NASA - Next International Space Station Crew Holds News Conference

NASA - Next International Space Station Crew Holds News Conference: "Next International Space Station Crew Holds News Conference


HOUSTON -- The next three crew members to live and work aboard the International Space Station will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. CST on Wednesday, Jan. 26 at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. The news conference will be broadcast live on NASA Television and the agency's website. Questions will be taken from participating NASA centers."NASA ASTRONAUT Ron Garan,Russian cosmonauts Alexander samokutyaev and Andrey Borisenko,are the crew.

DR.GOVAN

MEMORY

Are you forgetting things quite often? You may not be having the right food. Loss of memory is may not necessarily be Alzheimer but if not taken care of may lead to be. At an age when the trend is of multitasking, we are overloading our brain with so many facts, that loss of memory has become a common fact. This is not only the case with professionals but also among children. Diet plays an important role in boosting memory.

Researchers have proved that diet to boost memory is the best way to enhance the brain power. Lets look at the best diet to boost memory –

1.Spinach – Spinach is a rich source of high folic acid. The presence of this acid makes it the best diet to boost memory. Regular intake of spinach reduces the risk of Alzheimer by 70%. Half cup of spinach meets two third of your daily requirement of folic acid.

2.Blueberries – Blueberry is a good source of anothocyanin, which is the memory boosting phytochemical. This chemical regulates and enhances the working of the brain. This is one of the regular diet to boost memory.

3.Apple – An apple a day keeps doctor away but till recently it was a little known fact that apple is one of the best diet to boost memory. Apple has high levels of Quercetin. This chemical researchers have proved to be one of the best way to prevent memory loss.

4.Onion – Onion a regular member of Indian culinary is also good for memory. It contains anthocyanin and quercetin. Onions have been used as diet to boost memory since ancient times.

5.Fish – Fish a well known diet to boost memory is a rich source of Omega 3 fatty acid. It provides brain with essential fats which regulates brain functions.

Regular intake of this diet to boost memory can prevent you from many other brain related illness.

FLORIDA-USA

An airport in Tampa, Florida, has had to temporarily close its runways to keep up with Earth's magnetic north pole, which is drifting toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per year.

Fox News reports that the international airport was forced to adjust the signs on its busiest runway Thursday because pilots depend on the magnetic fields to navigate. The runway will be closed until Jan. 13, and will re-open with new taxiway signs that indicate its new location on aviation charts, the Tampa Bay Tribune reports.

Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the FAA, says the Earth's magnetic fields are constantly in flux -- but rarely so much so that runway signage needs to be changed. "You want to be absolutely precise in your compass heading," he told Fox. "To make sure the precision is there that we need, you have to make these changes."

"The Earth's poles are changing constantly, and when they change more than three degrees, that can affect runway numbering," FAA spokesperson Kathleen Bergen told Fox News. It's unclear whether any other airports will have to adjust their runways.

Earth's magnetic field, which still flummoxes those who study it, "is thought to be generated deep inside the planet," LiveScience writer Jeanna Bryner explains. "An inner core of solid iron is surrounded by an outer core of molten iron. They rotate at different rates, and the interaction between the regions creates what scientists call a 'hydromagnetic dynamo.' It's something like an electric motor, and it generates a magnetic field akin to a giant bar magnet."

Sometimes, the poles completely flip -- and presumably when that happens, many bigger changes are afoot than modest tweaks to airport signs. The last time the planet experienced a polarity flip was 780,000 years ago.

(Flight takes off from Tampa International Airport: AP)

ELEPHANTS

African elephants are two distinct species

African forest-dwelling elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) are a separate species from those living in the African savanna (Loxodonta africana), researchers have shown. Scientists have long debated whether African elephants belong to the same or different species. They look very different, with the savanna elephant weighing around 7 tonnes — roughly double the weight of the forest elephant. But studies had suggested they were the same species — DNA in mitochondria (the cell's energy factories) from African elephants found evidence of interbreeding between forest and savanna elephants around 500,000 years ago. Now a group of scientists have taken a deeper look at the African elephants' genetic ancestry. The researchers sequenced the nuclear genomes of both types of African elephant, as well as that of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). They also extracted and sequenced DNA from the extinct woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) and mastodon (Mammut americanum) — ancient elephant ancestors. By comparing all these genomes, the team found that the forest and savanna elephants diverged into separate species between 2.6 and 5.6 million years ago. The study is published online in the journal Plos Biology.

"They split about the same time as African and Asian elephants split into separate species, and much longer ago than people previously thought," says David Reich, a population geneticist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and a lead author on the study. "You can no more call African elephants the same species as you can Asian elephants and the mammoth," he adds. Most researchers agree that the Asian elephant and the mammoth are separate species, says Thomas Gilbert, a geneticist at the University of Copenhagen. "But this study really hammers the coffin shut on any arguments that the forest and savannah are anything but different species, or even genera," he says. Mitochondrial DNA can only give researchers information on maternal ancestry, as this genetic material is inherited solely from the mother. Examining the nuclear genome, which is around 200,000 times larger than that contained in mitochondria, gives a broader and more accurate picture of elephants' history. "You get a different picture by looking at nuclear DNA", says Reich.

Mitochondrial DNA evidence suggesting that forest and savanna elephants interbred recently and had a recent shared female ancestor can be explained as a result of the female elephant's social behaviour, the researchers say. Females tend to stay close to their place of birth, while the males roam. Herds of female forest elephants could have repeatedly come into contact and bred with migrating male savanna elephants. Over a long period of time, the forest elephant gene pool would become diluted and displaced by that of the savanna elephants, but the forest DNA would be conserved in the mitochondrial DNA, which is passed on through the female line. "What we see is an ancient split with a bit of gene flow more recently," he says. Hybridization happens between closely related animals and does not necessarily imply that the two are the same species, he says. The authors suggest that the findings will help to reprioritize elephant conservation programmes. All African elephants are currently conserved as the same species. But the evidence that they are two distinct species suggests that they may be facing different pressures and require different conservation strategies. The forest elephants should become a greater conservation priority, the study says.

Nature
January 11, 2011

WORLD DAIRY PRODUCTION

World production

Rank	Country	Production (109kg/y)[30]
1	India	114.4
2	United States	79.3
3	Pakistan	35.2 (needs validation)
4	China	32.5
5	Germany	28.5
6	Russia	28.5
7	Brazil	26.2
8	France	24.2
9	New Zealand	17.3
10	United Kingdom	13.9
11	Ukraine	12.2
12	Poland	12
13	Netherlands	11.5
14	Italy	11.0
15	Turkey	10.6
16	Mexico	10.2
17	Australia	9.6
18	Egypt	8.7
19	Argentina	8.5
20	Canada	8.1

[edit]European Union

The European Union is the largest milk producer in the world, with 143.7 million tonnes in 2003. This data, encompassing the present 25 member countries, can be further broken down into the production of the original 15 member countries, with 122 million tonnes, and the new 10 mainly former Eastern European countries with 21.7 million tonnes.

Dairy production is heavily distorted due to the Common Agricultural Policy—being subsidized in some areas, and subject to production quotas in other.

Rank	Country	Production (109kg/y)[31]
1	Germany	28.5
2	France	24.6
3	United Kingdom	15.0
4	Poland	11.9
5	Netherlands	11.0
6	Italy	10.8
7	Spain	6.6
8	Ireland	5.4
9	Denmark	4.7
10	Sweden	3.2
11	Austria	3.2
12	Belgium	3.1
13	Czech Republic	2.7
14	Finland	2.5
15	Hungary	1.9
16	Portugal	1.9
17	Lithuania	1.8