Category: Life & Style

The US Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a new Alzheimer’s drug that may fairly slow the pace of cognitive decline early in the disease, but also carries risks of swelling and bleeding in the brain.

The approval of the drug, lecanemab, which is to be marketed as Leqembi, is expected to generate considerable interest from patients and physicians. The drug is an intravenous infusion administered every two weeks. Studies of the drug suggest that it is more promising than the limited number of other treatments available.

Several Alzheimer’s experts, however, said it was unclear from the medical evidence whether Leqembi could slow cognitive decline enough to be noticeable to patients. A recent report of findings from a large 18-month clinical trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and co-written by scientists from the lead company making the drug, concluded that “longer trials are warranted to determine the efficacy and safety of lecanemab in early Alzheimer’s disease.”

Eisai, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, led the development and testing of the drug. It is partnering with the American company Biogen, maker of the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm, for its commercialisation and marketing, and the companies will split the profits equally.

The US embassy and consulates in India have said they have issued record-breaking visas to Indian students in 2022.

The US State Department Spokesperson, Ned Price said that the US issued more student visas in fiscal year 2022 than in any year since 2016. He added that the US embassy and consulates in India, in particular, broke their all-time record for the number of student visas issued in a single fiscal year.

“We issued nearly 1,25,000 student visas. We recognise that some applicants may still face extended visa wait times, and we are making every effort to further reduce visa interview appointment wait times as quickly as possible in India and around the world, including for first time tourist visa applicants,” he said.

According to the US official, they have doubled the hiring of US foreign and service personnel and added that visa processing is recovering faster than projected over the coming years. The country is making every effort to reduce the waiting time for visa interview appointments in India as soon as possible.Price said the demand for visa services has increased as pandemic restrictions have eased in countries across the world, and people are looking for opportunities to travel to the United States.

Earlier, a senior US Embassy in November 2022 had said that India is expected to surpass China in getting the number of visas by 2023, and will be ranked two in the issuance of visas after Mexico.

Researchers from Japan’s National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Research Institute have shown that bones and skeletal muscles are strengthened by the load associated with exercise, preventing bone and muscle atrophy.

In a study published in the journal Cell Reports, the researchers said that load affects the expression of the peptide osteocrin (OSTN), which increases when load is applied and decreases when it is reduced. The growth of long bones, such as the femur and tibia, is a very complex process controlled by genetic and environmental factors, such as exercise and gravity.

Bone is maintained by the balanced activities of two types of cells – osteoblasts, which make bone, and osteoclasts, which break down bone – and is thought to be made in response to load demand. Specifically, the team investigated the expression of OSTN, a peptide produced by osteoblasts, in mice. OSTN is critical to the regulation of bone growth, as well as physical endurance. It found that OSTN was very strongly expressed in bones such as the tibia, radius, and ulna, and in the region where the load was applied. They also showed that OSTN was secreted by the periosteal osteoblasts in these bones. The periosteum is a membrane found on the outer surface of bones, except at the joints of long bones, and is involved in bone remodeling and production, especially during growth.

The results of this study will be useful for the promotion of bone maintenance in bedridden patients, because bone formation is known to be inhibited by long-term bed rest, and for the prevention and treatment of frailty syndrome. Future studies will build on these results to discover further mechanisms, such as how periosteal cells detect load stimulation.

Sri Lanka received over 7 lakh tourists in 2022 in spite of facing the worst economic crisis since its independence. The tourist arrivals in the island nation marks a significant increase from less than 1,95,000 arrivals in 2021.

According to Sri Lanka’s Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA), December 2022 recorded 91,691 arrivals. This is less than the year’s highest number of arrivals of 96,000 in February and 1,06,000 in March. The December arrivals were dominated by over 19,000 from Russia and over 17,000 from India. A total of 719,978 tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2022, according to the figures released from SLTDA.

Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people, is going through its worst economic crisis since its independence in 1948 which was triggered by a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves. Sri Lanka Tourism had conducted campaigns to win back the tourism industry.

In September, the International Monetary Fund announced that it will provide Sri Lanka with a loan of about $2.9 billion over four years under a preliminary agreement to help the country overcome the ongoing economic crisis and protect the livelihoods of the people.

Indian Army’s Fire and Fury Corps officer, Captain Shiva Chauhan has become the first woman officer to be operationally deployed at the highest battleground in Kumar Post on the Siachen glacier.

In a tweet, the official account of the Fire and Fury Corps celebrated Captain Shiva’s feat with the caption, Breaking the Glass Ceiling. The Indian Army Officer had to undergo arduous training before her posting in Kumar Post located at an altitude of 15,632-feet after a month of gruelling training at the Siachen Battle School. The training included endurance training, ice-wall climbing, avalanche and crevasse rescue and survival drills.

Located in the Karakoram Range, the Siachen Glacier is the highest battleground on earth, where India and Pakistan have fought intermittently since 1984.

Captain Shiva Chouhan, who hails from Rajasthan, is a Bengal Sapper Officer. Covering a distance of 508 km, she successfully led the Sura Soi Cycling Expedition from Siachen War Memorial to Kargil War Memorial conducted on the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas in July 2022. The officer then took up the challenge of leading the men of Sura Soi Engineer Regiment at Siachen. Based on her performance, Captain Shiva Chouhan was selected to undergo training at the Siachen Battle School.

Dubai has kicked off the new year by cancelling a 30% tax on alcohol sales and making liquor licenses free in an attempt to boost business and tourism.

In an announcement made on Monday, Dubai Municipality temporarily stopped collecting the 30% fee from alcoholic beverage companies for one year. It also said that personal liquor licenses, earlier a requirement for all Dubai residents for purchasing alcohol in shops and costing 270 dirhams ($73.50), are now free. Till December 31, 2022, liquor licenses had to be renewed annually and had a processing time of about four weeks. However, there was no license needed to buy drinks in bars.

Dubai is also the only emirate in the United Arab Emirates that required residents to obtain a liquor license for in-shop purchases. In five other emirates, including Abu Dhabi, no license was required, and in the country’s more conservative emirate, Sharjah, the sale of alcohol is not allowed.

Some Dubai residents, who recently paid the full fee for their yearly license, were unhappy about the sudden announcement. More broadly, residents celebrated and welcomed the news. Dubai city has countless bars, nightclubs and restaurants serving alcohol.

In a rare astronomical event, every planet in the solar system was visible in the night sky simultaneously on Wednesday, December 28, 2022.

Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars were all seen in that order in the northern hemisphere with the naked eye, starting from the south-western horizon and moving east. Uranus, located between Mars and Jupiter, and Neptune, which is between Saturn and Jupiter, were seen with binoculars or a telescope until the end of the last year. All eight planets were set to reach conjunction – their closest point – on Thursday, December 29, 2022.

The last time all Solar System planets were visible in the sky simultaneously was in June 2022. All five planets visible to the naked eye were lined up in the sky in the same sequential order that they physically orbit the Sun – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – an alignment the likes of which had not occurred in about 150 years, or since 1864, said astronomers.

Another significant event for astronomers is the Quadrantids meteor shower, which is expected to peak around January 3 and 4, 2023, and is known for producing blue meteors travelling at 40 km (25 miles) a second and occasional bright fireballs.

The solar energy capacity in India has increased from 28,180 megawatts in March 2019 to 53,996 megawatts at the end of 2021-22, Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy and Power RK Singh informed Parliament earlier this week. The rise is

The cumulative solar energy capacity at the end of 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22 was at 34,627, 40,085, and 53,996 mega watts, respectively. Accordingly, in the past three years, the solar capacity in the country increased by about 91%.

The minister said that the Government has set a target of achieving 500 GW of installed capacity from non-fossil fuels by 2030, in line with the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s announcement at CoP-26.

Earlier this year, India added 1.3 GW of open-access solar capacity in January-June, registering a year-on-year growth of 97%, said research firm Mercom India in its latest report. For the quarter ending June, open-access solar installations saw over a three-fold increase to 680 megawatts (MW), from 210 MW in the second quarter of 2021, the report added.

Solar power through open access is an arrangement where a power producer establishes a solar power plant to supply green energy to consumers. “In H1 2022, India added 1.3 GW of open access solar, a 97% increase compared to 638 MW installed in 1H 2021, the second-highest recorded in the first half of any year,” said the Mercom India Solar Open Access Market Report Q2 2022 report.

Garuda Aerospace has become India’s first drone start-up to receive both Type Certification and RTPO approvals from Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for its indigenously designed Kisan Drones.

DGCA Type certification is given after the quality check of the drones and issued after a rigorous testing process for the UAVs. The certification was introduced by the Government of India in August 2021 under drone rules and the historic dual DGCA approval validates Garuda’s tag of being India’s most valuable drone startup.

Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder and CEO, Garuda Aerospace, said that the approvals will lead to significant sector growth. The drones will not only benefit farmers and agri-entrepreneurs, but also build new-age careers for young Indians within the drone industry, he added.

Garuda Aerospace has a drone fleet of 400 drones and a well-trained team of over 500 pilots across 26 cities. With the Type Certificate for the GA-AG model, Garuda Kisan Drone can now get Rs 10 lakh unsecured loan from Agri Infrastructure Fund at a 5% interest and 50-100% subsidy from the Government of India. Priced at Rs. 4.50 lakh, Garuda Kisan Drone is India’s most affordable advanced automated agri drone with DGCA-approved Type Certification in the under-25 kg small category. Several government agriculture bodies will now have an option of procuring high-tech Made in India Drones from Garuda Aerospace. This will lead to creating job opportunities and training 1 lakh drone pilots in the next two years.

A treasure trove of rare flora and fauna, the Himalayas hold some herbs that are costlier than gold in the international market. One of these herbs is the reason suggested to be behind the Chinese incursions in Arunachal Pradesh, says a report by the Indo-Pacific Centre for Strategic Communications (IPCSC).

In its latest report, the IPCSC suggested that several incursions by the Chinese PLA into the Indian territory in the northeast have been to collect a rare Himalayan caterpillar fungus called cordyceps. One such incursion was on December 9.

Cordyceps sinensis or Ophiocordyceps Sinensis is a type of fungus that infects caterpillars. A combination of both an animal and a plant, the caterpillar fungus is exclusively found in the meadows of the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau. The rare and expensive fungus is used to produce herbal drugs which improve energy, stamina, endurance, appetite, among others. The fungus is called the Himalayan Viagra or the Love Flower for its aphrodisiac properties. It is used extensively among middle-class Chinese to cure everything from kidney illness to fatigue, while there is no such scientific evidence, says the IPCSC.

Cordyceps sinensis is called Keeda Jadi (insect herb) in India, Yarsa gumba in Nepal, Yartsa gunbu in Tibet, and Dong Ching Xia Cao in China, among others. It is difficult to ascertain its current price, but reports suggest that one kilogram of cordyceps fetches anywhere around $20,000 or Rs 17 lakh, thus earning the name Himalayan Gold. The availability of the fungus in the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau has declined due to climate change and over-harvesting.