Wednesday,
July 21, 1999
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Soya: answer to nutritional needs Tribune News Service NEW DELHI, July 20 — The Technology Mission on Oilseeds, Pulses and Maize (TMPO and M), Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has announced that it will take new steps to promote the use of soyabean for food and other purposes. The Government recently organised a one-day seminar in this regard to develop a strategy to promote the use of soya extractions. Future in biosciences:
expectations Fighting the satanic bush Art and technology to inspire the mind The
cutting edge of modern medicine |
Soya: answer
to nutritional needs NEW DELHI, July 20 — The Technology Mission on Oilseeds, Pulses and Maize (TMPO and M), Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Government of India, and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, has announced that it will take new steps to promote the use of soyabean for food and other purposes. The Government recently organised a one-day seminar in this regard to develop a strategy to promote the use of soya extractions. According to Mr J.L.N. Srivastava, Director, Technology Mission on Oilseeds, Pulses and Maize, "We are discussing several initiatives to promote the use of soya-based foods because they are highly nutritious while being extremely cost effective -- just what India needs to feed its ever-growing population. In addition, soyabean products have various uses as animal feed. If properly promoted soyabean can become a low-cost source of protein for the vegetarian masses." Till now, only soya oil extracted from the bean was used in India and the extractions were exported. Soya extractions are a very rich and economical source of nourishment and can be utilised to augment proteins and other nutrients, which are generally deficient in Indian diet. The plan now is to develop indigenous users for soya extraction as well so that the country can reap the benefits of its soya production. In order to promote the use of soya extraction, the government has laid down some objectives that include: * The production and availability of food-grade soya meal in the market at competitive prices; * R and D backup for the production of food-grade soya extractions and supplementation of food products with soya extractions; and * awareness campaigns on nutritional benefits of soyabean among consumers. Speaking to the media, Mr S.C. Singhal, Consultant, ASA, said: "Internationally, soyabean is very popular and has directly or indirectly become central to diets with hundreds of varieties of tasty and appealing foods". "With high proteins and disease" fighting powers coupled with availability at economical prices, soyafoods can fast become an important staple in the healthiest of diets all over India", added Mr S.K. Batra, Senior Processing Technologist, TMPO and M. Soya and extractions can be put into diverse product uses such as soya milk which can then be used to make ice-cream and curd. Soya paneer (tofu) can be used instead of milk paneer. "The most important use for the bulk utilisation of soya extractions can be in wheat flour leading to the production of fortified atta, suji and maida which can be further used in making sweets, namkeens and various bakery products", emphasised Dr J.S. Khan, Senior Deputy Advisor, CSIR. Government bodies involved in the seminar included the Technology Mission on Oilseeds, Pulses and Maize, Ministry of Food Processing, Department of Sugar and Edible oils, and the Department of Civil Supplies. Associations such as the Soyabean Processors Association of India, the American Soyabean Association, the Roller Flour Mills Federation and the Solvent Extractors' Association also participated in the seminar. R and D institutes such as the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Central Food Technological Research Institute, G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and the Soyabean Processing and Utilisation Centre also presented new research initiatives. Soyabean
is a major oilseed crop of the country and it contributes
about five lakh tonnes to the national stock of edible
oils. The area covered by soyabean is likely to increase
to eight million hectares by the year 2001. The
production of defatted soya meal, after extraction is
reported to be about three million tonnes by the end of
this year. |
Future in
biosciences: expectations DEVELOPMENTS in biosciences will have significant impact over a wide range of fields, including, in particular, pharmaceutical and healthcare development. I’d like to tell you something about the biosciences revolution and how it will impact the many areas of human endeavour, especially the two fields just mentioned. The key thing before we begin is to take a broad look at a few general things that are happening worldwide in biosciences, and the first [among these] is that never before in history has the pace of discovery outstripped our ability to institute the fruits of those discoveries. As a result, new business opportunities are emerging. At the same time, the pattern of traditional pharmaceutical research and development is changing, and that’s being driven worldwide by a view that people want very safe medicines that are effective and cheap. So, the whole issue of the pharmaceutical economics of driving down the cost of drug discovery and drug implementation is quite important. Many technological innovations, particularly in areas such as molecular technology, are also opening up a whole range of opportunities. It is widely predicted that the biosciences revolution will have a [much greater] impact in the next century than that of the industrial or the atomic revolution. Major pharmaceutical companies in the UK — such as Glaxo, Wellcome, ICICI, Zenika, SmithKlein Beecham, Pfizer — spend approximately £2 billion every year on research and development. Thirty per cent of the national industrial expenditure in the UK on research and development is spent by pharmaceutical companies. That tells you two things: first, that the UK has a very strong pharmaceutical company base as well as an academic base. Second, it also tells you that some other companies and some of the other sectors should spend more money. Now one of the major driving forces in pharmaceutical research and development is actually the cost of developing a new drug. There are two things you can be certain about when you read about or take any new drug. The first is that it was probably invented about 10 years ago because that is usually the average time it takes from discovery to clinical availability. And the average cost is somewhere around half-a-billion US dollars. These facts are driving a lot of the change within the sector. This is because what people want to do here is develop new drugs faster and more cheaply. Unfortunately, after you’ve spent most of your money, it’s only then that you learn whether or not the drug is successful. So there is a real paradox here, particularly in developed countries: that is, large pharmaceutical companies such as those based in the UK are creating wealth, but they are doing so at the expense of employment. And so....mergers within pharmaceutical companies are driven by the necessity of trying to lower the prices of drugs. All these mergers result in large numbers of people being unemployed.... What you’re now seeing in biosciences are new alliances between small and large companies, and that’s the developing biotechnology sector. There are multiple advantages to each of these companies. This new dynamics is having a major impact. Drugs that were (recently) launched by Merck, the largest pharmaceutical company in the world, were licensed; none was discovered in-house. Fifty per cent of the drugs being launched in the Glaxo-Welcome programme were not discovered in-house either; they were discovered in biotech companies, developed early and then licensed. This is the kind of pattern that will prevail in future and there is another important implication of this pattern for the academic sector: very large research grants from pharmaceutical companies are likely to be rare. It is more likely that the pharmaceutical company will want to invest in a small biotech company. Classical biotechnology, where you can engineer micro-organisms to increase a large biomass, is really quite important — for example, engineering molecules which are important for food or for pharmaceutical. The ability to genetically manipulate plants and to make transgenic plants would probably become a key technology in the next century. So...you can genetically engineer plants to tolerate adverse environments. This is important in countries such as India to make plant varieties salt-tolerant [for instance]. You can make them resistant to pests and therefore decrease the dependence on insecticides, or even resistant to pollutants. You can actually use this to bioremediate areas that were polluted previously. You can use plants to synthesise artificial chemicals; almost certainly the world’s major drugs and chemicals will be made in the future from plants. One of the big success stories in the UK was the flavour-saver tomato, which was genetically engineered. When tomatoes ripen they go soggy. To prevent this they engineered the pathway that made tomatoes soggy and as a result you have a tomato which is very firm, has a shelf life of two-three months and also tastes a lot better. Lots of people bought it because they had the choice. That contrasts with the current problems that are prevalent with genetically manipulated soya from Monsanto Company, where people don’t have a choice. They has to take it because it is mixed in with the other soil. And there is a very important lesson in how you market genetically manipulated foods — it’s absolutely important that you give people a choice as to whether they buy or they don’t. Those are transgenic plants. Transgenic animals are (also) genetically manipulated... (they) can be engineered to be more efficient, grow faster or more efficiently, and tolerate adverse environments, including polluted ones. In Scandinavia, there are rivers that have been polluted by paper mills largely from chemicals’ disposal. There, a rather clever individual genetically engineered salmon (that) detoxifies this particular chemical. He then went and bought large numbers of polluted rivers in Scandinavia and stocked them with this salmon. The salmon detoxify the molecular excreta and so there is no accumulation in them. Eventually, he sold lots of salmon, and cleaned up the rivers! You can also make animal models of human diseases. We can actually mutate the gene that’s mutated in human disease and have a better animals model for product screening. (To
be concluded) |
Fighting the
satanic bush THE coca plant embodies a clear-cut example of how truth, even scientific truth, responds to an interest or a point of view. A detailed description of its leaf concludes that, due to its richness in aminoacids, acids, and vitamins, the coca plant is the earth’s most complete plant in non proteinic nitrogen. This kind of nitrogen eliminated toxins and pathogens from the human body, also hydrating and regulating the nervous system. The plant is cultivated in warm and humid valleys, known in the Aymara language as “yungas”. Andean peasants chew it while working, resting, and even treat their guests with it. The habit of chewing — not only accepted but widely spread among millions of inhabitants in countries such as Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile — has an economic basis. For peasants, coca is a most beneficial crop because of its ability to yield three to four harvests a year, in non-arable soils. Peasants also praise coca for its better profitability, in comparison to other crops. Its very specific farming technique is very well adapted to the valleys through the construction of stone or walled ground platforms. Raising coca in the Andean valley is not only a practical solution but also an ancestral custom. Since about 2000 BC, the leaf was intertwined with Andean life. Andeans not only utilised it for conveying friendship, repaying services or simply as a coin, but also considered it sacred. Besides discovering its medicinal powers, they employed the leaf, mixed with certain oils, to soften rocks. When the Incas politically centralised the area, plantations were located all along the empire in order to maintain a stable production, the Incas being the sole proprietor of sacred harvests. Later on, once the Spaniards imposed themselves in the area, the Spanish Crown distributed these plantations among some “colonos” under the “encomiendas” regime, and the payment with coca leaves was authorised. Once the Spaniards discovered its energising properties, they encouraged the leaf consumption in order to increase the productivity of the natives forced to work in the Potosi- mines. This inclined many Spaniards to the coca trade, which became a very important revenue source for the Crown, second only to mines exploitation. Tithes on coca contributed almost entirely to cover the Andean Catholic Church revenues. Coca entered the market economy and the colonial society adopted the plant, fully incorporating it to its habits and manners to the extent that physicians employed it as a medicine for asthma, haemorrhages, toothache, vomiting and diarrhoea. Nevertheless, despite its early assimilation by colonial society, Spaniards were not reluctant to blame the natives ritual use of the leaf for delaying their conversion to Christianity, thus beginning to fight its consumption. When decolonisation brought independent states in the region, the plant was once again accused, this time of blocking the natives’ assimilation into “White” society. However, it was the emergence of cocaine — one of the 14 alkaloids of the plant — that ignited the black history of this bush. Soon after being isolated in 1884, cocaine was applied as anaesthetic in surgery, while Sigmund Freud recommended it as a relief for nervous stress and fatigue. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, cocaine consumption extended through the upper classes and the artistic circles both of Europe and the USA. By then, Vin Mariani, a tonic based on the coca extract, was prescribed by every physician as a cure for several diseases, similar to the origins of Coca-Cola — patented in 1895 as a stimulant and headache reliever. It was in 1906 that the US authorities declared cocaine illegal by officially determining that cocaine was a narcotic and then prohibiting its import, together with the coca leaves. In spite of the prohibition — or eventually because of it — all through the century cocaine has become highly appreciated and consumed. The UN Convention for Narcotics placed cocaine on its toxic drugs first page, listing it as “psychotropic” in 1961. But the truth is that its rocketing price makes cocaine one of the most profitable businesses on earth. In financial, artistic and political milieus from Western Europe and the USA, cocaine is regarded as synonymous with opulence and distinction, also being consumed in Japan, Eastern Europe and Latin America, though to a lesser degree. Cocaine’s desirability has launched a fabulous business — more lucrative than oil and only second to the warfare business — known as narcotraffic. The world defines the entire process of illegal production, transportation and selling of illegal and controlled drugs. In this transnational game, each one plays its role. The USA, Europe or France sustain a strong demand, while Andean countries like Peru, Bolivia or Colombia supply the product. In these latter countries, coca consumption still differs from the one developed in the North. While the cocaine paste expands among the young floating population, the natives and peasants — while disliking the paste — still preserve the habit of daily chewing. The coca-producing regions have apparently transformed into developing zones, due to the fact that the drug cartels extended credit and insurance to the groups that produce cocaine. Coca planting peasants have increased their incomes: raising the leaf means much more profit than raising any other crop. In Bolivia, coca and its by-products generate a revenue of $600 million a year, giving occupation to 20 per cent of the adult labour force. In Peru, this sector occupies 15 per cent of the active labour force and reports a yearly income of $1 billion. In Colombia the drugs trade gives a revenue of $1 billion, a sum higher than coffee exports. The main gain, however, belongs to the consumer countries, where money laundering is undertaken, chemicals for cocaine production are supplied and weapons to sustain drug dealers are sold. The basic point about this amazing business seems to be its hypocrisy. In the USA, more than $100 billion has been spent on arrests, imprisonments, education and other action since President Ronald Reagan initiated the war against drugs in 1983. But, in the period from 1983 to 1993, the death by drug abuse rate doubled, while assassinations linked to drug trafficking trebled. Statistics reveal that in 1992, in the USA, 12,000 people died from drug abuse and 2000 more from drug-related murders. Worst statistics for drug casualties are for adults between 35 and 50 years old, who in 1983 accounted for 80 per cent of the total drug casualties. Ten years later, the risk of dying by drug abuse was 15 times greater for a person in their forties than for a university student. US authorities in charge of the fight against drugs give no explanation for these figures. They just present statistics showing an increase in the relatively low rate of teen-agers who smoke marijuana. At present, the US market almost entirely absorbs the Latin American drug production (and a third of the world’s heroin plus 80 per cent of the marijuana). Drug consumers in the USA amount to 20 million, but in order to solve this domestic problem, the US Administration decides to fight it abroad. This exclusively domestic issue of drugs consumption has turned into one of the favourite excuses for US intervention abroad, the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in July, 1973, being one of the fundamental steps to institutionalise it. This line of interference has expanded into a total oblivion of other countries’ sovereignty: the US Supreme Court judgement, legalising in 1992 the kidnapping of suspects in other countries, carries with it a very serious threat to human rights, and mocks international law. This is another way of misrepresenting the real problem. Drug consumption, an unsolved domestic issue, becomes the object of a crusade, projecting the evil onto the producer and not on the consumer — on to the “other” and not on to oneself. Today, many respectable voices can be heard proposing that drugs should be legalised, as a first step to solving some of the problems created by the prohibitions — such as the high price — which often lead to corruption and violence, or the bad quality of the final product that endangers health. After
all, was not this the only way to finish the socially and
politically disturbing years of (alcohol) prohibition in
the USA in the 1920s? — Third World Network |
Art and technology to inspire the mind THE AMAZING powers of the human brain will be portrayed in a multimedia extravaganza when Britain’s Millennium Dome opens to the public on January 1, 2000, in London. Designed by the world-renowned architect Zaha Hadid, the daring ‘gravity defying’ structure will house the mind zone’s exhibits that aim to demystify the intricacies of the brain. This
piece of modern architecture will have several levels,
with different decks curving and interweaving with each
other as they ascend towards the Dome’s roof.
Visitors will enter the mind zone by passing under its
giant central projection screen. |
The cutting edge of modern medicine Drug
for hair loss The study, conducted by Hong Kong Chinese University Associate Professor in Dermatology Henry Chan shows that the drug, Finasteride, can stop hair loss in balding men. "Of the 20 patients tested in Hong Kong, 12 have shown an improvement," Dr Chan was quoted by Hong Kong Standard as saying. He said that each patient took one milligram of Finasteride in the form of a daily pill. The Professor suggested that men with a hair-loss problem should apply hair tonic besides taking the drug in order to get the best results (DPA). Finasteride was initially used for the treatment of enlarged prostates but had been found to be effective to counter balding. Site-specific
cancer therapy The 30 Mega Electron Volt (MeV) cyclotron, installed at the Regional Radiation Medicine Centre of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) here, specifically targets cancer cells and kills them with radio isotopes, preventing the spread of the deadly disease. Unlike conventional radiotherapy, which affects adjoining healthy cells and requires invasive techniques to locate the exact location of malignancy, this gadget identifies the site with precision and bombards it with the therapeutic rays. "It is a kind of biological bullet.... The isotopes are converted into a chemical compound and once injected into the body, react on exactly the desired points," the Director of SINP and VECC, Dr Bikash Sinha, said. Old
medicine, new use Doctors who conducted a large study, released on Tuesday, recommended that the drug Aldactone immediately be added to the other standard medicines given to victims of severe heart failure. "No one believed that this drug would work this way," said Dr Bertram Pitt of the University of Michigan. "It surprised the real experts, but they are of course happy that we have something new to help people." The study's results are scheduled to be published on September 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, the journal made the findings public early on its website because of their medical importance. The study was financed by Searle, which makes Aldactone. Positive
health "Our cells carry the death-instinct engraved deep in the cells", says the learned Sri Gyanchandra. "Like record-disc. This death-instinct influences all our thoughts and deeds whether small or big. Life is itself a highly positive and natural state but due to this death instinct it cannot grow properly and fully. Special gestures, body postures, voluntary alteration of the conscious state and new techniques of vital energy accumulation must be understood properly". Sri Gyanchandra is a sincere student of modern scientific developments. Apart from this, he is a well-known and deep explorer, researcher and promoter of supramental yoga of Sri Aurobindo. One can do without medicine, without difficult exercises and fasts etc. Body gestures, mental practices and energy-accumulating practices are not difficult to understand and, once understood, are easy to practise. These are logical and effective. Worry, depression, loneliness, boredom, energy depletion, panic and confusion are curable. Sri Gyanchandra's neo-yoga has gone to the village level, besides going abroad. —
Cynthia Kanjhlia |
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