Forget aspirin, try cucumber juice!

CLEVELAND, OHIO: Intel’s efforts to encourage interest in science among students is spurring innovations in a big way in biotechnology in India and other countries. No wonder, student researchers have designed a simple diagnostic kit to detect pregnancy in cattle or a neem-based product to stunt growth of branches in commercial plantations.

Nikhil Thatte and Samhita Rao, class nine students at Mumbai’s IES VN Sule Guruji School, have done a lot more than what cousins normally do during vacations. They have evolved into a terrific team of scientists.

Experimenting with orange, sweet lime, lime and cucumber juice, they have found out that these juices can save many a heart in the country. These juices prevent clotting of blood and their action is similar to the Aspirin tablets in thinning the clogged blood vessels.

"Cucumber juice is the best among the four," observed the cousins as they prepare to demonstrate their experiment to the world at the Convention Center in Cleveland, Ohio for the Intel Science Awards.

Maithili Dalvi, 16, a student at Smt. Sulochana Devi Singhania School, Mumbai, has proved that an extract of coconut flower oil was highly effective in stopping abnormal and excessive uterine bleeding. Senthalir Paramathma and Sharanya Sennimalai, class 12

students at the Avila Convent Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Coimbatore, have shown that using neem oil , it was possible to control the growth of branches in commercial plants such as Eucalyptus effectively which can boost the yields tremendously.

Varun Kumar, a 9th class student at Sri Vani Public School, Bangalore, has developed an easy diagnostic method to detect pregnancy in cattle. You have to just put seeds of wheat or paddy greengram, in a cattle’s urine.

He has shown that the high uric acid and abscisic acid in the cow’s urine will inhibit the germination of these seeds in 5 days. There was no need for highly painful rectum examination currently in practice all over the world to detect cattle pregnancy.