US students sent camera into near-space

A group of US science students have upstaged NASA by sending a camera into near-space to take pictures of Earth using off-the-shelf items costing just $US150 ($170).

Displaying stunning ingenuity reminiscent of MacGyver, the MIT students filled a weather balloon with helium and strapped it to a styrofoam beer cooler containing a cheap Canon A470 camera that was programmed to take photos every five seconds.

The students - Oliver Yeh, Justin Lee and Eric Newton - placed hand warmers inside the beer cooler to ensure the camera and battery did not freeze in the -40-degree temperatures.

The balloon popped after about four hours once it was about 28 kilometres high, causing it to spiral back to the ground. The drop was relatively smooth and took about 40 minutes thanks to a parachute attached to the cooler.

But a prepaid Motorola mobile phone equipped with GPS technology, which was placed inside the cooler, allowed the students to keep track of the rig's location and retrieve it once it landed - about 32 kilometres from the launch site.

Using a "balloon trajectory forecast" tool on the University of Wyoming's website, the group were able to estimate with a high degree of accuracy where the cooler would land.

"We were like placing bets on whether we thought it would work or not," Lee, 23, told CNN.

"Early on, we were optimistic that it would work. About four hours after, [when] we hadn't heard any news about the device, we had sort of given up hope. We'd thought we'd lost it."

The group has published amazing photos and a YouTube video using images taken off the camera. It plans to publish step-by-step instructions, teaching other people how to make a space camera.

"We tested our parachute by putting eggs inside our styrofoam box and tossing the box off of a five-storey building," the students wrote on their website.

"We were not satisfied with the landing speed of our box until the eggs did not break upon the box's impact."

"We tested our parachute by putting eggs inside our styrofoam box and tossing the box off of a five-storey building," the students wrote on their website.

"We were not satisfied with the landing speed of our box until the eggs did not break upon the box's impact."

The group were quick to point out that their rig did not involve elaborate equipment and complicated hardware hacking, aside from loading the camera with open-source software enabling it to take pictures continuously.

Since unveiling the project, the students have learnt they could have bought the phone for $US20 less and a memory card that was $US10 cheaper. It's conceivable that the project could be completed for under $US100, which pales in comparison with the billions of dollars NASA spends on its space projects.

Others have sent balloons into space to take pictures but none have managed to make the process nearly as cheap and simple as the MIT project.

The students have been inundated with feedback after their photographs spread virally online, leading them to put this disclaimer on their website: "CAUTION/DISCLAIMER: Launching things into the stratosphere can be DANGEROUS! Please contact the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] before trying any launches."

Read More......

Celebration of Eid ul-Fitr in Bangladesh

Eid-ul Fitr one of the two main Muslim religious festivals. Eid and fitr are ARABIC words. Eid means festival and fitr means to open, to break fasting, to go back to normal situation. Eid-ul Fitr is the day of joy on the 1st of the month of Shawwal, when people return to the normal routine of life after completing the siam (restraint) and fasting in the holy month of RAMADAN. The month of siam begins after the appearance of the new moon of the month of holy Ramadan and roza (fasting) closes on sighting the new moon of the next month of Shawwal. During this month Muslims keep anger, sex, senses and emotions, illusions and jealousy under restraint. For this reason, the word fitr is used in the sense of victory also.

Eid-ul Fitr is the latest among the main religious festivals. Observance of this great festival of piety had begun only 1380 solar years ago. Eid-ul Fitr started being observed as a festival immediately after the Hijrat (migration) of the Prophet Muhammad (Sm) to Madina. The HADITH narrated by Hazrat Anas (R) depicts the following: "after the great Prophet (Sm) arrived at Madina, he observed that the people of the town celebrates two special days with fanfare. He then asked, what were these days? The local people replied that they had been celebrating these two days since the Jaheli era. Then Rasulullah (Sm) said, 'Allah gave you two other good days instead of these two. These are the days of EID-UL AZHA and Eid-ul Fitr (Sunan Abu Daud, Quitabul Eidayan)". It is noteworthy that the people of Madina used to observe two days, one named Nauroj that followed the full moon of autumn and the other Mihirjan that followed the full moon of spring and the celebrations included joy and delight, sports and funs of vulgar taste. These rites and rituals of the pre-Islamic era were contrary to the norms of Islam. Nauroj introduced by Jarathustra was the New Year's Festival. But the duration of that festival was six days, only one of which was the nauroj-e-amma that the common people could celebrate. The remaining five days were earmarked for the elite and the rich people only. Similarly, the six-day festivities of Mihirjan also had only one day for celebrations by the common people. Thus these two festivals were marred by class differences, gaps between the poor and the rich, vanity of the riches and open demonstration of vulgarities.


The Arabs inspired by the ideals of Islam started observance of Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Azha at the instructions of Rasulullah (Sm). This led to the introduction of Eid-ul Fitr, a festival of harmony free from class differences, filth and vulgarism.

It must be pointed out that as an Islamic festival, observance of Eid-ul Fitr is confined to Muslims only. But since Islam is a religion of peace and friendship and Eid means joy, Eid in effect brings joy and good wish to the whole mankind.

Eid-ul Fitr is celebrated in Bangladesh with great eclat. On this day everyone tries to dress well and prepare improved foods according to their ability. Relatives and neighbours also share the joys of this festival.
Muslims perform two rakats of Eid Namaz on the day and exchange greetings with all. They exchange salam and greetings by embracing one another irrespective of status or age. They also visit the graves of the relatives and pious Muslims. Nowadays exchange of Eid cards has come in vogue. It is a religious obligation on the day to pay fitra to the poor at a fixed rate. Also food and clothes are distributed to the poor.

The government declares holiday for three days on the occasion. People who live in towns but have their families or parents in villages go to their country homes to meet relatives and celebrate the festival together.

Different newspapers publish articles on the life and philosophy of Hazrat Muhammad (Sm), the significance of Eid, and the ideals of Islam. The radio and television broadcast special programmes. Congregational prayers are held in all rural and urban places. In Dhaka, the Eid congregations are held at the national Eidgah, all major mosques including the BAITUL MUKARRAM. The biggest congregation of the country is held at Sholakia in KISHOREGANJ, where about half a million people join the Eid prayer.
Eid festival is observed in the rural areas with great fanfare. Special groups of people from a para or mahalla (ward) are formed in some villages. These groups are called malat, each headed by a mulla, who usually conducts the Eid prayers of the malat. He is invited to all houses of the malat and is also given some honorarium. After the Eid prayers in the morning everybody returns home and begin visiting each other's home and eat SHIRNI. Every member of a malat visits every other's house and eats shirni and thus become each other's friends.

Eid fairs are organized at many rural places. These fairs are basically gatherings that promote friendship among the rural people. The fairs are arranged on the bank of a river or under a big banyan tree near the local bazaar. Handicraft items and foodstuffs such as chira, muri, khai, manda, and sweets are sold in the fairs. Nakshi pankha, dolls, and decorated pottery as well as musical instruments such as flute, drum, EKTARA are also sold. Some fairs have merry-go-rounds, puppet shows and bioscopes. In addition, shows of spiritual songs such as Marfati and MURSHIDI are also staged in the Eid fairs. In some areas of the riverine Bangladesh BOAT RACEs are organised. Arrangements of prizes for boats that win the races are especially encouraged. The rich people of the villages give the prizes.

In some rural areas sports competitions are also organized on this occasion. Games like hadudu, KABADI, and dariabanda entertain the spectators. Football and cricket matches are also organized. These games create a festive atmosphere. After enjoying the fanfare of the Eid festival, people return to their work places with renewed enthusiasm.

Read More......

Ancient Animal Graves

September 14, 2009--At the edge of a cemetery in Hierakonpolis, Egypt's first city, lies a baboon, buried 3,500 years ago in a tomb near others containing nine dogs and six cats. It was these animals' job to protect the elite necropolis.

Hierakonpolis, south of Cairo, has more animal burials than any early Nile Valley urban center. But their purpose has long puzzled archaeologists.

This summer, site director Renee Friedman found evidence the animals belonged in a menagerie kept by the city's ruler--the earliest evidence of a practice that later spread through Egypt.

"All these big animals were symbols of power," Friedman says.


--Patrick Walters for National Geographic magazine

—Photograph courtesy Renée Friedman

Read More......

Color-blindness Cured by Gene Injection in Monkeys

A simple injection of cells has cured monkeys of color-blindness—giving a green light to future research into improving human vision with gene therapy, a new study says. Calling the procedure his gene therapy "dream," researcher Jay Neitz said that "ultimately this could be a tool that could cure all sorts of eye diseases."

It's too early to say that the technique can help color-blind people who can't see red or green, but study co-author Neitz is confident.

"If we did this exact same thing to a human being today, I believe we would have cured their color vision," said Neitz, an ophthalmologist and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle.

(Related: "Mice Get 'Human' Vision in Gene Experiment.")

Color-blindness Can Be "Heartbreaking"

The most common genetic disorder in humans, color-blindness affects about 3.5 million people in the United States, more than 13 million in China, and about 16 million in India, the study authors say.

Most color-blind people are men, and most function fine.

But some are "heartbroken" that they can't enter careers that require full-color vision, such as geology and aviation, Neitz said—not to mention that the color-blind can't fully enjoy fall colors and sunsets, or even tell if they're getting sunburned, he added.

Color-blind Monkey Miracle Cure?

Some squirrel monkeys also have a form of color-blindness identical to that of humans: Their eyes lack a pigment gene that allows them to see reds and greens.

To find out if gene therapy could cure color-blindness, Neitz and colleagues trained several of the monkeys—some color-blind, some not—in a lab.

Whenever the colored dots were red or green, though, the color-blind monkeys acted frustrated—sometimes even shaking the display, Neitz said.

After the initial round of touch screen tests, the team injected a specially engineered virus behind the retinas of two of the color-blind monkeys.

The virus contained genes for red pigment in cone cells—cells in the eye that respond to light and color. The virus inserted the red-pigment genes into some of the monkey's green-sensitive cone cells, causing those cells to become red sensitive.

Within about 20 weeks, the two monkeys were able to point out red and green, according to the study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

To formerly color-blind monkeys, the change confers profound abilities, noted visual neurobiologist and color-vision expert Bevil Conway—for example, the ability to find fruit amid green leaves.

Read More......