Aid reaches drought victims in Islamist area of Somalia

The Red Cross says it has delivered food into one of Somalia's worst hit drought areas, controlled by the Islamist militant group al-Shabab.
Working through a local committee, the Red Cross delivered by lorry food for 24,000 people.

The badly needed aid was distributed to families in the town of Baardhere, north-west of the capital Mogadishu.

But the World Food Programme says it cannot reach 2.2m people inside Somalia.

The food was delivered by the Red Cross was sent in from Mogadishu and given to locals and others who had come to the town to escape the famine.

The delivery took place on Saturday, and the Red Cross are now moving on to other areas.

The aid consisted of beans, rice and oil - enough rations to last a family one month.

This indicates that although al-Shabab has halted food aid by some agencies in areas they control, other agencies can operate in their territory.

Banned aid
This is vital, if the flow of Somalis into neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia is to be reduced.

The World Food Programme is among the agencies banned by the Islamists.

Executive Director Josette Sheeran, who is in the area, says this is limiting the aid they can provide.

"The epicentre of this famine and the drought is in Somalia," says Ms Sheeran.

"We are able to reach about 1.5m people in Somalia but there is about 2.2m million that are not being able to be reached directly by humanitarian workers."

But while the World Food Programme is on the banned list, others like the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontiers, are still working in al-Shabab territory.

The fruit of buildings set in London

Britain's most famous buildings in the capital, located in London, using the same copies of the fruits of his crew in London in 2009 .
The artistic work, for making 26 kinds of fruit and vegetables are using several hundred pieces.Have carved out a very careful manner.Challenge that must be just
like the original copies were taken.To meet the artists will take note, there are only three weeks.
They were amazing places the viewer in terms of appearance.Fruits, vegetables and food should be included in the awareness campaign, which was originally designed for.Providing information for tourists to know we are going to London

Final tour of Space Shuttle Atlantis: Spacecraft era is over 30 years

Space Shuttle Atlantis with the end of the journey as the past 30 years, America has come to an end of the signal to run program. Own understanding of the universe of sky and earth, humans have changed space Atlantis Commander Cruz said Ferguson.

In the United States produced a total of five spacecraft. Eva telescope helped hundreds of satellites in the hub.
As the first U.S. astronaut in 1983 otattai AGILE celancar. Until space players - paid for satellites launched by a rocket that can be used only once. Its unique space that can be used again and again otattai.

Kalpana Chawla

135 missions have been undertaken so far by spacecraft.

At the same time two spacecraft in space by a bomb, killing 14 people, including Indian-born Kalpana Chawla.

The other two have already produced a total of 5 spacecraft Given to museums. Atlantis shuttle is placed in a museum.

Next to this project coming to an end and the U.S. space station, NASA pataviyilapparkal 4 thousand employees.

At the same time to retire the spacecraft, NASA determined that the claims paid by the U.S. space research tataipatatu.

But the rockets made by the private sector for use in the United States until the missions of the United States held by Russia's coyas rockets.

Artificial liver in mice by the body and Adventure!

Threatening people all over the world have created new diseases. Their task is to detect the drug at the same time. In general, new drugs are tested on mice. It will get success, failure analysis is carried out exclusively with men.

However, these studies involving mice with human cells were developed for testing of new drugs by the liver.

The quality of the drugs, researchers say will know instantly and accurately. By this time, it is possible to get a disease, medical researchers hope the drug will soon settle.

Alice Chen, chief of medicine at the University of Massachusetts in the U.S. This is a record of clinical research faculty too rakes.

Information in this release are as follows: the human cells and mouse lung hepatocaitas new drug for testing with the artificially created liver cells, adapted for mice.

After it was confirmed that human liver-like functions of these new drugs were experimental. It would be perutavi of genes for clinical studies.

The anticipated success of these efforts is yet unavailable.

The ball is flying at a speed of 37Kmph

Pantutan flying around town doing some changes in the size of a basketball! Japanese inspired design engineer called Futuristic Circular Flying Object flying ball!
This control by electromagnetic waves, which flies without any special sensor motamal using the designer
itself consists of a Micro-hole camera.. It thus deals with the free trip, its mass is only a mere 340grams ...!

Penguins take to the air

Penguins can’t fly. But they can get airborne.

In fact, taking to the air, for even a brief instant, is actually a vital strategy penguins employ to avoid being eating by predators such as leopard seals or orcas.

Now scientists have worked out the secret technique that penguins use to get airborne. It involves wrapping their bodies in a cloak of air bubbles – and it turns out to be the same technique that engineers use to speed the movement of ships and torpedoes through water.

Another interesting aspect of the discovery is that it was made by scientists examining in minute detail footage shot for the progr

amme Blue Planet, a landmark natural history series filmed by the BBC’s own Natural History Unit.

Wales' first solar park powers up in Pembrokeshire

The first solar park in Wales is expected to start converting sunlight into electricity later at the Rhosygilwen estate in Pembrokeshire.
Almost 10,000 solar panels have been imported from the United States and are placed in 12 lines in a six-acre field.

The £2.5m investment will be onstream three weeks before the UK government lowers the subsidy for large-scale solar energy investors.

The site's owner Western Solar still hopes to double its size.

It is run by Dr Glen Peters who owns Rhosygilwen mansion and art centre with his family.

He said: "There are 10,000 panels here. They are very cutting edge from the States.

"They are thin film, particularly suited to our climate here of largely cloudy skies."

He has planning consent for a development twice the size but had to rethink his plans.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

The large-scale companies won't be able to make the profit they have been”

Dr Owen Guy Swansea University

"There was no bank financing available. I then had to take a total act of faith and said 'okay, we will halve the scheme, we will do one megawatt initially' and I basically raided my pension fund."

The development would be enough to power 300 homes.

Other applications for three and five megawatt solar parks at Cynheidre and Ffos Las in west Wales are said to be still in planning.

But while Rhosygilwen has beaten the government's closing of a lucrative loophole, developers like Nigel Payne of Allied Renewables in Swansea are setting their sights lower.

His company hopes to complete three much smaller, 50 kilowatt, solar parks by September.
Expansion concern

Another 10 are in the planning stage and, by reducing the size of the output, will still be able to generate a return of 30.7p per kilowatt hour.

"It spreads the feed-in tariff to what it was designed for - not supporting large-scale solar farms where subsidies would be absolutely gobbled up," he said.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has said from 1 August tariffs would be reduced for large solar panel investors.

Any large-scale solar farms above 250 kilowatts, and up to 5 megawatts, will be able to claim 8.5p per kilowatt hour.

Schemes between 150 kilowatts and 250 kilowatts will be able to claim 15p per kilowatt hour and schemes ranging from 50 kilowatts to 150 kilowatts 19p per kilowatt hour.

Solar installations below 50 kilowatts are unchanged.

The average household installation, less than 4 kilowatts, will still be claiming the highest bracket of 43.3p per kilowatt hour.

With the solar industry increasing over the past 12 months from generating 4 megawatt of power in Britain to 96 megawatts, Dr Owen Guy, Swansea University's senior lecturer in nano technology, said there were some concerns that expansion could slow down.

"It's still available for the small-scale projects. Individuals will be able to install four kilowatt systems on their homes and will still be able to get a good return on their investment," he said.

"But the large scale companies wont be able to make the profit they have been."

Non-invasive embryo gene screen

Fertility doctors say they have found a non-invasive way to screen IVF embryos for genetic abnormalities.

The current method involves taking cells from the embryo itself, which experts fear may be harmful.

Now UK researchers say it is possible to run the same checks on cells surrounding the fertilised egg that are normally thrown away.

The test could tell a woman if her baby was likely to have a condition like Down's syndrome.

It would not only be less invasive, but cheaper too.

Lead researcher Elpida Fragouli, from Oxford University, said: "In the ovary, the eggs are surrounded by a cloud of tiny cells, known as cumulus cells.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

It would be much cheaper, much less invasive and something that may have a good clinical application”

Stuart Lavery Fertility expert

"Cumulus cells are routinely stripped off eggs during IVF treatments and are usually discarded, so it should be straightforward to obtain them for analysis."

Dr Fragouli's team examined cumulus cells from 26 women undergoing genetic screening prior to IVF treatment.

They found abnormalities in the cumulus cells that appeared to tally with genetic errors in the eggs they had surrounded.

Dr Fragouli added: "We are still in the process of establishing the usefulness of these genes as non-invasive markers of egg chromosome status and quality.

"However, it is interesting that several of these genes are involved in vital cellular functions of the cumulus cells and egg they enclose, such as cell signalling and regulation, hormonal response and cell death, and so they may shed light on the genetic origins of chromosome abnormality."

UK fertility expert Stuart Lavery said: "It would be much cheaper, much less invasive and something that may have a good clinical application.

"Potentially what it may allow us to do is to have the ability of picking the best embryo from the best egg which means that we can hopefully move towards single embryo transfer."

Putting only one fertilised egg into the womb avoids multiple births, which are known to increase the health risks of both mother and child.

Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant

Surgeons in Sweden have carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.

Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.

Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected. The surgeons stress a windpipe can also be made within days.

The 36-year-old cancer patient is doing well a month after the operation.

Professor Paolo Macchiarini from Spain led the pioneering surgery, which took place at the Karolinska University Hospital.

In an interview with the BBC, he said he now hopes to use the technique to treat a nine-month-old child in Korea who was born with a malformed windpipe or trachea.

Professor Macchiarini already has 10 other windpipe transplants under his belt - most notably the world's first tissue-engineered tracheal transplant in 2008 on 30-year-old Spanish woman Claudia Costillo - but all required a donor.

Indistinguishable

The key to the latest technique is modelling a structure or scaffold that is an exact replica of the patient's own windpipe, removing the need for a donor organ.

To do this he enlisted the help of UK experts were given 3D scans of the 36-year-old African patient, Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene. The geology student currently lives in Iceland where he is studying for a PhD.

Using these images, the scientists at University College London were able to craft a perfect copy of Mr Beyene's trachea and two main bronchi out of glass.

They then coated this was then flown to Sweden and soaked in a solution of stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow.

After two days, the millions of holes in the porous windpipe had been seeded with the patient' own tissue.

Dr Alex Seifalian and his team used this fragile structure to create a replacement for the patient, whose own windpipe was ravaged by an inoperable tumour.

Despite aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the cancer had grown to the size of a golf ball and was blocking his breathing. Without a transplant he would have died.

During a 12-hour operation Professor Macchiarini removed all of the tumour and the diseased windpipe and replaced it with the tailor-made replica.

The bone marrow cells and lining cells taken from his nose, which were also implanted during the operation, are able to divide and grow, turning the inert windpipe scaffold into an organ indistinguishable from a normal healthy one.

And, importantly, Mr Beyene's body will accept it as its own, meaning he will not need to take the strong anti-rejection drugs that other transplant patients have to.

Professor Macchiarini said this was the real breakthrough.

"Thanks to nanotechnology, this new branch of regenerative medicine, we are now able to produce a custom-made windpipe within two days or one week.

"This is a synthetic windpipe. The beauty of this is you can have it immediately. There is no delay. This technique does not rely on a human donation."

He said many other organs could be repaired or replaced in the same way.

A month on from his operation, Mr Beyene is still looking weak, but well.

Sitting up in his hospital bed, he said: "I was very scared, very scared about the operation. But it was live or die."

He says he is looking forward to getting back to Iceland to finish his studies and then returning to his home in Eritrea where he will be reunited with his wife and young family, and meet his new three-month-old child.

He says he is eternally grateful to the medical team that has saved his life.

News of the World to close amid hacking scandal

This Sunday's issue of the News of the World will be the last edition of the paper, News International chairman James Murdoch has said.
In the past few days, claims have been made that the paper authorised hacking into the mobile phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of 7/7 bombing victims.

Mr Murdoch said proceeds from the last edition would go to good causes.

Downing Street said it had no role or involvement in the decision.

The News of the World is the UK's biggest selling newspaper and has been in circulation for 168 years.

No advertisements will run in this weekend's paper - instead any advertising space will be donated to charities and good causes.

News International has refused to comment on rumours that The Sun could now become a seven-day-a-week operation.

"What happens to The Sun is a matter for the future", a spokeswoman for News International said. The Sun, another News International tabloid, is currently published from Monday to Saturday.

In a statement made to staff, Mr Murdoch said the good things the News of the World did "have been sullied by behaviour that was wrong - indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company".

"The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself."

He went on: "In 2006, the police focused their investigations on two men. Both went to jail. But the News of the World and News International failed to get to the bottom of repeated wrongdoing that occurred without conscience or legitimate purpose.

"Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued.

"As a result, the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter.

"We now have voluntarily given evidence to the police that I believe will prove that this was untrue and those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences. This was not the only fault.

"The paper made statements to Parliament without being in the full possession of the facts. This was wrong.

"The company paid out-of-court settlements approved by me. I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so. This was wrong and is a matter of serious regret."

He reiterated that the company was fully co-operating with the two ongoing police investigations.

He added: "While we may never be able to make up for distress that has been caused, the right thing to do is for every penny of the circulation revenue we receive this weekend to go to organisations - many of whom are long-term friends and partners - that improve life in Britain and are devoted to treating others with dignity."

Labour MP Tom Watson told Sky News it was "a victory for decent people up and down the land, and I say good riddance to the News of the World"

Minced beef chappli kebabs

Ingredients
450g/1lb minced beef

4 tsp chickpea flour (also called gram flour or besan flour)

1 tbsp whole coriander seeds

2-3 bird's eye chillies

¾ tsp salt, or to taste

¾ tsp whole cumin seeds

6 tbsp finely chopped, peeled onion

4 tbsp fresh coriander, coarsely chopped

6 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters

vegetable or peanut oil

To serve

naan bread

sliced onion rings

a selection of chutneys

fresh coriander leaves

Preparation method

Place the beef in a bowl.

Put the chickpea flour in a small, cast-iron frying pan and set over a medium-high heat. Stir the flour around until it turns a very light golden-brown and emits a faintly roasted smell.

Remove the pan from the heat. Allow to cool for a few seconds, then add to the bowl with the beef.

Crush or grind the coriander seeds in a mortar and pestle or in a clean coffee grinder. Add to the bowl with the beef.

Finely chop the chillies and add to the bowl.

Add the salt, cumin, chopped coriander, onion and tomatoes. Mix well and form mixture into six patties about 1cm/½in thick.

Put the oil, enough to come to a depth of 3mm/¼in, in a large frying pan set over a medium-high heat.

When hot, put in as many patties as will fit easily in a single layer and cook for about two minutes on each side or until browned then turn the heat down and cook for another two minutes or until they're cooked through. Repeat, as necessary, until all the kebabs are cooked.

Serve the kebabs hot, with naan bread, sliced onion rings, fresh coriander leaves and a selection of chutneys.

Ofcom draws up UK broadband map

An interactive map, created for the telecoms watchdog Ofcom, has revealed the state of broadband around the UK.
It shows that 68% of homes had a fixed connection with an average speed of 7.5Mbps (megabits per second).

Residents of Luton and Newtonabbey were most likely to have access to superfast broadband (over 24Mbps).

But 14% of connected households remained in the slow lane with speeds of less than 2Mbps.

The clickable map allows people to see what take-up and speed is like in their area.

"We are now developing a clear picture of the UK's fixed broadband infrastructure and how it delivers for consumers," said Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards.

"We hope that this information will stimulate further rollout of broadband infrastructure and better performance for households and businesses."

Cash for connections

Ofcom hopes that the data will be useful to local authorities as they bid for money to bring faster services to their areas.

The government has set a target of making the UK the best place for broadband in Europe by 2015.

Both BT and Virgin are expanding their superfast broadband networks and some extra government money (£830m) has been made available to stimulate roll out to areas that might otherwise be considered not economically viable.

The map ranks each area according to four criteria:

availability of superfast broadband (defined as speed above 24Mbps
average broadband take-up
average speeds
percentage of homes with less than 2Mbps

Areas have been colour coded, with green ranking highest and red lowest.

Slow burn

Brighton and Hove had the highest take-up of broadband services with 80% of residents connected.

People in Edinburgh enjoyed the fastest average speeds of 10.1Mbps.

Northern Ireland had a high availability of superfast broadband - 97%, although there was no indication of how many people were using the faster services.

Some experts claim that take-up of fast broadband services has been slow.

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of broadband news site ThinkBroadband believes that Ofcom should have included more data.

"The mapping of broadband take-up data is quite interesting, although I would like to see more exploration of other data sets (population age, income, etc.) which should be available as it's the correlation between these different factors which would be quite helpful in identifying trends.

More details on the reasons for lack of take-up would also be helpful," he said.

Japan nuclear 'stress test' plans criticised

Japan's plan to hold further safety tests on its nuclear plants has drawn widespread criticism, and heaped more pressure on Prime Minister Naoto Kan.

The government announced the tests just weeks after declaring that the nuclear plants were safe to restart.

Officials gave no timescale, sparking concern that the country could face power outages all year.

The 11 March earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima Daiichi plant, causing a review of nuclear power.

Engineers are still working to shut down the plant, where three reactors melted down and radioactive material has leaked out.

The 9.0-magnitude earthquake - the country's most powerful on record - created a massive tsunami that levelled towns along the country's north-east coast.

'Fuelling confusion'

A local mayor said he had withdrawn permission to restart a nuclear plant in his town in protest at the latest tests announced by the government.

Hideo Kishimoto, mayor of Genkai town, had consented on Monday to the plant's reactors reopening.

It was due to be the first to restart after the tsunami.

But Mr Kishimoto said of the government's announcement: "This made me feel my decision was meaningless, and I feel furious about it."

The government said it was satisfied that Japan's plants were safe, but the stress tests were designed to allay people's fears.

Two-thirds of Japan's 54 nuclear reactors are currently shut down as the government grapples with a rising tide of anti-nuclear sentiment among the public.

Prime Minister Kan has been under huge pressure over his handling of the nuclear crisis and the reconstruction of areas devastated by the tsunami and earthquake.

And critics have once again rounded on him after Wednesday's announcement of stress tests.

The announcement did not specify what the tests would entail, or how long they would take.

The Nikkei business daily said in an editorial that the announcement had "fuelled confusion".

The financial firm Goldman Sachs said in a statement that the prospect of sufficient nuclear power being available in Japan before summer peak demand was now remote.

The value of shares in Japanese energy firms fell sharply after the announcement.

Trade Minister Banri Kaieda, who had announced last month that the plants were safe to restart, said the extra tests were needed to "further increase the sense of safety".

Mr Kaieda told parliament on Thursday he would take responsibility for the confusion over the restarting of nuclear plants "when the time is right".

But he said he had no immediate plans to resign.

Waves from the tsunami caused back-up generators at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to fail, disabling reactor cooling systems and leading to meltdowns, explosions and radiation leaks.

The plant's operator Tepco has come under heavy criticism for failing to sufficiently prepare for the natural disasters.

Scientists use inkjet printing to produce solar cells

Solar energy may soon become easier to capture, say researchers who have developed a novel method to produce solar cells using inkjet printing.

Oregon State University researchers have come up with a technology similar to that commonly used to print documents and photos.

They say their method is quicker and less expensive than traditional solar cell manufacturing techniques.

It could also reduce raw material waste by 90%, they add.

As people move away from conventional combustion-type technologies, more attention is paid to renewable energy types, and solar energy is one of them.

It is known as a clean and sustainable form of energy, but this is offset by the manufacture of solar panels which is an expensive and complicated process.

Finding a balance between costs of production and efficiency could become key to future manufacture of solar cells, and many scientists around the world have been concentrating on developing new materials and methods to do that.

The recent inkjet approach is one of those novel methods.
"This is very promising and could be an important new technology to add to the solar energy field," said Professor Chih-hung Chang, the lead author of the study, which appeared in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells journal.

"Solar energy is the most abundant and clean energy source on Earth.

"Considering the high price of petroleum and other fossil fuels, solar cells will definitely have a bright future."

Crucial issue

The team used chalcopyrite - a material composed of copper, indium, gallium and selenium and also known as CIGS. It has a much greater solar efficiency than silicon, currently used to manufacture solar panels.

The researchers then printed chalcopyrite onto the surface of the cell, applying a technique similar to a common inkjet approach, but with a special type of ink.

They managed to produce solar cells of 5% efficiency - and say that in future, they will aim to increase this figure to about 12% to make the product commercially viable.
Wei Wang, one of the scientists, told BBC News that the main advantages of the method were the ease of manufacturing and low cost.

"We produced CIGS solar cells using cheap inkjet printing under normal conditions," he said.

Also, she added, there was almost no waste in the process - unlike with a more expensive method of vapour phase deposition.

Professor Chang agreed that the waste issue was crucial.

"Some of the materials we want to work with for the most advanced solar cells, such as indium, are relatively expensive," he said.

"If that's what you're using you can't really afford to waste it, and the inkjet approach almost eliminates the waste."

Efficiency and cost

CIGS cells produced by conventional means typically have an efficiency of 15-18%, but the methods of manufacturing are known to be a lot more time-consuming, or involve expensive vacuum systems or toxic chemicals.

An alternative to CIGS is silicon panels.

"The best cells that we put on house roofs at the moment are conventional silicon cells and those have an efficiency from 20 to 25% routinely, but the manufacturing costs and materials costs are extremely high," said Dr Martyn McLachlan from Imperial College, London.

He thinks that, although it is less efficent, the cheap manufacturing costs of the inkjet approach means it is a "significant development".

"If efficiency and costs can be balanced, then lower efficiency cells become attractive," he said.

ADHD+Ink=Mistakes galore

Ever since I was a young boy in 7th grade, I have loved erasable ink pens. I never connected that love with my ADHD before, but recent evidence has shown me they’re inseparable.

When I was younger, I didn’t so much write as much as I skipped, crashed, and tumbled with a pen across the page. Somehow my attempts at cursive would drop a letter or add an extra loop depending on how distracted or excited I was at the moment. My writing was filled with crossed out mistakes as well as corrections squeezed in on the tops and sides. It was a mess.

Then Heaven sent me EraserMates. Suddenly, I could correct my constant mistakes in penmanship. I used EraserMates all through Junior High and High School. By the end of High School, however, I had switched from cursive to printed letters in all caps. It was slower, but it was also less prone to error. Even then the erasable pen was my pen of choice. I lived with the smeary ink and the blue pinky finger because I knew the trade off was worth it. I could correct my constant typos and goofs.
Mistakes G̸o̸r̸e̸ Galore
You know the kind. Complete sentences written only in your head, but somehow left off the paper. Writing music lyrics or snippets of conversation from around you accidentally into your prose. Dropped words. Complete changes of subject that ripped the readers brain in a 90° angle away from the point. My written page was an exercise in literary torture. An erasable pen was like magic for those moments. I could scrub away my mistakes and leave only a ghostly smear to mark their existence.

By the early 90s I was doing everything on computer, so programs with Autosave and Undo were my new miracles. But I still needed the ability to erase my written mistakes. When my kids entered school I tried to share my excitement with them about erasable ink, but the oldest two had no interest. Then my third daughter took to them like a viral video on Facebook . Curiously, she also had mild ADHD. She discovered she loved erasable ink for all the same reasons I did.

Fortunately for her, there is a veritable cornucopia of erasable pens on the market these days. This is a boon for you, too.