Rain is very rare these days in our college surrounding, but this rareness is an anecdote for rare occasions. Abhinandan was one such rare occassion. It was as if the nature was reciprocating the actions of all the ABC participents of our college on the 22nd February. It was burning hot untill 2:00pm but all of a sudden the sky turned dark a strange similarity to the skin tone of the divine mother. There was a heavy downpour, the nature was rejoicing in bliss on hearing about the honor given to it’s servents.

At 3:30pm poojya swami poornamritanandapuri inaugrated the program by lighting the lamp and a small inaugral pooja before the amma’s photo on the dias. This was followed by a small talk by our associate dean Dr.Balakrishnan sankar. He introduced swamiji to all the students who did not know him. After this our campus director Br.Sudeep gave an introduction and a small report about the ABC campaign accompanied by a small slide show.

Very rare are the oppurtunities to hear the words and experiences of a monk who has lived in the presence of the divine for more than 30 years. Remaining ever smiling and vibrant with bliss Swamiji started his satsang with a divine invocation. The following is his satsang in his own words:

“Sisters first, I respect ladies because my mother is a woman ———-

എങ്കിലും നമ്മളില് പലരും മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ പ്രവര്ത്തനങ്ങളില് അജ്ഞരാണ്.അറിയാനുള്ള ആഗ്രഹം പലരിലും ഉണ്ടാകുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നുണ്ട്.അതിനു വഴി തുറക്കുകയാണ്  കൊല്ലം അമൃതപുരി ക്യാമ്പസിലെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടര് സയന്സ് വിദ്യാര്ത്ഥികളുടെ കൂട്ടായ്മയായ ‘മിത്ര’.കേരളത്തിലെ വിക്കിപീഡിയ അസോസിഷേന് സ്കൂളുകളിലും ക്യാമ്പസുകളിലും നടത്തി വരുന്ന വിക്കിപീഡിയ സെമിനാറുകളുടെ ഭാഗമായാണിത്.

‘മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയ പഠനശിബിരം’ സെമിനാര് അമൃതപുരി ക്യാമ്പസില് 2011 മാര്ച്ച് 5 ന് ഉച്ചയ്ക്ക് 1.30 മുതല് അമൃതേശ്വരി ഹാളില് വെച്ചു നടത്തുന്നു.മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയെ കുറിച്ച് അടുത്തറിയാനും അതിന്റെ ഭാഗമാകാനും വിദ്യാര്ത്ഥികള്ക്കുള്ള സുവര്ണ്ണാവസരമാണിത്.

പഠനശിബിരത്തെകുറിച്ച്

വിക്കിപീഡിയയെകുറിച്ച് അവബോധം സൃഷ്ടിക്കുകയും വിക്കിസംരഭത്തില് പങ്കെടുക്കുന്നത് എങ്ങനെയെന്ന് പഠിപ്പിച്ചുക്കൊടുക്കുകയുമാണ്
ഈ ശിബിരംകൊണ്ട് ഉദ്ദേശിക്കുന്നത്.
ക്ലാസിന്റെ ആദ്യ പകുതിയില് വിക്കിപീഡിയയെയും മലയാളം വിക്കിപീഡിയയെയും പരിചയപ്പെടുത്തും.രണ്ടാംപകുതി പുതിയ ലേഖനങ്ങള്
സൃഷ്ടിക്കുന്നതിനെ കുറിച്ചും വിക്കിപീഡിയയില് ലേഖനങ്ങള് തിരുത്തുന്നതിനെകുറിച്ചും ചിത്രങ്ങള് അപ്ളോഡ് ചെയ്യുന്നതിനെകുറിച്ചുമുള്ള
ക്ലാസുകളാണ്.പഠിതാക്കള്ക്ക് ചോദ്യങ്ങള് ചോദിക്കുവാനും പ്രവര്ത്തകരുമായി നേരിട്ട് സംവദിക്കാനും സാധിക്കുന്നതായിരിക്കും.

പങ്കാളിത്തം പ്രതീക്ഷിച്ചുകൊണ്ട്
മിത്ര

Wow…  I really appreciate the great idea of having a Swathanthra(open) animation movie by invoking contributions from people around the world. Kudos to the team behind the project.

Chamba is the brainchild of some young, open source enthusiasts. Chambakka is one of the commonly found fruit in almost all houses in Kerala. In childhood days we used to pluck Chambakkas from the Chamba tree of all the nearby houses. Nobody will restrict you from doing this because it is “open” for children(remembering the nostalgic days from my childhood). Children like this fruit more than grownups. I think, Chamba is a nice name that can be given to such an open source project.

Chamba project is an initiative to experiment and explore a  more collaborative and open approach to film making. This project brings together animators, open source enthusiasts, art directors, programmers, hobbyists, funding agents etc from around the world through social networking platforms. The movie will be developed using the open source, cross platform suite of tools for 3D animation called Blender. The project is named after the Blender foundation’s project naming models like Orange, Peach etc.

Those who are interested in this innovative idea and want to contribute or promote the project please visit the site http://www.chambaproject.in/

Students can do a lot in this project.  Pls visit http://www.chambaproject.in/faq/ for the ideas…

Students can organize Swathanthra Cinema Festivals in the college, talk to students, teachers and other friends about free culture and Chamba project. Distribute CDs/DVDs of Free Movies like Elephant’s dream, Big Buck Bunny, Sintel, Sita Sings the blues, Yes Men etc. Print T Shirts and stickers about Chamba and other free culture projects and distribute them. Organize fund collection drives (even if it is 5 rupees or 10 rupees important part is participation of everyone in this project) among your friends, parents, relatives and local business. Help spread the word about this project among your online or social networking contacts like facebook/twitter/identi.ca friends. Help with web site maintenance, help to pick a good story, distribute chambakas (chamba fruits) There are lots of things students can help with, your imagination is your limit.

Visit Chamba web page and get involved right now!

4.9 trillion Number of letters of data sequenced by the 1,000 Genomes Project so far and the pilot results reveal around 15 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)

What makes you you, and not somebody else? A groundbreaking international study seeks to uncover the genetic basis of individual difference, as well as find genetic links to disease, by sequencing and comparing the genomes of thousands of individuals from around the world. In a the sequel to one of the most astonishing scientific achievements of the past century and a technical tour de force involving the cataloging of 4.9 trillion letters of human DNA code – enough to fill 300,000 copies of War and Peace, the 1000 genome project published its first result of a map of genetic variations in humans. The article is published in the journal Nature this week.

The 1000 Genomes Project is a collaboration among research groups in the US, UK, and China and Germany to produce an extensive catalog of human genetic variation that will support future medical research studies. The goal of the 1000 Genomes Project is to find most genetic variants including SNPs and structural variants, and their haplotype contexts that have frequencies of at least 1 per cent in the populations studied. The $120m (£75m) project, involving hundreds of scientists in an international collaboration of universities, charities and companies, is using advanced gene-sequencing technology to map out the full diversity of human DNA.

“The 1000 Genomes Project map fills in the gaps between the HapMap landmarks, helping researchers identify all candidate genes in a region associated with a disease,” said Lisa Brooks, Ph.D., program director for genetic variation at the National Human Genome Research Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health. “Once a disease-associated region of the genome is identified, experimental studies must be done to identify which variants, genes, and regulatory elements cause the increased disease risk. With the new map, researchers can just look up all the candidate genes and almost all of the variants in the database, saving them many steps in finding the causes.”

The pilot phase consisted of three projects. The first sequenced the whole genomes with low coverage of 179 individuals from populations in West Africa, Europe, China and Japan.

The second project collected high-coverage sequences of two families, including the mother, father and child.

The third project sequenced only the protein coding regions of the genomes of 697 individuals.

Results:

The pilot results reveal around 15 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), many of which were already known but many were also previously unknown.

Around one million were short insertions or deletions, and 20,000 were structural variants, most of which were previously undescribed.

On average each person carries around 250 to 300 loss-of-function variants, including 50 to 100 that are associated with disease.

The study has so far proven fairly comprehensive, with over 95 per cent of known variants, such as SNPs, included in this data set.

The improved map produced some surprises. For example, the researchers discovered that on average, each person carries between 250 and 300 genetic changes that would cause a gene to stop working normally, and that each person also carried between 50 and 100 genetic variations that had previously been associated with an inherited disease. No human carries a perfect set of genes. Fortunately, because each person carries at least two copies of every gene, individuals likely remain healthy, even while carrying these defective genes, if the second copy works normally.

In the next phase of the 1,000 Genomes Project, 2,000 samples from 27 populations around the world will be studied over the next two years. David Altshuler of Massachusetts General Hospital and a co-author of the Nature paper said that, with successive phases and more sequences, the catalog of human genetic variation, which currently contains 95% of the possible differences, will improve. “We see these numbers going to 98%. By the time the 1,000 Genome Project is done, each person who has their genome sequenced, greater than 95% – maybe even 98%-99% – of the variation in that person would already be in the database and could be referenced back. Around 1%-2% of the variation would be unique to that individual and not in that database.”

The Genome in Numbers:

3bn Number of DNA letters in the human genome (200 volumes the size of a telephone book, which has around 1,000 pages)

20,000-25,000 Number of genes in the genome (though not all scientists agree)

2000 Year the first draft of the human genome was announced to much fanfare at the Clinton White House

2003 Final draft completed to 99.99% accuracy

2500 Number of people whose genomes the 1,000 Genomes Project hopes to sequence

15m Number of single-letter changes identified in the pilot phase

1m Number of small insertions and deletions identified in the pilot phase

4.9 trillion Number of letters of data sequenced by the 1,000 Genomes Project so far

In the short film below, Drs Richard Durbin from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, co-Chair of the consortium and Chris Tyler-Smith describe the key findings and significance of the pilot phase of the 1000 Genomes Project.

1000 genomes project (Click to go to the video)

Courtesy: Lifescientist.com, guardian.co.uk, National Human Genome Research Institute (genome.gov) and The 1000 Genomes Project Consortium (http://www.1000genomes.org), sciencedaily.com