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Showing posts from February 2, 2014

Indian-born engineer creates 3D printer that makes pizzas for astronauts

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An Indian-origin engineer, who works for the Texas-based Systems & Materials Research Corporation, claims to have developed a 3D printer that can print food and pizza for astronauts on long missions.  Anjan Contractor, a mechanical engineer, had won a $125,000 grant from NASA last year to create a prototype 3D printer aimed at providing nutritious and delicious foods to astronauts in space instead of canned and freeze-dried pre-packaged foods they currently use. According to Fastcoexist.com, Contractor's goal was to print a pizza with his 3D printer - and it looks like he has succeeded.  The printer would be able to lay out all the starches, proteins, fats, texture, and structure, spraying on flavour, smell, and micro-nutrients at the end, said Contractor.  It took about 70 seconds to cook the pizza after the 3D printer finished doing its thing, added Contractor in his YouTube page.  

Satya Nadella puts Manipal institute on world map

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Satya Nadella puts Manipal institute on world map Not so long ago, a section of netizens took umbrage at a view that MIT refers only to Massachusetts Institute of Technology and that Manipal Institute of Technology has no right to use it as an acronym. The elevation of Satya Nadella to the top job in Microsoft should bury those insinuations. Not that MIT ever lacked in recruiters. Barring Facebook and Google, many top recruiters have been regular visitors here during placement season. But the Nadella factor will weigh in more heavily now. "The media blitz should get us more visibility and elicit a peep from companies which have not had a look at us till now," says Giridhar Kini, associate director, industrial liaison and placements at MIT." MIT director Vinod V Thomas couldn't agree more. "We have had a good number of ambassadors who have given us leverage. MIT attracts quality students and Nadella lends credence to this." Last year, MIT had

Delhi, Bihar produce top engineers in India: Report

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The best talent pool of engineers is in Delhi, Bihar and Jharkhand, while those from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are least employable, said a report. Employability for IT product roles in Delhi is as high 13 per cent and as low as 1 per cent in Chennai, says the National Employability Report of Engineering Graduates, 2014 by Aspiring Minds. Bangalore with 3.7 per cent employability emerges as the best amongst southern and western cities in the IT product sector, it added. Tier III cities cannot be neglected from recruitment perspective as at least one out of every six engineering colleges is in a tier III city, the study said. Around 12 per cent of engineers employable in IT services are in tier III cities, an absolute number of about 13,000. "Our National Employability Report in its latest edition goes deep in to the employability of engineering graduates, their capability, qualifications and aspirations," Aspiring Minds CEO Himanshu Aggarwal said. Looking

Contraceptive developed by IIT-Kharagpur professor tackles baldness

It's a male contraceptive that can prevent baldness, regenerate hair and prevent prostrate cancer. Trust Sujoy K. Guha, a professor at IIT-Kharagpur, and his team that has upgraded the RISUG contraceptive to this end. The drug, originally developed at IIT-Kharagpur by Guha, has moved a notch up by using a technology - a first in the world - that will generate a new nano drug inside the human body. The project was funded by the ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the research was coordinated by the Indian Council of Medical Research Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance (RISUG), now in the last leg of its trials, is slated for a restricted, monitored launch by the end of this year. It is a non-hormonal, polymerbased, long-duration male contraceptive, formerly called the synthetic polymer styrene maleic anhydride (SMA). The research work on RISUG, under the leadership of Guha, began in 1971. With the new technology developed by Guha, RISUG now has two new varian

Girls are for biotech, boys for engineering

In that signature red building of University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) near the Vidhana Soudha, classes are on in full swing. Walk into the first year mechanical engineering class and 107 faces will stare back at you. All boys. Change the venue to PES Institute of Technology. Out of the 184 students in the classroom, three are girls. Move on to RV College of Engineering. There are 556 boys and a mere 15  girls  enrolled here for mechanical engineering. If the premier Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are frowned upon for the skewed gender ratio, the engineering colleges in the state are no better. Their classrooms are largely dominated by male students. Many top rung engineering colleges in the city have more boys than girls, many of them almost thrice as much. True, the number of boys who take the Common Entrance Test (CET) is slightly more than the girls. But the trends in preferences for subjects which lead to the number gaps cannot be overlooked. Mecha

IIT-Kanpur student from Karnataka commits suicide in hostel room

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A student of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur on Wednesday committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his hostel room, police said. Manjunath, a third-year B. Tech student, was pursuing computer science at the institute and was from from Karnataka. Police officials said that the student was found hanging by the ceiling fan in Hall 5 hostel on Wednesday morning by his classmates. Kalyanpur police station in-charge Anand Prakash Mishra said that friends of Manjunath said he was apparently suffering from stress and depression. This is the third suicide in IIT-K campus since December last year. Authorities said that formalities were being completed and added that the family of the dead student has been informed.

Social steps by Techkriti in IIT Kanpur

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Techkriti, the annual international Technical and Entrepreneurial festival of  Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur  is being organized in its 20 th  version from 6 th  March 2014, Thursday to 9 th  March 2014, Sunday here at the IIT campus, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. With its theme as " Virtually Progressing World ", Techkriti aims at making this world a better place to live. Last year Techkriti set on a path to  fix the planet  in their small way and they made it seem big. For most it would be the end of the road, but for them, it had just begun. This time, whilst Techkriti '14, the team's efforts, their work and their thoughts are all towards ensuring one simple goal - help the society as much as possible, in any way possible, however small or big. They may provide education for a 100 kids, plant hundreds of plants, run campaigns for equality of men and women, or hold a competition to find out the best talent that our society has to offer. The festival is aimed at

B.Tech specializations offered by IITs and ISM on JEE Advanced 2014 scores

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Successfully clearing the  JEE Advanced 2014  exam and scoring a good rank will help you get admission into engineering courses at any of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs). But have you thought of which specialisation to chose? With the growth of engineering as a professional field, a plethora of specialisations are available for four-year B. Tech. courses. So its important to make a careful decision. Here are the four-year B. Tech. courses available at the IITs and ISM Dhanbad. 1. Aerospace Engineering 2. Agricultural and Food Engineering 3. Biological Sciences and Bioengineering 4. Biotechnology 5. Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering 6. Ceramic Engineering 7. Chemical Engineering 8. Chemical Science and Technology 9. Civil Engineering 10. Computer Science and Engineering 11. Electrical Engineering 12. Electrical Engineering (Power) 13. Electronics Engineering 14. Electronics and Communication Engineering 15. Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineeri

Anand Kumar on IIT JEE

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IIT-JEE should be made more inclusive by providing adequate opportunities to talented students from underprivileged families residing in rural areas, Super 30 founder and mathematician Anand Kumar said here.  "As the students from poor families in rural areas start off with serious disadvantages, they need an additional chance. They don't lack talent, but do lack opportunities. Education means empowerment and it has to be non-discriminatory," Kumar said while speaking at the two-day  entrepreneur summit organised at IIT Bombay recently.  He said considering the "harsh ground realities", the JEE Board should give its policy a "relook" and not to make 20 rpt 20 percentile a deciding factor for the eligibility.  "Today, there is greater dependence on coaching, contrary to what was expected, as students go for it at every level," Kumar said.  Stressing the need to inculcate values among the students passing out from an institution like IIT,