'Gender bias worst among Nairs, X'ians' : (28/04/03)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Gender disparity is minimal within the Ezhava and Muslim communities while the role of gender disparity in psychological stress is most pronounced among Nairs and Syrian Christians, a study on gender and mental health in Kerala says. The study, conducted jointly by a team of psychologists and researchers, says that the role of gender disparity in subjective well-being is highly significant among labourers and farmers and that for a man in Kerala, it is less distressing to remain jobless than be a farmer. Among women, subject well-being is highest among students while among men, it is the highest among Government employees. Male government employees have 20 per cent less distress than even students and farmer men and women labourers have the worst levels of subjective well-being. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 28/04/03)

Distributed computers power new search engine : (24/04/03)

A distributed computing project called Grub, which harnesses individual users' spare computing power and internet bandwidth, began cataloguing millions of web pages this week. The project's home page says that in the last 24 hours over 36 million web pages have been catalogued by Grub software installed by users on about 1000 personal computers around the globe. Like SETI@home and other distributed computing projects, Grub runs in the background on a computer's spare capacity. It automatically trawls the web and collects details on thousands of pages per hour and returns this information to a central database. The Grub screen saver that displays the websites the program is scouring.

(Courtesy The New Scientist dated 17/04/03)

Females outnumber males even among the aged : (20/04/03)

THRISSUR - An extensive survey conducted by the students of the Sree Krishna College, Arikanniyur in Thrissur district in the Kandanassery panchayat housing the college, establishes that females outnumber males even among the aged in the panchayat. According to the researchers who had guided the students in the survey, it is an already known scientific fact that there are greater number of males among the embryos of all ages from the earliest stages in which sex can be distinguished to the time of normal birth. This was established in the studies conducted on a collection of human embryos at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. ``However boys just do not survive the diseases and dangers of childhood as girls do. The survey has established that this predestined weakness in males continues to manifest itself throughout life,'' they explained. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 20/04/03)

30 channels for Rs.72 from July 15: Union Minister : (20/04/03)

Chennai - As many as 30 television channels will be made available for a monthly charge of just Rs.72 in four metros from July 15 under the new Conditional Access System regime, the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Ravi Shankar Prasad, announced here today. The Minister said he "signed the files" yesterday for ushering in the Conditional Access System (CAS) with a price tag of Rs. 72 in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Calcutta from July 15. "There will be no further relaxation of time" for bringing in the CAS, he asserted, at a media conference here. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 20/04/03)

Calls from BSNL land phones to mobile phones to be costlier : (19/04/03)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM : With the implementation of the revised tariffs of BSNL from May 1, the calls from BSNL land phones to mobile phones and WLL phones will become costlier. As per the revised tariff, the pulse rate for local calls from BSNL land phones to mobile phones under any network will be reduced to 30 seconds. In effect, the BSNL subscribers will be charged at the rate of one call per thirty seconds of a call to any mobile phones. In metro cities (not applicable to Kerala) it will be 60 seconds. Read more >>

(Courtesy The New Indian Express dated 19/04/03)

Doctors touched by 'Healing Touch' : (18/04/03)

KOZHIKODE : With computers bringing about a sea change in almost all walks of human life, the day-to-day functioning of doctors cannot remain an exception anymore. This, perhaps, may be the reason why software experts took the initiative to come out with a new software that covers every aspect of a doctor's functioning from writing prescriptions to maintaining patients' case history. The new software `Healing Touch' has already hit the market and is fast making the scrawled illegible prescriptions redundant. ``The Indian Medical Council has recently stated that the prescriptions issued by doctors should be legible and that a proper record of patients' history should be maintained. And this is what my software precisely helps them do,'' says Radhakrishnan, the Director of Creative Inc., the makers of Healing Touch. Read more >>

(Courtesy The New Indian Express dated 18/04/03)

5-Year-old boy caged in a cageless heart : (12/04/03)

KOCHI : Five-year-old Anand Mahadevan doesn't know why others call him a 'rib-less boy'. Nor does he understand why the skin over his left chest balloons whenever a spate of dry cough disturbs him. This enigma to medical science would love to roll in the sand, climb trees and fight with his only sister. But seldom gets a chance. For, his parents never allow Anand to enjoy the lighter side of life fearing the severe damage that even a small accident can cause to his tender heart which is not protected by a rib cage. "Keep your hands here. You can feel his heartbeat," says his father Mahadevan, a carpenter. "We're worried. A small impact, doctors say, would harm his lungs and other systems. We cannot even allow him to play with anyone," he says while controlling a bubbling Anand from indulging in any mischief. Read more >>

(Courtesy The New Indian Express dated 11/04/03)

Coke/Pepsi lose the fizz : (10/04/03)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - Kerala could very well become a ‘‘Coca-Cola/Pepsi-free zone’’ by April 13, if one goes by the dipping sales of these products in various parts of the State. Most of the retail shops, especially in the northern parts of the State, have stopped taking fresh supplies in view of the Anti-War Forum’s threat. The boycott is by choice or not is a different matter. Majority of the shops are now busy exhausting their existing stocks. No fresh orders are being placed. Even freebies offered by the distributors of Coke and Pepsi to arrest the fall in sales have not found many takers among the retail shop-owners. Read more >>

(Courtesy The New Indian Express dated 10/04/03)

RS okays Bill banning cigarette ads : (10/04/03)

New Delhi - The Rajya Sabha today passed a Bill banning advertisement of cigarettes and other tobacco products, besides prohibiting sponsorship of sports and cultural events by manufacturers of these products. All advertisements on cigarettes and other tobacco products, direct or surrogate, in any form will be banned, the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Sushma Swaraj, said replying to the debate on the Bill. Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Bill, 2001, also seeks to ban sale of tobacco products to minors, besides proposing to compound minor offences and making punishment for offences by companies more stringent. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 10/04/03)

Yahoo takes on Google in search engine stakes : (09/04/03)

Bangalore - The world's most popular Internet search engine is in the cross hairs of the competition: In the next few days, Yahoo, the popular web directory portal, is to launch a beefed up new search engine that seems aimed at the current leader, Google. On Monday, a new button came up in the right hand top corner of the Yahoo page that offers a trial run of its new search facility. The service that can be accessed directly at http://search.yahoo.com, copies many of the features that made `googling' a part of the vocabulary of Net surfers looking for the shortest route to the information they seek. It has the same bare and clean look and allows users to search the web or narrow the hunt to images or information. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 09/04/03)

Endangered wild cattle cloned : (09/04/03)

SAN FRANCISCO - Astounding even veterans of the fight against animal extinction, cloning technology has reproduced two endangered wild cattle bulls, each born by dairy cows last week on an Iowa farm. The procedure that created the bantengs has given animal conservationists hope that cross-species breeding can help reverse daily disappearance of 100 living species and add genetic diversity to dwindling animal populations. If they survive, the two bantengs will be transferred to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and encouraged to breed with the captive population there. The technology is still fraught with problems and a long way from paying significant dividends. The cloned bantengs, for instance, won't begin breeding until they reach maturity in about six years. Nonetheless, animal conservationists are excited about the two unnamed bantengs. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 09/04/03)

New Act set to bring order to cable business : 07/04/03

KOCHI : The Conditional Access System (CAS) proposed in the Cable TV Regulatory Act 2002 might take some more time to make its appearance in the State. But surprisingly CAS has given the fiercely opposed and competing cable operators and subscribers little reason to complain. To be introduced in the four metros of the country in mid-July in the first phase, CAS is what gives the subscriber freedom of choice in channels reducing the monthly subscription fees while making the system transparent for the anarchic cable television trade. ``CAS is a step in the right direction. For the subscriber it would mean hat he has to pay only for the channels that he views. As for us, it will translate into rationalisation in the price structure of pay channels and transparency making the business less volatile,'' says S Rajeev, senior vice-president, Asianet Sat Com. Read more >>

(Courtesy The New Indian Express dated 07/04/03)

CNN scribe operates on Iraqi child : (05/04/03)

LOS ANGELES - Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical correspondent and a neurosurgeon, performed an emergency brain surgery in a vain effort to save the life of a 2-year-old Iraqi boy wounded at a U.S. Marine checkpoint south of Baghdad. In a statement on Thursday, CNN said the network applauded Dr. Gupta's decision, on humanitarian grounds, to cross the line between journalists and the U.S. armed forces unit he was "embedded" with, to participate in the operation. "Sanjay was sent to that particular unit as a medical correspondent, but we clearly support his efforts under these extraordinary circumstances to save the life of a dying boy,'' CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. "We are all proud of him." Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 05/04/03)

Basu donates body for medical research : (05/04/03)

KOLKATA - Veteran CPI-M leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister, Jyoti Basu, today signed papers formally donating his body for the benefit of medical science. ``This body will perish one day. I find no reason why it will not be used for a meaningful purpose after death. I will tell others my views on this,'' the 87-year-old leader told a gathering after signing the papers at a programme, organised by `Gana Darpan', a non-Government organisation at nearby Salt Lake. Read more >>

(Courtesy The Hindu dated 05/04/03)

Group Offers Photograph as Proof of Cloned Infant : (03/04/03)

SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - A company that claims to have produced five cloned humans but has not provided any evidence showed for the first time on Monday a photograph of what it said was a cloned infant. Clonaid, a company linked to the Raelian movement that believes extraterrestrials created mankind, said the infant's parents would soon prove in Brazil that it had the same DNA as its dead, older sibling. Previously Clonaid has failed to live up to such pledges to give evidence of its cloning claims. The photograph's presentation was the latest episode in what many scientists say is a hoax to publicize the Raelians. Clonaid said in December it cloned the first human, "Eve." Rael, the movement's founder, and Clonaid President Brigitte Boisselier showed a computer with a picture of the 3-month-old Japanese baby they said was the third clone. The picture, to be put on Clonaid's Web site http://www.clonaid.com, showed a normal-looking baby in diapers in a hospital incubator. Its eyes appeared to be bandaged. Boisselier and Rael, whose real name is Claude Vorilhon, were in Brazil to present Rael's book on cloning.

(Courtesy Medscape, Reuters)