, Ginsparg and Citron say in their PNAS study. They chalk up scientific plagiarism to "differences in academic infrastructure and mentoring, or incentives that emphasize quantity of publication over quality."

OpenFDA from the Food and Drug Administration

2014-12-16T11:45:00.002+05:30

openFDA, developers and researchers will have easy access to high-value FDA public data through RESTful APIs and structured file downloads. In short, our goal is to make it simple for an application, mobile, or web developer, or all stripes of researchers, to use data from FDA in their work. We’ve done an extensive amount of research both internally and with potential external developers to identify which datasets are both in demand and have a high barrier of entry. As a result, our initial pilot project will cover a number of datasets from various areas within FDA, defined into three broad focus areas: Adverse Events, Product Recalls, and Product Labeling. These API’s won’t have one-on-one matching to FDA’s internal data organizational structure; rather, we intend to abstract on top of a myriad of datasets and provide appropriate metadata and identifiers when possible. Of course, all will always make the raw source data available for people who prefer to work that way (and it’s good to mention that we also will not be releasing any data that could potentially be used to identify individuals or other private information).

The openFDA initiative is one part of the larger Office of Informatics and Technology Innovation roadmap. As part of my role as FDA’s Chief Health Informatics Officer, I’m working to lead efforts to move FDA in to a cutting edge technology organization. You’ll be hearing more about our other initiatives, including Cloud Computing, High Performance Computing, Next Generation Sequencing, and mobile-first deployment in the near future.

Dr. Taha Kass-Hout is the Chief Health Informatics Officer of FDA

taha@fda.hhs.gov | @DrTaha_FDA

Proteins are a Step Forward for Nanoparticle-Based Anti-Cancer and Anti-Dementia Therapeutic Approaches

2014-12-15T15:57:00.001+05:30

Scientists at Brunel University London have found a way of targeting hard-to-reach cancers and degenerative diseases using nanoparticles, but without causing the damaging side effects the treatment normally brings.

In a huge step forward in the use of nanomedicine, the research helped discover proteins in the blood that disguise nanoparticles so they are absorbed into cells without causing inflammation and destroying healthy cells.

Two studies, Complement activation by carbon nanotubes and its influence on the phagocytosis and cytokine response by macrophages and Complement deposition on nanoparticles can modulate immune responses by macrophage, B and T cells, found that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) triggered a chain reaction in the complement system, which is part of the innate immune system and is responsible for clearing pathogens and toxins.

The team, led by Dr. Uday Kishore of the Centre for Infection, Immunity and Disease Mechanisms, found the entire complement system was activated, from C1 at the start to C5 at the end. This in turn activated the cell-killing membrane attack complex.

In principle, this should have caused an acute allergic, inflammatory reaction. However the opposite was true.

The interaction between CNTs and C1q (a starter-protein for complement) was anti-inflammatory. This suggests that either coating nanoparticles or healthy tissue with complement proteins could reduce tissue damage and help treat inflammatory diseases like Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, ALS and Alzheimer’s.

It was not clear if the binding between complement proteins and CNTs was direct or indirect. However, changing the surfaces of CNTs affected how likely the complement system was to be activated and in what way.

Using the data from this study, carbon nanoparticles coated with genetically- engineered proteins are being used to target glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain tumour.

Dr. Uday Kishore, from Brunel University London’s College of Health and Life Sciences, said: “By using a protein recognised by the immune system to effectively disguise carbon nanoparticles, we will be able to deploy these tiny particles to target hard-to- reach areas without damaging side effects to the patient. This is a big step forward. It is like understanding how to use penicillin safely and could be as revolutionary to modern medicine as its twentieth century predecessor.”

Article adapted from a Brunel University news release.

Publication: Complement activation by carbon nanotubes and its influence on the phagocytosis and cytokine response by macrophages. Uday Kishore et al. Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine (August 2014): Click here to view.

Spinal Circuitry Responsible for Chronic Pain

2014-12-15T15:55:00.002+05:30

Pain typically has a clear cause-but not always. When a person touches something hot or bumps into a sharp object, it's no surprise that it hurts. But for people with certain chronic pain disorders, including fibromyalgia and phantom limb pain, a gentle caress can result in agony.

In a major breakthrough, a team led by researchers at the Salk Institute and Harvard Medical School have identified an important neural mechanism in the spinal cord that appears to be capable of sending erroneous pain signals to the brain.

By charting the spinal circuits that process and transmit pain signals in mice, the study, published online November 20, 2014 in Cell, lays the groundwork for identifying ways to treat pain disorders that have no clear physical cause.

"Until now, the spinal cord circuitry involved in processing pain has remained a black box," says Martyn Goulding, Salk professor in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory and a co-senior author of the paper. "Identifying the neurons that make up these circuits is the first step in understanding how chronic pain stems from dysfunctional neural processing."

In many instances, people who suffer from chronic pain are sensitive to stimuli that don't normally cause pain, such as a light touch to the hand or a subtle change in skin temperature. These conditions, referred to generally as forms of allodynia, include fibromyalgia and nerve damage that is caused by diseases such as diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disorders.

In other instances, the mysterious pain arises after amputation of a limb, which often leads to discomfort that seems to be centred on the missing appendage. These sensations often subside in the months following the amputation, but may linger indefinitely, causing long-term chronic pain for the sufferer.

"These disorders are extremely frustrating for patients, because there is still no effective treatment for such chronic pain disorders," says Qiufu Ma, a professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and co-senior author on the paper.

Scientists have long theorized that pain signals are sent from sensory neurons in the limbs and other extremities to transmission neurons in the spinal cord, which then relay the information to the brain. At each of these three steps-extremities, spinal cord and brain-the pain information can be altered or even blocked before being relayed onward through the nervous system to the brain. The circuitry in the spinal cord is particularly important, as it is able to gate painful stimuli, thereby acting as a checkpoint between the body and the brain to make sure that only the most important pain signals are transmitted.

Previous studies had determined that two types of sensory neurons appeared to be involved in these circuits: pain receptors and touch receptors.

In their new study, the Salk and Harvard researchers set out to precisely identify the spinal neurons involved in these circuits. They deciphered the role each of two neuronal cell types play in the processing of pain signals in the dorsal horn, the location where the sensory neurons connect with the spinal cord.

The scientists discovered that a class of mechanoreceptors in the skin that detect painful mechanical stimuli are part of a feedback circuit in which excitatory neurons that produce the hormone somatostatin are inhibited by neurons that synthesize dynorphin (a natural analgesic molecule that produces effects similar to opiates). The inhibitory neurons they identified appear to control whether touch activates the excitatory neurons to send a pain signal to the brain.

This finding begins to explain how a light touch can cause discomfort in someone with allodynia: if something is awry in the pain circuitry, then the sensations of touch that normally travels through the mechanoreceptors could instead activate other neurons that trigger a pain signal. Similarly, mechanoreceptor fibers that project to the spinal cord from a missing limb might spur erroneous pain signals.

"Normally, only pain receptors are involved in sending pain signals to the brain, but when the spinal dynorphin inhibitory neurons are lost, touch sensation are now perceived as painful," says Goulding, holder of Salk's Frederick W. and Joanna J. Mitchell Chair. "This really opens the door to understanding what's happening in these pain disorders where the cause of the pain is seemingly innocuous or not known. It could be that something has gone awry in how this spinal circuitry is operating, so sensations become jumbled together and emerge as pain.”

Article adapted from a Salk Institute news release.

Publication: Identification of Spinal Circuits Transmitting and Gating Mechanical Pain. Bo Duan, Longzhen Cheng, Steeve Bourane, Olivier Britz, Christopher Padilla, Lidia Garcia-Campmany, Michael Krashes, Wendy Knowlton, Tomoko Velasquez, Xiangyu Ren, Sarah E. Ross, Bradford B. Lowell, Yun Wang, Martyn Gouldingemail, Qiufu Ma. Cell (2014): Click here to view.

Computers Fight Against AIDS

2014-12-02T10:21:00.001+05:30

The battle against AIDS cannot be won in the laboratory alone. To fight the potentially deadly virus that 34 million people are suffering from we need help from computers. Now research from University of Southern Denmark turns computers into powerful allies in the battle.

Effective treatment of HIV-virus is a race against time: Many of the drugs that have been potent killers of HIV-virus, have today lost their power, because the virus has become resistant to them. As a result science must constantly develop new drugs that can attack the virus in new ways.

Now researchers from the University of Southern Denmark present a method to speed up the important development work up with an order of several hundred percent.

It now takes not years, but months or even only weeks to find new compounds that have the potential to become a new HIV drug. Finding suitable compounds that can specifically inhibit the HIV virus, is crucial in AIDS research, explains postdoc Vasantanathan Poongavanam from Department of Physics, Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Southern Denmark:

"HIV is a retrovirus that contains enzymes which make it able to copy itself with the help of host genetic material and thus reproduce. If you can block these enzymes' ability to replicate itself, the virus cannot reproduce."

The needle in the haystack

An almost infinite number of different substances can be synthetized in a laboratory. Some of them may prove to inhibit HIV-virus's reproduction, but finding them is like finding a needle in a haystack.

"It takes enormous amounts of time and resources, to go through millions and millions of compounds. With the techniques used today, it may take years to carry out a screening of possible compounds".

In addition, it takes time to turn an effective compound into a safe pharmaceutical agent that can get on the market.

"Today, it generally takes nearly 14 years from the time you find a drug candidate to get it on the market. Anything that can shorten that time is an important improvement", says Vasanthanathan Poongavanam.

Until now, researchers have been hampered by slow computers and inaccurate prediction models when they ask computers to identify compounds that may be effective against HIV. Now the SDU researchers have managed to develop an effective model at a time when significantly more powerful computers have become available.

"Our work shows that computer based predictions are a extremely fast, accurate and promising methodology in the drug discovery projects", says Vasanthanathan Poongavanam.

14 new compounds found

With the new methods based on quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics, Vasanthanathan Poongavanam and his colleague, Jacob Kongsted, screened half a million compounds and found 25 that were interesting to investigate further. These 25 were tested in a conventional laboratory experiment, and 14 of them were found to inhibit HIV virus's ability to reproduce.

"It took us only a few weeks to find these 14 very interesting compounds, whereas before it would have taken years", explains Vasanthanathan Poongavanam.

The 14 compounds have now been taken over by Italian researchers who continue working with them at the University of Cagliari. The next step is to carry out advanced experiments on these compounds. If they are positive, the compounds may go on the market as a drug against HIV.

Illustration HIV virus (big purple balls) are entering a host cell. Once they have entered, they deliver their cargo of viral RNA (purple capsule looking container). The container also carries enzymes needed for the virus to copy itself, and the goal is to inhibit these enzymes so that the virus no longer can copy itself.

Article adapted from a University of Southern Denmark news release.

Publication: Binding free energy based structural dynamics analysis of HIV-1 RT RNase H-inhibitor complexes.Vasanthanathan Poongavanam, Jógvan Haugaard Magnus Olsen, Jacob Kongsted. Integrative Biology (2014): Click here to view.

Contamination plagues some microbiome studies

2014-11-13T20:25:00.001+05:30

Five years ago, Susannah Salter and her colleagues swabbed the throats of 20 infants monthly until the children reached 2 years old—and documented a remarkable change. By sequencing the swabs’ DNA, Salter, a microbiologist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, U.K., learned that infants and toddlers have quite different microbial communities in their throats. Or so it seemed, until the team discovered that change was an artifact of contamination in two different batches of the DNA isolation kit used in the study. "The pattern wasn’t real," says Salter’s former Sanger colleague Alan Walker, now a microbiologist at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom.

Worried that many microbiome researchers are falling into the same pitfall, Salter, Walker, and their colleagues have now done a systematic study of how contamination can affect DNA survey results. They find that most testing kits and other reagents for analyzing DNA contain stray microbial DNA that can overpower the signal of the native bacteria.

Their study, reported this week in BMC Biology, "is of huge significance, because it either implicitly or explicitly debunks quite a large number of microbiome papers," says Mick Watson, a bioinformaticist at the Roslin Institute of the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom. "I think everyone kind of knew that there might be contamination in reagents and kits, but no one really knew the extent of the problem.”

To perform their test, Salter, Walker, and their colleagues cultured a single Salmonella strain and then dissolved the bacteria in an otherwise sterile broth. Then they repeatedly diluted the broth, testing it each time using several DNA isolation kits and other laboratory reagents and methods. Early in the process, when the sample bacteria were abundant, the small proportion of stray DNA in the test kits was not enough to skew the outcome, but when the sample was diluted to just 1000 bacterial cells, the contaminant DNA swamped the real signal, the team reports.

The team thinks such contamination will not be a problem for microbiome studies of fecal samples, as they are teeming with gut bacterial DNA. But it looms large for samples typically containing relatively few bacteria, such as dust, spinal fluid, or blood, Walker says. Manufacturers of DNA isolation kits don't guarantee their materials are sterile, he notes, but many people might not realize that. "This study will have a big impact on how we design and carry out our lab protocols and sequencing studies in the future," says microbial ecologist Holly Bik of the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Veterans of microbiology have for decades warned about the need to take contamination precautions seriously and exchanged horror stories. In 1998, for example, scientists were finding the same microbes in all sorts of extreme environments; it turned out the species in common came from water pipes. This “issue is as old as the field itself and it’s being continuously rediscovered,” says Ruth Ley, a microbial ecologist at Cornell University. And it can be dealt with, says Gary Huffnagle, who studies lung microbes at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "This study should not be used to dismiss analysis of low biomass samples," he says. "Running controls is always key."

Blind people use batlike sonar

2014-11-13T20:24:00.001+05:30

Blind from infancy due to retinal cancer, Daniel Kish learned as a young boy to judge his height while climbing trees by making rapid clicking noises and listening for their echoes off the ground. No one taught him the technique, which is now recognized as a human form of echolocation. “He just used it, without knowing that he behaved like a bat,” says Lutz Wiegrebe, a neurobiologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany.

Like Kish, a handful of blind echolocators worldwide have taught themselves to use clicks and echoes to navigate their surroundings with impressive ease—Kish can even ride his bike down the street, as his daring YouTube videos show. A study of sighted people newly trained to echolocate now suggests that the secret to Kish’s skill isn’t just supersensitive ears. Instead, the entire body, neck, and head are key to “seeing” with sound—an insight that could assist blind people learning the skill.

Bats and other animals that rely on sounds to detect prey in the dark move their ears much like humans use their eyes to track an object of interest, making constant adjustments to their ear positions. When bats echolocate, they emit rapid-fire, high-frequency clicks (usually out of range of human hearing), then swivel their ears like radar dishes to catch the echoes, a system sensitive enough to detect objects as thin as a human hair and tiny, night-flying insects. Unlike bats’ large, mobile ears, however, human ears are small and fixed—an obstacle to blind people who use their ears to “see.”

To test the extent to which people can compensate for this immobility, Wiegrebe and colleagues recruited eight undergraduates with normal vision to don blindfolds and learn some basic echolocation skills. The students were first taught to produce sharp, high-frequency clicks with their tongues. Then they were blindfolded and led into a long, narrow corridor, where they practiced sensing the position of the walls based on how long it took for an echoed click to reach their ears. Although some people are more naturally talented than others at echolocation, most got “quite good” after 2 to 3 weeks of training, Wiegrebe says, and could reliably orient themselves to walk down the corridor without running into any walls using just clicks and echoes.

Next, the researchers created a virtual version of the corridor to test how important head and body movements, rather than hearing alone, had been to the students’ accuracy. Blindfolded subjects sat in a chair wearing headphones while a computer program simulated the acoustics of the real-life corridor when they clicked into a microphone. To ensure that the acoustics of the simulated room were realistic, the researchers asked two blind echolocation experts to navigate it first; both were quickly able to orient their bodies toward the center of the aisle.

The blindfolded students were also instructed to use their clicks and echoes to line up their bodies with the center of the corridor. In one test, they were told to rotate the virtual corridor without making any head or body movements, using a joystick. In another, the corridor was fixed and participants were allowed to swivel their chairs and heads to determine their position in the room.

The difference between the two conditions was stark, Wiegrebe says. When the participants couldn’t move their heads or torsos, they zigzagged down the virtual hall and were unable to self-correct before hitting a “wall.” When the corridor’s position was fixed and their bodies and heads were free to move, however, the novice echolocators soon righted themselves, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The virtual corridor is a “very creative” way to determine just how important body movements are to echolocation, says Lore Thaler, a psychologist at Durham University in the United Kingdom. The findings fit well with her own recent study, which showed that head movements can enable blind echolocation experts to sense an object’s contours, she says. The research also provides a new way of studying echolocation that can’t be done in animals, she notes. After all, “a bat can’t use a joystick.”

Echolocation is a skill that has evolved independently several times in the animal kingdom in response to low visibility conditions—whether at night, as with bats and a few nocturnal birds, or in murky water, as with whales and dolphins, Wiegrebe notes. “It’s not magic.” Though the research is still in its early stages, he hopes that a virtual reality program similar to that used in the study will eventually help blind people learn to use echolocation in the safety and privacy of their homes.

Genes controlled by the power of human thought

2014-11-13T20:22:00.001+05:30

The researchers, led by Prof. Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich in Switzerland, developed a new gene regulation method that allows thought-driven brainwaves to control gene expression - the conversion of genes into proteins.

Interestingly, their inspiration for the method came from a game called Mindflex, in which players wear special headsets with sensors on the forehead that record brainwaves. The electroencephalogram (EEG) readings are then transferred into the game environment, where they control a fan that guides a small ball through an obstacle course - all with the power of the mind.

Likewise, the new system from the researchers employs an EEG headset. Depending on the user's thoughts, it can generate varying amounts of a molecule.

"For the first time, we have been able to tap into human brainwaves, transfer them wirelessly to a gene network and regulate the expression of a gene depending on the type of thought," explains Prof. Fussenegger.

"Being able to control gene expression via the power of thought is a dream that we've been chasing for over a decade," he adds.

How the method works

The concept of "the power of the mind" has been investigated in terms of meditation or psychology, but here is how the new high-tech system works to tap into the power of thought:

The user's recorded brainwaves are analyzed and transferred wirelessly - via Bluetooth - to a controller that manages a field generator, which creates an electromagnetic field. This field then gives an implant an induction current.

Next, an LED lamp in the implant that emits near-infrared light switches on and lights up a culture chamber that holds genetically modified cells. Once the near-infrared light illuminates the cells, they produce a protein.

This image shows how the device takes thoughts, interprets them and transforms them into electricity to light up a near-infrared LED.
Image credit: Folcher M et al. Nature Communications 2014

In this latest study, the protein that the researchers used is called secreted alkaline phosphatase (SEAP). This is an easily detectible human model protein, the team explains. When the light shines on a modified light-sensitive protein within gene-modified cells, this triggers an "artificial signal cascade," resulting in SEAP production.

The researchers say they used near-infrared light because it is not harmful to human cells, but it can still go deep into the tissue, enabling the implant function to be visually tracked.

In their study, the researchers note:

"Cybernetics has pioneered mind-controlled electromechanical man-machine interfaces that allow brain activities to intentionally control bionic prostheses, and optogenetics has established electromolecular machine-man interfaces that enable light-controlled therapeutic interventions by modulating brain, heart and gene activities.

By combining cybernetics with optogenetics, we now provide the missing link enabling mental states such as biofeedback, concentration and meditation to directly control the transgene expression in living cells and mammals."

Humans controlled mice implants with their thoughts

To test the method, the researchers used the implant in cell cultures and mice, which were controlled by the thoughts of human test subjects.

And to control the amount of released protein, the researchers categorized the human subjects according to three states of mind: bio-feedback, meditation and concentration.

The researchers found that test subjects who were concentrating (who were playing Minecraft on the computer) were able to induce average SEAP amounts in the bloodstream of the mice. Those who were completely relaxed - in a meditative state - induced very high SEAP amounts in the mice.

In the bio-feedback group, the human test subjects - who observed the LED light of the implant in the bodies of the mice - were able to consciously switch the LED light on or off from the visual feedback cues. In turn, this corresponded to the varying amounts of SEAP in the bloodstream of the mice.

Prof. Fussenegger describes controlling genes this way as "completely new and [...] unique in its simplicity." He and his team hope thought-controlled implants could one day help in neurological diseases, back pain and epilepsy by identifying brainwaves at an early stage and triggering and controlling agents in the implant.

Doctors to use micro robots in human body for medicine delivery

2014-11-09T11:49:00.000+05:30

A team of researchers in Germany have developed a tiny robot that can swim through a human body's blood stream and might be used in the future to deliver medicine.

The team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Germany developed the tiny robot that does not require an engine or batteries. They expect that the tiny robot might be used in the future to treat a variety of human ailments as they are capable of performing several biomedical tasks, such as drug delivery, and as diagnostics.

The team was headed by Profesor Peer Fischer at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart. The issue that the scientists are facing is that swimming or locomotion through water is not actually possible for tiny machines because the viscosity is different. However, swimming is possible in biological fluids such as bloodif driven by magnetic fields because the it is non-Newtonian fluid, which means that viscosity changes in response to pressure.
"This is great news because we can now use really simply actuation schemes, to build swimming micro robots that can move through tissue and biomedical relevant fluids," said Prof. Peer Fischer.
The research paper was published in Nature Communications.

SCTMIST Neuroscience/Biochemistry PA opening

2014-11-08T11:05:00.003+05:30

SREE CHITRA TIRUNAL INSTITUTE FOR MEDICAL SCIENCES & TECHNOLOGY, TRIVANDRUM
BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY WING, POOJAPPURA, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM – 12

REQUIRES

For a DBT Project entitled “Mechanism of epileptogenesis in young and adult brain- Role of NMDA receptor subtypes in hippocampal neurons and astrocytes” (P-8084)

Project Assistant

Qualifications (Essential) : 1st class M.Sc in Neurosience/ Biochemistry/Physiology/ Biotechnology/ Zoology/ MLT.

(Desirable) : CSIR-UGC NET.

Experience/Training/Skills : Rat/mice brain dissection, brain fixing & sectioning (desirable) immunohistochemistry, electrophysiology & good knowledge in Neurobiology.

Monthly emoluments : Rs.12,000/- + 20% HRA

Age Limit as on 30.11.2014 : 35 years.

Duration : 1 year or till the completion of the project whichever is earlier.

No. of vacancies : One

Interested candidates may submit their bio-data to the Administrative Officer, SCTIMST, BMT Wing, Poojappura, Tvpm-12 for consideration not later than 24.11.2014. Shortlisted candidates alone will be called for interview.

Advertisement:

www.sctimst.ac.in/Recruitment/resources/PROJECT%20ASSISTANT%20-%20TEMPORARY,%20DATE%20&%20TIME%2024.11.2014.pdf

NBRC NeuroScience Ph.d admission 2015

2014-11-08T11:05:00.000+05:30

All those candidates who wish to apply to the Ph.D. programme at NBRC are advised to first apply through the following channels:

1. Joint Graduate Entrance Examination for Biology and Interdisciplinary Life Sciences
(JGEEBILS)
2. Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE-2015) in Physics / Chemistry / Mathematics / Electrical Engineering / Electronics and Communications Engineering / Computer Science and Information Technology / Instrumentation Engineering. (Candidates who qualified in GATE-2014 in subjects mentioned herein are also eligible
to apply)
3. Joint Entrance Screening Test (JEST) (2015)
4. CSIR (JRF) (Chemistry) (2014-15)

• For M.Sc. (Neuroscience) programme, candidates need to apply only through the JGEEBILS channel.

• The advertisement for Joint Graduate Entrance Examination for Biology and Interdisciplinary Life Sciences (JGEEBILS) has already been published in which National Brain Research Centre (NBRC) has been mentioned as one of the participating institution (Employment News dated 06th September 2014 and Times of India (All India Edition) dated 03rd September 2014)

http://14.139.62.22/Admission/offlineforms.php

ICAR Goa SRF Walkin

2014-11-08T11:04:00.000+05:30

ICAR RESEARCH COMPLEX FOR GOA
ELA, OLD GOA

F.No.4(108)/2014/RKVY/Estt.

WALK-IN-INTERVIEW

It is proposed to fill up the following positions purely on temporary basis at this Institute under the adhoc projects detailed below:-

1 RKVY FUNDED project entitled for Development of Comprehensive agriculture portal for information and knowledge SHARING in Goa.

Senior Research Fellow – 2 Posts

- M.Sc. in any branch of Agriculture and other allied sciences including basic sciences.
- Basic knowledge of computer applications including data base creation and management in agriculture, design and uploading of photos/videos related to agriculture.

Experience in management of plant genetic resources, crop production, interest in making documentation on agriculture scenario in Goa including success stories, preparation of status report on general agriculture.

Rs.16,000/- + HRA.

35 years for men
40 years for women (relaxable as per rules)

One year or till completion of the project whichever is earlier.

Terms and conditions:

1. The candidates called for interview are not entitled for TA/DA.

2. This temporary appointment will be for a specific period and their services will automatically stand terminated either with the termination of the Project/Scheme or even before at the discretion of the Competent Authority. The appointment will not bestow upon them any claim for regular employment at ICAR Research Complex for Goa, Ela, Old Goa.
3. The eligible candidates may appear for Walk-in-Interviewon17th November, 2014 at 10.00a.m. at ICAR Research Complex for Goa, Ela, Old Goa along with their credentials.
4. Candidates should bring their bio data enclosed with attested copies of the testimonials . Bio-data:- Name, Father’s Name, Date of Birth, Address, Academic Qualifications, Experience, list of publications, Awards, References, Whether SC/ST/OBC & Signature of the Applicant.
5. Candidates should also bring no objection certificate from the Employer in case he/she is employed elsewhere.
6. The Director, ICAR Research Complex for Goa, Ela, Old Goa reserves the right to fill up or not to fill the vacancies notified in this advertisement.

Frederick Banting and the Discovery of Insulin

2014-10-28T18:34:00.000+05:30

According to the World Health Organization, about 347 million people worldwide have diabetes. Because diabetes treatments are so common today, it can be easy to forget that the disease can be fatal. In fact, it is approximately the seventh leading cause of death worldwide. Luckily, many people diagnosed with diabetes today enjoy healthy, otherwise normal, lives thanks to advances in treatment, and most notably insulin. However, this development is relatively recent, and only 100 years ago to receive a diabetes diagnosis was to be condemned to a life of near starvation and early death.

Known to the ancients, diabetes is one of the first diseases ever classified. Both the Vedic-period Indians and the Egyptians knew it, with the former recognizing it by the fact that the urine of its sufferers was so sweet it would attract ants. Early on, a diabetes mellitus diagnosis was a death sentence.

By the end of the 1st millennium, its symptoms were well known: excessive, sweet-tasting (yes, tasting) urine, excessive thirst, abnormal appetite and sometimes, even, gangrene. Early treatments included a mixture of fenungreek, lupine, trigonnella and zedoary seed, a combination that is sometimes still used today to reduce the excretion of sugar.

By the dawn of the 20th century, leading diabetes specialists were advocating what some called a starvation diet, “not as a cure, but for relief of symptoms and maximum extension of life.” Hardly a solution, other researchers began exploring healthier treatments for patients.

One of these was Frederick Banting, a Canadian doctor. In 1920, he had the idea that a product could be extracted from the pancreas that could be used to reverse the effects of diabetes.

Banting didn’t pull this idea out of thin air. Thirty years before, in 1889, two Germans, a physiologist, Oskar Minkowski, and a physician, Joseph von Mering, had discovered that the pancreas regulated glucose. By conducting several experiments that either removed the pancreas (from a dog) or tied off the duct that went from it to the intestine, they discovered that dogs that had the pancreas completely removed died from diabetes, but those who only had the digestive duct ligated did not develop the condition. Clearly, they surmised, the pancreas produced something that prevented diabetes.

Building on this idea, Banting believed that if a healthy pancreas was deprived of nourishment, it would lose its ability to make digestive juices, but its remaining cells could be used to create an antidiabetic product.

A simple doctor with only a bachelor’s degree, Banting needed the help of a professional researcher, and he ultimately enlisted the aid of University of Toronto professor John Macleod. Macleod grudgingly allowed Banting to use a bit of laboratory space and gave him ten dogs and an assistant, Charles Best.

In the summer of 1921, Banting and Best first removed a pancreas from one dog – giving it diabetes. Then they “ligated” the pancreas of another, stopping its nourishment. After it degenerated, they removed it, chopped it up, froze it in a special saltwater, ground it up and injected it into the now-diabetic dog.

The poor dog improved, and Banting and Best discovered that a few daily injections kept the dog healthy. This finally impressed Macleod who provided them with more funds and a better lab. Although Banting and Best initially called their treatment “isletin,” they deferred to Macleod’s suggestion of “insulin.” The name derives from the Latin “insula,” meaning “island.”

Later in the year, Bertram Collip, a biochemist, joined the team, and they also switched from using small dog pancreas to the larger ones found in cows. They eventually learned that shrinking the pancreas was unnecessary, as whole, adult pancreases worked just fine.

Collip had been brought on to help purify the insulin and determine the proper dose for humans. The first two human guinea pigs were Banting and Best who injected themselves; although they suffered from dizziness and weakness, it otherwise had no ill effects. During this time, Collip discovered that glucose helped alleviate the symptoms of an insulin overdose.

The first diabetic human to try insulin was Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old from Toronto who was near death when they began the trial in January 1922. Shortly thereafter, he regained his health.

Another early subject was Elizabeth Hughes, the daughter of a prominent American, Charles Evans Hughes, Sr., who at the time was the U.S. Secretary of State. (He later went on to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court). Prior to insulin, Elizabeth was treated with a starvation diet with only limited success. By 1922, she had dropped to 45 pounds (she was about 5 feet tall), and her mother pleaded with Banting until Elizabeth was allowed to participate in the trial. Also a success, Elizabeth ultimately went on to lead a long, full life.

By 1923, the world realized what Banting, Best and Collip had discovered with Macleod’s help, and the Nobel Committee awarded Banting and Macleod the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Banting was angry that Macleod, and not Best, was included in the prize. In later years, the committee has justified its award to Macleod, rather than Best and Collip, by noting that Macleod provided financial and other support for the project, supervised the work and used his connections to get the discovery known among the larger scientific community.

In the end, Best and Collip received recognition, at least from Banting and Macleod, who shared their cash awards with their over-looked colleagues.

ILBS Biomedical Science Ph.d admission 2014

2014-10-27T20:16:00.000+05:30

11 mega openings in Sahara India | B.sc/ M.sc Microbiology

2014-10-27T20:12:00.002+05:30

Sahara India was founded in 1978 and now has book value of gross assets of more than USD 63 billion. Today, the Sahara Group is a major business conglomerate in India with diversified business interest including financial services, housing finance, mutual FUNDS, life insurance, City development, real estate activities, print and television media, film production, power, information technology, health care, tourism, hospitality, Sports and Consumer Merchandise Retail Product.

Job Title : Water Specialist

Job Code : SWFV0005

Job Description :

Sound knowledge and experience of water and its various problems.

Eligiblity : B.sc/ M.sc Microbiology

Experience : 3-4 years

New Zealand : PhD Scholarship available for research

2014-10-18T11:29:00.005+05:30

Geometric structures are intimately linked to natural (or geometric) PDEs and their analysis; these are the partial differential equations determined by geometric structure. New insights connected to Cartan geometries will be used to develop theory for treating geometries, PDEs, and their interactions, using uniform principles. This approach will be brought together with other tools, such as variational theory, to solve problems on the geometry-analysis border.
The project is motivated by problems in geometric analysis, representation theory, and mathematical and theoretical physics; results are to be applied to these problems.

PhD Scholarship available for research work with Rod Gover in the Department of Mathematics, University of Auckland.

Project: New directions at the geometry-analysis frontier

Non-technical summary: Geometric structures are intimately linked to natural (or geometric) PDEs and their analysis; these are the partial differential equations determined by geometric structure. New insights connected to Cartan geometries will be used to develop theory for treating geometries, PDEs, and their interactions, using uniform principles. This approach will be brought together with other tools, such as variational theory, to solve problems on the geometry-analysis border.

The project is motivated by problems in geometric analysis, representation theory, and mathematical and theoretical physics; results are to be applied to these problems.

FUNDING is via NZ Marsden Fund, Project 13-UOA-018.
Please address enquiries to Rod Gover r.gover@auckland.ac.nz

Application Deadline : 31 October 2014

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Contact Adress: Rod Gover

Contact Email: r.gover@auckland.ac.nz

MID-YEAR ADMISSIONS for Research Program in IISc, Bangalore

2014-10-18T11:22:00.003+05:30

Applications are invited for admission to the Research Program at the Institute, to fill the shortfall in the August Admissions. Qualifications for eligibility,

specializations, areas of research, number of seats and other details are provided in our website http://www.iisc.ernet.in.

RESEARCH PROGRAMS (for Ph D only)

PARTICIPATING DEPARTMENTS

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Aerospace Engineering, Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Computer Science & Automation, Earth Sciences, Electrical

Communication Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Design & Technology, Inorganic & Physical Chemistry, Nanoscience and Engineering,

Neuroscience, Organic Chemistry, Physics, Product Design & Manufacturing, and Supercomputer Education & Research.

ELIGIBILITY

Minimum second-class or equivalent grade in the qualifying examination (which is relaxed to a “pass class” for SC/ST candidates) as indicated below:

Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate field of Engineering/Technology; or Master’s degree in Science in an appropriate field; or Bachelor's degree in Science

(with Mathematics, Physics & Chemistry as subjects of study) followed by AMIE, AMIIChE, Grad.IETE etc.

Master's degree in Engineering/Technology in an appropriate field.

Pass in one of the following National Entrance Tests is mandatory and must be within the cut-off marks announced : CSIR-UGC NET for JRF; or UGC-NET

for JRF; or DBT JRF or ICMR- JRF; or INSPIRE Fellow; or GATE; or JEST or NBHM. (Note that candidates who were called for the interview held in June

2014 in any one of the above mentioned departments are eligible to apply again.)

GENERAL: Reservation for SC/ST/PH (Physically-Handicapped) and Kashmiri-Migrant candidates: As per Government of India regulations.

HOW TO APPLY

Application for all the programmes mentioned above are available online only, prospective candidates should apply online. Visit our website www.iisc.ernet.in

for e-brochure and online application.

APPLICATION FEE( non refundable)

Category	Application Fee*
General / OBC	`600/-
SC / ST / PH	`300/-
*Bank service charge extra (to be borne by the applicants)

Mode of Payment for Application fee: Only online Payment mode is available (includes internet-banking, Debit Card, Visa/Master Credit Card Payments).

IMPORTANT DATES

Website opening and online submission of Applications	01.10.2014
Last date of online submission of applications	24.10.2014
Date of Interview	17 /18-11-2014
Commencement of session	01-01-2015

The prospective applicants may contact concerned Departments for more details regarding specific academic programs. Details can also be obtained by visiting our Home Page: www.iisc.ernet.in.

IISc NeuroScience/NanoScience PhD admission october 2014

2014-10-18T11:21:00.002+05:30

MID-YEAR ADMISSIONS 2014

Applications are invited for admission to the Research Program at the Institute, to fill the shortfall in the August Admissions. Qualifications for eligibility,

specializations, areas of research, number of seats and other details are provided in our websitehttp://www.iisc.ernet.in

RESEARCH PROGRAMS (for Ph D only)

PARTICIPATING DEPARTMENTS

Astronomy and Astrophysics, Aerospace Engineering, Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Computer Science & Automation, Earth Sciences, Electrical Communication Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Design & Technology, Inorganic & Physical Chemistry, Nanoscience and Engineering, Neuroscience, Organic Chemistry, Physics, Product Design & Manufacturing, and Supercomputer Education & Research.