Category Science

What is meaning of term ‘loT’?

IoT stands for Internet of Things. It describes the network of physical objects or things that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies to serve the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the internet. There are nearly 10 billion loT devices today, ranging from simple household devices to sophisticated industrial tools. This number is only expected to rise further, reaching over 20 billion by 2025.

The loT has become one of the most important technologies of the 21st century as it blurs the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds, allowing them to cooperate better than ever before.

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What is meaning of term ‘Environmental justice’?

Environmental justice is an effort that aims to understand how several human actions (or inaction) impacting the environment also disproportionately affect marginalised and economically disadvantaged people across the world. For instance, least developed countries may contribute the least to pollution and yet people in those regions could be more affected by pollution than developed countries. Such countries may often even find themselves dealing with floods, drought the lack of access to clean water, healthy food, medical care, or means to be compensated during crises. So, in simple terms, environmental justice can be defined as the idea that everyone deserves to live healthy on a clean Earth.

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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 are UFOs?

Hundreds of new UFO reports, but…there is still no evidence of aliens. The Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, has set up a new office to track reports of UFO sightings and collect data.

What are UFOs?

A new Pentagon office set up to track reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOS) has received “several hundreds” of new reports. What are UFOS? Over the centuries, people have reported seeing strange airborne objects or unusual optical phenomena in the sky. These are called UFOS. Over the years, the belief that UFOs are the spaceships of aliens from other planets has gained ground – though without any concrete evidence. Are there possibilities of extraterrestrial life? Shouldn’t the sightings be tracked systematically? Well, that’s why the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) was formed.

2. What is AARO?

The AARO was set up in July 2022 to track unidentified objects in the sky, underwater and in space. It was established following more than a year of attention on unidentified flying objects that military pilots have observed.

It focusses on unexplained activity around military installations, restricted airspace and “other areas of interest” and is aimed at helping identify possible threats to the safety of U.S. military operations and to national security.

3. Scientific approach

Sean Kirkpatrick, director, AARO, did not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrial life and said he was taking a scientific approach to the research. Since the launch of the AARO, there have been several hundred new reports.

“We are structuring our analysis to be very thorough and rigorous. We will go through it all. And as a physicist, I have to adhere to the scientific method.”

4. No alien life

The U.S. military officially calls the 144 sightings observed between 2004 and 2021 as “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

But they have seen nothing that indicates alien life. “I have not seen anything that would suggest that there has been an alien visitation, an alien crash or anything like that,” said Ronald Moultrie, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

5. Quick facts

* The Air Force conducted an investigation into UFO activity called ‘Project Blue Book’. It ended in 1969 with a list of 12,618 sightings, 701 of which involved objects that officially remained “unidentified.”

* In 1994, it concluded that the 1947 famous “Roswell incident” in New Mexico, was not an UFO but a crashed balloon, the military’s long-standing explanation.

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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?

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Winged robots that can land like a bird

A new method has been developed by researchers that allows a flapping-wing robot to land on a horizontal perch using a claw-like mechanism.

Mimicking nature has allowed us to master many things. The sight of a bird landing on a branch makes it seem like the manoeuvre is probably the easiest thing in the world. The act of perching, however, is far from easy. It involves a delicate balance of timing, high-impact forces, speed, and precision.

The move is so complex that no flapping-wing robot or ornithopter has been able to achieve it so far. That has changed now with researchers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland along with colleagues at the University of Seville, Spain being able to achieve it in a controlled environment. The results of the study have been published in Nature Communications in December 2022.

Engineering challenges

The engineering challenges for an ornithopter included slowing down significantly as it perched while still maintaining flight; building a claw strong enough to support its weight while grasping and perching, without being too heavy that it can’t be held aloft; and being able to perceive its environment with respect to its own position, speed, and trajectory.

By equipping their ornithopter with a fully on-board computer and a navigation system that was complemented by a motion-sensor system, the researchers were able to overcome all these challenges. Once perched, the robot was able to remain perched, without expending energy.

Next up, unpredictable environment

The flight experiments were carried out indoors so that the flight zone could be a more controlled environment. The next task is to increase the robot’s autonomy to perform these perching and manipulation tasks outdoors in uncontrolled environments.

Once that is achieved, these ornithopters would be ready for more real word applications, such as unobtrusively collecting biological samples or measurements from a tree. This is because ornithopters, like many unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). have limited battery life. The ability to land on a perch would enable flapping-wing robots to possibly recharge using solar energy, making them viable options for long-distance missions.

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