Indian swine flu vaccine by early next year

India first indigenous vaccine against swine flu is now being tested on animals. Once it proves to be safe, clinical trials on humans will be undertaken and the vaccine is likely to hit the market early next year.


India has never produced flu vaccines in the past because flu is not known to be a big killer here. But after the H1N1 pandemic reached the country, large Indian companies like Serum Institute have stepped in and are now carrying out trials of the vaccine that has been developed in India for the first time.

The vaccine is being tested on animals in sterile rooms at the institute now and once it is cleared phase one human clinical trials will begin.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) had approached Serum Institute to set up a flu facility after the bird flu outbreak in 2006. The one-and-a-half year's work put in on the bird flu vaccine helped fast track the H1N1 vaccine. "We are ready with the vaccine but it has to go through all the tests," says Cyrus Poonawala, MD, Serum Institute.

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America's Got Talent has brought them out in the open Ishaara for you

America's got talent, and scores join reality/talent hunt shows each month. They are appealing, compelling and seize audiences attention.

Ishaara's troupe has taken America by storm, the TV reality show America's got talent on NBC has been grooving to Bollywood like never before. Their eyecatching costumes, killer dance moves had smiling judges with their 'socks knocked off', bringing audience and show's anchor on their feet, dancing with them; all dunked and dazzled in their high-energy, colorful and powerful performances wowing everyone right from the day of the auditions to their last performance where audience just wouldn't stop making noise.

They met at Berkely and knew their common passion was dance. They are first generation kids of Indian parents who value their Indianess as much as they care about the American spirit.

With passion for dance so strong, they are an award winning troupe having performed at inter-college competitions and also at many dance festivals across nation.

Their dedication: Practicing late evening in their parking garage, stitching their own jazzy dance costumes and forming their unique style of heart wrenching drama and powerful music....

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Truck bomb kills at least 19 in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD – A suicide truck bomber hit a residential area of a Kurdish village in northern Iraq before dawn Thursday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 30 others, officials said, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of ethnic attacks in the region.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgents who remain active in Mosul and surrounding areas.

A police officer and health official in Mosul said the bomb went off around 12:30 a.m. in the village of Wardek, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of the city — a region where U.S. commanders have warned that insurgents appear to be trying to stoke an Arab-Kurdish conflict.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The blast took down a number of houses and the casualty toll was expected to rise because many people are still missing in the rubble, the officials said.

Local security forces intercepted a second suicide truck bomber, killing the driver and defusing the bomb before it could be detonated, they said.

Insurgents in northern Iraq, who have maintained a stronghold in the city of Mosul, have frequently targeted remote villages and towns that depend on small security forces for protection.

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Microsoft show 'faster' Windows 7

Intel and Microsoft say the Windows 7 operating system (OS) will give "better battery life and quicker boot times".

The firms made the claim at a press event in San Francisco where engineers put the new OS through its paces.

Microsoft are hoping their new system will perform as promised and avoid a repeat of the negative publicity associated with Windows Vista.

Both firms said they collaborated more closely than ever before to deliver a product "they are proud of".

"We both made a larger investment than ever before on the engineer side to improve on the hardware and software," Microsoft's Mike Angiulo told the BBC.

The two firms, colloquially known as Wintel, said that the partnership involved hundreds of engineers and was started the day after Windows Vista was released over two years ago.

"We have spent 20 years getting to know each other and have businesses that are very well aligned," said Steve Smith, vice president of Intel's digital enterprise group.

Dean Takahashi of technology blog VentureBeat said that Microsoft's previous OS - the heavily criticised Windows Vista - had to be improved upon.

"The collaboration was in the name of making Windows 7 better and more bug-free than the January 2007 launch of Windows Vista, which was broadly criticised in the industry and was one of the best advertisements for buying a Mac in history" he said.

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