Safer plastic soon
We could soon have safer plastic as scientists have found a way of locking in harmful additives, called plasticizers, from seeping out of one of the most widely used groups of plastics.
Plasticizers increase the plasticity or fluidity of plastics.
The advance could lead to a new generation of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics that are safer than those now used in packaging, medical tubing, toys, and other products, says a new study in Spain.
Helmut Reinecke and colleagues of the Institute of Polymer Science and Technology, Spain, note that manufacturers add large amounts of plasticizers to PVC to make it flexible and durable.
Plasticizers may account for more than one-third of the weight of some PVC products. Phthalates are the mainstay plasticizers.
Unfortunately, they migrate to the surface of the plastic over time and seep into the environment. As a result, PVC plastics become less flexible and durable, says a release of the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Besides, people who come into contact with the plastics face possible health risks. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2009 banned use of several phthalate plasticizers for use in manufacture of toys and child care articles.
Biochemists find key to riddle of life
Biochemists have stumbled on a critical piece in the evolutionary puzzle that explains how life on earth has evolved, says a new study.
Researchers from Monash University School of Biomedical Sciences, described the process by which bacteria developed into more complex cells and found this crucial step happened much earlier in the evolutionary timeline than suspected.
Trevor Lithgow, who led the study, explained how mitochondria, which powers human and other cells and provides complex eukaryotic cells with energy and ability to produce, divide and move, were thought to have evolved about 2,000 million years ago from primitive bacteria.
“We have now come to understand the processes that drove cell evolution. For some time now, the crux of this problem has been to understand how eukaryotes first came to be,” Lithgow added.
“The critical step was to transform small bacteria, passengers that rode within the earliest ancestors of these cells, into mitochondria, thereby beginning the evolution of more complex life-forms,” Lithgow said.
The team found that the cellular machinery needed to create mitochondria was constructed from parts pre-existing in the bacterium.
These parts did other jobs for the bacterium, and were cobbled together by evolution to do something new and more exciting, said a Monash release.
“Our research has crystallised with work from other researchers around the world to show how this transformation happened very early on — that the eukaryotes were spawned by integrating the bacterium as a part of themselves.”
“This process jump-started the evolution of complex life much more rapidly than was previously thought,” concluded Lithgow.
Rajasthan atomic power plant unit starts operations
Unit 5 of the Rajasthan Atomic Power Project, with a capacity of 220 Megawatts (MW), at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan’s Chittorgarh district started commercial operations from Thursday midnight, an official of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) said here Saturday.
Unit 5 was synchronized to the power grid for the first time Dec 22. With the commissioning of the unit, the number of nuclear power reactions in commercial operation has increased to 18 with a total installed capacity of 4,340 MW.
The operation increases the nuclear installed capacity at Rawatbhata site to 960 MW. It is fuelled by imported uranium, said the NPCIL official.
The power generated there will be shared by the states in the northern electricity region.
Unit 6, with a capacity of 220 MW, also achieved its first criticality on Jan 23 and is currently undergoing statutory tests to prepare for the first synchronization and commencement of commercial operations, the official added.
India churns out a third of world’s engineers
India accounts for nearly a third of the world’s engineering graduates each year, and offers a million students the opportunity to pursue technology courses annually, Science and Technology Secretary T. Ramasami said here Saturday.
“Indians represent nearly 30 percent of the global annual supply of graduate engineers,” Ramasami, a scientist, said while delivering the keynote address at the second convocation of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Agartala.
“The world respects Indians for their originality and analytical strength. The other day, a leader of the world warned his people, ‘Watch, the Indians are coming’,” said Ramasami, a Padma Shri awardee.
“Engineers should mentally and professionally prepare themselves for innovations with twin priorities of quality and affordability. Nano, Chandrayaan-1 are examples of affordable innovations where cost optimization has been accomplished with relatively low levels of investments,” he added.
At Saturday’s convocation, 256 students including 60 girls were awarded degrees in engineering, with eight students bagging gold medals.
NITs are premier engineering and technology colleges, earlier called Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs).
In 2002, the human resource development ministry decided to upgrade all the 17 RECs as NITs in phases. There are currently 20 NITs, the one in Agartala being the latest.
CPI-M warns against raising cooking gas prices
The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Saturday warned the central government not to implement recommendations to raise cooking gas prices by Rs.100 a cylinder and demanded a food security legislation to ensure the right to food.
Opposing suggestions to decontrol petrol and diesel prices, CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat called them ‘anti-people’ measures.
He also slammed recommendations to hike the price of cooking gas cylinders by Rs.100.
“Such a step will have a cascading impact on raising prices of essential commodities which are already at an all time high and will lead to a further burden on the people,” he said.
Karat said that it was ‘most shocking’ that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was “not seriously addressing the problem of rising prices” and was blaming it all on state governments.
Pointing out that food inflation in India, now at nearly 18 percent, was the highest in the world, the CPI-M leader said: “We feel the primary reason for the failure of check price rise primarily rests on the centre.
A major reason for price rise is the severe weakening of the public distribution system.”
He demanded restoration of the allocations at least at the Above Poverty Line (APL) prices and attacked the UPA government for refusing to maintain a buffer stock of sugar when there was high sugarcane production. He also sought a ban on futures trading in essentials.
Briefing the media after a three-day meeting of the central committee here, Karat said: “The government should bring a food security legislation which ensures a universal right to food, with a 35 kg family allocation of foodgrains at Rs.2 a kilo.”
The party also demanded that more essential commodities at subsidised prices should be included in the Public Distribution System (PDS) through central government subsidies.
Rooney among modern-day’s genuine superstars: Giggs
Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs believes that striker Wayne Rooney’s recent form has catapulted him alongside Kaka, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo as a genuine superstars.
Giggs believes that Rooney’s astonishing form this season has seen him dominate games in a manner in which the trio does.
“He is getting nearer that group who are the best in the world. You have seen it for England and for United on the bigger stages. That is what all the top players do,” The Mirror quoted Giggs, as saying. “The best thing is that Wayne is still developing. He is 24 now, but he is only going to get better. His appetite is strong and he is a great player to have in your team,” he added.
Giggs further said that Rooney will get better in the years to come and suggested the striker thrives on responsibility and pressure.
“Wayne has taken his game to another level. Even if he is not playing well he still causes problems for the other team. That is a very rare quality, because even with players who are genuine match-winners, if they are not playing so well, normally you don’t see them,” Giggs said.
“If Wayne is not having the best of games, which is not very often, he never gives up, he still wants the responsibility. He believes he is going to create chances. He believes he will get them and he believes he is going to score goals,” he added.
Rooney has taken responsibility at Old Trafford by replacing the departed Ronaldo, and has an incredible record of 28 goals in just 38 appearances for club and country already this season
Mum’s exposure to some plastic may increase kid’s asthma risk
A pregnant or lactating woman’s exposure to plastic used in water bottles, sunglasses, eyeglass lenses, DVDs, and CDs may increase the risk of asthma in her children.
Scientists have been warning of the negative effects of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in the plastic for some everyday products.
Experiments on mice by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston (UTMB-G) researchers have produced evidence that a mother’s exposure to BPA may also increase the odds that her children will develop asthma.
Using a well-established mouse model for asthma, the investigators found that the offspring of female mice exposed to BPA showed significant signs of the disorder, unlike those of mice shielded from BPA.
Previous studies have linked BPA exposure to reproductive disorders, obesity, abnormal brain development as well as breast and prostate cancers.
“We gave BPA in drinking water starting a week before pregnancy, at levels calculated to produce a body concentration that was the same as that in a human mother, and continued on through the pregnancy and lactation periods,” said UTMB-G associate professor Terumi Midoro-Horiuti, who led the study.
Four days after birth, researchers sensitised the baby mice with an allergy-provoking ovalbumin injection, followed by a series of daily respiratory doses of ovalbumin, the main protein in egg white.
Investigators then measured levels of antibodies against ovalbumin and quantities of inflammatory white blood cells known as eosinophils in the lungs of the mouse pups. They also used two different methods to measure lung function.
“All four of our indicators of asthma response showed up in the BPA group, much more so than in the pups of the non-exposed mice,” said UTMB-G professor Randall Goldblum, study co-author, according to its release.
US firms to explore hydrocarbons in Peru
Peru has given permission to two US companies to explore hydrocarbons in the country, the energy ministry has said.
Olympic Peru and Ramshorn International will drill exploratory hydrocarbon wells in the country after the government approved their environmental-impact studies.
“With the approval of these studies, both companies can commence exploratory work,” said Iris Cardenas, head of the ministry’s environmental and energy affairs department.
Olympic Peru will drill six exploratory wells and 42 development wells in the northern Piura region.
“Olympic’s EIA (environmental-impact assessment) stipulates the company will earmark 10 percent of its well-drilling budget to the environmental-management plan,” Cardenas told the official Andina news agency.
Ramshorn International, a Bermuda-based subsidiary of the US oil and gas land-drilling contractor Nabors Drilling USA, will drill six exploratory wells in the northeastern Loreto region.
Toyota predicts return to black this year despite recalls
Toyota Motor Corp said Thursday that it expected to return to the black in the current financial year, which ends March 31, despite recalling millions of its cars worldwide.
The world’s biggest automaker revised its full-year forecast upward for the third time, saying it expected a group net profit of 80 billion yen ($879.89 million), compared with a loss the previous year of 436.94 billion yen.
Cost-cutting efforts and strong domestic sales helped the turnaround, the company said.
Toyota also raised its annual global sales target from 7.03 million to 7.18 million units.
Toyota predicted an operating loss of 20 billion yen, compared with 461.01 billion yen the previous year, on sales of 18.5 trillion yen, down 9.9 percent.
In the April-to-December period, Toyota posted a group net profit of 97.23 billion yen, better than a profit of 328.83 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.
The automaker’s operating profit stood at 52.25 billion yen in the first nine months of the fiscal year, compared with a profit of 221.52 billion yen in the same period a year earlier, on sales of 13.67 trillion yen, down 19.6 percent.
The Japanese government told Toyota this week to investigate reports of faulty brakes on its Prius hybrid. The company has already recalled millions of its cars over a flaw in accelerator pedals.
‘Government should scrap petrol price hike recommendations’
Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Brinda Karat Thursday said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government must scrap the Kirit Parikh panel’s recommendation to hike the prices of petroleum products.
“We are opposing the recommendations. We think it will have a cascading effect on the country’s economy if the government increases the price of petroleum products,” Karat told media persons after emerging from the first day of the CPI-M’s three-day central committee meeting here.
She said the hike in petroleum prices would also impact the poor farmers and ‘aam admi’ (common people) across the country.
Condemning the panel’s recommendations, Karat said: “The government should scrap the report considering the current price-rise of essential commodities.”
The committee chaired by Kirit Parikh Wednesday recommended total deregulation of petrol, diesel prices with a suggestion to immediately increase the price of kerosene by Rs.6 per litre and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by Rs.100 a cylinder.
“When the union government is mulling to lower the price of aviation fuel, it should consider the petroleum price also,” she said.