My Science School

Bats navigate using echolocation, bouncing sounds off objects in their path. The high-pitched squeaks of bats are ultrasonic (the opposite of whale sounds), that is, they are above the human hearing range. Nevertheless, they are loud enough to help the bats home in on their prey. The greater bulldog bat, the loudest among these strange flying mammals, makes a sound that tops 140 decibels to track fish moving underwater.

Some bats do not use their vocal cords to produce calls at all, and instead click their tongue or emit sound from their nostrils. Other bats produce clicks using their wings. Interestingly, the exact process by which bats click with their wings is still debated. It is unclear whether the sound results from the wings clapping together, the bones in the wings snapping, or the wings slapping against the bat's body.

 

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One of the most common forest sounds is the synchronized chirping of cicadas that is clearly audible even 2 km away. The insects have hollow abdomens with muscles called tymbals. The cicada contracts and expands the muscle emitting a ‘click’ measuring about 120 dB each time. Since the abdomen is hollow it amplifies the sound.

Mole and bush crickets, and a tiny fellow called the water boatman use a technique called ‘stridulation’, rubbing one part of the body against the other. The crickets rub their wings together to produce the characteristic chirp. It measures 92 dB and can be heard 600 metres away. Mole crickets also dig megaphone-shaped burrows to amplify their chips.

The water boatman, no bigger than a grain of rice, produces his sound by rubbing his penis against his abdomen! The sound, at 105 dB, is the loudest by any living thing relative to size. Fortunately for people, the sound diminishes in volume as it enters the sir, otherwise it can be as deafening as pneumatic drill.

 

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The dubious honour of being the loudest mammal on Earth goes to the howler monkey of Central and South America, one of the biggest monkeys in the world. When howler monkeys call in chorus at dawn or dusk, they can be heard over a distance of 5 km. The monkey has a large throat and a specialized vocal sac that acts as a resonating chamber. Its call measures around 125 dB on the sound scale. 

Mostly it uses its tail to help grip branches as it eats and moves around high in the trees. Each family group is generally made up of 15 to 20 howlers. The leader is usually an old male. The head and body of adult howler monkeys range from 22 to 36 inches (55.8 to 91.4 centimeters) long and their tail can add 23 to 36 inches (58.4 to 91.4 centimeters).

 

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 “Mercury stays close to the Sun like a child clinging to its mother’s apron strings.” – Huber J Bernhard, American astronomer

The planet Mercury was known from ancient times. Because it was so elusive ad swift in its revolution around the Sun, it was named after the fleet-footed Greek messenger of the gods, Herms or the Roman Mercurius. Mercury was known for his speed and agility, wore a winged cap and shoes and bore a staff entwined with two snakes (called a ‘caudaceus’). He was also the god of thieves and trade. He is believed to have crafted the musical instrument called a lyre from the shell of a tortoise. It had nine cords representing the nine Muses. Mercury gifted the lyre to Apollo, the sun god and received the caudaceus from him in exchange.

Since it is the innermost planet in the solar system, Mercury can rarely be seen due to the Sun’s glare. Even the great astronomer, Copernicus, is rumoured not to have seen it. Its gravity is less than half of earth’s, so it barely has an atmosphere, which is thought to be made up of helium. With no air to temper the Sun’s rays, Mercury’s temperature fluctuates widely. The side facing the sun roasts in 482 degrees C, while the side facing away is a freezing-184 degrees C. It goes round the Sun at breakfast speed, the fastest revolution in the solar system. Like the other Earth-like planets (Venus and Mars), it is made up mostly of rock and metal. Its surface resembles the Moon with hundreds of craters Scientists believe that the planet is slowly buckling inwards and shrinking in size because its core, largely made of iron, is freezing. The photographs taken by Manner 10 show great gashes across its surface, one measuring nearly 2 km in length. They resemble the fault line across Earth’s crust (along which earthquakes occur).

 

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When you accidentally get a minor cut on your finger, the bleeding usually stops quickly. How does the body plug wounds to stop blood flowing?

Our blood contains a substance called thrombin. When blood starts flowing from a cut, thrombin combines with a protein called fibrinogen that is found in blood plasma (the liquid part of the blood) to form needle-like crystals called fibrin. These fibrin fibers form a mesh over the wound Blood corpuscles get trapped in the mesh and this results in a plug we call a blood clot.

 

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When you cut yourself, bacteria present in the soil and air enter the wound. At the same time, the blood in your body rushes to the size. The white blood corpuscles (phagocytes) in the blood engulf the invading bacteria. Blood platelets or red blood cells begin to clot, sealing the opening against further invasion.

The phagocytes continue to destroy the bacteria but many are overcome by the invaders. Dead bacteria, dead white blood cells, plasma and tissue from the injured cells collect to form pus.

Sometimes the collected pus and excess blood may cause the site of the cut to swell up and redden. This is called an abscess. It may be painful and requires antibiotics or draining of the pus by a doctor.

 

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When you have a fever, the temperature, the temperature is taken with the help of a thermometer. The bulb of the thermometer is normally placed under the tongue or in the armpit or groin.

What’s the reason?

 For a correct reading of body temperature, the bulb of the thermometer (which contains mercury) has to be in direct touch with the body’s surface.

If the thermometer is placed simply inside the mouth, it may not give a correct reading, as the bulb may not be in contact with the tongue. In such a case the temperature recorded will be that of the air and saliva in the mouth.

 

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Librarians all over the world are facing a problem. They have begun to realize that practically all the books that were printed after 1850 are deteriorating rapidly.

What’s the reason?

Before the Chinese invented paper in 105 A.D., books were written on parchment – the skin of sheep or goats and vellum or calf-skin.

The Chinese made paper from mulberry fibre, fish-nets, old rags and waste hemp.

After 1850, the demand for paper increased so much that a low-cost substitute for linen and cotton rags began to be used. This was wood pulp. The drawback is that during processing, a number of chemicals are added to the pulp. These include acids. Over a period of time, these chemicals and acids eat away the paper. It starts yellowing and crumbling to dust at the slightest touch. Thus, ironically, books printed in the 1500’s are in a better condition today than books printed just 40 years ago! Saving these books is a tedious and expensive process, requiring each page to be treated to remove the acid.

 

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Nidhi Chanani was born in India and grew up in southern California. “Pashmina” is her attempt to connect with her roots. Priyanka Das, the protagonist, is full of questions. She wants to know why her mother left everything, including her father, in India all those years ago. But Priyanka’s mother is overprotective, and on the subject of India, her lips are forever sealed. So Priyanka is in the dark, until, one day, she stumbles upon a Pashmina scarf in an old suitcase. Wrapping it around herself, she imagines her mother’s birthplace and homeland in a series of vivid, colourful images. When she wins a cartoon contest, Priyanka buys herself a plane ticket to India with the prize money and begins her journey towards self-discovery.

Nidhi Chanani has illustrated the story herself. Though simple, the artwork is effective.

 

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This one breaks the Cinderella mould and has a cross-dressing prince take centre stage. A perfect foil to him is a poor dress designer with uncommon strength of character. The story begins in Paris where Sebastian, the crown prince of Belgium, is trying his best to hide a secret from everyone while his parents are busy looking for a bride for him. What’s his secret? By night, he dresses and behaves as the fashionable and alluring Lady Crystallia! Not because he is uncomfortable as a man but because it releases him from his royal trappings and allows him to experience complete freedom in an alternate identity. In Paris, he discovers Frances whose only passion in life is designing fashionable clothes. He promises her a decent pay and opportunities to create her own designs. Tempted, France accompanies him to Belgium as part of his staff. That’s when she learns about his secret. But she doesn’t care about it as long as she is given the freedom to design clothes. As the friendship between Sebastian and Frances deepens, they have to face tough questions. Can they go on living a lie? Frances decides that she cannot and leaves, Sebastian must choose between getting his best friend back and marrying a princess he does not know. The simple artwork adequately supports a delightful story.

 

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A Pulitzer prize-winning story told in two volume, “Maus” – a tale within a tale – is about a cartoonist’s troubled relationship with his father. The father, Vladek Spiegelman, is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust. As the son begins to tell his father’s story, he realizes that his struggles are nothing compared to the ones his father survived. The children of those who survived one of the goriest events in recent history are affected in their own way.

The artwork speaks more than words can. In clever allegory, Nazis are given the form of cats, the Jews are mice, the Polish, pigs and the Americans, dogs. “Maus” is not a comfortable read. It is a raw and powerful experience, where the author explores the fear of death as well as the euphoria of survival that was the everyday reality for those in Hitler’s camps.

 

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The Graveyard Book is a children's fantasy novel written by Neil Gaiman and published in 2008. The story follows the young life of a boy called Nobody Owens who is orphaned as a toddler when a man kills his entire family. Nobody is adopted by ghosts from the local graveyard who raise him in a world of vampires, werewolves, mummies, and ghouls, and teach him to use a variety of supernatural abilities.

After his family is murdered in their beds, a toddler, pursued by the murderer Jack, wanders into a graveyard. Ghosts and other supernatural residents of the cemetery protect and eventually agree to raise him as their own. They name him Nobody Owens. With a vampire as his guardian, Nobody (Bod, to his friends) lives, loves and learns in the graveyard, which is full of adventure and dangers but the safest place for the 10-year-old. Outside the graveyard, Bod will be a target for Jack, the murderer.

A team of renowned artists lend their signature styles to each vignette in this award-winning two-volume story by Neil Gaiman.

 

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In the late 1800s, there was a change of thought among some artists. This was around the time that scientific thinking was beginning to spread, and so the idea that what the eye saw and the brain transmitted were two different things was something that artists pounced upon. This new group, with its bright unblended colours and short brushstrokes wanted to create art out of an impression, a fleeting second in time. These paintings were part of Impressionism.

In 1870, the Anonymous Society of Painters organized an exhibition in Paris where they displayed art that went against what was taught at major institutions and what artists in the era strived to be. The sketch-like paintings that many critics called ‘unfinished’, was the birth of Impressionism and focused on light and its effect on the surroundings. The founding members of this movement were Claude Monet, Edger Degas and Camille Pissarro. In fact, it was Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise” that gave the movement its name, since a critic called it an ‘impression’ of a painting.

As more painters got drawn to this style, they began to leave their studios and step outside to catch moments to paint. Everyday suburban and rural leisure became popular muses for these painters. Hence, boating and bathing establishments that flourished in that time became popular haunts for impressionists. They used brighter and innovative colours, coloured shadows and even featured industrialisation encroaching on the serenity of the landscape. This would have been allowed in the traditional painting style.

The moment was fleeting and powerful, and eventually, the collective of painters that began and nurtured it developed their own distinct styles, causing raptures in the organisation. Many began to focus on the purity of colour, thereby creating Neo-Impressionism.

Examples

Impression Sunrise:

Painted by Claude Monet in 1872, the painting became a symbol of Impressionism after it gave the movement its name. The subject is the Le Havre harbour in France or so it is suggested, since the brushstrokes are very loose and not defined. Monet captures the scene through light and colour rather than definition.

Le Boulevard Montmartre, effet de nuit:

This painting by Camille Pissarro depicts a scene of Paris in the 19th Century. Pissarro took a room on the Montmartre Boulevard and painted it at different times of the day. This one, painted at night, plays exclusively on light to capture the dramatic effect of the movement.

Paris Street; Rainy Day:

Considered one of the most ambitious paintings of urban lifestyle in the 19th Century, this painting by Gustave Caillebotte depicts de Dublin, an interesting near Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris. The painting was appreciated for its precision and photograph-like quality. Caillebotte creates the idea of overcast, rainy day just through the light and the reflection on water on the street.

Wow facts

• Impressionists were more concerned with the light and colour of the moment than its vivid details. They mostly painted outdoors and worked quickly to capture the moment before the light changed. For this, they used brush strokes and unmixed colour to save time. Often they had very unusual visual angles too.


• Impressionists were often accused of having unfinished paintings and dealing with social or banal subjects. Most of them could not sell their paintings and lived in poverty for years. In fact, Van Gogh – a post-Impressionist artist – sold only one painting in his lifetime and his buyer was his brother!

 

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The biggest hurdle when you write is the starting point the first line. We have seen, innumerable pictures of crumpled paper around the spot where people wrote by hand or using a typewriter. Today we simply stare at the blank screen on the PC or a laptop or the mobile notebook. Oh, how do I start my letter, story, novel, poem, class essay?

Yes, the starting line is crucial. Cross it with confidence, with aplomb, with a beautiful sentence. It can be a quote, a statistic, a proverb or just a thought. it can contain a mystery or say something unbelievable. it Can provoke, or make a critical remark about something we all Love. It can be bold, soft, loud, gentle or harsh. Or a study of contrasts as in the famous first sentence by Charles Dickens in "A Tale of Two Cities." Here it is:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only" How is it for an opening sentence? Gripping, isn't it?

Here is the opening line from George Orwell's "1984": "It was a bright, cold day and, the docks were striking thirteen." You do want to read the rest of the book, right? Or this. "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

You know who wrote this, right?

Whatever it may be, make sure that kindles the readers interest. Make it compelling. It should, hook the readers and funnel their curiosity. Great writers have always given a lot of thought to how they kick-start their story/novel. Authors have admitted that they draft and re-draft that first line to make it perfect. Good, writers know the worth, of the time spent on crafting the "flag-off' sentence. Take your time, mull over it, write and read it a few times till you get it perfect.

 

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How do we write a descriptive essay, asked the students? Here are some pointers. First, think of the "Why?" What will your essay tell your readers? Your descriptive essay should create a verbal, picture of the thing/place/event/feeling you wish to write about. It should get your reader engaged, in the sight, sound, touch, taste and, smell of the place/event you describe. Your essay is a success if you can get your reader to visualise your words of description. You need to show - not tell the reader the beauty of your subject by illustrating it.

Be sure of the topic.

If the question paper says, "Describe a place you, visited," make your decision. Which place will this be? Take one (it is "place", not "places") and recall everything you noticed while you were there. What did it took like? How big was it? What was remarkable about the place? What were the people like? The shops? Monuments? What experiences in the place left a deep impression on you?

Form an introductory paragraph.

Start with a bit of drama. Create a scene that will hook your reader at once. It can be something like, "My encounter with the city turned out to be a tourist’s nightmare." Tell the reader what happened and then go on to say how you warmed up to the place.

If you are writing about a person, put in some drama the way you met him/her. Or describe an incident in his/her life that impressed you. See that the introductory paragraph sets the tone for the rest of the essay. Tell the reader what the subject of the essay is dearly.

Create a roadmap

The next step is to write a thesis statement. This is a single idea that will dominate the essay. Writing a thesis statement helps to focus your thoughts on the topic. It emphasises the purpose of the essay and streamlines the way the information conveyed to the readers. The thesis statement forms the roadmap of the essay. It could be something like, 'This popular seaside city attracts millions of visitors all year; I wondered what it would offer me by way of memories."

Get to work!

One way to write the description is to follow the spatial order. Write what you see to your right, left, in front. What can you see above? "From where I sat, I could see the spire of the church to my right and a row of pretty houses to the left."

Idea 2: Draw five labelled columns on a sheet of paper, each one headlined by one of the five senses - the taste, sight, touch, smell and sound of your topic. Write the feelings you associate with the topic in the appropriate column. These sensory details wilt help you with material to fill up the essay. Make your description"spicy" and interesting. “I walked following the heady aroma of strong coffee and reached a small chocolate shop that had a bubbling outdoor chocolate fountain."

When to start:

Once you have the information, start to write. See that all your sentences support the main thesis statement. You write just one essay at a time. So do not deviate from the topic. Flesh out your paragraphs with interesting (and funny!) descriptions. "Where is the coffee smell from , I wondered, till I realised the fountain was pouring out coffee-scented chocolate. This is a coffee chocolate city!"

Set your paragraphs.

Let each paragraph describe one aspect of the city. You can start with a brief history, and go on with the different sensations that you experienced, in the following paragraphs. Use the standard five-paragraph format. Use the Compare-contrast tool in your description. Which place did this city remind you of? How can it be compared to the city that you come from? Mix long and short sentences judiciously.

Conclude with a flourish.

“Cannot believe a week has passed, since I set foot here!" "It is already time to leave!" Them make a brief summary of what you, have written so far. XYZ is a city of clean beaches, wonderful promenades, historical monuments, calm and serene by lanes, houses with window-boxes of flowers..." Remember, what people read last is what they remember most!

Wrap it up!

See if your essay meets the requirements of the word limit. If it is too short, add your feelings about the object. Write a "clincher" sentence. "As I board the flight out of this city, what souvenirs do I carry with me? Sure, some were bought at shops. But the ones that will stay with me are the memories of the wonderful hospitality of the people, the Lovely beach, the food and the quaint atmosphere that is so welcoming. I know I will come back here."

If it overshoots the word-Limit cut out the clichés — phrases that mean nothing, like "as you know", "I think", "I feel", "as mentioned before". Write direct sentences; avoid the passive voice. React, the essay carefully. Check for any grammar, punctuation or spelling errors. Turning in the essay with mistakes shows carelessness and lack of pride in your work. If you find sentences that are not particularly descriptive, rewrite them before proofreading. React the essay aloud to see if the sentences flow naturally. Reacting it to a friend or a helpful relative will also help.

 

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