The Congress party will launch an “affirmative and positive” campaign in Rajasthan to counter the “acrimonious” charge of the BJP and advocate a new model of governance while highlighting the failures of the Vasundhara Raje-led government, Member of Parliament Sachin Pilot has said.Buoyed by the results of recent byelections to local bodies, where the Congress fared well, the party has decided to strengthen its base at the booth level. It would reach out to every voter through an aggressive mass contact programme to be launched soon, the Rajasthan Congress chief said. He said the Congress would not merely highlight the BJP’s failures, but would offer them a better alternative.“We will present the people with the blueprint of a model of alternative governance which will be holistic and inclusive, will care for the young and old, create jobs and have a vision to take the State forward,” Mr. Pilot said. Rajasthan goes to the polls in 2018.
A Bharatiya Janata Party MP has joined the chorus for death sentence to rapists “even if he is one of ours” as more cases of sexual assault were reported across Assam and Meghalaya.“The guilty should be publicly hanged or shot dead. There should be no leniency with rapists, juvenile or adult. Even if the guilty is found to be a BJP member, he should be executed publicly,” R.P. Sharma, Lok Sabha member representing Tezpur parliamentary constituency, said on Thursday.Mr. Sharma, a lawyer by profession, has often embarrassed the BJP with his outspokenness. In October last year, he had accused some ministers of denting the party image by taking bribes and 10% commission for various work.The MP’s outburst followed the arrest of a 60-year-old man in Meghalaya’s North Garo Hills district for raping his seven-year-old granddaughter. The accused, Deny Marak of Kharkutta area, had reportedly committed the crime on April 10 and used threats to silence the child.On Wednesday, the police in western Assam’s Dhubri town arrested one Nurjamal Haque for sexually assaulting a teenage girl while she was alone in a house where works as a maid.In the last 24 hours, the police in Guwahati arrested two men for sexually exploiting girls through blackmailing. Cases had been registered against the two in the city’s Chandmari Police Station.While one of the accused, Anjan Kalita, had been blackmailing a girl in the city’s Gandhibasti area, the other – a security guard named Rabindra Phukan – had been exploiting a resident of an apartment in Chenikuthi area.
Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister late Arjun Singh’s wife Saroj Kumari on Tuesday moved a court here, alleging that her sons Abhimanyu Singh and Ajay Singh were harassing her and had forced her out of her house. A Congress leader, Ajay Singh is the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly. Ms. Kumari, 83, filed the complaint under the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act in the court of judicial magistrate Gaurav Pragyan. To file the complaint, she personally visited the court along with her daughter Veena Singh and NRI industrialist Sam Varma. The magistrate ordered issuance of notices to the respondents, and listed the matter for hearing on July 19.“My sons Abhimanyu Singh and LoP Ajay Singh indulged in domestic violence against me and forced me out of my own house. They have also refused to take care of my maintenance which compelled me to approach the court,” the complaint said. It also named Suniti Singh, Ajay Singh’s wife. Ms. Kumari’s lawyer Dipesh Joshi said his client had also requested the court to grant her ex-parte relief (relief before hearing the respondents) so that she can return to her house in Bhopal. In a media statement too, Saroj Kumari reiterated her allegations. Having been forced out of her own house, she has to live live in an apartment in Greater Noida, she said. Her husband served the Congress his entire life and ensuring protection of women and assisting helpless persons was a matter of principles for him, she said.“But my son Ajay Singh has set aside these principles of the Congress and forced me out of my own house. At this age I have to leave my own home to live in different places. It is not only against the principles of Congress party but also defines the character of the man, who is all-powerful and the leader of opposition,” she said.“I have urged the court to help me so that I can live in my own house and also requested it to issue orders for eviction of Ajay Singh from that house,” the statement read. When contacted, Ajay Singh told PTI that he would reply to any notice pertaining to the complaint when he receives it. Speaking to reporters later, Ajay Singh termed the complaint as “BJP’s conspiracy”.Whenever he gave notice for no-confidence motion against the BJP government, such things happened, he said. The last time he had moved the motion, a Congress MLA defected to the BJP at the last moment, he said. Singh recently submitted a notice to the Assembly secretariat for a no-confidence motion in the coming monsoon session.
The body of a 65-year-old woman from Rajasthan’s Barmer district, who died in Pakistan last week during her visit to her relatives, was brought back to India via the Khokhrapar-Munabao zero point road route on Tuesday. The Pakistan Rangers handed over the body to the Border Security Force at the India-Pakistan border.The deceased, Reshma, a resident of Agasadi village in Barmer district, went to Pakistan’s Sindh province along with her son Sahib Khan on June 30 to meet her sisters. She fell ill there a few days before she was scheduled to board the Thar Express connecting the two countries and died on July 25, a day before her visa was to expire.The Indian High Commission in Islamabad swung into action after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj asked it through a tweet to help out Reshma’s family members who had submitted a memorandum. Though a prompt action was launched with the help of Pakistan government officials to facilitate repatriation of the body, it could not be brought by the Thar Express because of delay in legal formalities.BSF help soughtBarmer Collector Shivprasad Nakate said he took up the issue with the BSF to allow Reshma’s son to enter India along with the body through the road route parallel to the Thar Express’ railway line. The body arrived at the international border near Pakistan’s Khokhrapar zero point railway station and was handed over to the BSF after the gates at the fencing were opened.The body was first sent in an ambulance to Munabao for the immigration formalities and was later transported to Agasadi village, where Reshma’s four daughters and other relatives were waiting for it.The Khokhrapar-Munabao road route was utilised for the first time on Tuesday after the revival of rail link between India and Pakistan through the Thar Express in February 2006. A fortnight before the train started, former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, along with an 85-member delegation, had gone to Pakistan via this road to visit the ancient temple of Hinglaj and other shrines in Sindh and Balochistan.The rail link at Munabao was revived after a gap of 41 years.
Jannayak Janta Party leader Dushyant Chautala on Wednesday said that his party was in the process of forging an alliance with “like-minded outfits” to contest the Lok Sabha poll and an announcement in this regard will be made within four days. The Hisar MP said a three-member panel of the JJP, that includes K.C Bangar, S.S. Kadian and State unit chief Nishan Singh, has prepared a report which will be discussed with party patron Ajay Chautala, who will take a final call on the tie-up issue. He indicated that the Aam Aadmi Party could be on board among the like-minded parties, while some smaller outfits, which may not put up candidates to fight the election, could also be among those who extend support to the JJP.Mr. Dushyant Chautala said only one member from his family will be contesting the general election. “Within four days, we will come out with details and make an announcement,” he said.
A medium intensity earthquake of 5.8 magnitude hit the Andaman and Nicobar islands on Wednesday morning. The quake, which had its epicentre in the Andaman islands, occurred at 6:09 a.m., the National Centre for Seismology said.The Andaman and Nicobar archipelago is prone to earthquakes.
Puffing on a battery-powered, electronic cigarette to satisfy nicotine cravings could help longtime smokers quit their tobacco addiction. The evidence supporting that claim has been thin in the past, but researchers have now reported that adults in England who used the devices were 60% more likely to remain smoke-free than those who turned to nicotine patches or went cold turkey. Some public health researchers, though, still worry that’s not enough to cancel out the negative effects of e-cigarettes, which might keep other smokers hooked on nicotine or prevent them from seeking out more effective ways to quit. “This is an important study because, until now, the data on quitting smoking with e-cigarettes has been mostly anecdotal,” says Neal Benowitz, a physician at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), who studies tobacco addiction and was not involved in the work.E-cigarettes produce a nicotine-rich vapor that’s free of many of the toxins and carcinogens that make tobacco cigarettes so unhealthy. Their popularity has skyrocketed since they hit the market in the early 2000s; a 2012 survey found that 30% of adult smokers in the United States had tried e-cigarettes. But studies attempting to establish both the risks and benefits of the devices have had varied conclusions.Sign up for our daily newsletterGet more great content like this delivered right to you!Country *AfghanistanAland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBolivia, Plurinational State ofBonaire, Sint Eustatius and SabaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBrunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCongo, The Democratic Republic of theCook IslandsCosta RicaCote D’IvoireCroatiaCubaCuraçaoCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Faroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuatemalaGuernseyGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard Island and Mcdonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqIrelandIsle of ManIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJerseyJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacaoMacedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMexicoMoldova, Republic ofMonacoMongoliaMontenegroMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorwayOmanPakistanPalestinianPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRWANDASaint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Martin (French part)Saint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbiaSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSint Maarten (Dutch part)SlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSouth SudanSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSvalbard and Jan MayenSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailandTimor-LesteTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited StatesUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofVietnamVirgin Islands, BritishWallis and FutunaWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabweI also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events.Required fields are included by an asterisk(*)One recent review of the scientific literature, which included Benowitz as an author, reported that smokers who used e-cigarettes were less likely to quit smoking than those who didn’t use the devices. The results were based on broad surveys of all smokers, however, not just those attempting to quit. Another paper concluded that e-cigarettes are about as effective as nicotine patches at helping people stop smoking.Since 2006, researchers in England have run an ongoing surveillance program, in conjunction with the government’s research bureau, called the Smoking Toolkit Study. Every month, they survey a new sample of 1800 random adults about their smoking behavior. In 2009, they began collecting specific data on e-cigarette use. Now, the scientists have analyzed answers from the more than 6000 respondents who, between 2009 and 2014, reported attempting to quit smoking without the help of counseling or prescription medication.Twenty percent of people who reported using only e-cigarettes to help them quit—at any point in the year before they were surveyed—remained smoke-free at the time of the survey, the team reports online today in the journal Addiction. Among those who had tried quitting with no aid, 15% still weren’t smoking, and among those who used nicotine patches, 10% remained off cigarettes. Once other variables were taken into consideration—including age, previous quit attempts, and packs per day smoked—the increased chance of remaining smoke-free when using e-cigarettes to quit was about 60%.“With an e-cigarette, there’s enough simulation of the smoking experience that people feel more rewarded for doing it,” says psychologist Robert West of University College London, an author of the new study. “That positive reward keeps them doing it longer.”But the rate of people who successfully quit using e-cigarettes doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. A combination of counseling and prescription medication is still the most effective way for smokers to quit, West says, although numbers on that method weren’t reported in the latest study. It’s unclear whether people who would be quitting with these more effective methods are instead turning to e-cigarettes—which would lower the overall quit rate among smokers. “This is just one piece of the jigsaw puzzle,” he says.Tobacco control researcher Stanton Glantz of UCSF says that caveat is a big one. E-cigarettes could be changing the number of people trying to quit smoking at all, he points out. Previous studies have showed a high rate of e-cigarette use among smokers not intending to quit, who instead using the devices to help sustain their nicotine habit. “Yes, there are people who have successfully used e-cigarettes to quit smoking, but the statistics show that for every person like that, there’s more than one other person who has not tried to quit at all because of the very existence of e-cigarettes.”The new study also doesn’t contain data on how long users continue using e-cigarettes after they quit tobacco—or their long-term likelihood of returning to smoking. West says future analyses of the Smoking Toolkit Study data hope to answer these questions.Benowitz says that although his standard recommendation to patients is to try medications and counseling to quit smoking, the new results suggest that e-cigarettes could be helpful. “If someone wants to use e-cigarettes, I certainly wouldn’t discourage them.” But prescribing e-cigarettes, he adds, when more than 400 products are on the market, with varying levels of nicotine and side effects, is a different matter. More research—or regulation—is needed before doctors can take that step, he says.
“Your left, your left, your left, right, left!” Marching in perfect synchrony is the first thing every soldier must learn. Many recruits consider the exercise an annoying way to teach obedience, but drill sergeants say marching produces better soldiers by improving not just discipline, but also morale. According to a study published online today in Biology Letters, the drill sergeants may be right. The researchers started by making the male subjects walk 240 meters. They were randomly chosen to walk either at their own pace or in synchrony with another male. After that they were shown a “criminal”—a mug shot of an angry male face—and asked to fill out a survey about their feelings. As previous studies have shown, walking in synchrony made men slightly happier and more friendly toward their fellow marchers. But surprisingly, the synchronized marching also affected how the subjects perceived the physical attributes of the criminal. After marching, men judged their foes as smaller and weaker. So if you’re feeling intimidated, find a buddy and go marching. It really will boost your morale. As a bonus, if you have thousands of buddies willing to march, like these North Korean soldiers on parade, you’ll be a terrifying spectacle.
The swollen thorns house ants that help protect acacia trees from elephants. The fourth native species, Tetraponera penzigi, however, has a passive-aggressive strategy for monopolizing the trees it inhabits. With no taste for nectar, T. penzigi destroys the nectaries, reducing the appeal of the tree to other species. (T. penzigi harvests fungal spores and pollen and farms fungus.) And unlike Crematogaster, when T. penzigi are attacked, they retreat into the swollen thorns and defend them with stingers.Regardless of how they fight each other, all the species will defend the tree from elephants and other herbivores. And thus it has been for millennia. But about 4 years ago, researchers in central Kenya became aware of the arrival of the bigheaded ant (Pheidole megacephala). No one knows where the bigheaded ant originally came from, perhaps southern Africa or Madagascar. But it’s clear that it is a persistent and highly successful invader. Living in supercolonies that cooperate, they have devastated all manner of insects on several continents. “Anything they can attack, they will destroy,” says Todd Palmer, an ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville.To understand the threat to the native ants, Palmer and colleagues wanted to witness an attack on acacia trees. They cut down 16 small trees, each inhabited by a single species of native ant, from a part of the savanna not yet invaded. Then they trucked the trees—ants and all—to the Mpala Research Center in central Kenya, which has a high density of bigheaded ants.Soon, columns of bigheaded ants streamed into the trees. Crematogaster ants sent an alarm, calling other ants out of the swollen thorns. Although Crematogaster ants are five times larger than bigheaded ants, they were overwhelmed within an hour or two. Swarms of attackers grabbed Crematogaster ants by the legs, pulling them spread-eagle and cutting them up. As the Crematogaster troops fell, the invasion front moved up the trees. “The bigheaded ants just keep coming,” Palmer says. “They are unstoppable.” When bigheaded ants reached the Crematogaster nests inside the swollen thorns, they pulled out the brood and brought them back to their own nests. There, they fed them to their larvae.T. penzigi fared better. They hastily retreated into the swollen thorns, staying inside for up to a month. If caught outside, they flattened themselves and froze. Attacking ants seemed to not recognize them as ants, Palmer says, perhaps because of a chemical camouflage. “It’s the most timid ant that can withstand the battle,” he says. They may even profit: It seems that the extirpation of the three species of Crematogaster opens up other trees that T. penzigi can sneak into; Palmer and colleagues found a much higher density of T. penzigi where the bigheaded ants had invaded, they report in an article posted online in Ecology. The same behaviors were seen in laboratory experiments with the various species. “The study itself proved far more interesting than I dared expect, with our staged ant battles reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings battle scenes,” says first author Corinna Riginos, a research ecologist at the Teton Research Institute of Teton Science Schools, Jackson, Wyoming, who designed the study. Two species of Crematogaster fight each other for possession of an acacia tree. Rob Pringle Todd Palmer Call it Game of Thorns. A prickly tree that grows in the clay-rich soils of East Africa recruits stinging ants to defend itself from gnawing giraffes and marauding bull elephants. In return, the trees provide nectar and shelter—swollen thorns—for the insects. The rewards are so attractive that, in a drama reminiscent of a medieval fantasy TV show, four native ant species battle each other to inhabit the trees. But according to a new study, this warring kingdom is under siege by an even more violent outsider. The consequences could affect elephants, other large wildlife, and perhaps the future of iconic reserves such as Serengeti National Park.The tree in question is called the whistling thorn acacia (Acacia drepanolobium). These trees have evolved a mutualistic relationship with native ants. When herbivores try to strip away its leaves or moody elephants attempt to rip off branches, the ants rush out of their arboreal homes to bite and sting the threatening animal. Elephants have such an aversion to the ants that they will avoid eating the acacia, which helps prevent the woody savanna from becoming a grassland.The ecology of this system is fascinating. The four species of native ants compete ferociously with each other to occupy each tree. Three species, in the genus Crematogaster, feast on nectar that the tree produces for them in specialized organs called nectaries. Jacked up on sugar, they will rush to fight any foreign ant, curling around it and clenching the abdomen in a death grip with their bodies.Sign up for our daily newsletterGet more great content like this delivered right to you!Country *AfghanistanAland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBolivia, Plurinational State ofBonaire, Sint Eustatius and SabaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBrunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCongo, The Democratic Republic of theCook IslandsCosta RicaCote D’IvoireCroatiaCubaCuraçaoCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Faroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuatemalaGuernseyGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard Island and Mcdonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqIrelandIsle of ManIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJerseyJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacaoMacedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMexicoMoldova, Republic ofMonacoMongoliaMontenegroMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorwayOmanPakistanPalestinianPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRWANDASaint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Martin (French part)Saint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbiaSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSint Maarten (Dutch part)SlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSouth SudanSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSvalbard and Jan MayenSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailandTimor-LesteTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited StatesUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofVietnamVirgin Islands, BritishWallis and FutunaWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabweI also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events.Required fields are included by an asterisk(*) The invasion could have consequences beyond the fate of the native ants. Crematogaster do the best job defending acacia trees. T. penzigi is less effective, and the bigheaded ants won’t fight anything much bigger than a human thumb. Without native ants to guard them, Riginos and Palmer wondered, would acacia trees suffer more harm from elephants?They examined three sites invaded by the bigheaded ants and found five times as many acacia trees with moderate or worse damage from elephants, relative to uninvaded sites. The mutualistic relationship between the ants and the acacia, by mediating elephant damage, is a key influence on the amount of tree cover in the savanna. So the breakdown of the relationship is a significant threat to a landscape that includes Serengeti, Maasai Mara, and Nairobi national parks, Palmer says. “It is a substantial effect they are seeing,” says Han Olff, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands who was not involved in the research.The influence of the bigheaded ant is unlikely to be apocalyptic or vast, though. Johan du Toit, an ecologist at Utah State University in Logan—who was not involved in the paper—says that the consequence of losing these native ant species will likely be limited to the area where this acacia species is dominant and elephant are abundant, particularly Kenya and Tanzania. “Even for this acacia, losing the ants doesn’t mean it will be completely eaten up by elephants,” he says. “It’s a pretty resilient tree.” Olff adds that it can be difficult to predict exactly how the ecosystem will respond to the perturbation.The next step, Palmer says, is to look at how this invasion affects landscapes where various kinds of wildlife are present or absent. It’s possible that when elephants are not around, the trees may actually benefit from an invasion by the bigheaded ant, because they wouldn’t need to produce nectar for native species and could use the energy to grow instead.The key message is the need to improve biosecurity to prevent such invasions, says Lori Lach, a community ecologist at James Cook University, Cairns, in Australia. “We can’t be complacent about invasive ant spread, even of species that have mostly fallen off the radar of active management around the world,” she says. “Our best chance at preventing detrimental effects by invasive ants is by increasing investment in biosecurity and by detecting and destroying them at borders.”*Update, 8 September, 3:05 p.m.: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Corinna Riginos played the primary role in the research.
DARMSTADT, GERMANY—After the Philae probe bounced its way to a tenuous, unanchored perch on a comet—a bittersweet victory for the European Space Agency (ESA) and its Rosetta mission—Fred Jansen cried in the control room. Hours later, Jansen, the Rosetta project manager at ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, took himself to his hotel bar, bleary and hoarse. Colleagues asked to join him, but he brushed them off and drank two glasses of white wine alone. “I didn’t know you could feel this bad and be so happy at the same time,” he says. “Emotions are still running through my system in a way that is unbelievable.”Jansen had reason to feel joyful. Until last week, robots had landed on just six bodies: the moon, Venus, Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan, and the asteroids Eros and Itokawa. Philae had added another locale to the list: a comet. “It’s a great day,” said ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain in a postlanding briefing. “Not only for ESA but, I think, for the world.” But it was not the perfect landing that Jansen and others had hoped for, against admittedly long odds. A series of glitches had doomed Philae to a short life and left its scientific harvest uncertain.On 12 November, the Rosetta comet orbiter dropped Philae from an altitude of 22.5 kilometers. It took about 7 hours for the washing machine–sized probe to drift to the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a duck-shaped comet about 4 kilometers long. First came a big bounce, a sign that the comet’s black crust of dust, organic molecules, and ice is harder than thought. Philae rebounded at the speed of a slow walk. In the weak gravity, it reached a height of a kilometer and may have flown laterally another kilometer. After a second, smaller bounce, it finally came to awkward stop—tipped up on its side and sitting in the shadows of some sort of cliff wall, with scant sunlight to recharge its batteries.Sign up for our daily newsletterGet more great content like this delivered right to you!Country *AfghanistanAland IslandsAlbaniaAlgeriaAndorraAngolaAnguillaAntarcticaAntigua and BarbudaArgentinaArmeniaArubaAustraliaAustriaAzerbaijanBahamasBahrainBangladeshBarbadosBelarusBelgiumBelizeBeninBermudaBhutanBolivia, Plurinational State ofBonaire, Sint Eustatius and SabaBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswanaBouvet IslandBrazilBritish Indian Ocean TerritoryBrunei DarussalamBulgariaBurkina FasoBurundiCambodiaCameroonCanadaCape VerdeCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChadChileChinaChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombiaComorosCongoCongo, The Democratic Republic of theCook IslandsCosta RicaCote D’IvoireCroatiaCubaCuraçaoCyprusCzech RepublicDenmarkDjiboutiDominicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEgyptEl SalvadorEquatorial GuineaEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Faroe IslandsFijiFinlandFranceFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabonGambiaGeorgiaGermanyGhanaGibraltarGreeceGreenlandGrenadaGuadeloupeGuatemalaGuernseyGuineaGuinea-BissauGuyanaHaitiHeard Island and Mcdonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)HondurasHong KongHungaryIcelandIndiaIndonesiaIran, Islamic Republic ofIraqIrelandIsle of ManIsraelItalyJamaicaJapanJerseyJordanKazakhstanKenyaKiribatiKorea, Democratic People’s Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwaitKyrgyzstanLao People’s Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanonLesothoLiberiaLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtensteinLithuaniaLuxembourgMacaoMacedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascarMalawiMalaysiaMaldivesMaliMaltaMartiniqueMauritaniaMauritiusMayotteMexicoMoldova, Republic ofMonacoMongoliaMontenegroMontserratMoroccoMozambiqueMyanmarNamibiaNauruNepalNetherlandsNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaraguaNigerNigeriaNiueNorfolk IslandNorwayOmanPakistanPalestinianPanamaPapua New GuineaParaguayPeruPhilippinesPitcairnPolandPortugalQatarReunionRomaniaRussian FederationRWANDASaint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da CunhaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Martin (French part)Saint Pierre and MiquelonSaint Vincent and the GrenadinesSamoaSan MarinoSao Tome and PrincipeSaudi ArabiaSenegalSerbiaSeychellesSierra LeoneSingaporeSint Maarten (Dutch part)SlovakiaSloveniaSolomon IslandsSomaliaSouth AfricaSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSouth SudanSpainSri LankaSudanSurinameSvalbard and Jan MayenSwazilandSwedenSwitzerlandSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwanTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailandTimor-LesteTogoTokelauTongaTrinidad and TobagoTunisiaTurkeyTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUgandaUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited StatesUruguayUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofVietnamVirgin Islands, BritishWallis and FutunaWestern SaharaYemenZambiaZimbabweI also wish to receive emails from AAAS/Science and Science advertisers, including information on products, services and special offers which may include but are not limited to news, careers information & upcoming events.Required fields are included by an asterisk(*)Scientists made the most of their new home. They tried to gather data from its 10 instruments for 57 hours, before the lander’s batteries were exhausted and it fell into hibernation. It could be many weeks before scientists understand what the lander data tell them about the formation and composition of 67P, which, like all comets, is a relatively pristine object that dates to the early days of the solar system.Just getting to 67P had been an immense challenge. Rosetta spent a decade after its 2004 launch wheeling through the solar system, traveling 6.5 billion kilometers before finally meeting up with its target in August. The long, intricate voyage has shown that ESA can manage a €1.4 billion mission with many moving parts and competing national interests. For example, Philae was built primarily by France and Germany, and its instruments were managed from control rooms in Toulouse, France, and Cologne, Germany—which in turn relayed instrument commands to Rosetta via ESA’s main control room in Darmstadt, Germany.The Rosetta orbiter will continue to orbit 67P for the next 13 months, monitoring the comet as it draws closer to the sun and ever more of its subsurface ice sublimes, or outgasses, driving jets of gas and dust. But the landing was always going to be the mission’s climax. It almost didn’t come to pass. Two days before the attempt, controllers had trouble turning on the lander. Then, the day before landing, engineers discovered that reverse thrusters, meant to keep Philae pinned to the surface after touchdown, were unlikely to work. Mission managers came within a hair’s breadth of postponing the landing. “You can imagine the four-letter words,” Jansen says. Deciding that a delay would solve nothing, managers went ahead with the attempt. The problems multiplied at touchdown: Not only did the reverse thrusters not thrust, but two harpoons meant to fasten the probe also failed to fire, leaving Philae to bounce across the comet into rugged terrain.With just 1.5 hours of daylight a day falling on Philae in its shadowed position, hopes for recharging its batteries were dim. The elation of landing quickly turned into a frantic effort to wring science from the limited time. Not all turned out well. A rod meant to measure heat flow broke while the lander was attempting to hammer it into the comet’s surprisingly tough surface. The shutters to another instrument—one that measures composition by bombarding materials with x-rays—did not open, so the instrument measured mostly the titanium and copper of the shutters. And the most sought-after result—an attempt to measure the composition of a subsurface sample obtained by a drill—did not come to pass. Fred Goesmann, principal investigator for one of two sample analysis instruments at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System in Göttingen, Germany, says the drill appeared to move down and up correctly. It also seemed to have delivered something to one of Goesmann’s ovens. His ovens duly heated up. But the data show nothing. “It’s indistinguishable from not having received a sample,” Goesmann says. He doesn’t know whether the problem was with the drilling or with his instrument.There are still plenty of data to be thankful for. Both sample analysis instruments were able to “sniff” the gases present near the surface. Goesmann says one of his sniffs—just after the big bounce—seems richer than the others, perhaps a sign that dust was stirred up by the landing and sucked into his machine. The other sample analysis instrument, called Ptolemy, used its last moments to analyze a sniff chamber that had been trapping and concentrating ambient gases. Ptolemy’s principal investigator, Ian Wright, of the Open University in Milton Keynes, U.K., hopes concentrations are high enough for researchers to measure rare isotopes of hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. “We were pretty pleased at how things turned out,” he says.For Gerhard Schwehm, former project scientist for Rosetta, Philae was always going to be the cherry on top of a very big cake. The Rosetta orbiter remains entirely healthy and powerful, he says. Already, scientists are making significant findings. At a planetary science conference last week in Tucson, Arizona, members of the orbiter’s camera team presented images that showed arcs of dust emanating from jets—a finding that could help them understand the mechanisms of outgassing. A radar instrument, working in concert with a receiver on Philae, got data about the interior of the comet that could help unravel a major question: Does 67P have its duck head and body because two separate cometesimals came together? Or was 67P stretched and nearly broken apart—perhaps by a gravitational perturbation from the giant planet Jupiter?And ROSINA, a Rosetta instrument that uses spectrometers to measure gas abundances, has obtained a highly sought after result: the so-called deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio of water in the comet’s thin atmosphere, or coma. The measured value for 67P is much higher than the ratio in Earth’s oceans and higher than in other comets, says ROSINA principal investigator Kathrin Altwegg, of the University of Bern. Three years ago, the comet Hartley-2 was found to have a D-to-H ratio near that of Earth’s oceans—sparking interest in the notion that comet impacts delivered much of Earth’s water. Altwegg says the result for 67P could make asteroids the primary suspect again.In one of their last commands to Philae, controllers made the lander turn by 35° and lifted it up several centimeters, in hopes of putting Philae’s solar panels in a more favorable position. Goesmann says he is still optimistic that they will get to do science again with Philae. As 67P approaches the sun and the comet’s orientation changes, more light could reach its solar panels. He says the emotional roller coaster of last week is over for now, but not for good. “The battle’s over, we’re still alive,” Goesmann says. “Did we win? I don’t know.”To read more Rosetta coverage, visit our Rosetta collection page.
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft will block online ads for gender determination tools in India, following an order by the country’s top court. Related Items
An Indian-origin philanthropist in the US has made a grant of USD 1.5 million to a prestigious American University to advance studies in Jainism. Related Items
At an informal discussions of Security Council, the UK is learnt to have stated that it is considering stalling further voting at the UN after a single round of balloting on Monday.Read it at Times of India Related Items
Read it at Asia Nikkei Related Items
Read it at Deccan Herald Related Items
Related Items
Related Items
At first blush Hanif Kureishi’s latest film The Mother seems as removed from the desi part of his roots as can be.The story of an elderly Englishwoman from the north of England who loses her husband and then suddenly confronts passion in the shape of a much younger man doesn’t deal with some of Kureishi’s more familiar themes – race relations, fundamentalism, brownness.But there is a South Asian connection. And it’s not just that it’s a reunion between Kureishi, director Roger Michell (Changing Lanes, Notting Hill) and producer Kevin Loader who together once created The Buddha of Suburbia. The South Asian connection to The Mother lies in its genesis.“We were in an Indian restaurant in England and my mother said that the waiter had pretty hands. Then she said she didn’t think anybody would touch her again,” remembers Kureishi. That led Kureishi, whose father passed away ten years ago, to think that though desirability fades with age, clearly desire doesn’t die. “I thought about a woman who might rebel, hrefuse to be a mother and grandmother,” says Kureishi. “And the hullabaloo it might cause.” It’s not so much the fantasy about doing it. The Mother deals with the crisis that erupts when the older woman actually decides to act upon it.In The Mother when May is first widowed, her busy children try to be understanding and make space for her in their lives, but always in the background. But when she suddenly gets involved with a younger man, who is also her daughter’s on-again off-again boyfriend, all hell breaks loose.But this is no feel good romance for the older woman like the hit Under the Tuscan Sun where a still attractive middle-aged woman finds succor and a hunk in Italy after a shattering divorce in Manhattan.Anne Reid who plays the mother is a stage and television actress who doesn’t bring high voltage start power to the role. “I guess if it had been Charlotte Rampling or Helen Mirren or Julie Christie it would have been easier,” says Kureishi. “But that wasn’t the point. The point was to take somebody who looked anonymous. I am interested in the ordinary; I have always been.”For Kureishi that interest has manifested itself in a rich body of work that has skipped mediums from screenplays to novels and short stories and an upcoming memoir about his father. It has also allowed him to explore a range of issues and never be pigeonholed as the desi writer or the race writer. “I think I get interested in stuff in twos” he says. He ticks them off on his fingers. Buddha of Suburbia (1990) and My Beautiful Launderette (1985) kind of go together. And The Black Album (1995) and My Son the Fanatic (1998). Intimacy (1998) and Love in a Blue Time (2001). Now The Body and The Mother.”But even as he skips over subjects and themes, Kureishi has always returned to his own life for inspiration. He has been pilloried for doing so. His own sister has blasted him for using her life in his stories. In Intimacy he was derided for pitilessly chronicling a marital breakup that very much paralleled his own. An aunt told him he should show good things about the community not drug users and poofters. Kureishi’s response was to name the lesbian character in Sammy and Rosie Get Laid after her. But then he adds more seriously, “I don’t want to upset them but I have to tell a story truthfully for it to be worth telling. But its a big deal for a family to be exposed. You explain to them what you are doing and how it’s not them or it might be a bit of them. But that is tough sometimes.”Even in The Mother, he was a little worried how his own mother would react, especially to the sex scenes involving Reid. “But she loved it,” he says with obvious relief. “She found it liberating. They are rather self-deprecating these women, they don’t think they are important.”Kureishi’s mother came from a working class English family. His father, on the other hand, came from the well-to-do intelligentsia of Bombay. “But he left because he didn’t want to be with a big family. He was one of 12 children. He wanted to be king of his house in the suburbs.”His leaving also effectively deprived him of a homeland since the rest of the family moved to Pakistan. “So he would have no sense of rejoicing in touching his own soil again. Pakistan was just where the family lived,” reminisces Kureishi.Now Kureishi has been going through his father’s papers and manuscripts and reconstructing his life. Some of the material is startling. For example his father writing about going to a brothel for the first time. “It’s disconcerting to be going into a brothel with your dad at age 16,” chuckles Kureishi. “This kind of intimacy with your parents is something we don’t really have. We see them as protectors not sexual beings.”And Kureishi has always been very effective at exploding these taboos. At a time when Islamic fundamentalists conjured up images of bearded old men, in My Son the Fanatic, the father is the liberal while the young son is increasingly drawn into fundamentalism. When South Asians were hardly visible in the media, he gave us Omar in My Beautiful Launderette, young, Pakistani and gay and involved with the most unlikely of partners – a skinhead. That has always been the strength of Kureishi: the complicated canvases he has worked with and the unlikely juxtapositions of characters. “My work is a mixture. Buddha of Suburbia is full of white people,” says Kureishi. At that time it had seen iconoclastic to people a novel set in Britain with characters that looked like Omar and Karim and Jamila. Now South Asians are everywhere whether it’s Bend it Like Beckham or Bombay Dreams. “That’s how cultures work. It starts at the edges and moves to the mainstream,” says Kureishi. He had visualized Launderette as Godfather like saga that would follow Omar and Johnny’s story over generations. “But Daniel Day Lewis (Johnny) had become a big star and didn’t want to go back to some little English film. Also Stephen Frears (the director) had gone to America by then. So it was hard to get everyone back together,” says Kureishi.More importantly as the British South Asian culture became more mainstream or, as Meera Syal put it, brown became the new black, Kureishi moved on to other challenges. Like getting inside the head of an old woman. It’s a challenge, he admits, but you don’t take it on all at once. “You just imagine an old woman getting out of her bed, putting on her slippers, going to the garden, that’s where it begins,” he says.The man who once took on the politics of Thatcher’s Britian still finds the political landscape, especially post 9/11, fascinating.He is very impressed by how seriously Britons have taken the Iraq war and feels Tony Blair’s only friend is George Bush. “But I am not capable of writing about it,” he says. “It’s too complicated. I have been writing about more intimate things, relationships, my father, the mother. But The Mother is political too, she is marginalized as well. You could call her a minority.”It’s hard to believe that Kureishi, once the hip prophet of a young rebellious mixed-race Britain turns 50 this year. His own twins (who play the boys in The Mother) are 10 while his younger boy is 6. Kureishi looks at the world more through the eyes of a father than the mischievous rebellious teenager whose father thought he was being very English when Kureishi told him he was leaving home to go to university instead of getting married and staying with the family.Kureishi says he doesn’t think too much about aging in a society like Britain as opposed to a family-centric one like Pakistan. He admits it’s often harder for women since so much emphasis is placed on looks. “It’s also a fact that older men commonly go out with much younger women as I myself have done,” he says. “But aging doesn’t scare me. I’m a big man. I can carry on writing. We have to talk about love and death and family and illness and war. I like frivolous things, but I want to live in a serious culture.” Related Items
The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has declined to transport four elephants from eastern Assam’s Tinsukia to Ahmedabad for the July 4 Jagannath Rath Yatra until the Gauhati High Court resolves the matter and the State Forest Department clarifies an order of the Supreme Court regarding transfer of elephants.Assam-based animal rights activists Urmi Mala Das and Nandini Baruah had on Friday filed a public interest litigation at the high court challenging the Assam government’s decision to transport four juvenile elephants, two of them females, in railway wagons to Ahmedabad. Their PIL followed a petition filed via email to the court by Canada-based activist Sangeeta Iyer.PIL filed“We will not dispatch the elephants unless we receive a clarification sought from the Forest Division on an order by the Supreme Court. Besides, there is a PIL to watch out for,” said Masood Alom, the Additional Divisional Railway Manager of NFR’s Tinsukia Division. Hearing a case related to Kerala, the SC had in May 2016 said: “The state government shall not issue any ownership certificate to any of the persons in possession of elephants. That apart, the persons who are in possession of elephants shall not transfer the elephants outside the state nor shall they part with the elephants by way of transfer in any manner…” Officials of NRF’s zonal headquarters in Guwahati’s Maligaon confirmed the decision not to transport the elephants until the legal issues are resolved. They also trashed reports that the elephants were being dispatched quietly before the PIL is heard on Monday.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has asked the government to issue photo identity cards to the 3.11 crore people who have been included in Assam’s updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) that was released on August 31.The party cited the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, to raise this demand.Some NGOs and political leaders in the State have felt the need for some kind of ‘NRC-included’ proof, especially for daily-wagers who move to other States for work. One of the reasons is a drive against “foreigners” in the States adjoining Assam after the release of the final NRC.In Meghalaya, for instance, some students and tribal organisations have been raiding factories in a bid to drive out those without proper citizenship credentials. At least 30 labourers from Assam were asked to leave an industrial estate in Meghalaya’s West Khasi Hills district.“An identity card has become essential for people included in the NRC, particularly in a communally-charged atmosphere. But the authorities should issue such cards after correcting the clerical errors,” CPI(M) State secretary Deben Bhattacharyya said.There have been several instances of data entry errors with names misspelt and genders changed.The CPI(M) also sought an ‘entirely judicial’ process for handling the cases of the more than 19 lakh people excluded from the NRC.“The excluded are to be tried in the quasi-judicial Foreigners’ Tribunals. They should ideally be tried in a transparent judicial system and the government should ensure the poor among them are provided legal help,” Mr. Bhattacharyya said.