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What is the device of Ulta Chaata used for?

Ulta Chaata, a concave structure, collects rainwater in the monsoon and converts it into potable water. Find out how it’s done.

Ulta Chaata, as the name suggests, resembles an inverted umbrella. It is a large concave structure that collects rainwater in the monsoon and converts it into potable water, while the solar panels fitted alongside the canopy, produce energy in the dry season.

The rainwater collected in the bowl of the Chaata, trickles down the stalk to reach a filtering unit of activated carbon where it is cleared of impurities. A duster of ten or more Ulta Chaatas is connected to a common device where the water undergoes further filtration to remove microorganisms, making it fit for drinking. A single unit can harvest as much as 100,000 litres of water every year.

The solar energy harnessed in the dry season is stored in the battery and is used not just to light up the Chaata, but also the premises. Unlike a typical rainwater harvesting unit, Ulta Chaata’s attractive design lends itself well to the aesthetics of the surroundings, especially when lit up.

The device takes up to one sq. ft of area. Ulta Chaatas can be installed as sustainable workstations in open spaces. They can provide a green roof for reception areas, cafeterias, gazebos, car parks, bus stops and even railway stations.

Besides a number of corporates, Guntakal railway station in Andhra  Pradesh has installed six such structures on its premises.

Ulta Chaata is the brainchild of a Mumbai-based environmentally conscious couple Priya Vakil and Samit Choksy whose start-up ThinkPhi designs sustainable products.

Ulta Chaatas can be installed as sustainable workstations in open spaces. They can provide a green roof for reception areas, cafeterias, car parks, bus stops and even railway stations.

QUICK FACTS

  • A single unit of Ulta Chaata can harvest as much as 100,000. litres of water every year.
  •  Ulta Chaata’s attractive design lends itself to the aesthetics of the surroundings.
  • The solar panels fitted alongside the canopy produce energy in the dry season.

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A black hole in Earth’s backyard?

This new black hole is 1.600 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus So far scientists have discovered 20 black holes in the Milky Way. About 100 million more are estimated to be present in our galaxy.

A new black hole has been discovered very near to Earth, closer than any other previously found. Christened Gaia BH1, this dormant blackhole is 1.600 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus.

This new black hole is ten times as massive as our sun. To date, scientists have found 20 black holes in the Milky Way galaxy whilst 100 million more are estimated to be present in our galaxy. The newly discovered one is three times closer than the earlier black hole which sat about 3,000 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros.

Since there are more undetected black holes, even this newly discovered one wouldn’t hold its spot of “closest to Earth” for too long.

The discovery was mentioned in a paper in the peer-reviewed Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The black hole was discovered by “Kareem El-Badry, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and his colleagues.

They found evidence of the existence of this dormant black hole using the data from the European Space Agency’s GAIA (Global Astrometric Interferometer for Astrophysics) spacecraft. After they noticed a star in the constellation Ophiuchus moving in unexpected ways, they understood that it was a result of the gravity of an unknown, massive object. Using the observation from other telescopes, they confirmed that the object causing this was a black hole.

What is a Black Hole

A black hole is a celestial body that has an immensely huge gravitational pull, so huge that nothing escapes it. Not even light can escape i it!

The black hole grows by accumulating matter that falls in it. Black holes are formed at the end of the life of a big star. When a massive star collapses after its nuclear fuel depletes, it will collapse onto itself and become a black hole.

It was in 2019 that an image of a black hole was captured for the first time. It was an international collaboration and the astronomers used the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), networking eight ground-based radio telescopes.

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What killed off billions of Alaska’s snow crabs?

Alaska’s snow crabs are named so for their love of cold water, which they inhabit. But, due to the heatwaves in 2018 and 2019, their habitats were not cold enough, and this is suspected to be the “key culprit in the mass die-off. The warmer are believed to have affected the species in more ways than one.

Recently, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that the Bering Sea snow crab season will stay closed for catching during 2022-23 to conserve and rebuild the species. (Though they are found in a couple of other places too, it is in Bering Sea that these crabs are abundant and also grow to reach “fishable sizes”.) The announcement follows an annual survey by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which discovered that the crustacean numbers “fell to about 1.9 billion in 2022, down from 11.7 billion in 2018”, a reduction of nearly 85%. What caused this dramatic loss, and how will closing the season help the species? Come, let’s find out.

Alaska’s snow crabs are named so for their love of cold water, which they inhabit. But, due to the heatwaves in 2018 and 2019, their habitats were not cold enough, and this is suspected to be the “key culprit’ in the mass die-off. The warmer temperatures are believed to have affected the species in more ways than one. For instance, studies “have pointed toward a higher prevalence of Bitter Crab Disease as the temperature heats up”. Further, unlike in cold waters, these crabs “need more energy to stay alive” in warmer waters, causing them “metabolic stress”, which likely led to limited movement, and eventual starvation. Apart from this, young crabs require low temperatures of water where their mobility is high, helping them evade predation. When the waters warm, they slow down, and their chances of being targeted by their major predator- the Pacific cod – are higher. 5

However, it is interesting to note that a marine biologist has said that the current predicament was linked more to climate change rather than to overfishing because fishing “removes only large adult males” but the decline in population appears across all sizes of snow crabs. If that’s the case, what explains closing the area for catching these crabs?

Because, the temperature of the water has now returned to normal; closing will help the reproduce and recover. Comfortingly, “this years survey saw significant increases in the immature crabs compared to last year”.

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What is Daylight Saving Time?

Beginning of autumn marks many changes such as cooler weather, shorter days, and leaves changing colour. But for many people across the world it means the end of Daylight Saving Time. On November 6 this year, Daylight Saving Time (DST) ended in several countries.

Idea behind DST

DST is the practice of moving the clocks forward one hour from the Standard Time during the summer months and then changing them back during the fall. In the U.S., it always begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.

The idea behind the clock shift is to increase daylight time in the Northern Hemisphere, as days lengthen in spring and shorten in autumn.

In the days when coal was very much in use, DST was implemented to maximise the limited daylight hours. It is believed that by springing forward and falling back, people add an hour of sunlight to the end of the work day.

In countries in the Northern Hemisphere, clocks are usually set ahead one hour in late March or in April and are set back one hour in late September or in October.

On the first Sunday of November, at 2 a.m., clocks in most of the U.S. and many other countries turn back an hour on what is called standard time and stay there for nearly four months. On the second Sunday of March, at 2 a.m., clocks move forward one hour back to DST.

History

This system was earlier used in train schedules. It was later put into practice in Australia, Europe, and the U.S. to save fuel and power by reducing the need for artificial light during World War I by extending daylight time.

The U.S. standardised it by passing the Uniform Time Act of 1966. However, the States are not required by the law to “fall back” or “spring forward”. Hawaii and most of Arizona do not observe the DST.

Benjamin Franklin is the earliest person known to have mentioned Daylight Saving Time in 1784 when he wrote a letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris.

However, it was not widely used until more than a century later. William Willett, who was one of the first advocates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.K., published a pamphlet The Waste of Daylight in 1907, campaigning to advance clocks at the start of spring and summer months and to return to GMT in autumn.

Countries that follow DST

More than 140 countries have used it at some point, but about half of them have abolished it over the years. Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Northern Marianas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands don’t recognise DST.

Though Europe, New Zealand, and a few regions of the Middle East follow the annual shift, each have different start and stop dates. However, majority of Africa and Asia do not change their clocks. South America and Australia are split on the matter.

Impact on health

For many people, the clock shift may result in missed meetings and sleep loss. However, this may also have severe health issues.

According to experts, with change in our internal clocks by even one hour, we develop “social jet lag”, which increases the risk of metabolic disorders, heart disease, and stroke, and shortens our sleep duration. Some studies have also suggested that time change can be linked to even fatal car accidents.

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What is the NIA?

The NIA is currently under the spotlight following the October 23 Coimbatore car blast in which one person was killed. Following the incident, explosive materials used to make bombs were seized from the house of the deceased. Investigation points to terror links in the case. But what is NIA and what does its role entail? Come, let’s find out.

Investigate terror-related crimes The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is the central counter-terrorism law enforcement agency which functions under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs. It is empowered to investigate terror-related crimes across the country without having to acquire permission from the States. The agency was set up in 2008 to combat terrorism in the country, following the deadly Mumbai terror attack the same year. It came into force with the enactment of the National Investigation Agency Act 2008 by Parliament.

The NIA has its headquarters in New Delhi. Headed by a Director-General (an IPS officer), it maintains the “NIA Most Wanted list”. Dinkar Gupta, a 1987-batch IPS officer and former chief of Punjab Police, is NIA’s current Director-General.

Building ties with foreign counterparts

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, while inaugurating the Raipur branch office of the NIA in August 2022, said that the government wanted it to become a federal crime investigation agency with offices in all States before the 2024 General Election. He further said that the NIA is working towards building ties with its foreign counterparts for better coordination in terror investigations. As of 2022, the NIA has 14 branches across the country in places such as Hyderabad, Guwahati, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai, Kolkata, Raipur, Jammu, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Chennai, Imphal, Bengaluru, and Patna.

The NIA aims to act as a deterrent on existing and potential terrorists. Its mission is to investigate terror-related offences using the latest scientific methods and facilitate a speedy, effective trial. One of its stated objectives is to create and share with States and other law enforcement agencies in the country a database of information pertaining to terrorists.

New offences brought under NIA Act

Under the NIA Act, the Central government can hand over cases for investigation to the NIA anywhere in the country. And State governments can request an investigation by the NIA upon the Central government’s approval. The NIA Act of 2008 was amended by Parliament in 2019 when some major changes were introduced. So new offences such as human trafficking, counterfeit currency, sale or manufacture of prohibited arms, and cyber terrorism have been brought under the purview of the Act. The agency’s jurisdiction has been extended outside India, subject to international treaties and domestic laws of the country concerned. Besides, the Act allows for the constitution of special courts by the Centre to conduct trials.

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Why are some people mosquito magnets?

Are you someone who gets bitten by a lot of mosquitoes, even when those around you aren’t complaining much about it? Researchers from the Rockefeller University in New York have made some headway in the question of why some people are mosquito magnets. They have demonstrated through a study as to why certain people attract more of a species of these insects than others.

Round-robin tournament!

In their results published in Cell in October 2022, the researchers talk about their three-year study that helped them to their conclusions. Participants were asked to wear nylon stockings over forearms for six hours each day. After repeating the process over multiple days, the researchers tested the nylons over the next few years in a round-robin style tournament.

Using a chamber of their own design, the nylon stockings were paired against each other in all possible manners. As the chamber was divided into two tubes and each of these ended in a box that had a stocking, the researchers were able to observe as the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes flew towards one nylon stocking rather than the other, once they were introduced in the main chamber.

By the end of their study, researchers were able to see that one particular sample proved to be a compelling target for the mosquitoes. While this sample was four times more attractive to the mosquitoes than the second-most attractive sample, it was 100 times more attractive than the sample that proved to be least attractive to mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes track the scent

After sorting the samples into high and low attractors, the researchers resolved to find out what differentiated them. They discovered that people who are mosquito magnets produce carboxylic at a much higher level. These substances are in the moisturising barrier on the skin, called sebum, which helps form a protective coating on our skin and are also used by bacteria on our skin to produce our unique human odour.

By enrolling more people for a validation study, the team involved in this research were able to confirm their findings. While these are still early days, it opens up the potential of manipulating our skin biomes in order to be less attractive to mosquitoes. For now, the researchers are hoping that their paper will inspire researchers to test other mosquito species and find out whether this is universal to mosquitoes or specific to the Aedes aegypti species.

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Yo-yo, one of the world’s oldest toys!

Yo-yos might be one of the oldest toys in the world, but a U.S. patent was awarded for it on November 20, 1866, based on a design improvement. Still popular around the globe, yo-yos have been with humankind for thousands of years.

When you played with a yo-yo, have you ever wondered when and where this toy came from? The truth is, we don’t have an exact answer for either…. While historians suggest that the toy likely originated from what is now Greece, China, or the Philippines, yo-yos have been around for thousands of years. In fact, archaeological digs have unearthed Greek vases from around 500 BC that show a youngster playing with an object similar to the modem yoyo.

Energy-converting machine

For a toy that looks so simple, yo-yos have a fair bit of science governing their operation. It is the physics that is going on that makes it keep spinning for a long time, sleep or hang at the end of the string and climb back up again. Putting it simply, yo-yos are energy-converting machines. The working of yo-yos therefore involves the constant changes of energy from one kind to another.

When held in our hands, a yo-yo has potential energy as it is held high above the floor. When we release the yo-yo, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy gradually. By the time a spinning yo-yo is at the bottom of the string, it converts all the potential energy it originally held to kinetic energy.

A tug is all it takes

When it climbs back up the spring, it does the reverse, converting kinetic energy to potential energy. While this is similar to a pendulum bob, what makes it different and keeps it going is the fact that we can keep giving it more energy to play around with. By tugging at the string that we are holding, a yo-yo can be kept moving along the string for a considerable amount of time, stopping eventually due to friction and air resistance.

Despite being played with through much of history, yo-yos really exploded in popularity in the 20th Century. And that happened when it was mass-produced and marketed heavily in the U.S., leading to widespread adoption and usage throughout the world.

The first recorded reference to any type of yo-yo in the U.S. came only in 1866, when Ohio tinkerers James Haven and Charles Hettrich came up with a design improvement. Their patent on November 20, 1866 has an image of a whirlgig and mentions “a new and useful bandelore” (whirlgig and bandelore are other names of yo-yo).

This patent is important not only because yo-yos were making their official foray into the U.S., but also for a couple of other reasons. For one, it was the first time rim-weighting was employed to maintain momentum as the patent “marginal swell… exercises the function of a flywheel”. Secondly, it also showed that patents can be used to protect design improvements in toys.

Flores calls it yo-yo

A little over half a century after this, Pedro Flores, a Filipino man, sold hand-carved yo-yos in California and staged demonstrations to show how they worked in the 1920s. In fact, it was Flores who trademarked the name “yo-yo”, which is Tagalog for “come come” (Tagalog forms the basis of the national language of the Philippines).

American Donald Duncan was impressed by what he saw Flores doing, and he bought the trademark and even piggybacked on the business model. Apart from having people to demonstrate the toys, Duncan also sponsored contests to garner more interest in the product. By promising greater circulation of newspapers in exchange for free ads for these contests, Duncan set about a new marketing idea in motion. The idea’s success meant that Duncan’s yo-yos were soon a household name.

In the decades that followed, the Duncan Company dominated the yo-yo industry. In the 1960s, millions of these toys were sold on a yearly basis in the U.S. alone. By 1985, yo-yos became one of the first toys to reach space as it was one of the 11 toys taken into orbit by the Discovery space shuttle. Throughout its long and storied history, yo-yos have thus enjoyed a lot of popularity while also having periods of hibernation – ups and downs similar to how the toy functions.

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Which is the highest volcano?

Nevado Ojos del Salado is the highest volcano on Earth and the highest peak in Chile. It is a dormant complex volcano in the Andes on the Argentina-Chile border. It stretches for about 70-160 square kilometres and its highest summit reaches an altitude of 6,893 metres above sea level. It is part of the Nevado de Tres Cruces National Park, which is situated 290 kilometres from the town of Copiapo of the Chilean Atacama region and 600 kilometres from Mount Aconcagua, which is the highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere.

The climate of this mountain region is rather dry due to its proximity to the Atacama Desert that is situated to the west of the Andes Mountain. Ojos Del Salado is a popular hiking destination because of its easy trail, except the last stretch before the summit, which requires equipment to climb. Jan Alfred Szczepanski and Justyn Wojsznis were the first to reach the top of Ojos Del Salado in 1937.

There are no confirmed eruptions of Ojos del Salado. In 1993, there were reports of a minor gas-and-ash emission, but this could not be confirmed.

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Which is the highest waterfall in the world?

Located in the Guiana Highlands in Bolivar state of southeastern Venezuela, the Angel Falls is the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall. It occurs on the Churun River, which is a tributary of the Caron, located 260 kilometres to the southeast of Ciudad Bolivar. This cataract drops 979 metres and is 150 metres wide at the base.

Angel Falls was not known to the outside world until 16th November, 1933 when Jimmie Angel, an American aviator, flew over them while he was searching for an ore bed, based on the directions given by the Spanish explorer Felix Cardona.

Once he located the falls, he returned on 9th October, 1937 to land his Flamingo monoplane El Rio Caroni on top of Auyantepui, a tabletop mountain. But his plane was damaged when its wheels sank into the marshy ground, leaving Angel and his three companions, including his wife Marie, stranded. They were forced to climb down the tepui, which took them 11 days. The news of this adventure spread across the world and the waterfall was named Angel Falls in his honour.

Since it is located in the Canaima National Park, the dense jungle surrounding it prevents it from being seen from the air. Angel Falls is one of Venezuela’s top tourist attractions, and its other name, “Salto del angel” was first published on a Venezuelan government map in December 1939.

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