Eco Gadget for Earth Day

With Earth Day approaching, many green travelers are thinking more about responsible, sustainable consumption.

For sustainable travel products, Etón Corporation offers independent, self-powered radios with solar powered design and hand-crank technologies, requiring no plugs or batteries.


Etón Corporation’s sustainable products offer AM/FM radio reception, rechargeable Ni-MH battery pack, flashlight, siren, LED safety lights and a cell phone charger.

The company’s all-band radio, the Solarlink FR600, can be powered via solar power and includes the Specific Area Message Encoding (S.A.M.E.) feature.

S.A.M.E. , a system of six digit codes that are programmed into the radio, bring only the emergency data for your specific area, such as your county, during an alert broadcast.

The Solarlink FR500 and Solarlink FR360 can be powered by the sun and also charge MP3 players. While the smallest in the Etón lineup is the FR160 Microlink (above) which allows the user to tune into NOAA, FCC and EAS public alert systems.

RAINFALL PATTERN HAS CHANGED-SAYS ENVIRONMENTALISTS

After the recent downpour of rainfall in tamilnadu and its cities,Scientist and environmentalist insist that rains have become erratic and scarce in chennai.They say the rainfall that we get is a pale shadow of rains we were getting some 3 decades back.A study carried out in the city under the guidance of weather scientists had come to the conclusion that the entire water scarcity in the city could be addressed by rain water harvesting.Dr G.V Rama,atmospheric scientist(ISRO), said that the rain pattern has undergone drastic changes in the last two decades."previously it used to rain for 45 days during the october-december period.But now it hardly rains for 25 days.

CHANDRAYAAN'S PAYLOADS BEAMING DATA TO EARTH-"MISSION TO MOON"

Nine payloads aboard chandrayaan-1 have been switched onand the ISRO scientists are holding back the two remaining payloads because is is summer on moon and the lunar temperature is high.All these payloads have started beaming signals back to earth and were functioning normally,only two more equipments remain.We hope to switch them on by the second week of december said Dr M Annadurai,project director of chandraayan-1.The two payloads are High Energy X-Ray Spectrometer(HEX) and Sub KeV Atom Reflecting Analyser(SARA). Both these payloads are high voltage instuements.All the payloads were being switched on as per the schedule prepared by ISRO,they switched on Moon Minerology Monitor(MMM),Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar and Near InfraRed Spectrometer(SIR-2).Based on MMM's data special team formed is going to prepare a detailed global assessment of the moon's geology,said Dr.Annadurai.


Scientific Payloads

Chandrayaan-1 is an Indian Mission to the Moon. The indigenously developed payload experiments are:

TMC
Terrain Mapping stereo Camera (TMC) in the panchromatic band, having 5 m spatial resolution and 20 km swath.


HySI
Hyper Spectral Imaging camera (HySI) operating in 400-950 nm bands with a spectral resolution better than 15 nm and spatial resolution of 80 m with a swath of 20 km.


LLRI
Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI) with height resolution of less than 5 m.


HEX
High Energy X-ray spectrometer (HEX) using Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CdZnTe) detector in the 30-270 keV energy region with spatial resolution of 33 km.


MIP
Moon Impact Probe (MIP) as piggyback on the main orbiter of the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which will impact on the surface of the moon.


C1XS
Chandrayaan-1 X-ray Spectrometer (C1XS) through ESA - a collaboration between Rutherford Appleton Laboratory,UK and ISRO Satellite Centre, ISRO. Part of this payload is redesigned by ISRO to suit Chandrayaan-1 scientific objectives.


SIR-2
Near Infra Red spectrometer (SIR-2) from Max Plank Institute for Solar System Science, through Max-Planck Society, Germany and ESA.


SARA
Sub keV Atom Reflecting Analyser (SARA) through ESA, from Swedish Institute of Space Physics, Sweden and Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, ISRO. The digital processing unit of this payload/ experiment is designed and developed by ISRO, while Swedish Institute of Space Physics develops the payload.


RADOM
Radiation Dose Monitor Experiment (RADOM) from Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.



Mini-SAR
Miniature Synthetic Aperture Radar (Mini-SAR) from Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University and Naval Air Warfare Centre, USA through NASA.

M3
Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) from Brown University and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA through NASA.

BIODIESEL FROM ALGAE

Though research into algae as a source for biodiesel is not new, the current oil crises and fast depleting fossil oil reserves have made it more imperative for organizations and countries to invest more time and efforts into research on suitable renewable feedstock such as algae.Algae have emerged as one of the most promising sources especially for biodiesel production, for two main reasons they are (1) The yields of oil from algae are orders of magnitude higher than those for traditional oilseeds.
(2) Algae can grow in places away from the farmlands & forests, thus minimising the damages caused to the eco- and food chain systems. There is a third interesting reason as well: Algae can be grown in sewages and next to power-plant smokestacks where they digest the pollutants and give us oil.

CURABLE CANCER-KING'S APPROACH

King's approach uses a tiny tubelike device coated with the proteins that could hypothetically be implanted in a peripheral blood vessel to filter out and destroy free-flowing cancer cells in the bloodstream. To capture the tumor cells in the blood, King used selection molecules proteins that move to the surface of blood vessels in response to infection or injury. Selectin molecules normally recruit white blood cells which "roll" along their surfaces and create an inflammatory response but they also attract cancer cells, which can mimic the adhesion and rolling process. Once the cancer cells adhered to the selectin on the microtube's surface, King exposed them to a protein called TRAIL (for Tumor Necrosis Factor Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand), which binds to two so-called "death receptors" on the cancer cells' surface, setting in motion a process that causes the cell to self-destruct. The TRAIL then releases the cells back into the bloodstream to die; and the device is left free to work on new cells.It's a little more sophisticated than just filtering the blood, because we're not just accumulating cancer cells on the surface. King's research showed that the device can capture and kill about 30 percent of cancer cells flowing past it a single time, with the potential to kill more in the closed-loop system of the body. Used in combination with traditional cancer therapies, King said, the device could remove a significant proportion of metastatic cells ,and give the body a fighting chance to remove the rest of them.
The team also showed that a system in which the cancer cells "roll" over the target molecules presenting their entire surface to the molecules is four times more effective than a static setup in which the cells and proteins make contact at a single point. King's group tested the device on prostate and colon cancer cells, but noted that it could also be customized with additional peptides or other proteins to target other types of cancer cells and if you could reduce or prevent metastasis, pretty much any cancer would be treatable. But translating the research into a clinical application will take time, and is still likely years away.
A version of the device used in King's experiments is shown below. In the body, the inlet and outlet would connect to an artery and vein, respectively

1000 NEW SPECIES FOUND IN MEKONG-"BIOLOGICAL TREASURE TROVE"

Scientists have discovered more than 1,000 species in Southeast Asia's Greater Mekong region in the past decade, including a spider as big as a dinner plate.
The species were all found in the rainforests and wetlands along the Mekong River, which flows through Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.
These included the world's largest huntsman spider, with a leg span of 30 centimetres, and the "startlingly" coloured "dragon millipede", which produces the deadly compound cyanide.
One species of pitviper was first noted by scientists after it was found in the rafters of a restaurant at the headquarters of Thailand's Khao Yai National Park in 2001.
A rat thought to have become extinct 11 million years ago and a cyanide-laced, shocking pink millipede were among creatures found.
The new species highlighted in the report include 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad - an average of two previously undiscovered species a week for the past 10 years.

NANOSENSOR DETECTS CANCER CAUSING TOXINS

US Scientists have developed a tiny sensor that can detect small amounts of cancer-causing toxins or trace the effectiveness of cancer drugs inside living cells.They made a very small nanosensor that can detect cancer causing molecules or important therapeutic drugs inside of a single living cell,which is much smaller than the living cell in our body.
Sensors are made up of thin filaments of carbon molecules known as carbon nanotubes.The sensors give off a fluorescent light that can be detected in the near-infrared light spectrum,as human tissues do not lightup in this spectrum nanotubes stand out.Light signal changes when the sensors interact with the DNA inside the cells.These changes can helps in identifying the specific molecule,as the sensors are coated in DNA they can be injected easily into the living cells says scientists.