Iran is rapidly making progress in the field of scientific development and it is surpassing Turkey in chemistry in terms of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) and interdisciplinary courses.
However, Turkey is doing better than Iran in the field of scientific products and citations in other scientific areas, Mehr News Agency reported.
An Iranian academic, Jafar Mehrdad, noted that the number of Iranian journals that have been cited in JCR reports has reached six over past two years.
He noted this is while Egypt which immediately comes after Iran has only one journal cited in JCR.
“Although Turkey has higher frequency of scientific articles cited in international journals according to impact factor of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), it has five internationally-recognized scientific journals,“ Mehrdad said.
Mehrdad is currently head of Regional Center for Science and Technology Information Dissemination.
“Studying the three countries which are outstanding in terms of production of journal articles among Muslim countries shows that the present status of Iran’s scientific journals as compared with other Muslim countries is noteworthy,“ he said.
Mehrdad pointed out that the total number of country’s scientific production in the form of research articles that have been indexed by ISI is 28,854 articles during 1997-2007 in 22 academic subjects and 90,914 citations have been made to them.
“Chemistry is the first subject in terms of production of scientific articles. Then, it is the turn of other courses such as medical engineering, physics, botany, zoology, material sciences, and mathematics,“ he said.
Mehrdad opined that with regard to citations to universities, names of Iranian universities such as Sharif University of Technology, Shiraz University, Tarbiat Modarres and Tehran Medical University can be seen.
“Iran and Turkey have a share of more than 50 percent in scientific production of Muslim countries,“ he said.
Mehrdad further noted that Iran can be a very suitable role model for other Muslim countries in terms of scientific production.
Meanwhile, Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi said that Iran ranks first in nanotechnology, first in nuclear technology and first in mathematics in the Middle East.
“Iran also ranks 11th in mathematics, 13th in mechanics, 15th in polymer sciences, 16th in chemistry, 22nd in chemical engineering and 32nd in physics in the world,“ the minister noted.
He pointed out that Iran’s overall rank is 30 and it intends to attain a better position within next two to three years by signing memorandum of understanding with ISC and ISI.

The next time you see something flapping in the breeze on an overhead power line, squint a little harder. It may not be a plastic bag or the remnants of a party balloon, but a tiny spy plane stealing power from the line to recharge its batteries.
The idea comes from the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio, US, which wants to operate extended surveillance missions using remote-controlled planes with a wingspan of about a meter, but has been struggling to find a way to refuel to extend the plane’s limited flight duration, according to NewScientist.com.
So the AFRL is developing an electric motor-powered micro air vehicle (MAV) that can “harvest“ energy when needed by attaching itself to a power line.
It could even temporarily change its shape to look more like innocuous piece of trash hanging from the cable.
AFRL’s initial aim is to work out how to make a MAV flying at 74 kilometers per hour latch onto a power line without destroying itself or the line.
In addition, so as not to arouse suspicion, AFRL says the spy plane will need to collapse its wings and hang limply on the cable like a piece of wind-blown detritus.
Much of the morphing technology to perform this has already been developed by DARPA, the Pentagon’s research division.
Technologies developed in that program include carbon composite “sliding skins“, which allow fuselages to change shape, and telescopic wings that allow lift to be boosted in seconds by boosting a wing’s surface area.
Challenges abound, though. Zac Richardson, a power-line engineer with National Grid in the UK, warns that if the MAV contacts an 11-kilovolt local power line, it could short circuit two conductors, causing an automatic disconnection of the very power the plane seeks.
And, on a 400 kilovolt inter-city power line, it risks discharging sparks. “It will hang there fizzing and banging and giving its position away anyway,“ says Richardson.
“Even kites falling across power lines cause breakdowns,“ adds Ian Fells, an expert in electricity transmission based in Newcastle, UK.
“It’s an utterly bizarre idea to try to land a plane on one.“
Regardless of the challenges faced, AFRL plans test flights in 2008.

Wheat breeders often use wild relatives of wheat as sources of novel genes in breeding new disease-resistant wheats.

Pioneered by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization researchers, in collaboration with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Sydney University, a research illustrates the major genetic improvements possible without genetic modification (GM) technology.
“Wheat breeders often use wild relatives of wheat as sources of novel genes in breeding new disease-resistant wheats,“ research team leader Dr Phil Larkin says, ScienceDaily reported.
“The exciting part of the new research is that we have been able to retain the useful genes but leave behind the associated undesirable genes--most notably in this case those for yellow flour color, an important quality characteristic in wheat,“ Dr Larkin says.
“Unfortunately genes from wild relatives usually come in large blocks of hundreds of genes, and often include undesirable genes. Furthermore, these blocks of genes tend to stay together, even after many generations of breeding.
“The problem can be so difficult to overcome that plant breeders sometimes give up on very valuable genes because they cannot separate them from the problematic genes.“
A paper published this month in the journal Theoretical and Applied Genetics details how the team ’recombined’ two wild blocks of genes from two different Thinopyrum grass species--a wild relative of wheat--bringing together resistance genes for leaf rust and Barley Yellow Dwarf Virus (BYDV), two of the world’s most damaging wheat diseases.
The recombined gene ’package’ may also carry a resistance gene against a new stem rust strain which is causing concern worldwide.
By developing new “DNA markers“ and by careful testing the team has produced a number of the disease resistance ’packages’ for wheat breeders, making it faster and easier to include these important disease resistance traits in future wheat varieties.
It is hoped other examples will follow and the genetic diversity available in wild species can be recruited more extensively for wheat improvement.

A Japanese company unveiled a new device that will allow people to speak through their ear so they can use their mobile telephones in noisy places.
According to Physorg.com, the device--named “e-Mimi-kun“ (good ear boy)--doubles as an earphone and a microphone by detecting air vibrations inside the ear, developer NS-ELEX Co. said.
The earpiece and an accompanying device can be connected to a mobile phone, or wirelessly to a Bluetooth handset, so that users no longer have to cover their mouths when speaking in a loud environment, the company said.
Exterior noise is reduced six-fold by the earpiece, it said, while a chip developed by Sanyo Electric for the accompanying device reduces sound levels ten-fold, it added.
NS-ELEX believes the product would be useful for people working in places such as factories, restaurants and amusement parks.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University’s Neurological Sciences Institute have uncovered the system that tells the body when to perform one of its most basic defenses against the cold: shivering.
The scientists have discovered the brain’s wiring system, which takes temperature information from the skin and determines when a person should start shivering, according to Physorg.com
“Shivering, which is actually heat production in skeletal muscles, requires quite a bit of energy and is usually the last strategy the body uses to maintain its internal temperature to survive in a severe cold environment.
Other strategies to defend against the cold, such as reducing heat loss to the environment by restricting blood flow to the skin, also appear to be controlled by the sensory mechanism that we found,“ explained Kazuhiro Nakamura, Ph.D., an OHSU Fellow for Research Abroad from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.
He published the research along with his colleague Shaun Morrison, Ph.D., a senior scientist.
“One fascinating aspect of this study is that it shows the sensory pathway for shivering, which can be thought of as brain wiring, is parallel to but not the same as the sensory pathway for conscious cold detection. In other words, your body is both consciously and subconsciously detecting the cold at the same time using two different but related sensory systems.“
The research was conducted by studying rats. It is believed that the information directly applies to humans because previous research has demonstrated many parallels between the two species regarding this basic function of sensing and regulating heat.
While studying these rats, the researchers were able to trace the shivering sensory pathway from the skin to specialized cells in a portion of the brain called the lateral parabrachial nucleus.
These cells can then transmit information to another part of the brain called the preoptic area, which decides when the body should start shivering.
Shivering is one of the many automatic and subconscious regulatory body functions, often called homeostatic functions that the brain regulates.
Other examples include the adjustment of breathing rates, blood pressure, heart rate and weight regulation.
Throughout the day, all of these important functions take place in the body without conscious thought. Without these important functions, humans and other animals could not survive.
“This research is a fundamental science discovery that furthers our knowledge about one of the many functions that our brains are constantly monitoring, responding to and adjusting to keep us alive and healthy,“ explained Morrison.
“It is noteworthy, however, that there are conditions, such as hypothermia and hyperthermia, in which thermal sensory pathways come into play and knowledge of the brain’s wiring can provide important clues to locating dysfunction in patients with abnormal thermal sensation.
“In addition, our ability to sense and respond to temperature changes degrades as we age,“ he concluded.