Row over Fuel Price Hike Mamata's rift with Centre: A political ploy?

Is Trinamool Congress' threat to pull out of India's Congress-led coalition government in protest against the latest round of petrol price hike for real or just a political grandstanding keeping her own constituency in Paschimbanga?

The debate may go on but one thing that clearly comes out of this is relations between the party led by Mamata Banerjee and the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh are under strain.

The threat to withdraw from the coalition government is being seen by political observers as a manifestation of the strain that has been building up almost ever since Trinamool Congress and Congress came together to form the government in Paschimbanga after voting out the Left Front dispensation.

The first major sign of the strain came to the fore when Trinamool supreme Mamata Banerjee had opposed the Teesta water-sharing deal with Bangladesh, leading to its non-signing during Singh's visit to Dhaka in September and causing some embarrassment to the latter.

The relations between Trinamool Congress and the Manmohan Singh government developed more rough edges as Mamata had been unhappy over the latter's allegedly “inadequate” support to help her government financially.

Mamata had explained the state's poor fiscal health left behind by the Left Front government but funds have not flowed from the federal government when she needs it badly.

Mamata requires the money to execute the promises and projects she had made to the electorate before coming to power. Her eyes are firmly set on the panchayat polls in the state next year.

During the BJP-led NDA rule, Mamata had withdrawn the support to the then federal government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001 on the issue of corruption before joining back two years later.

In a show of her assertiveness, Mamata did some blunt-speaking yesterday when she reminded Congress party that while her government in Paschimbanga has two-thirds majority of its own and does not depend on Congress support, Trinamool's backing is essential to prop up the Manmohan Singh government. In fact, Trinamool Congress is the second biggest constituent of the UPA government after Congress.

Trinamool Congress sources allege the party has not been consulted on repeatedly increasing the petrol price but has nonetheless been suffering from the collateral damage of such an unpopular decision.

Is Trinamool Congress serious in pushing through its decision to pull out of the federal government or just trying to put pressure on the latter to extract the financial concessions it wants for Paschimbanga? Only time can tell.

Countdown Begins Endangered big cats

BIG cats such as lions, tigers, leopards, and cheetahs could be facing extinction within the next two decades, leading conservation groups to call for increased efforts to save them, USA Today's Dan Vergano reported in a Friday articles.

“The populations of lions, leopards, cheetahs and especially tigers have been decimated in the past half-century,” Vergano said, adding that leading scientists report that tigers “have become so rare that lions have become their soup-bone substitutes, sought for Asian medicines and 'tiger bone' wine.”

“Do we want to live in a world without lions in the wild?” Luke Dollar, a biologist with Duke University and a member of the National Geographic-sponsored Big Cats Initiative (BCI), told USA Today. “That is the choice we are facing.”

According to estimated statistics from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over the past 50 years lions living in the African wild have decreased from 450,000 to 25,000.

During that same period, leopards have decreased from 750,000 to 50,000, cheetahs from 45,000 to 12,000, and tigers from 50,000 to 3,000 (of which only 1,200 are breeding-age females).

“Lions play a role in keeping migrations going, and keep populations in check,” naturalist Dereck Joubert, the co-founder of the Big Cats Initiative (BCI), told Vergano. “Big predators play a role in keeping prey species vital and alert.”

“The habitat doesn't recover,” added his wife, BCI co-founder and photographer Beverly Joubert. “We're left with just hyenas or their equivalent.”

Vergano reports that the Jouberts have spent a quarter of a century making nature documentaries, including “Eternal Enemies: Lions and Hyenas” for PBS. Concerns over the fate of creatures such as the lion and the cheetah led them to contact National Geographic and convince them to re-double their conversation efforts for these and other big cats.

“Over the course of 18 months, the initiative awarded 19 grants to conservation efforts across Africa,” USA Today reported, and their efforts will continue this Monday, as they are encouraging Halloweeners to collect donations while going door-to-door, trick-or-treating. They are also accepting donations via text-message and online through the National Geographic website.

“We are seeing the effects of 7 billion people on the planet,” Dereck Joubert told USA Today. “At present rates, we will lose the big cats in 10 to 15 years.”

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Did You Know? Were Wright brothers first fliers?

In fact, there were other aviation pioneers before them.”

The story of the first flight is one that every American school child knows by heart: The Wright Brothers flew their craft "The Flyer" in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, thus making history and ushering in a transportation mechanism that would change the world.

Two years, four months and three days before the successful flights of the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, a birdlike monoplane took to the air at early dawn on August 14, 1901, near Bridgeport, Connecticut, carrying its inventor and builder, Gustav Whitehead, a distance of approximately a half mile.. He was a German immigrant to America and his "Number 21" and "Number 22" airplanes made those flights.

Making synthetic life

Think of a living being, completely different in structural organization and behavior from any of the existing species on earth! You are imagining a monster, right? Actually, I am not indicating to such a creature to think about. Well, it's something about synthetic biology and creation of artificial life. If a single cell can be synthesized, why cannot be a multicellular being then? However, things are not so easy as they seem to be. Today, we will focus mainly on synthetic biology, what it has to offer for the benefit of mankind and a slice of artificial life.

Synthetic biology came to its modern phase with the work of J. Craig Venter. To start a life form, no matter how simple it is, you must have the blueprint, DNA (Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid) in place that means inside the cell. At the initial stage of synthetic genomics and synthetic biology, some gene segments were being inserted in microorganisms and the effect of that insertion was observed through the expression of the proteins that are encoded by those gene segments. In 2003, the researchers of J. Craig Venter Institute created a synthetic version of the bacteriophage phiX 174. Later, in 2007, they were able to transform one species of bacteria to another by genome transplantation which is performed by taking the whole genetic material from one organism and inserting it into another one in place of the regular genetic material of the latter one. Very recently, the scientists of that institute have developed methods to synthesize and assemble the complete genome of a bacterium called Mycoplasma genitalium. This is, indeed, a breakthrough in synthetic biology as it gives a hint to succeed in creating artificial life forms just because the blueprint which is the genetic material can be made artificially! Although it is just copying something what really exists from before, it will encourage scientists to think about synthesizing genes having, may be, totally new functions. This dream is very rationale as synthetic biology takes into account the different disciplines of science including Biology, Chemistry and Engineering where engineering is being integrated into biological science and ultimately helping to make life models in the field called systems biotechnology or systems biological engineering.

The ultimate goals of synthetic biology include designing and building of engineered life forms that process information, modify chemicals, produce fuel, energy, food and maintain and enhance human health and environment we live in. To serve these purposes, artificial life forms can be useful. Artificial life is something that leads us to the domain of life-as-it-could-be from life-as-we-know-it. With all its possibilities, the ability of synthetic biology is thought to have a major effect in fifty years of time. Artificial microbes can be made targeted for serving specific purposes like producing gasoline or degrading many toxic chemicals. Moreover, synthetic biology has to offer new and improved diagnostics, drugs, vaccines, biosensors and many more.

Nevertheless, the creation of new life forms is not without its fear and/or limitations. There is a concern that artificial life may threat other existing life forms on earth including humans and can also be used as biological warfare. However, the first premonition is probably misplaced because life is so robust and has evolved so strongly over time; it is not so easy to be threatened by some artificial life forms. Again, the second threat of using it as a biological warfare can be prevented just by good will of the scientists and the mass people. At the end, it seems that intensive research on synthetic and systems biology will definitely work for the betterment of mankind.

Samsung's economy smartphones

Whenever we think of Samsung mobile phones, expensive high-end smartphones like Samsung Galaxy S or S II come to our mind.

But Samsung also has good smartphones for those who don't want to spend a lot of money on phones.

There are few Samsung touchscreen phones available in the market.

For the music lovers Samsung has Champ and Champ Duos with powerful speakers and longer battery support with up to 16GB of memory support. With social networking features, Champ and Champ Duos cost Tk 5,690 and Tk 6,790 respectively.

Then there is Samsung Corby II with Wi-Fi feature, the phone has built in SNS links, document viewer, active syn with customisable home screen. The Corby II is available at Tk 9,990.

For smart look Samsung has dual SIM touch phone Star II with 3.2” display and metal finish sleek body. It features Favorite Buddy list, TouchWiz3.0, Social Hub, Active sync, Google sync, Document Viewer and more. The phone is priced at Tk 11,990.

Then there is Galaxy Pop form Galaxy series, at an affordable price of Tk 15,500.

The phone gives access to unlimited entertainment through over 150,000 applications from Android Market and Samsung Apps.

Plant Renaissance Cycads not 'living fossils'

Once thought to be the last remaining members of a plant lineage that went extinct with the dinosaurs, modern-day cycads are now believed to have diverged from a more recent common ancestor.

Although cycad populations suffered major losses about 65 million years ago when dinosaurs their once primary dispersal agents went extinct, the plants later experienced a renaissance due to a global climate shift, a new study suggests. Living cycads diverged from an ancestral species that flourished around 12 million years ago, not from older dinosaur-era relatives, an international team of researchers reports online October 20 in Science.

To estimate the divergence time of living cycads, researchers used a technique called molecular clock analysis. First they measured the genetic differences separating 200 living cycad species. Since certain genetic changes typically accrue at a fixed rate once species radiate from a common ancestor, scientists were able to use this cycad DNA data, in conjunction with the fossil record, to predict a much more recent divergence.

Will Steve Jobs' final vendetta haunt Google?

Google can only hope that Steve Jobs' final vendetta doesn't haunt the internet search leader from his grave.

The depths of Jobs' antipathy toward Google leaps out of Walter Isaacson's authorised biography of Apple's co-founder. The book goes on sale Monday, less than three weeks after Jobs' long battle with pancreatic cancer culminated in his Oct. 5 death.

The biography drips with Jobs' vitriol as he discusses his belief that Google stole from Apple's iPhone to build many of the features in Google's Android software for rival phones.

It's clear that the perceived theft represented an unforgiveable act of betrayal to Jobs, who had been a mentor to Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and had welcomed Google's CEO at the time, Eric Schmidt, to be on Apple's board.

Jobs retaliated with a profane manifesto during a 2010 conversation with his chosen biographer. Isaacson wrote that he never saw Jobs angrier in any of their conversations, which covered a wide variety of emotional topics during a two-year period.

After equating Android to "grand theft" of the iPhone, Jobs lobbed a series of grenades that may blow a hole in Google's image as an innovative company on a crusade to make the world a better place.

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs told Isaacson. "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go to thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty."

Jobs then used a crude word for defecation to describe Android and other products outside of search.

Android now represents one of the chief threats to the iPhone. Although iPhones had a head start and still draw huge lines when new models go on sale, Android devices sold twice as well in the second quarter.

According to Gartner, Android's market share grew 2 1/2 times to 43 percent, compared with 17 percent a year earlier. The iPhone's grew as well, but by a smaller margin to 18 percent, from 14 percent.

Both Google and Apple declined comment to The Associated Press when asked about Jobs' remarks.

Jobs' attack is troubling for Google on several levels.

It suggests that Apple, which has pledged to be true to Jobs' vision, may try to derail Android in court, even if Google obtains more patent protection through its proposed $12.5 billion acquisition of phone maker Motorola Mobility Inc. The derision comes across as a bitter pill for Page and Brin, who have hailed Jobs as one of their idols. It also appears to contradict Schmidt's repeated assertions that he remained on friendly terms with Jobs even after he resigned from Apple's board in 2009.

Most of all, Google should be worried whether the Android brand is damaged by the withering criticism of a revered figure whose public esteem seems to have risen as friends, colleagues and customers paid tribute over the past few weeks.

"The words of cultural icons have a lot of power after death," veteran technology analyst Rob Enderle said. "This almost sounds like a spiritual leader declaring a jihad on Android as his dying wish."

Apple fans tend to be fiercely loyal, making it more feasible to envision an anti-Android movement taking shape like some kind of political protest, Enderle said.

Can Romance Be Reduced to Pronouns?

Behavioral scientists have long known that humans, whether in the schoolyard or in a dimly lighted bar, have a tendency to subconsciously mimic the sounds, style and movement of others. Recent research, however, shows that this mimicry also extends to how we speak and write. Even the least important words we choose can say a lot about us.

In one unusual experiment, 187 men and women gathered on the Northwestern University campus to take part in several four-minute speed dates. The couples talked about their respective majors and where they grew up, but none of that interested the University of Texas at Austin psychologist James W. Pennebaker. Instead, his focus was on the barely noticed personal pronouns (I, you, me), articles (the, a), prepositions (for, of, on), conjunctions (but, and) and other small words. These commonly used so-called function words, about 180 in all, Pennebaker says, are processed rapidly and subconsciously. And our use of them can reveal, among other things, whether a romance will work out or how well two people work together.

In the speed-dating study, Pennebaker and his colleague Molly Ireland found that couples who used similar levels of personal pronouns, prepositions and even articles were three times as likely to want to date each other compared with those whose language styles didn’t match.() The metric, called language style matching (L.S.M.), was also better at predicting who didn’t make a love connection than the individuals themselves, several of whom showed interest in a partner who did not reciprocate.() “It does better than humans themselves who are in the interaction,” said Pennebaker, author of the new book “The Secret Life of Pronouns.” “Some of the most revealing words we use are the shortest and most forgettable.”

The metric has other applications. An analysis of instant-message exchanges between dating couples used L.S.M. to correctly predict who would be together after three months and who wouldn’t.() More recently, researchers also found that groups with the highest levels of language mimicry performed the best on various tasks. Pennebaker’s team even analyzed the letters and writing of famous couples, including the poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. In the final, tumultuous years of their marriage, their already-different writing styles became even less synchronized.

Synchrony, however, does not always mean that two people like each other. Analyses of arguments, like the volatile exchange several years ago between the talk-show hosts Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck, showed that the women used astonishingly similar speech patterns when they were arguing.() To let people see for themselves, Pennebaker offers an online diagnostic in which individuals can copy and paste their own I.M. conversations. I did this with an argument I was having with a friend, and we had 88 percent L.S.M. — daytime talk show territory.() But given the volume of e-mail, texts and Facebook posts we write, synchrony opens a new frontier into our most personal thoughts. Even the 140 character variety.

China Reins In Entertainment and Blogging

BEIJING — Political censorship in this authoritarian state has long been heavy-handed. But for years, the Communist Party has tolerated a creeping liberalization in popular culture, tacitly allowing everything from popular knockoffs of “American Idol”-style talent shows to freewheeling microblogs that let media groups prosper and let people blow off steam.
Now, the party appears to be saying “enough.”

Whether spooked by popular uprisings worldwide, a coming leadership transition at home or their own citizens’ increasingly provocative tastes, Communist leaders are proposing new limits on media and Internet freedoms that include some of the most restrictive measures in years.