MOVIE OF THE MONTH: JUNE 2011

SOLARIS 

Director         : Andrei Tarkovsky
Based on        : Stanisław Lem
Music             : Eduard Artemyev
Camera          : Vadim Yusov
Blu-Ray Disc : 26 May 2011
Running time : 165 min.  

Modern viewers may be more familiar with Steven Soderbergh & George Clooney’s remake of Solaris, a good film on its own merits as it’s so different from its source in tone, but the massively influential original version by the legendary Andrei Tarkovsky holds a far more prominent place in film history. Tarkovsky’s mesmerizing piece of science fiction has been a part of the Criterion Collection for some time but it’s been chosen to get the upgrade to the Blu-ray department of the legendary line of releases and so the standard DVD, which was the only version we could get our hands on, was given a new treatment as well.

It’s hard to describe Solaris accurately. It’s such an unusual movie in that it’s a piece from a genre in which we’ve become accustomed to things like space creatures, but it’s far more based on human psychology than alien technology. With elements of “2001: A Space Odyssey” or, for younger viewers, even “Event Horizon,” “Solaris” is about the roots of madness and the devastating impact of human emotion.

Based on the novel of the same name, by Stanislaw Lem  is about the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and non-human species. Tarkovsky's adaptation is a “drama of grief  and partial recovery” concentrated upon the thoughts and the consciences of the cosmonaut scientists studying an extra-terrestrial (alien) life.The psychologically complex and slow narrative of Solaris has been contrasted to kinetic Western science fiction films, which rely upon fast narrative pace and special effects to communicate character psychology and an imagined future.

Solaris is about a space station circling the titular planet. The crew has essentially gone crazy. A psychologist goes there to see if there’s anything can be done and he falls victim to the same problems. It’s not long before he’s communicating with his long-dead wife and things get weirder from there. The less you know about Solaris, the better. Just know that it’s a piece in which the subconscious of the average man is truly the final frontier.

Tarkovsky’s film is strangely mesmerizing, in no small part because it’s so different from what we’ve come to expect from films set in outer space. It’s undeniably slow but it doesn’t feel overly long (even at close to 3 hours). It’s a masterfully crafted piece by one of history’s most-admired directors. If you’re a young reader who wants to expand his view of science fiction, it would be a fantastic place to start.

And you couldn’t do better than the Criterion edition which includes a complete second disc of special features along with a strong transfer, even on standard DVD. I wish we could appraise the HD transfer, and the Blu-ray is definitely the way to go if you have the option, but the standard transfer is better than average.

Salman Rushdie calls Solaris "a sci-fi masterpiece", and has urged that "This exploration of the unreliability of reality and the power of the human unconscious, this great examination of the limits of rationalism and the perverse power of even the most ill-fated love, needs to be seen as widely as possible before it's transformed by Steven Soderbergh and James Cameron into what they ludicrously threaten will be '2001 meets Last Tango in Paris.' Tarkovsky must be turning over in his grave.

Film Review Text Courtesy : http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com

To buy DVD BluRay            : http://www.criterion.com/films/553-solaris

BOOK OF THE MONTH: JUNE 2011

                                                                                 

Title          : The Magic of Reality: 
                    How We Know What's Really True

Author      : Richard Dawkins

Illustrator : Dave McKean

Publisher  : Free Press

Pages       : 288

ISBN        : 978-1439192818

Price        : $19.59

Evolutionary biologist, author, and outspoken atheist Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist, has a new book coming out. This time, it’s a children’s book called The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True. Each chapter is a question like: What is an earthquake? What is a rainbow? What is the sun? Each chapter begins with a series of myths seemingly answering those questions, and then I counter that with explanations about the true nature of things. 

Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Gene revolutionized the way we see natural selection. His blockbuster The God Delusion provoked worldwide debate. Now this master science writer has teamed up with David McKean, a master of the graphic novel, to create a new genre: the graphic science book. He looks at the building blocks of matter, the first humans, the sun, explaining the life and death of stars; why there’s a night and a day, ranging from our solar system to the inner workings of our planet; and finally, he poses a question that still baffles scientists: When did everything begin?

The book is much needed, particularly for young kids who don't, thanks to the high stakes testing-driven emphasis on reading and math, get much science instruction in school at all. By not answering their questions, we're essentially creating a generation of kids who don't see the point of independently investigating the truth or asking "why?" about anything. Without thorough, scientifically sound answers, students natural curiosity about our universe simply withers. The book is a frame-by-frame look at the infinite beauty behind everyday phenomenon.

Will school librarians stock the book? There will be some school communities that balk at putting it on shelves out of fear of angry letters from parents who feel the book conflicts with their religious beliefs. But, kids do need to know the scientific facts, and if parents disagree, the book at least provides a chance to have a discussion with their children about what they believe and why they believe it.

Review Text Courtesy     : http://www.openculture.com, http://www.good.is, http://www.amazon.com 
To know the release date: http://richarddawkins.net/

EVENT OF THE MONTH JUNE 2011

  WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2011

June 1-5, New York City 

The World Science Festival returns to New York City June 1-5, 2011 with a sweeping array of cutting-edge science programs designed to make the esoteric understandable and the familiar fascinating. The world’s leading scientific minds will be joined by renowned artists and influential thinkers for a five-day celebration of science through discourse and debate, dance and theater, film, music and the visual arts. The result is the nation’s most anticipated science happening with something for everyone, from invigorating discussions with revered researchers, to must-see events for young scientists and their families, to mesmerizing performances and ground-breaking exhibitions.

The Mission of the World Science Festival is to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future. The World Science Festival is a production of the Science Festival Foundation, a  non-profit organization headquartered in New York City.

The World Science Festival was founded byBrian Green aColumbia University Physics professor and author of several popular-science books, and his wife, Emmy Award winning television journalist Tracy Day. Inspired by a visit to the 2005Festival della Scienza in Genoa , where Greene had been invited to speak, the two decided that a similar festival in New York City would be a unique opportunity to bring science to the wider public. As they envisioned it, the events were meant to be rooted in science, but also to conform to the production standards of professional TV or theater productions.

The foundation organizes the World Science Festival (WSF) in partnership with Columbia University, New York University, the City University of New York, Rockefeller University and the Cooper Union, as well as cultural institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. Financial support comes from individuals, from numerous foundations, and from corporate sponsors which, for the 2008 festival, included the Sloan Foundation, the Simons Foundation, the Templeton Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Cullman Foundation, and Credit Suisse.

For Events, visit    : www.worldsciencefestival.com 

Questions? Email : web@worldsciencefest.org 

 

 

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: JUNE 2011

 GARIFUNA BIG-EARED BAT

The new species of bat, Garifuna big-eared bat (Micronycteris garifuna)
has been named after the Garifuna people who inhabit St. Vincent.
Photo Courtesy: www.holykaw.alltop.com

Phylum   : Chordata
Class      : Mammalia

Order     : Chiroptera
Family    : Phyllostomidae
Genus     : Micronycteris
Species   : garifuna

Researchers have declared a new species of bat from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. While the new bat had been documented before, it was long believed to be a member of a similar species that is found throughout South America and a few Caribbean Islands, that is until PhD student Peter Larsen noticed it was far larger than its relative down south.

The bat is a few grams heavier and is a few millimeters longer in most measurements that we took" than its closest relative the aptly named little big-eared bat (Micronycteris megalotis). While this may not sound like much, the nre bats weigh only around 8 grams and measure around 30 millimeters, so a few grams and millimeters here or there makes a big difference in these animals.

Researchers believed the new bat species became stranded from the mainland population between 600,000 and a million years ago, theorizing that sea-level rise due to melting glacier eventually cut St. Vincent off. Once stranded, the bat species took its own evolutionary path, including becoming noticeably larger and changes in its cranium.

Larsen and his team decided to name the species the Garifuna big-eared bat (Micronycteris garifuna) after the Garifuna people who inhabit St. Vincent and other areas of the Caribbean and Central America. The Garifuna ancestry includes native Carib, Arawak, and West African.

The Garifuna bat preys on insects, providing an ecosystem service to the island by keeping insect populations in check. In fact, according to another graduate student, Lizette Siles, who worked on the study, the Garifuna bats are especially adept hunters.
Bats are one of the most diverse mammal families in the world (second only to rodents) with around 1,100 known species. Although they are often unfairly loathed by people, they provide a number of important services including pest control and seed dispersal.

Thousands of new species are discovered every year, but new mammals are among the least likely. In 2008, researchers documented the discovery of 18,225 new species, only 41 (0.22 percent) of which were new mammals. 2011 has alo been declared as the "Year of the Bat".

Citation: Peter A. Larsen, Lizette Siles , Scott C. Pedersen, Gary G. Kwiecinski. A new species of Micronycteris (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) from Saint Vincent, Lesser Antilles. Mammalian Biology (2011).

News Source Courtesy : http://news.mongabay.com/

SCIENCE OF THE MONTH: MAY 2011

                                                                              

An increase of Rs 5 per litre in the price of diesel and at least a Rs 25 for LPG  in India.
One of the administrative decisions of USA in its Colony, ie., India!

1 May 2011: NASA is preparing a sophisticated new observatory, designed to study the relationship between the saltiness of Earth's oceans and the planet's climate, for its launch into orbit next month. The Earth-observing Aquarius/SAC-D mission will measure the salt levels, or salinity, of the ocean surface, and the subsequent interactions between ocean circulation, the water cycle and other drivers of the planet's climate. Link: http://www.nasa.gov/

2 May 2011: A rumor is floating around the physics community that the world's largest atom smasher may have detected a long-sought subatomic particle called the Higgs boson, also known as the "Godparticle".The controversial rumor is based on what appears to be a leaked internal note from physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It's not entirely clear at this point if the memo is authentic and some physicists say the note may be a hoax. Link: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/

3 May 2011: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has built a supercomputer, which will be India's fastest (220 Trillion Floating Point Operations per second). Named Satish Dhawan Supercomputing Facility, it is located at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram. The supercomputer, which has been named SAGA-220 (Super-computer for Aerospace with GPU Architecture-220 TeraFLOPS), would be used for solving complex aerospace problems. Link: http://www.isro.org/

4 May 2011: The National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) in Hyderabad will an 8-kilometer-deep borehole in Koyna, a region in western to study earthquakes. The project, to be done in collaboration with the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, will be the fourth such earthquake observatory. Similar boreholes have been drilled on the Kola Peninsula in Russia; in Bavaria, Germany; and on the San Andreas Fault in California. Link: http://www.ngri.org.in/

5 May 2011: Fifty years ago, on May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to go into space. Shepard became a true American hero at a time when it looked like the United States was losing the race to explore space.With Yuri Gagarin already back on Earth after his orbital flight into space, it looked like the United States was technologically inferior to the Soviet Union when it came to getting humans into space. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Shepard

6 May 2011: Mark your calendars for November 8, because that’s when a massive asteroid will sweep past the Earth. The asteroid called 2005 YU55 has a diameter of 1,300 feet and will approach the planet at 0.85 lunar distances.Due the object’s size and whisking by so close to Earth, an extensive campaign of radar, visual and infrared observations is being planned. Because of its size and proximity to Earth, it has designated the space rock as a “potentially hazardous" asteroid. Link: http://minorplanetcenter.net/iau/mpc.html

7 May 2011: Scientists of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) have developed a Digital Radiotherapy Simulator, a device to locate tumours and aid radiotherapy planning and verification. The Digital Radiotherapy Simulator helps in identifying the organs at risk and in localising the cancer-affected tissues. The first machine with the Radiotherapy simulator has been installed by BARC in Indian Red Cross Society Hospital, Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Link: http://www.barc.ernet.in/

8 May 2011: India is moving towards formally joining a me­ga global initiative aimed at co­nstructing the world’s lar­ge­st and most sensitive radio telescope that will help expl­ore unknown territories in science. As many as 67 organisations from 20 countries are involved in building the 1.5 billion Euro telescope known as Square Kilometre Array (SKA).  It will be a gigantic radio telescope comprising 3,000 dish antennas, each about 15 mt wide, spread over a distance of 3,000 km. Link: http://www.skatelescope.org/

9 May 2011: High quality images of the Indian landmass and other countries beamed by India’s remote-sensing satellite, Resourcesat-2, were presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi by the  Indian Space Research Organisation. The images covered New Delhi, Surat, Bareilly and Dubai. ISRO on April 20, put three satellites in orbit, India’s Resourcesat-2, a joint Indo-Russian satellite called Youthsat and another satellite named X-Sat of Singapore. Link: http://www.isro.org/

10 May 2011: A massive radio telescope in rural West Virginia has begun listening for signs of alien life on 86 possible Earth-like planets. The giant dish this week began pointing toward each of the 86 planets - culled from a list of 1235 possible planets identified by NASA's Kepler space telescope - and will gather 24 hours of data on each one. The mission is part of the SETI project, which stands for Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, launched in the mid-1980s. Link: http://www.seti.org/

11 May 2011: India is moving towards co­nstructing the world’s lar­ge­st and most sensitive radio telescope known as Square Kilometre Array (SKA) that will help expl­ore unknown territories in science. As many as 67 organisations from 20 countries are involved in building the 1.5 billion Euro telescope . Last month, nine nations, including China established the SKA founding Board at a conference in Rome. India, however, could not sign in the letter of intent due to an administrative problem. Link: http://www.skatetelescope.org 

12 May 2011: Indian government has constituted a high level committee under principal scientific advisor R. Chidambaram todevelop technologies to protect vital government portals and online resources. The Defence Research and Development Organisation official also said the defence ministry had deliberations with auto majors like Tata and Mahindra to design a vehicle like the US High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWVor Humvee) used by American forces. Link: http://drdo.nic.in/

13 May 2011: A team of international researchers, led by Prof Zander Myburg from the Department of Genetics and the Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI) at the University of Pretoria (UP) has succeeded in sequencing  the complete genome of tree species, Eucalyptus grandis. It took four years for a team of 130 researchers from 18 countries to complete the genome sequence and annotate more than 40,000 genes contained within it. Link: http://www.phytozome.net/eucalyptus.php 

14 May 2011: The first-ever genetic study of the Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps) has revealed that this ground bird has the least genetic diversity among several endangered species. The study was coducted by scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehra Dun. The extremely low genetic variability within the birds was the  result of the phenomenon called  “bottleneck event”, ecologists believe. The study is  published in the journal Conservation Genetics. Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/105709/

15 May 2011: NASA has successfully launched the space shuttle Endeavour into orbit for its final flight.The launch was from the Kennedy Space Center for its 25th and final mission.The mission's crew is headed by Commander Mark Kelly. Endeavour will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and two S-band communications antennas to the space station. The mission will last 16 days.Originally, the space shuttle was scheduled to launch on April 19. Link: http://www.nasa.gov/

16 May 2011: A new species of giant dinosaur has been found in the province of Shandong, China.The new species, described as a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex  has been named Zhuchengtyrannus magnus. It is estimated to be about 11m long and 4m tall, weighing close to 7 tonnes. It is believed to have existed in North America and eastern Asia during the Late Cretaceous Period that dated back about 65 to 99 million years. Link: http://english.ivpp.cas.cn/au/bi/

17 May 2011: In a statement to mark the occasion of World AIDS Vaccine Day, observed on May 18 every year, India’s Union Science and Technology Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said that strategic global partnerships should be created to address scientific challenges in the path of the discovery of an AIDS vaccine. The first World AIDS Vaccine Day was observed on May 18, 1998 and the tradition continues today. Link: http://www.iavi.org.in/

18 May 2011: A three-day wild life census began in Kerala today  after a gap of nine years.Along with more than 2,000 officials, over 600 volunteers from across the state are taking part in the census.The census is being conducted in the 35 forest divisions of the state. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Kerala Forest Research Institute (KFRI) are also participating in the census process. It was in 2002 that such a survey was held for the last time in the state. Link: http://www.kfri.org/

19 May 2011: Famed physicist Stephen Hawking said in an interview with the UK Guardian published Monday that he rejects the idea of heaven, calling it a ’fairy story’ for people afraid to die. Hawking also wrote in his 2010 book The Grand Design that he believes God was not ‘necessary’ for the creation of the universe and that ‘spontaneous creation‚’ instead explains existence. Hawking's words have created a stir among the believers (of God) all over the world. Link: http://www.hawking.org.uk/

20 May 2011: Today is Endangered Species Day observed by conservationists and others as a way to keep the spotlight on efforts to save and restore animal and plant species in trouble. The US Postal Service last week unveiled its new "Save Vanishing Species Stamp" featuring an Amur tiger cub. The stamp, which will go on sale in September, is a joint effort of the postal service, the World Wildlife Fund and other conservation organizations. 2011 is World Turtle Year too. Link: http://www.stopextinction.org/

21 May 2011: Giving a boost to its communication services, India today successfully launched its advanced GSAT-8 satellite on board Arianespace rocket from Kourou in French Guiana. The 3,100 kg GSAT-8, was hurled into space by European launcher in a 31-minute mission on Ariane 5 rocket. ISRO's Master Control Facility at Hassan in Karnataka has confirmed the reception of signals from GSAT-8 and taken charge of the command and control of the satellite. Link: http://www.isro.org/scripts/futureprogramme.aspx

22 May 2011: The world's first cloned cat called Copy Cat or "CC" for short, is now nearly 10 years old and has three kittens. The Texas A&M University researcher Dr. Duane Kraemer who helped create Copy Cat said "CC" was one of 80 embryos created for the university's project, but she was the only one to develop into a full-term pregnancy once she was transferred to a surrogate mother. Copy Cat was born Dec. 22, 2001. Link: http://www.wowzone.com/clonecat.htm

23 May 2011: The Energy and Wetland Research Group (EWRG), Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have jointly mapped the solar hotspots of the country. The Solar hotspots, found based on the exploitable potential using high resolution global isolation data from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has found that the country’s favourable geographical location has made it one of the best locations for solar energy. Link: http://wgbis.ces.iisc.ernet.in/energy/

24 May 2011: A US-based geophysicist of Indian origin Krishan Khurana at the University of California, and his colleagues have found out the first direct evidence of a vast ocean of hot magma in the interior of  Io, the innermost of Jupiter’s four largest moons. The scientists analysed the records of  the Galileo mission, and observed that Io has a global subsurface magma layer. The findings are there in the journal Science. Link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/05/13/science.1201425

25 May 2011: Union Government today launched Haathi Mere Saathi (Elephant My Companion) campaign in partnership with the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI).The announcement was made at the ‘Elephant-8 Ministerial Meeting’ in New Delhi comprising eight countries Botswana, Congo, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Thailand, where two-thirds of the world’s wild elephant population is found. Elephant is India’s national heritage animal. Link: http://envfor.nic.in/

26 May 2011: Kudremukh National park(KNP) has been granted an approval as a Tiger Reserve by National Tiger Conservation Authority(NTCA). With this approval, KNP has become the sixth tiger reserve in Karnataka and 41st in the country.Located at the trijunction of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Chikmagalur, KNP is one of the largest expanses of grassland shola ecosystem in the midwestern ghats of Karnataka. Link: http://projecttiger.nic.in/

27 May 2011: The moon’s interior may contain 100 times more water than previously thought, perhaps as much as the Earth’s interior has, a new study has claimed. the finding came from researchers from Case Western Reserve University who analysed the volcanic samples of the ancient lunar crust. In fact, the measured quantities, could be as high as the water contained in the Earth’s upper mantle.If this is the case, it challenges a long-held theory about the moon’s formation. Link: http://www.case.edu/

28 May 2011:Nature Publishing Group is pleased to announce the launch of a series of affordable, high quality interactive textbooks in college-level science. The first textbook in the series, Principles of Biology, intended for the majors introductory biology course, will be available to the market on September 1, 2011. Principles of Biology is a high quality digital reinvention of the textbook. It uses more than 175 interactive lessons to help students master basic concepts. Link: http://www.nature.com/nature_education/index.html

29 May 2011: The World Science Festival returns to New York City on June 1-5, 2011 with an array of science programs. Scientific minds are joined by renowned artists and influential thinkers for a five-day celebration of science through discourse and debate, dance and theater, film, music and the visual arts. This science happening has something for everyone, from invigorating discussions, to events for young scientists and their families, to performances and exhibitions. Link: http://worldsciencefestival.com/


30 May 2011: A total lunar eclipse will be visible in India in the late hours of June 15.It will be visible in southern Asia, Africa and Australia and it  is the first of  two lunar eclipses in 2011 and the third of all eclipses to occur throughout the year. The eclipse can be best viewed in the northern-most region of the 'entire-eclipse zone' in central Asia, as well as Eastern Europe and northeastern Africa. A partial solar eclipse will also happen on June 2. However it will not be visible in India. Link: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/

MOVIE OF THE MONTH: MAY 2011

 PIRATES OF THE CARRIBBEAN:
ON STRANGER TIDES 

Director      : Rob Marshall
Producer    : Jerry Bruckheimer
Screenplay : Terry Rossio
Based on     : On Stranger Tides
Author        : Tim Powers
Music          : Hans Zimmer
Camera       : Dariusz Wolski
Studio          : Walt Disney Pictures
Release date: May 18, 2011

Disney is once again here with its fourth movie in its popular Pirates franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. It is the fourth film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, following Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. In the film, Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) is joined by Angelica (Penelope Cruz) in his search for the Fountain of Youth, confronting the infamous, real-life, legendary pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane). The plot draws inspiration from the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. It is directed by Rob Marshall, written by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

The movie is being distributed by Walt Disney Pictures and will be released in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2011, Australia on May 19, 2011, and the United States on May 20, 2011.The release will be presented in Disney Digital 3-D and IMAX 3D, as well as in traditional two-dimensional and IMAX formats. The film was first announced in 2008 and principal photography started in June 2010. The release is the first in the series to be directed by Rob Marshall and not Gore Verbinski.

Captain Jack Sparrow crosses paths with a woman from his past named Angelica. He is not sure if he's in love with her, or if she is a con artist who's trying to use him to find the fabled Fountain of Youth. After Angelica forces Captain Jack Sparrow to board Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, he finds himself on a new adventure. During the journey, Captain Jack Sparrow must face new challenges, like zombies and mermaids, in order to reach the Fountain of Youth.

On October 7, 2009, author Tim Powers confirmed that Disney bought the rights of his novel, On Stranger Tides, in April 2007. The script was written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, who wrote the whole Pirates trilogy, and Rossio has stated that they will use elements from the novel, particularly Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth, but the film would not be a straight adaptation. Initial rumors stated the story had Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa meeting up in the newly founded New Orleans, before they sail to find the Fountain of Youth together.

New cast members include Ian McShane, confirmed to play the notorious pirate and new nemesis Blackbeard, and Penélope Cruz, confirmed to play Angelica, Captain Jack Sparrow's love interest in the film. Cruz's character was previously described as "Jack Sparrow's foil and equal in many ways". Stephen Graham has been confirmed to play Scrum, a Machiavellian pirate, and be the sidekick to Captain Jack Sparrow. On April 14, 2010, French actress Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey was confirmed to play a mermaid named Syrena. Australian supermodel Gemma Ward was confirmed to play a mermaid on June 13, 2010.

It is also the first movie in the series which features fictional versions of historical characters such as Blackbeard, George II of Great Britain, Henry Pelham, John Carteret and Ferdinand VI of Spain. It will be the first Pirates of the Caribbean film to be released in 3D and Jerry Bruckheimer's second 3D film, following the 2009 movie G-Force. It is also the fifth Disney film to use Dolby 7.1 surround sound. While previous films in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise have been filmed in the Caribbean Sea, On Stranger Tides was filmed mainly in Hawaii.

Link: http://wikipedia.org

BOOK OF THE MONTH: MAY 2011

                                                                                   
Title        : The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Author    : Siddhartha Mukherjee
Publisher: Scribner
Pages      : 592
ISBN       :10:1439107955
Price        : $17.35

It’s a matter of pride that an India-born doctor and researcher, Dr Sidharth Mukherjee, has been awarded this year’s Pulitzer prize for general non-fiction for his debut writing venture, ‘The Emperor of all Maladies: A Biography of Cancer’. Mukherjee’s work is notable because it goes beyond a prosaic and scientific account of cancer and becomes an intensely human document. Sensitivity and compassion, combined with medical expertise, give them a vantage point.

Mukherjee’s book is based on the personal experiences of cancer patients and survivors and gives an account of the clinical advances made till now and the research which is going on. He has said the purpose of writing the book was to demystify cancer and change the way people look at it, and hopes that if he succeeds in that, it is a bigger prize than the Pulitzer.As Mukherjee hopes, his work can inspire new researchers to work in that direction.

For cancer, although often considered a "plague of modern times", is ancient. The Egyptian physician Imhotep first mentioned it in 2625BC; Atossa, queen of Persia, was also afflicted, as Herodotus wrote in 440 BC. Rather than seek advice, she cloaked her "shame" – a breast tumour – and had a Greek slave cut off the offending flesh. Her gratitude to him, allegedly, "launched a thousand ships" in the Greco-Persian wars.

While cancer was certainly present, it remained little understood in subsequent centuries. Treatments included "fox lungs, tortoise liver and crab's eyes". In the 18th and 19th centuries, advances in surgery emerged, with seeds of further knowledge sown. Mukherjee shapes a massive amount of history into a coherent story with a roller-coaster trajectory: the discovery of radiation, chemotherapy, ending in disfiguring radical mastectomy and multidrug chemo so toxic the treatment ended up being almost worse than the disease.

One of the book's great strengths is the bringing to life of scientists: from the Scottish surgeon, Joseph Lister, who in 1865, inspired by Pasteur, discovered carbolic acid's vital role in surgery, to the morphine-addicted William Stewart Halsted. His name will be forever linked to mastectomy. It moves from the Curies' discovery of radium in 1902 to wartime mustard gas informing "Four-Button Sid" Farber's experiments with antifolates in 1947, oncology's first achievement. The full palette of human nature is revealed here.

The book's six sections are well-balanced, spread between medical strides of the past (such as the near eradication of scrotal cancer among chimney sweeps when soot was discovered to be a carcinogen), more recent challenges (such as taking on the tobacco industry, with China and India its current prey), case studies, and current research. It is heartening, and daunting, to read of our deeper understanding of the cancer cell's biological make-up.

Mukherjee looks ahead with guarded optimism and avoids blithe promises. He contemplates whether more modest goals – the substantial prolongation of life by increasingly palatable treatments, rather than cancer's complete eradication – might be a more feasible, and still enormous, victory. De-mystifying the disease, rendering the science accessible, and wearing respect for the patients uppermost, The Emperor of All Maladies is the book that many will have been waiting for.


Review Text Courtesy: http://www.deccanherald.com/, http://www.guardian.co.uk/, http://sidmukherjee.com/ , http://theindependent.com/

EVENT OF THE MONTH: MAY 2011

World Renewable Energy Congress

Date: 08 May 2011 — 13 May 2011
Venue: Linkoping University, Sweden

The World Renewable Energy Congress (WREC) is an international scientific conference that provides an excellent opportunity for discussion and knowledge exchange for scientists, policy-makers, engineers and other specialists with an interest in issues related to renewable energy. WREC 2011 will take place in Linköping, Sweden during May 8-13, 2011. The Congress is hosted by Linköping University in close cooperation with the World Renewable Energy Congress/Network.

The biggest challenge that mankind has ever faced is to find opportunities to create a modern, convenient life when facing the escalating threat of global warming and prospective resource depletion. These challenges and opportunities will have significant impacts on our future economy and welfare. It is vital to focus on renewable energy sources in combination with more efficient use of energy and this must be addressed in all future energy-related strategic decisions.

Knowledge of decision-making, economics, organization, rules and regulations, policy issues, political processes, and human actions and reactions is also crucial in energy-related issues in order to control these developments with the necessary conservation of energy resources and the environment and without significant impacts on the quality of life. Based on the theme "Future Trends and Applications in Renewable Energy Technologies and Sustainable Development", WREC 2011 will cover a wide range of topics related to renewable energy technology.

The World congress on renewable energy has attracted 650 researchers who have tabled peer reviewed scientific papers. The congress will also receive royal approval when Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden graces the opening on the 9th of May. The following areas of research and development will be addressed: solar energy, solar heating, wind power, hydropower, wave power, bioenergy, fuel cells and even energy effective solutions for industry, durable transport and cities, low energy buildings and policy issues and climate change.

Among the 15 contributions from LiU researchers are analyses of efforts to establish a low-energy public transport system, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn promotes long term energy effective solutions for industry and trade. It is difficult to reach the objective of climate neutrality by solely replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. This could be achieved much faster, more effectively and economically viable by significantly reducing energy consumption. One of the highlights of the congress will be a workshop led by Anders Wijkman on the EU’s climate policies.

Link     : http://www.wrec2011.com
Source : http://www.alphagalileo.org/

SPECIES OF THE MONTH: MAY 2011

      AUSTRALOPIHECUS SEDIBA

Phylum : Chordata
Class     : Mammalia
Order   : Primates
Family  : Hominidae
Genus   : Australopithecus
Species : Australopithecus sediba

The discovery of a new species could shed light on human evolution.The discovery of the new species of early human, Australopithecus sediba by South African researchers has caused quite a stir among paleoanthropologists. The researchers said that the hominin shows some surprisingly modern traits and its species may even be an ancestor of our own genus. But other paleoanthropologists are waiting for more detailed analysis of the still-unpublished fossils before they agree on its identity or place in the human family tree.

Australopithecus sediba is a species of Australopithecus, based on fossil remains dated to between 1.95 and 1.78 million years ago in the early Pleistocene.The species is known from at least four partial skeletons discovered in the Malapa Fossil Site at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. Over one-hundred and thirty fragments from the species have been recovered to date. The partial skeletons were initially described in two papers in the journal Science by American and South African palaeo-anthropologist Lee R. Berger and colleagues.

The first specimen of A. sediba was found by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger's nine-year-old son, Matthew, on August 15, 2008.While exploring near his father's dig site in the dolomitic hills north of Johannesburg, on the Malapa Nature Reserve, Matthew stumbled upon a fossilized bone. The boy alerted his father of the find, who could not believe what he saw, a hominid clavicle and upon turning the block over. The fossil turned out to belong to a 4 ft 2 in (1.27 m) juvenile male, the skull of which was discovered in March 2009 by Berger's team. The find was announced to the public on April 8, 2010.

The researchers said that the hominin shows some surprisingly modern traits and its species may even be an ancestor of our own genus. But other paleoanthropologists are waiting for more detailed analysis of the still-unpublished fossils before they agree on its identity or place in the human family tree. According to new dates reported by Berger in his talk at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA), the four hominin individuals died when they fell into a "death trap" in a cave about two million years ago at Malapa, South Africa.

In talks at AAPA and the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society last week, Berger and members of his team sketched a quick portrait of Au. sediba, who lived at the mysterious time right after the emergence of our genus Homo between twomillion to three million years ago. Researchers have long wondered which of several species of Australopithecus gave rise to the first members of our genus, with Lucy's species Au. afarensis as the leading candidate. The trove of well-preserved bones includes clavicles, shoulder blades, and ribs as well as a complete skull, hand, foot, and two pelvises.

Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/scitech/report_four-new-species-discovered-may-shed-light-on-human-evolution_1535432

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_sediba