Heal thy heart

  

On the occasion of World Heart Day (September 30), here are some heartfelt home truths that have the potential to save a life

In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 17.3 million deaths worldwide due to cardiovascular diseases, accounting for almost 30% of all global deaths! Despite the fact that this loss of life could have been greatly prevented, the figures are only set to rise. By 2030, studies suggest that as many as 20.3 million people worldwide will succumb to heart attack.

Though the term 'heart attack' implies that your heart suddenly attacks you, nothing could be further from the truth. It takes several years (even decades) of gradual abuse and neglect for heart damage to occur. Here, we've gathered tips from some of India's leading specialists to help you keep your ticker running in top condition. Remember, regardless of your age or fitness levels, there's no time like present to take your heart health into your hands!

Heart attack--how it happens

What is actually regarded as a disease of the heart, begins in the coronary arteries (the blood vessels leading to the heart, supplying it with oxygen rich blood that it can then pump throughout the body). When this blood supply is blocked or cut off, the heart becomes damaged. If it's not restored immediately, then a portion of the heart can die.

"Coronary artery disease strikes people in their productive years when they have a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. The last two decades have witnessed an alarming rise in the incidence of hypertension, diabetes and heart attacks, and it is affecting people at a much younger age than what was seen two or three decades ago. Every effort should be made to control its alarming increase in our society," says Dr. Pramod Jaiswal, Senior consultant, adult cardiology, Frontier Lifeline hospitals, Chennai.

So what exactly causes your arteries to clog up?

Cholesterol Clogs

The answer lies in cholesterol, a waxy substance produced by our own liver and found in certain foods. Some amount of cholesterol is required by our own bodies as it is the key ingredient needed to make vitamin D to build strong bones and to regulate your hormones, build cell walls, and create bile salts that help you digest fat. However, the liver produces an adequate amount--about 1,000 milligrams of cholesterol a day. By eating cholesterol rich food, we tend to over-load our systems. The excess cholesterol has to go somewhere, so just as you'd toss out a piece of garbage, the body gets rid of it by depositing it in your arteries.

"The deposition of cholesterol in the wall of the arteries makes the inner lining prone to injury," explains Dr Jaiswal. "Whenever this plaque ruptures due to any reason, a blood clot develops at that site causing complete blockage of the blood flow in the coronary artery, paving the way to heart attack."

Statins and Your Diet

Once your cholesterol levels rise above 200 mg/dl, your doctor immediately recommends statins, which are plant based drugs. "Statins are very effective in lowering and controlling cholesterol, but in high doses, they can have side effects such as abdominal cramps, muscle cramps, liver function abnormalities. So it needs to be monitored," says Dr Pratiksha G. Gandhi, Chairperson, IPC Heartcare Centre, Mumbai.

When you've been prescribed statins and you see your cholesterol levels drop, this is a time when you need to pay even closer attention to your diet. After all, for most patients, a faulty diet is what caused the problem in the first place. In fact, at IPC heart centre, drugs aren't immediately recommended. Rather, the patient is put on a strict diet. "We have case studies that prove that once a patient cuts down on saturated fats like fried foods, the yellow of the egg, ice creams and other junk foods and includes natural cholesterol lowering foods like methi seeds, vegetables, garlic, onions and flax seeds in their diet, this lowers the need for medicine. Some people can even be drug free."

According to Padma Shri awardee Dr K.K.Aggarwal, Senior consultant physician, Head Cardiology and Dean of the Board of Medical Education, Moolchand Medcity, New Delhi, a healthy diet is indeed the most effective medicine and the best way to prevent artery blockage. "Eat fresh, seasonal and easily digestible foods. 50% of your diet should be from fruits and vegetables," he says.

Dr Jaiswal recommends increasing your intake of Omega-3 fatty acids (present in flaxseed oil, walnut oil, soybean oil, canola oil and some types of fish such as salmon and mackerel), as this would lower blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart attack.

Women at risk

Myths and misconceptions about heart disease abound. For instance, it is a myth that heart disease and stroke only affect older men or is a rich man's disease. "Heart attacks affect as many women as men. However for women, their risk is seriously underestimated," says Dr Pratiksha Gandhi. "It is vital that women understand that they are at risk too, because it causes 1 in 3 female deaths. Shockingly, that's about one death per minute! An annual cardiac check-up is a must (for all)".

Vital Care

If your loved one is having a heart attack, it is vital that you act quickly. Ensure that aspirin is on hand and that he/she reaches the hospital with minimal delay. "The patient must chew a tablet of soluble aspirin even before reaching the hospital, as it can help to reduce the extent of damage," says Dr Jaiswal.

Monitoring your heart health in the different stages of your life is critical, so if you haven't already, then just take this article to heart!

A chill thrill

Serve mangosteen mousse and it’ll leave your guests asking for more

The purple mangosteen is a tropical evergreen tree, believed to have originated in Indonesia. The fruit is the size of a small orange, round or flattened at the ends. It has a thick, hard, deep reddish-purple rind surrounding snow-white flesh, which is in segments resembling those of a mandarin orange. It is referred to as the “The Queen of fruits” in South-East Asia. The mangosteen shell is fibrous and firm, but becomes soft and easy to pry open when the fruit ripens. The delicate texture of the edible part of the fruit resembles peach. The fruit also has an astringent flavour.

Mangosteen is usually eaten fresh as a dessert. The fleshy segments are sometimes canned, but they are said to lose their delicate flavour in the canning process. The sliced and dried rind is powdered and administered to overcome dysentery. The rind is also used in the preparation of ointments for eczema and other skin disorders.

Now, for a recipe.

Mangosteen Mousse

Ingredients

Eggs: 3

Sugar: 50 gm

Milk: 250 ml

Gelatine: 15 gm

Whipped cream: 250ml

Mangosteen segments: 100 gm

Method: Finely chop the mangosteen segments. Soak the gelatine in water and keep it aside. Boil the milk. Beat the egg and sugar till fluffy with a whisk. Add the boiled milk gradually and whisk well. Add the gelatine. Mix well. Add the chopped mangosteen followed by whipped cream. Refrigerate for two hours and serve chilled.

V. K.CHANDRASSEKARAN

Executive Chef

Vivanta by Taj - Connemara

Workout tips

Before starting the workout, warm up and do stretching exercises for at least 20 minutes. After finishing workout, again do stretching exercises for 10 minutes. This helps improve circulation and makes the muscles stronger.

If you are overweight, do cardio exercises for at least 20 minutes after your workout.

Don’t train on an empty stomach in the morning. Eat something or have a protein shake (minimum 30 gm serving).

Do weight training for at least five days a week; maximum 45 minutes each session. Don’t over train (more than one hour at a time).

During weight training, most people lift more weight than is ideal and damage their joints and spine. The correct method is to use strict wraps and to lift small weights.

Another mistake is to take help to lift weights. If your workout is properly planned you will not need help to lift weights.

Women tend to focus only on cardio and do very little weight training. For an effective body transformation, weight training is extremely important. It will make you look leaner and your muscles will be stronger. If you do cardio for 30 minutes, add 30-40 minutes of weight training.

Dengue still retains its deadly bite

 

AP COVERING SOME GROUND: Though the vaccine trial has not been able to achieve its primary objective, it has been successful on other fronts. The picture shows fumigation to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, a transmitter of dengue.

Vaccine’s overall efficacy in a recent trial is ‘lower than expected’

The just concluded Phase IIb (proof-of-concept) dengue vaccine trial against all the four virus types (serotypes) that cause dengue has not only shown an unexpectedly low efficacy of 30.2 per cent but has also challenged many well-established hypotheses and ideas.

The trial was conducted in about 4,000 children in the age group 4 and 11 in the dengue endemic district of Muang in Thailand. The vaccine group had 2,669 children and the control group had 1,333 children. Primary analysis was conducted using data from 3,673 children.

The overall efficacy of the vaccine was “lower than expected” and was “not significant,” reported the authors of a study published in The Lancet on Tuesday (September 11). The low overall efficacy of 30.2 per cent “comes as a surprise,” writes Scott B. Halstead, a U.S-based senior scientific adviser for the Dengue Vaccine Initiative in a Comment piece accompanying the paper.

Protection against serotypes

The vaccine produced immune responses against all the four virus types. However, the vaccine only protected against three serotypes — type 1, type 3 and type 4 at a “range consistent with our assumed overall efficacy of 70 per cent after three injections,” they write.

“The lack of efficacy against serotype 2, and the fact that serotype 2 was the prevalent serotype during the study, diminished the overall vaccine efficacy caused by any serotype (statistical power limitation),” notes Derek Wallace, the Corresponding author of the study in an email sent to The Hindu. “The ongoing Phase III studies with over 31,000 volunteers will help further document efficacy in broader population and different epidemiological environments.”

For instance, children in the vaccine group had more number of dengue infections caused by virus type 2 than the control group. Twenty-eight days after the three injections, the vaccine group had 31 dengue episodes caused by serotype 2, while the control group had only 17. Similarly, after two injections, it was 44 cases in the vaccine group compared with 22 in the control group. The number of dengue episodes in the vaccine group after one injection was 52 compared with 27 in the control group.

Even in the case of serotype 1, the protective effect of the vaccine was a little lower than for virus types 3 and 4.

It is interesting to note that the vaccine produced “satisfactory” immune response (immunogenicity) against all the four serotypes. Yet, it did not offer any protection against serotype 2. “The observed lack of efficacy against DENV2 despite satisfactory immunogenicity is surprising and will need further investigation,” they write.

What it challenges

The authors also question the “robustness” of the “assumption” that a dengue vaccine should induce “balanced immunogenicity” against all the four serotypes to keep dengue infections at bay.

The trial result “challenges vaccine development hypothesis” on the grounds that “similar levels of protection against all the four serotypes” should be seen when neutralising antibodies have been induced for all four virus types.

Natural dengue infection by any serotype produces lifelong immunity against that serotype. Though infections caused by all the four serotypes are common in the dengue endemic study area, those caused by serotype 1 and then type 2 are predominant.

However, the number of dengue episodes caused by type 2 and type 1 is more than the other two types in both the vaccine and control groups after one, two and three injections respectively. Moreover, the number of dengue episodes caused by virus type 2 is more in the vaccine group than the control group at all stages of the trial.

Infections by two or more dengue virus types should have produced “broad neutralising antibody response” against dengue diseases caused by any of the virus types, notes Dr. Halstead. But that has not been the case, though.

Dr. Halstead suspects that the trial might have failed to obtain a “balanced immune response” when a cocktail containing all four virus types was given to children living in an endemic area. He finally concludes by writing that “serious deficits remain in our understanding of the mechanism or mechanisms by which human beings are protected against initial and successive infections” with four virus types.

So should “type-specific antibodies” be given to prevent the occurrence of dengue diseases? “The four serotypes are circulating across the world, and several serotypes can coexist in the same region. Our goal is to provide the broadest protection possible for individuals living in endemic areas as well as for individuals who plan to travel to those areas,” Dr. Wallace notes in his email. Though the trial has not been able to achieve its primary objective, it has been successful on other fronts. The vaccine proved to be safe and well tolerated in all the vaccinated children. The scientists have been able to develop an efficacious dengue vaccine by overcoming a big challenge — no animal models exist for testing efficacy. Also, dengue is caused by four different related viruses, thus complicating the development of an efficacious vaccine.

Avoid stress to keep Alzheimer’s at bay

Many doctor’s point to environmental and genetic factors as probable causes for Alzheimer’s Disease

“People think it’s a terrible tragedy when somebody has Alzheimer’s. But in my mother’s case, it’s different. My mother has been unhappy all her life. For the first time in her life, she’s happy.” These thoughts of noted American writer Amy Tan, whose mother was diagnosed of Alzheimer’s, aptly underlines the need to have a positive attitude to the disease.

On the occasion of World Alzheimer’s Day on Friday, neurologists maintain that living a fun-filled and fulfilling life with friends and family and avoiding stress in midlife are the best bets to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The exact reasons for Alzheimer’s are yet to be fully understood and many doctor’s point to environmental and genetic factors as the probable causes for it.

“Alzheimer’s directly impacts the brain tissues, causing dementia or memory loss. Sometimes, such persons are unable to judge, function and behave normally. The ailment can be managed if care givers and patients follow guidelines of neurologists properly,” says HOD, Neurology, Yashoda Hospitals, Jaydeep Ray Choudhary.

Public often tend to mix up dementia with AD. Physicians point out that dementia or memory loss can be due to many reasons and Alzheimer’s happens to be one of the reasons that causes dementia.

“In a decade, AD will become a leading ailment that will put a high burden on the family and the society. Treatment and rehabilitation is a complex process and guidance is necessary. Medicines are available to delay the progression of AD and not to cure it,” Dr. Choudhary points out.

Precautions

Some of the precautionary measures for the ailment include avoiding or controlling risk factors like hypertension, diabetes, stroke and high stress in midlife. “AD is very common among persons who are above 40 years of age.

So, it is always better that middle aged persons avoid stressful lifestyle and make sure that they keep their mental and physical faculties alert by taking up regular activities,” HOD, Neurology, Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), A. K. Meena said.

AD is characterised by memory loss and patients progressively become dependant on others for day to day activities like using toilets, bathing, eating, dressing among other things.

Stem cell transplantation for boy with thalassaemia

 

 

The Hindu Kovai Medical Center and Hospital chairman Nalla G. Palaniswami (second left) explains to presspersons in the city on Tuesday the stem cell treatment D. Dhanush (seated on the table) underwent for thalassaemia. Photo:M.Periasamy.

A 10-year-old boy has been infused with stem cells harvested from the bone marrow of his brother to treat him for thalassaemia – a disorder caused by destruction of red blood cells. Called allogeneic transplantation of stem cells, this was done at Kovai Medical Center and Hospital.

D. Dhanush may not have to undergo expensive and excruciating blood transfusion anymore if his body accepts the donor cells. But his condition will have to be evaluated very minutely for the next two years to confirm that the cells donated by his brother have been received well and adapted him.

Presenting the boy before media persons, Clinical Haematologist and Head of the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit T. Rajasekar explained that transplantation was of two types – autologous and allogeneic.

The autologous procedure involves harvesting of stem cells from the patients themselves (those suffering from thalassaemia or leukaemia). The extracted cells are frozen and stored for high dose treatment.

After being treated, these are infused into the patient through a vein. This procedure was done for one person suffering from myeloma (cancer of plasma cells or white blood cells that produce anti-bodies that help fight infections/diseases) and another with a relapsed lymphoma (cancer of the lymphocytes –cells that are part of immune system).

Under the allogeneic procedure, matching stem cells from a donor are used. Mostly, these cells are from siblings or a close relative as they need to pass the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching test. HLA matching is required, or the cells will be rejected by the recipient. Ideally, it is sibling whose cells will match because he or she will have the HLA from both parents. It is the combination of HLAs from both parents that are found in the children.

The cells can be harvested from the marrow or from the blood. In the case presented on Tuesday, Dr. Rajasekar said the cells were brought out of the bone marrow in Dhanush’s brother and into his blood, from where these were harvested.

Chairman of the hospital Nalla G. Palaniswami said the tough procedure was performed by the new Comprehensive Cancer Centre, which was gradually bringing in specialists of all sub-specialities of cancer care. “Only then can this be called a comprehensive centre,” he said.

The hospital would form a KMCH Foundation, which would use funds from donors to treat poor children suffering from cancer and some other disorders that required expensive treatment.

The stem cell transplantation that Dhanush, the son of a police head constable, underwent cost Rs.12 lakh. Of this, Rs.9 lakh was provided by a donor, Dr. Palaniswami said. Dean of the hospital V. Kumaran and Head of Department of Interventional Radiology Mathew Cherian spoke on how the cancer centre was established and how developments were being made.

Your heart is in your hands

DR. D. K. SATSANGI

 

The Hindu Live a heart-healthy life...

With this year’s theme for World Heart Day (September 29) being heart disease in women and children, here is an alert on what to look out for.

Do you smoke, drink or lead a sedentary life? Do you have high blood pressure, sugar or cholesterol levels? Are you under stress due to personal or professional problems? Do you think you are suffering from Cardiovascular-Disease (CVD)? These questions are largely applicable to most people but are extremely crucial when it comes to women.

Why? The answer lies in the exponential increase in the incidence of CVDs among women. The death rate due to cardiac disease among women has increased from 30 per cent in 1997 to 54 per cent in 2009 and the myth that heart disease is a ‘man’s disease’ has been debunked.

Underestimated

Almost half of the 17.3 million annual CVD’s deaths occur in women, though the risk is often underestimated. If you ask women about the greatest health problem they face, the majority would say breast cancer. But it is CVD, which poses the greatest health problem for women today. It claims the lives of more women than all forms of cancer combined.

Children are also at risk since they have little control over their environment and their heart-healthy choices can be limited. The other reason is Congenital heart defect (CHD). This is caused by improper development of the heart during foetal development. Mothers who do not adhere to the special diet necessary to manage the disease during pregnancy have a higher risk of having a child with congenital heart disease. Women with insulin-dependent diabetes may have a higher risk of having a child with heart defects.

The most common cause of CVD is Atherosclerosis (hardening/clogging of arteries caused by the build-up of cholesterol and fatty deposits (called plaque) on the inner walls of the arteries. This restricts blood flow to the heart.

Without adequate blood, the heart is starved of oxygen and the vital nutrients it needs to work properly. When one or more of the coronary arteries becomes blocked, a heart attack (injury to the heart muscle) can occur.

The most important challenge is to identify the symptoms in women because these are often different (see box). Sixty four per cent of women who died suddenly because of coronary heart disease had no previous symptoms. The symptoms may occur with or without chest pain and may come and go.

Risk factors

Older age: When woman reaches the age of 50-52 (the age of natural menopause), the risk of heart disease increases dramatically

Family history: If your parents have CVDs, you have an increased risk of developing it

Race: Risk of CVDs varies with race. For example, Afro-Americans have more severe high blood pressure than Caucasians and are at higher risk of CVDs. This is partly due to higher rates of obesity and diabetes in these populations.

Remember, CVD is largely preventable. You can ensure your heart stays healthy by following a healthy lifestyle. Your heart is in your hands.

Symptoms in women

A feeling of being squeezed or discomfort/pain in the chest, between the breasts or behind the breastbone

Discomfort and/or radiating pain over arms, back, neck, jaw or stomach

Shortness of breath, weakness or fatigue

Unusual anxiety or nervousness

Indigestion or gas-like pain, nausea

Sudden sweating, dizziness and collapse

What you can do

Be physically active, walk or work out regularly

Avoid foods full of salt, saturated and trans fats and sugar. Eat lots of fruit and vegetables

Maintain a healthy weight

Quit smoking and avoid respiratory irritants

Limit or stop alcohol use

Stop smoking, avoid products containing tobacco

Those with lung problems should get annual influenza vaccination

Remembering two giants of Indian science

N. Gopal Raj

Plaques commemorating the achievements of two titans of Indian science, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose and Sir C.V. Raman, are to be unveiled in Kolkata on Friday (September 14).

The plaques are being put up as part of the ‘Milestones in Electrical Engineering and Computing’ of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a professional body with members from 160 countries. It established the Milestones programme in 1983 to recognise “technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.”

Guglielmo Marconi is often credited with inventing radio transmission and shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun for ‘development of wireless telegraphy.’

First to do

“But the record clearly shows that wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves was first successfully demonstrated by Bose and that too in Calcutta [now Kolkata], not London or elsewhere” remarked Ranjit Nair, director of the Delhi-based Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science.

Dr. Nair had helped organise a symposium in 2008 to mark the great scientist’s 150 birth anniversary at his alma mater, Christ’s College at Cambridge in the U.K.

The first demonstration by Bose, using apparatus he had designed and built, took place in 1895 at Presidency College (now Presidency University) where he taught, according to Sibaji Raha, director of the Bose Institute in Kolkata. The transmitter, which generated the wireless signal was put in a colleague’s room while the detector was in an adjoining room with the principal of the college, Sir Alexander Pedler, himself a chemist of some renown, present. The wireless signal went through a closed door, rang a bell and set off some gunpowder.

Public demonstration

Soon thereafter, Bose held a public demonstration at the Town Hall in the presence of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, said Dr Raha in an email.

In 1897, Bose reported on his experiments at the Royal Institution in London. Marconi, who had moved from Italy to England by that time, was not getting the desired result with his efforts at transmission.

But soon after Bose’s talk, Marconi changed the design of his detector to one that was “uncannily similar” to the one the former had designed and successfully demonstrated. Later that year, Marconi carried out his first successful demonstration of wireless signalling, Dr. Raha pointed out.

Moreover, Bose made use of galena crystals in his detectors, presaging work in semi-conductors that revolutionised electronics many decades later.

The plaque for Bose will be at Presidency University. The one for Raman is being placed at the current premises of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (its original building, where he carried out his experimental work for many years, is now a college of commerce).

When light is scattered by an atom or molecule, it can gain or lose energy in the process, leading to a change in colour of the light that bounces off. Raman found that this colour change was related to the properties of the material that caused the scattering.

The ‘Raman Effect,’ for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1930, has become an invaluable analytical tool in a wide range of fields, from industrial chemistry to life sciences and forensic investigations, for establishing the chemical composition and molecular structure of materials.

Raman scattering is now entering the realm of fibre optic communications that are the backbone of the digital world of today. Fibre optic cables that girdle the globe move zillions of bits every second to every part of this planet.

“There is still an ever-increasing demand for bandwidth due to an explosive increase in the volume of internet data, voice and video to be transferred,” said Deepa Venkitesh of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “Amplifiers based on the ‘Raman Effect’ are becoming the preferred choice to meet this demand.”

Services disrupted as INSAT-3E loses crucial ‘Earth lock’

TOPICS

science and technology scientific exploration
space programme

Services on INSAT-3E, one of ISRO’s key communication satellites, were disrupted for most of Saturday, after the spacecraft lost its crucial Earth link.

“It is out of danger now, though services are yet to be restored,” a spokesman for the space agency told The Hindu in the evening.

Scientists at the Master Control Facility (MCF) in Hassan, 80 km from here, started working on restoring the “Earth lock” that was lost in the morning, he said. Until 8 p.m., there was some success. There were some glitches and the MCF scientists monitoring and commanding the satellite should correct them and restore the satellite fully by the end of the day, he said.

Some of BSNL’s services and many VSATs that support Internet communication use capacity on 3E. The disruption continued until 8 p.m. “Their operations weren’t shifted to a different satellite, as is usually done in such a situation,” he said.

Communications satellites, circling at around 36,000 km from the ground, face a particular point on Earth. INSAT-3E is turned Earthwards on top of the country and has a 24-hour orbit. It lost this link at 9.50 a.m. Weighing 2,750 kg, it is the country’s third-generation satellite. Built for a life of 15 years, it is now approaching its ninth year in orbit. It was launched on September 28, 2003, on a European vehicle, and placed at 55 degrees East longitude. It carries 24 transponders in the C-band, and 12 in the extended C-band, to support broadcasting and communication services of public and private sectors.

ISRO’s satellites often outlive their designed life.

GSAT-10, the country’s next communication satellite, will now fly on September 29 on a European vehicle.

Space agency ISRO has announced the new date on its website. The launch was deferred from September 21, after scientists at the Kourou Launch pad in South America noticed some dust in the rocket. That has apparently been corrected. The 3.4-tonne spacecraft carries 36 transponders — including 12 Ku, 12 C and 12 extended C-band. The capacity will support DTH (direct-to-home) and normal broadcasting and communication. It also has the second of the GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) payload, which will fine-tune or ‘augment’ GPS readings used by pilots of civil airlines. (GAGAN is a project of the Airports Authority of India and ISRO.)

A thriftier kitchen

LATHA ANANTHARAMAN

Many of us buy too much food out of habit, and we throw out more than we should.

A recent news article reported that American families waste nearly 40 per cent of the food they buy. As Indian householders get busier and more frazzled, we too are losing a good bit of our vegetables and provisions to carelessness. One rotten tomato can spoil an entire kilo. Packaged beans from a department store may contain those which are too stringy to use. A cut piece of white melon may rot in the fridge. Meanwhile, vegetable prices are rising every day.

Sometimes we cook too much food for a meal and forget to refrigerate the rest so that it can be eaten for the next meal. Or we may forget the leftovers in the fridge till they are inedible.

Some families may buy too much food just out of habit. The monthly provisions list, relic of a time when families were large, may not suit small families. We no longer need to store large quantities of rice or pulses, which are available all year round. House guests nowadays call up before arriving, and there is usually enough time to stock up.

Families who shop at sleek department stores may also buy provisions in larger quantities simply because they are packaged in larger batches or marked as discounted.

Spices and nuts, often the most costly items in Indian kitchens, have to be treated with extra care to preserve their fragrance and taste. It is best to buy them in the quantities we are likely to use immediately.

Buying locally produced vegetables and fruits helps farmers in our region. When we shop at a farmers’ market, the profit goes to the farmer rather than the middle man. We also bypass the transportation, cold-storage and packaging costs that big stores pass on to customers.

Processed and packaged instant foods have made life easier for many families, but when we buy fresh ingredients and cook a meal from scratch, we swallow fewer preservatives and less salt, sugar and fat. We also get much more food for the money.

We can all adjust our food shopping and preparation to save our own money and to be less wasteful as consumers.

We also need to look at the larger picture. It takes so much labour, manure and water for a farmer to grow a kilo of tomatoes. It takes so much fuel and packaging to get it to market. It costs us some effort and money to get it home. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let it spoil before we sink our teeth into it?

(This is the third article in a 10-part series about how to live sustainably every day. It appears on Mondays. The next article is: Hole in the bucket)

Wings of change

•  
   Lakeside view: Pallas Gull, a coastal bird spotted at Singanallur
  Lake in Coimbatore 
• 
    Red- necked Phalarope, a coastal bird, spotted at Singanallur
   Lake in Coimbatore 
• 
  Western Marsh Harrier spotted at Singanallur Lake in Coimbatore

Members of the Salim Ali Naturalist Forum spot the rare Red- necked Phalarope and the Pallas Gull at the Singanallur Lake. They tell K. Jeshi it could be because of the changes in environment

A small bird, predominantly in white and grey plumage, twirled rapidly at the south end of the Singanallur Lake. It spins at the surface of water and looks for insects and small preys. G. Parameswaran, a member of Salim Ali Naturalist Forum (SANF) noticed the bird and was overjoyed. It was a Red-necked Phalarope, a rare passage migrant bird. “Around 9 a.m. on September 16, when I saw the bird in my binoculars, I jumped in excitement,” he says.

The bird which measures about 18 to 19 cms, breeds up North in Siberia, and spends the winters along the coast, such as Point Calimere. They are generally seen in less numbers, along the coast.

“It’s a shore bird like the Sandpipers, Stilts, Stents and Red-wattled Lapwings. It swims and feeds in circular motion in water. It is this peculiar behaviour which helped us identify the bird. In Seattle, where I lived, the birds are common because of the maritime environment there. ”

A unique sighting

Parameswaran along with another SANF member Rajesh Ramanarayanan also spotted the rare Pallas Gull at Singanallur Lake. It’s a grey and white bird with a black tail band, much larger in size. V. Harish, a member of Eco Club of PSG CAS has photographed the Palas Gull, and Eurasian Marsh Harrier at Singanallur Lake.

“I observed the bird in my binoculars, took field notes, and compared it with the field guide on birds, and confirmed it as Pallas Gull,” Parameswaran explains.

Gulls breed beyond the Himalayas, in China, and spend the winters along the Indian Coast. They are usually found along the coastline.

What makes the sighting unique in Coimbatore is that both are coastal area birds, says P. Pramod, Nature Education Officer of SACON who accompanied the SANF team.

“In India, there have been just four or five sightings of Phalaropes in places such as Bangalore, Jaipur, Kolkata and Chennai. During breeding, their white and grey plumage changes to red. It’s an arctic breeding bird and we don’t know why they are coming. May be global climatic changes is one of the reasons for unexpected sightings and disappearances of birds. It’s an indication of changes in Nature.”

He attributes such new observations to an increase in number of bird watchers in the region.

Pramod says the Coimbatore wetlands have become a hot spot for bird watching.

“A number of uncommon birds are being spotted. Individuals, authorities and NGOs, are taking care of the water bodies. When they conserve water bodies and improve the health of wetlands, it’s good for birds and human beings too. Already, there are positive changes. This year, we have noticed an increase in pelicans visiting the wetlands. At SANF, there are about 200 serious bird watcher who go out into the wild every Sunday. It’s a positive sign.”

Spotted at Singanallur Lake

Pheasant-tailed Jacana, Western Rees Egret, Painted Snipes, Spot-billed Ducks, Spot-billed Pelicans, Painted Storks, Glossy Ibis, Western Marsh Harrier …

Call for the sparrows

 

For its 150th year celebration, Mount Lodge gets ready to bring the birds back

The green cover around the Freemasons’ Hall in Egmore is calming, and as one of its older member exclaims as he steps out of the hall, “unique”. “Where do you find places like these anymore?” he enquires as the sesquicentennial celebrations of Mount Lodge are in full flow. The number of trees in the area has been classified and sparrow boxes have been put up. This is part of their ongoing initiative to give back to the environment.

The sparrow boxes have been arranged in association with the Madras Naturalists’ Society (MNS). “They have a beautiful campus and when they approached us for their 150th year celebration, we decided that the best way to mark this date was by promoting conservation,” says R. Bhanumathi of MNS. “We’ve got about 20 sparrow boxes here — earthen pots and wooden boxes — that we’ll be putting up around the place and distributing to members.”

Why the birds flew

T. Murugavel of MNS explains the importance of sparrows and why they have suddenly disappeared. “Most people think that sparrows have gone because of the mobile phone towers. But that’s the least of the reasons. They have just gone to places where they can find food,” he says. Since grains now come in sealed plastic packets, people no longer spread them on terraces or spill them on their way back from the neighbourhood store. “Also, houses in the old days had many nooks and corners to build nests. Apartments aren’t too suited for sparrows. But that is not all. Petrol and oil spills kill the insects and worms that sparrows feed their babies with.”

These sparrow boxes are also available to the public too. “We have inaugurated this project so that students and people in this neighbourhood can take these initiatives to their homes,” says Kylas Swaminathan, a freemason. “We will be reviewing it every quarter to see how successful it is.”

There are 118 trees to house these sparrows on the Mount Lodge campus, and over 15 of them are remnants of three species that used to inhabit the tropical forests of old Madras — Mimusops eElengi, which is a part of the chickoo family; Streblus aAsper, a part of the fig family; and Wrightia tTinctoria. “These trees store 25 tonnes of carbon and let out five tonnes of oxygen every year,” says M. Udayakumar, DST inspire fellow, Department of Botany, Pachaiyappa’s College, who classified the trees. “It is rare to find so many trees in such a small area.”

If you’d like to have a sparrow box, call Kylas at 95000-10467.

Arctic sea ice shrinks to lowest level on record

  

 

            AP Arctic sea ice has melted to its minimum extent for the year due to climate change, setting a record for the lowest summer cover since satellites began collecting data. File photo

Arctic sea ice has melted to its minimum extent for the year due to climate change, setting a record for the lowest summer cover since satellites began collecting data.

The 2012 extent has fallen to 3.41 million sq km, which is 50 per cent lower than the 1979-2000 average.

Arctic sea ice has long been regarded as a sensitive indicator of changes in the climate, NSIDC said in a statement.

Scientists who have been analysing the startling melt think it is part of a fundamental change.

“We are now in uncharted territory,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Center (NSIDC) in Colorado, U.S.

“While we’ve long known that as the planet warms up, changes would be seen first and be most pronounced in the Arctic, few of us were prepared for how rapidly the changes would actually occur,” said Serreze.

This year’s minimum caps a summer of low ice extents in the Arctic.

On August 26, sea ice extent fell to 4.10 million sq km, breaking the previous record low set on 18 September 2007 of 4.17 million sq km.

It fell below four million sq km on September 4, another first in the 33-year satellite record.

“The strong late season decline is indicative of how thin the ice cover is,” said NSIDC scientist Walt Meier.

“Ice has to be quite thin to continue melting away as the sun goes down and Fall approaches,” Meier said.

Scientists say they are observing fundamental changes in sea ice cover. The Arctic used to be dominated by multiyear ice that survived through several years.

The region is characterised by seasonal ice cover and large areas are now prone to completely melt away in summer.

The sea ice extent is defined as the total area covered by at least 15 per cent of ice, and varies from year to year because of changeable weather.

However, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past 30 years.

NSIDC lead scientist Ted Scambos said that thinning ice, along with early loss of snow, are rapidly warming the Arctic.

“This will gradually affect climate in the areas where we live,” Scambos said.

“Recent climate models suggest that ice-free conditions may happen before 2050, though the observed rate of decline remains faster than many of the models are able to capture,” NSIDC scientist Julienne Stroeve said.

PSLV to launch 5 foreign satellites in December

 

       SARAL will study heights of ocean surfaces and waves

The Indian Space Research Organisation’s next PSLV launch slated for December this year will also put five small commercial foreign satellites in orbit.

Among them is a 148-kg Canadian surveillance satellite, Sapphire.

ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said the satellites, weighing between 148 kg and 3 kg, would fly piggyback with the main satellite, SARAL, which was an Indo-French cooperative mission. The flight is slated for ‘12-12-12’: or December 12 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

Roughly, a PSLV rocket — which has three variants — can lift around 1,000-kg payload into near-Earth orbits of around 800 km.

“There is a demand for one more small satellite to be put along with [them.] We are seeing the technical feasibility” of it, he said in an interview to The Hindu.

It was not immediately known what Antrix Corporation, ISRO’s commercial arm, has charged for launching these satellites.

It reportedly earned close to Rs. 100 crore when the latest PSLV put France’s SPOT-6, weighing 720 kg, into a 600-km orbit.

SARAL, weighing 350-400 kg, is acronym for ‘SAtellite for ARgos and ALtiKa’ and carries two Earth sensing instruments provided by ISRO’s French counterpart, CNES.

It will study heights of ocean surfaces and waves.

ISRO has built the satellite as per their agreement in 2007.

The other small paid passengers to be flown on the PSLV-C20 are NEOSSAT, another Canadian 82-kg surveillance satellite; BRITE and UniBRITE each weighing 14 kg from Austria; and the 3-kg AAUSAT for Denmark’s Aalborg University.

The PSLV, ISRO’s workhorse vehicle, has placed 29 commercial satellites in orbit, the latest being SPOT 6 on September 9.

Dr. Radhakrishnan said the PSLV, operating since 1997, alone will contribute 18 of the 25 launches up to 2017, as proposed in 12th Five-Year Plan. Five launches of the two-tonne-lifting rocket, the GSLV, and two of the four-tonne-lifting GSLV-MkIII were also planned.

Besides the 58 overall missions (i.e., satellites and launchers) planned over the next five years, there was scope for two commercial projects, he said.

Scientists create map of human brain

  

 

The Hindu Map reveals the activity of genes across the entire brain to help shed light on neurological and psychiatric conditions

A comprehensive atlas of the adult human brain that reveals the activity of genes across the entire organ has been created by scientists.

The map was created from genetic analyses of about 900 specific parts of two “clinically unremarkable” brains donated by a 24-year-old and 39-year-old man, and half a brain from a third man.

Baseline

Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle said the atlas would serve as a baseline against which they and others can compare the genetic activity of diseased brains, and so shed light on factors that underlie neurological and psychiatric conditions.

“The human brain is the most complex structure known to mankind and one of the greatest challenges in modern biology is to understand how it is built and organised,” said Seth Grant, a professor of molecular neuroscience at Edinburgh University who worked on the map. “This allows us for the first time to overlay the human genome on to the human brain. It gives us essentially the Rosetta stone for understanding the link between the genome and the brain, and gives us a path forward to decoding how genetic disorders impact and produce brain disease.” The power of the brain arises from its neural wiring, its variety of cells and structures, and ultimately where and when different genes are switched on and off throughout the 1.9kg lump of tissue.

Detailed analysis

From more than 100 million measurements on brain pieces, some only a few cubic millimetres, the scientists found 84% of all genes are turned on in some part of the organ. Gene activity in next door regions of the cortex, the large wrinkly surface of the brain, was similar but distinct from that in lower parts, such as the brain stem.

More detailed analysis of the cortex revealed patterns in gene activity that corresponded to regions with specific roles in the brain, such as movement and sensory functions. The atlas revealed no major divide in gene activity on the left and right sides of the brain, suggesting that expertise generally handled by one hemisphere, such as language, comes from more subtle differences than the study could spot.

Although the brains came from men of similar age and ethnicity, the pattern of gene activity was so similar that researchers suspect there may be a common blueprint.

Greater challenge

Scientists have constructed similar genetic atlases for rodents in the past, but the shortage of donated human brains, their size and the destructive nature of the tests meant a human equivalent was more of a challenge.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists describe how they scanned the donated brains and then chopped them into tiny pieces. For each piece, they measured activity levels for all of the 20,000 or so genes in the human genome.

The atlas, which overlays the genetic results on to a 3D image of the brain, is freely available for researchers to use online.

Grant said that future studies would look to connect the genetic brain atlas with other genetic studies or brain scans of abnormal or diseased brains. That could highlight genes that play a role in brain conditions and point the way to drug treatments.

Tea’s effect

What happens to the minerals and vitamins of milk, when we prepare tea? Do they remain unchanged?

MANISH KUMAR

New Delhi

Milk is heat treated (pasteurized) at the dairy to kill any pathogenic microorganisms that may be present without affecting its nutritional quality.

But milk boiling (100C) in houses for the preparation of tea causes changes in its constituents. The higher the temperature and longer the exposure to heat, the greater the changes. Milk is an important source of A, D and group B vitamins. The fat soluble vitamins (A & D) are very thermostable and their level is not lowered by heat treatment. Losses of water soluble vitamins (B & C) mainly concern vitamin C and some of the group B vitamins.

The loss of vitamin C as such is generally of minor importance, as milk is not an important source of this vitamin, but it may influence the nutritional value anyway. The breakdown of vitamin C is connected with that of Vitamin B 12 and protects folic acid from oxidation.

Milk is a major source of the important mineral calcium (1200 mg/lit). Solubility of calcium phosphate is very temperature dependent.Unlike most compounds, the solubility of calcium phosphate decreases with temperature. This means that heating the milk for the preparation of tea causes precipitation of Calcium Phosphate in the micelle, while cooling increases its concentration.

After cooling, the reaction is readily reversible but after heating to high temperature, the reversibility is more sluggish and incomplete. Hence for the preparation of tea instead of boiling the milk it can be warmed up to retain the minerals and vitamins.

Remembering two giants of Indian science

Plaques commemorating the achievements of two titans of Indian science, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose and Sir C.V. Raman, are to be unveiled in Kolkata on Friday (September 14).

The plaques are being put up as part of the ‘Milestones in Electrical Engineering and Computing’ of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a professional body with members from 160 countries. It established the Milestones programme in 1983 to recognise “technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.”

Guglielmo Marconi is often credited with inventing radio transmission and shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ferdinand Braun for ‘development of wireless telegraphy.’

First to do

“But the record clearly shows that wireless transmission of electromagnetic waves was first successfully demonstrated by Bose and that too in Calcutta [now Kolkata], not London or elsewhere” remarked Ranjit Nair, director of the Delhi-based Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science.

Dr. Nair had helped organise a symposium in 2008 to mark the great scientist’s 150 birth anniversary at his alma mater, Christ’s College at Cambridge in the U.K.

The first demonstration by Bose, using apparatus he had designed and built, took place in 1895 at Presidency College (now Presidency University) where he taught, according to Sibaji Raha, director of the Bose Institute in Kolkata. The transmitter, which generated the wireless signal was put in a colleague’s room while the detector was in an adjoining room with the principal of the college, Sir Alexander Pedler, himself a chemist of some renown, present. The wireless signal went through a closed door, rang a bell and set off some gunpowder.

Public demonstration

Soon thereafter, Bose held a public demonstration at the Town Hall in the presence of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, said Dr Raha in an email.

In 1897, Bose reported on his experiments at the Royal Institution in London. Marconi, who had moved from Italy to England by that time, was not getting the desired result with his efforts at transmission.

But soon after Bose’s talk, Marconi changed the design of his detector to one that was “uncannily similar” to the one the former had designed and successfully demonstrated. Later that year, Marconi carried out his first successful demonstration of wireless signalling, Dr. Raha pointed out.

Moreover, Bose made use of galena crystals in his detectors, presaging work in semi-conductors that revolutionised electronics many decades later.

The plaque for Bose will be at Presidency University. The one for Raman is being placed at the current premises of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (its original building, where he carried out his experimental work for many years, is now a college of commerce).

When light is scattered by an atom or molecule, it can gain or lose energy in the process, leading to a change in colour of the light that bounces off. Raman found that this colour change was related to the properties of the material that caused the scattering.

The ‘Raman Effect,’ for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1930, has become an invaluable analytical tool in a wide range of fields, from industrial chemistry to life sciences and forensic investigations, for establishing the chemical composition and molecular structure of materials.

Raman scattering is now entering the realm of fibre optic communications that are the backbone of the digital world of today. Fibre optic cables that girdle the globe move zillions of bits every second to every part of this planet.

“There is still an ever-increasing demand for bandwidth due to an explosive increase in the volume of internet data, voice and video to be transferred,” said Deepa Venkitesh of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madras. “Amplifiers based on the ‘Raman Effect’ are becoming the preferred choice to meet this demand.”

Fading from the skies

AREFA TEHSIN AND RAZA H. TEHSIN

 

AP Rarely sighted... Photo: AP

The vulture’s decline in India — due to a pain-relieving drug — has been well documented. But what about the other birds that also seem to be on the way out?

In the Ramayan, it was Jatayu’s excellent vision that helped Ram in his search for Sita. Today, however, the vulture population is the victim of short-sightedness, evident in policies that are destroying delicate eco-systems. The use of the pain relieving drug, Diclofenac, in cattle led to about 97 per cent of vultures — that fed on the cattle carcasses — being wiped out within a decade. The drug was then banned.

But it’s not just the vultures that are fading from our skies. Many birds, once a common sight, are rarely seen any more: eagles, magpies, kingfishers, owls, sparrows and many more.

O.W. Holmes said, “A goose flies by a chart the Royal Geographic Society could not improve.” If we acknowledge the skill and wisdom of birds, we can solve many a modern-day problem.

Back to Nature

Most of us want to live healthy and eat organic. But given that our water, food and air have been poisoned, given the lack of pesticide-free organic food and a sleeping political will, is this even a distant possibility? Perhaps it is. Only if a concerted effort is made to go back to Nature. Some people use creative methods to provide pesticide-free farming and creatures like birds use their natural instincts to provide us with organic food. Let’s see how.

The most prolific breeders in Nature are insects. Over 3000 species of insects are found in our country and more are being discovered every other day.

Take a pair of chinch bugs and breed it. In a single season, it develops 13 generations. In the 12th generation, if we can keep them in a single line — assuming there are 10 chinch bugs to an inch — this line would be so long that starting from one end it would take 2500 years to reach the other end, assuming we travel at the speed of light.

A pair of cabbage aphid can, in a single season, become so numerous that their weight would be three times the weight of all human beings on earth put together. In a 3300-acre farm in South Africa, locusts laid eggs. Almost all the eggs were dug out; they weighed 14 tonnes! If they’d hatched, there would’ve been 1250 million locusts.

How birds help

Insects do enormous damage to vegetation. Food eaten by a single silkworm in 56 days is 86,000 times that of its weight at hatching. Some flesh-eating larvae consume 200 times their own weight in 24 hours. That is the power of insects.

In Nature, several factors work together to check the growth of insects. The major factor is birds. Most birds are insectivores and prey on insects, their eggs and larvae. A pair of starlings was observed to bring food like caterpillars, grasshoppers to their nestlings 370 times a day. House sparrows bring food to their nestlings 260 times a day.

A German ornithologist estimated that single pair of tits and their progeny destroyed 120 million eggs of insects a year. An owl hunts 2-3 rats in a single night. A pair of house rats, bred in ideal conditions, can increase to 880 rats a year. Scavenging birds like vultures clean the environment by devouring dead animals.

Birds are equally important for pollination of flowers and seed dispersal. The dodo — the modern icon of extinction — was called a simpleton as it had no fear of humans. It approached humans too closely and finally died out due to excessive hunting.

With the disappearance of the bird, an indigenous tree also died out. The connection: the dodo ate the fruits and the hard shell dissolved in its gizzard. The seeds were then passed out along with its excreta and sprouted where they fell. Without the dodo, the shell of the fruit could not be removed and germination was not possible.

The song and flight of birds has inspired melodies, literature, science and inventions. Birds inspired men to fly. After World War II, when humans started to build wide-bodied airplanes, they were unable to land them on a short runway. They thought of vultures. Despite their heavy bodies, they land on a small space and take off just in a few steps. Scientists studied their landing and take-off in slow motion and learnt to build wide-bodied airplanes.

Human impact

Overall, the population of birds in India is declining. There are several causes for this: the most important being destruction of habitat and nesting site. Commercial exploitation of wetlands has resulted in the decline of cormorants, pelicans, darters and other birds that depend solely upon fish.

The collection of wild fruits and berries for human consumption has caused scarcity of food for frugivorous birds. The graminivorous birds are lethally affected by insecticides.

Game birds are hunted down for meat. Some migratory birds, which come to the Indian subcontinent, are hunted en route in countries where hunting is permitted. The disconnect with and apathy towards birds is so huge that, leave aside identifying common birds like house sparrows, we don’t even sense their decline. Neither the education system nor the government is taking this problem seriously.

A swimming pool is no substitute for a lake nor is an umbrella for a tree. An air-conditioner cannot replace the cool evening breeze just as a pesticide cannot replace its natural counterparts. Birds check the growth of insects and rodents on a massive scale. The native insectivorous birds of each region can be identified and bred around farmlands across India. This will not only serve as a powerful tool to control pests and reduce the use of pesticides, but also help birds flourish.

They say that birds will be happier without humans on earth, but humans cannot survive without birds.

How much better is organic food?

Patient after patient asked — is eating organic food, which costs more, really better for me?

Unsure, Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out and concluded there’s little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics.

Eating organic fruits and vegetables can lower exposure to pesticides, including for children but the amount measured from conventionally grown produce was within safety limits, the researchers reported Monday.

Nor did the organic foods prove more nutritious.

“I was absolutely surprised,” said Dr. Dena Bravata, a senior research affiliate at Stanford and long-time internist who began the analysis because so many of her patients asked if they should switch.

“There are many reasons why someone might choose organic foods over conventional foods,” from environmental concerns to taste preferences, Bravata stressed. But when it comes to individual health, “there isn’t much difference.”

Specialists long have said that organic or not, the chances of bacterial contamination of food are the same, and Monday’s analysis agreed. But when bacteria did lurk in chicken or pork, germs in the non-organic meats had a 33 percent higher risk of being resistant to multiple antibiotics, the researchers reported Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

That finding comes amid debate over feeding animals antibiotics, not because they’re sick but to fatten them up. Farmers say it’s necessary to meet demand for cheap meat. Public health advocates say it’s one contributor to the nation’s growing problem with increasingly hard-to-treat germs. Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, counted 24 outbreaks linked to multidrug-resistant germs in food between 2000 and 2010. The government has begun steps to curb the nonmedical use of antibiotics on the farm.

Keywords: Oraganic food-health link, Stanford University research

Question corner: Spicy food

 

The Hindu When we eat very spicy food the sensory nerve endings on the tongue are irritated and an overload of noxious stimulus is carried by the trigemminal nerve. File photo

Why are tears produced in our eyes when we eat something which is spicy or spicy over our limits?

Sriram G., Bangaluru

When we eat food the sensory nerve endings on our tongue are stimulated. Anterior two thirds of the tongue gets its sensory supply from the trigemminal nerve.

This nerve also serves as the sensory nerve to the surface of the eye and face.

When we eat very spicy food the sensory nerve endings on the tongue are irritated and an overload of noxious stimulus is carried by the trigemminal nerve.

The nervous system perceives this overload of noxious stimulus as being received from all the areas i.e tongue, eye and face and sets in motion a reflex reaction which is not just limited to the tongue or mouth but also to the eye and face.

This reflex reaction results in increase in tear secretion and overflow of tears as well as sweating over the face.

DR. ARULMOZHI VARMAN

Uma Eye Clinic, Chennai

Sunday will see PSLV’s biggest commercial lift

France has chosen an outside launch for a SPOT for the first time

This Sunday, the Indian Space Research Organisation is set to make another mark in its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launcher business when it flies French earth observation satellite SPOT 6.

In the 13 years since the PSLV went commercial, the 720 kg SPOT 6 will be its biggest commercial lift. PROITERES, a 15-kg Japanese observation satellite, will also be put in orbit that day.

For the third time in 21 PSLV (one failed) missions, there will be no Indian satellite on it. In the other two ‘dedicated’ or exclusively-for-client launches, it put in orbit 350 kg Agile in 2007 and Israeli radar spy satellite TECSAR the following year.

Agile has been its biggest lift to date. The other two-dozen foreign commercial satellites were below 300 kg and sent up with a primary domestic satellite.

The cost of a PSLV ride depends on the satellite’s weight and the distance it must reach. It also launched the first Indian lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, in 2008. ISRO officials say it costs about Rs. 90 crore to build the present bare-bones or ‘core alone’ version of the PSLV.

Antrix officials were not available for comments on the PSLV's business prospects.

France has chosen an outside launch for a SPOT for the first time: the previous five SPOT satellites went up on aboard earlier versions of European Ariane rocket.

Although Europe now has the new Vega light lifter in the PSLV class, its reliability is still to be proven after a maiden flight this year.

The SPOT 6 contract came to the ISRO from its maker, Astrium SAS, in September 2008.

In an e-mail, a spokesperson for Astrium said: “We needed to launch SPOT 6 quickly… by mid-2012.” Its low weight needed a small launcher and “the PSLV was the best match; its choice was perfectly in line with the longstanding cooperation between Astrium and Antrix.” The two are partners in the global satellite building market.

Sunita, colleague use toothbrush to fix space station snag

 

 

        AP In this August 30, 2012 image provided by NASA shows Sunita Williams participating in a session of extravehicular activity.

A simple $3 toothbrush designed by the Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and her Japanese colleague has saved the $100-billion International Space Station, after they used it to replace a key power unit.

The decision to use the toothbrush to clean a bolt that gave Williams and Akihiko Hoshide so much trouble during an eight-hour spacewalk last week was made at a brainstorming session between the astronauts and NASA engineers on the ground.

They were trying to replace an electrical switching unit, but they couldn’t bolt it to the outside of the station, NBC News.Com reported. This was actually an extra spacewalk tacked to their mission after the stuck bolt prevented the astronauts from properly installing the power unit ‘MBSUs’ on the outpost’s backbone-like truss on August 30.

The International Space Station has four 100-kg MBSUs that harness power from the outpost’s solar arrays and distribute it throughout the orbiting complex.

The station was unable to relay power from two of the eight solar arrays on the massive orbiting complex without the use of one unit.

“Looks like you guys just fixed the station,” astronaut Jack Fischer radioed from the Mission Control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

At the beginning of the spacewalk, Williams and Hoshide removed the MBSU from where it was temporarily tied down with a tether last week. The spacewalkers undid the bolts, examined them for possible damage and inspected the corresponding receptacles on the MBSU for debris that was suspected to be inside.

Historic PSLV launch tomorrow

 

PTI Panoramic view of PSLV-C21, which will carry two foreign satellites to space, at Sriharikota on Friday. The countdown for the launch of PSLV-C21, India's 100th space mission, began on Friday.

TOPICS

science and technology space programme

Manmohan to witness ISRO’s 100th mission

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Friday said it was all set to launch the historic PSLV-C21 on Sunday morning.

The wholly commercial launch will be the space agency's 100th mission in 49 years. So far it has built 62 satellites and flown 37 launch vehicles.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is slated to arrive at the space port of Sriharikota, some 120 km from Chennai and located in coastal Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday evening and witness the launch on 9.51 a.m. on Sunday, ISRO officials said.

The PSLV will carry France’s SPOT-6 earth observation satellite as the primary payload and PROITERES, a small spacecraft built by a team of Osaka Institute of Technology in Japan, as a secondary rider. They will be put into their respective pole-to-pole orbits at a distance of 655 km from Earth.

Scientists at the launch site, Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, began a 51-hour countdown at 6.51 a.m. on Friday, a release said.

The Launch Authorisation Board met on Thursday and cleared the event.

During the run-up, teams associated with the launch will complete filling liquid propellants in the second and fourth stages (PS2 and PS4) of the launch vehicle. The rocket and the spacecraft will be checked. Batteries will be charged and the fuel tanks on the satellites will be pressurised, the ISRO officials said.

“Readiness of various ground systems such as tracking radar systems and communication networks will also be ascertained,” they said.

First man on the moon

MURALI N. KRISHNASWAMY

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  The crew:Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and
  Edwin Eugene Aldrin.Photo AP
  
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  On a misson:Apollo 11 cruising to the moon.Photo: AFP

On August 25 this year, the world bid goodbye to a true hero. Neil Alden Armstrong created history with his one small step on the moon.

July 1969: A moment in history
A NASA video of 1969 captures the historic moment of the first moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s achievement. The grainy black and white footage is of broadcast quality and taken by a mounted camera. On July 20, 1969, we hear the voice of Armstrong: “I am at the foot of the ladder ... the surface appears to be very fine-grained. Almost like a powder, as you descend the ladder. I am stepping off the ladder now. It’s one small step for man... one giant leap for mankind.
(A pause) “It’s very pretty out here.” The commentator then says: “Every precious minute of their two and a half hours on the surface was programmed. Rock and soil samples, photographs, experiments ... to measure precisely by laser beam reflection the exact distance between earth and moon ....”
A museum for their boy
The United States and the world celebrated Armstrong’s achievement, but his hometown of Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S., wanted to do much more to honour his feat. The Apollo 11 crew had completed the greatest journey in history — by sending men to the moon — and their boy was a part of it.
On July 20, 1969, Ohio governor James Rhodes thought of a museum “as a monument to the achievements of not only Armstrong but all Ohioans who have attempted to defy gravity, as well as to the history of the space program itself.”The State of Ohio pledged an amount of $500,000 for the project. Rhodes fired up the community telling it that Neil Armstrong was the man of the century. Residents contributed enthusiastically in response to Rhodes’ challenge to match dollar for dollar the funds pledged. Even school children saved money to take part in this project.Plans for the museum were revealed in 1970. It had a unique design. Earth was placed around the steel-reinforced concrete building, to give it the appearance of being underground.
On July 20, 1972, the Armstrong Air & Space Museum was inaugurated in the presence of Armstrong. Patricia “Tricia” Nixon, the elder daughter of President Richard Nixon, presented moon rocks brought back to Earth from the Apollo 11 mission.The aim of the museum was not merely to look at Ohio’s contribution to aviation and space exploration, but also to be a tribute to Armstrong.Among its exhibits are the Gemini VIII spacecraft, Armstrong’s Gemini and Apollo spacesuits, an Apollo 11 moon rock and a replica of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik. Apart from these are two full-size aircraft, both of which were flown by Armstrong. Visitors can practice landing the lunar module and space shuttle, or even docking the Gemini capsule, as Armstrong did in 1966. An astro theatre lets visitors enjoy the night sky or watch a documentary about Apollo 11’s lunar landing. A Young Astronaut Programme, for children from kindergarten to class seven, introduces them to subjects like rocketry, astronomy, the study of astrobiology, engineering and design.
Neil Alden Armstrong, astronaut and the first man to walk on the moon, may have physically left the world, at 82, on August 25, but the rich tributes that have been pouring in only show us that he was a real hero.
His legendary statement “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (though Armstrong said it’s “for a man”) ensured his place in history when as the commander of the U.S.’s Apollo 11 spacecraft, and accompanied by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins, pilot of the Columbia command module, he created history by planting the first step on the lunar surface.
Born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, in 1930, he acquired his student pilot’s licence by 16. In 1947, he went to Purdue University on a navy scholarship to study aeronautical engineering. The Korean War, two years later, saw him fly 78 combat missions. It was then back to academics, where he did an MSc in aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California.
In 1955 he became a research pilot in what was to become the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is on record as having flown and tested jets, rockets, helicopters and gliders.
His window of opportunity came in 1962, when he was chosen among nine test pilots for the space programme. It was the vision of President John F. Kennedy to see America make a manned moon landing that pushed Armstrong to fame.
All time hero
NASA knew that the first man on the moon would become almost immortal and ensured that Armstrong, considered to be serious-minded, got the honour. In 1969, on what would be his second and last spaceflight, Armstrong and the team were on board Apollo 11.
Apollo 11 took off on July 16, and four days later the craft descended near an edge of the Sea of Tranquillity. Around six-and-a-half hours later, Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the lunar module, the first human being to set foot on the moon. After 20 minutes Aldrin was off the craft and they both addressed the watching world: “Here men from the planet earth first set foot on the moon July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
It is interesting to note that there are not many clear pictures of Armstrong on the lunar surface. Most of the pictures are of Aldrin and photographed by Armstrong.
The American flag was raised and there was a talk with President Richard Nixon. The scheduled experiments were completed, and moon soil and rocks gathered. They eventually rejoined Collins. The module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24. The men were celebrities.
Life from then on was never the same, with many worldwide tours. Armstrong was decorated by 17 countries and the recipient of many special honours.
But to his family and the world, Armstrong was “a reluctant hero”.
NASA administrator Charles Bolden has said: “As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them.”
President Obama added: “Neil was among the greatest of American heroes — not just of his time, but of all time. The crew of the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 carried with them the aspirations of an entire nation. When Neil stepped foot on the surface of the moon for the first time, he delivered a moment of human achievement that will never be forgotten.”
But the ultimate tribute must come from Elliot Pulham of the Space Foundation. He said, “In an age when Hollywood and professional sports manufacture so-called ‘heroes’, Armstrong exemplified the right stuff. He was the real deal.”
Look at the moon
In a statement after his passing, his family issued a simple request for those wishing to pay tribute: “Honour his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong, and give him a wink.”