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A rare find in Madagascar
PROF YASH PAL This Universe How do the astronomers and scientists distinguish between different galaxies in the universe? Prof Yash Pal |
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Bhabha’s dream comes true Scientists and engineers in the Heavy Water Board (HWB), Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) have every reason to be proud. They fulfilled the dreams of Dr Homi Bhabha whose death anniversary was on January 24. The Board exported heavy water to South Korea seven times and once to China. Last year, HWB supplied 4,400 kg of high quality, nuclear grade heavy water to Spectra Gases Inc. USA. HWB is emerging as a major exporter of this commercially important strategic material.
A peep into history is in order. In a note on the organisation of atomic energy research in India, sent to Jawaharlal Nehru on April 26, 1948, Dr Homi Bhabha wanted that the government “should explore immediately the possibility of utilising the cheap hydroelectric power in India for manufacturing heavy water on the one hand to our own requirements in a pile and on the other for sale to other countries”. He desired that the government should come to an agreement with the Governments or atomic energy agencies of one or more countries such as Great Britain, France and Norway. “…that was the quickest and the most desirable way to develop atomic energy in India” he argued Why did he bracket Norway with France and Great Britain? He knew that Norway had the knowhow to produce heavy water, an essential raw material to produce atomic energy. In 1942, Norway was producing 1.5 tons of heavy water annually at its Rjukan plant. (Smart Norwegian saboteurs damaged the plant in 1943;They did not want Germans to get any advantage. The old hydro power station and plant have been preserved as the monument of Norway’s heavy water industry.) The “factory should be set up for the purpose under the Defence Ministry and put under the same security measures as the armaments factories of that Ministry”. Bhabha drove home the strategic importance of heavy water. He wanted that “the heavy water produced should be at the disposal of the Atomic Energy Commission for use or sale”. Bhabha wanted to thwart a possible future turf war with the army! At the second meeting of the Board of Research on Atomic Energy held in Bombay on 9th and 10th April 1948, Bhabha secured approval for three resolutions; one of which recommended that the government should investigate the feasibility of producing heavy water in India. In the note enclosing the resolutions, Bhabha proposed to Nehru the setting up of a three Member Atomic Energy Commission directly under the Prime Minister as “the present Board……..cannot be entrusted with this work since it is an advisory body…….composed of 28 members including officials, scientists and industrialists”. “Secret matters cannot be dealt with under this organisation”, Bhabha asserted. In 1954, Dr Bhabha convinced Nehru about setting up a fertiliser cum heavy water plant at Nangal. He argued that cheap electric power (1.35 paisa per kilowatt-hr, revised later to 6 paisa per kilowatt-hr!) will be available from the Bhakra-Nangal Hydel Project. Nangal plant produced the first drop of heavy water on August 9, 1962. Nangal plant was the largest plant of this type in the world. Bhabha waited for over 14 years (from April 1948 to August 1962) to realise his dream to produce heavy water indigenously. The Heavy Water Board executed the first export order to South Korea in May 1998, just under 36 years later. If Dr Bhabha were alive today, he would have congratulated the board for its achievements. He might have also expressed his dissatisfaction, as it took too long to fulfill his dream. HWB faced many trials and tribulations (the difficulties in operating heavy water plants with fertiliser factories, power scarcity, export controls, poor national industrial infrastructure among others) in mastering a technology known only to a handful of advanced countries. HWS has an impressive list of achievements, including energy conservation measures, maintenance of high capacity factors for the plants and product diversification among others. The board kept the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited in good humour by supplying heavy water to the pressurised heavy water reactors in the country. Overall, the board lives up to the expectations of Dr Bhabha,the architect of nuclear India. Dr K.S.Parthasarathy is former Secretary, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board.
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A rare find in Madagascar They had seen the same tree on an outing a year earlier, when it was not in bloom, and had presumed it to be a species common to that region. But the enormous floral display — literally dripping with nectar and teeming with insects and birds — convinced them on that day in 2006 that they were witnessing something rare. Adding to their sense of awe was what they found on follow-up visits: Having thrown itself so completely into that spectacle of reproductive ardor, the huge tree soon collapsed in a depleted heap and died. Now, scientists have confirmed just how unusual that tree was, and how rare are the 92 surviving specimens that have since been found. The palm, which researchers say essentially “flowers itself to death,” is not only a new species. It has forced palm biologists to invent an entirely new genus to accommodate it. That is an almost unheard of event in modern palm tree classification, but one made necessary by its many unique traits and by DNA testing suggesting the tree has been evolving independently of other palms for millions of years. “For botanists, it’s equivalent to finding a large mammal, or a new kind of elephant even, in some unexpected place,” said William Baker, a palm biologist at Kew Gardens in London, which has been a key player in bringing the weird tree to scientific light. The discovery, documented in the Jan. 17 issue of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, is bringing new attention to palms, an ancient and biologically peculiar family of flowering plants. It is also helping to highlight the predicament Madagascar faces as population growth, poverty and poor land management conspire to destroy the last vestiges of that island’s ecological magnificence. “So much of Madagascar’s landscape is absolutely shattered by human activity,” said Scott Zona, a palm biologist at Florida International University in Miami. “These palms were growing at the base of a little hill, nestled in a ravine, and were protected from the fires and cultivation that have been going on there. The area is all rice paddy now but was probably a forest that was full of this palm.” An estimated 90 per cent of Madagascar’s 10,000 plant species are found nowhere else in the world. Yet a mere 18 per cent of the island nation’s native vegetation remains undisturbed by human activity.
— La Times-Washington Post |
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Trends Japanese researchers have implanted a small camera inside a mouse’s brain to see how memory is formed, in an experiment they hope to some day apply to humans to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease. The study, published in the “Journal of Neuroscience Methods” and “Sensors and Actuators”, used a camera 3 mm (0.1 inch) long, 2.3 mm wide and 2.4 mm in depth, said Jun Ohta, professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology in western Japan.
— Reuters
Mercury is shrinking The first pictures from the unseen side of Mercury reveal the wrinkles of a shrinking, aging planet with scars from volcanic eruptions and a birthmark shaped like a spider. Some of the 1,213 photos taken by NASA’s Messenger probe and unveiled Wednesday help support the case that ancient volcanoes dot Mercury and that it is shrinking as it gets older, forming wrinkle-like ridges.
But other images are surprising and puzzling. The spidery shape captured in a photo is “unlike anything we’ve seen anywhere in the solar system,” said mission chief scientist Sean Solomon of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The image shows what looks like a large crater with faint lines radiating out from it.
— AP
DNA does the work Using DNA, the blueprint of life, U.S. researchers said they have made a three-dimensional structure from particles of gold in a development that could lead to a host of custom-designed materials. The technique helps solve a basic problem in nanoscience: getting impossibly small particles to assemble themselves according to a
predetermined design. — Reuters |
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PROF YASH PAL How do the astronomers and
scientists distinguish between different galaxies in the universe? Distant galaxies are very far away. In order to see them or detect them we have to use rather large telescopes. A large telescope has a lens that can have a diameter of several meters. Shortest distance at which two objects can be seen separate is called the resolution of the telescope. This resolution depends on the diameter of the lens - larger the diameter smaller is the angular distance at which two stars can be seen as separate. Also a large diameter of the lens allows more light to be gathered. That is how the galaxies are seen. They can be separated from each other and their detailed structures can be studied. We use different types of telescopes in astronomy. They are not only to observe the universe in visible light we are familiar with but also in other “colours” ranging from radio-waves on one side to infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays and high energy cosmic rays. Each of these measurements gives different information about the character of the astronomical objects. The instruments used behind the telescopes also vary depending on what we want to find out. Much analysis and calculation is also involved. For this we use the science and mathematics we have already learnt and a lot that has to be newly developed. It is found that the universe speaks to us through different windows of radiation. The information obtained from these windows is complimentary.
I have mentioned that telescope lenses can have a diameter of several meters. For radio waves one can effectively use diameters that are hundreds of kilometers, by combining several telescopes spread around the world. There are proposals for telescopes on the moon and spread around in earth orbit working in concert. Just to remind ourselves of the difference between naked eye observation and that through a large telescope we have to remember that our eyes have a pupil diameter of a millimeter or two as compared to lens diameters of many metres, and more, for modern telescopes. The ability of such telescopes to resolve very close objects is often degraded by density fluctuations in the atmosphere. That is why the best telescopes are set up at high altitudes and now out in space. How is our earth hanging in the vastness of space? What keeps it in its place? The earth should not be seen as hanging in a place. It is moving. It is moving but it is subject to the forces of the sun and the other planets. The attraction of the sun is balanced by the centrifugal force of its movement. While the earth is not a prisoner kept in chains, it cannot be playful and run around like a child. Only those forces can slow it down that oppose its motion. These are mild forces of distant planets or the tidal forces of the sun. Without these forces it would go on moving without requiring any propulsion engines. We need to get away from earthly notion that something that is not supported by pillars or chains is hanging and wants to fall down somewhere.
There is no down except in the direction of the net force. Also we should remember that once something is moving with respect to someone elsewhere, that someone has no right to claim that it is truly at rest. Motion is relative. Furthermore the laws that apply in any frame of reference are equally valid in another frame moving at uniform motion with respect to the first frame. We know this is valid when we pour tea in a fast moving jet plane - the tea falls into the cup using the same skills we use at home. |
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Mercury is shrinking
It started as a simple family picnic in the outback of Madagascar, off Africa’s southeast coast. Xavier and Nathalie Metz, local cashew farmers, stared in disbelief at a 30-foot-tall mass of flowers and fruits sprouting gloriously from the top of a 30-foot-tall palm tree.