Category Geology

For a clear understanding of the subject we will have to do an experiment with two metal cups, say, the ever silver tumblers we use in our house. Let the two be considerably different in their sizes. If the two cups are filled with water and left undisturbed, the water in the smaller one cools down faster. This is because things usually cool from the surface. The cup with grater surface per unit volume cools faster. If the bigger cup is ‘n’ times higher and broader than the smaller, then its surface is ‘n’ squared times greater and the volume is ‘n’ cubed times greater. So, for each unit of the surface in the bigger cup there are ‘n’ times more volume. Hence the bigger one coos slower.

            Now let us come to the question. Our body is like a container of heat. The amount of heat per unit volume (say, every cubic centimetre) of the body is approximately the same. But the fingers and nose have a greater surface area per cubic centimetre than other parts of the body and so they cool down faster. The body makes up for the heat loss through various biological activities. But as soon as the heat is delivered to the fingers it escapes through the surface. But the rest of the body does it slower and so are a little hotter than the fingers.

            Oils are liquid fats. Fats are esters of carboxylic acids which are either saturated (do not contain double bond) or unsaturated (contain one or two double bond). These esters are derived from a single alcohol called glycerol and are called glycerides. Usually fats with greater percentage of un-saturation tend to be in liquid state and fats with greater percentage of saturation tend to be in solid state at room temperature.

            Vegetable fats are all liquid fats since they belong to esters of long chain fatty acids with one or more double bonds while most of the animal fats are solid in nature since they are all esters of long chain fatty acids which do not contain double bond.

            Coconut oil unlike other vegetable oils contains nearly 91 per cent of saturated fatty acids. Even though it has greater percentage of saturation it remains as liquid fat instead of solid fat.

            Its liquid nature is due to the presence of more number of short chains (C12 and C14) saturated fatty acids (only fats with long chain saturated fatty acids remains as solid fats). Because of the greater percentage of saturation coconut oil can easily be solidified at low temperature and becomes solid during winter when the temperature falls below 20 degree centigrade.

            Oils which contain unsaturated fatty acids can also be solidified if their double bonds are broken by hydrogenation at very high temperature. Vegetable ghee and vanaspathi are made in this way. This process is called hardening. In the case of coconut oil this hardening occurs not because of hydrogenation but because of low temperature.

 Bermuda Triangle is a section of the Western Atlantic, off the southeast coast of the U.S, forming a triangle extending from Bermuda in the north to southern Florida and then east to a point through the Bahamas past Puerto Rico to about 40 degrees west longitude and then back again to Bermuda.

       In this mysterious place, a large number of planes and ships have vanished into thin air, of them since 1945. Interestingly, of the thousands of lives lost in the past not a single body or pieces of wreckage from the vanishing planes and ships have been found.

            Many varied and imaginative explanations have been offered and seriously considered to account for the continuing disappearances and assumed (because no bodies have been recovered) fatalities.

            These include sudden tidal waves caused by earthquake, fireballs which explode the planes, attacks by sea monsters, and a time-space warp leading to another dimension, electromagnetic or gravitational vortices which cause planes to crash and ships to lose themselves at sea, capture and kidnapping by flying or submarine UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) manned by entities from surviving cultures of antiquity, outer space, or the future looking for specimen of currently existing earth inhabitants.

            One single common thread which unites them is the fact ships and planes have completely vanished or that the ships have been found without their crews and passengers. While isolated mysteries of this nature could be explained by unusual circumstances or coincidences of weather and human error, so many of the Bermuda Triangle incidents have happened in clear weather, near to port, shore or landing base, that they seem unexplainable according to presently held concepts.

 The Bhakra Dam is India’s biggest hydro electric project. It is located near the border of Punjab with Himachal Pradesh. The dam has been constructed across the perennial river Sutlej, which flows down the Shivalik ranges that surrounds the region, and is an engineering marvel. It is one of the highest gravity dams in the world, and it has created a huge reservoir known as the Gobind Sagar reservoir. This dam is virtually the central nervous system of northern India, as it supplies electricity to the entire region.

Odisha lies on the eastern coast of India. It is bounded by West Bengal in northeast, Jharkhand in the north, Madhya Pradesh in the west, Andhra Pradesh in the south, and the Bay of Bengal in the east. Orissa can be divided into three broad regions – the coastal plains, the middle mountainous country and the plateaus. The region of the coastal plains is a combination of several deltas formed by the major rivers of Odisha, such as the Subarnarekha, the Budhabalanga, the Baitarani, the Brahmani, the Mahanadi, and the Rushikulya. The middle mountainous region covers about three-fourths of the entire state and comprises the hills and mountains of the Eastern Ghats. The plateaus are mostly eroded tablelands, forming the western slopes of the Eastern Ghats.   To sum up, the state offers diverse habitats from lush green and hilly terrain, to coastal plains and rolling river valleys, criss-crossed by rivers that include the Brahmani, the Mahanadi and the Bansadhara.

For centuries, the Naga tribes have lived in harmony with their environment. They have always been self sufficient, producing their own food, clothing, and shelter. Their culture and lifestyle show their deep respect for Nature.