A total of 967 candidates registered for counselling, in all four centres put together. 488 candidates registered at JNTUH, 142 at AU, 98 at SVU and 239 at NTRUHS. Counselling will be held on Monday for ranks 1001 to 2500.

“It actually sucks the arsenic out of the soil and puts it in the fronds,” Banks said. “It’s the only multi-cellular organism that can do this.”

Without a genome sequenced for Pteris vittata, Banks and Salt used a method of gene identification called yeast functional complementation. They combined thousands of different Pteris vittata genes into thousands of yeast cells that were missing a gene that makes them tolerant to arsenic.

The yeast was exposed to arsenic, with most of it dying. The yeast strains that lived had picked up the genes from Pteris vittata that convey arsenic resistance.

To confirm that this was the correct gene, its function was knocked down and the plant was exposed to arsenic. Without the gene functioning properly, the plant could not tolerate arsenic.

“It tells us that this gene is necessary for the plant to function on arsenic,” said Banks, whose findings were published in the early online version of the journal Plant Cell. “We looked for a similar gene in the plant Arabidopsis. We couldn’t find it. It can’t be found in any flowering plant.”

Banks and Salt found that the protein encoded by this gene ends up in the membrane of the plant cell’s vacuole. Salt said the protein acts as a pump, moving arsenic into the cell’s equivalent of a trashcan.

“It stores it away from the cytoplasm so that it can’t have an effect on the plant,” Salt said.

Banks said understanding how the Pteris vittata functions with arsenic could lead to ways to clean up arsenic-contaminated land.

“Potentially you could take these genes and put them in any organism that could suck the arsenic out of the soil,” Banks said.

Salt said rice plants could be modified with the gene to store arsenic in the roots of plants — instead of rice grains — in contaminated paddies.

Banks and Salt found another gene in Pteris vittata that looks almost exactly the same as the one that controls arsenic tolerance. When the fern was exposed to arsenic, the confirmed arsenic-tolerance gene increased its expression while the similar gene did not.

Salt said the gene that regulates arsenic tolerance could be a duplicate of the other that has changed slightly to give itself a new function.

“The fact that it has these two genes could be a sign of evolution,” Salt said. “One of the thoughts of gene evolution is that one copy could continue to do what it has always done, while the duplicate can develop another function.”

The plant might have evolved to accumulate arsenic, Banks and Salt theorized, as a defense against animals or insects eating them.

Banks hopes findings such as this will lead to more research emphasis on non-flowering plants. She said there are characteristics in plants such as Pteris vittata that cannot be found in other organisms.

The next step in their research is to put the arsenic-tolerance gene from Pteris vittata into Arabidopsis to see whether it gives the new plant the same characteristics.

The National Science Foundation funded the research.

Source:Science Daily.com

While wishing students every success, Mary Coughlan said good Leaving Cert results are not to only route to success.

The Tánaiste added: “While the State exams are an important milestone in your lives, I hope that you will keep the exams in perspective and bear in mind that there are many opportunities for you to continue your education after the Leaving Certificate.”Minister Coughlan advised individuals sitting papers to remain calm and keep focused throughout the exam period.

Some 116,000 students begin exams today in 4,700 exam centres across the country, with Leaving Cert students taking Paper I in English this morning.

According to the State Examinations Commission, new procedures have been put in place to help avoid any blunders. It follows an error last year, which saw a superintendent give out the wrong exam, meaning students had to sit their second English paper on a Saturday morning.

Online learning is popular abroad because it allows students to explore and tap into different options. While portals like Gurukul Online Learning Solutions introduced the concept of online
education in India with eLearning; there is a new kind of virtual classroom that is gaining interest across age groups in India. It is called Teacherni.com and is a ‘live online tutorial’ which tutors students across ICSE, CBSE, IGCSE and IB boards.

In addition to coaching students between 4th to 12th grade, Teacherni.com also gears those appearing for overseas entrance exams, including SAT and GMAT. Currently, Teacherni.com is based in Mumbai and caters to students across India and the UAE.However, Teacherni.com is not like e-learning. “It provides live personalised help online, giving your child access to the most qualified teachers and even lets him/her choose their own. The tutors guide students in planning their studies better, completing their homework in the best possible manner, carrying out projects and exceling in exams. Online tutors constantly go over concepts using application and in-room testing, until the student has fully grasped them,” says Dhaval Mehta, managing partner.

Every session can be recorded and saved for future reference, a feature that comes in very handy for revision. In addition, students save time on travelling to coaching classes where teachers are unable to reach out in the most effective way. The technology has been successfully implemented in US, UK, Australia and the Middle East.

While online education holds considerable potential, keeping it interactive and interesting will definitely hold the key to acceptance and future growth. Several institutions in India are even planning to take their post graduation courses online, with an interactive user interface, using games and contests to sustain interest levels.

With access to computers and the Internet increasing rapidly, more parents and students are beginning to realise the benefits of this new medium. It’s just a matter of time before demand and supply find their own equilibrium.

The drive was kicked off here Monday by international football player and former captain of Indian women football team, Sradhanjali Samantaray.

It would continue till June 22, Santosh K. Padhy of international NGO ActionAid told IANS.

The participants signed on an appeal that asks Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to increase budgetary allocations for elementary education, he said.

Around 100 organisations in the state have already joined the drive.‘We will collect signatures from people from all walks of life, starting from villages to premier educational institutes, and present it to the chief minister,’ Padhy said.

The drive is part of the 1Goal campaign launched globally coinciding with the FIFA Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa.

The campaign is backed by FIFA and some of the biggest names in football, he said.

The aim is to put pressure on governments around the world to deliver the additional money that is needed to pay for every child to attend school, he said.

1Goal is setting out to be the biggest campaign around a sporting event. It already has 100 ambassadors, 25 of the biggest mobile phone companies backing it and aims to get 72 million people signing up.

This support will then be used to encourage new commitments from governments attending the high-level summit that will be hosted by the South African government during the World Cup.

‘Although there has been significant increase in the budget of school and mass education during the last two years (2008-09 and 2009-10) in Orissa, it has been mostly because of the hike in the salary post Sixth Pay Commission recommendations,’ he said.

‘Now that education has become a fundamental right, there is a need for launching a massive campaign involving people to ensure its proper implementation,’ he said.