Energy & Environment

Australias Barrier Reef hardier than thought: study

James Cook Universitys Sean Connolly told The Australian newspaper that his research suggested coral was hardier than previously thought and Australias top tourist attraction had coping mechanisms that would allow it to endure. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is an assembly of 2,900 individual reefs stretching 2,600 kilometres down Australias east coast. File photo Claims that climate change will kill off the coral on Australias Great Barrier Reef within a generation are unfounded, researchers in Australia said Saturday. James Cook Universitys Sean Connolly told The Australian newspaper that his research suggested coral was hardier than previously thought and Australias top tourist attraction had coping mechanisms that would allow it to endure. Itll be different, itll be worse than it is now, but I dont think itll be gone in 20 or 30 years, he said. Connolly, whose research paper is published in the journal Science, said deterioration was more like a slope than a cliff and that damage could be arrested if greenhouse gas emissions were reduced. His modelling showed the reef could be in its present form beyond 2100. Prominent reef scientist Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, from Queensland Universitys Centre for Marine Studies, said earlier this year that the reef would die unless carbon emissions declined sharply within the next decade. According to Ray Berkelmans, a coral bleaching expert with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, all of Queenslands coral could be gone by 2025 if global warming keeps pushing up the water temperature. The reef is an assembly of 2,900 individual reefs stretching 2,600 kilometres down Australias east coast. Two million tourists visit each year. Keywords: Great Barrier Reef, climate change, global warming, Australia climate change Extreme weather inflicts human miseries, insecurity: Ban Ki-moon Second hippopotamus calf born at Vandalur zoo

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Technology

A new software that helps kids to read

Heres some good news for worried parents researchers have come up with an innovative way to help children learn to read.A team of Waikato University has developed a software,...
Researchers have come up with an innovative way to help children learn to read. File photo

Heres some good news for worried parents researchers have come up with an innovative way to help children learn to read. A team of Waikato University has developed a software, BookieMonster, which they claim acts as a reading coach for kids in fact, it computerises a proven method of learning tuition, dubbed repeated reading using computer-generated voices and speech recognition. Children using the software listen to text being read aloud by the computer, following the words as they are progressively highlighted on-screen in time with the voice, similar to karaoke, say its developers. After hearing a text read to them a few times, they then read it back to the computer via a microphone. The software recognises their speech and provides the same progressive text highlighting that they received while being read to. The students now have a working prototype and are setting up trials in local schools. Ultimately they hope to see their software distributed via existing initiatives in developing nations where literacy in some places is as low as 50 per cent, say the researchers. It also has the potential to assist in teaching a second language, they say. Keywords: reading software, language learning

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Apple comes roaring with Lion, its new OS

Gadgets

Apple comes roaring with Lion, its new OS

It has the bells and whistles, and tighter security features too

Apple comes roaring with Lion, its new OS

Easy navigation: Apples decision to dump the mouse comes from the way users behaviour has been shaped by smaller devices such as tablets what one commentator described as the process of iPadification. Photo: AP

The science and technology IT/computer sciences

Edge

It has the bells and whistles, and tighter security features too For the first time in many years, Apple's hardware launches have been overshadowed by the release of a major upgrade of its operating system. The company, once known for its Mac range of computers, and now better known for smaller devices such as the iPod, the iPhone and more recently the iPad, launched the latest version of its operating system, the OS X Lion, on Wednesday, July 20. Its launch of new versions of its MacBook, the MacAir and the Mac Mini, were completely overshadowed by the release of the Lion from Apple's den.

Flying off the App Store

The Lion literally flew off the virtual shelves of Apple's App Store, which is now the only way that users can purchase the Lion by downloading it directly from the store instead of getting it through the normal distribution channels. Priced at $29.99, more than one million copies of the 3.74 GB Lion were downloaded within a day of its launch by users. A day after the launch, Apple announced that it would launch the Lion on a USB stick, but at a much higher price of $55. Although rumours have it that distributors and retailers are sore with Apple for bypassing them, the company has clearly got the customer on its side, chiefly because of the compelling price at which it has been sold. This reporter, who downloaded a copy of the Lion within the first 24 hours of its release, discovered that the Lion's design borrows elements of its designing expertise that made it such a compelling force in the market for small form factor devices such as the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, which has been a runaway success in the tablet space.

Apple appears to have reasoned that the ubiquitous nature of these devices particularly those with touch' capability have created a substantial base of users who demand similar capabilities from a more tethered device such as laptops and desktops.

Goodbye to mouse
Apple appears to have thus concluded that the mouse has lived its life. It probably believes that that this is now the age of a tracking device (it has its own Magic Trackpad, a multi-touch device for larger machines). Using the fingers, instead of fingers and the palm looping over a mouse, is not only obviously faster but is also better in terms of the ergonomics of working on devices such as laptops or desktops. But the even more compelling reason for Apple deciding to dump the humble mouse comes from the way computer users' behaviour has been shaped by smaller devices such as smartphones and tablets what one commentator described as the process of iPadification. These users want to navigate between applications through a mere swipe of the fingers. A combination of two-finger gestures swipes, scrolls and taps enable users to work within applications; three-finger gestures enable users to switch between the applications that the user has on at a given time. Then Lion has another feature, Mission Control, which tells the user what he/she has running at that very instant on the computer. It builds on the earlier version of Expose in Apple's older operating systems. Influenced by what the tablets offer, the users now want to slot applications in their own separate baskets depending on the way they use these applications. For these users, the Lion has LaunchPad, a grid of applications, much like in the iPad.

Security upgrade
These are good enough reasons to upgrade to Lion, but its auto-save' feature is a big improvement on existing features. Lion's ability to auto-save' work on any application at all times results in your work getting saved in the background. This protects users from data loss in the event of crashes or power failures. But it's not just the bells and whistles that make the Lion a compelling upgrade. Reviewers say its security features especially the use of the address space layout randomisation (ASLR) technique make it much harder for hackers to break into a Lion-based Mac. Experts have said the ASLR method makes it difficult for potential hackers to predict target addresses that they can exploit. This is because the method ensures that the memory locations where the shell code and components are loaded are moved in a random fashion, making it less vulnerable to an attack. Its sandbox' features ensure a tighter control of the manner in which various applications communicate with the operating system. Lion is Windows plus plus,' said a blogger, commenting on the new OS.

Keywords: iPad, tablet computers, tablet OS, Lion OS

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Science
Largest distant water reservoir in universe discovered
Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar, a team at California Institute of Technology has found a mass of water vapour thats at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the worlds oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun.
Quasar is one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos. This artist's conception provided by the European Southern Observatory shows ESOs Very Large Telescope and a host of other telescopes' discovery of a quasar. File photo

Astronomers have discovered what they claim is the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. Looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar, a team at California Institute of Technology has found a mass of water vapour thats at least 140 trillion times that of all the water in the worlds oceans combined, and 100,000 times more massive than the sun. Quasar is one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos. Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12 billion years to reach Earth. The observations therefore reveal a time when the universe was just 1.6 billion years old, say the astronomers. The environment around this quasar is unique in that its producing this huge mass of water. Its another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at very earliest times, team leader Matt Bradford said. In fact, the astronomers studied a particular quasar called APM 08279+5255, which harbours a black hole 20 billion times more massive than the sun and produces as much energy as a thousand trillion suns.

Since astronomers expected water vapour to be present even in the early universe, the discovery of water is not itself a surprise, Bradford says. Theres water vapour in the Milky Way, although the total amount is 4,000 times less massive than in the quasar, as most of the Milky Ways water is frozen in the form of ice, says the team. Nevertheless, water vapour is an important trace gas that reveals the nature of the quasar. In this particular quasar, the water vapour is distributed around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of lightyears and its presence indicates that the gas is unusually warm and dense by astronomical standards. The findings are to be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Keywords: quasar, astrophysics, cosmology Scientists suspect glimpse of God particle Use seawater or vinegar to treat jellyfish stings Scientists step closer to creating test tube intelligence Entries open for NASSCOM's innovation award

Internet Google Plus grows to 20 million users

The spectacular early success indicates that Google Plus may well challenge Facebook once it comes out of a trial mode in which Google has strictly restricted the number of users.

Google has another hit on its hands. According to a study released Friday by web-tracking firm comScore, the web search giants new social networking tool, Google Plus, has amassed 20 million users in just three weeks since its launch on June 28. While that figure is still far from the 750 million registered users of Facebook, it is still enough to make Google Plus the fastest growing social network in history. The spectacular early success indicates that Google Plus may well challenge Facebook once it comes out of a trial mode in which Google has strictly restricted the number of users, Comscore said. It would be difficult to think of many sites that reached such a large number in such a short period of time, said study author Andrew Lipsman.

That said, Google does have a built-in visitor base of more than 1 billion to work with, so there is clearly potential to convert a high number of users to its new social tool even if it is still invite-only. According to Comscore, the latest figures represent an 82 per cent surge from the previous week and a 561 per cent increase over the usage figures two weeks prior. While the U.S. is the biggest market with 5.3 million users, India is a strong second with 2.8 million users, followed by Britain (866,000), Canada (858,000), and Germany (706,000). Keywords: Google Plus, social networking

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Agriculture Coromandel Agrico launches plant health developer Aura

Coromandel Agrico Private Limited on Saturday launched Aura, a Plant Health Developer (PHD), to increase the yield and quality of crops including cotton, wheat, chilly and pulses. ICRISAT develops high yield hybrid red gram pulse Only a focussed policy can rectify ills plaguing agriculture Just 2 days for rice export registration; traders decry move July-Aug season will fetch good prices for groundnut farmers

India s future depends on quality of primary education: Kalam

Education
The future of the nation depends on the quality of primary education imparted, former President Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has said. Emphasising the importance of education, Dr. Kalam said, while addressing students at a school here on Friday, that primary education must be made a fundamental right of Indian citizens. Primary education needs to be approached more creatively where dedicated teachers nurture young children who can prepare themselves for the challenges of the future, he said at the seminar titled Evolution of the Unique. The syllabi should engage the children and lead them to enjoy the process of learning, he said. Dr. Kalam also stressed on time management as a rule for achieving success and said that children must be taught to set a goal for themselves and be motivated to work hard to achieve it. Interacting with the students for about an hour, he also responded to their questions on issues relating to terrorism, corruption and Indias relationship with Pakistan. He later went to Rajsamand to meet the Jain

India signs civil nuclear deal with South Korea

President Pratibha Patil talks with her South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak during a meeting in Seoul, South Korea on Monday.

India on Monday signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with South Korea, allowing a framework for Korean companies to participate in atomic power plant projects in the country. The agreement was signed after a meeting between President Pratibha Patil with her South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-Bak. South Korea has become the ninth country which had signed nuclear agreement with India after it got the waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2008. The others are the U.S., France, Russia, Canada, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Argentina and Namibia, an official said. South Korea operates 20 nuclear plants that generate some 35 per cent of its electricity needs, and is keen to export its technology to fast developing countries like India. The two countries have just concluded and signed a bilateral agreement on cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, said Sanjay Singh, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs. It is like other civil nuclear agreements signed between India and other countries. We look forward to Republic of Korea for becoming one more partner in the development of civil nuclear energy in India, the official said without divulging further details on the agreement and its mandate but termed the deal as a win-win for both the nations. Both India and South Korea decided to start talks on civil nuclear cooperation during a meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Korean President Lee on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Hanoi in October last year. The nuclear agreement was signed by Dr. Srikumar Banerjee, Secretary Department of Atomic Energy and Kim Sung Hwan, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea. Earlier, Ms. Patil and her South Korean counterpart Lee held a 20-minute restrictive meeting followed by delegation level talks for over an hour at Blue House, official residence of Korean President. Ms. Patil is on a week-long tour of Korea and Mongolia. Besides the agreement on nuclear cooperation, the two sides also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on media exchanges and another agreement on administrative arrangements to provide social security to people working in India and Korea. The MoU on media was signed by Mr. Singh and Mr. Choung Byoung-gug, Minister for Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The third agreement for administrative arrangements for social security was signed by Skand Ranjan Tayal, Ambassador of India to South Korea and Chin Soo Hea, Minister of Health and Welfare. Briefing the media on the deliberations between the two Presidents, Mr. Singh said both the countries also discussed the expansion of defence cooperation. Increased naval and coast guard cooperation was a possibility that was touched upon in the discussions. They deliberated on issues pertaining to co-production of defence equipment, transfer of technology and joint Research and Development, the Secretary said. They also discussed the possibilities of cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. India looks forward to once again launching Korean satellites on Indian rockets, Singh quoting Ms. Patil as saying to the President Lee, adding that our facilities are of high quality and are available at competitive price. Keywords: civil nuclear deal, India-South Korea nuclear deal, Lee Myung-Bak, Pratibha Patil's South Korea visit

Bangladesh salutes Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman signing the treaty of friendship, cooperation and peace in Dacca on March 2, 1972. Photo: The Hindu Photo Archives

Besides providing support and refuge to the people of East Pakistan, Indira Gandhi travelled across the world to mobilise support for the Bangladesh Liberation War. The political and personal role of the former Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 is inseparable from the country's history. Despite the many ups and downs in Bangladesh politics, Indira Gandhi, who extended unequivocal support to the people of former East Pakistan, has been cherished by its people. But her role was never officially recognised. With the country celebrating its 40th independence anniversary this year, the Sheikh Hasina government decided to confer the Bangladesh Swadhinata Sammanona on Indira Gandhi posthumously for her outstanding contribution to the country's independence from Pakistan. She will, in fact, be the first foreigner to be given the highest state honour. The decision came at a crucial Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The honour will be ceremonially handed over to the Indian National Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, also the daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi, by President Zillur Rahman at Bangabhaban on July 25. Ms Gandhi is scheduled to be in Dhaka to attend a conference on autism.

Under Indira Gandhi's able leadership, India provided shelter, food and medicines to about 10 million people who fled their homes to the neighbouring West Bengal, Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam, to escape the marauding Pakistani army and its hoodlums. Despite an adverse international atmosphere the United States supported Pakistan India extended full support to the Bangladeshi freedom fighters providing them arms and training facilities. And, finally, it sent its troops to fight against the Pakistani forces under a Joint Command with Bangladesh at the fag end of a nine month-long war that put Bangladesh on the world map. The 1971 war was the culmination of a long-drawn struggle by the people of East Pakistan who were secular despite being religious. The anti-Pakistan sentiment surfaced soon after Partition in 1947. The Bengali nationalistic resurgence in East Pakistan, formerly East Bengal, began a year after the new country was established with two wings separated by over 1000 miles of foreign territory. Pakistan's founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, declared in Dhaka that Urdu and only Urdu' should be the state language. He was perhaps unaware of the reaction of the country's eastern wing, where a language-based nationality was brewing even as the colonial masters and politicians were striking a deal to divide the sub-continent along communal lines. The situation took a decisive turn when police opened fire at students on February 21, 1952, killing six Dhaka University protesters. About half-a-century later, Ekushe February February 21 was proclaimed the International Mother Language Day by the United Nations. With the Bengali resentment over economic, cultural and political issues growing, Pakistan remained united by a thin bonding of statehood with religion and military dominating the statecraft for 24 years. In 1970, in the first-ever general election held in Pakistan, people overwhelmingly voted for the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who has become the symbol of freedom for the Bengalis. The military and a section of the West Pakistani' political leaders under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were alarmed by Mujib's stunning poll victory and, in collaboration with the army bosses, decided to crush the Bengali resurgence. It was again a judgment of error. As the regular Pakistani army launched a brutal crackdown in Dhaka, particularly on students, the Bengali police and paramilitary forces on March 25, 1971, without handing over power to Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the majority party, an unprecedented outburst of popular resistance shook Pakistan's integrity. It finally led to a fullscale war, in which India's support was crucial. On March 26, 1971, before being arrested by the Pakistan military, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, declared independence of East Pakistan and asked his people to continue the fight till the last Pakistani army' was driven away from Bangladesh. President Yahya Khan and his military commanders committed atrocities on unarmed civilians, killing them in thousands. Bengali women were raped indiscriminately and their houses set on fire to crush the rebellion, which was termed an Indian-inspired conspiracy. The

unprecedented atrocities led to a mass exodus to India, where an estimated 10 million people took refuge for nine months. India, under Indira Gandhi, opened its eastern borders allowing streams of refugees to take shelter. When the elected representatives of people formed a government in exile, with imprisoned Mujib becoming the President and Tajuddin Ahmed Prime Minister, India helped settle the provisional government and finally got involved in the war first indirectly but later directly, when Pakistan opened another front in India's western region. Supported by the then Socialist bloc, led by the Soviet Union, Indira Gandhi, despite being the lone voice against the mighty U.S., travelled across the world to mobilise support for the beleaguered people of Bangladesh. Pakistani troops, aided by their local Islamist collaborators, killed an estimated three million people, raped over 300,000 women, destroyed innumerable homes, and forced millions more to leave their homesteads during the bloody nine-month war, in which the Bengali freedom fighters displayed unparalleled bravery in the war against Pakistan's regular army. The Sheikh Hasina government has also decided to confer two other state honours Bangladesh Muktijuddho Sammanona and Muktijuddho Moitree Sammanona to 47 people and five organisations for their commendable contribution to the country's independence. The former Indian Foreign Minister, Sardar Swaran Singh, who played a significant role, will be accorded special honour as well, said a government leader. Officials familiar with the award process said the list had names of distinguished foreigners, including former heads of states and governments and organisations. They would be honoured on December 16, 2011, coinciding with the 40th Victory Day. The history of Bangladesh's Independence has seen calculative distortions by those who have been mostly in power in the last 40 years. Therefore, India's role in the war was deliberately distorted and Indira Gandhi made the main villain. It is praiseworthy that Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Bangladesh's slain founding father, took up the challenge of setting the history straight. While the Bengali freedom fighters played a major role in the war, the contribution of Indian people, government and armed forces is equally an unforgettable fact of history. While the Hasina government has decided to honour the friends of 1971, including Indira Gandhi, it is expected that Bangladesh will build a memorial soon in honour of the Indian soldiers who lost their lives fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Bangladesh freedom fighters. This, as I see it, is not a mere recognition but a step to let posterity remember those great foreign friends who helped us when we were in distress.

Gaza fishermen swamped by Israeli gunboats

Hani al-Asi, a fisherman since the age of 11 and a father with 12 mouths to feed, had just begun throwing his lines into the Mediterranean when an Israeli gunboat sped towards his traditional hasaka. With a machine gun mounted at the rear and half-a-dozen armed soldiers on the bridge, the navy vessel repeatedly circled the small fishing boat. The rolling waves caused by the backwash threatened to swamp it. Asi had stopped his boat over an artificial reef created by dumped cars to attract the dwindling fish population. He was just beyond the limit of three nautical miles from the Gaza shoreline set by the Israeli military for Palestinian fishermen, beyond which they are forbidden to fish for security reasons. We see them every day, he said, shrugging at the gunboat's presence. I got used to this. With the boat rocking forcefully, the gunboat's crew addressed Asi in Arabic through its loudspeaker. You are in a forbidden area. Go back. Asi pulled in the lines and headed back to port. The best place to fish is more than 10 miles out, he said. But every time we exceed three miles, they shoot at us, use the water [cannon], take the nets. Even today when foreigners are with us, they were trying to tip the boat over. Under the 1993 Oslo accords, Palestinian fishermen were permitted to fish up to 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza. Over the past 18 years, the fishing area has been successively eroded, most recently in 2007 when Israel imposed a limit of three nautical miles as part of its land and sea blockade of Gaza after Hamas took control of the territory.

But fishermen and human rights groups say that, since the war in Gaza in 2008-09, the Israeli military regularly enforces a limit even closer to the shore. The restriction has devastated Gaza's fishing industry. It is a catastrophic situation, said Khalil Shaheen of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Sixty thousand people are dependent on [the fishing industry], and 85 per cent of daily income has been lost. Fishermen on both sides of the three-mile limit, he said, were subjected to harassment, live fire, confiscation of boats and nets, and water cannon, sometimes impregnated with foul-smelling chemicals. Since early June, a coalition of Palestinian and international organisations under the umbrella of Civil Peace Service Gaza has been monitoring encounters between fishermen and the Israeli military from its own boat, the Oliva. But in the past fortnight, the Oliva itself has become a target for the Israeli navy, with repeated assaults on it by military vessels. Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2011 Keywords: Gaza, Hamas, Israel-Palestine conflict