New Delhi, May 14: Scientists on Tuesday unveiled the first completely indigenous and affordable vaccine to prevent severe rotavirus diarrhoea, which kills more than one lakh children under the age of five in India every year.

The results of the Phase III clinical trials of the Rotavac vaccine, a culmination of efforts spanning 28 years, released at an international conference pegged its efficacy at 56 per cent in the first year of life.

"Rotavac significantly reduced severe rotavirus diarrhoea by more than half," M K Bhan, former Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, who isolated the rotavirus strain in 1985 while pursuing research at AIIMS, told reporters here.

However, commercial prodcution of the vaccine would take some time as it is yet to get clearance from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI).

"We are planning to file a dossier with the DCGI in July. We will come to the market after getting the requisite regulatory clearances," Krishna M Ella, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Biotech, said.

Bharat Biotech, which has been associated in the development of vaccine candidates and clinical trials, has announced a price of USD 1 per dose--much cheaper than other rotavirus vaccines available in the market.

Officials said there were two licensed rotavirus vaccines introduced in more than 40 countries but they remain out of reach for many in the developing world.

"The results indicate that the vaccine, if licensed, could save the lives of thousands of children each year in India," K VijayRaghavan, Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, said.

Rotavac is a oral vaccine administered to infants in a three-dose course at the ages of six, 10 and 14 weeks alongside routine immunisations recommended at these ages.

New York, May 2: Want to be a part of space exploration history? NASA is inviting public to submit their names, short poems and personal messages on-line for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft that will study the Martian atmosphere.


The DVD will carry every name submitted. The public also is encouraged to submit a message in the form of a three-line poem, or haiku, NASA said. However, only three haikus will be selected. The deadline for all submissions is July 1.

An on-line public vote to determine the top three messages to be placed on the DVD will begin on July 15.

The DVD will be in NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which is scheduled for launch in November this year.

The DVD is part of the mission's 'Going to Mars Campaign' coordinated at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP).

"The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration, and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission," said Stephanie Renfrow, lead for the MAVEN Education and Public Outreach programme at CU/LASP.

Participants who submit their names to the campaign will be able to print a certificate of appreciation to document their involvement with the MAVEN mission.

"This new campaign is a great opportunity to reach the next generation of explorers and excite them about science, technology, engineering and math," said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from CU/LASP. "I look forward to sharing our science with the worldwide community as MAVEN begins to piece together what happened to the Red Planet's atmosphere," Jakosky said.

MAVEN is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. The spacecraft will investigate how the loss of Mars' atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface.

"This mission will continue NASA's rich history of inspiring and engaging the public in spaceflight in ongoing Mars exploration," said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

New Delhi:You can now use the internet using Wi-Fi facility free of cost while travelling in Howrah-bound Rajdhani Express train from New Delhi.

The facility was launched by railways today in the premier train as a pilot project.

"There was a demand for it and it was part of the budget announcement," Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said after launching the Wi-Fi internet service in the train at New Delhi Railway station.

He said the Wi-Fi service was launched as a pilot project and the passengers will be availing the service free of cost.

All three rakes of Howrah Rajdhani are being equipped with the facility as part of the project.

It cost Rs 6.3 crores to the Railways to equip the train with the facility.

Asked whether passengers will be charged to avail the service in future, Bansal said "the revenue model has not been worked out yet as it is a pilot project and the service will be free of cost for passengers."

Railways had conducted a trial run of the Wi-Fi service in Mumbai-Ahemedabad Shatabdi train for some time before deciding to launch it in Howrah Rajdhani.

"We will get feedbacks from the passengers during the trial run as our aim is to provide the facility in 50 more rakes of Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto services. With more trains, the cost will also come down," he said.

Depending on the feedback, railways will float tenders for introducing the state-of-the-art service in 50 rakes.

Railtel is providing Internet service in the pilot project.

According to an official statement, it was a challenge to introduce internet access in a moving train considering that the train passes through all types of terrain and continuous internet access in all weather is to be provided.

After due deliberations on various options for providing internet access, Railways decided for satellite communication link to the train and Wi-Fi connectivity to different coaches.

The satellite communication link is arranged through satellite hub facility set up Railways.

For accessing the internet facility, the bona fide passengers will have to access railways Wi-Fi network.

The passengers will be able to register by providing the PNR and other details such as mobile phone number.

On validation of the data entered by the passengers, as per extant Department of Telecommunication guidelines the login ID and password will be sent through SMS to the registered mobile number.

The login ID and password will remain valid for the entire journey.

Chile, March 14: What is thought to be the world's largest ground-based observatory opened in northern Chile, wielding unprecedented power to peer into the remotest regions of the universe.

The ALMA space observatory was inaugurated on Wednesday on a desert plateau some 5,000 meters above sea level, at a ceremony attended by President Sebastian Pinera and other dignitaries.

"Here in this desert, the driest in the world, it is a great privilege to inaugurate the observatory," Pinera said. Calling it "the world's most powerful," he said the observatory will make "a significant contribution to humanity, enable a better understanding of the universe in which we live, and perhaps help us discover life beyond Earth."

"ALMA is a huge telescope 16 kilometers (10 miles) in diameter," said the facility's director Thijs de Graauw, as it was declared officially opened. Amid excited applause, 59 of the 66 antennas slowly began to rotate and point toward the interior of the universe.

By October, all the antennas will be fully installed and operational. Gianni Marconi, an astronomer at the massive ground array of telescopes, recently proudly proclaimed to AFP that ALMA is "the largest observatory that has ever been built."

ALMA -- short for the Atacama Large Millimeter- submillimeter Array, an acronym which means "soul" in Spanish -- is a joint effort among North American, European and Asian agencies.

The observatory is located near Pedro de Atacama, a desert town popular with tourists. With almost no humidity or vegetation to block its view of the heavens, ALMA's antennas range in diameter from seven meters to 12 meters.

"There is virtually no water vapor, there is just so little that whatever light is emitted from a heavenly body, galaxy or star, it gets here with no interference" Marconi said.

When scientists who homed in on this site for ALMA said they were looking for a place that had a high altitude, low humidity, sunny weather and fairly easy logistical access.

De Graauw told reporters recently that ALMA's ultra-precise equipment would be used to seek answers to big questions -- star formation, the birth of planets and how the system was created after the Big Bang. Unlike optical or infrared telescopes, ALMA can capture the faint glow and gas present in the formation of the first stars, galaxies and planets in an extremely cold region of the universe.

"It is a revolution in the history of the universe in the realm of millimetric and sub-millimetric waves, which can look through clouds of dust and focus on the formation of stars themselves," De Graauw added.

A new treat is awaiting the sky–gazers as Pan-STARRS, a recently discovered comet, will be visible with naked eyes and it will shine its brightest after sunset this weekend and in the week to come.

Comet Pan-STARRS, the brightest comet in several years, will be visible with naked eyes in the evening twilight.

It will pass by sun at a distance of 0.3 Astronomical Unit on Sunday, its closest approach.

The chances of seeing the comet in broad daylight would be extremely low because of the solar glare, but by March 12 and 13, the comet will be visible after sunset not far from the crescent moon, said C B Devgun, Director of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE).

The comet will be visible to naked eyes and through binoculars as well, he said.

On the evening of March 12, the slender sliver of a crescent moon, just one day past new, will be positioned less than 5 degrees to the right of the comet, making for perhaps a very picturesque scene, Devgun said.

The comet Pan-STARRS, known officially as C/2011 L4, is a non-periodic comet discovered in June 2011.

It was discovered using the Pan-STARRS telescope located near the summit of Haleakala, on the island of Maui in Hawaii.

Thought to be billions of years old, the comet originated in the distant Oort cloud, a cloud of icy bodies well beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto, and somehow got propelled toward the inner solar system.

London, Dec 4: According to a new research which was published on Sunday has come up with its data which says India has managed to control carbon emissions in compared to other economies like China, the US and EU which were the biggest polluters during the year.

The research 'Global Carbon Project' from University of East Anglia in the UK shows China, United States and European Union contributed 28 percent, 16 percent and 11 percent in the global emissions during the year while Indian figures were at 7 percent despite a 7.5 percent growth during the year.

In terms of per capita emissions, India contributed 1.8 tonnes which is way behind developed economies like the United States, European Union and China which stood at 17.2 tonnes, 7.3 tonnes and 6.6 tonnes respectively, the results published in the journal Nature Climate Change and Earth System Science Data show.

Chandra Bhushan, Deputy Director General of Centre for Science and Environment said India's emissions are bound to increase because of the low base of emissions.

He said since our emissions are already very low, any change would reflect into large emission growth rates.

The study claims the carbon emissions in China and India grew at the rate of 9.9 and 7.5 percent in 2011 respectively while the US and European Union showed a decrease by 1.8 and 2.8 percent.

Bhushan said “the reduction in growth rate of the US and European Union is not because efficiency but because of economic slow down. India and China are two important economies which are showing growth, hence their emissions are bound to increase.”

However, we must keep in mind that we have to become carbon efficient while growing, Bhushan said.

Lead author of the study, Prof Corinne Le Quere, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and professor at UEA, said in a statement, "these latest figures come amidst climate talks in Doha. But with emissions continuing to grow, it's as if no-one is listening to the entire scientific community, he said.

"Underlining the need for a "radical" plan to cut emissions, she said, "I am worried that the risks of dangerous climate change are too high."

The carbon emissions cause green house effect which keeps Earth's atmosphere warm. However, 20th century saw phenomenal increase in the carbon dioxide emissions which contributed to increase in global temperatures triggering fears of large scale climate change.

Scientists fear that increase in global temperature would melt the polar ice-caps resulting in increase in sea level which might sub-merge coastal cities, melt glaciers and bring global changes in weather patterns.

The latest results warn that global emissions are likely to increase by 2.6 percent in 2012 which would translate in 58 percent increase since 1990 when Kyoto Protocol of Carbon emissions was signed.

The protocol was initially adopted in 1997 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which set binding obligations on the developed and industrialised nations to cut down their emissions of carbon dioxide and other green house gases which contribute to increase in global temperature. It came into force in 2005.

The data published on Sunday warns that global Carbon dioxide emissions are likely to touch a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes.

Doha, Dec 1: Qatari non-profit organization Gulf Organization for Research and Development (GORD) launched a low emissions car at the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 18) in Doha. The car was designed and developed in Qatar.

Revealed during a press conference at the Qatar National Convention Centre, the car in addition to an internal combustion engine, includes an automotive thermoelectric generator designed to capture waste heat to produce hydrogen. GORD expects the heat waste collecting system to be compatible with any gasoline or compressed natural gas car.

GORD chairman Dr Al-Horr summarised the key concepts of the invention in a statement saying, "Our car produces electricity at no cost by capturing thermal waste energy, reducing costs and eliminating the need for an external source of electricity. Also, bulky compressed-hydrogen cylinders are a thing of the past, as our concept accomplishes the production of hydrogen by using water through fuel cells integrated within the car."
Most of the energy in Qatari vehicle comes from the the car's gasoline tank, supplemented by a thin film photo-voltaic panel on the roof. Normally in a combustion engine, chemical energy stored in a fuel, such as gasoline, is converted into heat energy through combustion. This heat energy is then converted into mechanical energy, manifested as an increase in pressure in the combustion chamber due to the kinetic energy of the combustion gases. The kinetic energy of these combustion gases are then converted into work; because of the inefficiencies in converting chemical energy into useful work, internal combustion engines have a theoretical maximum effiecincy of 37% (with what is achievable in day to day applications being about half of this). Of the chemical energy in the consumed fuel used by an internal combustion engine 40% is dissipated as waste heat. However, the Qatari vehicle uses a thermoelectric generator to convert this waste heat into electricity. Such generators are used in space vehicles, and produce electricity when thermoelectric materials are subjected to a temperature gradient, the greater the gradient the greater the amount of electrcity produced. In the GORD vehicle the electricity produced is used to electrolyse potable water to produce hydrogen which can be introduced into the vehicle's existing fuel system.

The researchers showed that the heat waste collection engine caused a decrease in the car's emissions, including a decrease of carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide emissions by more than 50%, the fuel efficiency increasing by 20%. On its website, GORD said that the heat waste collector engine is universal, "Any car can be adapted to accommodate the system as it doesn't alter any electro-mechanical systems".

Amsterdam, Nov 29: Dutch researchers have discovered that cabbage volatile odour released in response to white butterfly caterpillar attack can attract multiple parasites making the food chain unbeneficial to the plant. The study, published in journal PLOS Biology Tuesday, highlights the possible side effects of parasitoid use for pest control.

A second parasite, called hyperparasitoid, is attracted by the cabbage odour only after a first parasite infects the caterpillar. The researchers performed both laboratory and field experiments to verify the data.
As described by the study, the food chain starts when a white butterfly caterpillar, Pieris rapae, attacks a cabbage leaf. In response, the cabbage releases volatile odour to attract the caterpillar parasites. The odour attracts parasitical wasps, such as Cotesia glomerata, that infect the caterpillar with their eggs. Such behaviour is called parasitoid, when larvae lead a parasitical lifestyle and the adult individuals don't. Such reaction favours the plant.

However the odour also attracts a hyperparasitoid wasp, Lysibia nana, which infects the Cotesia glomerata's larvae and takes over the food chain. Field study confirmed the hyperparasitoid's behaviour is well tuned to the environment: it does not follow cabbages nearly as much until they are infected by the first parasite, too.
Dr Erik Poelman, the research leader, commented about the specifically well adapted behaviour of the parasitoids, "In controlled laboratory assays as well as under field conditions, hyperparasitoids were offered plant odours coming from two types of plant: ones damaged by healthy caterpillars, and ones damaged by parasitoid-infected caterpillars. We found that they preferentially detected odours of plants damaged by infected caterpillars. We were excited by these results as they indicate that hyperparasitoids rely on a network of interactions among plant, herbivore and parasitoids to locate their host".

The scientists hypothesised the saliva of infected caterpillars is different and affects the cabbage odour. The study involved collecting air around healthy, infected, and twice infected cabbage plants. Then the researchers checked the hyperparasitoid reaction to the collected odours. The hyperparasitoid attraction to the twice infected cabbage odour was nearly five times more compared to the odour of a cabbage infected only with caterpillars.

The researchers also carried out tests of hyperparasitoid attraction to the healthy and infected caterpillar saliva alone, without the cabbage. There was no such attraction, confirming the cabbage odours are affected by the saliva.

The scientists say, "Our results show that hyperparasitoids may parasitize up to 55% of the parasitoid offspring, therefore potentially playing a major role in parasitoid population dynamics. ... Overexpression of herbivore-induced plant volatiles [HIPVs] in crops or field application of synthetic parasitoid attractants may not benefit pest control in conditions where the responses of hyperparasitoids to HIPVs cause major mortality to parasitoids."

NASA, Nov 28: NASA and Roscosmos have chosen the crew for a year long stay at the International Space Station. Data collected may help in future manned exploration of the solar system.

Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko have been chosen by NASA and Roscosmos respectively. The two are veterans of ISS spaceflight and were chosen for their station experience and skill.

"Their skills and previous experience aboard the space station align with the mission's requirements. The one-year increment will expand the bounds of how we live and work in space and will increase our knowledge regarding the effects of microgravity on humans as we prepare for future missions beyond low-Earth orbit" said NASA administrator William Gerstenmaier.

The pair are to launch sometime in the spring of 2015 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and return in spring 2016. Possible NASA deep space mission destinations include near earth asteroids, the Moon, and Mars.

North Carolina, Nov 27: Researchers have found that a 'molecular network' with self-perpetuating capability may have triggered a possible mechanism by which life got a foothold on the early Earth.

Recent mathematical research sheds light on a possible mechanism by which life may have gotten a foothold in the chemical soup that existed on the early Earth.

Researchers have proposed several competing theories for how life on Earth could have gotten its start, even before the first genes or living cells came to be.

Despite differences between various proposed scenarios, one theme they all have in common is a network of molecules that have the ability to work together to jumpstart and speed up their own replication two necessary ingredients for life.

However, many researchers find it hard to imagine how such a molecular network could have formed spontaneously with no precursors from the chemical environment of early Earth.

"Some say it's equivalent to a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling the random pieces of metal and plastic into a Boeing 747," said co-author Wim Hordijk from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, N Carolina.

In a previous study, Hordijk and colleague Mike Steel of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand used a mathematical model of simple chemical reactions to show that such networks might form more easily than many researchers thought.

Indeed, biochemists have recently created such networks in the lab. In a new study, Hordijk, Steel and Stuart Kauffman from the University of Vermont analysed the structure of the networks in their mathematical models and found a plausible mechanism by which they could have evolved to produce the building blocks of life we know today, such as cell membranes or nucleic acids.

"It turns out that if you look at the structure of the networks of molecules [in our models], very often they're composed of smaller subsets of molecules with the same self-perpetuating capabilities," Hordijk said.

By combining, splitting, and recombining to form new types of networks from their own subunits, the models indicate that these subsets of molecules could give rise to increasingly large and complex networks of chemical reactions, and, presumably, life.

"These results could have major consequences for how we think life may have originated from pure chemistry," Hordijk said.

Ahn Cheol-Soo

Seoul, Nov 17: A current South Korea presidential candidate for this year's December elections, Ahn Cheol-soo, has promised to allow freedom of choice of encryption technology for online financial transactions if he is elected.

Ahn revealed the promise in a campaign book released this Monday. This follows over a decade of active legislation requiring banking websites to use a South Korean ActiveX technology to operate digital certificates.

South Korea developed the ActiveX certificates technology in the late 1990s with an expectation of worldwide adoption, which did not happen. ActiveX has been supported only by Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser. Ahn indicated disadvantages of the technology, writing that "South Korea's unique certificate system, driven by the government, has led to the isolation of South Korea's IT [information technology]. Excessive use of Active X is making web browsing less convenient."

Some commenters noted that the technology requires users to install multiple plugins for Microsoft Internet Explorer, which cause a decrease in overall computer performance. At ZDNet Korean portal, the proposed policy change received comments about possible advances in making banking possible on mobile platforms.

New York, Nov 10: NASA is likely to announce new plans to send astronauts back to the Moon following the outcome of the US presidential elections, according to reports.

The space agency was serious about sending astronauts back to the Moon's neighbourhood and will likely unveil its ambitious plans soon now that President Barack Obama has been re-elected, experts say.

The space agency has apparently been thinking about setting up a manned outpost beyond the Moon's far side, both to establish a human presence in deep space and to build momentum towards a planned visit to an asteroid in 2025, the Space.com reported.

The new plans have probably already been cleared with the Obama Administration but were kept under wraps in case Republican candidate Mitt Romney had won presidential election earlier this week, said space policy expert John Logsdon, a professor emeritus at George Washington University.

"NASA has been evolving its thinking, and its latest charts have inserted a new element of cislunar/lunar gateway/Earth-moon L2 sort of stuff into the plan," Logsdon said.

"They've been holding off announcing that until after the election," Logsdon added, noting that Romney had pledged to reassess and possibly revise NASA's missions and direction.

NASA is also likely to be able to achieve these goals within the USD 17.7 billion budget that was outlined in the proposed 2013 federal budget, according to Logsdon.

"They're not talking about plans that imply significant budget increases," Logsdon added: "It gives a more focused use for SLS and Orion before an asteroid mission."

Logsdon's reports tie-in with comments made by NASA's deputy chief Lori Garver at a conference in September.

Washington, Nov 02: Indian American record-setting NASA astronaut Sunita Williams along with another cosmonaut on Friday troubleshot an ammonia leak in the International Space Station's cooling system, accomplishing the chief objective of their marathon six-hour excursion outside the orbiting lab.

Williams and Japanese space flyer Akihiko Hoshide ventured on Thursday outside the space station at 1229 GMT (1759 IST) and just a little more than five hours later, they had reconfigured some coolant lines and deployed a spare radiator, isolating the leak.

"Suni and Aki, heartfelt congratulations to you," NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, who helped walk the astronauts through their tasks from mission control at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said at 1741 GMT (2311 IST). "We accomplished just about everything we set out to do today. A big, huge congratulations to you guys on the ground for putting this together," Williams responded on Friday.

Each of the space station's eight huge solar panels has its own associated power system, and circulating ammonia helps cool this gear down.

The leak, which NASA and its space station partners first noticed in 2007, has the potential to affect one of these power channels if it's not fixed.

Today's Spacewalk, or extra-vehicular activity (EVA), a crucial step in that process was slated to last about 6 1/2 hours, and it proceeded pretty much on schedule.

By 0128 hrs IST, both astronauts had re-entered the space station through its airlock, and the spacewalk was officially over nine minutes later.

At the start of the spacewalk, Williams’s commander of the station's current Expedition 33 and Hoshide made their way over to the port side of the station's backbone-like truss.

NASA officials hope this stops the leak, which they suspect may be coming from the old (swapped-out) radiator.

If ammonia continues to escape, the station's operators will eventually have to try something else.

But there likely won't be an urgent need for a new fix, since the spare radiator should provide enough ammonia to keep the coolant system operating until next October or so, officials said.

It should come as no surprise that Williams and Hoshide ticked off their tasks efficiently on Friday, for the two are seasoned space walkers.

In late August and early September, they replaced a vital power unit on the station over the course of two spacewalks, defeating an unexpectedly stubborn stuck bolt in the process.

Friday's EVA was the seventh for Williams, the third for Hoshide and the 138th to depart from the station overall.

New Delhi, November 01: The deadline set by Government for Cable TV digitisation in the four Metros ended on Wednesday with the switchover reaching 94 per cent and those who have not installed set top boxes(STB) faced the threat of a TV blackout from Thursday.

TV viewers in Chennai who have not made the change, however, got some relief with the Madras High Court granting

extension of the deadline till November five for the process of digitization of TV signals.

But people in Mumbai who have not installed STBs did not get any relief with the Bombay High Court refusing to grant more time to cable network providers in the city to switch to digital addressable system (DAS).

The Court, however, asked the union government to consider giving some relief to viewers during Diwali.

"We do not want people's Diwali blacked out. Television these days has become the cheapest and basic source of entertainment for average middle class family. We are concerned about the consumers and not the operators," Justice Chandrachud said.

Union Information and Broadcasting Secretary Uday Kumar Varma confirmed that analogue signals in Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai awould be switched off tomorrow but Chennai would not be in the list because of the court order.

I and B ministry's data for all the four metros combined showed digitisation of cable TV households including Direct To Home(DTH) connections upto 94 per cent.

In Kolkata, there was a threat of consumers who have already installed set-top boxes also facing a TV blackout

Speaking to reporters, Cable Operators Digitisation Committee Joint Convenor Milan Chatterjee said that while the implementation could be a law and order threat, "some cable operators may also stop signals to save their skin as 60 per cent of the people have not received STBs yet."

As per ministry figures, Delhi has achieved a 97 percent digitisation (including DTH connections). In the national capital where an estimated 23.06 lakh cable TV subscribers exist, 21.97 lakh had got STB installed.

Kolkata has achieved cable tv digitisation upto 85 percent (including DTH) approximately as 16.66 STBs had already been installed by 20.04 lakh cable TV subscribers in the city, the government data said.

In Chennai which has 4.14 lakh cable TV subscribers, the number of STBs estimated was estimated to be around 2.57 lakh.

With DTH included, Chennai has achieved digitisation upto 86 percent, as per I&B estimates.

The government data said Mumbai was already digitised with the 15.21 lakh cable TV homes showing over 21.14 lakh installation of STBs. Officials explained that the excess number of installation of STBs could be accounted by the fact that there were multiple TV sets in many households.

Chennai Metro Cable TV Operators Association had approached the high court seeking extension of the deadline beyond October 31.

The association submitted that there was difficulty in securing so many lakhs of set-top boxes required for digitisation.

A Mumbai High Court division bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and R G Ketkar, which was hearing a petition against the June 21 notification of the I and B Ministry refused to grant any relief.

The earlier deadline of June had been extended till October 31 after cable operators sought time to install STBs (which have to be imported).

"In June, you knew you have time till October. What have you done till today?" the judges said, and added that petitioners' conduct did not merit any relief.

"A certain degree of inconvenience is inevitable in the enforcement of any deadline. The union ministry has taken this decision to cut off cable network (in the abscence of STBs) with a view to provide quality service to consumers," Justice Chandrachud said.

I & B Ministry's digitisation data for all four metros showed digitisation of cable TV households including DTH connections to up to 94 per cent.

As per the data, out of a total 65.50 lakh cable TV subscribers in four metros, 62.34 lakh STBs had been installed while the rest were yet to be installed.

"In the past few days, the analogue signal has been switched off in a staggered manner. The ministry has given enough time and the deadline should not be extended further," a senior official said.

"In case some cable operator is found violating digital rules, action could be taken and even the license of the offender could be cancelled," he said.

In a statement the I&B ministry also claimed that on October 30, there was a huge surge in the installation of STBs in the four metros, especially Delhi.

"A total of 1,05,180 Boxes were installed, out of which approximately 65,000 Boxes were installed in Delhi alone.

This huge increase in the number of Boxes installed in Delhi has taken up the Cable TV digitisation to 95 per cent in Delhi. Along with DTH, the digitisation percentage in Delhi has gone to 97 per cent," the ministry said.

It also said that Delhi's leading Multi-System Operators DEN Networks had reported installation of about 50,000 STBS on October 31 alone.

The ministry also said that its teams had found that most MSOs had operationalised Digital headends with Conditional Access System and Subscriber Management System.

Ministry teams will continue their visits in the coming days to ensure that analogue signals are completely switched off.

It also said that the Awareness Campaign would continue and SMS messages intensified to reach out to the people yet to install STBs.

The ministry claimed that its Control Room had been flooded with calls requesting information about the price of STBs and their availability.

It said that the control room had received more than 4000 calls in the last ten days.

The ministry said that yesterday 500 calls were received by the Control Room which is operational on all days from 8 am to 10 pm and has representatives of MSO to reply to queries of people.

Encouraged by the success of "Curiosity", NASA has announced to launch a new Mars mission in 2016 to take a better look into the guts of the Red Planet.

The mission called "InSight" will investigate why Mars' crust is not divided into tectonic plates that drift like Earth's.

Detailed knowledge of the interior of Mars in comparison to Earth will help scientists understand better how terrestrial planets form and evolve, the American space agency said.

"The exploration of Mars is a top priority for NASA, and the selection of 'InSight' ensures we will continue to unlock the mysteries of the Red Planet and lay the groundwork for a future human mission there," said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.

"The recent successful landing of the Curiosity rover has galvanised public interest in space exploration and today's announcement makes clear there are more exciting Mars missions to come," he said referring to the success of Curiosity.                    

The 12th selection in NASA's series of Discovery-class missions, 'InSight' is build on spacecraft technology used in the space agency's highly successful Phoenix lander mission, which was launched to the Red Planet in 2007 and determined water existed near the surface in the Martian polar regions.

"Our Discovery Programme enables scientists to use innovative approaches to answering fundamental questions about our solar system in the lowest cost mission category," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

"'InSight' will get to the 'core' of the nature of the interior and structure of Mars, well below the observations we've been able to make from orbit or the surface," Grunsfeld said.

With an aim to boost domestic hardware, the Union cabinet chaired by PM Manmohan Singh has approved the national policy of electronics which aims to create 20 lakh additional jobs by the year 2020 and a turnover of 400 billion dollars.


Demand for electronics product has been rapidly growing in the country.

However, the domestic production in 2008-09 was worth about USD 20 billion.

In the absence of a government initiative, it was estimated that at the current rate of growth, domestic production can cater to a demand of USD 100 billion by 2020 as against demand of USD 400 billion.

The rest would have to be met by imports.

"This aggregates to a demand supply gap of nearly USD 300 billion by 2020. Unless the situation is corrected, it is likely that by 2020, electronics import may far exceed oil imports," the statement said.

Washington: Researchers claim to have found fresh physical evidence that the Moon was born in a flaming blaze when a Mars sized body smashed into the early Earth in a cataclysmic collision.

Analysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo missions shows they have heavier forms of zinc a telltale sign of the impact billions of years ago.

Without the Moon, there may have been no life on Earth because it once orbited much closer to us than it does now causing massive tides to ebb and flow every few hours.

These tides caused dramatic fluctuations in salinity around coastlines which are believed to have driven the evolution of primitive DNA-like biomolecules.

Researchers led by Dr Frederic Moynier from Washington University said the zinc enrichment probably arose because heavier atoms condensed out of the cloud of vapourised rock quicker than lighter ones.

Researchers analysed 20 samples of Moon rocks including ones from the Apollo 11, 12, 15 and 17 missions and one lunar meteorite.

"What we wanted were the basalts because they're the ones that came from inside the Moon and would be more representative of the Moon's composition," Moynier, said.

Scientists have been looking for this kind of sorting by mass called isotopic fractionation since the Apollo missions first brought Moon rocks to Earth in the 1970s.

Compared to terrestrial or Martian rocks, the lunar rocks have much lower concentrations of zinc but are enriched in the heavy isotopes of zinc.

"The magnitude of the fractionation we measured in lunar rocks is 10 times larger than what we see in terrestrial and Martian rocks, so it's an important difference," Moynier said.

Earth and Mars have isotopic compositions like those of chondritic meteorites, which are thought to represent the original composition of the cloud of gas and dust from which the solar system formed. The most likely large-scale event is wholesale melting during the formation of the Moon.

The zinc isotopic data therefore supports the theory a giant impact gave rise to the Earth-Moon system.

"The work also has implications for the origin of the Earth because the origin of the Moon was a big part of the origin of the Earth," Moynier said in a statement.

Without the stabilising influence of the Moon, the Earth would probably be a very different sort of place. Scientists believe the Earth would spin more rapidly, days would be shorter, weather more violent and climate more chaotic and extreme. The study findings are published in the journal Nature.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has announced USD 50 million grant for conservation of biological diversity to strengthen the institutional mechanism for biodiversity conservation in the country as he pledged India's commitment for the global cause.
Inaugurating a high-level segment meeting at the ongoing Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad on Tuesday, the Prime Minister said India was committed to work with all the parties to reach a consensus on biological diversity and sustainable growth.

How to mobilise financial, technical and human resources for biodiversity conservation has become a critical issue, Dr Singh pointed out.

"On the occasion of this conference, I am pleased to launch the Hyderabad Pledge and announce that our Government has decided to earmark a sum of US$ 50 million during Indias presidency of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to strengthen the institutional mechanism for biodiversity conservation in India" , he said.

The amount would be utilised for enhancing technical and human capabilities for biodiversity conservation.

Developing new models of inclusive conservation was an important challenge, the Prime Minister noted and suggested that innovative approaches need to be adopted.

"In India, there is a co-relation of efforts for biological diversity conservation and poverty alleviation," he added.

Union Minister of State for Environment Jayanthi Natarajan, Japan's Environment Minister Hiroyuki Nagahama, Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan, Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner, Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary Brasilo Ferreira D'Souza and others were present on the occasion.

A rock analysed by NASA's Mars rover has a surprising and more varied composition than expected, resembling rare rocks from the interiors of Earth.

"This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth," said Curiosity co-investigator Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology, in Washington on Friday .

"With only one Martian rock of this type, it is difficult to know whether the same processes were involved, but it is a reasonable place to start thinking about its origin," Stolper said in a statement.

On Earth, rocks with composition like the 'Jake' typically come from processes in the planet's mantle beneath the crust, from crystallisation of relatively water-rich magma at elevated pressure.

The rover team used two instruments to study the chemical makeup of the football-size rock called "Jake Matijevic".

The results support some surprising recent measurements and provide an example of why identifying rocks' composition is such a major emphasis of the mission.

Rock compositions tell stories about unseen environments and planetary processes.

Jake was the first rock analysed by the rover's arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument and about the thirtieth rock examined by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument.

Two penny-size spots on Jake were analysed on September 22 by the rover's improved and faster version of earlier APXS devices on all previous Mars rovers, which have examined hundreds of rocks.

That information has provided scientists a library of comparisons for what Curiosity sees.

"Jake is kind of an odd Martian rock," said APXS Principal Investigator Ralf Gellert.

"It's high in elements consistent with the mineral feldspar, and low in magnesium and iron," he said.

ChemCam found unique compositions at each of 14 target points on the rock, hitting different mineral grains within.

Examination of Jake included the first comparison on Mars between APXS results and from checking the same rock with ChemCam, which shoots laser pulses from the top of the rover's mast.

The wealth of information from the two instruments checking chemical elements in the same rock is just a preview.

Curiosity also carries analytical laboratories inside the rover to provide other composition information about powder samples from rocks and soil.

During a two-year prime mission, researchers will use Curiosity's 10 instruments to assess whether the study area ever has offered environmental conditions favourable for microbial life.

The pictures, which were published on Twitter, show what appears to be a smaller Apple iPad, with squarer edges and the same Lightning dock connector as the new iPhone 5.

However, as pointed out online by Mike Cane, the FCC identity code on the back of the ‘mini iPad’ matches that of the third generation iPad, indicating that the pictures do not show the real thing.

Rumours about the imminent release of the iPad mini – which observers have also referred to as the iPad Nano and iPad Air – have increased over recent weeks. Several reports, attributed to unnamed insiders, said that Apple would hold an event next Wednesday, October 17th.

However, Apple usually sends out invites to its special events at least a week in advance and with no invites appearing yesterday it seems unlikely that the new device will launch next week after all.

That leaves very little time for Apple to work, if the mini iPad really is to be released before the Christmas season. Analysts believe the company wants a smaller tablet on the market to tackle rival devices such as Google’s Nexus 7 tablet computer and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD.