Carburettor

Carburettor gives air and petrol mixture and fuel injection pump gives a spray form of diesel using a nozzle to the engine input side. When we press the accelerator, a small plate like opening allows the carburettor to draw more air from atmosphere, and also this action draws more fuel(petrol) from the fuel tank Venturi action means a fluid or gas flowing through a constricted section of a tube undergoes a decrease in pressure, so due to pressure difference fuel comes from the tank When we use the choke option in the vehicle during starting problem, it is qualitatively changing the ratio of air and fuel for easy starting during winter or cold condition of the engine.

Biodiversity

Cactus is getting attention in every continent as vital crop for increasing plant cover, carbon sequestration, livestock feeding, conserving wildlife, medicinal and cosmetic uses Goa-based National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR).

Muscle

What enables the ants to carry heavier objects is their relatively smaller body size Larger animals like humans need to put most of the muscles in use to carry their own mass. In other words, larger animals have to carry their own weight, besides the heavier objects; so they are able to carry only slightly heavier objects. Thus, ants could use more muscles to carry bigger loads than their own mass, which not only applies to ants, but also holds good for most of the insects. ^ this is because of the square cube law Ants and termites perform the same ecosystem service functions in dryland agriculture that earthworms perform in cooler and wetter areas and have a significant positive impact on crop yields in dryland agriculture

Artic vs Antarctic

Two regions, the Arctic and the Antarctica, are located around the north and the south poles of the earth, respectively. Rotation at the (Antarctic) south pole is opposite to that at (Arctic) north pole. This is manifest in the nature of wind circulation and in the water whirlpools. Also, being in the two opposite hemispheres, there exists a complementarity in the seasonal changes. Winter period at the Arctic happens to be the summer in the Antarctica and vice versa. Arctic is an ocean with frozen ice cover. It is surrounded and partly contributed by the edges of land masses, while the Antarctica is an ice covered land mass

(continent) surrounded by oceans. This leads to differences in the temperature patterns in the two regions. Much of arctic zone is surrounded by relatively warmer ocean water with minimum temperature above -2 degree Celsius. In the Antarctica the interior regions do not benefit from the moderating influence of the ocean waters.

Radioactive food

Brazil nut is probably the most radioactive food. Scientists have measured 700Bq of radium per kg of Brazil nut. Roots of the Brazil nut tree pass through acres of land; They have a tendency to concentrate barium; along with barium, the roots collect radium as well. Radium appears in the nuts. Many vegetables like brinjal, carrot etc. Also contain the radioactive isotope

Bats n bees

Fruit bats use biosonar to =see' their surroundings Wet bat needs more energy to fly because damp fur provides less protection than when dry. Wet fur also affects the bat's aerodynamics, which in turn also costs energy Raindrops affected the bat's echo-finding capability. India ranks second to China in the global map in vegetable production Average beehive produces as much as 45-50 kg of bee dung a year, neatly deposited around the beehive as high nitrogenous manure. ?When it rains, this pollen dung gets washed into the soil, breaks down and provides an excellent natural fertilizer. Hence, to a farmer rearing bees in a field to pollinate the crop, he gets an additional bonus in the form of manure Bionic eye =A microchip packed with 1,500 light sensors is implanted to the back of the eye. Sensors convert light to electrical signals, which stimulate nerves in the retina to pass down signals to optic nerve which would gap into the brain to form an image. Blue Brain Project =Blue here symbolizing supercomputers. Project aims to build brain models.

Evaporation

Evaporation is the physical process by which molecules of a liquid leave the liquid surface into the vapour phase. This takes place at all temperatures Evaporation rate is proportional to the area of the exposed surface. Hence, in large water bodies like ponds, lakes and oceans, the amount of water transforming into vapour phase is considerably large even at ambient temperatures, This water vapour which saturates the air just above the water body, gets swept Away by wind which replaces the saturated air by fresh air containing less of water vapour. And, water vapour is lighter than the air and so, the water vapour floats up.

This leads to further evaporation of water from the water body. Accumulation of water vapour forms the cloud mass.

Hydrogen fuel

Hydrogen makes a great fuel because of it can easily be converted to electricity in a fuel cell and because it is carbon free. Downside of hydrogen is that, because it is a gas, it can only be stored in high Pressure or cryogenic tanks. Biofortification = effort to increase the amounts of available micronutrients in staple crops such as cassava NASA's Cassini spacecraft studying Saturn planet.

Mobile switched off in airplane

At high altitudes, the pilots have to largely depend on the avionics and computerassisted coded signal communications. All the wireless signal trafficking is accomplished by modulated radio and microwave transmissions which type the cell phones also owe their functioning to. If there are any mobile phones on board in the cabin of the flight in = on' mode during takeoff, flight and landing, the microwave transmission between the mobile phone towers and the mobile phones might interfere with the communications the flights are busily engaged in (between the cockpit and the control towers). Thats why we are asked to switch off our mobile or keep in flight mode when we are travelling in a flight. Anyway, the cell phones cannot serve as phones on board the flights because the cell phone towers on the ground cannot connect themselves to the phones at such high altitudes and such high flight speeds. Nanopatch, having 20,000 micro projections per square centimetre, is designed to directly place vaccine into the human skin, which is rich in immune cells. And unlike the needle and syringe, which places vaccine into the muscle which has very few immune cells In 2003, China became the third country to send an astronaut into space on its own, four decades after the United States and Russia. China plans to send a drilling machine on board its fifth lunar probe, Chang'e-5, in 2017 to drill the moon surface deep and bring back rock samples to the earth Primary function of the clutch is to disconnect the engine from the remaining parts of the power transmission system at the will of the driver by the use of a suitable lever thereby permitting the engine to run without driving the vehicl We start the vehicle from a stand-still position, the force that the engine has to overcome to get the vehicle moving is the friction between the tyres and the road surface and it is proportional to the weight of the vehicle and the contact surface area of the tyres. To get the vehicle moving, the driver engages the clutch and then shifts to the primary gear whose gear ratio is such that when engaged, the final drive moves at a considerably lesser speed when compared to the engine. Lovejoy =recently discovered Comet.

Indian poultry breed, called Kadaknath is native to Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh. Breed is famous for its black meat known for its quality, texture and flavour. An attempt was therefore made for conservation and promotion of this high value Indian poultry race under National Agriculture Innovation Project (NAIP) Computed tomography (CT) as the best way to detect cocaine in the body of a =mule.'

Probiotics, prebiotics

We call these organisms, and/or their molecules, as probiotics and prebiotics. The microbes are called probiotics, and the indigestible (to us) material that they feed on is the prebiotic. Prebiotics are nonliving material such as starch or husk, while probiotics are live organisms. (And biotic means relating to, produced by, or caused by living organisms). Without them, we cannot make some essential nutrients such as vitamin K, or metabolize bile acids, cholesterol and some short chain fatty acids. They also help us in fighting pathogenic bacteria and viruses a case of internal colonizers acting as defending soldiers against alien invaders.

E.Coli

Escherichia coli, a bacterium that is found in the gut, spreads easily through faecal contamination of food and water. It is a common cause of urinary infections, and can also produce pneumonia and life-threatening bloodstream infections in hospitalised patients Disease-causing strains of E. Coli, K. Pneumoniae and other Gram-negative bacteria have emerged with special genes that produce enzymes and make the bacteria immune to the effects of a wide range of antibiotics. (related: TB resistance and DOTs) NASA's Dawn spacecraft To study the asteroid Vesta.

Diesel engine

Why do diesel internal combustion engines require no spark plug to ignite the fuel unlike petrol engines? Spark plugs are used in the petrol engines to ignite the air fuel mixture whereas in diesel engines the presence of spark plugs is not necessary. Technically petrol engines are Called as spark ignition engines ( SI ) and diesel engines are called as compression ignition engines (CI ) In SI engines air and fuel (petrol) get mixed in the carburettor and then it is supplied to the engine through inlet manifold, then the air fuel mixture is compressed inside the cylinder. At the end of compression the spark is ignited and then combustion takes place The air from the atmosphere is sucked into the cylinder of the engine and then the air is compressed to high pressure which eventually leads to the increase of temperature, so when the diesel is supplied at end of compression stroke, the temperature developed is more enough to ignite the diesel, this makes the fuel to

burn and then expansion of gases takes place from where the power stroke is obtained. In petrol engines spark plugs will be present but in the case of diesel engines fuel pump will be present.

Dish TV

During rains, the TV programs telecast by dish TV providers are disrupted or blocked. Why? Loss or weakening of satellite signal during bad weather is called =rain fade' or =rain attenuation.' Rain fade occurs due to the presence of moisture in the air between the transmitting satellite and the receiver site. Moisture interferes with the satellite signal. The raindrops weaken the transmission by absorbing and scattering the electromagnetic signals. Earlier satellite television was broadcast in C-band radio in the 3.4-gigahertz (ghz) to 7-ghz frequency range. Currently, digital satellite TV is transmitted in the Ku frequency range (10 ghz to 14 ghz ) Longer wavelengths of C-band are less susceptible to rain attenuation than the shorter Ku and Ka wavelengths. Destructive tsunami generated by the March 2011 Japan earthquake was a =merging tsunami' that doubled in intensity over rugged ocean ridges, amplifying its destructive power before reaching shore.

Euthanasia

Assisted dying or assisted suicide is not illegal in Switzerland Other countries excluding Switzerland have legalised assisted dying Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Epigenetic memory enables plants to remember the length of the cold winter period in order to time flowering so that pollination, seed dispersal and germination can all happen at the appropriate time. Radiation typically kills many bone marrow cells, which can lead to a compromised immune system in patients, leaving them vulnerable to infections and other health problems. Hibernating animals provide good example for utilizing fat reserve as fuel. For instance, polar bears go on hibernation for about seven months and, during this entire period, the energy is derived from the degradation of stored fat. Fats can also support the body's energy needs for long periods of food deprivation.

Burning flame

All fuels get oxidised by burning; but, all oxidation reactions do not constitute burning. Flame is quite an accidental feature. Thus, iron burning in oxygen gives no perceptible flame. The intense light is due to the incandescent solid. On the other hand, phosphorus, sulphur, wax, etc., burn with a flame because these solids are volatilized at the temperature of combustion.

The colour of the flame depends upon the material undergoing the reaction and the temperature.

Gagan

GPS aided geo augmented navigation' (gagan), a joint effort by the indian space research organisation and the airports authority of india. To help pilots land their aircraft in bad weather and poor visibility, several airports in the country are equipped with ground-based instrument landing systems (ils). When two strains of bird flu infect the same host, they can readily swap genes, a process known as reassortment. The 2009 h1n1 pandemic virus was itself a triple reassortant, with its genes drawn from bird, human and animal strains. This mix of genes created a virus that readily infected humans, was easily transmitted from one person to another, and to which most people had no immunity.

Nasa's glory spacecraft

Data from the glory mission will allow scientists to better understand how the sun and tiny atmospheric particles called aerosols affect earth's climate. The taurus xl also carries the first of nasa's educational launch of nanosatellite missions. This auxiliary payload contains three small satellites called cubesats, which were designed and created by university and college students.

Graphene

The world's thinnest and toughest material, could spur the development of next generation computer chips, besides revolutionising materials science. Its amazing properties open the way to bendable touch screen phones and computers, lighter aircraft, paper thin hd tv sets and lightning-quick net connections, and more. Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms, whose discoverers shared the 2010 nobel prize for physics for work on the material. Why does graphite conduct electricity but diamond doesn't, though both are made of carbon? Whether a substance is an electrical conductor or not is not decided by the type of atoms or the kind of element or compound alone but is by the way the atoms of an element or molecules of a compound are joined together to form a condensed matter (liquids and solids). Such a formation should allow passage of electrons from one end to the other Haemoglobin a1c (hba1c) test has become the preferred way to diagnose diabetes among the millions of americans who have diabetes but show no symptoms. The simple test measures longer -term blood sugar levels without requiring patients to fast overnight.

Heartbeats

As a general rule a heart rate between 60 and 100 is considered normal. The heart is a pump. It pumps blood into the system at about 72 times pm. In other words to keep the system adequately supplied with blood, the heart has to work around 72 times a minute. Heart has two sides, the right and the left. The right side pumps blood to the lungs and the left side to the various parts of the body through the aorta, the largest artery. The output of the heart per minute is called the cardiac output (co). Co = sv x hr and is about 5 litres per minute in a resting man. That is, when at rest, about 5 litres of blood is necessary and enough every minute. The demand for blood will naturally rise in an exercising man. In an exercising man the heart beats at a higher rate, with more force and deals with more blood than in a resting man. As a result the heart becomes stronger and increased in efficiency. In course of time it learns to pump more blood per beat; that is the stroke volume increases. Such a heart can pump 5 litres of blood in less number of beats. Thus, in the case of an athlete the heart is able meet the target with less number of beats per minute. What a non-athlete's heart achieves with 72 beats an athlete's heart can manage with 60 beats. In comparison to a non-athlete, an athlete's heart may beat at a slower rate by virtue of his emotional stability. But as the stroke volume is more, it will not affect the blood supply to the system

Robot

Honda's human-shaped robot can now run faster Asimo, first shown in 2000, had been of little practical use so far, proving to be nothing more than a glorified toy and cute showcase for the honda motor co. Brand Asimo's technology was used to develop a robotic arm in just six months with the intention of helping with the nuclear crisis in northeastern japan. The mechanical arm can open and close valves at fukushima dai -ichi nuclear power plant, which went into meltdown after the march tsunami, according to honda.

Bee colony

Have a single queen (fertile female), few hundreds of drones (males) and thousands of worker bees (unfertile female). Worker bees, three weeks after emergence, visit flowers. During this visit, the entire body of bees gets smeared with pollen. Apart from pollen, bees collect nectar from flowers and store them in their stomach (crop). Honeybee stomach is technically called crop Bees, when they return to hive, vomit (regurgitate) the stomach contents into the comb cells meant for that How best to measure a kilogram At present, this unit is defined by a lump of platinum cast in 1879 and located in a safe at the office of the international committee on weights and measures in paris.

Before 1889, the metre was judged to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the north pole. Icelands capital city is reykjavik.

Supercomputer

Fastest supercomputer with a computing speed of 2.7 petaflops is said to be in china. Petaflop is 1,000 trillion sustained floating-point operations per second. One exaflop is 1,000 times faster than a petaflop performing 1 million trillion calculations per second. Maitri, india's second permanent research station on the antarctica

Stem cell

Usa -in several states, abortion is illegal. Indeed the issue of a woman's right to abortion went all the way up to the nation's supreme court in the year 1973, and its landmark judgment gave a woman the right to terminate her pregnancy in the first trimester as a constitutional right. The unborn child is not legally classified as a person; the u.s. Supreme court also noted then that if the personhood of the preborn is established, then the case for the right to abortion collapses, because the foetus's right to life is then guaranteed specifically in the constitution. The debate thus turns to the issue of is a foetus a person. George w. Bush stopped the u.s. Federal government funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, on the ground that since it can give rise to a human, we should not be tinkering with it, since that would be equivalent to man playing god What then is a person? French thinker rene descartes insisted on thinking or cognition as a must, stating je pense donc je suis (or cogito ergo sum in latin, or i think, therefore i am in english).

Earthquakes

New zealand sits on the pacific ring of fire', a vast zone of seismic and volcanic activity stretching from chile on one side to japan and indonesia on the other. Wellington has always been considered much more at risk because it straddles the plate boundary. A place called l'aquila in italy, which suffered an earthquake on april 5, 2009, causing large scale damage to property Astrono mical units (au, the distance from the sun to earth)

Power project

Koodunkulam to add 2000 mwe to grid of the 2000 mwe power to be generated by kudankulam nuclear power project units 1 and 2, the allocation of power to tamil nadu is 925 mwe. State's industrialisation plans will be hit if project is reversed

Microwave

When we heat a cup of water in a microwave oven why is the upper part hotter than the lower part? Substances, with polar molecules such as water, alcohols, oils, etc, absorb microwave radiation to elevate the rotational movements of their molecules. When foodstuffs to be cooked by microwave oven are kept in this kind of kettle, the majori ty of the microwave power reaches the water and tends to hasten the molecular rotations When we heat a cup of water alone in a microwave oven, the water gets all the microwave energy and becomes hot. But the upper part of the water is hotter than the lo wer part because Hot water moves to upper regions of the container because its density is less than normal water's. Therefore, as and when water is getting heated, the hot water moves upward due to lower density through convection As the cup of water kept in microwave oven is hardly stirred, the temperature gradient is more obvious. It is by the combined effect of uneven distribution of microwave energy and differential densities of hot and cold water that the upper part is hotter than the lower part when we heat a cup of water in a microwave oven.

CRT monitor flickering

Why does a crt monitor flicker when shot with a digital camera? Working of crt is based on a principle called scintillation. In simple words, scintillation is the process by which some atoms emit light when they are excited by ionized or charged particles (typically electrons) In a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, there are 1024 x 768 = 7,86,432 electrons involved to display one static flash of image. When a camera snaps a picture (or covers a video) there may be some particles which do not emit light during the short time gap when the shutter opens and closes (in videos between intervals when light is sampled, called as frame rate). This causes loss of light in those areas or pixels, which we refer to as flickering

Moon ownership

1967 outer space treaty makes it clear that the lunar surface has no owner. Nasa is expected to come up with a set of recommendations for spacecraft and astronauts visiting the u.s. Government property on the moon. Despite the lack of ownership, nasa is hopeful that other countries will respect the u.s. Sentiments. Incidentally, the restriction list contains more than the historical sites. For instance, the list includes studying discarded food and abandoned astronaut faeces. For example, studying the discarded food will reveal the viability of bacteria on the moon and, if present, how they have mutated and survived after years of exposure to solar radiation.

Nanotech for water filtering

Both water molecules and bugs are so tiny that they are measured by the nanometre, 100,000 times thinner than a human hair.but at the microscopic level, the two actually differ greatly in size. A single water molecule is less than a nanometre wide, while some of the littlest bugs are 200 nanometres. New nanotechnology is likely to make drinking water a lot more safer and keep infections at bay by filtering out deadly bugs at the source. Nanomembrane containing pores about 55 nm wide, large enough for water to slip through, but too small for bacteria

NICRA

National initiative on climate resilient agriculture (nicra) project was launched Nicra has been promoted in the xi five year plan by icar This project is being implemented in 100 districts in india The project aims to enhance the resilience of agriculture Manually operated weather station to record daily rainfall, minimum and maximum temperature, relative humidity and wind speed. Stocking of fish fry in temporary water ponds. Artificial insemination centre for cows and buffaloes. Improved water harvesting structure

Ndm-1

Gram-negative bacterial strains with ndm-1 (new delhi metallo-beta-lactamase1) gene, also called the superbug, The lancet infectious diseases journal. The ndm-1 gene enables gram-negative bacterial strains to become resistant to carbapenem, a powerful antibiotic. People living in the northern hemisphere have bigger brains than those staying near the equator, says a study This is because living in low light conditions means the eyes and brain need to work harder in order to process images to a good level of detail, or high resolution As you move away from equator, there's less light available, so humans have had to evolve bigger and bigger eyes. Their brains also need to be bigger to deal with the extra visual input. Having bigger brains doesn't mean that they are smarter, it just means they need bigger brains to see well where they live,

Emu

A flightless bird, is also the largest bird in Australia and the second largest in the world after its distant cousin, the ostrich. Emu oil estimated to be highly medicinal is gaining its popularity in the pharmaceutical industry and is priced around Rs 4,500 per litre. It has zero percent cholesterol. It is being farmed in different countries and also in India. Emu farming, or golden farming' as it is popularly known in Orissa.

Plastic bottle

In the case of the plastic bottle, when hot water is poured, the molecules of the polymer get sufficient energy to overcome the barriers between the existing structure and more relaxed structure and hence the material of the bottle relaxes to the new more compact structure. Hence They are seen to contract as a response to application of heat as by pouring hot water on or into them.

China space program

Chinese astronauts remained in space so far was 115.5 hours, or nearly five days, during the mission of Shenzhou VI in 2005. China will build a space station in 10 years and will probably carry out manned explorations of deep space in the future

3D glasses

Why do we use only red, blue and green colours in 3D glasses? It is possible to produce any colour just by mixing/ controlling the relative intensities of these three colors. Hence these three colours are called primary colours 3D glasses make use any two of these primary colors ( blue, green and red) one for each eye as the intensity of the third colour can be inferred from difference between total light and the sum of intensities of these two colours to get the complete information on colour of the object or image to be seen through the 3D glass.

Malaria drug resistance

Artemisin and its derivatives have saved countless lives after the single-celled parasite, Plasmodium falciparum , that causes the most dangerous forms of the disease became resistant to the drug chloroquine. However, strains that are resistant to even artemisinin have emerged in parts of South-East Asia and could potentially spread, as has happened with earlier antimalarial drugs. India's Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) initiated action earlier this year to stop the production and export of these drugs. Exposure of malaria parasites to suboptimal doses of artemisinin is a primary cause of the spread of resistance Although oral artemisinin-based monotherapies could be effective when taken for the full seven-day course, patients often stopped taking them after just a few days when the symptoms generally subsided. Parasites that were sensitive to the drug could get eliminated, allowing drug-resistant strains to proliferate and get transmitted to other people To prevent that from happening, the global health agency recommends that artemisinin be given in combination with another drug. Such artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) should, it says, be first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria caused by P. Falciparum Oral artemisinin monotherapy is banned in India, according to the Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment of Malaria in India' published in 2010 by the

National Institute of Malaria Research in Delhi and the Union Health Ministry's National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme. This year, DCGI wrote to all State Drugs Controllers requesting them to cancel licenses to manufacture oral artemisinin-based monotherapies with immediate effect. The manufacturing of such monotherapies for export should also be stopped.

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C18)

It put four satellites in orbit, The satellites were: Megha-Tropiques, an IndoFrench mission to study the weather and climate in the tropical regions of the world; srmsat, built by students of SRM University, near Chennai; Jugnu, put together by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur students; and vesselsat from Luxembourg. Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram

Empty mug

Not only is it hard to pull out any empty mug completely immersed upside down in water but also it is harder to push an empty mug upside down into water.The latter difficulty is mainly due to the buoyancy, the air sac, captured inside the mug However, when we try to pull out the same empty mug or the mug already drowned, in an upside manner, we experience certain difficulty of pulling it out. This difficulty stems from a different cause and owes to the surface tension phenomenon of liquids Amount of force required to open apart one unit length of the liquid's surface is defined as the surface tension of the liquid. Its value is unique to the liquid and is highly sensitive to the temperature, pressure and purity of the liquid. Fathers of radiation genetics, Hermann Muller, was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in medicine for his discovery that X-rays induce genetic mutations. This helped him call attention to his long-time concern over the dangers of atomic testing. Environmental toxicologist Edward Calabrese, whose career research shows that low doses of some chemicals and radiation are benign or even helpful, says he has uncovered evidence that Muller knowingly lied when he claimed in 1946 that there is no safe level of radiation exposure

Heat of Earths crust

Radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth's crust and mantle is a principal source of earth's heat some 44 trillion watts that continually flows from Earth's interior into space

RTIS

Real-time train information system (RTIS) for a dozen important trains through which passengers can access the accurate train running information.

The facility will not only be available to passengers on these trains but also to the public who are accessing the website http:/www.simran.in, and through SMS from railway enquiry number 139. Passengers will be provided with the information about the location of the train, its running position on time or late, next stop, nearest approaching/crossed station and the speed. The Railways intends to provide this facility in all passenger and freight trains by December 2012.

Food heating

Eating reheated cooked food and taking left over/preserved food are not good for health? The raw materials such as rice, pulses, fats etc are in such chemical architecture that we cannot assimilate. That is why, by cooking process, they are chemically converted into smaller molecules that can further be managed by our digestive system, from mouth to intestines, through a series of enzymatic processes (mostly hydrolysis). If the cooked food is left out for a while, a host of microorganisms invade the food stuff and work on the molecules in their own physiological ways because the cooked food stuff is now in a bio-manageable molecular status. These microorganisms leave their own chemical signature on the food stuffs over time. If such a type of food is reheated, not only are the useful remains are warmed or further hydrolyzed but the microorganisms themselves and the chemicals they have excreted are also heated and chemically processed. These alien chemical and biological entities are likely to generate poisonous molecules upon reheating. Similarly, food stuffs, left for long, are also likely to be contaminated by the invisible microorganisms along with their excreta during their regime on this food. Thus, a leftover/preserved food is also a source of possible poisonous content. It is not true that all the processed foods undergo infections by pathogenic organisms. It all depends on what type of natural preservatives are added, like tamarind, salt, oil, sugar etc All foods which are used in our set up, might have been refrigerated, and hence the bacterial growth is inhibited. We should heat the canned foods above 60-70 degree C, so that the toxins are destroyed.

Gecko robot

The adhesive pads on geckos follow this same principle by utilising a large number of fibres, each with a very small tip. The more fibres a gecko has in contact, the greater attachment force it has on a surface Wall-climbing robots could be used to clean windows, inspect buildings, crawl up pipes and help in search-and-rescue operations Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) played a key role in the shift in the global climate that began about 38 million years ago. Early ACC was vital to the formation of modern ocean structure.

Sky color

When the sun's rays enter the atmosphere they collide with particles and gases in the atmosphere. Shorter wavelengths, like blue and violet, scatter a lot more than long ones when particles are relatively small. Under these conditions, scattered light also tends to disperse equally in all directions, which is why the sky appears so saturated with blue color. Sky's color can change based on dust, pollution and water vapor, which affect the absorption and scattering of sunlight differently. Reddish tinge of sunsets is due mostly to the fact that the sunlight travels through more atmosphere to reach our eyes.

Snake movement

Unlike mammals which primarily use their legs, snakes and reptiles tend to use their bodies and spine as a major part of locomotion Snake alternately tightens and relaxes a set of muscles along each side of its body to produce horizontal waves that travel down the body

ISRO

ISRO) is drawing up plans to develop the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota into a centre for assembling satellites and rockets in the near future. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad ISRO and INCOIS were working together in the area of environment and climate monitoring

Twinkling stars

Why do stars twinkle? Why does light from planets not twinkle? Little pockets of air that have different density, temperature, humidity etc. Than the surrounding air. The density contrast causes refraction, and as different cells move in and out of your line of sight, This movement is seen as twinkling by the eyes; if you take a photograph over several minutes, as astronomers often do, then the image becomes blurred. Why don't planets twinkle? This is because, even though they may look point-like to naked eyes, they are actually much bigger than the typical seeing. This means that you observe the combination of light which has passed through different atmospheric cells. Thus, the turbulent effects are averaged out, making the planets look steady.

Vit.D

How does exposure to sun help to produce Vitamin-D in humans? Vitamin D, a fat soluble vitamin Ergocalciferol is designated as vitamin D {-2} and cholecalciferol also as vitamin D {-3}. Humans make 90 per cent of their vitamin D naturally from sunlight exposure to their skin specifically, from ultraviolet B exposure to the skin, which naturally initiates the conversion of cholesterol in the skin to vitamin D { -3}.

In contrast, sun exposure to the skin makes thousands of units of vitamin D naturally in a relatively short period of time. Therefore Vitamin D is regarded as Sun Shine Vitamin.

Swollen face

When we wake up after a sound sleep our face (lips, eyelids) are swollen. Why? During sleep , all these movements are absent, no facial movements , no lip movement, no blinking etc, hence the so called muscle pumps are totally absent. If the sleep time is prolonged beyond certain limit, the venous engorgement due to slow respiration with slow suction, and lack of muscle pumps swell the interstitial space and cells, underneath the skin, resulting in accumulation of fluids, which create a swollen eyes and lips.

Food ripening

A simple technology practiced in households to trigger ripening is to keep unripened and ripened fruits together inside an air tight container. Since the already ripened fruits release ethylene, ripening will be faster. Another method is to place the fruits intended for ripening inside an air tight room and induce ripening through smoking inside smoke chambers. Smoking chamber Smoke emanates acetylene gas. Several fruit traders follow this technique to achieve uniform ripening especially in banana and mango Some farmers dip unripe mature fruits in 0.1 per cent ethrel solution (1 ml of ethrel solution in 1 litre of water) and wipe it dry. Fruits ripened using calcium carbide are carcinogenic and should not be consumed. Traders use calcium carbide that emits acetylene gas Chikungunya is primarily spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito

Tubelight vs CFL

Why does a tube light not glow immediately on switching on like a CFL bulb? Both the tube lights and the cfls work by the same principle. These lamps consist of a fluorescent phosphor coated glass tube filled with a mixture of the inert gas argon and mercury vapour. Gas is excited by the energetic electrons emitted from the cathodes provided at the ends of the tube. These excited gas atoms interact with the phosphor material coated on the walls and we receive the light from this glowing phosphor material. Initiation of the gas excitation is accomplished by extracting electrons from a heated cathode, by using an instantaneous high voltage pulse generated by a ballast circuit These features of the ballast circuit often require more than one attempt for the gaseous excitation. This leads to slower start and start-up flickering of the tube lights.

Lab meat

Churchill's chicken-based comment, was in the 1930s: 50 years hence, we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.? Well, Churchill's prediction might come true in a few years hence. Researchers are applying the technique of cell and tissue engineering to grow edible meat in the laboratory, or in vitro. Why would anyone want to grow meat in the lab? Because we need to grow crops to feed livestock, which alone takes up 26 per cent of the available area and equally substantial water. And livestock contributes 18 per cent to global warming. Plus, to paraphrase what Churchill said, animals are not efficient protein factories; much of what we eat as meat is proteins (muscle). Why then not grow meat in the lab and save space, water and reduce global warming?

Wet wood

More smoke is produced when wet wood burns. Why? There are four stages (sequences) of fire: incipient, smouldering, flame and heat. Initially, the wood is to be ignited (lit) by an external heat source, say, a match. When the wood reaches a temperature of about 150 degrees C, the cellulosic material starts decomposing ( thermal decomposition and degradation). There is no visible smoke, flame or significant development of heat. However, a large number of combustible particles are produced. This constitutes the incipient stage. As this stage continues, the combustible particles increase until they become visible a condition called smoke. Smoke is made up of compounds of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. But, no flame or significant heat develops at this stage also. This is the smouldering stage. As the fire condition develops further, ignition occurs and flame starts at about 500 degrees C. The level of visible smoke decreases and the heat level increases. This is the flame stage. Finally, large amounts of heat, flame, smoke and toxic gases are produced. This constitutes the heat stage Wood is a hygroscopic material. That is, it tends to absorb moisture from the air. Normally, it contains about eight per cent of water. In the case of wet wood, a very high proportion of heat is taken away as the latent heat of evaporation. Therefore, there will be a hindrance for reaching even the third stage, let alone the fourth one. However, the second (smouldering) stage continues without any hindrance. Accordingly, more smoke is produced when wet wood burns.

International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO)

Hydrography impinges on every activity at the sea, the most important being provision of nautical charts and publications for worldwide navigational safety with 24 X 7 updating service under the IMO /IHO/UN Conventions. Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers. It also seeks to provide prediction of their change over time, for the primary purpose of safety of navigation and in support of all other marine activities