Daily Archives: April 25, 2019

Sports

Hockey India shortlists 60 players for the Senior Women’s National Coaching Camp

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Harpal Singh Bedi

New Delhi: Hockey India on shortlisted 60 players for the Indian Women’s National Camp to begin on Friday at Sports Authority of India, Bengaluru.

The players were selected on the basis of their recent performance at the 9th Hockey India Senior Women National Championship (A and B Divisions).

On 4 May there will be selection trials to prune down the list to 33 core probable.

“While I am looking forward to seeing and testing the new talent coming into the National Camp, the athletes will need to perform and show their capabilities.

“We are constantly looking to improve and good players posing a challenge to seniors will only increase the competition within the core group and also help create depth in the team,” stated Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne

Eight goalkeepers including Savita, Rajani Etimarpu, Swati, Sonal Minz, Bichu Devi Kharibam, Chanchal, Sandya MG and Mahima have made the camp.

Defenders Deep Grace Ekka, Gurjit Kaur, Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Nisha, Reena Khokhar, Sunita Lakra, Rashmita Minz, Suman Devi Thoudam, Mahima Choudhary, Salima Tete, Manpreet Kaur, Vandana, Kiran, Ritu, Kirandeep Kaur, Gurleen Grewal, Cheluvamba R. have also made the cut

Meanwhile 17 midfielders have been named which include among others Nikki Pradhan, Neha Goyal, Lilima Minz, Monika, Karishma Yadav, Sonika, Renuka Yadav, Shyama Tidgam, Anuja Singh, Namita Toppo, Lily Chanu, Preeti Dubey, Reet, Chetna, Elin Lakra, Rajni Bala and Upasana Singh.

Among forwards, Rani, Navneet Kaur, Navjot Kaur, Vandana Katariya, Lalremsiami, Priyanka Wankhede, Anupa Barla, Udita, Rajwinder Kaur, Jyoti, Leelavathy Mallamada Jaya, Sharmila Devi, Amandeep Kaur, Aishwarya Chavan, Lalremsiami, Sonal Tiwari, Manisha Dhawal and Alka Dung Dung have been called-up for the National Camp which concludes on 9 June

Sports

Indians dominate mixed team events, lead Beijing Shooting World Cup Medals Tally

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Harpal Singh Bedi

New Delhi: Spearheaded by Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary, Indian Shooters dominated the Mixed Team competitions enabling the country to top of the medals tally at the World Cup Rifle/Pistol in Beijing on Thursday.

 Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary claimed their second gold in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team competition in as many World Cup stages this year, while another teenager Divyansh Singh Panwar also struck gold in the corresponding Air Rifle Mixed Team event partnering the more accomplished Anjum Moudgil to help cap a good day for India in international sport shooting.

Anjum partnered Divyansh, for the very first time to beat a classy Chinese pair 17-15 in an exciting gold medal match.

Manu and Saurabh then added another gold winning the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team competition. The teenage stars beat Chinese pair of former Olympic Champion Pang Wei and world cup finalist Jiang Ranxin, 16-6 in the title match

Anjum and Divyansh were also up against a formidable host pair of Liu Ruxuan and Yang Haoran in the final and in an up and down final where it once looked like the Chinese pair would pull through, the Indians came back admirably to tie at 15 points each, before winning the shoot-off tie-breaker under pressure to win a stunning gold.

The second Indian team in the competition, Apurvi Chandela and Deepak Kumar also reached the finals but finished sixth eventually.

In the Air Pistol event, Saurabh and Manu began from where they had left at the home world cup in Delhi a couple of months back, soundly beating top class competition en-route to an encore.

They did enough to make it to the final eight and then beat an experienced German pair in the QF, a second Chinese pair in the semis, before comprehensively beating Pang and Jiang 16-6 in the gold medal match. At one stage they were 12-0 up against their opponents before losing out on a few series.

The win was even more creditable given that a new format was being tried by the ISSF for the mixed events in Beijing.

The new format entailed the top eight teams qualifying for the final round where four quarterfinal (QF), two semifinals (SF) and a final would determine the eventual medalists.

The QF would be a 30-shot match-up between pairs in Rifle while a 40-shot one in Pistol. The medal events would entail a series of single shots per competitor per team. To decide the medals, the pair with the higher series aggregate would be allotted two points and the first team to reach 16 points would be adjudged the winner. In the Air Rifle event, a single shot would start the final before the series of two shots kicked-in.

Adarsh Singh in the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol was the best placed Indian after day one of qualification, shooting a score of 290 in the first precision stage to lie in 15thposition.

Anish Bhanwala shot 289 to be in 17thspot while Arpit Goel was lying 22nd after a round of 288. The trio goes into the second Rapid Fire stage on Friday for a shot at the final where the top six qualify. A total of 57 shooters are in the fray.

SciTech

No more slaughtering of animals for meat

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Chand Ahmed

Hyderabad: The traditional way of producing meat by slaughtering animals may be a matter of past in a few years as Indian scientists begin work on ‘cultured meat’ – meat made by cells extracted from animals.

Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), in collaboration with the National Research Centre on Meat (NRCM), has initiated research aimed at producing meat through cellular agriculture or cells sourced from animals and later cultivated into meat. It can also be called cell-based meat or ‘clean meat’ which will be nutritionally equivalent to conventional animal meat.

The taste, looks and smell of cell-based meat will be exactly like real meat, scientists said. This new method of producing meat could revolutionize food system, and can address concerns relating to food security, environmental sustainability and animal welfare.


CCMB Director Dr Rakesh Mishra announcing the new project in Hyderabad

CCMB director Dr Rakesh Mishra said “the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) has agreed to fund the project to develop technology to take ‘laboratory cell culture processes’ to ‘cell based meat production’.” An initial funding of Rs 4.6 crore has been received for the project. CCMB will collaborate with organizations like Good Food Institute (GFI) and Humane Society International India.


“The advantage of cell-based meat is that animals won’t be slaughtered. It is already happening across the world as governments have realized that protecting biodiversity is very important for coming generations,” said AlokparnaSengupta, deputy director of Humane Society International India.
Cell-based meat companies in Netherlands, Israel and Japan are receiving support from their governments, while regulatory authorities in America USA are in the process of developing a framework for cell-based meet. “This system is better for both people and planet. Our aim is to feed people by creating a platform for tasty and affordable protein,” said Varun Deshpande of GFI.


CCMB has also signed an agreement with HSI to launch a ‘Centre for Predictive Human Model Systems’.The centre will help enable shift in scientific research by focusing on new methodologies instead of animal models.This centre aims to stop use animals in research purposes. The alternative testing method would be to test the human cells and convert them into organoids (a miniature and simplified version or an organ produced in vitro in three dimensions that shows realistic micro anatomy).(India Science Wire)

SciTech

New mosquito repelling molecule identified

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Dr. Aditi Jain

New Delhi: Indian researchers have synthesized a new aromatic molecule that promises to help repel and kill adult female of Aedesaegypti mosquito which is carrier of several disease-causing viruses.

Mosquito bites that result in diseases such as malaria and dengue are a major concern in tropical countries where the temperature allows their easy breeding and transmission.Among these diseases, dengue ranks as the most critical with about 390 million infections occurringevery year. Mosquito nets and repellents can help decreasethe incidence of these diseases. However, mosquitoes are increasingly becoming resistant to pyrethroid-based insect repellents.

A team of researchers at National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), Pune, has synthesized several molecules from two aromatic compounds — noreremophilanes and nardoaristolone B. The compounds are structurally related to nootkatone, which is a natural product extracted from grapes and has earlier been shown to be effective against ticks and mites.

Based on structural similarities, scientists reasoned that the synthesized molecule may show insecticidal and repellent property against mosquitoes too. They tested their efficacy against adult females of Aedesaegyptiand found that one of the molecules, named NDS-100598, exhibited higherrepellence.

In laboratory experiments, researchers tested this molecule by applying a small amount of the chemical on muslin cloth placed on glove (which was worn by a volunteer). It was observed that mosquitoes did not bite when 0.25 milligram of this molecule was applied per square cmof surface.

“We have done preliminary acute dermal toxicity tests on rats and acute dermal irritation test on rabbits which suggest that the molecule is safe.However, detailed toxicity studies still needs to be conducted,”commented Dr. D. Srinivasa Reddy, a member of the research team, while talking to India Science Wire.

The researchers are in discussion with some leading companies for commercialization of this insect repellent molecule.The results of the study have been published in journal ACS Omega. The research team includedKishor L. Handore, Hanuman P. Kalmode, Shahebaz Sayyad, B. Seetharamsingh,Ganesh Gathalkar, SarangPadole, Pushpa V. Pawar, Mary Joseph, and Avalokiteswar Sen, apart from Dr. Reddy. (India Science Wire)

Twitter handle:@AditiJain1987