Author: Richa

Electricity from silk cocoons?

Researchers in India say they have developed a prototype of an energy-harvesting device from the cocoons of a domesticated species of silk moth. They hope to put the technology to practical use while also tackling waste materials from the silk processing industry.

The researchers found that the cocoon membranes of the mulberry silk moth Bombyx mori contain trace amounts of several elements such as sodium, chlorine, potassium, magnesium, sulphur, calcium and copper; as well as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen.

Wetting the cocoon makes the elements form mobile charge-carrying ions, producing an electric current across the cocoon membrane. The researchers used this current to light an LED.

They attached an aluminium electrode to the inner surface of a cocoon and a copper electrode to the outer surface, and exposed the cocoon to water vapour. Three such cocoons were connected in series to light an LED.

Read the rest at SciDevNet.

Taking science to the public

As part of its Founder’s Day celebrations, the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, recently organized a two-day seminar titled ‘When Science Meets the Public: Bridging the Gap’. Scientists, social scientists, policy makers and journalists were the predominant participants in what turned out to be a series of heated debates, with each party choosing sides, yet working towards a common goal – taking science to the public…

The participants called for a press office at every institution. The need for a central online science news service for India was also mooted. It was said that science communication courses, which currently do not lay emphasis on the journalism aspect, should be revamped. Scientists should be briefed on how media works and journalists introduced to hands-on laboratory science for a peaceful co-existence.

Read the full report at Current Science.

Injectable-oral vaccine combo for polio

A single injection of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) could boost the immunity of children already vaccinated with multiple doses of live oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), new research suggests.

A combination of the two vaccine types in routine immunisation programmes could help achieve global eradication of poliovirus, the researchers say. OPVs are cheaper and easier to administer but the intestinal immunity they provide against the virus weakens after a while. Children vaccinated with OPV can still spread the virus through faeces.

An international team of researchers has now tested the efficacy of IPV in boosting intestinal immunity of OPV-vaccinated children. In clinical trials conducted in the Moradabad district of Uttar Pradesh, they tested stool samples of nearly a thousand infants and children vaccinated multiple times with OPV. The children were divided into random groups and given either bivalent OPV (bOPV), containing type 1 and type 3 polioviruses, or IPV. A third group (the control) was not given any vaccine.

Read more here at Nature India.

Companies flout norms, regulators look away

National and multinational electronic and electrical companies in India are violating e-waste management norms while regulatory authorities are failing to take action against them, says a report published on 24 June 2014 by Toxics Link, an environmental research and advocacy group based in New Delhi.

Currently, India produces a whopping 2.7 million tons of e-waste every year but there are a handful of 42 e-waste collection units and 55 recycling units registered in the entire country, says the report. A chunk of the e-waste generated is managed by the informal sector, which has been operating illegally, putting humans and environment at great risk.

It was in light of the illegal operations and associated risks that the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, notified the E-waste (Management and Handling) Rules in 2011 and enforced these a year later in May 2012. A year’s time between notification and enforcement of the rules was meant for companies and regulators to implement the rules and set up an infrastructure for e-waste management.

Read more at India Together. 

Indian scientists applaud research budget

The newly-elected Indian government laid out its plans for the country in its 2014–15 budget last week and research has fared reasonably well. Indian scientists had feared that there would be cuts to the country’s science and technology base, but were relieved to see a small increase in overall funding.

About Rs 35.44 billion (£344 million) has been earmarked for the Department of Science and Technology in the proposed budget. It’s a hike of 11% over last year’s allocation of Rs 31.84 billion. ‘The Department of Science and Technology has some of country’s leading research centres in areas such as nanotechnology, materials science and biomedical device technology,’ Arun Jaitley, the finance minister, said in his budget speech. He added that the government will strengthen such centres through public–private collaborations.

Read the rest at Chemistry World.

A DNA barcode of malaria parasite

An international team of researchers led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom, has identified segments in the DNA of malaria-causing parasite that point to its region of origin.

The researchers studied Plasmodium falciparum DNA and constructed a barcode of 23 DNA segments that can be used to monitor and contain the import of new malaria cases through international travel.

The barcode could also help public health agencies prevent the spread of drug-resistant malaria from one region to another.

You can read the rest at Down to Earth magazine.

Serrated egg-laying organ gives wasps an edge

Parasitic fig wasps of the genus Apocrypta lay their eggs inside unripe fruits of fig plants. Larvae that emerge from eggs of parasitic fig wasps feed on larvae of another species — the pollinating fig wasps. So, to ensure best nutrition and survival for its own eggs, a parasitic wasp female lays them near larvae of pollinating wasps already developing in the fig fruit.

To lay eggs inside, parasitic wasp females have to dig through the hard and woody skin of unripe figs several times in their lifespan. Evolution has gifted them with a long, flexible and slender egg-laying organ called the ovipositor, which they use to manage this feat. But there is more to an ovipositor that gives the wasps an edge…

Read the rest at The Hindu.

Photo credit: Lakshminath Kundanati

Why octopus arms don’t entangle

An octopus’s arm is covered with hundreds of suckers that give it a strong tendency to attach to everything it encounters but the octopus’s arms. A team of researchers has shown that chemical signals from the skin of octopus protect its arms from attaching to each other or onto themselves, without which the octopus might end up entangled.

The team studied the behaviour of severed octopus arms — which remain active and move for at least an hour following separation — because arms have their own network of neurons that to some extent can work independent of the central control of brain.

Suckers on severed arms — like the ones on intact arms — attached to any surface but avoided the skin. They did attach to another arm but only at points where the skin was damaged or missing, suggesting that the skin, wherever present, might play a role in inhibiting the attachment.

Read the rest in The Hindu.

Being a bird

Written by an ornithologist, Bird Sense is a fascinating account of the senses that enable birds to carry out their day-to-day activities like feeding or avoiding predators. Author Tim Birkhead, who has studied zebra finches and common guillemots for most of his scientific career, has successfully hinted at what it’s like to be a bird. Every chapter in the book deals with one sense—seeing, hearing, touch, taste, smell, magnetic sense and emotions—in birds as varied as owls and hummingbirds, making the science that goes into the discovery and understanding of the senses accessible to lay persons.

The book familiarises its readers with the amazing diversity of behavioural and anatomical adaptations that can be found in birds. A case in point is asymmetrical ears in some owl species that help owls locate the source of sound and find prey in the dark. 

Bird Sense also informs its audience about the scientific process, suggesting how science builds on previous work. It talks about the debates and controversies some senses, such as those of smell and taste in birds, have sparked in the community of ornithologists. In author’s words, ‘For some inexplicable reason ornithologists have found it hard to accept that birds might have a sense of smell.’ Whether birds could have a sense of taste was debated for long, too. And even now, the idea of consciousness in birds remains controversial. 

Read the rest of the review in Current Conservation.

Wikipedia expands free access in developing countries

The Wikimedia Foundation is on the quest to expand its content and access to it for users in developing nations.

As part of its ‘Wikipedia Zero’ initiative the foundation is trying to make mobile access to Wikipedia free of internet data charges and to develop content in local languages.

“We started Wikipedia Zero because we [perceived] the trend that Wikipedia usage is shifting to mobiles, and [for it to] grow and expand in developing countries, we needed to [do more to] support the service on mobile,” says Carolynne Schloeder, director of mobile programs at the Wikimedia Foundation.

The foundation is partnering with mobile phone operators in developing countries to enable free internet access to Wikipedia. When a user accesses Wikipedia through an operator that has agreed to provide free usage, a message would appear to confirm that the page is free. When the user clicks an external link that may carry a cost to visit a warning message would show up.

The Wikipedia Zero initiative made its first deal to provide free access to mobile users in selected countries of Africa and the Middle East with telecom company Orange in 2012.

Read more at SciDevNet.

Freshwater atlas to conserve biodiversity

An online repository of maps has been launched to make information on freshwater biodiversity available on a common platform for use by scientists, policymakers, conservationists and NGOs.

The Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas will help developing countries identify biodiversity-rich areas for conservation.

It was launched last month (29 January), as part of an EU-funded project called BioFresh, with the aim of putting together published maps and sharing them under a creative commons licence.

Experts say it could help developing nations better manage their biodiversity and meet targets, for example by identifying the areas where conservation can be most effective.

Vanessa Bremerich, the technical editor of the atlas who is based at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, in Germany, says that in contrast to maps published in scientific papers — which are scattered across different journals and are often hard to access — the atlas will be an “an open platform that presents all the research results and data in one place”.

Read more at SciDevNet.

Photo credit: Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas

‘Wikipedia’ of cheap tech to get facelift

A Wikipedia-style site that gets people to upload information on sustainable technologies and has received more than 50 million page views since its launch in 2006 is going through a raft of changes aimed at improving it further.

The site, called Appropedia, is built on open-source wiki software and allows information to be shared on technologies that could help improve lives in the developing world.

“We focus on sustainable technologies and how to use them in resource-poor settings,” says Lonny Grafman, founder and president of Appropedia.

As is the case with Wikipedia, anyone can edit Appropedia pages that currently hold close to 6,000 articles on topics including agriculture, energy, water and transport.

Appropedia has also collaborated with the WHO to host a catalogue of medical devices for use in poor countries. The Global Health Medical Device Compendium was developed by students at the University of Michigan, United States

Read more at SciDevNet.

Prawns show promise in parasite control

Reintroducing prawns to lakes and rivers in which they have been partially or fully lost may be a sustainable way of controlling the parasitic disease schistosomiasis, which kills more than 200,000 people every year in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, says a study.

Researchers have found some native prawns to be voracious predators of the freshwater snails that transmit schistosomiasis parasites and so could be used as a biological control, they report in a study in press in Acta Tropica.

Field tests are under way in Senegal, and researchers suggest that farming the edible prawns could help local populations cut disease while also providing an additional source of income.

“Prawns may offer a simple and affordable transmission control solution in rural poor communities where few alternatives exist and drug treatment is failing to achieve long-term disease reductions,” the study says.

People get infected from contact with water containing schistosomiasis parasites, which are released by infected snails.

Read more at SciDevNet.

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