TSA Blog

Transportation Security Administration [TSA] finally come up with their blog!

Nano-materials: Both sides of the picture

Nano-materials are projected to be an extremely promising class of materials possessing properties that are new, cheap and easy to engineer for a variety of applications. One of potential applications is that of drug delivery. Nano materials like carbon nano-tubes and fullerenes have been effectively used to transport drugs to specific cells in the body that need it most. This is unlike usual medication procedures where the drug in released in the body which then attacks healthy as well as damaged cells.One research that is underway is focusing on the application of nano-tubes to prevent radiation damage that cancer patients often suffer from.

With so much focus on nano-materials, it now becomes important to focus on the flip side.

A recent report in a reputable journal, Nano Letters, reports

The potential health risk of chronic carbon nano-tubes exposure has been raised as of great public concern. In the present study, we have demonstrated that intratracheal instillation of 0.5 mg of single-walled carbon nano-tubes (SWCNT) into male ICR mice (8 weeks old) induced alveolar macrophage activation, various chronic inflammatory responses, and severe pulmonary granuloma formation.

In other words, scientists are projecting potential health risks.

I think, it’s high time Congress approves and sets apart enough money, not only for nano-medicine and nanotechnology based renewable energy sources, but also for the study of affect of new technologies like these on health and society.

IPL: Club Cricket and Billion Dollars

Cricket is all set to get its sex appeal . Finally, a new format called the 20-20 cricket was approved and the game time was reduced to 4 hours. Following a few trial games, where its popularity was tested, major championship trophies were arranged and suddenly cricket never remained the same.

The new format put a new life, excitement and thrill at the expense of technical finesse; but what the heck, the entertainment value increased many fold. This will also be an ideal platform to promote new talent no doubt.
World’s richest cricket body BCCI of India recently announced a domestic league called the India Premier League.

What is the Indian Premier League?
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) launched the Indian Premier League (IPL) on September 14, 2007. Based on the lines of the English Premier League (EPL) and the National Basketball League (NBA), the IPL is said to be the brainchild of BCCI vice-president Lalit Modi.

Today, IPL threw in some mind boggling numbers; teams were purchased for more than $1.7 Billion where cricketers from different nations will be allowed to compete for prize money of $5 Million.

So much is the popularity that non-cricket playing nations like Switzerland and USA (more precisely National Basketball Association [NBA] ) want to rope in Indian cricketers to promote social causes.
Cricket is all set to make is foray into television sets worldwide!

Guruji: Search India

Local search is projected to gain exponential importance with broadband penetration in India. Guruji.com is one such site which was setup in late 2006 to cater to to Indian needs.

“Local Search is a Guruji innovation in which we bring the information relevant to you quickly. This is your quick guide to important information about your restaurants, dentists, doctors and other day to day needs.”

“Guruji.com is the first crawler based search engine for India and India related content. Our proprietary algorithm automatically identifies India related content on the web and organizes it in such a way that you get the most relevant results fast“

See below how guruji.com manages to pull up only relevant pages. Also, the number of search results by guruji is less than a factor of 5 as compared to that of google.

Pakistan: Benazir Bhutto Assasinated

″8:35 a.m. New York time: Pakistan state TV confirms her death.″

A good resource about the entire episode maybe found here

A chronological  list of events in Pakistan  this year that led to this turmoil maybe found here.

Putin, Communism, Personal Wealth

One does not usually associate a communist comrade and huge sums of personal wealth. Putin’s rival faction at Kremlin recently revealed that Putin has amassed assets over USD 40 Billion making him Europe’s richest man. Now you wouldn’t expect that from one of the World’s most popular communist, would you?

The ‘Left’ side of the world has definitely taken a big blow this year.

 

Meat Consumption and Global Warming

I have been a vegetarian for most of my life. Me being a vegetarian stems from the fact that I hail from a Brahmin family where religion forbids meat consumption. When people asked me why I dint eat meat, my reply during high school and college was that I was a Brahmin. During my graduate days, I used to cite ethical reasons for not eating meat. My answer changed when I became aware of how inhumanly animals were bred for meat consumption; the way little chickens, veals were held captive in cages smaller than the size of their bodies, the way they were overfed with grain and anti-biotics ripped my heart.

And now I practice environmental vegetarianism. Some reports estimate that if an average American reduced meat consumption by 10%, the amount of grain and water saved could feed the entire poor world! It is a mind boggling number. Nearly half of the water and 80% of the agricultural land in United States is dedicated for feed crops for animals raised for meat. To put the numbers into better perspective, production of 1 pound of beef requires 2400 gallons of water and 7 pounds of grain. So many states in US like Georgia, NC etc are declared to be in a state of drought, but I am sure the meat consumption of pretty much the same. Being a vegetarian, I am not sure how prices or consumption is/was affected.

Animal farming also significantly contributes to emission of green house gases like methane and CO2. A study by the University of Chicago reports that switching to a vegan diet will reduce emission more than switching from a Toyota Corolla to a hybrid Toyota Prius. All those in California waiting in queue for your Prius, you could atleast do so until you get your new Hybrid car !

So next time when you are having Bacon or Ham for breakfast or that double Cheese burger, just pause for a moment and think if you can play your role in saving earth.

Pakistan: At Christmas Eve

  The recent Emergency fiasco and historically strained relations between India and Pakistan resulted in obvious economic set backs. A recent study by the Indian Council of Research on International Economic Relations indicated a trade potential of a whooping 11.7 billion dollars between just India and Pakistan which needs to be exploited with cited reasons being that of communication gap. However, with India’s prime minister being one of the most respected economists in the world, this could hardly be a reason. The arms race between the two countries and Pakistan’s dream of it being the most influential power in the sub-continent are the more likely causes of this trade deficit. When sports can be affected as a result of the Kashmir conflict, why not trade.

On December 15^th, Musharraf revoked the state of Emergency (42 days) after being elected as the president. However, this honeymoon period will only last if the legitimacy of the constitutional amendments and the presidential elections are approved on the floor of the house in Parliament early next year. With Musharraf’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, there was a rumor that the General was in negotiations with the Prince in case he was exiled. Not to talk about clandestine and publicized deals that Musharraf is striking with once bitter woes like Bhutto and Sharif!

Remember the disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan guilty of selling nuclear secrets to other foreign governments. Well, now Pakistan claims that its nuclear arsenal is secure. Musharraf has passed an ordinance making him the head of the National Command Authority.

Musharraf and not Restoration of democracy (which is still elusive) is the buzz word here. The upcoming elections will change or deter Pakistan’s course of progress

Mumbai’s First Earth Hour

On 15th Mumbai, India decided to pull the plug on power for an hour on a Saturday evening. Although the event wasn’t a major success, with pockets of the population not responding to the black out with dubious excuses, the awareness of Global Warming was instilled. Its good that India’s economic power house responded aware of the fact that this disruption on a Saturdays evening would mean considerable loss in profits. The presence of Global Warming has been acknowledged. I think, it should be a more common occurrence.

My contribution: Have started to use LED lighting. Am hopeful to replace all the light fixtures when I move into my own apartment (no roommates).

Some time back I did a research paper on solid state lighting . Below is one of the motivation slides from my presentations that summarizes Energy Saving and Carbon emission reduction by solid state lighting.

Recently, I also bumped into this great blog with education on buying green energy (different from renewable energy). I am on way to get myself enrolled with the program.

Holiday shopping or shooting spree!

An hour after President Bush left his fund-raiser at Omaha, Neb., a gun man in the same town went on a shooting spree in a shopping mall. More than eight people were killed before the unnamed shooter shot himself.

First the bad weather and now this incident, its definitely not a good start to the holiday season.

Is there a way to stop these occurrences, which seem to have gotten more frequent. Gun license policies? I think so! Why are such incidents common only in the US and not in other western or developed countries? Its an open question.  Wonder why this is not even being addressed in any of the presidential debates!