Terming the indigenously developed Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system–‘Kavach’ as a phenomenal improvement in safety and a great contribution to accident prevention, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said the technology will be implemented over entire rail network in the country and will also be exported to the world in the next coming years, even as he had a first hand experience of the collision aversion mechanism by being part of a live demo here.
Category: Science & Technology
** DRDO-developed monolithic microwave integrated circuits on board EOS04 satellite
Monolithic microwave integrated circuits developed by the DRDO are on board the EOS04 satellite launched on February 14 by the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Defence Ministry stated on Friday.
The circuits have been used in radar imaging modules of the satellite, the ministry said in a statement.
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** SCARF Media for Mental Health Awards presented
The winners are Riddhi Dastidar for her article on the impact of COVID-19 on service-users in India Spend; Sudipta Das for his article on queer affirmative therapy in Feminism in India; and Vinod Kumar Menon of Mid Day for his articles that followed up on the rights of a woman with mental illness who struggled to gain custody of her child.
Among the regional language articles, Sindhuvasini’s article in BBC Hindi on the rights of people with mental illness to insurance benefits and Sijo Pynadath’s article on mental health of children and their care-givers in Deepika Daily, a Malayalam magazine, won the award.
Tamil Nadu
** AI-based cath lab inaugurated in Chennai
Kumaran Hospitals and Rela Institute on Friday launched the facility jointly
Kumaran Hospitals and Rela Institute on Friday launched an Artificial Intelligence-based cath lab in the city on Friday.
The facility will help healthcare providers in a variety of procedures such as cardiovascular, electrophysiology, oncology and neuro interventional procedures.
Tamil Nadu
** Sanmina, Reliance ink pact to form manufacturing JV
The joint venture will create an electronic manufacturing hub in India and will prioritise high technology infrastructure hardware, for growth markets, and across industries
Sanmina Corporation, a leading integrated manufacturing solutions company, and Reliance Strategic Business Ventures Ltd. (RSBVL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), have entered into an agreement to create a joint venture through investment in Sanmina’s existing Indian entity Sanmina SCI India Private Ltd. (SIPL). The day-to-day business will continue to be managed by Sanmina’s existing management team in Chennai, which will be seamless from an employee and customer perspective. The joint venture will create an electronic manufacturing hub in India and will prioritise high technology infrastructure hardware, for growth markets, and across industries such as communications networking (5G, cloud infrastructure, hyperscale datacenters), medical and healthcare systems, industrial and cleantech, and defence and aerospace. In addition to supporting Sanmina’s current customer base, the joint venture will create a ‘Manufacturing Technology Center of Excellence that will serve as an incubation centre to support the product development and hardware start-up ecosystem in India, as well as promote research and innovation of leading-edge technologies
USA / India
** UP doctor sets record with 107 eye surgeries in 16 hrs
Dr S.P. Singh, Director of the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and principal of the MLN Medical College (MLNMC) in Prayagraj, has set a new record by conducting 107 phacoemulsification surgeries with intraocular lens (IOL) implant free of cost within a span of 16-and-a-half-hours.
“The surgeries were performed between 6 a.m and 10.30 p.m. continuously for 16-and-a-half hours on February 25. All the patients are doing fine now after a week of observation,” he told reporters.
Uttar Pradesh
** IIT-B’s hydrophobic coating for face shields helps limit Covid spread
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, have developed a technique for coating face shields with a hydrophobic layer to improve their efficiency.
Face shields act as primary barriers to airborne disease-carrying droplets. But these simple face shields are made from plexiglass plastic or polyethylene terephthalate.
Plastic is hydrophilic; and tiny water droplets tend to stick to its surface. Studies have shown that the SARS-CoV-2 laden respiratory droplets can survive on different surfaces for a few hours to a few days.
Maharashtra
** IISc. researchers help develop math model to predict COVID-19 vaccine efficacy
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science and Queensland Brain Institute in Australia have developed a mathematical model that predicts how antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines confer protection against symptomatic infections
The protection offered by vaccination has been touted as a major factor in reducing the damage caused by the third wave of Covid-19 infections. Several vaccines offer a high degree of protection, with some reducing the number of symptomatic infections by over 95% in clinical trials. But what determines the extent of protection? Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc.) and Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) in Australia have addressed this question by developing a mathematical model that predicts how antibodies generated by COVID-19 vaccines confer protection against symptomatic infections. The study was published in Nature Computational Science.
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** National Science Day : Of C.V. Raman the botanist, and a palette of floral hues
National Science Day – Monday, February 28th, 2022
Why do flowers have colours? Do varying hues alter their properties?
Such questions prompted Nobel Prize-winning physicist C.V. Raman to focus his efforts on studying floral colours and their roles in attracting pollinators and shielding flowers from predators during his final years.
As the nation celebrated yet another National Science Day on Monday to commemorate the discovery of Raman effect, an eponymous laboratory in Kerala has been making strides in creating a comprehensive spectral library of flora in the country.
The research by Athira K., an assistant professor at the C.V. Raman Laboratory of Ecological Informatics in the Digital University Kerala, is spurred by a broad understanding of the importance of the colour of angiosperms (or flowering plants) in attracting pollinators. With the characteristic found to be extremely crucial in stabilising the declining population of wild pollinators, the study held immense relevance for policy makers in promoting crops.
** Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani practitioners can now issue fitness certificates
National Commission for Indian System of Medicine releases order in this regard
Registered practitioners of Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Sowa-Rigpa are now authorised to issue medical fitness certificates, the National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) has said.
An order in this regard was issued to the commissioners of the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Corporation, New Delhi, and Kerala on January 20 by Rakesh Sharma, president, Board of Ethics and Registration, NCISM.
The Transport department recently started allowing registered Ayurveda doctors to issue medical fitness certificates for driving license. Earlier, only MBBS graduates or postgraduates in Ayurveda were allowed to do so. It was pointed out that those who have cleared BAMS are equal to graduates in modern medicine.