Keshav jain

Keshav jain

  • Joined: June 4, 2024
  • Articles: 90

Who was the first person to float freely in space?

Images from space that show earth as nothing more than a blur of blue tug at our hearts in a way that can’t be put into words. The ones that you see here, while evoking such emotions, are also iconic in their own right. This is because they show the first human ever to walk untethered in space. The subject of these photographs is NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II.

Born in Boston in 1937, McCandless did his schooling at Long Beach, California and received his Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1958. He then obtained his Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1965, and eventually also ended up with a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Houston in 1987.

Communicator role

A retired U.S. Navy captain, McCandless was one of 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966. He served as the mission control communicator for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their famous 1969 Apollo 11 mission, which included the first human landing on the moon. McCandless, in fact, famously felt let down by Armstrong as the latter hadn’t revealed ahead what he had planned to say while setting foot on the moon.

McCandless flew as the mission specialist on two space shuttles, STS-41B in 1984 and STS-31 in 1990. While the 1984 mission saw him become the first human to perform an untethered spacewalk, he helped deploy the Hubble Space Telescope during the 1990 mission.

Helps develop MMU

Apart from these, McCandless also served as a member of the astronaut support crew for the Apollo 14 mission and was a backup pilot for the first crewed Skylab mission. For the M-509 astronaut manoeuvring experiment that was flown in the Skylab programme, McCandless was a co-investigator. He collaborated on the development and helped design what came to be known as the MMU – manned manoeuvring unit.

The STS-41B was launched on February 3, 1984. Four days later, on February 7, McCandless stepped out of the space shuttle Challenger into nothingness. As he moved away from the spacecraft, he floated freely without any earthly anchor.

“Heck of a big leap for me”

“It may have been a small step for Neil, but it’s a heck of a big leap for me,” were McCandless’ first words. If the mood at mission control had been apprehensive before, the raucous laughter that followed this comment certainly reduced the tension – a fact that was confirmed by his wife, who was also at mission control. McCandless would later say that his comment was consciously thought out and that it was his way of saying things were going okay, apart from getting back at Armstrong for not revealing his words in 1969.

The images that were shot then, showing McCandless spacewalking without tethers, gained widespread fame. The spacewalk was the first time the MMU that he helped develop was used. These nitrogen-propelled, hand-controlled devices afforded much greater mobility to their users as opposed to restrictive tethers used by previous spacewalkers.

Fellow astronaut Robert L. Stewart later tried out the MMU that McCandless first used. Two days later, both of them tried another similar unit with success. By February 11, the STS-41B mission was complete as the Challenger safely landed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre.

In one of his last interviews, before his death in December 2017, McCandless told National Geographic what he had probably told countless others who wanted to know how it was out there.

Fun, but cold

While he always maintained that it was fun, he also adds that the single thing that disturbed him as he moved away from the shuttle was that he got extremely cold, with shivers and chattering teeth.

The reason for that is pretty straightforward. While he had prepared for that moment for years, he wasn’t prepared for the temperature in the suit. As the suit was designed to keep astronauts comfortable while working hard in a warm environment, even the H (hot) position on the life support system actually provided minimal cooling. Considering that McCandless wasn’t really performing strenuous labour during the first hours of his untethered spacewalk, he felt cold. That’s a small price to pay for becoming the first-ever human to walk freely in space.

Picture Credit : Google

Have you heard of ‘corpse flower’?

When we speak of flowers, we usually think of rose, jasmine, marigold, hibiscus, and the like. And most flowers are less than the size of our palm and sweet-smelling. What if there’s a flower which is neither? Come, let’s find out more about this.

It’s huge and smelly!     

Rafflesia is a genus of flowering plants comprising at least 15 species found in Southeast Asia. Interestingly for a plant it has only flowers – with nothing to show for leaves or roots. Which means there’s no photosynthesis either. Rafflesia is basically a parasite, living off a type of vine. Its body – essentially made of thin filaments – lies inside the stem and the root of its host for years, and the flower bud bursts forth eventually. The bud continues to swell for months before the large flower blooms. For all that wait the flower stays in bloom for just about a week. But when in bloom, it gives off its signature stench – of rotting meat – that attracts flies. These flies ensure pollination and keep the species thriving. Unfortunately, Rafflesia’s forests are disappearing and it is critically endangered. It is “impossible to cultivate and “remains largely ignored”, according to a media report.

The largest

The flowers of Rafflesia usually win the largest flower title, and this year has been no different. The largest single flower ever recorded was found earlier this year in Sumatra, Indonesia, with a diameter of 111 cm – that’s a whopping 3.6 ft! This was a specimen of Rafflesia tuan-mudae, and beat the earlier record of 107 cm set by Rafflesia amoldii, also from the same region.

Picture Credit : Google

How do MRNA vaccines work?

A shot in the arm!

Vaccines have helped control many infectious diseases. But developing them is not easy and also takes years. With researchers working tirelessly for months together, what seemed like an endless wait for a vaccine against COMD-19 has given way to hope with the UK approving the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine for the coronavirus. COVID-19 has claimed over 1.5 million lives worldwide

Pfizer’s BNT162b2, which took only 10 months from conception to approval is an MRNA vaccine approved for use in humans for the first time. The vaccine has been shown to be 95% effective in preventing COMD-19. It needs to be stored in bones containing dry ice that are capable of staying at -70 degrees Celsius, the frigid temperature needed to preserve the drug. Besides the U.K., other countries such as Bahrain Canada, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Israel and the U.S. have approved the emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine.

What is an MRNA vaccine?           

Vaccines work by priming the body to recognise and fight the proteins produced by disease-causing organisms. Instead of using an inactivated coronavirus or viral proteins in a vaccine, an MRNA vaccine uses a messenger RNA, or MRNA, to prompt an immune response in the body. An MRNA is a synthetic genetic material, a copy of a natural component of living cells. An mRNA vaccine carries genetic instructions, which direct cells in the body to make viral proteins that prime the immune system to produce protective antibodies. If these antibodies adhere to a virus, it cannot enter the cells to replicate.

Are they safe?

MRNA vaccines are said to be safer than live vaccines, as there is a risk of the virus reverting to a dangerous form with the latter. MRNA vaccines are not likely to produce unwanted reactions. Besides, they can be made much faster than the traditional vaccines.

Picture Credit : Google

What powers a spacecraft?

Scientists send spacecraft to probe objects in space. These spacecraft carry instruments that help them take pictures and collect data in space and send them back to Earth. But to do this, the spacecraft needs electricity So what powers it?

Based on the mission it is assigned, and factors such as where the spacecraft is travelling, what it plans to do there and how long it needs to work engineers choose the best way to power a spacecraft.

The Sun                     

One source of power engineers consider is energy from the Sun, or solar power. Spacecraft that orbit close to Earth are dose enough to the Sun to use solar power. These spacecraft are fitted with solar panels, which convert the Sun’s energy into electricity. The electricity from the panels charges a battery in the spacecraft and can be used even when the spacecraft doesn’t have direct sunlight

Batteries

Sometimes, when the mission is only for a short duration, such as the Huygens probe that landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and meant to work only for a few hours, engineers may power the spacecraft with batteries. These batteries are designed to be tough since they need to withstand the harsh environment of space.

Atoms

An atom is a tiny building block of matter. Atoms need to store a lot of energy to hold themselves together. However, atoms such as radioisotopes are unstable and begin to fall apart. As they fall apart, they release energy as heat. A radioisotope power system uses the temperature difference between the heat from the unstable atoms and the cold of space to produce electricity. This system produces power for a very long time even in harsh environments. That’s why this system has been used to power many of NASA’s missions, including the two Voyager spacecraft that continue to send back information after over four decades in space.

Picture Credit : Google

What is the story of Marvin C. Stone and his straws?

How do you drink your beverages, irrespective of whether they are hot or cold? Do you take swigs directly off the glass or bottle, or do you take your time and sip it slowly, using a straw for good measure? If you draw straws to sip your drinks, or even just for picking lots, you are bound to like this one.

The credit for inventing the first paper straws goes to American Marvin C. Stone. Stone was born in 1842 to Chester Stone, an inventor himself, and Rachel. He started to pursue a degree after high school when the Civil War broke out in 1861.

Serves in Civil War

Stone enlisted into service and fought gallantly, but was wounded and disabled from active duty in the Battle of Lookout Mountain. He enrolled as a music major after the war, but eventually graduated in theology. Following his marriage and years as a newspaper journalist, Stone’s inventive spirit shone through when he took to business.

His business life in the late 1870s began when he invented a machine for making paper cigarette holders. His experience with making these holders and his eye for a solution to an everyday problem, led Stone to the first paper straws.

Not the “rye” way

Stone recognised that even though using natural materials such as rye grass and reeds to make straws were popular, they had serious shortcomings. When consuming beverages using these straws, they not only added an additional flavour or taste, but also some unpleasant odour. To add to this, the grass and reeds were also prone to cracking or growing musty.

By winding strips of paper around a pencil and gluing it together, Stone had his first prototypes ready. What followed was more experimenting to make his straws more conducive for drinking.

Stone used paraffin-coated manila paper to ensure that the straws didn’t become too soggy when drinking. He also settled upon 8.5 inches as the ideal length of a straw with a diameter that was just wide enough to prevent things such as lemon seeds from lodging inside and clogging the tube.

Stone received the patent for his paper straws on January 3, 1888. Within a couple of years, Stone’s factory was producing more straws than cigarette holders. By 1896, he had patents for a machine that made artificial straw from paper. He wasn’t around to see his machines go into production in 1906, however, as he died in 1899. The success of these machines brought an end to the hand-winding process.

A kind boss

Apart from being an inventor and tinkerer, Stone was seen as a benevolent boss. A kind and generous employer, Stone looked after the comfort and moral welfare of his employees, which included female workers. The factory was equipped with a singing room and a dance floor, with a library and a meeting room for debates to boot.

The winding process that Stone pioneered with his straws had implications in other industries as well. When electrical engineers employed spiral-wound tubes for radios as they were mass-produced for the first time in the 1920s, they used a similar process. From electrical motors and apparatus to aerospace, textiles and packaging for medicine and other products, the spiral-wound tubing is now found almost everywhere.

The next time you are sipping your favourite drink, spare a thought for the man who gave us the first paper straws. And in case you are doing it with your friends or family, regale them with the story of Stone.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Is Meghalaya the wettest place on Earth?

Mawsynram in Meghalaya is the wettest place, based on rainfall in the world. Located in the Khasi Hills, it receives about 11,872mm (nearly 467 inches) of average annual rainfall According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the region received 26,000mm of rainfall in 1985. The mountainous terrain of Mawsynram and the nearby Cherrapunji, the second wettest place, are known for their lush greenery and scenic beauty The “living bridges are one of the most beautiful features of this region. These have been created by the local people by training the roots of rubber trees into natural bridges. With the root systems constantly growing, these bridges are self-sustaining.

Primarily due to the high altitude, it seldom gets truly hot in Mawsynram. Average monthly temperatures range from around 11 °C in January to just above 20 °C in August. The village also experiences a brief but noticeably drier season from December until February, when monthly precipitation on average does not exceed 30 millimetres (1.2 in). The little precipitation during the village’s “low sun” season is something that is shared by many areas with this type of climate.

Three reasons can be cited for high rainfall at Mawsynram:

The warm moist winds of the northward-moving air from the Bay of Bengal during the monsoon, which cover an extensive area but are forced to converge into the narrower zone over the Khasi Hills, thus concentrating their moisture.
The alignment of the Khasi Hills (east to west) places them directly in the path of the airflow from the Bay of Bengal, producing a significant uplift (plus cooling, further condensation and thus more rain).
Finally, uplift over the Khasi Hills is virtually continuous in the monsoon period because the lifted air is constantly being pulled up by vigorous winds in the upper atmosphere; hence, the rainfall is more or less continuous.

Picture Credit : Google 

Who is the longest-reigning British monarch in world history?

Queen Elizabeth II was the first British sovereign to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee (70 years of service) recently. She is currently the world’s longest reigning monarch, having ascended the throne on February 6, 1952. However, the Queen still has some way to go to achieve the longest recorded reign-that of Louis XIV of France, also known as Louis the Great. Louis XIV was King of France for 72 years and 110 days, from 1643 to until his demise in 1715.

Elizabeth I – the last Tudor monarch – was born at Greenwich on 7 September 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife, Anne Boleyn. Her early life was full of uncertainties, and her chances of succeeding to the throne seemed very slight once her half-brother Edward was born in 1537. She was then third in line behind her Roman Catholic half-sister, Princess Mary. Roman Catholics, indeed, always considered her illegitimate and she only narrowly escaped execution in the wake of a failed rebellion against Queen Mary in 1554.

Elizabeth succeeded to the throne on her half-sister’s death in November 1558. She was very well-educated (fluent in five languages), and had inherited intelligence, determination and shrewdness from both parents. Her 45-year reign is generally considered one of the most glorious in English history. During it a secure Church of England was established. Its doctrines were laid down in the 39 Articles of 1563, a compromise between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Elizabeth herself refused to ‘make windows into men’s souls … there is only one Jesus Christ and all the rest is a dispute over trifles’; she asked for outward uniformity. Most of her subjects accepted the compromise as the basis of their faith, and her church settlement probably saved England from religious wars like those which France suffered in the second half of the 16th century.

Although autocratic and capricious, Elizabeth had astute political judgement and chose her ministers well; these included William Cecil, later Lord Burghley (Secretary of State), Sir Christopher Hatton (Lord Chancellor) and Sir Francis Walsingham (in charge of intelligence and also a Secretary of State).

Overall, Elizabeth’s administration consisted of some 600 officials administering the great offices of state, and a similar number dealing with the Crown lands (which funded the administrative costs). Social and economic regulation and law and order remained in the hands of the sheriffs at local level, supported by unpaid justices of the peace.

 Elizabeth’s reign was one of considerable danger and difficulty for many, with threats of invasion from Spain through Ireland, and from France through Scotland. Much of northern England was in rebellion in 1569-70. A papal bull of 1570 specifically released Elizabeth’s subjects from their allegiance, and she passed harsh laws against Roman Catholics after plots against her life were discovered.

As a likely successor to Elizabeth, Mary spent 19 years as Elizabeth’s prisoner because Mary was the focus for rebellion and possible assassination plots, such as the Babington Plot of 1586.

During Elizabeth’s long reign, the nation also suffered from high prices and severe economic depression, especially in the countryside, during the 1590s. The war against Spain was not very successful after the Armada had been beaten and, together with other campaigns, it was very costly.

Despite the combination of financial strains and prolonged war after 1588, Parliament was not summoned more often. There were only 16 sittings of the Commons during Elizabeth’s reign, five of which were in the period 1588-1601. Although Elizabeth freely used her power to veto legislation, she avoided confrontation and did not attempt to define Parliament’s constitutional position and rights.

Overall, Elizabeth’s always shrewd and, when necessary, decisive leadership brought successes during a period of great danger both at home and abroad. She died at Richmond Palace on 24 March 1603, having become a legend in her lifetime. The date of her accession was a national holiday for two hundred years.

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Who was Emily Jane Bronte?

English novelist, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was the author’s first and last novel. It is widely considered by many as one of the most incredible pieces of imaginative literature in the English canon. Let’s find out what makes it a classic.

About the author

Emily Jane Bronte was born on July 30, 1818, in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. She was the fifth of six children, and the fourth daughter of Patrick Bronte and Marie Branwell. Her father was a remarkable man and a minister of the Anglican church. The author lost her mother at the tender age of three. This was the first great loss the family had to come to terms with. In 1825, Emily was sent to join her sisters Maria, Elizabeth, and Charlotte at school. Following the tuberculosis epidemic at the institution that claimed the life of her two elder sisters, Emily and Charlotte returned home. This incident is also mentioned in her sister Charlotte’s magnum opus Jane Eyre. Emily spent the next 10 years of her life at home, where she played, read extensively, and wrote together with her siblings in an inventive creative workshop. During one of such playful workshops, the four participated in fictional world-making, which resulted in Charlotte and their brother Branwell teaming together to create a fictional land called Angria, and Emily with her sister Anne inventing the fictional Pacific Island of Gondol.

Emily was a meticulous reader. Charlotte in her Preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering Heights elucidated that her sister “always wrote from the impulse of nature”. However, Professor Karen O’Brien from the University of Oxford says that Emily Bronte’s lone novel is a testament to her extensive reading and understanding of the works of English poets and authors such as Sir Walter Scott, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron. The first edition of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights was written under the pseudonym Ellis Bell and published in 1847.

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is a powerful and complex story of love, obsession, and revenge over two generations. It is narrated by housekeeper Nelly Dean and framed from the perspective of a visiting outsider Mr. Lockwood. This narrative revolves around an orphan named Heathcliff, who is taken in by Mr. Earnshaw and brought to live in Wuthering Heights. The story explores the close-knit bond he forms with his patron’s daughter Catherine.

What makes it a classic?

A treatise on women social conventions were extremely important at the time when Bronte wrote this novel. Italian writer and journalist Italo Calvino, in his book The Uses of Literature, said. “A classic is a classic book because it had never finished what it had to say, and Wuthering Heights stands true to this statement. One might think of it as just a love story. Well yes, but it’s also a story of ghosts, obsession, and haunting. Where Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters predecessor, wrote about the purpose of romance and how it was intangibly linked to or ended in marriage, Emily Bronte’s sole novel is a treatise on women and tries to explore what is important to her gender other than the pursuit of marriage.

Making a statement

Through Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte changed what was possible and acceptable for women to write, and how women and men can be portrayed in fiction. Her characters challenged the social expectation that one’s emotions and how they are expressed or dealt with must be dictated by an individual’s gender. It advocated that all the things that we as people feel are not so different just because one is a man or a woman. It broke away from the tradition that dictated that women must only write about acceptable things (such as love and marriage) and elements of the domestic sphere. It objected to the idea that men (especially heroes) are not capable of emoting grief and passion or being allowed to display any negative emotions such as vengeance. Wuthering Heights is not a moralising novel and calls the hypocrisy of the society that divides people on the basis of gender, turns a blind eye to the violence it inflicts in the name of religion, set unrealistic moral expectations, and is more concerned with respectability, than working towards creating an equal society.

Emily Bronte’s exceptional imagination in Wuthering Heights, says English author Kate Mosse, “makes it clear that a woman who is an artist and a man who is an artist have the same mission-to write what we think is true and to write what we think matters, this makes her sole novel one for the ages.”

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Can India experience heat waves beyond human survival?

India could experience heat waves beyond human survival limit, says World Bank report. And this impact would be felt in several ways. A look at the report in five brief points

1. HOTTEST ON RECORD: The World Bank report titled “Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector” said that the country is experiencing higher temperatures that arrive earlier and stay far longer. “In April 2022, India was plunged into the grip of a punishing early spring heat wave that brought the country to a standstill, with temperatures in the capital. New Delhi, topping 46 degrees Celsius. The month of March, which witnessed extraordinary spikes in temperatures, was the hottest ever recorded,” said the report.

2. INTENSE HEAT WAVES: Predicting that heat waves situation in India could break the human survivability limit, the study noted that the recent heat wave supports what many climate scientists have long cautioned about with reference to rising temperatures across South Asia. It added that in August 2021, the Sixth Assessment Report of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the Indian subcontinent would suffer more frequent and intense heat waves over the coming decade. The G20 Climate Risk Atlas also warned in 2021 that heat waves across India were likely to last 25 times longer by 2036-65 if carbon emissions remain high, as in the IPCC’s worst-case emission scenario.

3. IMPACT ON ECONOMY: The report warned that rising heat across India can jeopardise economic productivity. “Up to 75 per cent of India’s workforce, or 380 million people, depend on heat-exposed labor, at times working in potentially life-threatening temperatures….By 2030, India may account for 34 million of the projected 80 million global job losses from heat stress associated productivity decline,” the report stated.

4. HEAT AND COLD CHAINS: Transporting food and pharmaceutical goods across India requires a system of cold chain refrigeration that works every step of the way. “A single temperature lapse in the journey can break the cold chain, spoiling fresh produce and weakening the potency of vaccines. With only 4 per cent of fresh produce in India covered by cold chain facilities, annual estimated food losses total USD 13 billion,” it said. It also observed that the third largest producer of pharmaceuticals in the world, pre-COVID-19, India lost approximately 20 per cent of temperature-sensitive medical products and 25 per cent of vaccines due to broken cold chains, leading to losses of USD 313 million a year.

5. THE POOR ARE VULNERABLE: According to analysis presented in the India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP), only eight per cent of Indian households own air-conditioning units. “Indoor and electric fans can help to maintain thermal comfort, but these too are expensive to buy and inefficient. As a result, many poor and marginalised communities across India are more vulnerable to extreme heat, living in inadequately ventilated, hot and crowded homes without proper access to cooling,” the report warned.

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What is the streak of light that shoots across the night sky called?

During Earth’s journey around the Sun, there are times when its orbit crosses the orbit of a comet. It is when the planet moves through the comet debris trail that we witness meteor showers. The showers are named after the star or constellation which is close to where the meteors appear to radiate in the sky.

All of us may have seen streaks of light zip through the sky. We call them shooting stars and we also wish upon them. Well, what are these shooting stars? What are these streams of light? Consider the objects in space. These are lumps of rock or objects in space with sizes ranging from grains to small asteroids. A small piece of a comet or asteroid is called a meteoroid.

Meteoroid

These meteoroids can be considered as space rocks. They orbit the sun and when they enter Earth’s atmosphere at a high speed, they burn because of frictional heating, causing the light. These rays of light are referred to as meteors.

When many meteors appear at once, we call it a meteor shower. During a meteor shower, a number of meteors can be seen radiating or originating from a point in the night sky.

But where do these meteoroids come from? How does Earth come across these? During Earth’s journey around the Sun, there are times when its orbit crosses the orbit of a comet. It is when the planet moves through the comet debris trail that we witness meteor showers.

The meteor showers are named after the star or constellation which is close to where the meteors appear to radiate in the sky. The Perseids meteor shower is the most famous meteor shower and they peak around August 12 every year. Other notable meteor showers include the Leonids, Aquarids and Orionids and Taurids.

Now what happens when meteoroid survives the journey through the Earth’s atmosphere and hits the ground? In that case, it becomes a meteorite.

Did you know that more than 50,000 meteorites have been found on Earth?

picture Credit : Google