Wages for rural job scheme to be hiked: Jairam Ramesh

. New Delhi: Wages for people working under the national rural employment scheme will be hiked from April 1, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Sunday. A notification in this regard will be placed before parliament in the coming session scheduled to begin Feb 5, Ramesh said at the Ninth Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Divas here.

The wage rate under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has already been linked to the Consumer Price Index and the yearly revision follows from it. Referring to various suggestions received from the states, Ramesh said there was a need for parity in the MGNREGS wage rate and the minimum wage, where the former was lower.

The minister said there were 14 states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Rajasthan, where rural job wage was lower than the minimum. To implement this, the MGNREGA Act needs to be amended and an expert committee is looking into the matter, he said.

Ramesh also asked officials to motivate and help small and marginal farmers to undertake land levelling and irrigation schemes on their land under MGNREGS. 
The minister gave away 47 awards on the occasion for best initiatives and innovations in the job scheme.

Wages for rural job scheme to be hiked: Jairam Ramesh

. New Delhi: Wages for people working under the national rural employment scheme will be hiked from April 1, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh said Sunday. A notification in this regard will be placed before parliament in the coming session scheduled to begin Feb 5, Ramesh said at the Ninth Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) Divas here.

The wage rate under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has already been linked to the Consumer Price Index and the yearly revision follows from it. Referring to various suggestions received from the states, Ramesh said there was a need for parity in the MGNREGS wage rate and the minimum wage, where the former was lower.

The minister said there were 14 states, including Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Rajasthan, where rural job wage was lower than the minimum. To implement this, the MGNREGA Act needs to be amended and an expert committee is looking into the matter, he said.

Ramesh also asked officials to motivate and help small and marginal farmers to undertake land levelling and irrigation schemes on their land under MGNREGS. 
The minister gave away 47 awards on the occasion for best initiatives and innovations in the job scheme.

Breakthrough in lung cancer therapy

Washington: A new study shows that a combination of drugs can be used in targeted therapy against a common type of lung cancer. 

Lung adenocarcinomas, the most common genetic subtype of lung cancer which has long defied treatment with targeted therapies, has had its growth halted by a combination of two already-in-use drugs in laboratory and animal studies, setting the stage for clinical trials of the drugs on patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts and other scientists report in a new study.

The study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, describes a new tack in the treatment of lung adenocarcinomas which account for about 40 percent of all lung cancers that carry mutations in the gene KRAS. While most efforts to target KRAS directly with drugs have not proved successful, the authors of the current study took a more circuitous approach, targeting KRAS's accomplices, the genes that carry out its instructions rather than KRAS itself, reports Science Daily.

'About 30 percent of lung adenocarcinomas have mutations in KRAS which amount to nearly 30,000 of all patients diagnosed with lung cancer each year in the United States,' says the study's senior author, David Barbie, MD, of the Lowe Centre for Thoracic Oncology at Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

'That represents the single biggest subset of lung cancer patients, if grouped by the mutations within their tumour cells. Unfortunately, there has not been a reliable way of striking at the genetic mechanism that causes these cells to proliferate.' 
Mutations in KRAS cause cancer cells to grow and divide in a wildly disordered way. The lack of drugs able to block KRAS safely has led investigators to look for ways of stifling its effects 'downstream' -- by interfering with the signals it sends to other genes.

'The next step will be to take these results to the clinic where the combination can be tested on lung cancer patients,' says Wong. 'We're in the process of developing a clinical trial. Because KRAS mutations are also common in colon and pancreatic cancer, we're hopeful that trials will be organised for these patients as well.'

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Breakthrough in lung cancer therapy

Washington: A new study shows that a combination of drugs can be used in targeted therapy against a common type of lung cancer. 

Lung adenocarcinomas, the most common genetic subtype of lung cancer which has long defied treatment with targeted therapies, has had its growth halted by a combination of two already-in-use drugs in laboratory and animal studies, setting the stage for clinical trials of the drugs on patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts and other scientists report in a new study.

The study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, describes a new tack in the treatment of lung adenocarcinomas which account for about 40 percent of all lung cancers that carry mutations in the gene KRAS. While most efforts to target KRAS directly with drugs have not proved successful, the authors of the current study took a more circuitous approach, targeting KRAS's accomplices, the genes that carry out its instructions rather than KRAS itself, reports Science Daily.

'About 30 percent of lung adenocarcinomas have mutations in KRAS which amount to nearly 30,000 of all patients diagnosed with lung cancer each year in the United States,' says the study's senior author, David Barbie, MD, of the Lowe Centre for Thoracic Oncology at Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

'That represents the single biggest subset of lung cancer patients, if grouped by the mutations within their tumour cells. Unfortunately, there has not been a reliable way of striking at the genetic mechanism that causes these cells to proliferate.' 
Mutations in KRAS cause cancer cells to grow and divide in a wildly disordered way. The lack of drugs able to block KRAS safely has led investigators to look for ways of stifling its effects 'downstream' -- by interfering with the signals it sends to other genes.

'The next step will be to take these results to the clinic where the combination can be tested on lung cancer patients,' says Wong. 'We're in the process of developing a clinical trial. Because KRAS mutations are also common in colon and pancreatic cancer, we're hopeful that trials will be organised for these patients as well.'

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International Space Station 'farm' bears fruit

Moscow: Those who have a garden attached to their house and still don't grow vegetables must go green with envy at the news. Astronauts are growing vegetables in an experimental greenhouse named Lada aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that are safe to eat.

So far, station crews have harvested peas, leafy greens and a variety of dwarf wheat, all of which have now been certified as safe to eat, Russian researcher Margarita Levinskikh from Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems told an annual space conference in Moscow recently.

After undergoing repairs this year, the greenhouse would be re-stocked with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. In addition to eventually supplementing the crew's diet, the crops would be analysed to see if they genetically change in space.

The results are encouraging for space habitat dream, said the institute, a cooperative effort between the institute and the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University

International Space Station 'farm' bears fruit

Moscow: Those who have a garden attached to their house and still don't grow vegetables must go green with envy at the news. Astronauts are growing vegetables in an experimental greenhouse named Lada aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that are safe to eat.

So far, station crews have harvested peas, leafy greens and a variety of dwarf wheat, all of which have now been certified as safe to eat, Russian researcher Margarita Levinskikh from Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems told an annual space conference in Moscow recently.

After undergoing repairs this year, the greenhouse would be re-stocked with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. In addition to eventually supplementing the crew's diet, the crops would be analysed to see if they genetically change in space.

The results are encouraging for space habitat dream, said the institute, a cooperative effort between the institute and the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University

International Space Station 'farm' bears fruit

Moscow: Those who have a garden attached to their house and still don't grow vegetables must go green with envy at the news. Astronauts are growing vegetables in an experimental greenhouse named Lada aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that are safe to eat.

So far, station crews have harvested peas, leafy greens and a variety of dwarf wheat, all of which have now been certified as safe to eat, Russian researcher Margarita Levinskikh from Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems told an annual space conference in Moscow recently.

After undergoing repairs this year, the greenhouse would be re-stocked with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. In addition to eventually supplementing the crew's diet, the crops would be analysed to see if they genetically change in space.

The results are encouraging for space habitat dream, said the institute, a cooperative effort between the institute and the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University.

International Space Station 'farm' bears fruit

Moscow: Those who have a garden attached to their house and still don't grow vegetables must go green with envy at the news. Astronauts are growing vegetables in an experimental greenhouse named Lada aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that are safe to eat.

So far, station crews have harvested peas, leafy greens and a variety of dwarf wheat, all of which have now been certified as safe to eat, Russian researcher Margarita Levinskikh from Russia's Institute of Biomedical Problems told an annual space conference in Moscow recently.

After undergoing repairs this year, the greenhouse would be re-stocked with rice, tomatoes and bell peppers. In addition to eventually supplementing the crew's diet, the crops would be analysed to see if they genetically change in space.

The results are encouraging for space habitat dream, said the institute, a cooperative effort between the institute and the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University.

NASA faces lawsuit over life on Mars!

Washington: It comes straight from Ripley's Believe it or not. NASA is being sued for not investigating a genuine life form on red planet! It pertains to the mystery Mars rock that had appeared in front of Mars rover Opportunity. Petitioner Rhawn Joseph thinks that it was proof of alien life on Mars and that NASA is unwilling to investigate any further.

Joseph says it is actually a 'mushroom-like fungus, a composite organism consisting of colonies of lichen and cyanobacteria - known on earth Apothecium'. 
He claims he's an astro-biologist with a long string of papers published in 'leading journals', reported Popular Science.

Lead scientist Steve Squyres of NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity had reportedly said that the origin of the object in question was a mystery and that it had left his team baffled as to where it came from. Scientists hypothesise that the rock is either from a nearby meteorite fall or the rock was flipped out of place by the rover as it turned on the spot.

NASA faces lawsuit over life on Mars!

Washington: It comes straight from Ripley's Believe it or not. NASA is being sued for not investigating a genuine life form on red planet! It pertains to the mystery Mars rock that had appeared in front of Mars rover Opportunity. Petitioner Rhawn Joseph thinks that it was proof of alien life on Mars and that NASA is unwilling to investigate any further.

Joseph says it is actually a 'mushroom-like fungus, a composite organism consisting of colonies of lichen and cyanobacteria - known on earth Apothecium'. 
He claims he's an astro-biologist with a long string of papers published in 'leading journals', reported Popular Science.

Lead scientist Steve Squyres of NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity had reportedly said that the origin of the object in question was a mystery and that it had left his team baffled as to where it came from. Scientists hypothesise that the rock is either from a nearby meteorite fall or the rock was flipped out of place by the rover as it turned on the spot.