The University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh has selected 10 researchers for the UGC post-doctoral fellowship. The researchers were picked at a meeting chaired by UGC chairman (Additional Charge) Prof Dr Muhammad Alamgir on Tuesday, said a press release on Wednesday. UGC forms probe committee against Islamic University VC The 10 researchers who are getting the UGC fellowship are Dr Muhammad Nurul Amin Nuri and Dr Firoza Akter Khanom of Chattogram University, Prof Dr Sharaban Tahura and Prof Dr Gulshan Ara of Jagannath University, Dr Sheikh Mehedi Hasan of Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University, Dr Md Tarikul Islam of Gopalganj Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Prof Dr Farhin Hasan of American International University, Dr Shahid Md Ashif Iqbal of Premier University, Dr Sultana Razia of Barendra University and Dr Suvash Chandra Deb of Brindaban Government College. Single entry test for public universities not from next year: UGC Chairman A total of 30 researchers from various public, private universities located on permanent campus and government colleges of the country applied for the UGC Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2023. According to the policy, 10 researchers from among the applicants have finally been selected for the UGC Post-Doctoral Fellowship 2023 on the basis of applicants' educational qualification, experience, publications, research title, summary, supervisor's recommendation. UGC won’t grant exemptions for irregularities in private or public universities

State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md. Shahriar Alam on Saturday called upon genocide scholars, researchers, civil society organisations, human rights activists, print and electronic media to present before the global community the facts and figure of Bangladesh genocide. It is the moral obligation on the States and international community to show due respect to the victims of Bangladesh genocide and thus demonstrate their commitment towards the promotion and protection of human rights, he said. Bangladesh Genocide was hardly discussed and the victims were hardly remembered since 1975 till the Awami League formed the government in 1996, said the State Minister while speaking at a programme marking the Bangladesh Genocide Day at the Liberation War Museum. “Rather deliberate attempts were made to distort the facts and figure of Bangladesh genocide during that period,” he said. Liberation War Affairs Minister AKM Mozammel Haque spoke as the chief guest while President of Asia Justice and Rights Barrister Patrick Burgess presented the keynote speech. Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen, among others, spoke at the discussion. After the brutal killing of Bangabandhu on 15 August 1975, the State Minister said, a dramatic change appeared to take place in official policy towards the issue of the 1971 genocide under the military government. The Collaborators Act 1972 was repealed, all those leading war criminal-suspects who had fled the country and lost citizenship rights, were invited to return, he said, adding that many of the war criminals were rehabilitated into the mainstream politics and were offered to enjoy state power. The State Minister said around 32 years of 52 years since independence, the government was led by pro-Pakistani forces.  “I can assure everyone today that the government under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina would continue its sincere efforts to achieve recognition of 1971 genocide in Bangladesh,” Alam said. In view of the then domestic and international context, he said, Bangabandhu declared limited amnesty for the local collaborators in December 1973. However, the amnesty did not cover “anyone who killed people, raped and set fire or caused to damage people's homestead with explosives or convicted for damaging water-transport”. Later, the war criminals and their sympathisers tried to misguide people with distorted facts that Bangabandhu pardoned all, Alam said.   Read more: Recognise March 25 as International Genocide Day: PM urges UN “The intent was obvious, which was to destroy Bengali nationalism and shatter their political aspiration for a free and independent Bangladesh. So, it was cool-headed and deliberate act of genocide from their part,” said the State Minister. He said the government has incorporated the history of the 1971 war and the genocide into the national curriculum. “This is aimed at ensuring that future generations are aware of the atrocities that took place and are committed to preventing similar events from occurring in the future.” The State Minister said the government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is firmly committed to continue its efforts towards recognition by global community of the historical facts of Bangladesh genocide and the importance of preventing such acts of genocide from occurring in future anywhere in the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Bangladesh Missions abroad have been actively working to internationalize the issue of the genocide committed during the Bangladesh Liberation War, he said. As a result of our combined efforts, he said, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention recognized the Bangladesh genocide 1971 on 31 December 2022. “We also welcome recent bipartisan move in the US Congress for recognition of genocide committed by the Pakistani army in Bangladesh. We will continue to welcome any such initiatives by friendly countries while highlighting correct perspective of the Bangladesh Genocide,” he said. Alam said media can also play a key role in mobilizing public opinion and shaping international responses to the genocide. “The reporting of the international media has provided us a strong record of genocide, which has been important and will remain useful to hold the perpetrators accountable and get the recognition of Bangladesh genocide by the wider global community,” he said.    

COVID-19 vaccinations are at a critical juncture as companies test whether new approaches like combination shots or nasal drops can keep up with a mutating coronavirus — even though it’s not clear if changes are needed. Already there’s public confusion about who should get a second booster now and who can wait. There’s also debate about whether pretty much everyone might need an extra dose in the fall. “I’m very concerned about booster fatigue” causing a loss of confidence in vaccines that still offer very strong protection against COVID-19’s worst outcomes, said Dr. Beth Bell of the University of Washington, an adviser to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also raed:Beijing on alert after COVID-19 cases discovered in school Despite success in preventing serious illness and death, there’s growing pressure to develop vaccines better at fending off milder infections, too — as well as options to counter scary variants. “We go through a fire drill it seems like every quarter, every three months or so” when another mutant causes frantic tests to determine if the shots are holding, Pfizer vaccine chief Kathrin Jansen told a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences. Yet seeking improvements for the next round of vaccinations may seem like a luxury for U.S. families anxious to protect their littlest children — kids under 5 who are not yet eligible for a shot. Moderna’s Dr. Jacqueline Miller told The Associated Press that its application to give two low-dose shots to the youngest children would be submitted to the Food and Drug Administration “fairly soon.” Pfizer hasn’t yet reported data on a third dose of its extra-small shot for tots, after two didn’t prove strong enough. COMBINATION SHOTS MAY BE NEXT The original COVID-19 vaccines remain strongly protective against serious illness, hospitalization and death, especially after a booster dose, even against the most contagious variants. Updating the vaccine recipe to match the latest variants is risky, because the next mutant could be completely unrelated. So companies are taking a cue from the flu vaccine, which offers protection against three or four different strains in one shot every year. Moderna and Pfizer are testing 2-in-1 COVID-19 protection that they hope to offer this fall. Each “bivalent” shot would mix the original, proven vaccine with an omicron-targeted version. Moderna has a hint the approach could work. It tested a combo shot that targeted the original version of the virus and an earlier variant named beta — and found vaccine recipients developed modest levels of antibodies capable of fighting not just beta but also newer mutants like omicron. Moderna now is testing its omicron-targeted bivalent candidate. But there’s a looming deadline. FDA’s Dr. Doran Fink said if any updated shots are to be given in the fall, the agency would have to decide on a recipe change by early summer. DON’T EXPECT BOOSTERS EVERY FEW MONTHS For the average person, two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine plus one booster — a total of three shots — “gets you set up” and ready for what may become an annual booster, said Dr. David Kimberlin, a CDC adviser from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After that first booster, CDC data suggests an additional dose offers most people an incremental, temporary benefit. Also read: WHO recommends Pfizer's Covid pill Paxlovid Why the emphasis on three shots? Vaccination triggers development of antibodies that can fend off coronavirus infection but naturally wane over time. The next line of defense: Memory cells that jump into action to make new virus-fighters if an infection sneaks in. Rockefeller University researchers found those memory cells become more potent and able to target more diverse versions of the virus after the third shot. Even if someone who’s vaccinated gets a mild infection, thanks to those memory cells “there’s still plenty of time to protect you against severe illness,” said Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. But some people — those with severely weakened immune systems — need more doses up-front for a better chance at protection. And Americans 50 and older are being offered a second booster, following similar decisions by Israel and other countries that offer the extra shot to give older people a little more protection. The CDC is developing advice to help those eligible decide whether to get an extra shot now or wait. Among those who might want a second booster sooner are the elderly, people with health problems that make them particularly vulnerable, or who are at high risk of exposure from work or travel. COULD NASAL VACCINES BLOCK INFECTION? It’s hard for a shot in the arm to form lots of virus-fighting antibodies inside the nose where the coronavirus latches on. But a nasal vaccine might offer a new strategy to prevent infections that disrupt people’s everyday lives even if they’re mild. “When I think about what would make me get a second booster, I actually would want to prevent infection,” said Dr. Grace Lee of Stanford University, who chairs CDC’s immunization advisory committee. “I think we need to do better.” Nasal vaccines are tricky to develop and it’s not clear how quickly any could become available. But several are in clinical trials globally. One in late-stage testing, manufactured by India’s Bharat Biotech, uses a chimpanzee cold virus to deliver a harmless copy of the coronavirus spike protein to the lining of the nose. “I certainly do not want to abandon the success we have had” with COVID-19 shots, said Dr. Michael Diamond of Washington University in St. Louis, who helped create the candidate that’s now licensed to Bharat. But “we’re going to have a difficult time stopping transmission with the current systemic vaccines,” Diamond added. “We have all learned that.”

The final frontier has rarely seemed closer than this — at least virtually. Researchers at one of Switzerland’s top universities are releasing open-source beta software on Tuesday that allows for virtual visits through the cosmos including up to the International Space Station, past the Moon, Saturn or exoplanets, over galaxies and well beyond. The program — called Virtual Reality Universe Project, or VIRUP — pulls together what the researchers call the largest data set of the universe to create three-dimensional, panoramic visualizations of space. Read:Bezos' Blue Origin gets OK to send him, 3 others to space Software engineers, astrophysicists and experimental museology experts at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, or EPFL, have come together to concoct the virtual map that can be viewed through individual VR gear, immersion systems like panoramic cinema with 3D glasses, planetarium-like dome screens, or just on a PC for two-dimensional viewing. “The novelty of this project was putting all the data set available into one framework, when you can see the universe at different scales — nearby us, around the Earth, around the solar system, at the Milky Way level, to see through the universe and time up to the beginning — what we call the Big Bang," said Jean-Paul Kneib, director of EPFL's astrophysics lab. Think a sort of Google Earth — but for the universe. Computer algorithms churn up terabytes of data and produce images that can appear as close as one meter (about three feet), or almost infinitely far away — as if you sit back and look at the entire observable universe. VIRUP is accessible to everyone for free — though it does require at least a computer and is best visualized with VR equipment or 3D capabilities. It aims to draw in a broad array of visitors, both scientists looking to visualize the data they continue to collect and a broad public seeking to explore the heavens virtually. Still a work in progress, for now, the beta version can’t be run on a Mac computer. Downloading the software and content might seem onerous for the least-skilled computer users, and space — on a computer — will count. The broader-public version of the content is a reduced-size version that can be quantified in gigabytes, a sort of best-of highlights. Astronomy buffs with more PC memory might choose to download more. The project assembles information from eight databases that count at least 4,500 known exoplanets, tens of millions of galaxies, hundreds of millions of space objects in all, and more than 1.5 billion light sources from the Milky Way alone. But when it comes to potential data, the sky is literally the limit: Future databases could include asteroids in our solar system or objects like nebulae and pulsars farther into the galaxy. Read:Scientists hail golden age to trace bird migration with tech To be sure, VR games and representations already exist: Cosmos-gazing apps on tablets allow for mapping of the night sky, with zoom-in close-ups of heavenly bodies; software like SpaceEngine from Russia offers universe visuals; NASA has done some smaller VR scopes of space. But the EPFL team says VIRUP goes much farther and wider: Data pulled from sources like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in the United States, and European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to map the Milky Way and its Planck mission to observe the first light of the universe, all brought together in a one-stop-shop for the most extensive data sets yet around. And there's more to come: when the 14-country telescope project known as the Square Kilometer Array starts pulling down information, the data could be counted in the petabytes — that’s 1,000 terabytes or 1 million gigabytes. Strap on the VR goggles, and it's a trippy feeling seeing the Moon — seemingly the size of a giant beach ball and floating close enough to hold — as the horizon rotates from the sunny side to the dark side of the lunar surface. Then speed out to beyond the solar system and swing by Saturn, then up above the Milky Way, swirling and flashing and heaving — with exoplanets highlighted in red. And much farther out still, imagine floating through small dots of light that represent galaxies as if the viewer is an unconscionably large giant floating in space. Read:NASA releases stunning new pic of Milky Way’s ‘downtown’ “That is a very efficient way of visiting all the different scales that compose our universe, and that is completely unique,” says Yves Revaz, an EPFL astrophysicist. ”A very important part of this project is that it's a first step toward treating much larger data sets which are coming." Entire galaxies seem to be strung together by strands or filaments of light, almost like representation of neural connections, that link up clusters of light like galaxies. For one of the biggest pictures of all, there’s a colorful visualization of the Cosmic Microwave Background — the radiation left behind from the Big Bang. “We actually started this project because I was working on a three-dimensional mapping project of the universe and was always a little frustrated with the 2D visualization on my screen, which wasn’t very meaningful," said Kneib, in a nondescript lab building that houses a panoramic screen, a half-dome cinema with bean-bag seating, and a hard-floor space for virtual-reality excursions. “It’s true that by showing the universe in 3D, by showing these filaments, by showing these clusters of galaxies which are large concentrations of matter, you really realize what the universe is,” he added.

Believe it or not, 17 teachers from different faculties of Islamic University have been ranked  among the world’s best researchers in the Alper-Doger (AD) Scientific Index.  They are Atiqur Rahman, SM Mostafa Kamal, M Mizanur Rahman, Ashok Kumar Chakraborty, Md Abuhena Mostafa Jamal, GM Arifuzzaman Khan, Md Rezwanul Islam, Jalal Uddin, Minhaj-ul-Haq, Deepak Kumar Pal, Md Moniruzzaman, KMA Subhan, Md Helal Uddin, Md Ibrahim Abdullah, Mohammad Ruhul Amin Bhuiyan, Ahsanul Haque and M Manjurul Haque. On Sunday, the international organisation published the list based on citations and other indices of more than 700,000 scientists from 13,531 universities around the world. Read: Islamic University to start final exams from Sept 12 In case of listing 708,480 scientists from around the world -- 153,262 from Asia, 1,788 from Bangladesh -- their citations in the last five years were taken into account.

Speakers at a webinar on Sunday underscored the need for coordination among relevant ministries, NGOs, researchers and stakeholders to tackle the impact of climate change and create a sound environment in the country.   They also called upon the people not to dump face masks, gloves and other equipment used to protect from coronavirus here and there.   The observations came at the virtual dialogue titled ‘Bangladesh Climate Budget FY 2020-2021: A Civil Society Response’.   Country Director of ActionAid Bangladesh Farah Kabir said coordination among ministries and stakeholders is needed to tackle the impact of climate disaster.   “The issues of waste management, environment and gender hardly got priority in the budget. These could have gotten more priority. Coordination is needed among ministries and stakeholders,” she said.   Dr Saleemul Huq, Director of International Center for Climate Change and Development, said a task force can be formed with people of ministries, NGOs and researchers to prevent the possible impact of climate problems and create a healthy environment.   “The government allocated a fund every year in the budget. I think the allocation should be monitored properly. Journalists can observe the matter accurately to curb corruptions. Then the funds will be utilised properly,” he added.   ‘Awareness is the key’   Climate expert Dr SM Munjurul Hannan Khan suggested the government to provide funds maintaining a consistency in the country’s coastal areas.   Md Ziaul Haque, Director of the department of Environment, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said they tried to address climate change issue in the proposed budget for 2020-21 amid the COVID-19 fallout.   “We need more funds to address climate change problems. However, we have to implement the budget. So we need cooperation from all,” he said.   Describing face masks, hands gloves and others coronavirus wastes are polluting the environment, Ziaul Haque urged all to be more conscious about the waste and not to dispose of them here and there.   “Around 14,500 tonnes additional waste went up in the last two months. There are lots of policies in the country but these have to be implemented. We have also released several letters on our website. Everyone has to be aware to protect our environment,” he said.