Central nervous system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system that integrates the information that it receives from, and coordinates the activity of, all parts of the bodies of bilaterian animals—that is, all multicellular animals except sponges and radially symmetric animals such as jellyfish. It contains the majority of the nervous system and consists of the brain and the spinal cord. Some classifications also include the retina and the cranial nerves in the CNS. Together with the peripheral nervous system, it has a fundamental role in the control ofbehavior. The CNS is contained within the dorsal cavity, with the brain in the cranial cavity and the spinal cord in the spinal cavity. Invertebrates, the brain is protected by the skull, while the spinal cord is protected by the vertebrae, and both are enclosed in the meninges.

http://en.wikipedia.org

Human life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Human life or simply "life" may refer to

• in philosophy
  • the conditio humana
  • discussion of the meaning of life
• personal life
• in sociology, everyday life.
• in medicine or statistics, the human lifespan
• in jurisprudence, a value protected by human rights (the "right to life")
• Beginning of human life - arguments dealing with the exact time the human fetus is to be regarded as a being

[edit]See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Human life

• Human
• Human (disambiguation)
• Life (disambiguation)
• Ars longa, vita brevis
• Une vie (A Woman's Life) of Guy de Maupassant

http://en.wikipedia.org

School of Life Sciences

School of Life Sciences Schools | SLS | Faculty | Courses | M.Sc. Courses | M.Phil./Ph.D. Courses | Facilities | Awards | Visitors at the School | Ph.ds | Research Scientists | UGC Resource Network | Meet the Speaker

The School of Life Sciences (SLS) was established on the basis of a report prepared by a working group headed by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan in the year 1970. The School stands today as a unique institution in the country where multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teaching and research in life sciences have established permanent roots. The uniqueness of the School essentially lies in the fact that within the School’s faculty there are experts and active researchers representing almost all areas of modern biology. Life sciences in its entirety constitute wide range of our research programmes. The School believe that postgraduate teaching, in order to be effective, must be done by teachers who are also actively involved in research in their respective areas of specialization. The School have developed a teaching programme which stresses on the uniformity principals of molecular and cellular mechanisms in all living systems. The School have also made pioneering efforts in integrating physical sciences with biological sciences. In SLS, students from physical sciences are also inducted to study life sciences. Remedial courses in biology are offered to students from physical sciences stream, and students from biological stream are given courses in physical sciences and mathematics. For a total of approximately 50 seats School offer each year in M.Sc. and M.Phil/Ph.D. programmes. Selections are done through an all India written test and interviews. The School has been recognized as Center of Excellence under UGC-COSIST and DSA Special Assistance Programmes. In addition, UGC also provides JRF/SRF Fellowships to M.Phil/Ph.D. students of science streams who qualify the national entrance test of JNU.

http://www.jnu.ac.in

Effects of Smoking

The harmful effects of smoking on the body and overall health of smokers presented in the list below, only begins to convey some of the short and long term side effects of smoking cigarettes.

Quitting makes sense for many reasons but simply put: smoking kills and the effects of second hand smoke are also bad for the health of those around you.

Harmful Health Effects of Smoking

• Every year hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from diseases caused by smoking cigarettes - Smoking KILLS.
• One in two lifetime smokers will die from their habit. Half of these deaths will occur in middle age.
• Tobacco smoke also contributes to a number of cancers.
• The mixture of nicotine and carbon monoxide in each cigarette you smoke temporarily increases your heart rate and blood pressure, straining your heartand blood vessels.
• This can cause heart attacks and stroke. It slows your blood flow, cutting off oxygen to your feet and hands. Some smokers end up having their limbs
  amputated.
• Tar coats your lungs like soot in a chimney and causes cancer. A 20-a-day smoker breathes in up to a full cup (210 g) of tar in a year.
• Changing to low-tar cigarettes does not help because smokers usually take deeper puffs and hold the smoke in for longer, dragging the tar deeper into their lungs.
• Carbon monoxide robs your muscles, brain and body tissue of oxygen, making your whole body and especially your heart work harder. Over time, your airwaysswell up and let less air into your lungs.
• Smoking causes disease and is a slow way to die. The strain of smoking effects on the body often causes years of suffering.
• Emphysema for example is an illness that slowly rots your lungs. People with emphysema often get bronchitis again and again, and suffer lung and heart failure.
• Lung cancer from smoking is caused by the tar in tobacco smoke.
• Men who smoke are ten times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers.
• Heart disease and strokes are also more common among smokers than non-smokers.
• Smoking causes fat deposits to narrow and block blood vessels which leads to heart attack.
• Smoking causes around one in five deaths from heart disease.
• In younger people, three out of four deaths from heart disease are due to smoking
• Cigarette smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of low birth weight, prematurity, spontaneous abortion, and perinatal mortality in humans, which has been referred to as the fetal tobacco syndrome.

http://www.stop-smoking-programs.org

Tobacco mosaic virus

Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) is a positive-sense single stranded RNA virus that infects plants, especially tobacco and other members of the family Solanaceae. The infection causes characteristic patterns (mottling and discoloration) on the leaves (hence the name). TMV was the first virus to be discovered. Although it was known from the late 19th century that an infectious disease was damaging tobacco crops, it was not until 1930 that the infectious agent was determined to be a virus.


http://en.wikipedia.org

Bangalore City Traffic Police

I. INTRODUCTION

Few cities in the world have the power to attract and motivate a casual visitor to move there permanently. Bangalore is one of those rare cities that makes people who are new to the city to call themselves proud Bangaloreans. Bangalore, with a wonderful climate is already a pensioner's Paradise. With well developed residential areas, broad roads with well grown trees on both sides, good shopping malls, no wonder people prefer to move here permanently.

Bangalore was already called the Electronic City of India but the establishment of the Silicon Park on the out skirts has converted it into the Silicon City of the world. The city is the playground of many Indian as well as multinational Information Technological (I.T) and Bio Technological (B.T) companies. Bangalore has made a niche for itself in the international arena in terms of this growth and with major players in the IT industry gaining foothold here, Bangalore has come to be best known within India for being the country's un-official high-tech capital.

The City of Bangalore has been growing at a rapid pace on all fronts. It was Kempegowda who was responsible for building the modern city of Bangalore (c1537), erecting a mud fort here to the north of the now existing fort which covered the area of Avenue Road and its surroundings. New extensions were added to the old town by creating Chamarajapet and Sheshadripuram in 1892. Two new bigger extensions, Basavanagudi and Malleshwaram, Kalasipalyam (near the old fort) and Gandhinagar were laid out between 1921-1931. During the post-independence period Kumara Park came into existence in 1947 and Jayanagar was inaugurated in 1948.

After Independence, Bangalore City was made the capital of Mysore State (renamed as Karnataka state in 1973). Since Independence, Bangalore City has witnessed a phenomenal growth in population and traffic.

The population in the Bangalore Urban Region and Municipalities has increased from 29 lakhs in 1981 to 42 lakhs in 1991 and 90 plus lakhs in 2004, an increase of 45% and 43% respectively during the mentioned period. The extent of developed area has also increased considerably, in 1971 the area was 174.7 sq.kms and today it is about 437 sq.kms.

The city evolved as the garden city of the country due to its salubrious climate. Today it has grown into radial city with 9 road corridors forming the principal radial arms, with concentric orbital corridors. The total road length of the city is about 4200 kms out of which arterial roads account for 500 kms. Most of the corridors carry traffic volumes much above their capacity, though number of grade separators have been constructed and are being constructed, most of them are located in the developed part of the city and causing a trigger of congestion at adjacent junctions.

The public transport system (bus) is overstressed carrying about 50 lakh commuters in a daily basis. Congested streets and longer route lengths due to urban sprawl have only served to reduce bus frequencies further.

Traffic Management measures such as one way systems, parking restrictions, junctions improvements etc., are being implemented to ease the congested street network. The ever increasing traffic is fast deteriorating the limited improvement in level of service these traffic management measures can offer.

Industrial activity in and around Bangalore City, particularly Information Technology and Bio Technology related activities continues to grow and attract a large number of people to the city. The rapid urban population growth with relatively small investments in transport (roads and buses) has resulted in an increasing gap between the transport demand and supply.

The number of motor vehicles registered in Bangalore increased from 2,36,000 in 1983 to 6,84,497 by 1992 and 21 lakhs by December 2004, a phenomenal rate of increase 289% and 278% respectively during the mentioned period . Out of the total 21 lakhs registered vehicles in Bangalore, 15.42 lakh vehicles account for 2 wheelers and 3.3 lakhs vehicles account for cars, which means that 88.17% of total vehicles are personal vehicles. This does not include the floating vehicle population.

http://www.bcp.gov.in

An Introduction to Cancer Treatments

The treatment given for cancer is variable and dependent on a number of factors including the type, location and amount of disease and the health status of the patient. Most treatments are designed to either directly kill/remove the cancer cells or to lead to their eventual death by depriving them of signals needed for cell division. Other treatments work by stimulating the body's own defenses against the cancer cells.

The treatments may be divided into different categories based on their goal and mode of action. Often the different types of treatment are used in combination, either simultaneously or sequentially. The following sections describe some of the most common forms of cancer treatment. The actual types of treatment and the order in which they are used are decisions made by the physician and patient.

The major types of treatment and their objective are described briefly below.  Details about the treatments are found in their respective sections.

• Surgery: Often the first line of treatment for many solid tumors. In cases in which the cancer is detected at an early stage, surgery may be sufficient to cure the patient by removing all cancerous cells. Benign growths may also be removed by surgery.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Radiation: May be used in conjunction with surgery and/or drug treatments. The goal of radiation is to kill the cancer cells directly by damaging them with high energy beams.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Chemotherapy: A term used for a wide array of drugs used to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy drugs work by damaging the dividing cancer cells and preventing further reproduction.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Hormonal Treatments: These drugs are designed to prevent cancer cell growth by preventing the cells from receiving signals necessary for their continued growth and division.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Targeted Therapy: This class of drugs is relatively new in the treatment of cancer. They work by targeting specific proteins and processes that are limited primarily to cancer cells or that are much more prevalent in cancer cells. Inhibition of these processes prevents cancer cell growth and division.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾
• Antibodies: This treatment involves the use of antibodies to target cancer cells. While antibodies are naturally occurring proteins in our bodies, the antibodies used in the treatment of cancer have been manufactured for use as drugs. The antibodies may work by several different mechanisms, either depriving the cancer cells of necessary signals or causing the direct death of the cells.⁽¹⁾Because of their specificity, antibodies may be thought of as a type of specific inhibitor.
• Biological Response Modifiers: These treatments involve the use of naturally occurring, normal proteins that stimulate the body's own defenses against cancer.
• Vaccines: The purpose of cancer vaccines is to stimulate the body's defenses against cancer. Vaccines usually contain proteins found on or produced by cancer cells. By administering these proteins, the treatment aims to increase the response of the body against the cancer cells.⁽¹⁾
• Complementary and Alternative Medicines: These treatment methods are not practiced by conventional western medicine. They can include herbal, animal derived, and mind-body approaches to treating cancer.⁽¹⁾The scientific evidence about the efficacy of these treatments either refutes cancer fighting claims or is inconclusive at the present time.

To find information on a particular cancer drug or treatment, you may search the site using the search tool at the top of the page and proceed directly to the most relevant pages for the treatment of interest.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for approving drugs that can be used by oncologists to treat cancer and also evaluates drugs or other products that may be able to reduce the risk of cancer.

Visit an FDA Office of Oncology Products page to see a list of drugs tha have been approved recently.  The drugs approvals are listed by date and you can view more information about any approved item.

http://www.cancerquest.org