Global giants of gas and oil companies line up for offshore oil, gas hunt

Global giants of gas and oil companies have already showed their interest  to join the hunt for oil and gas in the Bay of Bengal as they bought documents to formally announce their interest for the offshore bidding, officials said March 19.

Chevron and Conoco Philips of the United States, British Petroleum, ONGC Videsh of India, Santos of Australia, CNPC of China, Nippon Oil of Japan, Statoil of Norway and Petronas of Malaysia are among the giants of gas and oil companies, which have bought bid documents.

Officials said as many as 20 foreign companies have so far bought bid documents after the state-owned Petrobangla launched the country's third and offshore bidding for oil and gas exploration the middle of last month.

According to official sources of Petrobangla, huge response from global oil giants was mostly due to the large discoveries made by Chinese and Indian companies in the Myanmar and Indian parts of the Bay of Bengal.

Four local companies -SAHCO International, Nirman Power, NFM Energy, GOE Bangladesh Limited -have also joined the fray, although none have any experience in oil and gas exploration.
The government invited international oil companies to explore oil and gas in the hydrocarbon-rich Bay of Bengal on February 15, as it seeks to secure future energy security for the country.

This is the third time the government invited international oil companies to explore oil and gas in the country.

The country had earlier had two rounds of international bidding  in 1993 and 1997  for the hunt of gas and oil. But mainly the onshore blocks were auctioned off to the companies during the two biddings.

GB/March 20, 2008

Fuel-cell cars still far from showroom

Industrial modem gives global access

Hi-tech Camera lens plant in Bangladesh

Two companies selected to handle domestic international phone calls

How Tata has built a car that costs less than a motorbike

By the end of the year it will be possible to buy a new four-door family car for less than the cost of a good quality motor scooter. Jon Severn takes a look at the Tata Nano to see how it has been possible to develop a car that will sell so cheaply.

Consumers are familiar with the price of electronic products falling, whether it is digital cameras, wide-screen televisions or DVD players, and even passenger cars have reduced in price in real terms over the past decade. But January's launch in India of the Tata Nano car, priced at just 100 000 rupees (around €1720), has come as a shock to many people.

Everyone appreciates that labour costs are lower in India than in Europe, but material costs are similar. How can a car cost less than we are used to paying for good quality motor scooters here in Europe?

When the Nano was unveiled the senior managers from Tata made it clear that this is a ‘proper’ four-door family car, not a motorized quadricycle or four-wheeled moped. Given that the two-seater Smart Fortwo costs around €9000, it is worth taking a closer look at the Nano to see how it has been designed so as to achieve such a low showroom price.

First, however, Tata acknowledges that there is really no profit margin on the base model; profits will come from customers specifying the deluxe models with air conditioning, electric windows, colour-coded bumpers and other options. And this highlights one way in which the Nano costs have been held down – the standard model is very basic by modern standards. Nonetheless, care has been taken to ensure that the car has adequate performance, meets current emissions standards (Euro IV), is fuel-efficient (20km/litre) and is safe thanks to crumple zones, intrusion-resistant doors, seat belts and other features.

Indeed, the Nano will inevitably be considerably safer than the popular mode of family transport in India today, consisting of a motorbike or scooter with the father driving, his child standing in front, and the mother seated behind, holding a baby. Furthermore, the Nano is better suited to all-weather journeys and is a genuinely affordable alternative for many people.

Tata has launched the Nano as a family car for four or five people, but the company concedes that the Nano is no limousine, with its dimensions of 3.1 m long by 1.5 m wide and 1.6 m high. Once again, though, the compact dimensions help to keep costs down, as the smaller the vehicle is, the fewer materials are required for its construction. A small, lightweight car can also be fitted with a smaller, lighter engine. In the Nano's case, the 624.6 cc, 33 PS, 48 Nm twin-cylinder aluminium engine is mounted transversely under the rear seats, ahead of the rear axle line and mated directly with the four-speed transaxle.

No common components

Because the Nano was being designed to be such a low-budget car, all components had to be designed from scratch, with nothing carried over from Tata's other vehicles. Furthermore, this clean-sheet-of-paper approach enabled the company to use production technologies that were appropriate to the Nano's specification and projected volumes. For example, it is reported that hydroforming is being used for tubular structures, and rollforming is being used in place of stamping. Other design features have contributed to the reduced weight, such as a ribbed roof that adds stiffness and enables thinner steel to be used.

Elsewhere on the car, great care has been taken to minimize tooling and production costs. One small example of this is similar handles and mechanisms for the left- and right-side doors. In preparation for exporting the Nano, it has also been designed with a central instrument binnacle instead of mounting the instruments in front of the driver – which is a concept seen on other ‘people’s cars’ such as the Morris Minor and Morris/Austin Mini around half a century ago.

Girish Wagh headed the team of almost 500 people that developed the Nano over a four-year period. And although some of the vehicle's production processes may seem ‘low-technology’ when compared with the heavily automated plants found in Western Europe, a great deal of digital analysis was carried out during the design and development phases of the project. In addition, Tata empowered and encouraged everyone in the company to contribute ideas and suggestions, on the basis that collective thinking – and a vast pool of common sense – would benefit the design and engineering, as well as helping to save costs.

Where particular expertise was deemed essential to the success of the project, Tata used leading suppliers as development partners, such as GKN for the drive shafts and Bosch for the multi-point fuelling system and electronic engine management system.

High volumes are an important element in low-cost products, and Tata wants to build one million Nanos per year. However, a conventional plant to build such high volumes would require a substantial investment, so Tata has looked at a distributed manufacturing model, in which entrepreneurs can establish manufacturing facilities based on Tata's low-cost manufacturing unit that offers a low break-even point. Nonetheless, Tata has constructed a new factory in Singur, and many of the suppliers are establishing their own facilities in an adjacent vendor park. It has been reported that around 90 per cent of the car's components will be outsourced, with some 75 per cent coming from single-source suppliers that have received long-term contracts and high-volume commitments in exchange for even lower component prices.

Similarly, unconventional servicing concepts have been investigated, such as training self-employed people who can be certified by Tata to perform servicing at the customer's premises.

A dream comes true

The Tata Nano is the type of project that stems from one person's vision, and the Nano is the brainchild of Ratan Tata, the company chairman. Originally he wanted to create a ‘people’s car’ as a safer, all-weather alternative to two-wheelers for families of four or five. Mass transport in India is either not available or of poor quality, and the nation's improving economic climate means that there is a market for a low-cost car. The first ideas centered on a low-end ‘rural’ car with plastic roll-down curtains instead of doors and windows. However, as the project progressed, it became clear that the market would respond better to a low-cost version of a conventional car.

Something else that changed during the design phase was the choice of materials and production processes. For example, high-technology engineering plastics and adhesives were abandoned in favor of welded steel, as the high-volume production targets meant that waiting for adhesives to cure was impractical.

For several years the Nano has been talked about as a 100 000 rupee car, and this figure is one aspect of the project that has not changed. Ratan Tata says that the figure of 100,000 rupees was first quoted in an interview with him in the UK’s Financial Times. Although he had only said that the car would cost in the region of 100 000 rupees, he decided to adopt that figure as a target price. Over the intervening years, this has been increasingly challenging due to inflation and rising costs of raw materials such as steel. Nevertheless, the Nano was launched on 10 January 2008 and Ratan Tata said the Nano will be on sale later in 2008 for 100 000 rupees plus value-added tax and delivery charges.

A European approach

The most popular European low-cost car is the two-seater Smart, but its price is four to five times higher than that of the Nano. While the two cars are similar in some respects, they are far apart in more ways than price. Smart’s philosophy is to offer a compact, safe, clean, economical yet fun vehicle primarily for transporting one or two people around urban areas. No doubt the Smart Fortwo has been the subject of considerable value engineering to reduce the manufacturing and assembly costs, but not to the same extremes as seen in the Tata Nano.

Furthermore, Smart cars are available with a wider range of powertrains, with a particular emphasis on fuel economy and exhaust emissions (but note that Tata plans to introduce alternatives engines and transmissions for the Nano in the future).

The Smart micro hybrid drive (MHD) is based on a conventional 71 PS petrol engine with an automated manual five-speed gearbox. However, the starter motor and alternator are replaced by a belt-driven combined starter-generator unit to serve the car's fuel-saving start-stop function.

When the driver brakes and the speed falls below 8 km/h, the engine is automatically switched off. As soon as the driver’s foot comes off the brake pedal, the engine restarts, first gear is selected and the car can be driven off – all without any noticeable delay.

Fuel savings are said to be 8 per cent in the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), giving 4.3 litres per 100km. Carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by a similar percentage to 103 g/km. In city traffic, fuel savings can be as high as 19 per cent.

For drivers wanting a ‘zero emissions’ vehicle, Smart is trialling an electric drive (ED) version of the Fortwo in Paris and London during 2008, with a view to this variant entering series production in 2009. With fully charged batteries – which takes around eight hours – the Smart ED can travel approximately 115 km in the Extra Urban Driving Cycle (EUDC). An 80 per cent charge is possible in four hours and it is claimed that the battery will last for ten years.

At current energy prices, the Smart ED's fuel cost is said to be approximately €0.02/km, which is considerably lower than the fuel costs for petrol or diesel versions of the Smart. Furthermore, the 0-60 km/h acceleration time of 5.7 s is similar to that available from the petrol variants, despite the electric motor’s power output being much lower at 41 PS (30 kW).

Many drivers will also be attracted to the Smart ED because they can enjoy tax advantages and additional benefits such as exemption from road charging schemes. Although the carbon dioxide emissions are quoted as being zero, it has to be remembered that much of Europe's electricity is generated in power stations that emit carbon dioxide and other pollutants.

With the two cars aimed at very different markets, it is not surprising that the Tata Nano and Smart Fortwo have little in common beyond their compact dimensions. Nevertheless, the remarkably low showroom price of the Tata Nano does suggest that Western automotive manufacturers could probably reduce the price of their vehicles considerably if they were able to devote resources to that, instead of continually working towards higher specifications than their competitors, and striving to meet ever-stricter safety and environmental targets imposed by politicians.

GB/16th February, 2008

Miracle Korean phones can tell you how deep your partner’s love is!

           
Valentines Day (February 14) in South Korea means chocolates, romantic dinners and a high-tech mobile phone device that can secretly check the passion in the voice of a lover.
The "Love Detector" service from mobile operator KTF uses technology that is supposed to analyze voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking honestly and with affection.

A KTF official Ahn Hee-jung said that they created this service because we thought people would want to know what others were feeling about them. The users who speak by pointing their mobile phones at themselves for video conferences can see a "love meter" bar on the screen of their handset during a conversation.

They later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.  The service costs subscribers a flat fee of 1,500 won ($1.59) a month for unlimited use or can be accessed at 300 won for each call. The caller is paying the money, so the information is provided only to him or her.

GB/15th February

Announcing of offshore exploration bidding

           
Petrobangla on February 14 announced the 2008 offshore oil and gas exploration bidding round inviting offers from international companies by May 7. The bidding will offer eight shallow water blocks and 20 deep sea blocks, each having an exploration area between 3,000 and 7,000 square kilometers. The bidding is the first of its kind for the country where the focus is kept exclusively on the Bay of Bengal.

India has been exploring the Bay heavily in recent years and has discovered 100 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of gas and two billion barrels of oil.  Even Myanmar in 2007 discovered 7 TCF of gas in an offshore area which may be overlapping with Bangladesh's maritime boundary.  Petrobangla has been making preparation for this block round since 2006.

In a press release on February 14, Petrobangla announced some important features of the contract under the bid. These include full repatriation of profit, no signature bonus or royalty, and no duty for equipment and machinery imported for petroleum operations during exploration, production and development phases.

As per the contract, the contractor will give a carried stake of 10 percent to the government only for shallow offshore blocks, and will enjoy the provision for assignment, 100 percent cost recovery, maximum 55 percent cost recovery per calendar year.

The contractor will also oblige to a mandatory seismic program and one well for each block exclusive of biddable work program.

The contract will have provisions for a discount on gas sale, discovery and production bonuses and annual contract service fee.

The contractor will also be allowed to go for local marketing of gas only if the government refuses to buy it first.

Petrobangla also declared the evaluation features. The bidder will have the authority to operate in at least one offshore acreage and offshore production of 25000 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), biddable work program commitment over and above the mandatory programme, and bank guarantee for performance of minimum exploration program.

Petrobangla is  selling the bidders a basic information package which includes a model production sharing contract for US$ 100.  In addition, the bidders can purchase technical data at a promotional price.

The details of the bidding round 2008 are available on the Petrobangla website ( www.petrobangla.org.bd).

GB/15th February

Govt. okayed offshore oil, gas hunt

           
The government on February 5 approved a proposed production sharing contract with oil companies, setting the stage for the launching of the much-awaited offshore bidding for oil and gas exploration, officials said. The approval came at the regular weekly meeting of the council of advisers, with Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed presiding, his special aide M Tamim said.

Energy Secretary M Mohsin said the state-owned Petrobangla would now invite tender middle of this month seeking participation of both foreign and local companies in the exploration and development gas fields. According to him, the petrobangla will  invite tender by mid-February to auction off the offshore blocks to the companies by October this year.

The deal was okayed, as the country began to face acute shortage of gas despite being sitting on a huge untapped reserve of gas and oil.

The energy ministry said the country now has a daily shortfall of over 100 million cubic feet of gas, keeping hundreds of factories and households in the waiting line.

It said the existing reserve would deplete by 2015 provided the country does not have any new discovery of gas reserve.

Bangladesh had earlier had two rounds of international bidding in 1993 and 1997 for the hunt of gas and oil in the country. But mainly the onshore blocks were auctioned off to the companies during the two biddings.

The previous BNP-led government took initiative to launch the third and offshore bidding in 2006 after the neighboring India and Myanmar discovered massive gas reserves in the Bay.

But the bidding process was halted several times due to the deteriorating political situation and indecisiveness of the government.

Since taking over in January in 2007 the new caretaker government stepped up the bidding process, but had to scrutinize the proposed PSC several times before approving it on February 5.

Energy Secretary Mohsin said the oil companies operating in the country such as French giant Total, US giant Chevron, UK's Cairn Energy and Tullow and several top Chinese, Thai and Korean companies have already expressed their intention to join the bidding.

 Special Assistant to Caretaker Chief, Tamim said the country's gas reserve is depleting fast, but the timely discovery of new field in offshore block could save Bangladesh from a potential catastrophic situation.
 
The energy secretary said a total of 28 offshore gas blocks are set to be awarded to the interested companies under the bidding.

The newly created offshore gas blocks have been divided into two categories 'A' type and 'B' type.

A total of 20 gas blocks belonging to the 'A' category are located between the seashore and 20 degrees north latitude into the Bay of Bengal, while the 'B' category consists of eight deeper offshore gas blocks located between 20 degrees north latitude and 18 degrees north latitude in the Bay.

The area of an offshore gas block has been proposed to be in the range between 2,500 square kilometers and 7,500 square kilometers.

GB/6th February, 2008

Legal battle win by Bangla computer Keyboard

The inventor of the most popular Bangla computer keyboard has won a long legal battle to protect his design and software, with the government to stop pirated Bangla language keyboards from entering the country. The move is being seen as a key step in the protection of local intellectual property rights in a country where inventors and software designers struggle to gain an income for their ideas.

The first edition of the Bengali typing software popularly known as 'Bijoy' and Bangla keyboard known as the 'Bijoy Keyboard' was invented and patented by Mostafa Jabbar in 1988.

Although several other Bangla software programs and keyboards have been designed since, Bijoy remains the most popular, especially among professional users. Mostafa Jabbar claims that even in West Bengal his invention is the market leader.

However for the past two decades Mostafa Jabbar has struggled to defend his patent against pirated keyboard and software copies produced and imported mainly from China without his permission.

In the month of January, 2008 the National Board of Revenue (NBR) moved to protect Mostafa Jabbar's rights, issuing a circular asking the customs department to put bar on the import of pirated Bijoy software and Bijoy keyboards. The NBR has directed the customs department to take action under the section 15 of The Customs Act, 1969 signed by a circular.

“This is a joyous message for me as through this text the government acknowledged my invention,” Mostafa Jabbar, the owner of the company Andnda Computer said.

In a separate dispute Mostafa Jabbar alleges that the Election Commission is violating his patents by using the Bijoy Software and Key Board in its 10,000 laptops without his permission.

Recently Jabbar signed a contract with a Chinese company to supply keyboard to the Bangladeshi market paying him a royalty on each one sold.

GB/5th February, 2008

200 IIT alumni to mentor 1,000 budding entrepreneurs

New Delhi: Over 200 successful entrepreneurs from the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs) will coach 1,000 budding entrepreneurs from 16 cities on how to
launch a business and nurture it.

The program is an initiative of the PanIIT Alumni India, an umbrella organisation
of the alumni of all seven IITs in the country.

"Over 200 successful entrepreneurs from all the IITs in India, under the aegis of
PanIIT Alumni Association, will launch a unique 'Entrepreneurship Movement' on Jan
26 to coach and counsel 1,000 budding entrepreneurs," said a statement from Indus
Entrepreneur, one of the organisers.

Former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will address the participants via video
conferencing from Hyderabad.

While opening the Global IIT Alumni Conference in Mumbai in December 2006, Kalam hadcalled upon IITians to help and share their experience with budding entrepreneurs.

The statement said Kalam's idea was that instead of being job seekers, "youth could
create jobs not only for themselves, but for others as well".

The program will be held simultaneously in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar,
Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur,
Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna and Pune.

This program is aimed at non-IIT graduates, who with all their technical skills
and academic grounding, may not know how best to start a business and grow it.

GB/3rd February, 2008

Off-shore HC exploration proposal needs  more review, sent back by Advisory council

The draft proposal on the third round bidding for off-shore oil and gas blocks is still awaiting full advisory council's consent. The proposal was sent back for further review to the energy ministry as some of the advisers at the meeting of the advisory council on January 29 refused to approve it saying that it would need further scrutiny. The sources said differences of opinion cropped up among the advisers relating to the third round bidding for off-shore blocks.

The energy ministry had planned to launch offshore bidding by February with an expectation that the proposal would get the advisory council's consent. The doubt on further delay in the bidding has become deeper for reasons of lack of consent of the advisory council on January 29 disapproval. The process for bidding has been lingering since taking of the first initiative in 2006.

However, the energy ministry sources said the proposal was not properly discussed in the council meeting due to time constraint. They expressed their hope that it might be approved at the next meeting of the advisory council as the government is giving priority to drill more wells to extract gas.

A total of 28 offshore gas blocks are planned to be awarded to the interested companies under the 'Bangladesh Offshore Bidding Round 2007.

The government signed eight production sharing contracts (PSCs) with international oil companies (IOCs) during the first and second round biddings in 1993 and 1997.

GB/2nd February, 2008

Fertility watchdogs approve first human-animal hybrids

Two research groups at Newcastle University and King's College London have been granted the first licenses to work on human-animal embryo hybrids on January 17 this year.

After a consultation, the Human Fertility and Embryology Authority said that research can go ahead because the proposals satisfy all legal requirements and public are "at ease" with the idea.

Both groups plan to insert human DNA from adult patients and lab-grown stem cells into unfertilized animal eggs.

The Newcastle team hope to use the resultant embryos to study how DNA programs different cell types during early development.

Researchers at King's College will implant DNA from patients who suffer from genetic neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson's disease. They hope to create a supply of stem cells bearing the genes, so other scientists can study such diseases.

Human embryology researchers say using animal eggs is necessary to address the shortage of human eggs left over from IVF.

Hybrid embryos created by either project will not be allowed to develop beyond 14 days, when a human embryo is a loose cluster of undifferentiated cells.

The UK's fertility regulator gave  its seal of approval to research on human-animal hybrids in the UK. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) published its consultation on the proposed draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill on 3rd September, 2007, in which it said most people consulted were at ease with the creation of hybrid embryos.

GB/25 January, 2008

Japanese to launch paper plane

Researchers from the University of Tokyo have hooked up with the Japan Origami Airplane Association for what is quite possibly the most splendidly pointless space experiment of all time - the development of a paper plane capable of surviving re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after launch from the International Space Station.

The researchers have apparently already begun testing an eight-centimeter prototype in an ultra-high-speed wind tunnel at the University of Tokyo, subjecting it to wind speeds of Mach 7. It's shaped like the space shuttle, and treated to "withstand intense heat", Asahi says.

However, since it'll flutter gently to the ground, the team claims it won't be subjected to the same kind of heating as a space shuttle returning to terra firma, and shouldn't burn up in the atmosphere.

Shinji Suzuki, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Tokyo, said: “We hope the space station crew will write a message of peace on the plane before they launch it. We don’t know where in the world the plane will land, but it would be nice to send a message to whoever finds it.”

No launch date for the peace-mongering origami re-entry vehicle has yet been set

GB/24 January

Scientists in U.S.A  have created controversy
again by  making  human embryo clones

Scientists on January 17 in California, USA, have produced embryos that are clones of two men, a potential step toward developing scientifically valuable stem cells. The new report documents embryos made with ordinary skin cells. But it's not the first time human cloned embryos have been made. In 2005, for example, scientists in Britain reported using embryonic stem cells to produce a cloned embryo. It matured enough to produce stem cells, but none were extracted. Stem cells weren't produced by the new embryos either, and because of that, experts reacted coolly to the research.

"I found it difficult to determine what was substantially new," said Doug Melton of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He said the "next big advance will be to create a human embryonic stem cell line" from cloned embryos. "This has yet to be achieved."
Dr. George Daley of the Harvard institute and Children's Hospital Boston called the new report interesting but agreed that "the real splash" will be when somebody creates stem cell lines from cloned human embryos.
"It's only a matter of time before some group succeeds," Daley said.
Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk claimed a few years ago that he'd created such cell lines, but that turned out to be a fraud.
Dr. Samuel Wood, a co-author of the new paper and chief executive of Stemagen Corp. of La Jolla, California , said he and his colleagues are now attempting to produce stem cell lines from the embryos. The work was published online on January 17 by the journal Stem Cells.

Scientists say stem cells from cloned embryos could provide a valuable tool for studying diseases, screening drugs and, perhaps someday, creating transplant material to treat conditions like diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
But critics raise objections. The process "involves creating human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them for alleged benefit to others," said Richard Doerflinger, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Citing the earlier work in Britain, he also said that as a scientific advancement, the new work was "very limited."
Other objections to cloning include concerns about health risks and exploitation if large numbers of women are asked to provide eggs.
Those objections are one reason that an alternative route to stem cells made headlines last November. Scientists reported a relatively simple way to turn skin cells directly into stem cells. This direct reprogramming carries a theoretical risk of cancer for the recipients of tissue from these cells, however, and many scientists have urged that work continue on the cloning technique as well.
The cloning approach involves inserting DNA from a person into an egg, and then growing the egg into an embryo about five days old before extracting the stem cells. At that stage, the embryo is a sphere of about 150 cells.
In the new work, researchers took skin cells from Wood and another volunteer and produced three embryos with DNA matching the men's. Further DNA testing on one of these embryos strengthened the case that it was a clone, researchers said.
Meanwhile, the Vatican on January 18 condemned the cloning of human embryos, calling it the "worst type of exploitation of the human being". "This ranks among the most morally illicit acts, ethically speaking," said Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Vatican department that helps oversee the Church's position on bioethics issues.

GB/21 January, 2008

Fossil Scientists have found 2000 pound roden

Imagine a rodent that weighed a ton and was as big as a bull.
Uruguayan scientists say they have uncovered fossil evidence of the biggest species of rodent ever found, one that scurried across wooded areas of South America about 4 million years ago, when the continent was not connected to North America.

A herbivore, the beast may have been a contemporary, and possibly prey, of saber-toothed cats — a prehistoric version of Tom and Jerry. For those afraid of rodents, forget hopping on a chair. Its huge skull, more than 20 inches (50 centimeters) long, suggested a beast more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and weighing between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds (750 and 1,350 kilograms).

Although British newspapers variously described it as a mouse or a rat, researchers say the animal, named Josephoartigasia  monesi, actually was more closely related to a guinea pig or porcupine. “These are totally different from the rats and mice we’re accustomed to,” said Bruce Patterson, the curator of mammals at the Field Museum in Chicago, adding that it was the biggest rodent he had ever heard of.

An artist’s rendering showed a creature that looked like a cross between a hippopotamus and guinea pig.

Found a decade ago

The fossil was found in 1987 about 65 miles west of the capital of Montevideo, near the vast River Plate estuary — a muddy waterway separating Uruguay from Argentina that empties into the South Atlantic. That area is the site of ancient riverbanks and other deposits where fossils have been found.

An Argentine fossil collector identified as Sergio Viera donated the skull to Uruguay’s National History and Anthropology Museum nearly two decades ago, said museum director Arturo Toscano.

It spent years hidden away in a box at the museum and was rediscovered by curator Andres Rinderknecht, who enlisted the help of fellow researcher Ernesto Blanco to study it.

Blanco told The Associated Press he was shocked when he first came face to face with the fossil, saying it looked even bigger than a cow skull.“It’s a beautiful piece of nature,” he said in an interview. “You feel the power of a very big animal behind this.”

Just how big was it?
Blanco said the skull’s shape and the huge incisors left no doubt they were dealing with a rodent, but he cautioned that the estimate of the animal’s bulk was imprecise.

The extinct rodent clearly outclassed its nearest rival, the Phoberomys, found in Venezuela and estimated to weigh between 880 and 1,500 pounds (400 to 700 kilograms).

Blanco said the rodent was far more enormous than any South American rodent alive today, surpassing even the present-day capibara that can weigh up to 110 pounds (50 kilograms).

He said the animal’s teeth pointed to a diet of aquatic plants.“From what we can tell, we know it was a herbivore that lived on the shores of rivers or alongside streams in woodland areas,” Rinderknecht told. “Possibly it had a behavior similar to other water-faring rodents that exist today, such as beavers, which split their time between land and water.”

But he said the rodent appears to have had no tail, adding that follow-up studies are being planned to better determine its diet and other traits.

GB/21 January, 2008

Country’s construction sectors in problem, the prices of  mild steel rods sky up

Prices of Mild Steel (MS) rod skied up by 22 per cent since the start of the2008, squeezing out growth in a key sector already hit by the caretaker government's anti-graft drive, as manufacturers and traders said on January 18.

The prices of the 60-grade MS rod rose to Tk 61,000 a ton in the wholesale market on January 18 up from Tk 50,000 on January 01, and the 40-grade to Tk 53,000 a ton, up from Tk 46,000, the traders said.

In the last week alone, the price of the major construction item saw Tk 5,000 increase per ton due to a supply-demand gap in the local market and a sudden global price hike of raw material, said Alihussain Akberali, managing director of the country's biggest rod manufacturer, BSRM.

Manufacturers said the prices of billet, the main ingredient for manufacturing rod, rose by US$ 124 a ton over the past one and a half months in the international market.

The prices of the scrap at the Chittagong ship breaking industry and in the international market also increased  by $ 75- $ 100 a ton, said Sheikh Masudul Alam, the general secretary of the Bangladesh Re-rolling Mills Association (BRMA).

Realtors said the sudden hike of MS rod prices came as a blow to the construction industry, which was picking up after months long slumber due to the government's anti-corruption crackdown.

The real estate sector was hit hard in 2007 after the incumbent government launched a nationwide crackdown on tax evasion and graft, which prompted thousands of willing buyers to hide their income.

"Construction activities have picked up in the last couple of months, after experiencing one of the worst years in 2007. But the sudden hike of rod prices have dampened that mood," said Ismail Ali, the executive director of leading realtor, Multiplan Limited. The cost of rod makes up some 20 per cent of a building, he said, adding the increased price would now shoot up the value of flats in major cities.

Some thousands of individual building owners, who still dominate the real estate market, have also been hit by the sudden price hike of rod, as many have stopped their construction work with the hope that the market would cool down soon.

The construction sector constitutes nearly 10 per cent of the country's 70 billion dollar Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The sector has been growing around nine per cent a year until last year.

The country has an annual demand for 2.5 million ton of MS Rod with most of the raw materials coming from abroad.

GB/19 January, 2008

Bangladeshi  engineer bags Oscar 

You might see 'Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End' where roaring water splashed on your eyes virtually. Certainly the movie allured you in suspense as well as thrill. You will be more astonished to know the water manoeuvring software was designed by Bangladesh born software engineer Nafees Bin Zafar who became one of the gurus of special effects in the motion picture. The viewers of 'Stealth' and 'Flags of Our Fathers' enjoyed his new kind of mastery over creating special effects in the motion picture.

He is the first Bangladeshi who is selected for the Oscar 'Scientific and Engineering Award' of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Scientific and Engineering Awards, an Academy plaque, will be presented to Doug Roble, Nafees Bin Zafar and Ryo Sakaguchi for the development of the fluid-simulation system at the Digital Domain.

Nafees spoke to this journalist of The Independent on last Saturday about his experiences in computer generated special effect in Hollywood super-hit movies. He said, " I came in this field for the sake of my personal interest and my education in computer science helped me to acquire the skills in generating illusions by stimulating images of water, butterfly and smokes."
Before Nafees Bin Zafar's team no such high-graded work has been done in the field of fluid dynamics of motion picture. The young software expert said, " I had to study theories of physics in fluid dynamics to figure out how water moves while something falls on it. I calculated also the dynamics of flying butterfly and blowing smokes. So my works of special effects in the motion picture entertained the viewers much better than before."

The Bangladeshi hero of special effect has no idea about Bangladeshi movies; however, he commented, "Movie makers should first decide where they want to put emphasis, like acting of actors and actress, sound system, animation, special affects etc. They have to invest a lot of money and works in their concentrated fields of movie."

On whether he wants to work for Bangladesh or not; he said, "I am senior software engineer of the Digital Domain which owns the copy right of my works. My company does not sell software, my team deals with the special effect parts of movies in US. However, right now I want to share my ideas and experiences with Bangladeshi computer engineers and IT entrepreneurs. So last week I delivered a speech and Power Point presentation on my work in the seminar called 'Turning an Idea into a Successful Enterprise' at the BASIS.

The term 'Fluid Simulation' means- applying tools in computer graphics for generating realistic animations of water, smoke, explosions, butterfly etc. By giving some input configuration of fluid and scene geometry, a fluid simulator evolves the motion of the fluid forward in time, making use of the Navier-Stokes equations. In computer graphics, such simulations range in complexity from extremely time-consuming high quality animations for film and visual effects, to simple real-time particle systems used in modern games.

After the advent of sophisticated technologies in computer graphics and animations, special effects are usually used for dramatising previously filmed parts with adding and enhancing scenes. High-budgeted commercial movies take help from the technology of special effects. Nafees Bin Zafar not only showed his mastery in the thrilling parts of movies, but his contribution is unique in the context of western movies.

Photo Caption- Rafiqul Islam Rowly, President of BASIS, handing over a crest to Oscar winner software engineer Nafees Bin Zafar and Iqbal Z. Quadir, founder of GonoPhone, looks on.


11 January
Shahidul K K Shuvra

Nanotechnology for genetic research

U.S. researchers have made a very tiny research tool that will help scientists probe the activity of genes and proteins in a single cell, they said on January 8. It is an opening the door to a new realm of genetic research. The tool is designed to do the work of current gene chip systems used to examine thousands of genes at the same time for mutations or to uncover clues to disease. It is made on the nano-scale involving objects tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Current gene chips analyze entire batches of cells. This technology would allow for much more refined analysis that could detect genetic changes from one cell to another, for instance.

The work, led by Hao Yan of the institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics, draws on a type of nanotechnology known as DNA origami, a method of folding a single long strand of DNA into a complex structure that is bound by short synthetic staples.

Stuart Lindsay, a physics professor and researcher at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute said that the nano probes assemble themselves in a water soluble solution and can be made at very low cost. It is possible to end with 10,000 billion items in the test tube. On the surface of each DNA probe is a dangling single strand of DNA that can bind to the target ribonucleic acid or RNA, the chemical messengers of genes.

Lindsay said the new system is one of the first practical applications of structural DNA nanotechnology, which uses the properties of DNA to create different nanostructures.

"I think there is huge potential to come from nanotechnology," Lindsay said in a telephone interview. "This array is our first baby step in that direction."

GB/17 January, 2008

Scientists create beating hearts in lab

The US researchers of the University of Minnesota Center for Cardiovascular Repair say they have coaxed hearts from dead rats to beat again in the laboratory and said the discovery may one day lead to customized organ transplants for people.

The Researcher Ms. Doris Taylor her colleague’s study appeared on Jan 13 in the journal Nature Medicine. Like many researchers, Taylor and colleagues had been working on a stem cell therapy to try to heal hearts damaged by heart attacks.

"This is an ingenious step towards solving a massive problem," Dr. Tim Chico of Britain's University of Sheffield said in a statement. "This study is very preliminary, but it does show that stem cells can re-grow in the 'skeleton' of a donor heart."

In Bangladesh hear patient is increasing, such kinds of medical discovery will bring a lot of hope for them in future. Even in USA around 50,000 people die each year waiting for a donor heart.

GB/ January 13, 2008

South Korea terminating its first satellite Arirang’s mission

South Korea is ending its mission of first multipurpose satellite Arirang which was launched in 1999 after losing contact with it at the end of December as said by Korea Aerospace Research Institute on January 11.

The Arirang satellite had an original mission of three years, mapping the Earth's surface. It continued in operation for several more years after its original life.The satellite is programmed to use emergency power if it loses contact with controllers. That power source is expected to be depleted at the end of January.

In July 2006, South Korea launched its Arirang-2 satellite from a facility in Russia. It produces images with 40 times the resolution quality of the first Arirang satellite. South Korea, which relies heavily on the United States for aerial intelligence on North Korea, said its Arirang-2 satellite provides real-time visual data on North Korea's missile launch preparations or military activities as  its overseas information service said.

South Korea is now planning to  launch a lunar probe in 2020 and make a moon landing by 2025 under a new space project that will develop indigenous rockets to put satellites into orbit.

GB/ January 11, 2008