My Science School

A very good friend of mine is trying to get into relationship with a girl who is not morally good. When I try to convince him not to do so, he feels that I am jealous of him. His grades have also come down this year. I want to help him. What should I do?

Are you absolutely sure that the character of that girl “is not morally good”? You should be very careful not to spread rumours about the behaviour of others. If you are convinced about that and you have explained the matter to your “very good friend” you have done enough. Now it is up to him to decide what to do or not to do. You are not his parent, just a friend.

 

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I feel very lonely. My grandmom does not like me at all. Due to this I feel depressed and cannot concentrate on my studies. I just want her love. Whenever there is a fight between me and my brother she will take my brother’s side. This hurts me a lot because she reacts without understanding the matter. She often says bad things about me, such as, “This girl will eat the whole family. She is born to kill everyone. It’s all my poor fate,” to my aunts and other relatives. Sometimes I argue with her and then I cry about why she does such things. She always praises my brother and puts me down. I live my brother very much. I just don’t want her to differentiate between me and my brother and I want that she gives me equal love which I need. Please help me.

I understand from your letter that you and your brother are living with your grandmother. If you have lost your parents she is now your family. Having accepted the responsibility of bringing both of you up, she may be overstressed and insecure; after all she must be advanced in age. Rather than arguing with her, try to approach her with a helping attitude, a loving smile and words of appreciation. Old people need to feel loved and appreciated. Of course, you too feel the same. Tell her that you too need her love. If you change your attitude, she too may slowly change hers. Some close family relative, with whom you can share your problem, may help in bringing all of you close to each other.

 

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Sticky rise was the key ingredient in the mortar used to build the Great Wall of China and other ancient Chinese structures. Researchers found that the mortar with sticky rice had smaller calcium carbonate crystals than mortar without it, creating a more compact structure and causing the crystals to stick together. Mortar with sticky rice is less permeable to water and more resistant to the stresses of changing weather than standard mortar. Some religious structures and bridges built with sticky-rice-containing mortar even survived a magnitude-7.5 earthquake in 1604.

 The mortar was stronger and more resistant to water than pure lime mortar, and what Zhang termed one of the greatest technological innovations of the time. Builders used the material to construct important buildings like tombs, pagodas, and city walls, some of which still exist today. Some of the structures were strong enough to shrug off the effects of modern bulldozers and powerful earthquakes.

 

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Darwin’s bark spider (Caerostris darwini) is an orb-weaver spider found in Madagascar that produces one of the largest-known orb webs, spanning upto 82 feet. Its silk is the toughest biological material ever studies. They build their webs with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, allowing the spiders to catch prey flying over the water. The weavers of the largest Darwin’s bark spider webs are almost always female.

Females are largely black in colour, with white hairs on the cephalothorax (prosoma), abdomen and appendages. The upper surface of the cephalothorax has two sets of "humps", one at the sides and one towards the back. The first leg is about 35 mm (1.4 in) long. Unlike other Caerostris species from the region, C. darwini has clearly separated epigynal chambers with a pair of hooks on the posterior (rather than anterior or medial) part of the epigynal plate. The spermathecae and the ducts leading to them are strongly sclerotized (hardened). Males are redder and lighter brown in colour, again with white hairs on the cephalothorax, abdomen and parts of the appendages further from the body. The femora of the legs are red and hairless. The first leg is about 15 mm (0.6 in) long. The papal has a large conductor with a straight tip, and a longer embolus with a spoon-shaped end than other species from the region.

 

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The violent snail Janthina janthina floats on the water surface by means of a bubble raft made by its mobile foot, which scoops up bubbles of air and, after enveloping them in mucus, adds them to its raft. The snails travel wherever the waters and winds take them.

It secrets mucus from its foot which binds bubbles together in a raft, on which it floats freely on the ocean, in equatorial and temperate waters. Its shell is 3-4 cm in size, light and fragile, and is a dark purple at the widest part, fading to a light purple at the narrow top. Its body ranges from dark purple to black.

Violet snails are protandric hermaphrodites, meaning they are born male and develop into females over time. Fertilization is internal, but males lack a penis, so there is no direct mating. Instead, the males release their sperm into a case that drifts to a female, where the sperm fertilizes the eggs. The eggs develop internally and are born live, with the tiny purple snails immediately able to build their own rafts. They use their feet to agitate the water, creating bubbles, which they bind together with mucus. If the bubble raft ever breaks apart, the snail will sink into the ocean and die.

Violet snails are preyed upon by fish, birds, sea turtles, other molluscs and nudibranchs. The snails sometimes have pelagic barnacles attached to their shell as hitchhikers.

 

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Pi Day is celebrated on March 14 (3/14). In mathematics, Pi represents a constant – the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter – approximately 3.14159. it has been calculated to over 1 trillion digits beyond its decimal point.

This event was organized by physicist Larry Shaw. This first celebration featured participants marching around a large circle and consuming fruit pies.  Over the years, the PI Day celebrations have become a little more complex and usually involve more activities. This day received some much-needed respect when the U.S. House of Representatives passed HRES 224 on March 12, 2009, recognizing March 14th as PI Day.

PI Day celebrations usually center around the dessert pie – not only because PI and pie are homophones in English but also because pie is round and is therefore related to PI. PI Day celebrations can include this element into their parties in several ways. They can not only serve pie but also have pie eating contest, pie fights or even pie drops – an activity in which people drop pies from the top of a building to see who gets the biggest splatter. The inclusion of pie at a PI Day party doesn’t have to mean just sweet dessert pies, however. Some celebrations feature savory pies such as chicken pot pies, shepherd’s pies or some other form of savory meat pie.

 

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This incredible rock formation in Iceland, known as Elephant Rock, is found on Heimaey, the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar chain at 13.2 sq kms.

The entire archipelago rests in the Southern Iceland Volcanic Zone and was formed during numerous volcanic eruptions. As a result, the islands boast multiple remarkable rock formations and unmatched volcanic landscapes.

Elephant Rock fascinates visitors because it resembles the head of a giant elephant which has submerged half its trunk underwater in an attempt to quench its thirst with the Atlantic Ocean.

Many have pointed out the rock's resemblance to H.P. Lovecraft's cosmic daemon Cthulhu, a monstrous sea creature with the face of an octopus. The likeness is complete with a cleft in the rock where the Lovecraftian creature's eyes would be and the resulting shadow bestows an eerie and lifelike quality upon its face. Fundamental to the rock's realistic appearance is the fact that it's entirely made from basalt, but this makes the "skin" of the creature appear wrinkled. 

 

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Bodies in Urban Spaces is a unique performance where dancers move throughout a city and organize their bodies into the nooks and crannies of public spaces. Created by Austrian Cie Willi Dorner, it shows the relationship between people and their everyday surroundings. Since 2007, the artist has produced performances in Paris, Austria, Portugal, the United States, the UK, Germany, and Spain, to name a few, where groups of dancers travel throughout city streets and occasionally adopt choreographed poses that they hold for just a few moments before moving on to the next place.

Through awkward arrangements, Dorner finds collaborations between bodies and spaces. In each piece, the human form can be viewed as an object which becomes the sculpture itself. Thus, Dorner’s work challenges traditional forms of sculpture and encourages viewers to reconsider their urban environments. When passing by such odd formations, people can’t help but stop and think about how and why the forms interact with and change the architecture.

 

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According to myth, the Greek poet Simonides of Ceos invented the ‘mind palace’ technique (seen in the TV series Sherlock) after attending a banquet. Simonidies stepped outside to meet with two young men. But the men were not there and the hall began collapsing behind him. Though his fellow banqueters were too badly crushed by the collapse for their remains to be identified, Simonidies was supposedly able to put a name to each body based on where they had been sitting in the hall. That ability to remember based on location became the method of loci, also known as memory theatre, the art of memory, the memory palace and mind palace.

To use the technique, visualize a complex place in which you could physically store a set of memories. That place is often a building such as a house, but it can also be something like a road with multiple addresses. In the house version, every room is home to a specific item you want to remember. To take advantage of the mind’s ability to hold onto visual memories, it often helps to embellish the item being stored—the milk you need to buy at the grocery store might become a vat of milk with a talking cow swimming in it. When those memories need to be recalled, you can walk through the building in your mind, seeing and remembering each item.

Greeks and Romans, such as the orator Cicero, employed the mind palace technique to memorize speeches, marking the order of what to say within a complicated architectural space. To write something down in that era was expensive and time consuming, a luxury not to be wasted, even on rhetoric The method of loci continued to flourish through the Middle Ages, when monks and other scholastics used it to commit religious texts to memory.

 

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The DeepFlight Super Falcon, developed by California-based Hawkes Ocean Technologies, is a winged submersible designed to dive below the surface, swim amongst marine animals, navigate through underwater canyons, and even perform aquatic barred rolls. The submarine is 21 feet long with a wingspan of nearly 9 feet, and can dive to a depth of about 394 feet. It dives underwater like a whale, using thrust to generate “downward lift” to help the vehicle descend below the water’s surface. Essentially, it uses ‘lift and drag’ – the principles of regular flight – to “soar” underwater. If the vehicle loses power underwater, it will simply float back to the surface. The Super Falcon currently retails for $1.7 million.

 

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A new earthworm species developed by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) can get rid of the wild aquatic plant Jal Kumbhi (Pistia Stratiotes) growing on the banks of river Brahmaputra. The plant is a menace as it spreads its tentacles right up to the river bed and impairs the movement of fisherman besides causing widespread pollution.

Jai Gopal (Perionyx ceylanesis) eats wild vegetation very fast and converts it into organic fertilizer that can be used in farming. It can withstand different temperature variations and survive temperatures ranging from 0 degree Celsius to 43 degree Celsius. The fertilizers produced will be used by tea gardens in the Assam valley. The earthworm will also benefit the sugarcane industry – waste products rich in phosphorous, calcium, potassium and other minerals can be transformed into organic fertilizers once they become fodder for the earthworm.

 

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A California electrician developed star-shaped cataracts after being shocked by 14,000 volts of electricity. The current passed through his entire body, including the optic nerve that connects the back of the eye to the brain. “The optic nerve is similar to any wire that conducts electricity,” said Dr Bobby Korn, associate professor of clinical ophthalmology, University of California. “The extreme current and voltage that passed through this important natural wire caused damage to the optic nerve itself.” In animal studies, damage to the eye’s lens from electricity first appears as small bubbles called ‘vacuoles’ on the outside of the lens. These then coalesce to form a star-shaped cataract.

 

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At Indonesia’s Kawah Ijen Volcano, extremely high quantities of sulphuric gases emerge at high pressure and temperatures (sometimes in excess of 600 degree Celsius) along with the lava. Exposed to the oxygen present in air and sparked by lava, the sulphur burns readily, and its flames are bright blue. There’s so much sulfur, that at times it flows down the rock face as it burns, making it seem as though blue lava is spilling down the mountainside. But because only the flames are blue rather than the lava itself, the effect is only visible at night – during daytime, the volcano looks like any other.

Miners extract the sulfur rock, which is formed after the blue flames extinguish leaving behind a solid sulfur-rich rock. They then carry these large loads in baskets down the side of the mountain to be paid per kilogram. The work is unregulated and small children can often be seen scrambling up and down the slopes hoping to support their family’s low incomes with additional money. They usually take two daily trips. Each local worker is paid about 680 Indonesian rupiahs per kilogram, the equivalent of about six USD cents. 

The working conditions are highly dangerous. It does not only require agility and strength to walk up and down the volcano's steep slopes, but workers are also exposed to the toxic sulfur gases for long periods of time. Without gas masks or other safety equipment, many of the mine's workers suffer long-term health problems resulting from sulfur exposure. These volcanic materials make it one of the more dangerous places on Earth.

 

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I am in Std X (Karnataka Boards). My ambition is to become an astronaut. What combinations must I choose in PU?

Astronauts go out into space to conduct experiments and research on various different projects. To become one, you need to have a high level of fitness and the right attitude to spend long periods of time in space. Scientific and technical competence is essential. Take Science and Mathematics in 10+2 then appear in ISAT, conducted by Indian Institute of Space Science & Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram for B.Tech. Aerospace Engineering/Avionics. All engineering graduates from the IIST are absorbed in the ISRO.

A career as an astronaut is not always as thrilling as it seems. One has to dedicate a lot of hours to training and practice before being allowed to go into space. Moreover getting into training programmes is very difficult because of the high level of competition and the relatively low number of astronauts required globally.

In India, astronaut training is yet to begin. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of USA select people from all over to participate in their astronaut programme.

 

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I am studying in Std X and I am interested in astrobiology. Is this a safe career option? What is the scope of astrobiology in India? What qualifications are required to enter this field?

Astrobiology is the study of life in the universe. This field combines the knowledge and techniques from many fields, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, atmospheric science, oceanography and aeronautical engineering.

This multi-disciplinary field encompasses the search of habitable environments in our solar system and habitable research has a significant impact on how agencies such as NASA plan for current and future space missions. Most jobs in astrobiology are in universities or industry, which conduct interdisciplinary research in astrobiology.

MP Birla Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore offers a course in Astrobiology for which eligibility in graduation in Physics/Chemistry/Biology. Indian Astrobiology Research Centre (IARC), Mumbai conducts and encourages research in astrobiology. It offers a diploma in astrobiology and astronomy. The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), a virtual organization works through their team seating in many universities and institutions all over the world.

 

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