Home » 2016
Yearly Archives: 2016
Biotechnology for enhancing micronutrients (Zn, Fe) acquisition and uptake efficiency in plants
Improvement of micronutrient acquisition in area where micronutrients (Zn, Fe, Cu & Mn) deficiency in soils limits crop productivity is probably the most challenging and rewarding areas of research to achieve the sustainable productivity of agricultural crops. Progress made in recombinant DNA technology in recent years and the application of molecular techniques has advanced our understanding in unraveling the mechanisms of acquisition of micronutrients by the plants from less-labile of soil pools and role of genes involved in these processes, and have provided an altogether new dimension to agricultural research.
Biotechnology for enhancing micronutrients such as Zinc, Iron etc.
Intelligent Nano-Fertilizers
Many of anthropogenic activities modified the nutrient cycles of major and micro nutrients of worlds. The scale of these changes has massively accelerated since the industrial revolution throwing the equilibrium into disarray. Mineral nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur, and other micronutrients are essential for plant growth and crop production. Presently, we face a glaring contrast of insufficient use of nutrients on one hand and excessive use on another. Nutrients Use efficiency (NUE) represents a key indicator to assess progress towards better nutrient management. Fertilizers are chemical compounds applied to promote plant growth. It is applied either through the soil or by foliar feeding. Artificial fertilizers are inorganic fertilizers formulated in approximate concentration to supply the nutrients. Nitrogen is an important source which is essential for the growth of plant. Urea is the most wildly used water soluble plant nitrogen source. Due to leaching the nitrogen content in the soil get decreased leading to low nitrogen utilization efficiency. Nitrogen-use efficiency for most crops ranges from 30 to 50 percent, so researchers are developing intelligent nano-fertilizers to reduce the amount of nitrogen lost during the crop production. The plant needs different amount of nitrogen depending on its growth stage. A new generation of fertilizers will increase this efficiency from 30 percent to upwards of 80 percent. The idea is to develop a product that will release nitrogen only when the plant needs it and in the amount the plant needs. The plants communicate their surroundings environment by producing all kinds of chemical signals. A plant synthesizes specific compounds to communicate with specific microbes. The microbes then go to work and free nitrogen that the plant uses to grow. Thus, roots send out signal that ask microbes to transform nitrogen in the soil into a chemical form the plant can use. Many chemical compounds that are associated with nitrogen uptake have been identified. These compounds can be used to synchronize the release of fertilizer with nitrogen uptake by the crop. Similarly, a plant under attack by insects or soil pathogen triggers defense mechanisms that synthesize alkaloids or antibiotics emitted into the surrounds soil to defense itself. A biosensor is a device that combines a biological recognition element with a physical or chemical transducer to detect a biological product. In other words, it is a probe that integrates a biological one with an electronic component to yield a measurable signal. Several biosensors are being developed for different applications. Typically a biosensor consists of three components: the biological recognition element, the transducer and the signal processing electronics. Nano-biosensors that will bind to these compounds can be developed so as to control of the release of fertilizers. The polymers coatings that protects the fertilizers from the elements contains nano-sized biosensors which are made up of very specific chemical compounds that allow the fertilizers to be released into the soil when the plant needs it. These biosensors know when to release nitrogen because they are able to detect chemical signals released from the roots of the plant to the soil. Biosensors can detect when a plant requires more nitrogen and allow microbes access to the fertilizer-nitrogen inside the polymer protected particles. As mentioned earlier that each plant species sends out its own variety of chemical signals. Keeping this concept in mind, an intelligent nano-fertilizer product could be tailored to respond differently to the needs of different crops. For instance, the nitrogen particles could be designated to become available to wheat, but not to the canola growing in the same field because of different compounds emitted by different crops. We can prepare different biosensors using different compounds and tailor the fertilizers to each different crop for different climatic zones and soils. Dr. Carlos Montreal of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Ottawa is one of the several research scientists developing a fertilizer that responds to organic compounds emitted by a plant’s roots. The research team is trying to make intelligent fertilizers with the biodegradable three-dimensional polymer coating less than 100 nm thick. Nitrogen-use efficiency for most crops ranges from 30 to 50 percent. Intelligent nano-fertilizers could be used to reduce the amount of nitrogen lost during the crop production. The plant needs different amount of nitrogen depending on its growth stage. A new generation of smart fertilizers will increase this efficiency from 30 percent to upwards of 80 percent. Smart biosensors and smart delivery systems will help in enhancing productivity in agriculture. Hence, in coming years farmers could have access to an intelligent nano-fertilizer that synchronizes the release of nitrogen with crop uptake.
Arsenic Speciation Analysis using High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry
Speciation is the analytical activity of identifying and/or measuring in a sample the quantity of one or more individual chemical species. Arsenic has different toxicological properties dependent upon both its oxidation state for inorganic compounds as well as the different toxicity levels exhibited for organic arsenic compounds. HPLC is the technique of choice in modern speciation analyses due to their resolution and the ease with which they are coupled to ICP-MS, allowing for on-line separation and detection.
High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry
Metagenomics: New Challenges Ahead in Molecular Soil Ecology
Metagenomics is the culture-independent analysis of a mixture of microbial genomes using an approach based either on expression or on sequencing. The term is derived and coined from the statistical concept of meta-analysis and genomics to capture the notion of analysis of a collection of similar but not identical
items. The meta-analysis is a process of statistically combining separate analyses, that is, analysis of analysis. Metagenomics is the application of the methods of genomics to microbial assemblages. It involves studying the genetic makeup of many microbes in an environment simultaneously, and makes accessible the
many types of microbes that cannot be grown in the lab and therefore cannot be studies using the central tool of classical microbiology. Metagenomics also enables the study of entire microbial communities,offering a window to intact microbial system. The emerging field of metagenomics presents the greatest
opportunity to revolutionize understanding of the living world.
biotecharticles-com-metagenomics_new_challenges_ahead_in_molecular_soil_ecology
Enhancing micronutrients acquisition efficiency in plants through biotechnological techniques
Micronutrient uptake and accumulation traits are inherited. Two distinct biotechnological techniques could be used to improve the micronutrient acquisition in crops. One is the use of DNA molecular markers (RFLP, RAPD) as genetic tags for the trait in plant breeding programmes and the second is the introduction of defined genetic material through transgenic technology. In this reviews, we will summarize current knowledge about genes whose products function in uptake, transport and accumulation of micronutrients such as iron, zinc, manganese and copper in plants. Several genes have been identified on the basis of function, via complementation of yeast mutants, or on the basis of sequence similarity, via databases analysis, degenerate PCR. The recent progress in the area of recombinant DNA technologies, is likely to provide us an option to improve micronutrient acquisition.
For more details, please click here Enhancing nutrients
Nano GPS Chips
The Prime Minster of India, Shri Narendra Modi on 8th November, 2016 (Tuesday) announced that the Rs 500 and 1,000 notes will be invalid from the midnight. This means the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes would be in circulation and as per the RBI the same would be out by November 10th. It is because there are lot of fake 500 and 1000 currency notes in the market and it is causing endless problems for RBI to confiscate all of them. The best way is to introduce a new currency denomination which is difficult to create replicas. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will be issuing Rs 2,000 currency notes, the highest to come into circulation. This was supposed to be one of the biggest news for banking sector, financial institutions and the common man – because it involved India’s largest currency denomination, Rs 2000. In 1938, and then again in 1954, then Governments introduced currency denomination of Rs 10,000 which was later put out of circulation in 1946 and 1978 respectively. If we leave aside Rs 10,000 currency, then Rs 2000 would be the largest denomination in the history of India. Soon after reports emerged that Rs 2000 currency notes would be introduced by RBI, another set of rumors emerged that these notes would be embedded with nano-GPS chips which can be traced all over the world.
Rumor only, no confirmation from GOI till now.
The Rs 2000 currency might be designed keeping in mind to eradicate the black money issues using state of the art indigenous nanotechnology, every Rs. 2000 currency note will be embedded with a NGC (Nano GPS Chip). The unique feature of the NGC is that it doesn’t need any power source. It only acts as a signal reflector. When a Satellite sends a signal requesting location the NGC reflects back the signal from the location, giving precise location coordinates, and the serial number of the currency back to the satellite, this way every NGC embedded currency can be easily tracked & located even if it is kept 120 meters below ground level. The NGC can’t be tampered with or removed without damaging the currency note. Since every NGC embedded currency can be tracked. The satellite can identify the exact amount of money stored at a certain location. If a relatively high concentration of currency is found a certain location for a longer period of time at suspicious locations other than banks & other financial institutions. The information will be passed on to the Income Tax Department for further investigation and action. As the new notes are loaded with nano-GPS chips (NGC) which will enable the Govt. to easily track these notes, hence controlling black money transactions. NGC chips are actually ‘signal-reflectors’ which would help satellites to track the location of the notes – even if they are ‘120 meters’ below ground level. The logic is that, the satellites will track heavy accumulation of such NGC enabled notes, and will take immediate action to track and seize such money (assuming they are black money).
Some Small Business ideas for Students
Small Business ideas for Students
Here are some small business ideas for students to start-up
Students have to pay for or buy a number of things ranging from text books, excursions, field trips, research projects, practical and even accommodation. With the increasing costs of fees in schools and colleges, it’s now becoming more than important for college bound students or those already in college to start a business. So students can easily get part-time jobs. But due to the bad global economy, there are now fewer jobs, stiffer competition, automation with technology, and constant changes within corporations.
However, you can still live comfortably and achieve great career accomplishments if you make the right strategic moves. Launching a business while in college will set you up for success and responsibility. There are many unique startup business ideas for students that can turn out to be profitable ventures later on. It may begin with the young and enterprising person’s passion for something. So without wasting your time, below are profitable business ideas that you can start as a student.
- Start Blogging: You can create a blog on blogger.com or WordPress and start writing about topics you are passionate about. All you need to start this is your computer and internet connection. If you write well and you gain much blog traffic, you can make money from Google AdSense or other third party advertising agents.
- Affiliate Marketing: What an affiliate marketer does is to help promote products and services of other companies and earn commission from sales made. You will need a good knowledge of web marketing, sales copywriting and pay per click marketing to become an affiliate marketer.
- Freelance Writing: You can provide ghost writing services to people who need it and get paid for it.
- Virtual Assistance Services: A lot of busy professionals would not mind getting extra help in reading their e-mails, responding to enquiries and organizing meetingsand tasks for them without having to hire a secretary or personal assistant. Many people prefer to hire a virtual assistant who would work from home. You can become a virtual assistant and offer such services as long as you have a computer and an excellent internet connection.
- Resume Writing Service: If you are very good with words and information presentation, you can help people write their resume in ways that would attract employers and get paid for it.
- Bookkeeping Services: If you are really good with accounting, you can become a bookkeeper and offer bookkeeping services to business and individuals online.
- Engage in Website Design: As a student, you can go into website designing and get paid for it. You can also buy websites that are undeveloped, develop them and then sell them for a fee.
- Search Engine Optimization : Companies and business owners are always looking for ways to place their businesses at the top of search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. You can make money by helping companies improve web page ranking.
- Language Translation and Transcription Services: As a student, you can offer language translation services. If you are very good in a second language, you can help people translate documents from that language to English or vice versa. There are also lots of opportunities for transcription services on the internet. Transcription entails converting recorded speech to written text.
- Organizing Webinars: You can organize seminars online known as webinars and share your ideas on a certain topic that people would be interested in while you charge attendance fees.
- Online Nutritionist: A lot of people are looking for ways to eat healthy so as to prevent diseases in future and a lot of people are also looking for diet plans for weight loss online. You can make money by selling weight loss meal plans or nutritional guides to people online.
- Ticketing Agent: As a student, you can make money from selling air travel tickets to people who need it on the internet.
- Online Tutor: If you are smart and very good academically and wouldn’t mind imparting knowledge in others, you can make money by becoming an online tutor. There are websites that offer such services and you can sign up to become one of their tutors or you can create your own website and start helping students get better at their academics.
- Become a Graphic designer: If you are very good with graphics, you can make money by becoming a graphic designer. There are websites where you can offer your services and get paid for it such as Freelancer.
- Property Finding Service: You can offer property finding services to fellow students searching for accommodation or even to non-students. You will need to go around and search for vacant houses and list them on your website so that people who need such accommodation can contact you. However, you will need to create awareness for your website by printing flyers and telling as many people as you can.
- Establish Online Directories: You can also create online directories and charge companies for listing their businesses.
- Engage in Online Surveys: There are lots of opportunities to make money from filling out online survey. Simply register on a legitimate paid survey site and get paid when you answer survey questions.
- Online Reputation Management: A company’s reputation translates to sales most of the time, which is why companies pay people to manage their product and brand reputation online.
- Buying and selling stuff online has become one of the big money-earners in the digital age. The challenge comes in offering something unique or which stands out from other product offerings in the marketplace.
- Tutoring service: As a college student, chances are you are particularly good in one or two subjects. You’ll make a lot of money by offering to teach others who are having problems with those subjects — most especially if they are very important subjects that students must pass before promotion or graduation.
- Career counseling: If you have good communication skills, you can meet the recruiters and employers in the on-campus career center to learn what they are looking for in job applicants. Then you can become a career coach and counselor simply by leaking these secrets to other students.
- Sports training service: If you are a good athlete and sportsman, think about starting a personal sports training service aimed at teaching fellow students who are interested in becoming skilled sportsmen like you. You can use either an on-campus facility or a local fitness facility off campus.
- Party promotion: Most college students love partying. So, you can make decent income if you know how promote parties and get the best deejays and party people to events. You can also organize shows involving celebrity singers and entertainers.
- On-boarding services for international students: If your college admits students from other countries that have never lived in your country for long, you can start an on-boarding service for international students. Such students find the campus environment overwhelming, and they may have a hard time blending with the new system.
- If you are compassionate, and you enjoy meeting new people, you can set up a hospitality or familiarization program for international students. You can either collaborate with the office of students’ affairs in your school or run your business independently.
- Graphics arts design services: If you have a knack for creative design and you are very good at it, you can start a graphics design business. You can offer your services for both students and college professors who want to beautify their research and reports as well as their presentations.You can also make additional income by designing banners for events and occasions in your college and by designing creating greeting cards for birthdays and holidays.
- Freelance writing services: If you are very good with words, then you can start a freelance writing service. This would involve handling writing assignments for clients — not fellow students, because this is unethical and against the rules in virtually all schools and colleges. You can hook up with clients over the internet by registering an account with freelance outsourcing sites.
- You can start a blog for marketing your writing services and promote your business in online forums and via social media. Writing assignments that you’ll be handling for clients include articles, blog posts, ebooks, sales copies, press releases, business proposals, and so on.
- Event planning: There are series of campus events from student parties to award nights and convocations. You can offer your services and help in planning such events and get paid for it. Although starting up might be challenging as you will need to be able to convince sponsors that you can handle the job perfectly. You can offer to do the first few jobs for free and start charging when you have proven yourself to be an excellent event planner.
- Fitness Trainer: Our society has made keeping fit a necessity and many people are looking for ways to keep fit daily. Not many people have the time to visit a gymnasium and would gladly pay for a personal fitness instructor to come into their homes and train them instead. If you are someone who is passionate about sports, you can become a fitness trainer and earn decent income from it.
- Photography and Videography: Students love to capture beautiful moments in photos and there are chances of making good money if you are a very good photographer. You can also record live campus events on video tapes and sell them for a fee.
- Food Delivery: As a student, you can make money as a part-time chef or by making pre-packaged meals and selling them to fellow students.
- Transportation service: If your parent has an old car that has been abandoned for a long time, you can fix it and start a micro transport service. Chances are your fellow students need transportation to and from campus. And most of the time, the transport arrangements by school authorities are not very good. So, your college colleagues would be willing to pay you to transport them. They will prefer your services to that of the college because yours will save their time and provide more comfort and flexibility.
- Dance and Music Classes: If you are really good at dancing or play any musical instrument well, you can become a music or dance instructor.
- Gardening: Do you love gardening, trimming lawns and beautifying homes? A lot of people wouldn’t mind paying you to help them keep their homes and gardens beautiful.
- Selling E-books: As a student, there will be topics you are passionate about and you can make money by writing e-books about them and selling them on the internet. Writing books would not cost you money but a little bit of your time and energy and this can easily be done alongside studying. When writing your e-book, you must make sure you research hot keywords in that niche and use them so that people can locate your e-book easily through search engines.
- Building Mobile Applications: Mobile Apps are hot right now and many businesses and individuals are hiring people to build mobile applications for them. Do you have programming skills? Then you can also make money as a student by building mobile apps and publishing them.
- Cute and unique gift items presented in a website can sell like hotcakes especially during seasons like Christmas and Valentine. Reasonably priced cupcakes with creative designs can likewise capture the attention of pastry lovers or food gift buyers browsing the web.
- Computer enthusiasts who use the Internet for research, emailing, and playing online games may find huge appeal in taking part in a business like testing new games and providing feedback on the games.
- Another business idea for students is using a leading e-commerce site to sell goods. What young enterprising individuals need to do is simply take good photos of the products they intend to sell and post these online, along with a concise product description so that potential buyers can bid on them.
- Students can also choose among the reputable affiliate marketing programs online that sell products; then they can allot time to learn details about products the affiliate companies sell, like jewelry, supplements, apparel, gadgets, home wares etc.
Most small business ideas that start out small end up churning out huge profits, and the best thing about such businesses is that youngsters can manage them from the comforts of their homes or neighborhood.
With good luck !
//ws-in.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=IN&source=ss&ref=as_ss_li_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=gomarket01-21&language=en_IN&marketplace=amazon®ion=IN&placement=B076B8G5D8&asins=B076B8G5D8&linkId=718a6026d2072596570654852cd23876&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=trueWelcome to my blog site “GingerFingers”
Welcome to my blog site “GingerFingers” which will give more lights in future on different aspects of life, health, wealth, science and so on……..just like the fingers of Ginger spreading in different directions….so lease wait for the coming blogs…Thanks
First blog post
This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.
Blog post title
This is another post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.
Blog post title
This is a typical blog post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.
Featured Content
This is a featured content post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post.
Ginger Fingers 