Powered by a 280mAh battery, the phone comes with an expandable memory up to 8GB and offers multimedia options like images, video and music support along with Internet.

The company also launched the ‘F05’ feature phone which comes with A-GPS technology and is priced between Rs 1500 to Rs 1700.

“Our focus for the quarter in on strengthening our brand at the Indian soil and with ‘K188’ and ‘F05’, we aim to deliver the industry’s most value-for-price products,” said Michael Feng, India Sales Head, Chilli International Holding (HK), in a statement.

With a 6.1cm LCD display, ‘F05’ features a 1.3MP camera and dual-sim support.

The two phones will be available both online and offline by the end of September.

IANS

Picture courtesy: Alamy Image

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The push comes as cutting-edge machinery is used to plug a labour shortage on the nation’s remote farms that threatens to derail its ambitions to become Asia’s food bowl.

“For the first time in many years, we’re finding it easier to attract graduates because agriculture, particularly technology in agriculture, is back on the radar,” said Felicity Hennessy, general manager of innovation at agribusiness Ruralco (RHL.AX).

For years, potential recruits to Australian agriculture have been turned off by the harsh image of traditional farming, but a marked acceleration towards automation has piqued the interest of young generations, with jobs available to do everything from developing crop-protecting drones to crunching data on cattle nutrition.

“The proliferation of drones and sensors are the key drivers,” said Hennessy, adding that Ruralco’s graduate programme had seen a rise in the number and quality of applicants.

While Australia is among the world’s leaders in robotics for outdoor use, having given birth to the first robot to round up cattle, the A$4 billion agriculture technology industry is still in its infancy. It is mainly just a few companies that are big enough to recruit.

The nation’s largest cattle firm Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) (AAC.AX) is one of the local firms in the sector that has regularly been hiring tech-savvy youngsters.

“Interest in agriculture is rising, from engineers to science-type graduates,” said Gerard Davis, who heads a team of seven in an innovation department at AACo that started under three years ago.

Data from Rimfire Resources, a recruiting firm specialised in farming, showed 4,600 agricultural jobs were advertised on the internet in 2016, from an average of 3,750 in the past three years.

“It is difficult to say whether the increase is driven by technology, but there is a clear shift for off-the-farm roles,” said Nigel Crawley, a director at Rimfire Resources.

DOWN ON THE FARM

New degrees such as agri-sciences are being added by universities, with a sharp rise in students who do not have a farming background.

City-born engineering student Michael Forrai had never set foot on a farm, but as part of his studies is now testing weed-spraying functions on robots in wheat fields near Emerald, a remote town in the state of Queensland.

“I had never heard of Emerald before and really would have never expected to work on a farm,” said the 30-year-old student from the University of Sydney. “Now, I see it as an amazing opportunity … I am definitely considering staying in agricultural robotics.”

But competition is stiff for agricultural companies looking to recruit engineers or tech graduates.

“We have to be looking all the time,” said Matt Pryor, the founder of water and livestock sensors maker Observant, citing companies in aerospace, automotive, finance, healthcare and e-commerce vying for the candidates.

Observant provides web-based software to allow farmers to check water levels remotely. The system collects data from soil moisture sensors, weather stations and cameras.

The 13-year-old company employs a staff of 12, having added three technicians last year.

“We changed our mindset from being position-focused to talent-focused and that can be tough because you may take somebody before the business is ready,” said Pryor.

“In a competitive market, you have to be at market price or above,” he said, declining to give more details.

Reuters

Picture source: Reuters

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Using cutting-edge chemical techniques, the researchers have created the tightest knot ever made, woven on a molecular level. The new knot is a circular triple helix only 20 nanometers long, containing only 192 atoms, the researchers report in a paper published in the Jan. 13 issue of Science magazine.

While scientists have known for decades that molecular knots like this one are theoretically possible, it has proven difficult to create knots of such complexity, with previous molecular knots using only two strands woven together in very basic patterns. This is the first molecule to incorporate three strands into its structure, in a leap forward for a technology that the researchers suggest could eventually lead to a new generation of super-light and super-strong knotted materials.

Until now, there had only been three molecular knots created by scientists at this scale: the trefoil, the figure-eight, and the pentafoil, a paltry amount compared to the 6 billion known prime knot formations, Science’s Jessica Boddy explains in a brief. But this new circular triple helix is the most complex knot ever created on this scale, with a total of 8 strand crossings, with each crossing only 24 atoms apart.

“That’s very, very tight indeed,” David Leigh, a professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester and study leader, told The Guardian. “It is definitely the most tightly knotted physical structure known.”

The entire structure is about 200,000 times thinner than a human hair and requires much more chemical finesse to weave than a macro-scale knot.

“These strands we are knotting are so small that you can’t grab the ends and tie them like you would a shoelace,” Dr. Leigh told The Guardian. “Instead we use a chemical process called self assembly, where we mix the organic building blocks with ions that the building blocks then wrap around to make crossing points in the right places.”

In order to create the new knot, the team first created a solution of strands of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms, according to the Guardian. When mixed with chloride and iron ions in a heated solvent, the strands wove themselves together over about 24 hours. Then, the ends of each strand were fused together in a continuous loop, and the ions were washed away, leaving only the knot. X-ray crystallography images confirmed that the knot had formed as the researchers had expected.

“It’s fantastic,” Edward Fenlon, a chemist at Pennsylvania’s Franklin & Marshall College, who was not part of the study, told NPR. “It’s really impressive that they’ve been able to go beyond some of the more simple knots with just three crossings.”

Leigh hopes that building increasingly complex molecular knots will eventually lead to weaving, which could, in turn, lead to new technologies.

“Bullet-proof vests and body armour are made of kevlar, a plastic that consists of rigid molecular rods aligned in a parallel structure – however, interweaving polymer strands have the potential to create much tougher, lighter and more flexible materials in the same way that weaving threads does in our everyday world,” said Leigh in a statement from Manchester University. “Some polymers, such as spider silk, can be twice as strong as steel so braiding polymer strands may lead to new generations of light, super-strong and flexible materials for fabrication and construction.”

Of course, there is still a long way to go before this kind of micro-weaving is a reality.

“Historically, knotting and weaving have led to all kinds of breakthrough technologies,” Leigh told NPR. “Knots should be just as important at the molecular level, but we can’t exploit that until we learn how to make them, and that’s really what we’re beginning to do.”

New York Times

Picture source: Alamy

Picture used for illustrative purposes alone

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This is not as farfetched as it sounds. While 3D printers have mainly been in the news for their ability to manufacture inedible goods, they are increasingly being used for culinary endeavours.

3D food printers extrude soft liquid edible matter through nozzles that build up layer by layer in patters directed by a computer program. They can pump out everything from to chocolates, confectionery, biscuits and pancakes, to pasta, pizza and other savoury snacks.

News reports and industry blogs are very positive about what 3D food printing can offer. They have covered such events as Michelin-starred chefs experimenting with 3D food printers in pop-up restaurants in Europe.

The media have also reported on the potential for 3D printing to cater for astronauts, air travellers and people in emergency situations.

Nursing homes in Europe are offering 3D printed food with jelly-like texture for residents with chewing and swallowing difficulties. Developers of 3D food printers claim that people will soon have these devices in their kitchens, helping them prepare tasty and healthy foods at home.

But that’s not all. There’s also the radical idea of using insects and laboratory-grown meat in 3D printed food as a sustainable alternative to traditional protein sources.

Meat and Livestock Australia also recently announced that it is looking into ways to use 3D printing to produce new meat products to extract the most value from animal carcasses.

So it is not far-fetched to imagine serving a Christmas lunch with 3D printed food made from red meat and poultry, or decorative edible items made from fruit or vegetable purees, sugar or chocolate.

But would you eat it?

What do you think about 3D printed food? Would you try it, or offer it to family members or guests? Despite industry enthusiasm and investment in research and development, few studies have actually asked these questions of consumers.

To investigate these issues, we conducted our own research with 30 Australians, using an online focus group. The results highlight some interesting complications in the way many people perceive 3D printed foods, and what might tempt them to try some.

First of all, we found that none of the participants had heard of using 3D printing technology to make food products. As 3D printing technologies were usually associated with inedible objects made from substances such as plastic, plaster or metal, it was difficult for our participants to understand how they might work with foodstuffs.

They were initially incredulous that this technology could be used for making food and couldn’t imagine what kinds of foods would be produced. This manner of food processing was viewed as highly unnatural, with several assuming that the resulting food would be somehow “plastic” and therefore inedible.

Our participants were far more positive about 3D printed carrots, pasta, pizza, chocolate and a meal with chicken and vegetables (made from “real” whole food purees) than they were about 3D printed sugar confections, meat and food made from food waste and alternative food sources such as algae and insects.

Cultural beliefs about what kinds of matter are considered tasty and appropriate to eat were central in our participants’ responses. While substances such as insects and algae fit consumers’ preferences for natural ingredients, these foods were considered disgusting by nearly all of the participants.

They could not imagine eating them or serving them to others. These materials were considered to be inedible according to the cultural norms of our participants, no matter how they are prepared or processed. So it wasn’t that they were 3D printed per se, but what they were printed from that affected their attitude to the food.

Those participants who had ethical misgivings about eating conventionally grown meat liked the idea of 3D printed meat products. But most of the participants considered the process to be a little too much like “Frankenfood”, particularly if it involved using laboratory-cultured meat. Here it was the process of making the ingredient that was considered “unnatural”.

Building familiarity

Many participants’ lack of familiarity with the 3D printing process underpinned their reservations about the safety of using food materials that would otherwise be discarded as waste. They were unsure about how the risks of food contamination and preservation would be dealt with.

Many of them also considered the healthiness of foods to be an important factor. Our participants had no problem viewing 3D printed sugar confections, pizza or chocolate as potentially edible. But they did express concern about the healthiness of these foods, given their ingredients and current status as junk food.

So, if our results can be generalised to the broader population, it seems many people are interested in novel food products. They will try them if they can be assured of their edibility, healthiness and safety, and have an understanding of how these products are processed and what they are made from.

But our study shows that those wishing to promote 3D printed food might have several challenges on their hands. First of all, they may need to familiarise the public with how this process works and reassure them that it is safe.

Then they might need to emphasise that 3D printed food is tasty, even if it looks unusual or is made from ingredients that are not normally considered edible by cultural standards. Only then might consumers consider the possibility of including 3D printed food as part of their lives, including at the Christmas lunch table.

The Conversation

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The student’s research focuses on the use of chemically modified cotton fibres to remove heavy metals, such as mercury or lead, from polluted water. The materials are designed to be efficient, fast, economical and sustainable solutions to address the contamination of waste water, such as that created by industrial facilities or caused by natural disasters.

The students – Aya Hossam El-Din Mustafa and Mohammed Seif Al-Dawla Mohammed – have already been honoured for their work, having won the Best Outstanding Team award at the Sharjah Sustainability Awards held in April.

“We were trying to come up with solutions for waste water treatment, especially waste water that comes from industrial zones that has a high concentration of heavy metals,” explained Dr Mohammed Al Sayah, Professor of Biology, Chemistry and Environment Science of AUS’ College of Arts and Sciences. “Water in the GCC is an expensive commodity to have.”

According to Dr Al Sayah, cotton is just one of the materials available in the Gulf that could be used to clean waste water, but noted that it is vital to chemically modify the fibers.

“Modifying the fibre depends on the targeted materials,” he noted. “The cotton is cellulose based polymer. We modify it to bind the metals, and this modification turns the cotton into a ‘sponge’ that can absorb metal from the waste water.”

“Once we remove the cotton fibres from the waste water, it takes with it the heavy metals,” he added.

Such a method, Dr Al Sayah noted, is cheaper and more sustainable than other alternatives that are currently available.

“The whole point is aiming to use naturally available fibres like cotton and others,” he said. “This way, we don’t have to use synthetic polymers. It doesn’t cost a lot, and it’s more environmentally friendly.”

“If we need more, it’s available in nature, and we can recover the metal and use the fiber again,” he added. “It’s more likely to be biodegradable.”

Looking to the future, Dr Al Sayah said the team is already having “early results with other fibers which are more relevant to the area, especially the UAE and the Gulf.”

“We’re hoping to get some functional prototypes to work with.”

bernd@khaleejtimes.com

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