Iran’s Kish Airlines signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Boeing to purchase of 10 commercial planes, said the airline’s managing director.

Mohammad Taqi Jadidi added that the MoU to purchase 10 Boeing-737-MAX airplanes was signed following negotiations with representative of the US company, Fars News Agency reported on Friday.

He further said that, Kish Airlines seeks investors to finance the deal, adding that, since purchasing new airplanes in cash is not economically feasible, airliners prefer to obtain financing on the purchases.

Domestic banks have obtained licenses to open L/Cs and can easily undertake the financing of the deal, added Jadidi.

He noted that Kish Airlines will purchase six Airbus A-320 family jets by March 20, 2018, explaining that these will be the planes repossessed by financier banks.

Jadidi said that talks are underway with Boeing and Airbus and he predicted that the talks will be concluded within two months.

Iran had been expected to receive the first of 80 aircraft ordered from the US planemaker in April or May 2018, but Iranian media and industry sources have said that Iran might get the first Boeing jet a year earlier than expected under a proposal to swap deliveries with Turkish Airlines.

Industry sources had said Boeing was in talks to release at least one 777-300ER originally built for Turkish Airlines, which is deferring deliveries due to weaker traffic following last year’s failed coup attempt in Turkey.

Boeing said it does not comment on specific deliveries. “Boeing and Iran Air continue to work on implementing the sales contract for commercial passenger airplanes signed in December 2016, at which time we announced first deliveries are scheduled to start in 2018,” a spokesman said.

“We continue to follow the lead of the US government on all our dealings with approved Iranian airlines.”

Since last year, when most sanctions imposed on Iran were lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers, Tehran has joined a long waiting list for new airplanes and the swap would have allowed it to speed up its fleet renewal.

Iran Air has also ordered 100 aircraft from Europe’s Airbus under a deal to lift most sanctions in return for modification on Iran’s nuclear program, and has taken three deliveries.

Iran’s return to the aviation market after decades of sanctions is a boon to planemakers trying to dispose of some new planes discarded by airlines facing economic difficulties.

/ Iran daily /

Iran’s parliament capped on Sunday a week of intensive debate on President Hassan Rouhani’s 17 nominees for ministerial posts, approving all except the one for energy minister.

Rouhani handed his list of ministerial nominees to parliament on August 5, three days after he was sworn in. He delayed introducing a nominee to run the Science Ministry, naming a caretaker.

Nearly 24 million of 56 eligible voters cast their ballots for Rouhani, a moderate sexagenarian cleric, for a second four-year tenure in the May 19 election.

The parliament began debating whether to approve Rouhani’s proposed ministers on Tuesday. Rouhani said on the same day he was hoping all the picks will be granted votes of confidence.

The strongest vote of confidence, 261-10, was granted to the nominee for defense minister, Brigadier General Amir Hatami, with health, intelligence, and interior picks standing next respectively. The confidence vote was cast by  288 lawmakers in the 290-seat parliament

Plans for more accurate and destructive missiles appeared atop a priority list Hatami took to the parliament hearing on Thursday.

“The missile program is definitely one of the most important priorities of the Defense Ministry in the upcoming four years,” Hatami told lawmakers.

Also, the lawmakers voted to keep Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, 236-26, and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, 230-35, in their posts.  / Tehran times /

A research team from Sahand University of Technology, Iran, in close collaboration with Tennessee University, USA, designed and manufactured a biological nanosensor capable of detecting the hazardous substances in canned foods with enhanced precision in just twenty seconds.

According to Iran Nanotechnology Initiative Council (INIC), the laboratory-scale production of this nanosensor costs only $1, and its finished cost including electrical circuits will reach around $16.

The studies confirm that the use of canned foods in a prolonged period of time results in many acute illnesses. It arises from the presence of hazardous substances in the production of canned cans.

“This research effort aimed at monitoring the concentration of hazardous Bisphenol A in canned foods and beverages maintained in plastic containers. The previous methods are costly and require highly specialized laboratories. In addition, they suffer from weak diagnostics and insufficient precision. Therefore, in our research, we have tried to overcome the mentioned limitations in detecting this hazardous substance by designing and manufacturing a cheap and fast bio-nanosensor,” said Dr. Hadi Mirzajani, referring to the hazardous substance of Bisphenol A as one of the most commonly used substance in the production of canned cans.

Highlighting the cost-effectiveness of this sensor, he added “the fabrication expenditure of this sensor, even in laboratory scale, is about three thousand tomans, being decreased if the mass production is reached. One of the significant factors is the equipment needed to develop this sensor. Since the proposed manufacturing process is well-established, it is possible to supply all equipment necessary for producing the sensor with a total amount of twenty million tomans. The application of this manufacturing method also leads to an exceedingly high sensitivity and short detection time of twenty seconds.”

“Aptamer is used as a probe molecule in this sensor. These molecules are nanometric structures one of whose ends are attached to the sensor electrode and other one floats in an analyte-containing solution. To use a specific sensor for a certain application, Aptamers should be selected such that they benefit from high connectivity and selectivity over a particular molecule,” added Mirzajani, noting that the application of nanotechnology as one of the main reasons for the high accuracy of this sensor.

This research is conducted by Dr. Hadi Mirzajani (Ph.D graduate of Sahand University of Tabriz) and Dr. Ismael Najafi Aghdam and Dr. Habib Badri Ghavi Fekr (faculty members of Sahand University of Tabriz). Also, a number of researchers from University of Tennessee have been involved in this project whose scientific findings are published in the Journal of Biosensors and Bioelectronics / Meher news /

Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival held in Pennsylvania, US, will showcase three feature films by Iranian directors including ‘Kupal’, ‘Lantouri’, and ‘Inversion’.

‘Kupal’ directed by Kazem Mollaei, ‘Lantouri’ directed by Reza Dormishian, and ‘Inversion’ directed by Behnam Behzadi have been accepted into the main competition section of the 12th edition of Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival in Pennsylvania, US.

The 10-day Asian Film Festival will showcase over 25 feature-length films from 15 countries including from India, Japan, China, Turkey, Lebanon, South Korea, Iraq, Philippines, and Iran.

‘Kupal’ is the story of a hunter and taxidermist who accidentally traps himself in his basement. With little food and no water, Dr. Ahmad Kupal must survive using creative and desperate means.

‘Lantouri’ is a social drama about into contemporary Iranian struggles, which takes its name from a street gang in Tehran that robs and kidnaps people in broad daylight.

‘Inversion’ centers around a young, unmarried woman, Niloofar (played by Sahar Dolatshahi), who decides to take charge and find ways to better express herself in the smog-teeming metropolis of Tehran.

The 12th edition of Silk Screen will celebrate will be held on September 15-24, 2017, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. / Meher news /

Shifting to high gear in the latter part of the game, Iran served a sweet revenge to Australia in a 5-set thriller, 19-25, 25-18, 20-25 25-22, 15-10 to snatch the 9th place at the SMM 19th Asian Senior Women’s Volleyball Championship on Wednesday.

Iran’s timely victory came sweeter as they not only managed to return the favor to Australia, a team that dealt them a 4-set loss in their Pool G match-up, but also salvage the best spot outside the Top 8 of the 14-team field.

Though failing to qualify in the quarter-finals, Iran head coach Mirmostafa Shojaei was satisfied of their final ranking given the short preparation time he had to squeeze in when he took over the program.

“I came to coach Iran just two months ago, and I changed four or five players in favor of the young ones,” said Shojaei. “I think our team will be good next month in Thailand for the World Championship Asian Qualifier Pool B.”

Down 2 sets to one, the Iranians suddenly found vigor with Maedeh Borhani and Mahdieh Khajehkolaei providing the big lift as their combined 29 points completed the turn around to finish their campaign on a winning note.

Mina Roosta was also pivotal their final match as her service aces in the second frame allowed Iran to erase a 14-16 disadvantage en route to stealing the set –which proved to be the much-needed boost for the team in surviving the Aussies.

Now with more time to implement his system, Shojaei sets sight of forming a competitive team that can compete against the top-tier squads of the region.

“Our goal is to be one of the top four teams in Asia so we inject young players,” said the mentor. “In our point of view, we will have our best team in the next three or four years.”

Australia head coach Shannon Winzer, on the other hand, looks to instill consistency in her wards heading forward after crashing to 10th spot.

“Our game today is a good reflection of how we played in the entire tournament, very inconsistent,” said Winzer.

And to do that, Winzer hopes to continuously expose the Australian volleyballers in either professional or international competitions.

“Our goal in next Asian Championship would be inside the top 8 and for us to do that is to increase the number of players we can send overseas to improve their skills,” she bared.

/ Tehran times /

The country’s first laser innovation center was inaugurated Tue. in Tehran in the presence of VP for Science and Technology Sorena Sattari and AEOI head Ali Akbar Salehi.

Iran’s Laser Innovation Center as the country’s first of its kind was inaugurated Tuesday night, supported by vice-presidency for science and technology. The center aims at introduce the knowledge of laser to industries and attract innovative ideas and meet the demands of the domestic market.

Eight knowledge-based companies active in producing domestic laser-related products are situated in the center. The Center is equipped with facilities in the fields of education, medicine, industry and research.

Products such as laser flash, advanced laser kits, optical light, and laser therapy devices have been produced by the knowledge-based firms at this center./ Meher news/

The deadline for submissions of scientific works and videos to the 2017 Noor Student Competition; Recognition of Prof. Jackie Ying has ended. Over 5000 students has participated in this competition by production and sending about 2000 short film.

According to MSTF Media, Noor Student Competition was launched early December last year in order to identify students’ strength points and talents, foster them and develop new perspectives in student communities as well as promote scientific cooperation between educational centers.

The student groups could take part in this challenge, by sending 60-second films of their scientific experiments in all fields of science including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and astronomy.

One of the distinctive features of the second round of Noor Student Competition compared with previous year, was the participation of other regional countries such as schools from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In this round, students should have sent their works and science experiments to the Mustafa Science and Technology Foundation (MSTF) within 7 months which ended by 21st of June 2017. In this period, 5110 students in the form of 2194 groups registered and 1193 videos were sent to the Foundation.

The most important selection criteria is based on the creativity and attractiveness of the received science videos. Praising and applauding the 100 top selected works, broadcasting them on a weekly TV program, as well as granting laboratory and science equipment to the selected schools and research centers are among the prizes being awarded.

It is worth noting that the laureates of Noor Student Competition will be honored for their achievements in the closing ceremony of the event which will be held on September the 1st, 2017, coinciding with the anniversary of Eid al-Adha, the second most important holy festival in the Muslim calendar.

/ Meher news /

Tarbiat Modarres University student Samaneh Ashnagar is working on a project to increase the effectiveness of sunscreens with ability to release anti-cancerous substances through nanotechnology.

In this project we tried to add the nanocomposite nanoparticles to the sunscreen and increase the effectiveness of ultraviolet ray absorption, Ashnagar told Mehr News correspondent, pointing to the organic and non-organic toxic substances and carcinogens in the sunscreens.

The new sunscreen will include the gradual release of anticarcinogens to increase the antioxidant capability of them, she added.

“Given that sunscreen is one of the most widely used cosmetic products around the world, improving its quality can significantly reduce the risk of cancer. Therefore, the quality of cosmetic products is one of the main goals of the project,” the researcher explained the aims of her plan.

The nano structure of the cream helps slowly release the anti-cancerous compounds, and on the other hand, after applying the cream, its whiteness will not remain on the skin, project manager noted.

/ Meher news /

Iran has the potential to export $25 billion worth of technical and engineering services per annum, IRNA reported quoting a director with Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) as saying on Wednesday.

Mahmoud Eskandari, the general director of TPO for development of knowledge-based services and products exports, also said that promotion of exports is one of the main plans of the government and in this due TPO has changed it organizational structure to recognize and remove the barriers that exporters are facing. / Tehran times /

American actor Val Kilmer has signed on to star in ‘1st Born’, a comedy from Iranian director Ali Atshani and the first joint production between Iran and Hollywood.

According to Hollywoodreporter, American actor Val Kilmer, notable for roles in ‘Top Gun’, ‘Batman Forever’, ‘Heat’, and ‘Tombstone’, has signed on to star in ‘1st Born’, a comedy from Iranian director Ali Atshani.

The project centers on a newly married couple newlywed couple, Iranian-born Ben and his American Kate, who are living in California. When the couple’s first pregnancy faces complications, both sides of their family must come together — a rather complicated notion as Ben’s father Hamid is anti-American Iranian politician, while Kate’s father Biden (played by Kilmer) is an American politician who takes a hardline stance against Iran.

‘1st Born’ is notable for being the first joint feature film co-production between Iran and Hollywood, using a cast and crew from both the US and the Middle East.

Atshani is notable for directing films such as ‘The President’s Cellphone’, ‘Wishbone’ (to be distributed by Netflix), ‘Banana Peel’, ‘Mr. Alef’ and ‘Negar’s Role’. His 2016 film ‘Paradise’ was a co-production between Iran and Germany.

Filming will begin in Los Angeles in late August, with other castmembers set to join shortly.

/  Tehran times /