My Science School

Spiders are fascinating creatures. Master builders who expertly weave strands of silk into intricate webs, spiders use these both as their home and their hunting grounds. Human beings have been enthralled by the spider's ways and there have been many who have wished to enter the spiders world to learn more about web construction and arachnid behaviour.

Notes from the web

In April 2021, a group of researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along with collaborators at Studio Tomas Saraceno reported a way of translating the structure of spider's web into music. As spiders live in an environment of vibrating strings with different frequencies, which they use to sense the world around them, researchers decided to extract these rhythms of non-human origin and convert them to music.

In order to achieve their objective, a laser was used to capture the spider web. The 2D cross-sections thus obtained were then reconstructed into a 3D web network using the aid of computer algorithms. Next, different frequencies of sound were assigned to each strand of a web, thereby creating notes. These were combined based on the web's patterns to create melodies. By creating a harp-like instrument, the researchers then played the spider web music in a number of live performances around the world.

3D printing

Apart from the wow factor that such a research provides and the fact that it could act as musical inspiration as well, researchers have identified a number of other uses that might come in handy. After gaining insights into how spiders build their webs, the step-by-step knowledge could be used in constructing 3D printers that mimic these spiders and hence might be able to build complex electronic circuits.

Communication with spiders

Additionally, these experiments showed that an algorithm was able to correctly classify spider sounds into different activities, even though they sounded similar to human ears. This means that the time when human beings learn how to communicate with spiders in their own language may not be that far away!

 

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Four Indian pilots, who were selected to become astronauts to crew Gaganyaan, the country's first manned space mission, have returned after completing their one-year training course in Russia's Zvyozdny Gorodok city near Moscow. The contract for the training of Indian officers was signed between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and Russian launch service provider Glavcosmos in June 2019. The four pilots of the Indian Air Force (IAF) include a Group Captain and three Wing Commanders, according to the IAF sources. The training began on February 10, 2020, but was temporarily interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ISRO said the astronauts will now receive module-specific training in India. They will be trained in crew and service module designed by the ISRO, learn to operate it, work around it and do simulations.

Meanwhile, the Indian space agency signed an agreement with the French space agency CNES to help prepare for the Gaganyaan mission and to serve as its single European contact in this domain. How will France help India in the mission? What is Gaganyaan all about?

What is Gaganyaan Mission all about?

Gaganyaan is a 10.000-crore manned space mission, which will launch three Indian astronauts (the fourth astronaut will be a backup) to circle Earth at a distance of about 300-400 km from the surface for up to seven days. If successful, India will become the fourth nation to send a person into space, after Russia, the U.S. and China,

The crew will be launched into space using an indigenous Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark III (GSLV Mk-lll rocket), from the refurbished launchpad at Sriharikota. The ISRO will carry out two unmanned missions before the manned space flight.

The crew was expected to commence its journey in 2022, following the formal announcement of the Gaganyaan project in August 2018. But the ISRO stated in late 2020 that the Gaganyaan project will be "slightly delayed due to COVID-19. In a written statement to the Lok Sabha, Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for the Department of Space said. "First unmanned mission is planned in December 2021. Second unmanned flight is planned in 2022-23, followed by human space flight demonstration."

Who is leading the project?

V.R. Lalithambika, a specialist in advanced launcher technologies, is the Director of the Human Spaceflight Programme. She has worked on rocket technologies such as the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and the GSLV.

Why GSLV-MK III?

A launch vehicle that can carry heavy payloads into space is important for a human spaceflight project. ISRO'S GSLV Mk-ll, the country's heaviest rocket, is considered to be ideal as the 640-tonne and 43- metre-tall rocket can launch 10 tonnes of payload into low-Earth orbit, an altitude of 2.000 km or less above the planet. The crew module is likely to weigh in excess of 5 to 6 tonnes.

Whereas ISRO's main launch vehicle, the PSLV, which carried the Chandrayaan and Mangalyaan missions, weighs about 320 tonnes and can carry payloads up to two tonnes and to orbits of 600 km altitude from the Earth's surface, and hence is not suitable to send a crew into space.

How did the project take shape?

2004: The ISRO Policy Planning Committee made recommendations for a manned space mission 2006: Preliminary studies of Gaganyaan started under the generic name Orbital Vehicle.

2008: An initial design of a fully autonomous vehicle to carry two astronauts was finalised by March 2008 and was submitted to the Government of India for funding.

2009: A committee was formed to analyse the feasibility of the programme. The committee expressed support.

February 2009: The funding for the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme was sanctioned.

December 18, 2014: Successful testing of experimental flight of GSLV Mk-lll was carried out. The launch also involved the successful testing of an experimental crew module. Called the Crew module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE), the spacecraft reentered the atmosphere at about 80 km altitude and landed in the sea near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, from where it was recovered. June 5, 2017: First flight of GSLV Mk-lll was carried out. GSLV Mk-ill placed the country's heaviest satellite till date. GSAT19, into a precise orbit. With it India became a nation having its own indigenous cryogenic engine technology.

July 5, 2018: First successful flight of the crew escape system was carried out. The crew escape system is an emergency measure designed to quickly pull the crew module along with the astronauts to a safe distance from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch abort. A simulated crew module weighing about 3.5 tonnes was launched from Sriharikota. It reached 2.7 km into space before unfurling its parachutes and floating back to the Earth's surface. August 15, 2018: Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised manned mission before 2022.

May, 2020: The ISRO invited startups and private players to develop R&D solutions for food and medicine for the astronauts, support systems such as space suits, and anti-radiation and thermal protection technologies for spacecraft while returning to Earth.

What does the recent Indo France agreement on the mission mean?

According to news reports, the CNES will train India's flight physicians and CAPCOM mission (the Capsule Communicator, or CAPCOM) control teams in France. The agreement also provides for the CNES to support implementation of a scientific experiment plan on validation missions, exchange information on food packaging and nutrition, and the use of French equipment, consumables and medical instruments by Indian astronauts.

French equipment developed by CNES, tested and still operating aboard the International Space Station (ISS), will thus be made available to Indian crew members. The CNES will also be supplying fireproof carry bags made in France to shield equipment from shock and radiation.

What is Vyommitra?

Vyommitra is a robot, half-humanoid to be exact. It has been developed by the ISRO and it will accompany Indian astronauts on Gaganyaan. It will also be part of the uncrewed experimental Gaganyaan missions prior to the crewed spaceflight mission.

But what's the purpose? In the early years of space flight, there were concerns whether humans could mice, survive in space. So animals such as fruit flies, monkeys and cats were sent before the first human ventured into space to test the survivability of spaceflight.

But India will not fly animals into space. Instead, it will launch the robot. On the uncrewed mission, the robot will help the Indian space agency to understand what weightlessness and radiation can do to the human body during long durations in space.

While onboard the crewed mission. Vyommitra can detect and give out warnings if environmental changes within the cabin get uncomfortable to astronauts and change the air condition. It is programmed to speak Hindi and English and perform multiple tasks. It can mimic human activity, recognise other humans, and respond to their queries.

 

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Plastic bags. They are everywhere, aren’t they? If you go shopping in the mall, you end up with a number of them. If you buy some clothes from a store, they are given to you in plastic bags. Picking up some groceries from the road-side vendor? They hand it to you in small plastic bags. There’s no escaping plastic bags, really. And very few even try to…

For an item that is now present everywhere, it has a rather short history. While plastics had been around in the first half of the 20th Century, it was only in the 1950s that a process to produce high-density polyethylene was first figured out.

How to best use it?

Once that came about, some products made of plastics started to get a move on. Yet, companies were still trying to find out how best to utilise the new substance at hand and maximise their advantage.

Among these companies was a Swedish company called Celloplast, which had sold cellulose film. Finding themselves with these plastics, the company invested resources to identify better ways of using and selling it.

Packaging purposes

It was in 1960 that Celloplast filed for a U.S. patent for “tubing for packaging purposes”. Designed by a team of three employees, their idea was to lay flat a tube of plastic and seal it at regular intervals in order to create the bottom of a bag. Left open at the top, anything could be placed inside these bags, which then could be packaged.

By the time this patent made its way in March 1962, Sten Gustaf Thulin, one of the three employees, was onto a better idea that would further enhance their existing one. Instead of just sealing the bottom and leaving the top open, Thulin realised that punching out part of the plastic tubes at the top would create handles for these bags.

Thulin’s “bag with handle”

Celloplast filed a patent for Thulin’s idea in July 1962. On April 27, 1965, they received the U.S. patent for “Bag with handle of weldable plastic material”. Thulin’s idea, what is now often called the “T-shirt plastic bag”, is the design behind every plastic bag that we see these days.

As the years went by, plastic bags started replacing every other type of bag in existence. By the end of the 1970s, 80% of the bag market in Europe was controlled by plastic bags. They were then introduced in the U.S., where they were marketed aggressively as superior to existing alternatives.

Solution turns problem

When Thulin came up with the idea, he was hoping to protect the environment as well. Back then, paper bags were the most popular type of carrier bags. For these paper bags, they not only had to cut down a lot of trees, but they also require more energy and water to produce, all of which have an impact on the planet we reside in.

Thulin believed that his plastic bags, which were both lighter than paper bags and also more energy efficient to make, would be used repeatedly by everyone. Speaking to BBC in 2019, Raoul Thulin, son of Sten Gustaf, said that “the idea that people would simply throw these away would be bizarre” to his dad. He also mentioned that his father always carried one of these folded up plastic bags in his pocket in order to make sure he could reuse the same bag.

Somewhere along the way, however, these plastic bags became so convenient, easily accessible, and cheap that people started throwing them away after a single use. Even though they weren’t supposed to be single-use products, they ended up being that way.

Use, reuse, mend, recycle

While plastic pollution is a huge problem and one to which we don’t have sound answers yet, simply ditching plastic to other alternatives isn’t a great idea either as they too can have adverse effects, including climate change. Research suggests that in order to be as environmentally friendly as a single-use plastic bag that gets recycled, a paper bag needs to be used at least three times. As for bags that are made of cotton, which is an intensive crop requiring a lot of water, it would have to be used 131 times to have the same environmental impact as a single-use plastic bag that is recycled.

Though all this might make the simple choice of selecting a bag seem daunting and confusing, an easy way to navigate it might be using the bag that you already have over and again. Do this for as long as you can and when the bag breaks, try to repair it. And when the bag reaches a stage where it can no longer be mended either, make sure that you recycle the bag. Remember, if we all take these simple steps, we will be protecting our Earth a little better.

 

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For many people, warm weather is a time for fun-filled outdoor activities. However, hot weather and outdoor activities don’t always mix well, especially during periods of extreme heat— times when temperatures are substantially hotter and/or more humid than average for a location and date.

Warmer temperatures can mean higher ozone levels. Pay attention to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air Quality Indexexternal icon when planning outdoor summer activities, especially if you have asthma or another lung disease.

When temperatures are extremely high, take steps to protect yourself and your loved ones:

• Stay in an air-conditioned indoor location as much as you can.


• Drink plenty of fluids even if you don’t feel thirsty.


• Take cool showers or baths to cool down.


• Check on a friend or neighbor and have someone do the same for you.


• Never leave children or pets in cars.


• Check the local news for health and safety updates.

 

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Hypothermia is a medical emergency that occurs when your body loses heat faster than it can produce heat, causing a dangerously low body temperature. Normal body temperature is around 98.6 ºF (37 ºC). Hypothermia (hi-poe-THUR-me-uh) occurs as your body temperature falls below 95 F (35 ºC).

When your body temperature drops, your heart, nervous system and other organs can't work normally. Left untreated, hypothermia can lead to complete failure of your heart and respiratory system and eventually to death.

Hypothermia is often caused by exposure to cold weather or immersion in cold water. Primary treatments for hypothermia are methods to warm the body back to a normal temperature.

When the balance between the body's heat production and heat loss tips toward heat loss for a prolonged period, hypothermia can occur. Accidental hypothermia usually happens after cold temperature exposure without enough warm, dry clothing for protection. Mountain climbers on Mount Everest avoid hypothermia by wearing specialized, high-tech gear designed for that windy, icy environment.

However, much milder environments can also lead to hypothermia, depending on a person's age, body mass, body fat, overall health, and length of time exposed to cold temperatures. A frail, older adult in a 60-degree house after a power outage can develop mild hypothermia overnight. Infants and babies sleeping in cold bedrooms are also at risk.

 

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Heatstroke is a condition caused by your body overheating, usually as a result of prolonged exposure to or physical exertion in high temperatures. This most serious form of heat injury, heatstroke, can occur if your body temperature rises to 104 ºF (40 ºC) or higher. The condition is most common in the summer months.

Heatstroke requires emergency treatment. Untreated heatstroke can quickly damage your brain, heart, kidneys and muscles. The damage worsens the longer treatment is delayed, increasing your risk of serious complications or death.

Heat stroke results from prolonged exposure to high temperatures -- usually in combination with dehydration -- which leads to failure of the body's temperature control system. The medical definition of heat stroke is a core body temperature greater than 104 degrees Fahrenheit, with complications involving the central nervous system that occur after exposure to high temperatures. Other common symptoms include nausea, seizures, confusion, disorientation, and sometimes loss of consciousness or coma.

 

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The yen is the official currency of Japan. It is the third most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar and the Euro. It is also widely used as a third reserve currency after the U.S. dollar and the Euro.

The spelling and pronunciation "yen" is standard in English because when Japan was first encountered by Europeans around the 16th century, Japanese /e/ (?) and /we/ (?) both had been pronounced and Portuguese missionaries had spelled them "ye". By the middle of the 18th century, /e/ and /we/ came to be pronounced [e] as in modern Japanese, although some regions retain the [je] pronunciation. Walter Henry Medhurst, who had neither been to Japan nor met any Japanese people, having consulted mainly a Japanese-Dutch dictionary, spelled some "e"s as "ye" in his An English and Japanese, and Japanese and English Vocabulary (1830). In the early Meiji era, James Curtis Hepburn, following Medhurst, spelled all "e"s as "ye" in his A Japanese and English dictionary (1867); in Japanese, e and i are slightly palatalized, somewhat as in Russian. That was the first full-scale Japanese-English/English-Japanese dictionary, which had a strong influence on Westerners in Japan and probably prompted the spelling "yen". Hepburn revised most "ye"s to "e" in the 3rd edition (1886) to mirror the contemporary pronunciation, except "yen". This was probably already fixed and has remained so ever since.

 

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The Korean won has been used in some form for thousands of years. During the occupation of Korea by Japan, which spanned from 1910 to 1945, the won was briefly replaced with a Japanese colonial currency called the Korean yen.1

After World War II, however, the division of North Korea and South Korea resulted in two separate currencies, each called the Korean won. Initially pegged to the USD at a rate of 15 won to 1 dollar, a number of devaluations occurred thereafter due largely to the effects of the Korean War on the nation's economy.

In 1950, the Bank of Korea began operations as South Korea's new central bank. It assumed the duties of the previous monetary authority, the Bank of Joseon, with exclusive authority to issue banknotes and coins for the country.? Today, the Bank of Korea issues banknotes in denominations ranging from 1,000 to 50,000 won. The notes feature early Yi, or Chos?n, dynasty figures, including writers Yi Hwang, featured on the 1,000-won note; Yi I, featured on the 5,000-won note; and King Sejong, who appears on the 10,000-won note.

In the 1980s, South Korea sought to expand the relevance of its currency to international trade by replacing its dollar peg with a basket of currencies. Further changes were made in the late 1990s, when the government responded to the Asian Financial Crisis by allowing the won to float freely on foreign exchange markets.

 

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