Medical faculties to be upgraded

by Ananda Kannangara

The Government’s plan of upgrading the faculties of medicine in universities will help over 4500 medical students presently studying at 13 Medical Colleges in the country and also improve the country’s health sector to a greater extent, Central Province Chief Minister Berty Premalal Dissanayake said.

The Chief Minister made these observations at the Foundation stone laying ceremony of the new clinical building of the Faculty of Medicine and allied Science of the Rajarata University in the Anuradhapura Teaching Hospital premises recently.

According to the Central Provincial Council, the proposed five storeyed clinical building will be constructed at a cost of Rs. 700 million and the construction work is scheduled to be completed before the end of December this year.

Chief Minister Dissanayake said the objective of constructing the modern five storeyed building, with sophisticated equipment is to pave the way for medical students, currently undergoing training at various other hospitals, to have their training and practicals at the Anuradhapura Teaching hospital, under the supervision of medical consultants and local and foreign medical experts.

The Chief Minister also reminded that over 850 students are recruited to medical colleges countrywide every year and the Government spends over Rs. two million on behalf of each student.

Speaking further Chief Minister Dissanayake said the Government allocates a colossal sum of money every year to improve the educational standards of students who are receiving education at over 9000 schools in the country.

The ceremony was attended by Rajarata Medical Faculty Dean Prof. Malani Udupihilla, University Grants Commission, Chairman Prof. Gamini Samaranayake and Rajarata University Vice Chancellor Prof. K.A. Nandasena.

Free mid-day meal extended

The free mid-day meal programme for school children implemented two years ago will extend for another year. The second stage of this programme under the Mahinda Chinthanaya was inaugurated on January 11, The Ministry of Education pointed out that the programme helped reduce the number of low-weight children by 7 per cent and also contributed to an increased degree of school attendance.

This free mid-day meal programme has prevented children from eating unhygienic foods. A sum of Rs. 2,700 million was spent on this programme last year while the estimated cost for this year will be Rs. 2,900 million.

Hubble telescope shows earliest photo of universe

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe just 600 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was just a toddler.Scientists released the photo on January 5 at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. It’s the most complete picture of the early universe so far, showing galaxies with stars that are already hundreds of millions of years old, along with the unmistakable primordial signs of the first cluster of stars.

These young galaxies haven’t yet formed their familiar spiral or elliptical shapes and are much smaller and quite blue in colour. That’s mostly because at this stage, they don’t contain many heavy metals, said Garth Illingworth, a Astronomy professor, University of California, Santa Cruz, who was among those releasing the photo.

“We’re seeing very small galaxies that are seeds of the great galaxies today,” Illingworth said in a news conference.

Until NASA’s Hubble telescope was repaired and upgraded last year, the farthest back in time that astronomers could see was about 900 million years after the Big Bang, Illingworth said.

Hubble has been key in helping determine the age of the universe at about 13.7 billion years, ending a long scientific debate about a decade ago.As far back as Hubble can see, it still doesn’t see the first galaxies. For that, NASA will have to rely on a new observatory, the $4.5 billion James Webb telescope, which is set to launch in about four years.“We are on the way to the beginning,” said astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History. “Every step closer to the beginning tells you something you did not know before.”

The new Hubble picture captures those distant simpler galaxies juxtaposed amid closer, newer and more evolved ones. The result is a cosmic family photo that portrays galaxies at different ages and stages of development over the course of more than 13 billion years. Tyson, who was not involved in the Hubble image research, said most people only like their own baby pictures, but Hubble’s photo is different: “These are the baby pictures for us all, hence the widespread interest.”

Courtesy – AP