My Science School

A UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the world’s eight biodiversity hotspots, India’s Western Ghats are among the planet’s richest rainforests. The ghats are home to Mycena, a species of bio-luminescent fungus that emits light in the dark giving the impression that the forest is glowing! This spectacle has only been seen in a few areas of the Western ghats, particularly in regions within Maharashtra and Goa, only during the monsoons. Only around 70 of the over 1, 00,000 species of fungi are capable of bio-luminescence. While bio-luminescent waters and glowing marine organisms are common, terrestrial bio-luminescence is far less pronounced; the only two widely-known instances being fireflies and glow worms.

For thousands of years, the Western Ghats has supported a tenuous balance between agriculture and wildlife. The forest, which is heavily fragmented, remains imperiled by mining, industrial agriculture, ongoing deforestation, poaching, human-wildlife conflict, dams, roads, overpopulation, and even tourism.

The Western Ghats is home to more than 5,000 flowering plants, 139 mammals, over 500 birds, 288 freshwater fish, and 179 amphibians. New species continue to be found in the region.

India had been campaigning for six years to have the Western Ghats enshrined as a World Heritage Site.

 

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American singer Tim Storms, the man with the world’s deepest voice, can hit notes so low that only animals as massive as elephants are able to hear them! He holds the Guinness World Records for lowest note produced by a human, G-7 (0.189 Hz), and the widest vocal range (10 octaves). Storm’s incredible voice makes him a hot commodity in the Hollywood voice-over business, where people with low voices are sought after to add drama to film trailers.

Storm's voice has won him fame, awards and an international singing career. He was recently selected by an international talent search for a new choral piece called "Tranquility" that requires a singer who could hit a low E, the deepest note ever written for a choral composition.

 

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Krzywy Domek or Crooked House in Sopot, Poland, is Poland’s most photographed building.  With its undulating roofline and warped, windows and doors, this 4,000 sq.metre building was inspired by the fairy tale illustrations of children’s book illustrator Jan Marcin Szancer and the work of artist Per Dahlberg. Built in 2004, the building houses a shopping centre, restaurants and a radio station, and has been described by tourists as “melting”, “cartoon crazy” and “looks like its dancing”.

The Krzywy Domek has a tradition of having those who participate in its cultural events add their names to the building’s “Wall of Fame”, the Polish version of the American Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2009, this quirky attribute was one of many that helped it earn a spot on the list of the 7 Wonders of the Tricity. The designers are great fans of the well known illustrator of children’s fairy tales, Per Dahlberg, and his imaginative sketches became the inspiration for the design of this fun building. They have even purchased some of his original sketches which are displayed throughout the store.

The architectural style of the house is in fact in line with the traditional form of the town but in a warped version as though we are observing it through a fairground mirror. The stained glass entrance and the blue and green enamelled shingles on the roof are illuminated at night, creating an even more surreal appearance for the structure.  It comes as no surprise that it claims the prize for being the most photographed building in the whole of Poland.

 

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The Dendrobates pumilio frog, found mostly in Central America and Puerto Rico, is commonly called the blue jeans frog. Only about an inch long, the head and body are brilliant strawberry-red or orange-red with blue lower parts. The bright colouration is a warning to predators that the amphibian is toxic; it is also called the strawberry poison dart frog. Males are territorial and when provoked will jump on top of an interloping male, wrestling for up to 20 minutes!

The fascinating reproductive process of this species has captured the interest of biologists and tourists alike. When a female meets a male, he leads her to a place to lay their eggs, such as in a curved leaf or in moist leaf litter. Unlike many frogs, the male does not climb onto the female’s back in amplexus, but instead the pair stands vent to vent, or with their tails together. The female lays 3 to 4 eggs, the male fertilizes them, and his mate leaves. The parental care beginning at this stage is unmatched by other amphibians. The male keeps the eggs moist by emptying his bladder on them. He also eats any eggs that are infected with fungi or that do not develop, as well as any eggs left by other males. Tadpoles hatch after one week, when the female returns. One to four tadpoles at a time squirm onto her back, and she carries each one to a different plant or leaf stem that is holding water—bromeliads are often the choice. These carefully chosen nests are sometimes in the canopy, high up from the frog’s otherwise ground-level habitat. Amazingly, the tadpole chooses its spot by vibrating when the mother approaches a desirable spot. Each tadpole is placed in a separate plant, where the mother leaves it with 1 to 5 unfertilized eggs for protein and nutrients. For more than a month, the female returns every few days to feed her young.

 

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On an average, mobile phones today are replaced every two years, but the lithium-ion batteries inside them are still good for around five years of use. Researchers from Kyung Hee University in Seoul have discovered they’ve still got enough power left – more than enough to store power for LED solar lamps. That’s a big deal in remote regions and developing countries that have to rely on kerosene lamps for lighting, which release dangerous, toxic fumes, provide inconsistent light, and cause burns and start fires.

Lead researcher Boucar Diouf used a single lithium-ion battery from a mobile phone to run a 1 Watt solar lamp for just over three hours. With a 0.5 Watt bulb, the system lasted six hours. He took it further and built a 12-volt system out of three batteries, a 5 Watt bulb, and a solar panel. That provided enough power to light a room five hours a day for three years, without needing any maintenance. Once the battery dies, the user can just swap it for a new one.

Diouf estimates that if every family swapped five hours of candle use daily for a solar lamp system, it could save more than 32,658 tonnes of CO2 per day globally.

 

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MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller says that our brains are “not wired to multitask well…when people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.”

When we complete a tiny task (sending an email, answering a text message, posting a tweet), we are hit with a dose of dopamine, the reward hormone. This encourages us to keep switching between mini-tasks that give us instant gratification, creating a feedback loop that makes us feel like we’re accomplishing a lot, when we’re really not doing much at all (or at least nothing requiring much critical thinking).

Multitasking makes it more difficult to organize thoughts and filter out irrelevant information, and reduces the efficiency and quality of our work. It has also been found to increase production of cortisol, the stress hormone, and leaves us feeling mentally exhausted.

Some studies have shown that even opportunity to multitask, e.g., knowledge of an unread email in your inbox, can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points! Texting is worse, demanding even more immediacy than email.

MRI scans on the brains of individuals who spent time on multiple devices at once (texting while watching TV, etc.) reveal that those who multitask more had less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, the area responsible for empathy and emotional control.

 

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Mecysmaucheniidae spiders are tiny – the smallest has a body length of less than 0.08 inches – yet they are formidable super-fast predators. Native to New Zealand and South America, these “trap-jaw” spiders are the fastest-known arachnids so far. Compared with other spiders, their jaws, called chelicerae, are more elongated and manoeuvrable, while their frontal region, the carapace, almost appears necklike. The spiders keep their jaws open while hunting, snapping them closed when they encounter prey. The fastest could snap their jaws shut in 0.12 milliseconds; the smaller the species, the faster its jaw-snapping capabilities. It could be that the quickest spiders evolved their lightning-fast attack so that they could target speedier prey.

 

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A chameleon’s saliva is 400 times sticker than human saliva enabling it to catch prey up to a third of its body weight with just its tongue. Scientists collected the saliva from five chameleons by placing a microscope slide between each lizard and its prey. They then placed the mucous-laden slides onto an incline and rolled a steel ball down them. High-speed cameras recorded the velocity of each ball, allowing the team to calculate how much the saliva slowed the ball down. Chameleon saliva was found to have an average viscosity of 0.4 pascal-seconds about 400 times thicker than human saliva. This sticky spit helps the lizards capture prey weighing up to 30% of each reptile’s body weight with solely their tongues. The researchers are looking to test the tongues of other reptiles and amphibians to see how much sticky spit is used in the animal kingdom.

 

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Floating on a man-made lake over a collapsed coal mine, the power station in Anhui province can produce 40 megawatts of energy. Built by Sun grow Power Supply, the power plant will produce enough energy to power 15,000 homes.

Anhui province is a coal-rich region, and the plant is located on a lake that was once the site of intensive mining. But why build solar plants on top of lakes and reservoirs? Building on bodies of water, especially man-made lakes that are not ecologically sensitive, helps protect agricultural land and terrestrial ecosystems from being developed for energy use. The water also cools the electronics in the solar panels, helping them to work more efficiently.

China also boasts of the world’s largest farm – the Longyangxia Dam Solar Park hosting 4 million solar panels that produced 850 megawatts of energy. This will soon be eclipsed by a project in the Ningxia autonomous region, which will have 6 million solar panels and produce 2 gigawatts of power.

China is the leading nation in solar power, having produced 66.2 gigawatts of electricity last year. The country will invest $361 billion in renewable power by 2020, and by 2022 could produce 320 gigawatts of wind and solar power and 340 gigawatts of hydropower. Currently, renewable are responsible for 11 per cent of China’s energy and may reach 20 per cent by 2030.

 

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When you’re an easy target for any number of predators the ability to turn yourself into a snake is a handy one. The snake mimic caterpillar (Hameroplanes triptolemus) is also to do just that. What threatened it pulls in its legs and head and expands the front part of its body to take on the appearance of a serpent. The brown head of this ‘snake’ is actually the underside of the caterpillar. If the “deadly” costume isn’t enough to deter a predator, the caterpillar might also strike to enhance the effect.

Hemeroplanes belongs to the Sphingidae family, found in many parts of South America, Africa and Central America. Upon closer inspection, however, one will see that this 'snake' is abnormally short in length; and while its topside looks pretty non-descript, the Hemeroplanes caterpillar has the ability to put on a snake disguise at the moment it feels threatened.

Many animals have conspicuous eye-like spots on their body. In most animals these ‘eyespots’ are thought to intimidate predators from attacking or deflect the predator strikes away from vulnerable body parts. That ‘eyespots’ could help prey by resembling the eyes of a predator’s own enemies is thought to be particularly true for butterfly and moth caterpillars. Caterpillars with eyespots are often cited to be snake mimics that startle attacking birds which mistake them for dangerous snakes. 

 

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Scientists at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, have developed two anti-cancer medicines from the fruit extract of the Rampatri plant, which may help destroy tumors and receive cells damaged by radiation. The Rampatri plant, used as a spice in foods, belongs to the Myristicaceae family and is found in western coastal region of India.

BARC Radio Modifier (BRM) protects normal tissues while cancerous cells are destroyed during radiotherapy while BARC Radio Protector (BRP) will help reverse the effect of radiations if a ‘nuclear accident’ takes place.

The scientists tested the medicine on mice and found that they may help in treating lung cancer and neuroblastoma, a rare cancer found in children. In neuroblastoma, cancer cells grow in nerve cells of adrenal glands, neck, chest and spinal cord.

 

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A rainbow-coloured village in Indonesia has become an Instagram sensation. Earlier this year, the village in the southern district of the island of Java voted for a colourful upgrade. Locals painted 223 homes in rainbow colours; each painted in a minimum of three colours, and 3D drawings adorn the walls. The town’s name was changed to Kampung Pelangi, meaning Rainbow Village. The change is helping the local economy as residents sell food and souvenirs to the increasing numbers of tourists visiting the area. It is particularly popular with photo enthusiasts. The transformation was seen as an important social project, as it encourages citizens’ involvement in improving and beautifying their surroundings.

The local mayor opened the newly decorated hamlet on Java Island to the public in mid-April and the community quickly became a local landmark known as “the rainbow village”.

The buildings — many of which are decorated with art such as pictures of angels’ wings and whales — can be seen for miles around, climbing up the hillside like a gigantic staircase.

Domestic and foreign visitors have been flocking to the village to snap pictures, which have been rapidly spreading on Instagram and Facebook.

 

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Tallinn in Estonia is the first European capital to offer residents free public transport. The move was aimed at cutting down on car pollution and traffic in the city. Instead of driving, residents are being encouraged to turn to trams and buses. Fares continue to be charged to non-residents including tourists and visitors to the city.

Tallinn is not a crowded or a big city, most journeys don’t take longer than 15 minutes, and transport feels like its part of the city’s furniture rather than something to be braved.

Drivers wait patiently as passengers cross their path to board a tram near Vabadus square in the centre of the city. It is nearing rush hour but everyone who needs a seat gets one. The trams and trains are clean and Tallinners have been enthusiastic about using them for free, with early polls delivering a 90% approval rating for the scheme.

Dr Cats, who is based at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, found that the number of people in Tallinn using public transport instead of cars was up by 8%, but at the same time the average length of a car journey had gone up by 31%, which he said meant there were more, not fewer, cars on the road in the time they tested.

He puts the increase down to a change in “shopping and leisure habits” rather than limitations of the scheme itself, and suggests that making driving more expensive, through parking fees and other taxes, could be more effective at cutting back on traffic.

 

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The most Ferrero Rocher chocolates eaten in one minute is 9, achieved by Peter Czerwinski in Mississauga, Canada, on 4 January 2012. It's bumpy round shape and unique gold wrapper make Ferrero Rocher stand out from all other chocolates on the shelf. Although high in fat, the chocolate treat contains some nutrition from its nut and milk chocolate content. Ferrero Rocher candy contains a whole hazelnut surrounded by a chocolaty filling containing chopped hazelnuts and a crisp wafer. Other ingredients in Ferrero Rocher include milk chocolate, sugar, modified palm oil, wheat flour, whey, low-fat cocoa, soy lecithin, skim milk powder, sodium bicarbonate, ammonium carbonate, salt and the artificial flavoring vanillin. Ferrero Rocher chocolate candy contains 17 g of carbohydrates per three-piece serving, which represents 6 percent DV. Sugar content is 16 g, or 32 percent DV, which is almost 1/3 of the total daily sugar intake recommended by the World Health Organization for good health. The dietary fiber in one serving amounts to 1 g. The total number of net carbs -- amount of carbohydrates minus fiber and/or sugar alcohols -- is 16.

 

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Black roses bloom exclusively in the village of Halfeti, Turkey. The roses bloom dark red during the spring and fade to black during summer months. Also called the Turkish Halfeti Rose, Arab Bride or Arab Beauty, the rose can be grown in other regions around the world, but only in Halfeti does the rose bloom in its black hue as the river Euphrates provides the ideal soil and growing conditions for the rose. Locals consider the flowers as symbols of mystery, hope and passion, but also death and bad news.

Naturally, when thinking of black and roses, what first come to mind is bereavement, loss and death. The black rose seems compatible with mourning. However, there is another aspect of the rose tinted with the hue of night. These flowers have a fairy tale appearance, and this "unnatural" color gives it a mystical atmosphere. When one considers that Urfa is a location associated with at least two prophets, this mysticism takes on a new meaning.



There is another positive symbolic meaning for the black rose. The color brings to mind deep space; that is, such a rose symbolizes the beginning of something new, a journey into the unknown. The black rose also symbolizes major change, the death of old habits and the introduction of a new system. Thus, by heralding in a new era of hope, an era of possible peace, the black rose can bring great joy.

 

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