chakravarthy

[Based on an article published in Deccan chronicle, Hyderabbad dated 25th May, 2018, p. 2]. Using filter paper, scientists at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) have developed a viscometer to measure the viscosity of fluids like blood, saliva, urine and proteins in clinical diagnostics. Paper-based viscometers are gaining prominence in affordable diagnostics because they are not only highly accurate but also smaller samples of fluids need to be collected. Viscosity is a measurement of the thickness and stickiness of solution. A team of six scientists including students have tested the paper viscometer on saliva, which is one of the difficult solutions to test. It is not limited to medical solutions but any kind of solution can be tested. "It can be used for anything, for viscosity measurement of any solution and molecular weight determination. The aim was to show that this device is versatile, and can be used for several things and not just fluids", CCMB...

Of all the things we do while we are in a relationship, trusting our better half tops the chart and rightly so. But have you ever thought where your boyfriend/girlfriend picked up that colloquial lingo from, which neither of you spoke in before? Or have you ever tried to find out why he/she is always working late on a weekend nowadays? No matter how involved we are, these red flags need to be identified. Sometimes we are madly in love to see the heartbreak coming, and at times we choose to ignore the signs because we are scared of confrontation and the nasty break-up that follows it. While we can'r nurse your heartache or help you with a rebound crush, what we can do is share some real-life cheating experiences that people have encountered while they were with someone. (1). I am busy and so he/she : Today, both men and women are career driven and have little or no time for their personal life. Yet, when you are in a steady relationship, you go out of your way to see the person ...

Extensively referred to in the Vedas, the mythical Saraswati River is said to have dried up some 4,000 years ago. The Mahabharata says that the river disappeared in a desert. In the Rig Veda, the river is mentioned as flowing between the Yamuna in the east and Sutlej in the west. It is said that the river passed through Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, Gujarat and parts of Pakistan. Despite several efforts to prove her existence, Saraswati continues to remain an enigma. -- Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy -- -----------------------------------------------------------------

The Indus Valley Civilisation flourished around the Indus River basin and its tributaries in present-day Pakistan and North-West India. Mohenjodaro is the largest site and Allahdino is the smallest site of the civilisation. Archaeological studies reveal that people here even then worshipped deities. Religious activities were performed by priests. On some of the seals, there are pictures of people doing meditation, seated cross-legged. -- Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy -- ---------------------------------------------------------------  

Cat stretch is a very powerful pose for the mind. It is associated with increased emotional balance and stability of the mind. The breath synchronised movement increases coordination, fosters intentional focus, and invigorates prana or life force. Lengthening the spine improves circulation in the discs between the vertebrae, which in turn relieves stress from the back and calms the mind. Cat Pose : Cat pose is also known as Marjariasana . While doing this asana, our body looks like a cat. -- Procedure : Form a table with your legs and hands such that your back forms the table top and your hands and feet form the legs of the table. Keep your arms perpendicular to the floor, with the hands directly under the shoulders and flat on the ground; your knees hip-width apart. Look straight ahead. As you inhale, raise your chin and tilt your head back, push your navel downwards and raise your tailbone. Compress your buttocks. Hold the cat posture and take long, deep breaths. Follow this by...

It can often feel complicated and expensive to remain vibrant and healthy, but achieving this for yourself doesn't have to be either of these things. Not only that, finding true everlasting beauty may even things.Not only that, finding true everlasting beauty may even make your life simpler and less costly than it already is. The ancient system of ayurveda provides us with all sorts of tools for staying youthful, and below are three of this tradition's best-kept secrets that will get you started. (1). Salads are adding to the problem : Many of us equate healthy with eating a lot of salads. And why shouldn't we? Salads are made of raw vegetables that haven't been processed. But while salads are natural, the fact that they are raw, leafy, and contain a lot of water makes them more difficult to digest than their cooked counterparts. Ayurveda teaches us that the ease with which we can digest cooked food means that the body doesn't have to work overtime to process it...

The chytrid fungus - which has caused amphibian declines worldwide and has been recorded in India too - possibly originated in East Asia, shows a study published in the international journal Science . Scientists from 38 institutions across the world gathered samples of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd, also known as chytrid fungus, which causes an infectious and fatal skin disease called chytridiomycosis) and compared the genomes of 234 of these pathogens to trace the origins of the fungus. "In our paper we [...] show that the lineage which has caused such devastation can be traced back to East Asia", said lead author Simon O'Hanlon from the Imperial College, London, in a press release. The team also found that the disease is not many thousands of years old as previously thought, but expanded greatly between 50 and 120 years ago, coinciding with the rapid global expansion of inter-continental trade. Thus, the movement of amphibians by humans - such as through the p...

Scientists have discovered tiny fossil shells that unveil details about the Earth's climate over half a billion years ago. The research published in the journal Science Advances , suggests that early animals diversified within a climate similar to that in which the dinosaurs lived. An international collaboration of scientists, led by the University of Leicester in the U.K., used climate models and chemical analysis of fossil shells about 1 mm. long to arrive at the conclusion. This interval in time is known for the 'Cambrian Explosion', the time during which representatives of most of the major animal groups first appear in the fossil record. The animal groups include the first organisms to produce shells, and it is these hard-bodied fossils that the scientists used in their study. Scientists have long thought that the early Cambrian Period was probably a greenhouse interval in the earth's climate history, a time when there were no permanent polar ice sheets. Camb...

Dating sites would be well-advised to add 'brain activity' as a compatibility criterion, according to a study released on 30th January, 2018 (Tuesday) showing that close friends have eerily comparable neural responses to life experiences. "Our results suggest that friends process the world around them in exceptionally similar ways", said lead author Carolyn Parkinson, Director of the Computational Social Neuro-Science Lab at the University of California. Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to compare which regions of the brain lit up as 42 volunteers watched short clips from news reports, music videos, comedy skits and documentaries, researchers were able to identify who were friends. Th closer  the relationship, the more alike the neural patterns in parts of the brain governing emotional response, high-level reasoning and capacity to focus one's attention. "Friends had the most similar neural activity patterns, followed by friends-of-friends', the a...

When coral reefs come in contact with plastic trash in the ocean, their risk of becoming diseased sky rockets, said an international study. Researchers examined 1,20,000 corals on 159 reefs from Indonesia, Australia, Myanmar and Thailand for the study in journal 'Science'. "We found the chance of disease increased from 4% to 89% when corals are in contact with plastic", said lead author Joleah Lamb, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Australia. Scientists are still trying to figure out why plastics are so dangerous for coral, which cover about 0.2% of ocean flour - but provide habitat for million species of young fish. -- Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy -- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Is wage inequality, due to the government's failure to provide quality education, restraining the Indian economy? A recent Oxfam report argues that it is. It reveals that this year's wealth of the India's richest 1% grew by over Rs. 20.9 lakh crore during 2017, a little more than total central budget last year. Why does inequality happen? Nobel-winning economist Simon Kuznets showed in his path-breaking work that economic inequality first increases and then declines as an economy moves up the path of development, resulting in the so-called "inverted U curve". So developing countries tend to exhibit higher inequality than their developed peers.  However, one must keep in mind the mechanisms and linkages that are responsible for this "inverted U curve". Experts argue that inequality decline in later stages may be due to more effective governance, such as creation of an eco-system for quality education, which raises both output and labour productivity. ...

The story of a lonely sea-bird named Nigel who tried to woo a mate that had a heart of stone and died on an uninhabited island off New Zealand has captivated many on social media. Footage of the bird preening and cooling as he fruitlessly courted a decoy made of concrete has been watched obsessively online. Nigel first landed on Mana Island a few years ago. Mana is the site of an ambitious effort to establish a flourishing colony of Australian gannets. In the 1990s, conservationists set up concrete gannets on Mana to lure real birds. They painted the decoys' beaks yellow, the wing-tips black, the plumage white. They played sea-bird calls over speakers. On the very first day, two gannets swooped in, said Chris Bell, 37, a ranger for the NZ Conservation Department. But the birds soon flew away and the project stalled. Then came Nigel. He quickly took a liking to one of the replicas, according to Bell. Month after month, the bird cosied up to his chosen mate, but "she" rem...

People who drink hot tea are at greater risk of developing oesophageal cancer when combined with smoking and alcohol, a study has discovered. Researchers in China conducted the study, which was published in Annals of Internal Medicine. It involved assessing over 4,50,000 individuals aged between 30 and 79 years old across 10 areas of China over a nine-year-period. By the end, 1,731 cases of oesophageal cancer were reported. The authors concluded that those who drank tea less than once a week and consumed less than 15 gms. of alcohol on a daily basis were far less likely to get oesophageal cancer. People who smoke regularly and drink burning hot tea were also twice as likely to develop the disease. -- Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- 

New treatment helps re-grow hair at record rate: Polished plates and thinning thatches may one day be a thing of the past, thanks to Japanese scientists who have developed a way to grow hair follicles at a record rate. The study used two kinds of cells in silicone containers to cultivate 'hair follicle germs' - the sources of the tiny organs that grow and sustain hair. Led by Prof. Junji Fukuda at Yokohama National University, the team managed to cultivate 5,000 within just a few days, enough to replenish hair. While human tests might not be on the cards for another five years, ultimately researchers believe the technique could be used to generate luscious new locks. The technology could also help cancer patients and others with medical conditions that cause hair loss, said Fukuda, whose research was published in the journal 'Bio-materials'. "Beauty clinics currently often use hair from the occipital region (back of the head) and plant them to frontal areas with ...

Meditation has a limited role in making you a better person, scientists said on Monday, contradicting the popular belief that the practice could change how we behave with as well as make us more compassionate. Researchers, including those at the UK's Coventry University, reviewed more than 20 studies that investigate the effect of various types of meditation, such as mindfulness and loving-kindness, on pro-social feelings and behaviours. The initial analysis indicated that meditation did have an overall positive impact. The researchers said meditation made people feel moderately more compassionate or empathic than if they had done no other emotionally-engaging activity.  However, further analysis revealed that it played no significant role in reducing aggression or prejudice or improving how socially connected someone was. The most unexpected result of the study, though, was that the positive results found for compassion had important methodological flaws, the researchers said....

Scientists have discovered Greece's oldest beer-making facilities, dating back to the Bronze Age, dispelling the notion that ancient Greeks only drank wine. The finding, published in the journal 'Vegetation History and Archaeo-botany', shows Greeks were 'using alcoholic drinks for feasts al-year round, instead of just on a seasonal basis', when grapes were ripe. "It is an unexpected find for Greece", said Tania Valamoti of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Archeologists found remains of several buildings that may have been used for beer-making. -- Challapalli Srinivas Chakravarthy -- ----------------------------------------------------------------   

A Hindu woman from Thar in Sindh province has been nominated by Pakistan People's Party to contest for a general Senate seat, a media report said on 05th February, 2018 (Monday). If Krishna Kumari from Nagarparkar district wins the election, she will be the first Hindu woman to become a Senator in the Muslim-majority Pakistan. Kumari is a Kolhi woman from the family of freedom fighter Rooplo Kolhi, who had waged a war against the British colonialist forces when they had attacked Sindh in 1857. She had joined the PPP as a social activist along with her brother, who was later elected as Chairman of Union Council Berano, Samaa news channel reported. Kumari said she had made all the necessary documentation to file her nomination papers. Born to a poor peasant Jugno Kolhi in 1979, Kumari and her family members spent nearly three years in a private jail owned by a land-lord. Kumari was married to Laalchand at the age of 16, when she was studying in 9th grade. However, she pursued her...

Economists have been puzzled in recent years by the so-called 'productivity paradox', the fact that the digital revolution of the past four decades hasn't resulted in big gains in output per worker as happened with earlier technological upheaval. Many developed economies have actually seen productivity stagnate or decline. A survey from Microsoft Corp. is bolstering one theory about this disconnect. In a poll of 20,000 European workers released on 05th February, 2018 (Monday), Microsoft acknowledges new digital technology can, in some circumstances, make businesses less productive. Microsoft identifies a number of possible reasons for this negative impact, including: workers who are too distracted by a constant influx of e-mails, texts, tweets - not to mention viral cat videos - to concentrate for sustained periods; workers who aren't properly trained to use the new technology effectively; and workers who suffer burnout because, with mobile devices and at-home-working...

[ Based on a an article written by Devi Shetty (a cardiac surgeon and Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health), published in The Times of India, dated 01st February, 2018 (Thursday), p. 12 ]. I have spent most of my early years, growing up in rural India, around farmers. I cannot recall, looking back at those of a farmer becoming financially secure. We are still a rain based economy. No rain, no crop, no money; adequate rain, bumper crop, prices drop, no money. It is only a matter of time before a farmer goes bankrupt. Even though farming contributes only 13.7% of GDP, it is responsible for 50% of employment. By contrast, only 2% of US jobs are from farming. The conclusion is inescapable: we need to look at alternative jobs for farmers' families. Contrary to popular perception, the health sector at $8 trillion is the world's largest industry (IT is $3.4 trillion, oil $2 trillion, automobiles $2 trillion). In the US and UK the health sector is the largest employment generator ...