A new single-tablet regimen to treat HIV/AIDS is being hailed as a breakthrough, but it is just a combination of old drugs and will have little or no impact in poorer countries
Earlier this week, a new, single tablet antiretroviral regimen to treat HIV/AIDS was approved by the United States Food & Drug Administration (US FDA). Almost instantly, the media dubbed it a ‘breakthrough’ in treatment, to be celebrated by the public health community globally.
The drug in question called Genvoya is made by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences. According to USFDA, Genvoya can be used on patients above the age of 12 or weighing at least 35 kg and who have never been treated for HIV before, or on infected adults whose HIV is currently suppressed.
Genvoya, essentially, is a cocktail of older drugs with a new form of tenofovir, a powerful HIV inhibitor, which had not been previously approved. In its new avatar, tenofovir provides “lower levels of drug in the bloodstream, but higher levels within the cells where HIV-1 replicates. It was developed to help reduce some drug side effects. Genvoya appears to be associated with less kidney toxicity and decreases in bone density than previously approved tenofovir,” said USFDA in a press release.
According to Gilead Sciences, the new TAF-based regimen can enter cells -- including HIV-infected cells -- with more efficiency than the previous version of the drug. Further, it can be administered to patients at a significantly lower dose – with 91 per cent less tenofovir in the bloodstream. The fact that it can be given at much lower doses makes the new regimen less toxic to bones and kidneys, a common problem among HIV patients as they get older.
The FDA has noted that Genvoya is not recommended for patients with severe kidney impairment and should not be given in combination with other antiretroviral drugs, since it may interact with a number of commonly used medications.
There are two things one needs to know about this drug. First, it is not a new drug. It is a combination of four old drugs -- elvitegravir, cobicistat, emtricitabine, and tenofovir alafenamide (TAF). This is called a Fixed Dose Combination (FDC).
And while FDCs are good for improving adherence among patients, this is no magic pill. “Technically, this is simply not a breakthrough. No new drug has been discovered - older drugs have been brought together in the FDC form. This is important as it improves compliance, which is a great thing but to call it a breakthrough is a stretch,” said Dr Manish Kakkar, a public health specialist in communicable diseases at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI).
Second, the developing world - which is where the majority of the HIV/AIDS patients are - will not be exactly jumping with joy at this ‘breakthrough’ any time soon. According to medical humanitarian aid organisation, Doctors Without Borders (MSF), the drug will make little or no impact on patients in the poorer countries.
The drug will hit the stands on Monday but will take much longer to be available in Indian markets. The country at present shoulders the third highest PLHIV (People Living with HIV) burden, with over 20 lakh HIV positive patients. Of this, nearly 1.5 lakh are children, according to the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO). Additionally, India accounts for approximately 1.2 lakh new HIV infections and 1.5 lakh deaths annually.
MSF’s access campaigner in India Leena Menghaney went so far as to call this a PR gimmick, sponsored by the pharmaceutical company. “Registration (of new drugs) strategies of multinational pharmaceutical companies, like Gilead Sciences, is not in line with the needs of the developing world. This drug cannot be used, not in the cocktails pharmaceutical companies like Gilead want to sell them. Instead, they must be used in the combinations prescribed by the World Health Organization. If these drugs —the new form of tenofovir in particular — were registered individually, they can be used in WHO recommended combinations,” said Menghaney.
Red signals from meat
Beef production uses more water and land and emits more greenhouse gases than other livestock
A recent
recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared red meat a carcinogen. Processed meats are the major culprit, and are a Class-1 carcinogen, which means that the evidence linking consumption to cancer is strong.
Red meats are in a lower category, 2A, which means consumption is probably linked to cancer, specifically colorectal cancer. The link between processed meat and colorectal cancer is hardly new. A 2009 study funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health found that eating red and processed meats was linked to a higher risk of dying of heart disease and cancer. In the U.K., it is estimated that 19 per cent of all cancers are linked to tobacco use whereas 3 per cent of all cancers are linked to red meat. The relative danger from processed meat consumption (relative to tobacco) is likely to be far lower in India where tobacco use rates are higher than in the U.K. and consumption of both red meat and processed meat is far lower.
Ramanan Laxminarayan
Although meat consumption in India is on the rise, it is nowhere close to what the West consumes. Even compared to China, India’s intake is much lesser. Every Chinese citizen consumes 10 kg of poultry each year. This is roughly 10 times what every Indian does. The consumption of beef by the average Chinese citizen compared relative to India is even greater.
Moreover, the proportion of processed meat in India is small compared to most countries. However, consumption of meat as a whole and of processed meat is on the rise, although mostly of poultry rather than red meat.
The biggest health threat to the average Indian is likely to come from meat production rather than consumption of processed or red meat. Countries like Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. used to lead the world in beef exports. That’s no longer the case. India is the world’s largest beef exporter and, as it happens, is now also the world’s largest milk producer, although this latter improvement has not necessarily resulted in greater milk consumption for many of our children, who remain protein-deprived.
So, how does meat production affect us as average citizens? Meat production consumes vast quantities of water compared to other foods. A 2012 Dutch study in the journal Ecosystems reported that beef has an overall water footprint of roughly 16,000 litres per kg produced. Water consumption is 320 litres per kg for vegetables and 400 litres per kg for starchy roots. Though water consumption per kg of beef is likely to be lower in India, production is becoming more water-intensive.
For a country with one of the lowest availabilities of fresh water supply per person, and where hundreds of thousands of children die of diarrheal diseases every year, the potential for disease and poor sanitation because of meat production has a far greater health consequence than any direct consumption of meat.
The second impact is in terms of climate change. Globally, livestock accounts for 18 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Beef production emits five times more greenhouse gas emissions than other livestock. Also, a global transition to a low-meat diet would halve the mitigation costs to achieve a 450 ppm CO2-eq. stabilisation target in 2050, needed to head off the worst effects of climate change.
Third, meat impacts land availability. Beef production requires 28 times more land than other livestock. A global food transition to less meat and a complete switch to plant-based protein food is likely to have a dramatic effect on land use. Up to 2,700 million hectares of pasture and 100 million hectares of crop land could be abandoned. The extra land could be used for fruits, vegetables and other foods.
Finally, meat production in India is increasingly using more antibiotics, placing selection pressure for drug resistant bacteria. Global consumption of antimicrobials in food animal production was estimated at 63,151 tonnes in 2010 and is projected to rise by 67 per cent in 2030. According to our estimates, roughly 58,000 newborn deaths are due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria produced each year in India. With greater antibiotic resistance, the impact on newborn deaths is likely to increase.
What does this tell us? Certainly, the environmental impact of meat production and its impact on health should not be used to justify the efforts of some State governments to regulate what their citizens eat based. But let us make no mistake: the meat we produce shapes our health more by how it shapes our environment and the world we live in than in its direct impact on health.
Belly fat can be deadly
People who carry fat around their bellies have a greater mortality risk, even if they are thin, than those who are overweight but have normal fat distribution, a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine said.
Researchers examined data from a large group of Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) participants to compare the total and cardio-vascular mortality risks with different combinations of body mass index (BMI) and waist-to-hip ratios (WHR).
They found that normal-weight adults with central obesity have the worst long—term survival rate compared with any group, regardless of BMI.
The data showed that a normal-weight person with central obesity had twice the mortality risk of participants who were overweight or obese according to BMI only.
Why save the rocks of the Deccan Plateau?
As our Institute at Hyderabad started constructing a new building, we found a huge boulder on the site. Such boulders and rocks are common place in Hyderabad (and indeed in the Deccan region) and many builders have simply blasted them away to make room for buildings. As Hyderabad expanded during the last four decades, much of the landscape has been remarkably changed from a series of boulders to high-rise buildings.
This irreversible change in the landscape has bothered many, and the conservation group “Save the Rocks” at Hyderabad has canvassed against such thoughtless blasting of these natural gifts and for conserving them as much as possible. These have borne some fruit as some architects have come out with ingenious plans to build houses and complexes around the boulders, or making the boulders as part of the plan. We too decided to do so and made the boulder part of the ground floor of the new building, where it ushers visitors.
This is yet another example of the debate between ecology and environment on one hand and development and economic demands on the other, but with a different focus. Boulders of Deccan are not ‘green’, they play no role in agriculture, water or the livelihood of the people in any significant way. While we understand the role of other ecosystems such as mangroves, forests or animal sanctuaries, of what use are these stones and rocks?
The answer comes once we realize how these rocks and boulders came about in the first place. The work of geologists over the last couple of centuries has unveiled the scenario of the area, which show us that these rocks, boulders and steps (of the kind we see in the rocks in Mahabaleshwar or Ajanta area) are the result of the churning of the earth that went on as early as 65 million years ago. Those were the pre-human days when giant dinosaurs roamed the Indian landscape in Punjab, Rajasthan and Deccan. The remains of one such dinosaur that roamed in the Adilabad area have been put together and exhibited at the Birla Science Museum (which itself stands on such boulders) in Hyderabad. Looking at the actual bones of the dinosaurs lying there, one wonders what caused their extermination from the ‘Jurassic Park’ of India of 65 million years ago.
Geo-chronologists study such events and estimate their time periods. We have such experts at the National Geophysical Research Institute at Hyderabad, Physical Research Laboratory at Ahmedabad and IIT Bombay. One such, Professor Kanchan Pande of IIT Bombay, has been working on the geo-chronology of the Deccan, and has recently co-authored a paper in the journal Science, which gives us an insight to the scenario.
It was over 66 million years ago that a giant asteroid from space came and barged on earth. The impact was so huge that it led to catastrophic changes on earth. Giant series of earthquakes erupted and massive fires were ignited, wiping out most life forms, plant and animals on land and sea. Dark clouds of poisonous dust blocked sunlight, vitiating the atmosphere and climate. This catastrophic event changed the entire landscape and natural history of our earth.
The collaborative work of Professor Paul Renne of UC Berkeley, and Professor Pande on Indian geochronology shows that the effect of such an asteroid impact was not just a single bang, but a series of earthquakes churning out the Indian land mass, particularly in the Western and Central regions of India, an area almost the size of U. P. and M. P. put together. The impact was not just a ‘one-off’ event but a series of continuing re-adjustment of the layers of earth, which continues even today. The volcanoes that resulted and the lava that began flowing still continue. This is what led to the “steps” or staircase-like arrangement of the landscape in the Mumbai-Pune Ghats region. These regular formations as called the “Deccan Traps” (borrowing from the Swedish word ‘trapp’ for staircase). For some stunning views of the Deccan Trap, go to Google and ask for images.
Cynics may ask: what use is this barren land? For the people who live in the area, this is an irrelevant, indeed irreverent question. And for understanding the details of our own history, this is a natural gift. Save the Rocks Hyderabad fights a heroic battle and we wish them well and support.
Turning to the boulder in our building, we asked the world experts on geo-chronology based in Hyderabad, Drs. Kunchitapadam Gopalan and Kaigala Venkata Subba Rao. They tell us that this boulder is actually older than 65 million, perhaps close to 1 billion years old! In respect, we surrounded it with four walls and the artist Surya Prakash covered the walls with murals- as an ode to this priceless gift that Mother Earth has bestowed on us.
Poets retell the past and foretell the future. Saint Kabir wrote: The clay told the potter: “you are churning me today. There will come a day when I will be churning you”.
Depressed? Try quitting Facebook
Researchers ascribe anxiety associated with Facebook use to envy at other people’s lives as they are seen enjoying.
A study by Denmark-based think tank Happiness Research Institute says quitting Facebook can actually make you happy. It found that those who had abstained from the social networking website reported feeling more enthusiastic, less lonely, less worried and more decisive.
The study enrolled 1095 volunteers and divided them into two groups.
Half of them carried on using Facebook as usual whereas the rest spent their time away from the social networking website.
After a week, 88 per cent of those who had given up Facebook said they felt “happy”, compared with 81 per cent of those who had still been checking into their ‘news feed’ on a regular basis.
The researchers ascribe the anxiety associated with Facebook use to envy at other people’s lives as they are seen enjoying, albeit in edited highlights.
“Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have,” wrote the authors of the study.
According to Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute, Facebook is a “constant bombardment of everyone else’s great news”.
“After a few days, I noticed my to-do list was getting done faster than normal as I spent my time more productively. I also felt a sort of calmness from not being confronted by Facebook all the time,” Sophie Anne Dornoy, 35, one of the volunteers was reported as saying.
Mars' moon Phobos is slowly falling apart
Mars’ gravity is drawing in Phobos by about 6.6 feet every hundred years. Scientists expect the moon to be pulled apart in 30 to 50 million years.
The long, shallow grooves lining the surface of Phobos are likely early signs of the structural failure that will ultimately destroy this moon of Mars.
Orbiting a mere 6,000 km above the surface of Mars, Phobos is closer to its planet than any other moon in the solar system.
Mars’ gravity is drawing in Phobos, the larger of its two moons, by about 6.6 feet every hundred years.
Scientists expect the moon to be pulled apart in 30 to 50 million years.
“We think that Phobos has already started to fail, and the first sign of this failure is the production of these grooves,” said Terry Hurford from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland in a statement.
More recently, researchers proposed that the grooves may instead be produced by many smaller impacts of material ejected from Mars.
But new modelling supports the view that the grooves are more like “stretch marks” that occur when Phobos gets deformed by tidal forces.
The gravitational pull between Mars and Phobos produces these tidal forces.
Earth and our moon pull on each other in the same way, producing tides in the oceans and making both planet and moon slightly egg-shaped rather than perfectly round.
The same fate may await Neptune’s moon Triton, which is also slowly falling inward and has a similarly fractured surface. The work also has implications for extrasolar planets, according to researchers.
Question Corner: Radiation protection
How do astronauts protect themselves from radiation in outer space?
According to the US National Space Administration (NASA), an astronaut's radiation exposure depends on the structure of the spacecraft, the materials used to construct the vehicle, the altitude and inclination of the spacecraft, the status of outer zone electron belts, the interplanetary proton flux, geomagnetic field conditions, solar cycle position, and Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) start time and duration among other factors. The Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) of NASA measures radiation levels inside and outside the spacecraft. It estimates radiation doses to astronauts after assessing inputs such as radiation coming from outer space, radiation trapped in the magnetic field of the Earth after integrating them with information on the altitude and inclination of the spacecraft and location and timing of EVAs. SRAG evaluates radiological safety aspects of radioisotopes and radiation-producing equipment carried on the spacecraft
Each crewmember carries a passive radiation dosimeter. SRAG may ask the astronauts to remain in the shielded areas of the spacecraft and may demand either the cancellation or revised scheduling of EVAs. SRAG ensures that the exposures received by the astronauts remain below established safety limits and are As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA).
For saving Asian vulture from fatal drugs
Conservation breeding is another focus point of the campaign
After successfully campaigning for the ban on multi-dose vials of painkiller drug diclofenac in veterinary use, conservationists have stepped up pressure for withdrawing two more drugs, which they say, are fatal for Asian vultures.
It was recently that the authorities slapped a ban on the 30 ml multi-dose vials of the drug, which was largely responsible for the decline of the vultures, which used to feed on bovine carcasses. The bird conservationists pointed out that “twenty years ago there were tens of millions of vultures in the Indian subcontinent. They provided a valuable ecosystem service by disposing of millions of tonnes of waste carrion from dead cattle each year. Now they, and the services they provided, are nearly all gone,” according a publication of Saving Asia’s Vultures from Extinction (SAVE), a consortium of eleven organisations.
The “three species of Gyps vultures endemic to South and Southeast Asia, oriental white-backed vulture (Gyps bengalensis), long-billed vulture (G. indicus) and slender-billed vulture (G. tenuirostris), are the worst affected and are threatened with global extinction after rapid population declines, which began in the mid-1990s.
They are listed by IUCN as Critically Endangered, the highest level of endangerment short of extinction in the wild. The oriental white-backed vulture population in India in 2007 was estimated at one-thousandth of its level in the early 1990s,” the document said.
In south India, the vulture populations have been reported from Muthumalai and Sathyamangalam regions of Tamil Nadu, Wayanad of Kerala and Bandipur and Nagarhole of Karnataka, where also the bird numbers are fast dwindling, pointed out C. Sashikumar, a leading ornithologist.
Besides other conservation programmes, steps for banning the veterinary use of Ketoprofen and Aceclofenac have to be achieved. The veterinary use of Ketoprofen has already been banned in three districts of Tamil Nadu, he said. It has been pointed out that the veterinary use of diclofenac was the major cause of the decline of vulture population. When vultures which feed on carcass of animals treated with the drug, “severe kidney damage and extensive visceral gout” were observed.
The conservation consortium has also suggested monitoring the ban on veterinary diclofenac, surveys on populations of vultures to assess its population trends, testing of vulture-safe veterinary drugs and creation of Vulture Safe Zones. Conservation breeding is another focus point of the campaign.
Antarctica is gaining ice: NASA
The study analysed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters.
An increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers.
Areas of the continent like the Antarctic peninsula have increased their mass loss in the last decades, says a new NASA study.
The research challenges the conclusion of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.
According to the analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tonnes of ice a year from 1992 to 2001.
The net gain slowed to 82 billion tonnes of ice per year between 2003 and 2008.
“We are essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica,” explained Jay Zwally, glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica. “Here, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas,” he added.
But it might take a few decades for Antarctica’s growth to reverse, according to Zwally.
The study analysed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency satellites and by the laser altimeter on NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat).
“At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet,” Zwally noted.
The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia.
It is thickening the ice in east Antarctica and the interior of west Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches per year.
This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice.
“The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 mm per year away,” Zwally said. But this is also bad news.
“If the 0.27 mm per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for,” he pointed out in the study appeared in the Journal of Glaciology.
Arctic Ocean to have less ice, more water by 2050s
Some sites in the Arctic Ocean — once covered by sea ice — may see more than 100 additional days of open water, the findings showed.
The entire Arctic coastline and most of the Arctic Ocean will experience an additional two months of open water each year by the 2050s, projects a new study.
Some sites in the Arctic Ocean — once covered by sea ice — may see more than 100 additional days of open water, the findings showed.
“The Arctic is warming and the sea ice is melting, with impacts on Arctic people and ecosystems,” said Jennifer Kay from University of Colorado Boulder in the U.S.
“By the end of this century, assuming a scenario of continued business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions, the Arctic will be in a new regime with respect to open water, fully outside the realm of what we have seen in the past,” Kay pointed out.
The researchers used climate simulations to see how the number of open water, or sea ice-free, days change from 1850 to 2100 in our planet’s northernmost ocean. They analysed multiple runs or “realisations” from a single climate model.
Because most economic activity in the Arctic is along the coastline, the team focused on four coastal locations that demonstrated the range of sea ice change: Drew Point, along Alaska’s North Slope; the Laptev Sea, along Siberia’s northern coast; Perry Channel in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (part of the Northwest Passage route); and Arctic Ocean regions east of Svalbard, Norway.
For example, at Drew Point, open water is already shifting from pre-industrial conditions. Once present about 50 days a year on average, open water is now present about 100 days a year.
By the 2070s, the modelling study concluded, there could be close to 200 days a year with no sea ice at Drew Point, which is likely to worsen coastal erosion.
According to their analysis, the entire Arctic coastline and most of the Arctic Ocean will experience an additional 60 days of open water each year by the 2050s, and many sites will have more than 100 additional days.
The findings appeared in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Strong solar winds may have stripped life on Mars: NASA
Solar wind might have played a key role in turning the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment to the cold, arid planet today.
In a first, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission has revealed the process that may have played a key role in turning the Martian climate from an early, warm and wet environment supporting life to a cold, arid planet today.
MAVEN is the first mission devoted to understanding how the sun might have influenced atmospheric changes on the Red Planet.
The latest data enabled researchers to determine the rate at which the Martian atmosphere currently is losing gas to space via stripping by the solar wind.
The erosion of Mars’ atmosphere increases significantly during solar storms, the authors noted.
“Mars appears to have had a thick atmosphere warm enough to support liquid water which is a key ingredient and medium for life as we currently know it,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator for the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington, DC.
“Learning what can cause changes to a planet’s environment from one that could host microbes at the surface to one that doesn’t is important to know, and is a key question that is being addressed in NASA’s journey to Mars,” he added.
MAVEN measurements indicate that the solar wind strips away gas at a rate of about 100 grams every second.
“Like the theft of a few coins from a cash register every day, the loss becomes significant over time,” added Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
“We have seen that the atmospheric erosion increases significantly during solar storms. We think the loss rate was much higher billions of years ago when the sun was young and more active,” he explained.
In addition, a series of dramatic solar storms hit Mars’ atmosphere in March 2015 and MAVEN found that the loss was accelerated.
The combination of greater loss rates and increased solar storms in the past suggests that loss of atmosphere to space was likely a major process in changing the Martian climate.
The solar wind is a stream of particles, mainly protons and electrons, flowing from the sun’s atmosphere at a speed of about one million miles per hour.
The magnetic field carried by the solar wind as it flows past Mars can generate an electric field, much as a turbine on Earth can be used to generate electricity.
This electric field accelerates electrically charged gas atoms, called ions, in Mars’ upper atmosphere and shoots them into space.
New results indicate that the loss is experienced in three different regions of the Red Planet.
The team determined that almost 75 percent of the escaping ions come from the “tail” region and nearly 25 percent are from the “plume” region, with just a minor contribution from the “extended cloud”.
Ancient regions on Mars bear signs of abundant water — such as features resembling valleys carved by rivers and mineral deposits that only form in the presence of liquid water.
These features have led scientists to think that billions of years ago, the atmosphere of Mars was much denser and warm enough to form rivers, lakes and perhaps even oceans of liquid water.
Recently, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter observed the seasonal appearance of hydrated salts indicating briny liquid water on Mars.
However, the current Martian atmosphere is far too cold and thin to support long-lived or extensive amounts of liquid water on the planet’s surface.
“Solar-wind erosion is an important mechanism for atmospheric loss and was important enough to account for significant change in the Martian climate,” noted Joe Grebowsky, MAVEN project scientist.
The results appeared in the journals Science and Geophysical Research Letters.
New light on human blood formation
Turning conventional wisdom on its head, a team of Canadian scientists has discovered a completely new view of how human blood is made.
According to them, the whole classic “textbook” view we thought we knew about blood formation doesn’t actually even exist.
“Through a series of experiments, we have been able to finally resolve how different kinds of blood cells form quickly from the stem cell — the most potent blood cell in the system — and not further downstream as has been traditionally thought,” explained stem cell scientist Dr John Dick.
The research also topples the textbook view that the blood development system is stable once formed.
“Our findings show that the blood system is two-tiered and changes between early human development and adulthood,” says Dick, director of the cancer stem cell programme at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. For redefining the architecture of blood development, the research team mapped the lineage potential of nearly 3,000 single cells from 33 different cell populations of stem and progenitor cells obtained from human blood samples taken at various life stages and ages.
For people with blood disorders and diseases, the potential clinical utility of the findings is significant, unlocking a distinct route to personalising therapy.
The findings were published online in the journal Science.
State View: Where Space drives life on Earth
As location-based information using satellite data becomes increasingly important both in routine and strategic matters, the ISRO attempts to ramp up its SatelliteNavigation (SatNav) programme.
At a recent meeting of navigation satellite users in Bengaluru, an idea given by R. Advay, a school boy from Chennai, called ADVAY, , provided a likely answer to one of India’s most frequent maritime issues with its neighbours.
His idea — of using satellite navigation devices to keep fishermen within Indian waters — won the top award for students. That apart, two college students came up with another award-winning idea to safeguard women and children in distress: another growing concern these days across the country.
At the crux of many such critical ideas, it transpires, is your location at that given time. Add a map, a geo-image or an alarm to a hand-held device that has a navigation receiver, and help is at hand, according to Satellite Navigation (SatNav) exponents.
“Location-based information using satellite data is becoming increasingly important both in everyday and in strategic matters; it is touching our lives through compact hand-held devices such as mobile phones,” according to A.S. Ganeshan, Director of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s SatNav Programme — the group that co-hosted the user meet.
In a modern-day war, SatNav tells where to hit and when to dodge, military scientists present there said.
ISRO has a two-pronged SatNav plan: the GPS-aided GEO augmented Navigation (GAGAN); and the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
Mr. Ganeshan described navigation as ‘the art of knowing where you are and moving towards where you want to go in the shortest possible time’. Satellite-aided navigation, he said, is set to positively change our lives in the coming years — touching areas ranging from agriculture, to fleet monitoring, weather prediction and locating people in distress.
“Humankind has used various navigation techniques. But the arrival of SatNav has revolutionised the world with innovative solutions that use position information. Today, without satellites, we would be lost,” he said, adding, “We will depend on them more and more as the years roll by” to tell position, navigation and time.
Government planners, emergency service providers, infrastructure companies and travellers — these are just some of the groups already leaning on precise position information from satellites. “There is no need to ask for directions any more. Thanks to SatNav, now you can simply zero in on the shop with the help of a Google or a Bhuvan map on your mobile phone.”
Ships need position information for docking, as also for harbour operations. Railways can use it to avoid collisions and for safety at unmanned level crossings. Power grids and banks must know the exact time of power transfers and money transactions.
A farmer can use fertilisers optimally and plant multiple crops, as Megha Maheshwari of ISRO’s Space Navigation Group showed with her prize-winning idea ‘Gramin’. Similarly, the flow of rivers like the Brahmaputra river, which notoriously keeps changing its course, can be tracked and people alerted against floods with SatNav-powered devices, such as a receiver on a buoy. “These devices are becoming a necessity, like wristwatches once were,” says Mr. Ganeshan. Add a communication feature to navigation and that makes a useful mix during disasters.
How will the use of SatNav unfold in the country? Mr. Ganeshan says several flagship programmes of the Government of India such as Digital India, Smart Cities and AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) can benefit from satellite-based navigation services — as a brainstorming national meeting in September showed.
Stakeholders such as chipset manufacturers, application developers, content providers and the user community are being sounded out about the opportunities. And we, the people, just need to have a device or a phone with a SatNav chip and receiver.
GAGAN enhances the values from the GPS, which is a system offered globally by the US Department of Defense. The Rs.700-crore-plus GAGAN has been jointly implemented by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India (AAI), mainly to smoothen air traffic management across the Indian skies.
Suresh V. Kibe, former Programme Director for SatNav at ISRO headquarters, who is hailed as one of the fathers of Indian SatNav, notes that the Government of India recently advertised GAGAN as a next generation infrastructure project.
Dr. Kibe, who presided over GAGAN for over a decade since the time it was conceived, says, “It is a bonus that a system such as GAGAN, which enhances safety for airlines, can also be used for non-aviation use in India.”
ISRO
is building the GPS-independent, national positioning system, the IRNSS. Four satellites are up. “By March 2016, we will have the remaining three spacecraft up and complete the IRNSS constellation,” ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar recently said.
Similar to the universally used GPS, Russia has its own GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) called GLONASS; Europe its GALILEO; and China its BeiDou. Each needs its own receiver. India and these governments are encouraging manufacturers of receivers and other hardware to put all SatNav systems, along with IRNSS and GAGAN, on the same receiver to make it easier and cheaper to use. A couple of high-end mobile phones already offer the two Indian signals.
In Mr. Ganeshan’s estimate, the usage of SatNav in the forthcoming years will be phenomenal. “The socio-economic benefits of satellite-based navigation will be tremendous and create many job opportunities. By 2022, the market for GNSS receivers alone is projected to increase to about $7 billion worldwide.”
The Asia Pacific region is one of the fastest growing regions for air traffic, as predicted by the International Air Traffic Association. Considering the rapid growth of civil aviation in the world, Dr. Kibe recalls that in the 1990s, the Future Air Navigation System committee of the International Civil Aviation Organisation recommended GNSS as the way forward for airports and air controllers to manage the boom.
Citing a European SatNav market assessment Mr. Ganeshan says, “Up to 95 per cent revenue in satellite navigation is predicted to come from location-based services and intelligent transport systems. Civil aviation may account for one per cent of it.”
With ISRO expecting IRNSS signals to become common by late 2016, we may not have to wait long to see where SatNav will take us.
Locational accuracy
Satellite navigation consists of satellites that provide spatial positioning and enables hand-held devices to determine accurate position, using time signals
- Current global satellite navigation systems
a) Global Positioning System (GPS): the most utilised system. Consists of up to 32 medium orbit satellites. Operational since 1978 and globally available since 1994
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b) GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System): Consists of 24 satellites, operated by Russian Aerospace Defence Forces
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c) DORIS (Doppler Orbitography and Radio-positioning Integrated by Satellite): French precision navigation system. Based on static emitting stations around the world. Limited in usage and coverage. Used with other traditional GNNS systems
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- Under development
| a) Galileo: To be managed and operated by the European Union (EU) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Expected to be compatible with the modern GPS system. Expected to be operational after 2020. |
b) BeiDou: Managed by China. Currently functional in Asia-Pacific as a 16-satellite system. To be expanded into providing global coverage by 2020 |
- India has a two-pronged Satellite Navigation (SatNav) plan:
| a) GPS-aided GEO augmented Navigation (GAGAN) |
b) Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS)
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El Nino may kill Australian crocs: experts
Australia’s wet season, characterised by heavy monsoonal rains across northern Australia, typically starts in November and ends around April, however the country’s weather bureau is predicting a delayed start to rains until next year from the “Godzilla” described El Nino. The delay could see larger numbers of endangered salt water crocodiles die waiting for rain, warn experts.
The prolonged dry spell could mean the end to more endangered salt water crocodiles that are caught too far from river systems as waters recede, Xinhuareported.
Crocodiles often bury themselves in mud, however sometimes they get trapped and suffer from sunburn and dehydration, crocodile biologist Professor Grahame Webb told the ABC on Tuesday.
“The sooner the rains come, the sooner these trapped animals will be able to get out and back to the rivers,” he said.
While it’s difficult to predict how many of the iconic reptile will die during the dry spell due to isolation, Kakadu National Park crocodile management supervisor Gary Lindner said a lot of them will die as the dry spell drags on, particularly during October to January.
IISc: cleaning rivers using a nano-composite
The composite can speed up the degradation of chemical dyes and E. coli.
A little bit of sunshine and a compound made out of rare earth elements may hold the answers to purifying polluted rivers criss-crossing the country.
Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru have developed a novel ‘reusable’ nano-composite material, with Cerium being the crucial compound in it, which can degrade microbes and chemical dyes that are among common effluents in rivers.
Published in the Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Researchrecently, the scientists looked at ceria (CeO) a cheap rare earth oxide with properties that include a strong absorption of ultraviolet light (this property also sees it being widely used for UV-blocking and radiation shielding agent).
It is this notion, that the compound can speed up the degradation of chemical dyes and the bacteriumEscherichia coli (which forms a large chunk of organic waste in sewage) led the researchers to develop ceria nanoflakes, which combines ceria with silver salts. In this composite, ceria absorbs light across the spectrum (and not just UV light), while the silver salts (silver phosphate, and silver bromide) form photocatalysis agents, where chemical reactions are accelerated in the presence of light.
“The superior photocatalytic activity of this nano-composite for the degradation chemical dyes is attributed to its extended absorption in visible region and enhanced stability of the catalyst owing to the firm adherence of silver bromide and phosphate to ceria nanoflakes,” says Neerugatti Krishna Rao Eswar, a researcher with the Centre for Nanoscience and Engineering, IISc, who is the lead author of the paper.
The compound was to remain stable even after seven cycles of its usage with polluted fluids.
The results show that the composite material ended up generating large amounts of hydrogen peroxide (a strong oxidizing agent) that degrades the dyes and bacteria. Within 60 minutes, nearly all of methylene blue and methyl orange (both common chemical dyes) were degraded by the composite. In comparison, ceria-silver phosphate compound that had been synthesized previously, researchers managed to degrade the chemical dyes by 80 per cent in this time frame.
Similarly, for E. coli bacterium, colony forming units (which are responsible for the explosion of bacterial population) per ml had reduced from nearly 200 million units to less than 100 units in 80 minutes when exposed to visible light.
(We will update it in every ten days.Stay tuned )
