Kiev: Air raid sirens have sounded across Ukraine after Russia launched the biggest ever “kamikaze” drone attack on Kiev since Moscow waged its war in February 2022.
In capital Kiev, Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said nearly 60 drones had been launched by Russia on Monday, adding that 36 were destroyed, the BBC reported.
Klitschko added that five people had been injured by falling debris from downed drones.
This was the fourth attack in eight days on Kiev and came just 24 hours before Russia’s Victory Day, which commemorates the erstwhile Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany during World War Two.
Emergency services responded after drone wreckage fell on a runway at Zhuliany international airport — one of the capital city’s two commercial airports, Kiev’s military administration said.
Civilians were injured after drone debris hit a residential building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district, the administration added.
Meanwhile in the Black Sea port city of Odesa, a warehouse was set ablaze after eight missiles were fired at targets by Russian bombers, the BBC quoted Ukrainian officials as saying.
In a statement, Ukraine’s Red Cross said its warehouse with humanitarian aid was destroyed and all aid deliveries had to be suspended.
Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Command, later said a body of a security guardwas pulled from the wreckage.
Missile strikes were also reported in the Kherson, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions.
At least eight people, including a child, were injured in two villages in Kherson.
Aligarh: Hitting out at Opposition parties, senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Monday said the “chieftains of communal votes” are the biggest barriers on the path of inclusive empowerment and Muslims must not allow their votes to be taken for granted.
He urged Muslim voters to get rid of “political pollution” being spread by the “conspiracy syndicate”, saying this was a must for the community to avoid the treatment of taken for granted.
Naqvi, while interacting with senior professors of the Aligarh Muslim University, prominent people and the media during election campaigning for the May 11 local body polls in Aligarh, said some people treat Muslim votes as their “parental property”.
“The attitude that ‘if Muslims will not vote for us, where else will they go’ had made the community their preferred political destination for deception,” Naqvi was quoted as saying by a statement from his office.
There is a need to defeat exploitation politics to ensure the community’s betterment and empowerment, the former Union minister said.
The “chieftains of communal votes” are the biggest barriers on the path of inclusive empowerment, the former minority affairs minister said.
“When the Modi-Yogi governments (Centre and Uttar Pradesh) and the BJP have not done any discrimination against any community in terms of development, then why should any community show stinginess towards the BJP while voting? Development with dignity and empowerment without appeasement is our mantra,” Naqvi said.
It is high time that the Muslim community comes out from the “trap of traders of votes” and bridge the gap between them and the BJP, he said.
“The BJP has reached out to you by taking four steps forward towards the community and now it is your turn to take two steps forward towards the BJP,” he added.
When French Polynesia was overrun by the invasive African giant land snail, another alien species, the predatory rosy wolf snail, was introduced to solve the problem.
Unfortunately the rosy wolf snail devoured tiny, endemic partula snails instead, hunting down the scent of their slime trails at three times the speed of a normal snail.
But the extinction-threatened partula snails are now inching back to health thanks to the largest ever release of an “extinct in the wild” species, with more than 5,000 of the snails returning to the island after being bred in captivity.
Thousands of partula snails belonging to 11 different species have been reared at London and Whipsnade zoos, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Saint Louis Zoo in the United States, individually marked with a dot of red UV-reflective paint, and released on to the islands of Moorea and Tahiti.
The paint ensures the 1 to 2cm-long nocturnal snail will glow under UV torchlight to help conservationists monitor the growing populations.
More than 5,000 of the snails have been returned to the islands after being bred in captivity. Photograph: ZSL
Dr Paul Pearce-Kelly, curator of invertebrates at ZSL and coordinator of the partula conservation programme, said: “Despite their small size these snails are of great cultural, ecological and scientific importance – they’re the Darwin’s finches of the snail world, having been researched for more than a century due to their isolated habitat providing the perfect conditions to study evolution.
“This collaborative conservation initiative is, without a doubt, helping to bring these species back from the brink of extinction and shows the conservation power of zoos to reverse biodiversity loss.”
The last few surviving individuals of several partula species were rescued in the early 1990s by London and Edinburgh zoos to begin an international conservation breeding programme across 15 zoos.
Eleven species have been saved, including the very last known individual of the Partula taeniata sumulans variety, which was given to Edinburgh zoo in 2010 where it was bred back to a safe level of several hundred.
Another partula species, Partula faba, wasn’t so lucky and the nine individuals taken to Edinburgh zoo did not breed successfully in captivity and the species became extinct in 2016.
Working with the French Polynesian government to prepare the islands for their return with predator-proof snail reserves, the zoos began to fly snails back to the wild nine years ago.
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Since then, more than 21,000 partula snails, including 11 species classified as “extinct in the wild” by the IUCN Red List of endangered species, have been released on the islands. This year’s reintroduction was the largest number so far.
Partula snails, also known as Polynesian tree snails, play an important role in maintaining tropical forest health by eating decaying plant tissue and fungi. Returning them to the wild helps restore the ecological balance to the islands.
Christophe Brocherieux, project manager for the Polynesian government’s environment ministry, said: “We are proud to be partners in this programme, which highlights the importance of not being discouraged and of persevering to realise successful outcomes for all our conservation projects.”
Mollusc specialist Dr Justin Gerlach of Peterhouse, University of Cambridge, and another collaborator on the project, said: “The releases have shown that partula snails that have been bred in zoos for generations have adapted really well to being back in the forests of their ancestors.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
A vapor trail of broken Musk promises and failed predictions, all of which became news stories, have been documented by the elonmusk.today website. Musk vowed to build an “everything” Twitter app, but hasn’t. A full-time litigation shop? No sign of it yet. To convert atmospheric CO2 into rocket fuel? A no-show. The list continues: To create a super-fast Starlink service. Produce ventilators. Build a flying car. Distill a Tesla liquor (“Teslaquila”). Start a candy company. Sorry, not yet. When not making news by making promises, Musk enters our news diet by insulting people. He’s knocked a U.S. senator with a vulgar tweet, called a Thai cave rescuer a “pedo guy,” ridiculed Bill Gates’ beer belly and mocked a disabled Twitter employee. When predictions and insults fail to win him publicity, Musk has gained public attention by sharing conspiracy theories, signaling his support of the presidential candidacy of Ye, better known as Kanye West (and then withdrawing it), endorsing hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment and by making a poop emoji the auto-response to questions the press sends to Twitter.
This unbroken stream of Musk blarney and BS should be enough to deter the press from automatically reporting the tycoon’s publicity hounding. But as with Donald Trump, the press seems unable to resist splashing coverage on Musk’s unnewsworthy high jinks, even though the stories have now become as common as dog-bites-man. Reporters on the Musk beat have a point when they say you never know which one of Musk’s outrageous stabs at grabbing attention will actually blossom into genuine news. For instance, when he first said he was going to buy Twitter, who among us could look at his track record and think he would actually complete the deal? Few of the acorns Musk tosses out there end up sprouting into a tree, but enough of them do that maybe his every burp does justify coverage.
But that can’t be the main reason the press covers every Muskism that comes over the transom. This column suggested late last year that journalists wean themselves from the Musk habit. But instead of giving the once-over twice to his antics, the press corps has further devoted itself to his promotion. He offers reporters table scraps. They turn it into a banquet. He picks a petty fight. They report it as if it were a global war. He’s got the media machine’s number, and keeps pressing it.
Here’s how it works: Too many editors are eager to assign an easy-to-assemble story from the components of a Musk prediction, threat or stunt. And readers seem to love the copy. It’s Musk-press synergy all the way down. Musk didn’t invent the mock news event, he’s only perfected it. Con men, pranksters and publicity agents have been jamming the press for more than a century with bogus stories like him. In recent decades, hoaxers have persuaded the press to chase the story that Paul McCartney was dead. Another time, a man made worldwide news by claiming to have cured his arthritis by injecting cockroach hormones. Not that long ago, Volkswagen pranked the press with a press release to publicize its electric car by saying it was changing its name to Voltswagen. And in 2009, a Colorado family claimed a helium balloon wafted their son into the heavens.
Some of these pranks can be dismissed as good-natured fun. But most of them stand as critiques of the press, showing how credulous and easily manipulated journalists can be. When Musk engages in his kind of publicity hounding, he consciously exploits the media’s frailty and appetite for copy. His promises, his kayfabe Twitter spats, his controversy-mongering offer the press a preassembled cast of characters, an element of conflict and questions to answer. A grateful press appreciates how the wow factor of a Musk publicity stunt makes the routine coverage of quarterly reports, city council meetings and weather seem mundane. If Musk isn’t on the press corps payroll, he should be.
What’s in it for Musk? He has long disdained advertising, believing that the unearned media of a stunt (or the quality of a great product) is advertising enough. According to Ashley Vance’s book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future, Musk ordered his Tesla staff to produce at least one barnburner of a public relations announcement a week to stimulate interest in the company’s cars. But in a 2021 court appearance, Musk made transparent how he keeps playing the press. “If we are entertaining, then people will write stories about us, and then we don’t have to spend money on advertising that would increase the price of our products,” he said.
Naming one of his children X Æ A-12, as he did in 2020, or pushing a Tesla roadster into space or challenging Vladimir Putin to “single combat” or issuing a Ukraine peace plan or selling 20,000 flamethrowers are prime examples of how Musk garners notice for his brands and his products. These advertisements for himself, to pinch a phrase from Norman Mailer, create a buzz about him and his ventures, and project the image of an omnipresent, charismatic guy who makes hot copy. When the press briefly turned against him in 2018 for some of his business miscues, Musk went all meta on reporters by announcing a press-watch site called Pravduh.com. Like so many Musk projects, it arrived stillborn and was soon forgotten, but not before he got a burst of publicity out of it. Which was the point, anyway.
Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has made media stunt-work one of his prime occupations — announcing plans, ending them, releasing Twitter files to Matt Taibbi and other journalists, and even tweeting from the toilet. He’ll do anything to keep it and himself in the news, and every day the news media rewards his showboating with an avalanche of running coverage and commentary. But you’ve got to wonder. Is Elon Musk the problem here? Or is it the press, which understands how it’s being manipulated by Musk but just can’t quit him?
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Every journalist on the Musk beat should read Edward Niedermeyer’s Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motor. Send your favorite empty Musk stunt to [email protected]. No new email alert subscriptions are being honored at this time. My Twitter feed is all about regenerative braking. My Mastodon and Post accounts wish Musk would buy them. My Substack Notes is less than inspired. My RSS feed says Venus, not Mars, should be our destination.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Melbourne: Melbourne has overtaken Sydney as the biggest city of Australia, a title the latter had held on to for more than 100 years.
With populations rapidly growing on Melbourne’s fringe, the city limits have been expanded to include the area of Melton, the BBC reported on Monday.
The latest government figures, from June 2021, put Melbourne’s population at 4,875,400 — 18,700 more than Sydney.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines a city’s “significant urban area”, by including all connecting suburbs with more than 10,000 people.
“Until the 2021 census definition, the Sydney significant area had a higher population than Melbourne. However, with the amalgamation of Melton into Melbourne in the latest… classification, Melbourne has more people than Sydney — and has had since 2018, ” the ABS’s Andrew Howe told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Monday, which described the redrawn boundary as “a technicality”.
Proud Sydneysiders will point to the ABS’s conclusion that when looking at the greater Sydney and Melbourne regions, Sydney remained bigger in June 2021.
Greater regions of a city take into account its “functional area”, the ABS says, and include populations who regularly socialise, shop or work within the city, but may live in small towns and rural areas surrounding it.
However the federal government predicts Greater Melbourne will overtake Greater Sydney in 2031-32.
This is not the first time Melbourne has held the title of Australia’s biggest city.
As a result of the gold rush in the late 19th century, which saw migrants flock to the state of the Victoria, Melbourne grew rapidly and outnumbered Sydney until 1905.
Being a mayor means being a manager, a problem-solver, a coach, an inspirational speaker, a people person and a punching bag. Anything and everything going on in town can wind up on your desk. And while you may have allies on your city council or in your state legislature, a mayor is the one most accountable to everyday people when something goes awry.
The 50 mayors we will survey throughout 2023 represent big cities and small towns, but many face the same challenges: recovering from Covid-era business shutdowns and remote schooling, stubborn spikes in crime, growing homelessness and a mounting affordability crisis. These mayors will bring us in on what they’ve learned on the job and what still vexes them. We will hear from this inaugural class of the Mayors Club through both surveys and interviews.
Here, you can learn about who they are in their own words — edited for length and clarity — and see their responses to our very first question: What keeps you up at night? The answers ranged from gun violence to homelessness to drugs.
This is what they had to say:
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Massive fire erupts at Bangladesh’s biggest wholesale market- twitter
Dhaka: A massive fire erupted on Tuesday at the Bangabazar in Dhaka — the biggest wholesale market in Bangladesh, officials said, adding that that the blaze has spread to more than six buildings and a nearby residential area.
Over 6,000 people own shops in the market.
Fire officials said that the market neither have any fire extinguishers nor a fire protection system.
Some shop owners have said that the blaze was pre-planned and demanded a probe into the incident.
Meanwhile, 50 fire units are currently pressed into service to douse the flames. Military and Air Force helicopters are showering the affected areas with water.
Rafi Al Faruk, duty officer of the Fire Service and Civil Defence control room, told IANS that the blaze erupted at around 6.10 a.m.
Without giving a probable cause of the blaze, Faruk confirmed that there were no reports of any casualties so far.
Black smoke has engulfed the area, hampering the firefighting operations, he added.
New Delhi: India on Sunday recorded a single-day jump of 3,824 COVID-19 infections, the biggest in 184 days, while the number of active cases increased to 18,389, according to Union health ministry data.
With the fresh infections, India’s COVID-19 tally rose to 4.47 crore (4,47,22,605). The death toll climbed to 5,30,881 with five deaths, the data updated at 8 am stated.
One death each was reported from Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Rajasthan in a span of 24 hours and one was reconciled by Kerala.
At 18,389, the active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections. The national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.77 per cent, according to the health ministry website.
The daily positivity rate stood at 2.87 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 2.24 per cent.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,41,73,335, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent.
According to the ministry’s website, 220.66 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive.
A young geneticist, Dr Rais A Gania was surprised to see his takeaways from his PhD were part of the text well before he entered the classroom as a teacher. Credited for identifying a particular enzyme that helps in crucial DNA copying, he is serving the IUST’s molecular medicine centre. In a freewheeling interview, he opens up about his research and future plans
TheNewsCaravan (KL): You studied in Kashmir and worked in different universities all over the world. How was your learning curve and what were the challenges you faced?
DR RAIS A GANAI (DRAG): I was born and brought up in the Posh-Kirri village of Anantnag. I did my primary schooling at Government Primary School in the same village. Later, I went to the Government Middle in the nearby Hugam village. Later, my father suggested me to complete further studies in Srinagar, as he was working at the University of Kashmir. Then, I went to the Starland High School Zakura and completed my matriculation there.
In Srinagar, I found it very difficult to compete with students because of the language barrier, as the medium of instruction was different. It was a challenging task to learn English and Urdu languages. It took me a lot of time to cope with the level of the students.
Then I completed my 10+2 from Soura Higher Secondary School. Afterwards, I went to the Islamia College of Science and Commerce, where from I completed my graduation. Even though there was not an ample structure at that time but the laboratories were well established. Attendance of labs was mandatory, due to which my scientific temper got developed.
After that, I was selected at the University of Kashmir for a couple of courses but I chose to study Biotechnology. After completing the Master’s degree in Biotechnology, I went to the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, where I worked under the mentorship of Prof Umesh Varshney and worked intensely on various Biotechnological challenges. He invested a lot of money, time and effort and taught me many new things due to which my interest in the research further deepened. During this time a few of my research papers were published.
Then I went to Sweden in 2009 for my PhD and completed it in 2015 and later got an international Postdoc fellowship offer in Sweden amounting to Rs 2.5 crore. I used that fellowship and immigrated to the USA. There I joined the NewYork based Howard Huges Medical Institute. I did research there for almost 2-3 years under the well-known researcher Danny Reinberg.
Then I came back to Kashmir as a Ramanujan Fellow. Initially, I joined the Central University of Kashmir and later moved to the IUST’s Watson-Crick Centre for Molecular Medicine in 2020.
KL: The work on genetics has been going on in all major universities throughout the world. However, we still have not understood the gene fully. What are the various challenges in understanding the gene, and what are the different goalposts we still have to reach?
DRAG: The gene is actually a small DNA sequence made of sugar bases like Adenine, Guanine, Thymine, and Cytosine (A, G, T, C). They are about 3 billion sugar bases called Nucleotides (made of Deoxyribose sugar, the Phosphate group, and the Nitrogen base) in a DNA molecule arranged in a chain structure. All the Nucleotides in a DNA molecule do not constitute genes, but only 1-2 per cent makes the genes and the rest 98-99 per cent of the base pairs do not attribute to the genes.
Scientists have identified most of the genes in our body and their functioning but the functioning of the rest 98 per cent of the non-genomic sequences (regulatory sequences) is still not known. We only know that these contain non-genomic sequences that regulate the genes, but the biggest challenge is to find out how 98 per cent of DNA regulates the 1 per cent of DNA.
The other major challenge was to understand the three-dimensional structure of DNA and its arrangement inside the cell. The chromosomes are arranged in compartmental structures. How and when these compartments are formed is yet to be discovered. How these genes are activated and repressed in the cells is still a challenge.
The actual structure of a DNA molecule has a three-dimensional chromatin architecture. These DNA molecules are present on the chromosomes. Our body contains 46 chromosomes in each cell that are intertwined inside the cell. The intertwined structure of chromosomes helps in the better expression of genes during cell division and cell formation. All the required genes express together and activate simultaneously in order to form a complete cell.
KL: What was your PhD all about and what were the major takeaways from your research?
DRAG: As I mentioned that DNA is a small molecule contained in a cell. A cell contains two meters of intertwined DNA, which if stretched is equivalent to at least four times the distance between the sun and the earth. During cell division and cell multiplication, this DNA is replicated/ duplicated which has to be very accurate. Genetic defects during cell division cause mutations/errors, which lead to genetic diseases, metabolic disorders, or even cancer.
During my PhD, my research was about the role of an enzyme called DNA polymerase in DNA replication. This enzyme reads, copies, and then makes the exact copy of a parent DNA molecule. The three billion nucleotides of a DNA molecule in a cell are copied accurately without any error or defect with the help of this enzyme. Besides, it also rectifies the errors, which are caused during cell division and helps in errorless duplication. Thus, the DNA polymerase enzyme not only plays a role in DNA replication but also fixes the errors caused during DNA replication, if any.
I also studied the functioning of various other enzymes but the pivotal research was about DNA polymerase. The majority of DNA polymerase enzymes look like, if I can say, a right-hand structure, containing a thumb, a palm, and fingers. The DNA polymerase, we studied has an additional domain called the P-domain, unlike the other DNA-Polymerase enzymes which only have three domains. The majority of DNA-Polymerase enzymes require a scaffold or support (called PCNA) for DNA copy and replication, but the DNA-polymerase we studied does not require PCNA rather it has the inbuilt P-domain that helps in DNA synthesis and thus does not require an outside scaffold. This was the biggest takeaway from my PhD research.
To my surprise, I later found when I was at the Central University of Kashmir, that our work and findings were published in textbooks, and are being taught to students in different Universities all over the world. It was a very difficult project to work on because nobody prior to us had worked on this. Our work was then published in the Journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, which now is a part of the textbooks and is being taught.
Dr Rais A Gania (WCCMM)
KL: What was your Post-doctorate research about, and what were your accomplishments and learnings during that period?
DRAG: I mostly studied two things during my Postdoc research, the role of epigenetic factors in the development, and the development of stem cells into the cardiomyocyte.
I actually wanted to expand and diversify my expertise, so I shifted to the field of epigenetics.
Under epigenetics, we study how the genes present in the DNA are regulated. Let us understand it this way – if we have two monozygotic twins and one of them is raised by the adopted parents and the other by the natural parents. Technically, after 30 years of age, both should be identical because of the principle of monozygotic nature, but because of the environmental effects, they would have developed variations over time. It is because the influence of environmental conditions affects the development of an individual and that regulates the body. Thus, the effect of an environment on the development over time, beyond the genetic basis and beyond DNA is called epigenetics.
There are thousands of genes on a DNA molecule and there are specific factors that actually regulate the functioning of these genes. I also worked on these factors.
DNA is wrapped around by the histone proteins. These proteins contain chemical modifications or tags that determine the function of the DNA sequence. I worked on early embryonic development, particularly on stem cells. I studied how differentiated development takes place from a single cell into different kinds of complex organs i.e., how a stem cell is transformed into a cardiomyocyte.
KL: How could you make lawmen understand this differentiation of a stem cell into different complex organs? What really controls this differentiation of cells? Is this also part of epigenetics?
DRAG: Nobody really knows how embryonic development occurs as it is not easy to study this field. People have now started research on it.
During embryonic development, the fusion of egg and sperm results in the formation of a Zygote, which later undergoes the 2-cell stage and the 4-cell stage, and so on. From day one of development certain genes are activated which stimulates the Zygote division and this division activates other genes, which then cause muscle cell formation. More and more genes get activated that guide the muscle cells to transform into different complex organs. It is mostly like this, but there is still ambiguity on how embryonic development takes place through different stages of development.
KL: What is your role at the IUST’s Watson-Crick Centre for Molecular Medicine and what are the different domains you are working on?
DRAG: I am establishing my lab here for research purposes. Besides, I am also the coordinator of the B Voc course on the Medical Lab and Molecular Diagnostic Technology. I teach students also. I guide students on how to do diagnostic tests and the process of opening diagnostic clinics.
The primary part of my job at the Watson-Crick Centre is to do research along with my students who work with me on the continuation of my PhD research work. We are studying the role of DNA polymerase enzyme other than the role of DNA synthesis.
Secondarily, we are also studying epigenetics. Epigenetic marks at different positions of a DNA molecule, other than the normal positions cause diseases like cancer, and developmental and neurodegenerative diseases, among others. Therefore, our aim is to research epigenetics in detail in order to develop drugs for the treatment of these diseases.
