Genetic screening

DNA genetic testing and genetic screening involve the same testing processes to confirm or refute a suspected DNA change
-Tissues tested include blood, skin, saliva and hair follicles and, prenatally, embryo, placental tissue and amniotic fluid; DNA can be tested using blood 
-Genetic screening is done for a particular condition in individuals, groups or populations without family history of the condition
-Genetic testing is done for a particular condition where an individual is suspected of being at increased risk due to their family 
history or the result of a genetic screening test 
-Direct gene testing looks at the presence or absence of a known gene mutation by examining the sequence of letters in the information in the gene 
-The test is very accurate and used for diagnosis and screening including prenatal, genetic carrier testing and screening, presymptomatic and predictive testing 
Limitations include: 

 *Interpretation of the test result eg. finding that a person has a faulty gene does not always relate to how a person is, or will be, affected by that condition
 *The testing may be time-consuming and expensive for the health service if not for the patient 
 *For some complex conditions eg. cancer, the testing may have to be done on a family member with the condition to identify a family-specific mutation in the gene (mutation searching) before unaffected family members can be offered predictive testing 

-Indirect gene tracking (linkage) relies on comparing DNA markers from family members with the condition to markers in unaffected relatives 
-Used in situations where the gene itself has not been precisely located or where mutation(s) in a gene have not yet been defined; 
-the test is not as accurate as direct gene testing but can be used in diagnosis including prenatal and presymptomatic and predictive testing. 
-It may not always be possible to find DNA markers that enable the scientists to tell the difference between the faulty gene copy and the working gene copy .

KiteTM Mosquito Patch

KiteTM Mosquito Patch marked the begining of new war against mosquitos in "invisible way".It is the technology that hampers mosquitoes’ host-seeking behavior, identified at the University of California, Riverside in 2011, has led to the development of the world’s first product that blocks mosquitoes’ ability to efficiently detect carbon dioxide, their primary method of tracking human blood meals.
The initial research was performed in the laboratory of Anandasankar Ray, an associate professor of entomology, and was featured on the cover of the journal Nature.  Ray’s lab identified volatile odor molecules that can impair, if not completely disrupt, mosquitoes’ carbon dioxide detection machinery.
The intellectual property was licensed to Olfactor Laboratories Inc., a company that grew around the technology, expanded the research, filed additional patents, and developed related technologies that led to the mosquito-warding product.
Called the KiteTM Mosquito Patch, the product marks a significant advancement in the global fight against mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, West Nile virus and dengue fever.  The patch delivers mosquito-repelling compounds in a simple, affordable and scalable sticker that can be used by individuals in regions impacted by malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

PESA(THE PROVISIONS OF THE PANCHAYATS (EXTENSION TO THE SCHEDULED AREAS) ACT, 1996

THE PROVISIONS OF THE PANCHAYATS (EXTENSION TO THE 
SCHEDULED AREAS) ACT, 1996
(24th December, 1996)
 An Act to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution
relating to the Panchayats to the Scheduled Areas.

  1. This Act may be called the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the
Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996
Definition
 2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, “Scheduled Areas” (Clause (1) of Article 244 of the Constitution)
Extension of part IX of The Constitution
 3. The provision of Part IX of the Constitution relating to Panchayats are hereby
extended to the Scheduled Areas subject to such exceptions and modifications as are
provided in section 4.

Exceptions and modifications to part IX of The Constitution

 4. Notwithstanding anything contained under Part IX of the Constitution, the
Legislature of a State shall not make any law under that Part which is inconsistent with
any of the following features, namely:-

(a) a State legislation on the Panchayats that may be made shall be in consonance with 
the customary law, social and religious practices and traditional management practices of 
community resources;

 (b) a village shall ordinarily consist of a habitation or a group of habitations or a hamlet 
or a group of hamlets comprising a community and managing its affairs in accordance 
with traditions and customs; 

(c) every village shall have a Gram Sabha consisting of persons whose names are 
included in the electoral rolls for the Panchayat at the village level; 

(d) every Gram Sabha shall be competent to safeguard and preserve the traditions and 
customs of the people, their cultural identity, community resources and the customary 
mode of dispute resolution; 

(e) every Gram Sabha shall-

 i. approve of the plans, programmes and projects for social and 
economic development before such plans, programmes and projects are taken up for 
implementation by the Panchayat at the village level; 

 ii. be responsible for the identification or selection of persons as 
beneficiaries under the poverty alleviation and other programmes; 

(f) every Panchayat at the village level shall be required to obtain from the Gram
Sabha a certification of utilisation of funds by that Panchayat for the plans, programmes
and projects referred to in clause(e);

(g) the reservation of seats in the Scheduled Areas at every Panchayat shall be in
proportion to the population of the communities in that Panchayat for whom reservation
is sought to be given under Part IX of the Constitution;

Provided that the reservation for the Scheduled Tribes shall not be less than one-half of 
the total number of seats; 

Provided further that all seats of Chairpersons of Panchayats at all levels shall be reserved
for the Scheduled Tribes;

(h) the State Government may nominate persons belonging to such Scheduled Tribes as
have no representation in the Panchayat at the intermediate level or the Panchayat at the
district level: 

Provided that such nomination shall not exceed one-tenth of the total members to be
elected in that Panchayat;
(i) the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate level shall be consulted before
making the acquisition of land in the Scheduled Areas for development projects and
before re-setling or rehabilitating persons affected by such projects in the Scheduled
Areas; the actual planning and implementation of the projects in the Scheduled Areas
shall be coordinated at the State level;

 (j) planning and management of minor water bodies in the Scheduled Areas shall be
entrusted to Panchayats at the appropriate level;

(k) the recommendations of the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate level
shall be made mandatory prior to grant of prospecting licence or mining lease for minor
minerals in the Scheduled Areas;

(l) the prior recommendation of the Gram Sabha or the Panchayats at the appropriate
level shall be made mandatory for grant of concession for the exploitation of minor
minerals by auction;

(m) while endowing Panchayats in the Scheduled Areas with such powers and authority
as may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government, a State
Legislature shall ensure that the Panchayats at the appropriate level and the Gram Sabha
are endowed specifically with-

 (i) the power to enforce prohibition or to regulate or restrict the sale 
and consumption of any intoxicant; 
 (ii) the ownership of minor forest produce; 
 (iii) the power to prevent alienation of land in the Scheduled Areas 
and to take appropriate action to restore any unlawfully alienated land of a Scheduled 
Tribe; 
 (iv) the power to manage village markets by whatever name called; 
 (v) the power to exercise control over money lending to the 
Scheduled Tribes; 
 (vi) thepower to exercise control over institutions and functionaries in 
all social sectors; 
 (vii) the power to control over local plans and resources for such 
plans including tribal sub-plans; 

(n) the State Legislations that may endow Panchayats with powers and authority as
may be necessary to enable them to function as institutions of self-government shall
contain safeguards to ensure that Panchayats at the higher level do not assume the powers
and authority of any Panchayat at the lower level or of the Gram Sabha; (o) the State Legislature shall endeavour to follow the pattern of the Sixth Schedule to
the Constitution while designing the administrative arrangements in the Panchayats at
district levels in the Scheduled Areas.

Continuance of existing laws on panchayats:

 5. Notwithstanding anything in Part IX of the Constitution with exceptions and modifications made by this Act, any provision of any law relating to Panchayats in force  in the Scheduled Areas, immediately before the date on which this Act receives the assent  of the President, which is inconsistent with the provisions of Part IX with such exceptions  and modifications shall continue to be in force until amended or repealed by a
competgent Legislature or other competent authority or until the expiration of one year from the date on which this Act receives the assent of the President; Provided that all the Panchayats existing immediately before such date shall continue till the expiration of their duration unless sooner dissolved by a resolution passed to that effect by the Legislative Assembly of that State or, in the case of a State having
Legislative Council, by each House of the Legislature of that State.

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT)

Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), located near Pune in India, is an array of radio telescopes at metre wavelengths. It is operated by the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, a part of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. At the time it was built, it was world's largest interferometric array.The GMRT is located around 80 km north of Pune at Khodad. A nearby town is Narayangaon which is around 9 km from the telescope. The office of NCRA is located in the University of Pune campus right next to IUCAAThe GMRT contains 30 fully steerable telescopes. There are fourteen telescopes randomly arranged in the central square 1 km by 1 km in size, with a further sixteen arranged in three arms of a nearly "Y"-shaped array each having a length of 14 km from the array centre. The GMRT is an interferometer which uses a technique known as aperture synthesis to make images of radio sources. The GMRT operates in six frequency bands centered at 38, 153, 233, 327, 610, and 1420 MHz.

Each antenna is 45 metres in diameter with the reflector made of wire rope stretched between metal struts in a parabolic configuration. This configuration works because of the long wavelengths (21 cm and longer) at which the telescope operates. Each antenna has four different receivers mounted at the focus. Each individual receiver assembly can rotate so that the user can select the frequency at which to observe.
The maximum baseline in the array gives the telescope an angular resolution (the smallest angular scale that can be distinguished) of about 1 arcsecond at the frequency of neutral hydrogen (1420 MHz).One of the important aims of the telescope is to search for the highly redshifted 21-cm line radiation from primordial neutral hydrogen clouds in order to determine the epoch of galaxy formation in the universe. Pulsar research is another major area for GMRT study.
Astronomers from all over the world regularly use this telescope to observe many different astronomical objects such as HII regions, galaxies, pulsars, supernovae, and sun and solar winds.

GRACE (Gamma Ray Astrophysics Coordinated Experiments)

AN international-class facility for fundamental research in gamma-ray astronomy is being set up at Mt. Abu in Rajasthan. The project, called
GRACE (Gamma Ray Astrophysics Coordinated Experiments), is implemented by the Nuclear Research Laboratory Division of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai. The GRACE facility was inaugurated on October 13, 1997 by Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Dr. R. Chidambaram. BARC Director Dr. Anil Kakodkar and other senior scientists attended the function.

When it is fully operational, GRACE will facilitate the exploration of the entire gamma-ray window of the electromagnetic spectrum from one location through four time-coordinated experiments. Four gamma-ray telescope facilities - TACTIC, MYSTIQUE, MACE and BEST - will be established at Mt. Abu over 10 years. TACTIC is a TeV (Terra electron Volts) Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescope with Imaging Camera; MYSTIQUE is a Multi-element Ultra-Sensitive Telescope for Quanta of Ultra-high Energy; MACE is a Major Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiment; and BEST is a Bust Exploration through Scintillation Technique.

Gamma-ray astronomy provides a powerful tool to investigate some of the mysteries of the cosmos and the astrophysical objects that populate it. These relate to the nature of the central power-house in active galactic nuclei and the high-energy processes operating in and around black holes, X-ray binaries, neutron stars (pulsars) and supernova remnants. This window is also likely to provide important clues to the origin of cosmic ray particles, which are known to bombard the earth continuously. Major experimental efforts, both satellite-based and ground-based, using state-of-the-art equipment and software, are under way at a number of research institutions in different parts of the world to obtain fresh perspectives of the universe through gamma-ray astronomy. Among the Indian institutions that conduct experiments in this field are BARC, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

Two milestones have been crossed since the GRACE project got under way four years ago - the commissioning of the imaging element of the TACTIC telescope and the installation of a prototype MYSTIQUE array station. TACTIC, India's first such telescope, deploys a 3.5-metre-diameter light collector of a quasi-paraboloid shape, which is made up of 32 high-quality spherical mirrors of 60-cm diameter.

TACTIC's imaging element began trial observations of gamma-ray sources on March 1, 1997. In April-May 1997, it was used to observe the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant in the galaxy. Subsequently, it detected gamma-ray signals from two extragalactic sources, Markarian-421 and Markarian-501, which are believed to harbour massive black holes at their centre. Markarian-501 is more than 300 million light years away. While no significant signal from Markarian-421 was recorded, TACTIC was able to "catch" a flare from Markarian-501 during April-May 1997; it resulted in the detection of a highly significant TeV gamma-ray signal within 50 hours of observation. A conventional, non-imaging telescope would have taken at least 5,000 hours to do this. This result was confirmed by contemporaneous observations made by four other high-sensitivity Cerenkov Imaging Telescopes in the United States, France, Germany and Japan. This was the first ever contemporaneous detection of a celestial gamma-ray source from more than one location.

Mt. Abu is one of the best sites in India for astronomical observation. According to Dr. C.L. Bhat, head of the Nuclear Research Laboratory-High Altitude Research Laboratory, the hill station was chosen for the site because of its high altitude, and because it has cloud-free skies for most of the year. Besides, Mt. Abu is on more or less the same longitude as three other observation sites with gamma-ray telescopes: Tian-Shan in Kazakhstan, Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh and Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu.

In Mt. Abu, the GRACE facility is provisionally located at a place called Oriya; it will later shift to nearby Gurushikhar. The choice of Gurushikhar as the permanent site was made after a site-selection programme undertaken by BARC covering ten candidate sites in six States. At Gurushikhar, the project will be environment-friendly. Noise and light pollution will be kept under control, and the project will not necessitate any significant denudation of forest cover.

The GRACE project will provide for remote-handling and control of telescopes through satellite communication links. In addition to the Department of Atomic Energy, the project is being supported by the Department of Science and Technology under the Indo-Russian Integrated Long-Term Programme of Scientific Cooperation. Under this programme, blueprints for the mechanical structure and sub-assemblies of the TACTIC telescope were supplied by the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow. In the current phase of collaboration with the Lebedev Institute, coordinated observation campaigns on gamma-ray sources are conducted from Tian-Shan by the Lebedev group and from Mt. Abu by the BARC team. In another international collaboration project involving scientists from BARC and the Kernforschen-guszentrum Karlsruhe, Germany, the TACTIC telescope array is to be used for cosmic-ray mass-composition studies through the independent Cerenkov route.

Square Kilometre Array(SKA):In Australian Outback

From the Byrd telescope in West Virginia, to the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico, to the MeerKAT system in South Africa, the world is not hurting for gigantic radio telescopes. These large arrays are precise and powerful, but come 2024, they will all be eclipsed by the capability of the Square Kilometre Array(radio telescope)—a telescope system big enough to answer science's deepest questions about the nature of our universe

When it’s finished in 2024, the Square Kilometer Array telescope will search the sky for evidence of the early universe and alien life with a footprint that stretches 3,000 km across. With thousands of relatively small dishes and antennas dotting the hinterlands of Africa and Australia, the SKA will boast one single dish every one single square kilometer, or 1,000,000 square meters. For reference, the current largest single dish radio telescope in the world, the famed Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, is about 73,000 square meters, while West Virginia’s Green Bank telescope (which Motherboard profiled here), measures about 7,800 square meters. Around 50 times more powerful than any radio telescope yet devised, the SKA will be able to register an airport radar on a planet 50 light-years from Earth, a distance of around 300 trillion miles.

When it comes to radio telescopy, systems come in two varieties—humongous single dishes like 305-meter-wide Aricebo or as a collective of smaller individual dishes coordinating, like the MEERKAT array. Arrays boast a distinctive advantage over the dishes—the smaller individual dishes can be spread over a vastly larger area than a single dish could ever cover, granting the array a much greater collection area. Bigger collection areas translate into a larger searchable field of view and more data to study. The MeerKAT, current record holder for largest and most precise array telescope, has a collection area of about 18,000 square meters. When the $1.9 billion SKA is completed, it will provide, as its name suggests, a million square meters of collection area. It will be fifty times more precise than any other radio system on the planet, and it will be able to survey the sky ten thousand times faster than current systems. Ten thousand.

The SKA project has been in development since 1991 and is comprised of 20 nations.When it comes to radio telescopy, systems come in two varieties—humongous single dishes like 305-meter-wide Aricebo or as a collective of smaller individual dishes coordinating, like the MEERKAT Array. Arrays boast a distinctive advantage over the dishes—the smaller individual dishes can be spread over a vastly larger area than a single dish could ever cover, granting the array a much greater collection area. Bigger collection areas translate into a larger searchable field of view and more data to study. The MeerKAT, current record holder for largest and most precise array telescope, has a collection area of about 18,000 square meters. When the $1.9 billion SKA is completed, it will provide, as its name suggests, a million square meters of collection area. It will be fifty times more precise than any other radio system on the planet, and it will be able to survey the sky ten thousand times faster than current systems. Tenthousand.

The SKA project has been in development since 1991 and is comprised of 20 nations. The system will be broken into two halves—one site in rural South Africa (as well as remote sites in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia). The other half will be in Australia's and New Zealand's most remote regions. These locations were chosen because the Southern Hemisphere has a better view of the Milky Way, and it provides the least amounts of man-made radio interference.

The array itself will be populated by about 3,000 individual 15-meter tall, 12-meter wide receivers that, with help from its sister arrays, will span the 70 MHz to 10 GHz spectrum. The SKA will feature a core group of receivers at each site as well as 2,000 mile-long tendrils extending out from the center (which is why the S. African group also has partners in eight other African nations). These arms will be tied together by high-speed fiber optic lines which will dump roughly 937,500 terabytes of data into a central-processing super computer every day—that's 100 times today's global internet traffic. In addition, the system will also employ a mid-frequency aperture array consisting of 250 separate stations, each of which uses 160,000 receivers, and a low-frequency aperture array boasting 2.5 million receivers used to detect neutral hydrogen, a building block of the early universe. In all, this will provide the highest resolution images in all of astronomy.

The array is being constructed in three phases, which is ingenious because it will allow the telescope to begin working before it's fully operational. The first phase will involve repurposing the existing 64-dish MeerKAT system while building 190 more in 2016. "The decision recognises MeerKAT as a key instrument that will make up one quarter of SKA Phase 1 mid-frequency array, and the science planned for SKA Phase 1 is very similar to the MeerKAT science case—just much more ambitious," Professor Justin Jonas, Associate Director: Science and Engineering at SKA South Africa, explained in a press release. "Our researchers and students who participate in the MeerKAT surveys have a huge advantage. They are well placed to enter SKA Phase 1. They have the opportunity to become science leaders in future SKA projects."

That leadership comes at a price, mind you. By the project's completion, the low frequency arrays alone will number in the millions. So, in order to keep costs from skyrocketing, engineers at Cambridge University, who had already designed a low frequency receiver for the SKA project, turned to Cambridge Consultants, a cutting-edge technology design and development firm, for assistance.

The team from Cambridge Consultants was tasked with modifying the existing prototype design to make it cheaper and easier to produce, less expensive to ship, and easier to assemble in the field—all while maintaining the receiver's structural integrity and environmental resistance.

"The challenge of volume manufacture is at the forefront of our work with the SKA program," Gary Kemp, Program Director at Cambridge Consultants, said in a press release. "The two-meter-tall antennas will have to be manufactured in very high volumes – more than 2.5 million will be required, in addition to the 40 million antennas of the mid-frequency array. So ‘commercializing' the design through the design for manufacture process is critical to the feasibility of the SKA. To see a mature design for part of the physical hardware that will make up the core of the world's biggest telescope is an important step towards the construction of the final instrument."

To further reduce costs, the team used injection molded plastics as an inexpensive means of insulating the antenna support structure. As for the control electronics, Cambridge Consultants turned to the mobile phone industry and employed mainly off-the-shelf PCB components normally used for front-end amplifiers. In all, the Cambridge Consultants team believes that they can effectively mass produce, ship, and install these arrays for just €70 or roughly $100 American per unit.

FAST: largest single-aperture radio telescope ,by china

Since its completion in 1963, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, with a diameter of 305 m (1,000 ft) and a collecting area of 73,000 square meters (790,000 sq ft), has been the largest single-aperture radio telescope ever constructed. But Arecibo is set to lose its title with construction now underway in Guizhou Province in southern China of the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Upon its expected completion in 2016, FAST will be able to see more than three times further into space and survey the skies ten times faster than Arecibo.

FAST was first proposed by China for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which has since opted to combine the signals of thousands of smaller antennae spread over a distance of more than 3,000 km (1,864 miles), combining for a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometer (0.38 square miles). The SKA will be built in the southern hemisphere with South Africa and Australia currently vying for the right to host the project.

Despite this, an international review and advisory conference on the science and technology of FAST held in Beijing in 2006 concluded FAST was feasible. In the following year funding for FAST was given the green light and the approved budget now sits at CNY700 million (approx. US$107.9 million). Construction in the Dawodang depression in south Guizhou commenced in March.

Unlike Arecibo, which has a fixed spherical curvature focusing radio waves into a line above the dish where they are focused to a single point by more mirrors, FAST's cable-net supporting structure will be able to deform the surface in real time through active control. As PopSci explains, this will allow a subset dish's 4,400 triangular aluminum panels to form a parabolic mirror anywhere within the larger bowl that is nearly the size of the entire Arecibo dish.

Using FAST's unparalleled sensitivity and high surveying speed, the project is expected to enable the surveying of neutral hydrogen in the Milky Way and other galaxies, the detection of new pulsars (both galactic and extragalactic), the search for the first shining stars, and of perhaps most interest to many people, the search for extraterrestrial life. It is expected to be able to detect transmissions from over 1,000 light years away.

With a construction period of 5.5 years, FAST is due to be completed in 2016.