Soon, a device that writes data directly into brain

Washington: Scientists in Japan are developing electric sensors using nanotechnology that could not only read information from our brains, but also write information to it.

Keiichi Torimitsu of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) says that the technology could have real practical applications in helping sufferers from Parkinson’s disease or stroke.

“Establishing connections between the brain and electrical instruments is important for understanding how the brain works and for controlling neural activity,” Discovery News quoted Torimitsu as saying.

“To develop some kind of devices or interfaces with the brain that would make it possible to transmit our information, sending it through the telecommunication pathways to another person or device such as a computer — that is the goal”, he added.

The brain-reading device would incorporate a nanosized electrode coated with a membrane that would mimic the receptor proteins found on the outside of brain cells.

There is electrical activity when the receptors and neurotransmitters interact, and the nanoelectrode would be able to pick up that activity, which could then be read by external equipment.

Torimitsu also hopes the device would not just be a bystander but be able to interact in the connections between the neurons, known as synapses.

Professor Gordon Wallace, of the University of Wollongong’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute in Australia, is working with Torimitsu’s team on the device. He said: “People are starting to realize all around the world that there are lots of tools that we can use that we already have at our disposal to make this field progress very quickly.”

The work was presented by Torimitsu, the head of NTT’s molecular and bioscience group, at this week’s International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICONN) in Sydney. ANI

LEARNING WITH THE TIMES

Fuel cells have negligible emissions

What is the conventional method of power generation?
The basic function of any power generation system is to convert energy from any other form into electricity. The most popular energy generation mechanism is based on burning fossil fuels—that is, converting chemical energy into mechanical energy for rotating turbines. The turbine then rotates the rotor of a generator, which finally converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy—electrons flowing in a conductor, like copper wire. These combustion-based power generation systems are subject to the laws of thermodynamics and hence have a predetermined cap on the maximum efficiency defined by something called the Carnot Limit.

How is the fuel cell different?
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen in a way that electrons are produced in a single step. These are then directed outside the cell to do work, like powering an electric motor or illuminating a light bulb or a city and finally return to the fuel cell, completing an electrical circuit as well as a chemical reaction which has water as the byproduct. The energy generation is not based on thermodynamics and hence fuel cells are more efficient in extracting energy from fuel. Apart from this, there are negligible emissions and very little noise and hence these cells are also good for the environment. In simple terms, it’s like the everyday battery. But unlike a battery, which stores the chemical inside it and hence has to be charged again and again, the fuel cell works on a mechanism that allows continuous supply of fuel and hence can work for years.

But why don’t we use them then?
The concept of fuel cells is not new to physics and does not involve any recently developed or discovered principles. Since the 1960s, various countries have been using them for their space programmes. The catch, however, is that they are extremely expensive and a viable design for a fuel cell for commercial purposes has eluded scientists and inventors for years. The conventional methods remain cheaper for generating electricity. Billions of dollars have been spent in the effort to come up with a method of making fuel cells cheaper.

Why is fuel cell technology suddenly in news?
Bloom Energy, a US-based firm researching on eco-friendly methods of energy generation, has unveiled an innovative fuel cell technology called Energy Server priced $800,000, which can be used for generating electricity for big corporate houses. K R Sridhar of Bloom Energy has talked of the concept of refrigerator-sized fuel cells which the firm has named Bloom Boxes.

CLEAN POWER: Bloom Energy CEO K R Sridhar with a fuel cell

Bihar to form law to curb private coaching centres

Patna/Biharsharif: As students protest against private coaching institutes spread across Bihar, the state government on Thursday announced that it would enact a legislation to regulate their functioning.

“I have asked the state HRD department officials to burn the midnight oil to prepare a draft in consultation with the experts to enact a law for the purpose,” chief minister Nitish Kumar said after a high-level meeting.

HRD principal secretary Anjani Singh said the new law would provide for registration of all such coaching institutes and strict monitoring of quality of education and fee structure. The draft was likely to be tabled in the coming budget session of the state legislature.

“This will be the first law of its kind that a state will be enacting to protect the interests of both the coaching institutes and students,” Singh said.

Students went on the rampage against the management of coaching institutes for “cheating” them by not completing the courses within a stipulated time and demanded that such institutes should be regulated. They blocked roads, burnt tyres and shouted slogans against the coaching institutes across the state, sending the authorities into a tizzy. Some students took to the streets in Nalanada, Darbhanga, Siwan, Chapra, Muzaffarpur, and Vaishali districts on Thursday, blocking roads and burning tyres to press their demand. AGENCIES

Last-minute admission policies throw students off course

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Alice in Wonderland (or Blunderland) could well be the name of a book on Maharashtra’s admission policies, which have been changing every year since 2008, and have been announced at the eleventh hour. Some policies have been passed a few weeks before the admissions started, and some have even been passed after the admission process began. And now, in the middle of February, weeks before the SSC, ICSE and CBSE exams will start, Class X students are clueless on the policies that will govern them later this year.

In fact, the government has just opened the floor for discussion on it’s new ‘best of 5’ policy for junior college admissions, which it hopes to introduce this year itself. In a bid to standardise the marks scored by SSC students and those of other boards, the government wants to introduce a system where the marks in the best five subjects are counted during junior college admissions for SSC students. But no final decision has been taken on the matter yet.

While the online admission system, which was made compulsory for Mumbai last year, was a bit of a disaster, the government had earlier said that it wanted to introduce the system across Maharashtra from 2010. But the state has yet to take a final call on the matter.

When TOI contacted Sanjay Kumar—who has been Maharashtra’s school education secretary since 2008—on whether any final decision had been taken on the admission front, he said that TOI was aware of what was happening on the matter. When we asked him why admission policies were being passed at the very last minute, the line went dead.

“The problem with the state education system is that it is being run by babus who don’t give a damn,’’ said Xavier Luis, the parent of an ICSE student who took the government to court over its admission policies in 2008. The government lost the case.

In June 2008, the night the admission process started for junior college, the state government floated a government resolution on its website introducing its ‘percentile system,’ which involved admitting students to junior college taking into account their ‘percentile rank’ calculated using a formula released by the government. The system was challenged in the Bombay high court by ICSE parents, schools as well as the ICSE board, as they felt the formula favoured SSC students. The high court dismissed percentiles, and asked the state government to come out with its policies well in advance.

That’s a piece of advice the government refused to heed. In 2009, weeks before the admissions were to begin, the government announced that all junior colleges would have to reserve 90% of their seats for SSC students. Once again the policy was challenged in the high court and later thrown out. “Admission policies should be announced at least two years in advance. This will give children time to switch schools, or for that matter states, before they reach Class X,’’ said a city parent.

“Of course, college admissions should be announced well in advance,’’ said the principal of a reputed Mumbai college. “I feel that, instead of coming out with policies to compare students from different boards, Maharashtra should work towards putting its curriculum as well as assessment system on a par with the national boards. In junior college, we do find SSC students lagging behind their counterparts in other boards,’’ said another college principal.

Kids can’t go to school in pvt vehicles, says state

Anahita Mukherji | TNN

Mumbai: Schools in the state can no longer absolve themselves of all responsibility for their school bus system.

The state government-appointed committee on school buses, set up over a year ago, has come out with its final list of guidelines, which could change the haphazard and often hazard-fraught way that this system is currently run.

The committee has now made it mandatory for all schools to set up a transport committee to look into how their students travel to school. Interestingly, it has also made it compulsory for them to travel to school either by school bus or public transport.

“Those who want to walk to school can also do so. But no child will be allowed to come to school in a private vehicle unless temporary exemption is sought by parents,’’ said Indrani Malkani, a member of the committee. The onus of implementing the new guidelines will lie with the schools.

School buses will now have an age limit—eight years for a regular bus and 15 years for a CNG one—and will have to regularly undergo tests and prominently display their maintenance certificates.

It is also mandatory for them to have two fire extinguishers and an exit at the rear right side. All school buses will have to be yellow; if hired from private contractors, they will have to sport a yellow band across the body. School bus drivers will have to have at least five years’ experience.

The guidelines will now be sent to the state transport minister for his final nod.

From waste to biofuel: Bugs the way

Common Bacteria Tweaked To Digest Sugars From Biomass To Churn Out Green Diesel

Washington: Researchers have genetically engineered one of the most common bacteria on the planet — E coli — to digest simple sugars from plant waste and turn it into valuable biofuel.

They said their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of a one-step conversion of a renewable nonfood plant to fuel. The technology could lead to low-cost, low-carbon, highperformance renewable fuels, researcher Stephen del Cardayre said.

“We looked at the ideal feedstock, which is biomass, and then looked at the product we wanted to make, which is diesel, then we engineered this Ecoli to contain the genes that catalyzed all of the chemical reactions required to convert that feedstock into that fuel,” del Cardayre said.

“It’s a one-step process, so there’s no need to have to do two or three buckets of chemistry,” he said. “You put in your feedstock, the bug converts it to fuel, which is an oil that you can just scrape off the top.” Del Cardayre of privately held industrial biotechnology firm LS9 worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The work represents the next step forward in biofuel technology developed by the South San Francisco-based company. Biofuels, made from plants and animal fat, are alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Energy secretary Stephen Chu highlighted the research in remarks to a Capitol Hill forum on clean energy, jobs and security.

“The bacteria we find in our guts, E coli, they’ve taken and reprogrammed (with) simple sugars and made diesel,” Chu said. Chu said he was interested enough in the research to email the article’s authors and ask how soon the fuel might be available. He said they responded, “We’ll know in two years.”

Del Cardayre said his company expects to begin commercial production over the next two years in Brazil, where there is an abundant crop of cheap sugar cane juice that could be converted to diesel. Canada, which has invested heavily in the biofuel industry as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has ordered a study of the environmental impact of making biofuel. REUTERS

IT’S NO ROCKET SCIENCE: After feedstock is put into a bucket, the bug converts it to fuel, which can be just scraped off the top

Grading system in CBSE Class XII?

New Delhi: After the decision to start grading system in Class X board examinations, the government may introduce a similar system in Class XII, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said on Thursday.

Sibal said the idea has already been mooted and a committee has been set up. It will examine how grading could be introduced at Class XII.“We had a brainstorming session on this,”the minister told reporters here on the sidelines of a meeting on the school education programme. After the committee gives its report, it will go the Central Advisory Board for Education and then to the Council of Boards of School Education in India (CoBSE).

The HRD ministry has already introduced grading system in Class X under the CBSE from this year. The nine-point system starting from A1 (a grade for students who have done exceptionally well in the exam) to E2 (unsatisfactory performance). He said consultations were being held with stakeholders to arrive at a conclusion on introducing the grading system in Class XII. Sibal said that quality should be at the forefront of the education system, and access to quality education must be available for all. He said the nation cannot move forward with good education being limited to the elite class. AGENCIES

Edu right law soon, SSA to be its vehicle Plan Panel Promises Massive Outlay For ItAkshaya Mukul | TNN
New Delhi: The notification on the Right to Education is likely to be issued soon as most of preparatory work that has delayed it is nearly over. Even the Planning Commission has promised a big outlay for RTE that would kick start the historic legislation.

The HRD ministry had sought Rs 40,000 crore for elementary education and expects a substantial hike from last year’s Rs 13,100 crore for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Plan panel sources indicated that HRD is likely to get more than Rs 20,000 crore for SSA. The Finance Commission has already promised more than Rs 20,000 crore for the next 5 years for states.

After framing the model rules for RTE, drawing out the roadmap and process of harmonising RTE with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan that included changing the latter’s norms, the ministry feels that SSA will be the main vehicle to implement RTE.

The executive committee of SSA has already made changes in the norms that do not have much financial bearing and do not need cabinet approval. However, major changes like teacher norms will have a substantial financial implication and will, therefore, be taken to the Expenditure Finance Committee and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.

The lingering question of Centre-State share for RTE is also likely to be resolved soon. The PM has already held a meeting with HRD minister Kapil Sibal, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia in this connection.

Sources said while states have been demanding a 90:10 spending pattern between the Centre and States, HRD would like it to be 75:25. “The SSA funding pattern is 55:45 but RTE cannot follow the same pattern. States do not have the money,” the sources said.

As for the change in SSA norms, it has been decided that all existing Education Guarantee Scheme centres that have been functioning for two years will be upgraded to regular schools.

Provision has also been made in SSA norms that upto 0.5% of a district’s outlay may be utilised for community mobilisation but it should be within the overall management cost of 6%. Change has also been made in case of provision for disabled children from the existing Rs 1,200 per child annually to Rs 3,000. Also, money for civil works can be utilised for library purpose and the fund for a school can be used for buying play material.

COLD START
Centre-state share for RTE remains a lingering question but is likely to be resolved soon. PM is in talks with Pranab Mukherjee States want a 90:10 spending pattern between Centre and states; HRD ministry wants it to be 75:25