My Science School

On March 23, 2021, a mega container ship Ever Given got stuck diagonally across the narrow Suez Canal in Egypt amid high winds, blocking trade for six days. The stranded 400-metre-long and 200,000-tonne cargo ship led to the hold up of trade worth $9.6 billion, affecting countless businesses and supply chains globally. Over 300 ships carrying tonnes of cargo got stranded on either side of the canal, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea and provides the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. According to reports, about 15% of global trade passes through the canal. Ever Given, operated by Taiwanese transport company Evergreen Marine, was finally freed on March 29 with the help of over a dozen tugboats. The 25-member crew on board the ship were all Indians.

The Ever Given was stuck near the Egyptian city of Suez, about 3.7 miles north of the canal's southern entrance. It was in a single-lane section of the canal, about 985 feet wide.

Its owners originally said high winds in a sandstorm pushed the ship sideways, wedging it into both banks of the waterway. Containers stacked on deck may have acted as a sail.

However, the chairman of Egypt's Suez Canal Authority said Saturday, without giving details, that weather conditions "were not the main reasons" for the grounding, and that "there may have been technical or human reasons," the BBC reported. An investigation is ongoing.

At least 360 ships, carrying everything from cars to oil to grain, wait at the canal’s northern and southern entrances. The AP said an analysis by data firm Refinitiv showed an additional 300 ships were en route to the canal over the next two weeks. Some ships have already diverted to the African route.

CNN said the U.S. Navy offered dredging experts to assist.

Authorities originally disagree on how long the canal will be blocked. The ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen, said its goal was to free the vessel by the night of March 27.

At least 360 ships, carrying everything from cars to oil to grain, wait at the canal’s northern and southern entrances. The AP said an analysis by data firm Refinitiv showed an additional 300 ships were en route to the canal over the next two weeks. Some ships have already diverted to the African route.

CNN said the U.S. Navy offered dredging experts to assist.

Authorities originally disagree on how long the canal will be blocked. The ship’s owner, Shoei Kisen, said its goal was to free the vessel by the night of March 27.

The canal is a 120-mile-long shipping link between the Mediterranean and Red seas that carries 10% to 12% of commercial shipping and about 2.5% of the world’s oil. A German insurer said delays could cost global trade $6 billion to $10 billion a week, Reuters reported.

USA TODAY said the blockage could worsen shipping delays and cause shortages of toilet paper, coffee and other goods.

GlobalSecurity.org calls the canal “strategically and economically one of the most important waterways in the world.”

Credit : USA Today

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To the horror of the world, Myanmars powerful military on the morning of February 1 ousted the democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi from power in a swift coup d'etat (a sudden, violent seizure of power from an existing government) and took control of the Southeast Asian country. The chief of the military junta General Min Aung Hlaing announced a year-long emergency before declaring himself the prime minister of the country. Several members of the ruling party, including Suu Kyi, were detained by the junta which sparked protests across the country, resulting in the deaths of over 1.000 people. Suu Kyi was later sentenced to a two-year term of detention in an undisclosed location. (Early this year, the ousted leader was sentenced to four more years in prison.)

The army said it had responded to “election fraud”, handing power to military chief General Min Aung Hlaing and imposing a state of emergency for a year in the country, also known as Burma, where neighbouring China has a powerful influence.

The generals made their move hours before parliament had been due to sit for the first time since the National League for Democracy’s (NLD) landslide win in a Nov. 8 election viewed as a referendum on Suu Kyi’s fledgling democratic rule.

The NLD said Suu Kyi had called on people to protest against the military takeover, quoting comments it said had been written in anticipation of a coup.

Phone and internet connections in the capital, Naypyitaw, and the main commercial centre Yangon were disrupted and state television went off air after the NLD leaders were detained.

Summarising a meeting of the new junta, the military said Min Aung Hlaing, who had been nearing retirement, had pledged to practice a “genuine discipline-flourishing multiparty democratic system”.

He promised a free and fair election and a handover of power to the winning party, it said, without giving a timeframe.

The junta later removed 24 ministers and named 11 replacements to oversee ministries including finance, defence, foreign affairs and interior.

Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other NLD leaders were “taken” in the early hours of the morning, NLD spokesman Myo Nyunt told Reuters by phone. U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said at least 45 people had been detained.

Credit : Reuters

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Seventy-nine-year-old Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States of America on January 20 at a swearing-in ceremony at Capitol Hill, Washington DC, following his victory in the 2020 presidential election over Republican incumbent Donald Trump. A Democrat who earlier served as the Vice-President under Barack Obama, Biden was sworn in as the President by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. On the same day, Kamala Harris, the first woman and the first Asian American Vice-President, was inaugurated. The ceremony included performances by Lady Gaga and Jennifer Lopez. Upon assuming office, Biden brought the U.S. back into the fold of the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organisation, and suspended construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Earlier on January 6, a furious mob of Donald Trump supporters stormed Capitol Hill, hoping to block Congress certification of Biden's win and overturn the mandate.

In his speech, Mr. Biden called for unity. “My whole soul is in this… bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation,” he said, asking every American to join him in the cause.

Racism, nativism, fear and demonization have torn America apart, he said.

“We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature...Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path,” Mr. Biden said.

“We must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured,” Mr. Biden said about the rise in the level of misinformation during the Trump presidency, including from the former President himself.

“It did not happen. It will never happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever, not ever,” he said about the Capitol violence trying to overturn the election results.

He said he would be a President for all Americans — those who voted for him and those who did not. “We must end this uncivil war, that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative against liberal.”

Lady Gaga sang the national anthem and Jennifer Lopez sang a patriotic song.

Mr. Trump, who had contested the election results and addressed the mob minutes before they attacked the Capitol weeks ago, refused to meet Mr. Biden at the White House and travel with him to the Inauguration as per tradition. However, he had, as per reports, left a personal note in the Oval Office for his successor as is the custom. While he wished the next administration “great luck and great success”, Mr. Trump did not mention Mr. Biden by name. The former President, who has hinted that he may run again in 2024, said: “We will be back in some form.”

Credit : The Hindu

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The hour glass was a good way of measuring time. It was in use for hundreds of years. Fine sand trickles through a small hole in the glass from the top half to the bottom. When the top is empty the glass is turned over. Tournaments were timed by the turn of a glass.

Little written evidence exists to explain why its external form is the shape that it is. The glass bulbs used, however, have changed in style and design over time. While the main designs have always been ampoule in shape, the bulbs were not always connected. The first hourglasses were two separate bulbs with a cord wrapped at their union that was then coated in wax to hold the piece together and let sand flow in between. It was not until 1760 that both bulbs were blown together to keep moisture out of the bulbs and regulate the pressure within the bulb that varied the flow.

While some early hourglasses actually did use silica sand as the granular material to measure time, many did not use sand at all. The material used in most bulbs was "powdered marble, tin/lead oxides, [or] pulverized, burnt eggshell". Over time, different textures of granule matter were tested to see which gave the most constant flow within the bulbs. It was later discovered that for the perfect flow to be achieved the ratio of granule bead to the width of the bulb neck needed to be 1/12 or more but not greater than 1/2 the neck of the bulb.

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You can. The Eskimo igloo is a temporary home used on hunting trips. It is built by cutting large blocks of hard packed snow and placing them one on top of another to form a dome shaped house. Fur rugs are spread on the floor. Light and warmth come from a small lamp that burns seal oil.

An igloo floor is never just flat like the inside of a tent. It's cut into terraces which create an upper level for sleeping, a middle level for the fire and a lower level used as a cold sink. Heavy cold air, which naturally falls, collects on the floor – ideally near the door - and stays there. And warm air, which is lighter and naturally rises, stays in the parts of the igloo people use the most, including the area they sleep in.

Because the door of an igloo is at the bottom of the structure and features at least one right angled piece of tunnel to crawl through, the powerful, freezing cold Lapland winds can't blow directly into the living space. And the little hole cut into the top of the curved roof lets smoke from the fire escape safely.

All this means it can be as cold as minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit outdoors but as cosy as 19 to 61 degrees Fahrenheit indoors, not always warm enough for a T shirt but a temperature difference that'll feel really good all the same, sometimes as much as seventy degrees warmer than the outdoors.

Credit : Transun 

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Horses did not exist in America until the Spaniards brought them in the 16th century. It was over 100 years before the Indians had them. At first the Indians were terrified of the horse, but later they became the best horsemen in the world.

When the first horses arrived they looked like very wonderful and magical dogs that could carry a lot of stuff. That is why many Plains Indians called horses "sacred dogs".

In a very short time Plains Indians learned to be expert riders. Along with hunting they learned to use the horses to make war and go on raids. They could go much farther than they ever could on foot and arrive rested and able to fight. The tribes who learned how to use horses first and fast had a huge advantage over other tribes. They quickly pushed other tribes out of their former territories and expanded their territories. Tribes like the Comanche and Cheyenne who had horses and knew how to use them first pushed other tribes like the Apache, Wichita and Tonkawa south and west off the plains. The Apache who now live in New Mexico and in Old Mexico used to live way up in the Texas panhandle and north of Texas. Bands of Comanche warriors on horseback were powerful and feared by everyone – Indians and Europeans.

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In 1683 Vienna was under siege from the Turks. Men baking bread during the night heard the Turkish army tunnelling under the city. They raised the alarm, saved the city and baked croissants in the shape of the crescent Moon on the Turkish flag!

The story dates to 1683, during the Ottoman Turks siege of Vienna. Legend has it that a baker working late at night heard the Turks tunneling under the walls of the city and alerted the military.

The military collapsed the tunnel in on the Turks and eliminated the threat, saving the city. The baker baked a crescent shaped pastry in the shape of the Turk’s Islamic emblem, the crescent moon, so that when his fellow Austrians bit into the croissant, they would be symbolically devouring the Turks.

Marie Antoinette popularized the croissant in France by requesting the royal bakers replicate her favorite treat from her homeland, Austria.

Then, August Zang, an Austrian artillery officer that founded a Viennese Bakery in Paris in around 1839. This bakery served Viennese specialties including the kipfel (croissant) and the Vienna loaf and quickly became very popular and inspired French bakers. The dough became lighter and more delicate throughout time, and the kipfel was developed into what it is known now as the croissant.

Today, the croissant is both a symbol of French culture and tradition, shared throughout the world. Share this story the next time you enjoy one of our delicious croissants.

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Stonemasons in the Middle Ages carved animal heads, devils and grotesque faces as water spouts. They took rainwater from church or cathedral roofs and kept the water clear of the stone walls.

Gargoyles are carved stone creatures known as grotesques. Often made of granite, they serve an important purpose in architecture. Other than providing interesting decoration for buildings, they contain spouts that direct water away from the sides of buildings.

Like modern gutter systems you might see on houses or newer buildings, gargoyles prevent rainwater from running down stone walls, eroding the mortar that holds a building together. Architects often designed buildings with multiple gargoyles to direct the flow of rainwater.

Many gargoyles feature troughs cut into their backs to catch water. The water that's caught is usually directed out of the open mouth of the creature. Gargoyles usually have an odd, elongated shape, because their length determines how far from the building's walls the rainwater is deposited.

The word gargoyle comes from the French word gargouille, which means “throat" or “gullet." This probably comes from the gurgling sound of the water as it passes through the gargoyle and out its mouth. Some legends hold that gargoyles also protect against harmful spirits.

Gargoyles have been used for hundreds of years. Ancient Egyptians usually created gargoyles in the shape of a lion's head. Other popular animal gargoyles were dogs, wolves, eagles, snakes, goats, and monkeys.

Over the years, many other types of creatures have been used as gargoyles. For example, some gargoyles are humans, such as monks, while others are combinations of humans and animals. Unusual animal combinations are sometimes called chimeras. Some popular chimeras include griffins, centaurs, harpies, and mermaids.

Some of the most famous gargoyles in the word sit atop cathedrals, such as Notre Dame in Paris. Some experts believe they were popular on churches because of the widespread belief that they protected against evil spirits.

After the eighteenth century, gargoyles became much less common, as more modern drainpipes were developed. Occasionally, some buildings would still be built with gargoyles, but they often became more decorative than functional.

Credit : Wonderopolis

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It is a lake 369m (1,299ft) below sea level on the Israel/Jordan border. The water is seven times more salty than sea water. No fish can live in this water and swimmers float, but cannot sink.

Situated on the heart of the Great Syrian-African rift valley that stretches throughout Israel and beyond, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the earth, 1,320 feet below sea level and is flanked by the Judean Mountains on the west, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Mountains of Moab on the east, the Jordan Valley and Sea of Galilee to the north and the Negev Desert as well as the Red Sea to the south.

The human history of the Dead Sea goes all the way back to remote antiquity. Just north of the Dead Sea is Jericho, the oldest continually occupied town in the world. The Greeks knew the Dead Sea as Lake Asphaltites, due to the naturally surfacing asphalt. Aristotle wrote about the remarkable waters. The Dead Sea is also the location of the Qumran community which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. These ancient texts, preserved in sealed caves near the shore of the Dead Sea, provide remarkable insight on the religious and social beliefs of 1st-century Jews. King Herod the Great built and re-built several fortresses and palaces on the Western Bank of the Dead Sea. The most famous was Masada, where, in 66-70 AD, a small group of rebellious Jewish zealots held out against the might of the Roman Legion, and Machaerus where, it is believed John the Baptist had been imprisoned by Herod Antipas and met his death.

Credit : Sea Salt

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The Red Sea owes its name to an algae that gives a red tinge to the water. This narrow inland sea is a branch of the Indian Ocean between north east Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

The Red Sea contains some of the world’s hottest and saltiest seawater. With its connection to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal, it is one of the most heavily traveled waterways in the world, carrying maritime traffic between Europe and Asia. Its name is derived from the colour changes observed in its waters. Normally, the Red Sea is an intense blue-green; occasionally, however, it is populated by extensive blooms of the algae Trichodesmium erythraeum, which, upon dying off, turn the sea a reddish brown colour.

The Red Sea occupies part of a large rift valley in the continental crust of Africa and Arabia. This break in the crust is part of a complex rift system that includes the East African Rift System, which extends southward through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania for almost 2,200 miles and northward for more than 280 miles from the Gulf of Aqaba to form the great Wadi Aqaba–Dead Sea–Jordan Rift; the system also extends eastward for 600 miles from the southern end of the Red Sea to form the Gulf of Aden.

The Red Sea valley cuts through the Arabian-Nubian Massif, which was a continuous central mass of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks (i.e., formed deep within the Earth under heat and pressure more than 540 million years ago), the outcrops of which form the rugged mountains of the adjoining region. The massif is surrounded by these Precambrian rocks overlain by Paleozoic marine sediments (542 to 251 million years old). These sediments were affected by the folding and faulting that began late in the Paleozoic; the laying down of deposits, however, continued to occur during this time and apparently continued into the Mesozoic Era (251 to 65.5 million years ago). The Mesozoic sediments appear to surround and overlap those of the Paleozoic and are in turn surrounded by early Cenozoic sediments (i.e., between 65.5 and 55.8 million years old). In many places large remnants of Mesozoic sediments are found overlying the Precambrian rocks, suggesting that a fairly continuous cover of deposits once existed above the older massif.

Credit :  Britannica 

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Truffles are an expensive food delicacy used in the very best French pates. They look like large spongy walnuts and grow in the ground. Because they like to eat them, pigs are often used to find truffles.

The most-valued truffle in French cuisine is the Perigord (Tuber melanosporum), which is said to have first gained favour toward the end of the 15th century. It is brown or black, rounded, and covered with polygonal wartlike protrusions, having a depression at their summit; the flesh (gleba) is first white, then brown or gray, and when mature becomes black with white veins having a brown margin. The odour is well marked and pleasant. The main French truffieres (truffle grounds) are in the south, notably in Perigord and the region of Provence–Alpes–Cote d’Azur, though truffles are gathered throughout a large part of France.

The truffle industry is an important one in France, and about one-third of the gatherings are exported. The French government undertook the reforesting of many large and barren areas, for many of the best truffle regions become productive by the planting of trees, particularly oaks. Because truffles often occur at depths down to about 30 centimetres (12 inches), it is difficult to detect them unaided. Truffles, when occurring near the surface of the ground, crack it as they reach full size, and experienced gatherers can detect them. Furthermore, in the morning and evening, columns of small yellow flies may be seen hovering over a colony. Occasionally an individual is sufficiently sensitive to the scent of truffles to locate them, but truffle hunting is usually carried on with the aid of trained dogs or female pigs (which are attracted by the truffle’s scent, similar to that of male pig pheromones).

Although truffles are much desired as food, direct cultivation of truffles for commerce is difficult. Calcareous ground is dug over and acorns or seedlings planted. Soil from truffle areas is usually spread about, and the ground is kept in condition by light plowing and harrowing. After three years, clearings are made and the trees pruned. If they are to appear, truffles do so only after about five years; gathering begins then but is not very profitable until 8 or 10 years have passed. The yield is at its maximum from 5 to 25 years later.

Credit : Britannica 

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Ludwig van Beethoven, born in Bonn in 1790, was one of the world's greatest. composers. He began to lose his hearing at the age of 26, and by 1823 he was completely deaf. Beethoven never heard his nine symphonies or piano concertos, or any of his other compositions during the last ten years of his life.

Like many men of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, he suffered from a plethora of other illnesses and ailments. In Beethoven’s case, the list included chronic abdominal pain and diarrhea that might have been due to an inflammatory bowel disorder, depression, alcohol abuse, respiratory problems, joint pain, eye inflammation, and cirrhosis of the liver. This last problem, given his prodigious drinking, may have been the final domino that toppled him into the grave. Bedridden for months, he died in 1827, most likely from liver and kidney failure, peritonitis, abdominal ascites, and encephalopathy. An autopsy revealed severe cirrhosis and dilatation of the auditory and other related nerves in the ear.

A young musician named Ferdinand Hiller snipped off a lock of hair from the great composer’s head as a keepsake — a common custom at the time. The lock stayed within the Hiller family for nearly a century before somehow making its way to the tiny fishing village of Gilleleje, in Nazi-controlled Denmark and into the hands of the local physician there, Kay Fremming. The doctor helped save the lives of hundreds of Jews escaping Denmark and the Nazis for Sweden, which was about 10 miles across the Øresund Strait, the narrow channel separating the two nations. The theory is that one of these Jewish refugees, perhaps a relative of Ferdinand Hiller, either gave Dr. Fremming the lock of Beethoven’s hair or used it as a payment of some kind.

At any rate, the doctor bequeathed the lock, consisting of 582 strands, to his daughter, who subsequently put it up for auction in 1994. It was purchased by an Arizona urologist named Alfredo Guevera for about $7,000. Guevera kept 160 strands. The remaining 422 strands were donated to the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University in California.

Guevera and Ira Brilliant, a real estate developer, collector and university benefactor, then pursued the question of how Beethoven became deaf.

Credit : PBS News Hour 

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The sundial works just like the stick and the stones. People put them in their gardens or on buildings and tell the time by the moving shadow. The trouble was they didn't work in the dark!

The first device for indicating the time of day was probably the gnomon, dating from about 3500 BCE. It consisted of a vertical stick or pillar, and the length of the shadow it cast gave an indication of the time of day. By the 8th century BCE more-precise devices were in use. The earliest known sundial still preserved is an Egyptian shadow clock of green schist dating at least from this period. The shadow clock consists of a straight base with a raised crosspiece at one end. The base, on which is inscribed a scale of six time divisions, is placed in an east-west direction with the crosspiece at the east end in the morning and at the west end in the afternoon. The shadow of the crosspiece on this base indicates the time. Clocks of this kind were still in use in modern times in parts of Egypt.

Another early device was the hemispherical sundial, or hemicycle, attributed to the Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos about 280 BCE. Made of stone or wood, the instrument consisted of a cubical block into which a hemispherical opening was cut. To this block a pointer or style was fixed with one end at the centre of the hemispherical space. The path traveled by the tip of the pointer’s shadow during the day was, approximately, a circular arc. The length and position of the arc varied according to the seasons, so an appropriate number of arcs was inscribed on the internal surface of the hemisphere. Each arc was divided into 12 equal divisions, and each day, reckoned from sunrise to sunset, therefore had 12 equal intervals, or “hours.” Because the length of the day varied according to the season, these hours likewise varied in length from season to season and even from day to day and were consequently known as seasonal hours. Aristarchus’s sundial was widely used for many centuries and, according to the Arab astronomer al-Batt?n? (c. 858–929 CE), was still in use in Muslim countries during the 10th century. The Babylonian astronomer Berosus (flourished c. 290 BCE) invented a variant of this sundial by cutting away the part of the spherical surface south of the circular arc traced by the shadow tip on the longest day of the year.

Credit : Britannica 

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