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550 Lucknow Students Extract DNA Simultaneously, Set Guinness Record

The students, from G D Goenka School in Lucknow, participated in a massexperiment to extract DNA at the ongoing India International Science Festival or IISF, and completed the task in a mere 90 minutes.

Lucknow :

For 550 students of a private school in Lucknow, no moment so far could have been this special. After all, they all just set a world record, acknowledged by none other than the prestigious Guinness World Records.
The feat these teenagers achieved – being the highest number of people in the world to simultaneously extract DNA from bananas.

The students, from G D Goenka School in Lucknow, participated in a mass experiment to extract DNA at the ongoing India International Science Festival or IISF, and completed the task in a mere 90 minutes.

On the successful completion of the experiment, participant Anand Agarwal said he was very happy at seeing the DNA — the universal genetic material of living organisms.

Applauding the students, Guinness World Record official Rishi Nath said, “Congratulations we have a new world record, you have done it children.”

The earlier record was set up in 2017 in America when 302 students performed a similar experiment.

Dr Saroj Barik, director National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, said, “Children have created a world record and done India and Lucknow proud. DNA the children extracted can be seen as a white globule at the end of the stick.”

In 2015, the same festival when held in IIT-Delhi won a Guinness Record for the single largest chemistry experiment.

Last year, at the third edition of the IISF in Chennai, the city students created a huge Guinness record of the single largest biology class.

source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV.com / Home> Lucknow> Sections / by Pallava Bagla / October 06th, 2018

Lucknow Metro First From India To Get This International Award

Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation has been given the Silver Award for its Phase 1A (North-South Corridor) in the Project/Infrastructure category for the year 2018.

Lucknow :

The Lucknow Metro Rail Corporation (LMRC) has become the first ever metro rail corporation from India to bag the International ‘Royal Society For The Prevention Of Accidents’ (RoSPA) Award, an official said.
Sanjay Mishra, Director (works and infrastructure), received the award on September 13, at a function held in Glasgow, UK.

LMRC has been given the Silver Award for its Phase 1A (North-South Corridor) in the Project/Infrastructure category for the year 2018.

The RoSPA Awards scheme, which receives entries from organisations around the world, recognizes achievement in health and safety management systems including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

source: http://www.ndtv.com / NDTV / Home> Section> Lucknow / by Indo-Asian News Service / September 21st, 2018

Start-up incubated at IIT-Kanpur blooms at UN

Ankit Agarwal

HelpUsGreen recycles floral waste at temples into a substitute for thermocol

New Delhi :

HelpUsGreen, a start-up incubated at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT-K) was chosen as one of the exceptional young leader projects to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by the United Nations on Sunday.

HelpUsGreen, founded by a young engineer Ankit Agarwal together with Karan Rastogin three years ago, seeks to convert flowers offered in temples ,which are often thrown away as waste, polluting rivers and other water bodies, into biodegradable substitute to thermocol and fragrant incense sticks.

Agarwal was among the 17 young leaders selected from more than 8,000 youth from over 184 countries at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly currently in session in New York.

HelpUsGreen currently processes around 8.4 tonnes of floral waste from temples and mosques in Uttar Pradesh and converts them into biodegradable packaging material, charcoal-free incense sticks, and natural vermicompost.

According to Agarwal, over 8 million tonnes of flowers are used in different religious places as offerings. These flowers, a symbol of devotion, are subsequently discarded in the rivers like the Ganga, creating havoc in their fragile ecosystems and leach in the groundwater.

The start-up, supported by Tata Trusts through its Social Alpha programme, has developed a patented flower-recycling technology, which not only tackles the monumental temple waste in India, but also provide employment to people.

HelpUsGreen, which has so far recycled over 11,000 tonnes of floral waste, has been able to provide livelihood to 73 manual scavenging families, which now earn six times more than what they did earlier.

source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Trending Today / by The Hindu Bureau / New Delhi – September 25th, 2018