Ready to Eat Rice without cooking !

Ready to Eat Rice without cooking !

Yes. Scientists of Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI), developed new rice variant named "Aghaono Bora", a soft rice or komal chawl, takes 45 minutes if soaked in normal water and if the water is lukewarm, it is ready in 15 minutes.

However, the soft rice varieties grown across Assam and the North-East, are ready to eat after they are soaked in plain water. it is a low-yielding crop that grows only in a cool climate.

The Scientists from CRRI, one of the premier research institutes on grains in the world, developed a hybrid of traditional soft rice with a high yielding variety of regular rice, that could be grown in different climates across India.

"We wanted to see whether the same rice can be grown here and retain the same properties. We saw it behaves the same way. Simply soak it in water and the rice is ready to eat but the quality of water has to be clean and potable. The idea is to avoid any waterborne disease," said Tapan Kumar Adhya, director, CRRI.

“This rice variety, which comes under soft rice category, helps in saving fuel as it doesn’t require any boiling ,” said Tapan Kumar Adhya.

In Orissa where 'pakhal' or cooked rice fermented in water is a hot favorite, the soft rice is expected to be a hit. It's environment-friendly and will save a huge amount of fuel and time.

Biotechnology boom raises security fears

Biotechnology boom raises security fears

As rapid advances in biotechnology make it easier to develop and produce deadly organisms, experts are calling for better industry oversight to stop that progress benefiting criminals and terrorists.

Hundreds of research laboratories are springing up around the world as costs and development times tumble and scientists compete to create products with commercial potential for medicine or food production.

In 2002 it took five years to develop the genomic sequence of a polio virus. Three years later it took a week for a team the same size to do the same on a virus of similar length.

Such rapid progress has left policymakers wondering how to ensure security in a disparate, thinly regulated industry -- a concern that surfaced at a weekend conference in Morocco where experts considered the threat of pandemics and major biological incidents in the Middle East and North Africa.

"There are so many advances in bacteriology and gene sequencing leading to the possibility of designing genes -- that is what is driving the concern," said Tim Trevan of the International Council for the Life Sciences (ICLS).

Organisms could be genetically manipulated to defeat vaccines, mild diseases could be turned into deadly ones and lethal viruses and bacteria might be created from scratch.

Equipment such as micro-reactors, flow reactors and disposable reactors to produce useable volumes of complex molecules were not even available 10 years ago.

"You want something very infectious if you aim to bring down society," said Trevan. "Whether you kill people or incapacitate them it doesn't really matter, as long as there is a major effect. This could all theoretically be engineered genetically."

A BIOTECH CHERNOBYL?

Potentially dangerous organisms tend to be harder to spot at the development stage than nuclear materials.

"You are talking about people and knowledge -- you're not going to just spring into a laboratory and find incriminating material," said ICLS President Terence Taylor.

He pointed to documents recovered from al Qaeda which had showed the group was considering developing biological weapons.

"If there is a serious, catastrophic incident involving the use of biotechnology, that will hold up the science like Chernobyl did with nuclear," said Taylor. "That's why we need to worry now."

Nuclear technology remains mostly in the hands of governments and heavily regulated state enterprises. In contrast, advanced biotechnology is already seeping into the consumer mainstream.

Taylor said parts of the private sector had taken a lead in building safeguards. One industry body, the International Association for Synthetic Biology, had developed software to allow its members to screen their customers.

Conference delegates called for better regulation and more cross-border collaboration to detect and ward off biological threats and share best practices.

Attacks involving anthrax-laced letters in the United States in 2001 killed five people, including two U.S. Postal Service workers from a facility in Washington, D.C., and made 13 sick. Thousands were given antibiotics to prevent disease.

In 1995, Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult killed 12 people in a Sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.

"The thinking is out there and it is naive to assume some people are not exploiting available technology," said Taylor.

IISc to extract oil from Diatoms, algae

IISc to extract oil from Diatoms, algae

Driving will soon be a pollution-friendly activity if a small team of scientists from India and Canada have their way. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have collaborated with their counterparts in Canada to ensure that global warming becomes a thing of the past.

According to the scientists, the answer to a clean and sustainable energy production lies in the microscopic algae — diatoms.

Some geologists believe that a majority of the world’s crude oil originated from diatoms. “Diatoms are the lowest in the order of the food chain, but are known to have oil glands that can yield an effective amount of oil. They also act as carbon sequesters trapping in carbon and releasing oxygen. We hope that this could work as a replacement for conventional energy or gasoline paving the way for a clean fuel that can effectively work as a solution to tackle global warming,” said Dr T.V. Ramachandra at IISc.

The research, that will soon be published in an international journal, indicates that a solution to the impending crude oil scarcity exists. It offers solutions for a cost-effective renewable source of alternative energy and also helps stop the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to an extent. Diatoms can trap and store carbon, sending out emissions free of any pollutants.

The team that comprises IISc professors Durga Madhab Mahapatra, Karthick B. and Dr Ramachandra and Richard Gordon from the University of Manitoba in Canada have also proposed a new approach to sustainable energy that uses solar panels by incorporating altered diatoms that secrete oil products.

Biotech crops' global value reaches $7.5 billion

Biotech crops' global value reaches $7.5 billion

The global market value of biotechnology crops reached $7.5 billion in 2008, up from $6.9 billion in 2007.

Last year’s $7.5 billion represented 14 percent Dr. Clive James, founder and current board chairman of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

New York (USA)-based ISAAA is a not-for-profit organization with an international network of centers designed to contribute to the alleviation of hunger and poverty by sharing knowledge and crop biotechnology applications.

The network includes the Southeast Asia Center based in Los Baños, Laguna, headed by Dr. Randy Hautea, currently ISAAA global coordinator and former director of the University of the Philippines Los Baños-Institute of Plant Breeding (UPLB-IPB).

Dr. James’ report, titled “Global Status of Commercialized Biotech/GM Crops: 2008”, was presented by Dr. Hautea and former UP president Dr. Emil Q. Javier at a media forum last Feb. 12 at the Richmonde Hotel in Pasig City.

In his report, the Welsh-born research administrator projected that the global value of the biotech crop market for 2009 is approximately $8.3 billion.

Of the genetically modified (GM) crops produced in 2008, biotech maize constituted the biggest chunk of the global biotech market – $3.6 billion or 48 percent.

It was followed by soybean, $2.8 billion (37 percent); cotton, $0.9 billion (12 percent); and canola, $0.2 billion (three percent).

The other biotech crops raised in 2008 in 25 countries were papaya, squash, tomato, sweet pepper, alfalfa, poplar, petunia, carnation, and sugar beet.

Soybeans Grow Where Nuclear Waste Glows

Soybeans Grow Where Nuclear Waste Glows

Photo: Soybeans growing near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
Soy crops are so tough they can flourish in the contaminated soil around Chernobyl and produce healthy offspring.
If scientists can understand how plants survive in ultra-hostile environments, it will help them engineer super hearty plants to withstand drought conditions or grow on marginal cropland.
“The fact that plants were able to adapt to the area of the world’s largest nuclear accident, is very encouraging,” says Martin Hajduch, a plant biotechnology expert at the Slovak Academy of Sciences and coauthor of the study in the Journal of Proteome Research. “So we were interested to know how plants can do such a job.”
Hajduch’s team built and harvested seeds from a garden near the village of Chistogalovka, which is roughly five kilometers from the ruined nuclear power plant. They analyzed the seeds with all sorts of modern proteomics tricks, going a step beyond the narrowly-focused studies that other scientists have done.
Biologists have been studying the effects of radiation on plants for decades, and they have identified a handful of proteins that seem to protect crops from genetic damage, but this is the first time that anyone has taken a snapshot of everything that’s going on inside of Chernobyl-grown vegetables.
The Slovak scientists started by freezing each seed with liquid nitrogen and crushing it to extract a mix of proteins. Then they sorted those molecules in an electrified block of gel, and identified each one with a mass spectrometer. As a reference, they did the same thing to seeds from a garden 100 kilometers from the disaster area.
Hajduch learned that the contaminated plants make a lot of changes to defend themselves, adjusting the levels of dozens of proteins that also guard against disease, heavy metals, and salt. All of that makes sense, but the biggest difference between plants from the wasteland and the controls was somewhat surprising. The levels of hundreds of proteins that are known for their ability to shuttle other proteins around — or lock them up in storage — had been lowered.
As a result of those adjustments, the levels of Cesium-137 in the beans was remarkably low. The plants are healthy and fertile, but definitely not safe to eat. Hajduch says that he will complete a study of their progeny soon, but he wouldn’t want to make them into tofu.

Curry leaves Fights Tooth Decay

Curry leaves Fights Tooth Decay

The curry leaf tree (Murraya Koenigii spreng – a green leafy vegetable) is grown all over India and other countries for its aromatic leaves which are used daily as an ingredient in Indian cuisine.

The fresh curry leaves contain 2.6% volatile essential oils (containing sesquiterpenes and monoterpenes) and the essential oils in the curry leaves are sufficiently soluble in water.

They contain 21000mug total carotene, 7100mug beta carotene, 93.9mug total folic acid, 0.21mg riboflavin, 0.93mg iron, 830mg calcium, 57mg phosphorus and 0.20mg zinc per 100g.

The cold extract of curry leaves (10g of cut fresh curry leaves in 200ml of distilled water) has a pH of 6.3 to 6.4. (unpublished personal observations). Chlorophyll has been proposed as an anticariogenic agent and it also helps to reduce halitosis8.

We have observed that holding curry leaves in the mouth for 5 to 7 minutes is helpful in reducing halitosis and that the terpenes have been found to reduce airborne chemicals and bacteria.

In addition to the presence of EO, the curry leaves contain chlorophyll, beta carotene and folic acid, riboflavin, calcium and zinc and all these can act on the oral tissues and help in keeping up good oral health. Chewing 2 to 4 fresh curry leaves with 10 to 15mls water in the mouth, swishing for 5 to 7 minutes and rinsing the mouth out with water can be of help in keeping good oral hygiene and as the curry leaf is a green leafy vegetable it will be safe and cheap to use as mouthwash.

Gene Protects Alcoholism

Gene Protects Alcoholism

In an interesting finding, a study revealed that a gene variant detected among a tribe in Orissa has been protecting them from harmful effects of alcohol.

The study conducted by the department of anthropology at Utkal University here has showed that the Bondas — one the most primitive tribes of Orissa- are immune to the side effects of alcoholism.

Alcohol is an agent of cirrhosis of liver, toxic psychosis, gastritis, pancreatitis, cardiac myopathy and so on. But surprisingly none of these diseases are seen among the Bonda highlanders, who are addicted to different kinds alcoholic beverages.

The reason: presence of a gene variant ALDH2.

Jayant Kumar Nayak, a research scholar of Anthropological Survey of India, in association of with the Utkal University has conducted a study on Bondas to know whether they are genetically protected from alcoholism. On a proportionate random sampling, out of 25 villages, he selected nine for the study covering 714 households of 2,700 population. Genomic DNA was extracted from 110 unrelated adult Bondas by the ASI following ethical guidelines after taking their consents. Both ADH and ADLH2 genes, considered protecting variants for alcohol, were detected.

Square Watermelons! It's true.

Square Watermelons! It's true.

Farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have figured out how to grow their watermelons so they turn out square.


It's not a fad. The technique actually has practical applications. "The reason they're doing this in Japan is because of lack of space," said Samantha Winters of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Florida.
A fat, round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. But clever Japanese farmers have solved this dilemma by forcing their watermelons to grow into a square shape.
Farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.
The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.
But cubic fruit comes with a price: Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each.
Japanese farmers have perfected the art of growing square watermelons, but they aren’t about to reveal their secret process. When a square watermelon sells for $82 who can blame them.

Transparent Frog, First see-through frog

Transparent Frog, First see-through frog

Professor Masayuki Sumida, Research Team @ Hiroshima University’s Institute for Amphibian Biology has created a  transparent frog whose internal organs are visible through its skin.

The researchers say the see-through frogs can help in the study of diseases and in the development of medical treatments by allowing laboratory scientists to check the status of internal organs and blood vessels while the frogs are alive and without having to dissect them.

According to Sumida, the transparent frog is the result of breeding two specimens of Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica) that had a genetic mutation giving them pale skin. By selectively breeding their offspring, the researchers were able to create a frog that remains transparent for its entire life cycle.

Most of the world’s known transparent creatures live underwater, and transparent four-legged animals are extremely rare.

The researchers also say that by fusing the genes of fluorescent proteins to the frog’s genes, they can create frogs that glow. Glowing frogs can help scientists study specific “problem” genes by providing a real-time visual indication (i.e. the frogs glow) when those genes become active.

Professor Sumida says, “Transparent frogs will prove useful as laboratory animals because they make it easier and cheaper to observe the development and progress of cancer, the growth and aging of internal organs, and the effects of chemicals on organs.”

Sugar. 20 Things You Didn't Know About

Sugar. 20 Things You Didn't Know About

We eat it, we love it, and it may have been a chemical precursor to life on Earth.

1 The average American eats 61 pounds of refined sugar each year, including 25 pounds of candy. Halloween accounts for at least two pounds of that.

2 Trick: Sugar may give you wrinkles via a process called glycation, in which excess blood sugar binds to collagen in the skin, making it less elastic.

3 Or treat: Cutting back on sugar may help your skin retain its flexibility. So actually, no treats.

4 People in India have been crystallizing cane sugar for at least 2,000 years. When Alexander the Great’s companions arrived there, they marveled at the production of honey without bees.

5 In 1747 German chemist Andreas Marggraf discovered that the sugar in a sugar beet is identical to that in sugarcane. In 1802 the first beet-sugar refinery began operations, bringing cheap sweets to northern climes.

6 More than half the 8.4 million metric tons of sugar produced annually in the United States comes from beets.

7 Can you imagine eating 8 sugar cubes (8 spoons of sugar) at one sitting? You probably have. That’s a little less than what is contained in a coke or Pepsi (~ 300 ml).

8 Soft drinks with artificial sweeteners may actually help make you fat. In a Purdue University study, rats drinking liquids with artificial sweeteners consumed more calories overall than rats whose drinks were sweetened with sugar.

9 The artificial sweeteners saccharin and aspartame were found accidentally when lab workers doing research that had nothing to do with sweetening put a bit of the test compounds in their mouths and liked what they tasted.

10 What kind of researcher sticks an experiment in his mouth?

11 At least he had an excuse. The scientists who discovered sucralose (now sold as Splenda) were originally trying to create an insecticide. An assistant thought he had been instructed to “taste” a compound he’d only been asked to “test.”

12 A compound called lugduname is the sweetest compound known—more than 200,000 times as sweet as table sugar.

13 Sugars are molecules of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The simplest include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Table sugar is crystallized sucrose, a fusion of one fructose and one glucose molecule.

14 Can’t escape them: Sugars are the building blocks of carbohydrates, the most abundant type of organic molecules in living things.

15 Glycolaldehyde, an eight-atom sugar, has even been found in an interstellar gas cloud near the center of the Milky Way.

16 Glycolaldehyde can react with a three-carbon sugar to form ribose, the basis for both RNA and DNA, so the glycol­aldehyde found in deep space may be a chemical precursor to life on Earth.

17 That cloud also contains ethylene glycol, a sweet relative of glycol­aldehyde and the main ingredient in antifreeze. Either complex sugars can be synthesized between the stars or there is a truck stop at the end of the universe.

18 Sugar can help get you there to find out. Burn sucrose with a dose of corn syrup and saltpeter and you get “sugar propellant,” a popular amateur rocket fuel.

19 How do you spell relief? “Obecalp,” a sugar pill manufactured to FDA standards, is marketed as a treatment for children’s mild complaints. (Try reading the name backward.)

20 It’s not all mind games. The sugar glucosamine works as an immunosuppressant in mice, and xylitol (a sugar alcohol) can prevent ear infections in kids. Sweet!

Bio-Degradable USB stick

Bio-Degradable USB stick

Hong Kong-based Hoshino, released of what it's designated "the world's first bio-degradable USB disk."

The key is also shaped like an ear of corn, so you can acknowledge your own greenness, every time you go to retrieve information.

 

It is made of polylactide（PLA). PLA uses annually renewable plant resources (corn) as raw material, which is fermented and distillated to produce lactic acid.

Followed by the process of dehydration polymerization, high-temp depolymerization, refining and finally polymerization, lactic acid is then transformed to PLA. Its products can be degraded to carbon dioxide and water by microorganisms in the soil after use and do no harm to the environment.