Voyager’s voyage

Opinion » Editorial

September 16, 2013

Updated: September 16, 2013 01:52 IST

This second Sputnik moment in the history of human exploration has rightly rekindled the awe humans felt when they first looked into the night sky.

On August 25, 2012 and around 18.78 billion km from Earth, the Voyager 1 space probe became the first human-made object to breach the interstellar medium (ISM), the matter that exists between stars in the universe. The primary reason it has taken a year for astrophysicists to deem this event as having happened is that the signs of breaching the ISM were not all detected simultaneously nor have they been understood fully. In fact, as if playing on their confusion, Voyager 1 beamed home a series of signals in October-November, 2012, that have been studied for their meaning since then. In three papers published in Science in June this year, scientists deduced that the probe had stumbled into a region — lying on the cusp of the ISM — astronomers didn’t know existed. Finally, and with the help of a natural disturbance promulgated by our Sun, astronomers from NASA and several universities, led by the University of Iowa, detected signals from Voyager 1 in April, 2013, that implied the incidence of cosmic rays and the density of ionized gas around the probe had increased, and the direction of the magnetic field in the space around the probe had changed: all signs of Voyager 1 becoming humankind’s first eyes and ears in the world between stars.

When the twin Voyager probes were launched in 1977, the space age was only two decades old. Those who built and now operate them, from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, had the audacity to equip the probes to function for almost four decades (Voyager 2 is currently 15.3 billion km from Earth). The durability of the probes and the careful management of resources have awarded us with the chance to directly study the outermost reaches of the Solar System, within which great astronomical observations are being expected. This attitude of careful management has also paid off with other NASA missions, such as the WISE asteroid-hunter and the Spitzer space telescope before, and should once again with the Kepler space telescope. And while nobody is sure of what to expect from Voyager 1, that the probe is now bathed in particles arising from stars other than just the Sun is opportunity enough. Its particles and fields science experiment will function till 2020, until when the small nuclear battery on-board will be able to power them. After that, the Golden Record, a gold-plated disc containing photos of and sounds from Earth, added to the payload just in case other life-forms encounter the probe, will preserve Voyager 1’s ambassadorship. This second Sputnik moment in the history of human exploration has rightly rekindled the awe humans felt when they first looked into the night sky.

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Voyager 1 is out of the Solar System

September 13, 2013 Updated: September 14, 2013 04:50 IST

Wikimedia Commons NASA photograph of one of the two identical Voyager space probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched in 1977.

Scientists have confirmed that the 35-year old probe, launched to study the Jovian system, has crossed into a region of space that shows all the signs of it being the interstellar medium.

Around August 25, 2012, more than 19 billion kilometres from the Sun, the Voyager 1 space probe became the first human-made object to cross out of the Solar System and into interstellar space. The event was confirmed to have happened by a report published in the journal Science on September 12. It included an analysis, of the data beamed back by the probe, by scientists from the University of Iowa among others.

Voyager 1, a testament to durable engineering, was launched by NASA in 1977 alongside its identical sister probe Voyager 2 to study the outer Solar System and the interstellar medium – whatever occupies the gigantic chasms between stars in the universe.

Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter in 1979 and Saturn in 1980, concluding its primary mission. It was the first probe to provide detailed images of the two planets and their moons. In 1990, 9.6 billion km from Earth, it turned around and photographed the entire Solar System.

Ever since, it has been drifting toward its edge at some 17 km/s, surrounded by a hot ‘sea’ of charged particles called plasma. To detect the crossover, which isn’t at an exact boundary, scientists were looking for some telltale signs: the plasma’s density would increase, its temperature decrease, and the direction of the surrounding magnetic field would change.

A report published in Science on September 12 confirmed that these changes in Voyager 1’s environs had kicked in around August 2012, meaning the probe has been in the interstellar medium for the last year.

“It’s like the first time a satellite [Sputnik] went beyond the Earth’s atmosphere to an altitude of some 600 miles; Voyager is now leaving the solar bubble at an altitude of 11.3 billion miles. It’s another historic milestone,” announced Stamatios Krimigis, principal investigator for Voyager’s Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) experiment, in a NASA statement.

Since the probe doesn’t have a plasma sensor that can take readings continuously, scientists looked at the magnetic field direction. It hadn’t changed for a long time even though, by 2011, the intensity of particles originating from within the Solar System had begun to drop off.

Then, on March 2012, the Sun released a massive burst of charged particles into the Solar System, called a coronal mass ejection. When this wave of particles reached the plasma around Voyager in April this year, it set off disturbances in the medium that set off Voyager’s sensors.

“We literally jumped out of our seats when we saw these [disturbances],” said Don Gurnett, who led the analysis efforts from the University of Iowa, in the statement. This providential gift from the Sun exposed the plasma around Voyager to be much denser and cooler than what was found inside the Solar System. “Clearly we had passed through the heliopause, which is the long-hypothesized boundary between the solar plasma and the interstellar plasma,” Gurnett clarified.

A previous set of studies published in June this year had noticed some anomalous readings from Voyager 1 originating from the same date. The probe was concluded to have stumbled into a region of space previously unknown to astronomers, falling along the boundary between the Solar System and the region of space beyond.

Krimigis, who was part of those studies, had said in an interview to The Hindu then that he felt like “Columbus who thought he had gotten to West India when in fact he had discovered America!”

His comment reflects a knowledge inadequacy among the astrophysics community to address the finer details of what Voyager 1 is set to encounter. The probe is now just beyond the heliosphere, an imagined bubble of space beyond whose borders the Sun doesn’t have a dominating influence.

Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, which built and now operates the probe, expect the particle science instruments on board Voyager 1 to continue to send radio signals home until 2020. These signals will be the first of their kind for the voyager has gone where no human-made machine has gone before.

 

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Cell phone radiation may be harmful, but not lethal

CHENNAI, September 11, 2013

Vasudha Venugopal

 

Recent studies contradict the view that emissions from cell phone cause irreparable damage to health

Recent studies in institutions across the world have contradicted reports of radiation from cell phones and their towers damaging the eggs of sparrows, and thereby contributing to their reducing numbers.

In the last two years, universities in Kerala, Assam and several Indian and international conservation agencies have raised concerns about the decreasing number of sparrows and blamed it on the radiation emitted from mobile phones and cell phone towers.

Some have also established links between the radiation and cancer, while a few reports have suggested that sparrow eggs break when they come in contact with a cell phone in operation for considerable time.

But some recent reports in Indian and international institutions have expressed doubts whether cell phone radiation, that falls between TVs and microwave ovens belonging to the low frequency radiation of the electromagnetic spectrum, can conceivably impair health.

Arunn Narasimhan, associate professor, IIT- Madras, explains that the electromagnetic spectrum is split into two zones - ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. “Ionizing gamma rays and X-rays can cause cancer when their energy is absorbed by the tissue, damaging DNA. But both microwaves and radio waves – used to transmit data to television and radio, don’t have sufficient energy to knock-off electrons from atoms of the objects they pass through.”

“If waves from cell phones were to affect health, then radio waves which have existed for a long a time now, should have done much damage,” he said.

Recent research papers in the encyclopaedia of Environmental Health have said that no study has concretely proved that cell phone radiation can cause irreparable damage to health. The view that exposure to cell phone radiation leads to DNA mutations and growth of cancerous tumours in humans or living things is a conjecture not yet proved.

“Sparrows are ‘affected’ by cell phone radiation just like any other living being. Tying a cell phone in operation to a sparrow’s body can lead to heating of the sparrow.

Beyond this, there is no correlation between cell phone radiation – whether from the hand-held devices or towers – and decline in sparrow population,” said Prof Narasimhan.

Some recent reports have suggested that microwaves cause DNA mutation in the egg yolk or irreparable damage to atoms. “If this were true, eggs randomly should pop-off in nests all over a region due to incessant cell phone microwave radiation noise,” he said.

 

CHENNAI, September 11, 2013

Don’t ignore the alarm bells

 

Ramya Kannan

Experts say ringing sound in the ear a sign of beginning of hearing loss

Do mobile phone and tower radiation affect humans biologically? The debate has been raging for a few years now. Multiple studies have been done, some ongoing, adding grist to the mill on both sides of the debate.

There are nearly as many studies that disprove the effects of radiation on humans, as those that make a sure case for deleterious health effects.

BioInitiative is an effort that seeks to present the global response to the growing health issue of chronic exposure to electromagnetic fields. In two reports, one in 2007 and the other in 2012, it seeks to list various studies and initiatives that study the effect of radiofrequency radiation in the daily life of billions of people across the world. After the BioInitiative Report of 2012, it arrived at the conclusion that “there is more evidence than we need. The last five years worth of new scientific studies tell us the situation is much worse than in 2007 and yet people around the world have so much more daily exposure than even five years ago.”

And while mobile companies, even some scientists, might claim that the evidence is insufficient or not conclusive yet, there is one area where specialists and lay people readily acknowledge the link between cell phone usage and health effects: hearing. “The first warning signs are warmth and pain in the ear after a long conversation on a mobile phone. If this persists, then it leads to tinnitus. It takes some years to lead to further damage, but the hearing loss is permanent, irreversible,” Mohan Kameswaran, senior ENT Surgeon says.

CHENNAI, September 11, 2013

Salim Ali institute planning study

 

B. Kolappan

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Urbanisation a greater threat: scientist

‘No link with spurt in population of crows’

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 As there is no evidence to conclusively suggest that radiation from cell phone towers has deadly effects on birds, particularly the sparrow, the Salim Ali Institute of Ornithology and Natural Sciences in Coimbatore has proposed an exhaustive study on the subject.

“Actually, there is no clear proof to conclude that cell phone towers are directly responsible for the decline in sparrow population. But this does not mean that the studies are final. There is a proposal in our institute to study the impact of cell phone towers on birds,” said P. Pramod, senior scientist of the Institute.

Mr. Pramod said three major issues had a direct bearing on sparrow population: availability of food, nesting sites and hiding places to escape from predators. Urbanisation has fast depleted their habitat.

“Proliferation of departmental stores and availability of grains in polythene pockets deny sparrows access to food. Earlier, sparrows used to feed on waste outside provision stores,” he said.

Intensive use of insecticides also resulted in the decline of sparrows. The hatchlings need insects for fast growth. Insecticides have gradually eradicated insects.

Mr. Pramod said the second factor responsible for the decline in sparrow population was the disappearance of old thatched houses and the proliferation of concrete structures. “They have an age-old relationship with human beings and nest in roofs of houses. But today there is hardly any space for them to nest,” he said.

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Keep the pause button on GM pressed

September 7, 2013

Jack A. Heinemann

 

Questioning a technology, especially of the kind that has serious unknowns and lacks clear social benefits, is not an attack on science

Jairam Ramesh, former Environment Minister for India, made the brave decision in 2010 to tell his then apex regulator of genetically modified organisms (GEAC) that it had failed to properly use available science to determine the safety — to human health and the environment — of Bt brinjal, created using genetic modification (GM). His decision followed careful evaluation of the science.

I was involved in Ramesh’s review. I read first hand the scientific evidence in my area of expertise provided to the GEAC and its responses. I was heartened to see that his decision was validated by the esteemed scientists that made up the Supreme Court Technical Expert Committee who have advised the Court on the need for better research and better process before continuing to release GM crops into the environment or using them as food.

Creating confusion

G. Padmanaban (“Sow the wind, reap a storm,” The Hindu , September 2) believes that the events surrounding the evaluation of Bt brinjal and now extending to other kinds of GM plants is an assault on science. He confuses science with technology. Science is the process of knowledge creation (or discovery) whereas technology is the means of knowledge application. This confusion causes some scientists to defend technologies that are questioned because they perceive questions on the technology as an attack on science. It is not.

There is much knowledge discovered or to be discovered that cannot be applied wisely — at least not now. GM plants are among the technologies that have both serious scientific unknowns and lack a clear social benefit — at least for now.

For over 30 years, GM has been promised to produce plants that will resist the stresses of drought, heavy metals and salt, that will increase yield, reduce the use of toxic pesticides and even fix their own nitrogen. To be fair, some GM crops have reduced the use of some toxic insecticides for a brief period. To be precise, though, none of these promises has been sustainably delivered to farmers.

Why not? Well, it isn’t complex regulation holding them back. By the year 2005, over 1,000 applications were approved to field trial stress-tolerant GM plants in the United States alone. None ever progressed out of the testing phase. The explanation for this is likely because stress tolerance is not a solution to the causes of stress. No matter how tolerant you make the plant to drought, using it in soil low in organic matter and unable to hold water will eventually further deplete the soil of moisture and the plant will struggle or die. GM is an attempt to use genetics to overcome the environment. This never works for long. That is why some call GM a distraction from investing in real solutions to the problems faced by real farmers.

A symptom

Herbicide use is increasing in the U.S. since it adopted GM maize (corn), soybeans and cotton. Insecticide use is down by a small bit, but extremely high compared to countries such as France which do not use GM crops. Western Europe’s maize yields match or exceed the U.S.’ yields using less pesticide. The yields in wheat and oilseed rape are increasing at an even faster rate in Western Europe than in the U.S. and Canada. This indicates a dangerous trend: those countries choosing to innovate in agriculture using GM are demonstrating lower productivity increases and greater dependence on chemical inputs in all crops compared to economically and environmentally comparable countries choosing to not use GM crops.

What is it about investing in GM products that seems to undermine other technologies in agriculture? GM products attract the strictest intellectual property (IP) rights instruments possible in agriculture (e.g., process patents). The use of those instruments concentrates investment and drives out simple but even more effective technologies.

Now every government research centre and public university seeks to compensate for the fall in direct public investment through licensing royalties from IP and the creation of partnerships with the private sector. This necessarily changes the kinds of questions they favour being asked by their researchers, the kind that will be supported by institutional resources or rewarded with promotion. With these policies in place we shouldn’t be surprised that every problem looks like it has a GM solution even to researchers who claim to have no entrepreneurial motivations.

Prof. Padmanaban’s ambition for a crop that provides all nutritional needs and grows everywhere demonstrates the poverty of the GM approach to hunger and malnourishment. Such a crop would quickly become obsolete as it would also serve as a wonderful meal for every conceivable form of pest. Meanwhile, it would undermine both biological and agricultural diversity as it became a weed in its own right.

Instead of that approach, supporting communities with education on nutrition and farmers with technologies that build up their soils, manage pests with little or no application of pesticide and manufactured fertilizers gives them the means and independence to grow a variety of crops and livestock to meet their dietary needs and sell their surplus in local markets.

This investment in agriculture is not as good at making intellectual property, but better for growing food. To properly support India’s mainly small holder farming requires removing the penalties and incentives on the public scientist to develop primarily technologies that bring direct revenue to their institutions. Instead, invest in them with public money and measure their success by the yields of farmers, the reduction of pesticides and fertilizer they use, and the increase in their wealth and health.

No missed opportunities

India is not missing out on the benefits of GM. So far, there haven’t been any proven to exist, or proven to be sustainable. GM crops are not designed to increase intrinsic yield and the largest scale and longest term studies bear out that they don’t yield more. Meanwhile, the cost of GM seeds is the fastest growing expense for U.S. farmers who are simultaneously suffering from weeds resistant to the herbicides excessively used on GM crops and pests resistant to the insecticides over-used in Bt crops. That likely would be India’s experience had it commercialised Bt brinjal which was developed with the least effective form of Bt for the target pest.

In addition, the safety issue still lingers over these products. It shouldn’t. The science needed to establish their safety exists and is affordable but it must be applied dispassionately and transparently. That is all Jairam Ramesh asked.

Claiming that GM crops are demonstrated safe by the absence of specific health claims from Americans is glib. There are no validated health surveillance programmes in the U.S. which could both detect and diagnose the cause of the most likely manifestations of harm if they do exist.

Meanwhile, more research studies accumulate with evidence of adverse effects, some quite serious. These studies require replication, but they run into roadblocks or fail to find new funding. Most often these studies report low level health effects using animal feeding studies, so it is not clear whether the effect would be the same, more or less in humans and more or less likely to be caused using GM plants cooked and processed, as humans eat them, rather than raw or processed the way they are provided to test animals.

Hunger, pestilence, and economic failure are the images of fear increasingly being used to drive acceptance of GM crops. Ignorance, anti-science, ideology and hypocrisy are the insults used to counter questions about the safety of GM crops coming from scientists and the public. What is right for India’s agriculture is too important a question to leave to fear and insult to decide. I think that both Ramesh and the scientists of the Technical Expert Committee knew this when they asked India to pause on the use of GM products. Pause so that all voices can be heard. Reflect on what the problems are and whether technologies solve them or mask them for a time, or even make them worse later.

(Professor Jack A. Heinemann is Director, Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand)

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Time totweet

September 4, 2013

HEMA VIJAY

• A.J. Mithra’s sonogram (a visual interpretation of audio waves) defines how birds share space among themselves. The vertical axis charts the frequency of sound waves from bird calls, while the horizontal axis gives the length of the bird song in seconds.(Clockwise from right top) Red whiskered bulbul, Magpie robin, Asian koel (male) and Coppersmith barbetPHOTOS: Gnanaskandan K(Anti-clockwise from left top) White breasted kingfisher, Shikra, Spotted owlet and MynaPHOTOS: A.J. MITHRA

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Offbeat Want to know what time it is? Listen carefully and you might just hear a specificbirdcall that tells you what hour of the day it is

Much before sundials and modern clocks came along people deciphered the time with the help of a bird clock. Birds have their own fixed schedules to sing and tweet, and one can even tell the approximate hour of the day from the specific tweets, which makes for a ‘bird clock’. And since Chennai city has a diverse geographical terrain that includes marshland, estuary, rivers, shrub jungle and a coastline, and a diverse avian population that inhabits it we have a great bird clock in the air. Ever woken up in the middle of your sleep, and heard a bird call that goes coooocucucucu in a rising pitch , almost wrapping an entire octave within its tweet? That would probably be the Asian koel, the first bird singer of the day. Without glancing at the clock, you can assume the time to be sometime between 3 a.m. and daybreak. You may also hear the pre-dawn, drill-like call of the white-breasted kingfisher that takes a rolling accent that ascends aggressively and comes back to the note it started with. Just around day break, mynas join in, as do ravens and crows with their kaa-kaa-kaa-ka.

The two note call of the grey francolin sounds off at around seven in the morning, while the high pitched call of the tiny tailor bird might be heard around 7.30 in the morning. If you hear a rhythmic birdcall that sounds like a smithy’s hammer, it is the coppersmith and it is probably 7 to 8 in the morning. Around this time, you might also hear the high-pitched metallic-sounding call of sunbirds, and the gargling calls of the white-browed bulbul and the red-vented bulbul. And then, have you noticed a repertoire of bird phrases that continue with improvisations for around half-an-hour? That would be the magpie robin that sings around dawn and dusk, but its territorial call is heard at other times too. If you hear a three-note call that sounds continuously for three-five minutes, it would be around midday and the call is that of the oriental skylark, that sings when it is in flight, calling as it gains height. If it is winter, you might catch the call of the Indian pitta known as the ‘ aaru mani kuruvi ’ that sings punctually around 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

During both the pre-dawn and post-dusk twilight hours, the Indian thicknee sings its harsh rising whistle-like call of two or more syllables. As for those rustic calls heard after sundown, that was from the spotted owlet (a harsh, screechy call that goes chirurr-chirurr-chirurr), Indian eagle owl (a deep resonant woo-hooo) and Indian night jars (a short, sharp song that goes chuk chuk-chuk-chuk). And during its breeding season, the common hawk cuckoo (the brain fever bird) can be heard practically through the night, making its shrill and loud two-note call that seems to say ‘brain fever’. However, sparrows and babblers chatter all through the day. Well…these are observations of different birdwatchers in the city; further studies could establish more accuracy.

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Sow the wind, reap a storm

September 2, 2013

G. Padmanaban

 

Those opposing GM crops ignore scientific evidence of their harmlessness and are depriving the nation of the wider benefits of agri-biotechnology

It is unfortunate that the technical group appointed by the Supreme Court has chosen to stick with its recommendation for an indefinite moratorium on GM crop trials. There is fierce opposition from activists even to the introduction of the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (BRAI) in Parliament, meant to evolve a scientific basis for the regulatory process.

With all this negative propaganda, science has become a casualty. In our country, agricultural biotechnology has been reduced to Bt (Bacillus thuringensis toxin)-crops and further restricted to Bt cotton and Bt brinjal. Transgenic (or genetic modification) technology, which includes Bt crops, by itself occupies a large canvas to combat abiotic stresses and improve nutritive quality of the grain. In turn, transgenic technology is only one component of agri-biotech, which includes non-GM options such as marker-assisted selection breeding (MAS), reverse breeding, grafting non-GM scion onto GM-root stocks etc. In addition, there is a gamut of strategies to alter specific genes (e.g. zinc finger nuclease, SiRNA etc) to generate desirable variants in a given crop.

Missed opportunities

While there is a huge effort to make regulatory protocols complex and time-consuming for GM-crops, many of the strategies leading to creation of mutants are outside the purview of such regulations. Even in conservative Europe, the following analysis is an eye opener: “Twenty five years of risk research on GM crops have established [that Biotechnology is not per se riskier than conventional breeding technologies] beyond reasonable doubt. We need to highlight the opportunities missed by not accepting GM crops. These include lost revenues for farmers, breeding companies and consumers, brain drain and lost technology innovations, reduced agricultural productivity and sustainability, foregone health benefits, especially reducing malnutrition, and many more realized or expected virtues of GM crops”( EMBO reports, vol. 13, 493-497, 2012).

Ingo Potrykus, who developed the Golden rice, laments “unjustified and impractical legal requirements are stopping genetically engineered crops from saving millions from starvation and malnutrition” (Nature 466, 561, 2010). In India, the embargo on Bt brinjal has demoralised researchers in the field. We need a huge work force to handle all the strategies mentioned. China is going full steam with almost 6,000 PhDs in agri-biotech alone (Chinese Academy of Sciences), whereas India has 8,900 PhDs in all sciences put together!

GM is not a stand-alone technology. It can blend with conventional technologies, including organic farming. In fact, it is ideal to have a Bt crop as central to organic farming, since the overall objective is to decrease use of chemical pesticides. A leading organic farmer told me that his products are 60-per-cent organic! Biopesticides also work through chemicals and not by magic! MAS can be applied if appropriate germplasms are available and accessible in nature. Thus, drought-tolerant maize and quality protein maize have been developed using MAS. Golden rice has been developed using the GM approach with two genes, one from daffodil and another from a soil bacterium.

If India has become a cotton-exporting country from a cotton-importing one, Bt cotton has played an important role in this change. The sustainability of Bt cotton would require both gene pyramiding along with IPM, NPM strategies, including crop rotation. A huge volume of peer-reviewed literature exists on the environmental and health safety of Bt crops. But activists tend to use anecdotes and negative activist-supported publications to oppose the technology.

All this negative propaganda does not sound convincing in the light of the fact that millions of people and cattle in the globe have been eating Bt corn for over 15 years without any authenticated report of health or environmental problems. People have also been eating corn or soya-based foods, such as oil and breakfast cereal. Livestock fed on Bt corn are the main source of meat products, imported even by Europe. One needs to worry about water availability, loss of soil fertility and hostile weather conditions. Scientists are already looking for a cold shock protein to overcome drought stress, or a nitrate reductase gene that lets the organism grow with 100 times less nitrogen than normal. It is another matter that the patent on cold shock gene has been rejected in India for the wrong reasons. It is indeed surprising that a single gene can protect against so many different stresses. Genes from plants with deep roots that can use water and nutrients very efficiently are of great interest. These areas of research are extremely important but is getting lost in all the hypothetical risks while millions of children suffer from under- and malnutrition.

The main concern appears to be that MNCs would ultimately decide on the agriculture of this country. The fact remains that they are the ones who have made the scientific discoveries and also had the muscle power to make the lab-to-land transition. This must also be the main reason to encourage agri-biotech research in Indian research institutions all the way, beyond glass houses. If MNCs are only interested in Bt and HT genes to make profits, let our institutions concentrate on abiotic stresses and nutrition quality. Our scientists should concentrate on developing Bt cotton varieties instead of hybrids.

Aid the scientists

The greatest challenge is to develop a single cereal, say rice, whichis nutritionally adequate and can withstand biotic and abiotic stresses. A real indigenous success story will dispel the fear of the unknown in public minds. I am aware that scientists in India have very good leads languishing in the laboratories. Without field trials no claim can be really substantiated. One should talk to these scientists to understand their frustration. The hurdles are so many: funding, activists, loss of trial crops, no publications, no product, no career.

Give the scientists all the facilities and freedom and if they do not deliver, haul them up. How does China deal with MNCs and also allow indigenous efforts to develop Bt rice? Why are we afraid of collaborations on an equal footing? Are we afraid of MNCs or the technology? With all the information on safety available over decades, it is time to deregulate the deployment of the main Bt genes in use. GM labelling of such a crop is not warranted. In any case, given the level of awareness in the country, both among the literate and the illiterate, GM labelling is unlikely to succeed. There is no GM labelling in the U.S. and people are quite healthy! If drought-resistant cereal is obtained by MAS as well as GM technology, would we label both as genetically modified? India needs to have an agriculture technology policy. Expert groups need to decide year after year as to which crop, which trait and which strategy has to be used. Agriculture needs to be treated as a knowledge-driven industry and not just as a traditional vocation. The farmer needs technical help on a day-to-day basis and not left to fend for himself. We cannot let Bt brinjal embargo seal the fate of this country. If there are contentious issues in the BRAI Bill, these can be debated only if the Bill is introduced. One can only hope and pray that the Supreme Court would not be misled by the recommendations of the Technical Expert Committee.

(The writer is a professor and Indian National Science Academy Senior Scientist at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, E-mail: geepee@biochem.iisc.ernet.in)

Keywords: Supreme Court appointed technical group, GM crop trials, Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill, BRAI

 

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Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

Ground-nesting bird species faced with danger from different sides

CHENNAI, September 1, 2013

B. Kolappan

 

Naturalists make a strong case for comprehensive study to save them from extinction

Equipped with unique evolutionary advantages, ground nesting birds used to survive against all odds. But now these bird species are under grave threat that has come in the form of shrinking of their habitation and predatory animals.

Naturalists and ornithologists have made a strong case for a comprehensive study of these species so that they could be saved from extinction.

“We do not have exhaustive data about these birds and there is scope for studying these birds that are facing a threat in many forms. On the one hand, their habitat is shrinking and, on the other, feral dogs and grazing animals are destroying their nests and chicks,” said P. Pramod, senior scientist, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History

In Kanyakumari, a group of naturalists led by S.S. Davidson spotted a good number of these birds incubating eggs in Kanyakumari and Tirunelveli districts. The birds include Red Wattled Lapwing, Yellow Wattled Lapwing, Black-bellied Finch Lark or the Ashy-crowned Finch Lark and Stone Curlew.

“Since they build nests on bare lands they face threats from all sides, even though they possess protective camouflage,” Mr. Davidson said.

Predators such as kite, shikra, monitor lizard and mongoose prey on the eggs and chicks of these birds. The nests on grass lands and near water bodies are trampled upon by domestic animals thronging water bodies.

Mr. Davidson said he and his team spotted Red Wattled Lapwing and Yellow Wattled Lapwing near wetland areas near Koonthankulam in Tirunelveli district.

The nests of Lapwings on a ground depression are often fringed with pebbles, goat or hare droppings. The Lapwings breed in the dry season before monsoon. While nesting, the parent birds often visit nearby water bodies and wet their breast feathers to cool their bodies and the chicks. “The nidifugous young (chicks that leave the nest shortly after hatching) are camouflaged as they forage along with their parents. In the event of any threat, the chicks squat flat on the ground and freeze, as the parents raise alarm calls,” Mr Davidson explained.

Another ground nesting bird is Black-bellied Finch Lark or the Ashy-crowned Finch Lark that inhabits bare grounds and grasslands. The bird with short legs and finch-like beak can never be found perching on trees.

“The lark makes the nest on the ground, which is a compact, tiny, neatly made saucer like depression under the shelter of a tuft of grass lined with grass and hair with some pebbles arranged on the edge. Both the parents shoulder the responsibility of raising the birds,” Mr Davidson said. Another ground nesting bird is Stone Curlew, whose physical features merge with the colour of the nesting site, an ideal way to masquerade. Mr. Davidson said drought conditions would adversely affect the breeding pattern of ground nesting birds with paucity of food and water.

Naturalist Ranjit Daniels stressed the need for preserving the nesting sites, by sparing them from planning trees under greening programme.

“Indiscriminate greening programmes pose a great threat to ground nesting birds and in Chennai many such birds have disappeared because of tree planting programmes. We need nature-friendly programme and not eco-friendly programme, which will benefit only human beings and other organisms,” he said.

Copyright© 2013, The Hindu

GPS street lamps light up GST Road

CHENNAI, September 1, 2013

Special Correspondent

Smart bulbsThe global positioning system in the lamps will help staff at a control room monitor them for signs of damage—Photo: M. Srinath

Street lamps fitted with global positioning system (GPS) now illuminate parts of Grand Southern Trunk Road in Tambaram.

The GPS facility will help staff at a dedicated control room monitor the lamps on the stretch and watch out for damaged ones. The 246 street lamps, installed on the median of GST Road, were recently dedicated by Tambaram MLA and Animal Husbandry Minister T.K.M. Chinnayya.

The lamps also consume less energy. Municipal chairman M. Karikalan said that the new metal halide lamps consume only 210 watts of power as opposed to the earlier sodium vapour lamps, which consume 250 watts. The lamps were installed on a 3.75-m-long stretch between Tambaram Sanatorium and Irumbuliyur. The control room has been set up at the municipality.

Municipal commissioner S. Sivasubramanian, said that a number of tests to check lux (to determine level of illumination), luminosity, road and traffic patterns among others were done before the system was implemented.

While the State government sanctioned Rs. 50 lakh, the municipality spent the remaining Rs. 1.5 crore from its general funds. The lights will automatically turn on at 6 p.m. and switch off at 5.30 a.m. and will dim between 11 p.m. and 4 a.m., when traffic is likely to be light, resulting in the further saving of power. The contractor who installed the new posts will maintain them for a year.

The metal lamp posts are made of galvanised iron, unlike conventional posts which only have a galvanised iron coating.

The new posts can withstand strong winds and even absorb shocks in the event of minor collisions, unlike the earlier ones that would bend or give way under such circumstances, officials said.

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