Category Science

What is NGT and what are its functions?

You must have read about NGT banning firecrackers in areas where air quality is “poor”. But do you know what NGT is and what its functions are?

NGT is the National Green Tribunal established in October 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010. A specialised judicial body, it has over the years emerged as a significant player in environmental regulation in the country, passing strict orders on issues ranging from pollution and deforestation to waste management. People can approach the tribunal against projects that affect the environment or seek compensation for damages caused due to violation of environmental laws.

Civil cases heard The NGT deals with all civil cases under the seven laws related to the environment which are the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977; the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991; and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. Any violation pertaining to these laws or any decision taken by the Government under these laws can be challenged before the NGT. From individuals and conservation groups to the community at large, anyone can file a case against everyone – from the State pollution control board to the Union government- at the NGT by paying a fee. The cases are to be disposed of within six months from the date of filing. The proceedings of the tribunal are conducted only in English. The NGT has as much power to grant relief as it has to impose a penalty for non-compliance of its orders

How does the NGT function?

The main bench of the NGT is in New Delhi, with regional benches in Pune, Bhopal, Kolkata and Chennai having jurisdiction over specific geographical areas.

The NGT has a chairperson, who is a retired Judge of the Supreme Court appointed by the Central Government and judicial and expert members. Besides, expert members are required to have a minimum of 15 years experience in the field of environment, forest conservation and related subjects. Though the NGT is supposed to function with a minimum of 10 members and a maximum of 20 members who will serve a five-year term, the number has been changing over the years. According to latest reports, it has only six members and a chairperson, retired justice Adarsh Kumar Goel.

Quick facts

  • Over 400 cases were heard by the NGT via video conferencing till June-end during the lockdown period.
  • The tribunal on its own passed several directives on COVID-19 waste management, as its improper handling poses a grave threat to the health of the environment and the people.
  • It also dealt with matters relating to solid waste management and rejuvenation of water bodies such as the Ganga and the Yamuna.

What is your weight on the Moon?

If last week’s story on the birth of the Moon fascinated you here’s another quick fact about the Moon that is sure to grab your attention – your weight on the Moon would be much less compared to that on Earth! Yes, that’s true. Here’s why.

It all comes down to gravity

Your weight is a measure of the amount of gravity exerted on your body. Since gravity on each of the planets and space bodies is different your weight at any two places is bound to be different.

The gravity of an object is determined by its mass and size. Since the Moon is considerably smaller than Earth in mass, the gravity exerted on your body on the Moon is also much less – one-sixth that of Earth to be precise. However, even if you go to the Moon, only your weight will change, while your mass will remain the same as that on Earth. Actually, your mass anywhere in the universe is pretty much the same.

That makes your weight…

When you land on the Moon’s surface, your weight would be one-sixth of your current weight here.

For example, if you weigh 60 kg on Earth, your weight on the Moon’s surface would be about 10 kg.

 

Picture Credit : Google

How climate change can impact bird life?

Migration pattern

The impact of climate change on birds’ migration patterns has been noticed in the last few decades. Scientists have documented that fewer birds show up in breeding and wintering grounds and they attribute it to the increasing temperatures changing vegetation and extreme weather conditions.

Birds synchronise their migratory movements with seasonal changes. The start of their journey and their speed must match the life cycle (before caterpillars pupate) of food sources at the stopover and destination sites. But these environmental cues go for a toss with changing climate.

Lack of food

A number of birds has adjusted breeding times to match early Spring. They arrive at the breeding site earlier than before. Meanwhile, increasing temperatures also make the vegetation bloom and insects hatch earlier at the site. But sometimes these shifts are not in line with each other. As a result, the chicks hatch way after the caterpillars are gone. And so, they starve. (On average the window of time when birds lay their eggs has gotten earlier by almost two weeks over half a century. Since many small songbirds can raise their young in roughly one month, two weeks is a big shift in their timing.)

Habitat loss

One of the major effects of climate change is the loss of habitats. While some species face shrinking ranges, others face habitat destruction. For migrating birds, flooding or desertification could spell doom. Flocks might fly thousands of kilometres only to find their destination submerged or barren. Many goose species use the Siberian tundra’s rocky bedrock to raise their offspring. But increasing temperatures make the permafrost soil to thaw and change the habitat completely, making it impossible for the geese to breed.

Sea-level rise

Sea-level rise and erosion alter coastal wetlands. Many birds, such as piping plovers, that inhabit coastal areas lay their eggs directly on the sand of the beach in a shallow depression. The erosion of beaches and storm surges can cause nests to be lost to the ocean.

Lack of sea ice

Climate change affect penguins in two ways – non-availability of food and nesting habitats. The Adelie penguins nest on land during the summer, and migrate during the winter to the edge of the sea ice, where they feed at sea. As icebergs break off in warming Antarctica, Adelie penguins are forced to take longer routes to find food in the ocean.

Antarctica’s climate is generally cold and dry but warming could cause unprecedented rain or melting of ice, creating puddles on the ground. This is bad news for penguins that lay their eggs on the ground. Their eggs cannot survive when they are lying in a pool of water.

Chinstrap penguins, which also breed in Antarctica, are affected by melting ice. Lack of sea ice affects the abundance of krill their main source of food.

Smaller body, larger wings

A study published in December 2019 found that global warming was causing birds to shrink and their wingspans to grow in size. Scientists explained that it could be more adaptation of birds as smaller birds are better at cooling off, losing body heat more quickly due to their larger surface area to volume ratios. But smaller body size means less energy available for the birds to complete long journeys. Scientists say that birds would have evolved to grow long wings to compensate for their smaller bodies as it helps them survive migration.

Will birds be able to adapt to climate change?

In the past, species and ecosystems were able to respond to global temperature shifts because average global temperatures changed slowly. Now, the change is simply too fast for many species to adapt. As we saw earlier, birds are adapting ways such as starting their migration early to match earlier Springs, but scientists are not sure if they will be able to keep up with the speed of climate change.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Enos, the chimp that orbited the Earth

On November 29, 1961, Enos, a chimpanzee, flew into space. While the spaceflight made Enos the first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth, it also subjected the animal to terrible equipment malfunction.

It is well established that the Space Age was essentially a two-horse race to begin with, with Soviet Union and the U.S. being the two protagonists. And while Soviet Union did have the early lead, the Americans caught up and achieved the first human landing on the moon, which was at the forefront of both countries’ objectives.

The annals of human spaceflight, however, aren’t occupied only by human beings. For, before we human beings ventured into space, we needed assurance that it was indeed possible. And for that, we turned to animals.

While some of them enjoy celebrity status, some others are merely footnotes in history. Enos, a chimpanzee, was among those that convinced biologists (on the American side in this case) that animals’ bodies and minds could function even while out in space.

Intense training

Brought from the Miami Rare Bird Farm in April 1960, Enos clocked up over 1,250 hours of training, far more intense than that which Ham, another chimpanzee and the first hominid in space, went through. His selection for the Project Mercury flight that he went on to be a part of, however, happened just days before the eventual launch.

Hours before the launch, Enos, weighing 39 pounds (17.69 kg) underwent a physical examination, was connected to sensors while he stood still, allowed himself to be secured onto a couch built for the purpose and rode the transfer van that took him to the launch vehicle area, before being moved inside the spacecraft.

Relaxed despite delay

Enos’ condition was monitored inside the Mercury capsule. Even though the holds during the countdown lasted for hours due to various faults, Enos was largely relaxed, save for an occasion when the hatch was opened and closed to allow a switch to be correctly positioned.

Walter Williams, the mission director, was referred to by his peers as a “master in imparting a need for orderly urgency”. He did just that during the countdown for this mission, driving from his usual position at the mission control centre to the pad to personally express his desire for things to move in an orderly manner.

Despite losing a lot of time, weather, however, remained favourable, meaning that they could go ahead with the launch of Mercury Atlas 5 (MA-5) on November 29, 1961. Minor discrepancies apart, the spacecraft, including the control, tracking and communications systems, performed satisfactorily, putting Enos into orbit.

Enos, the first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth, was more than merely a passenger. His training included avoidance conditioning, which meant that electrical shocks were administered to the feet when the animal responded incorrectly while carrying out tasks.

Enos performed well in a variety of tasks, receiving many a drink of water and banana pellets as rewards. But in what scientists called the oddity problems, where Enos had to pick the odd one out among three options (say if two triangles and a circle are displayed, then the circle is the odd one out), he was also penalised due to faulty equipment.

A lever fails

Apart from receiving shocks when performing mistakes, Enos started getting shocks even when he answered correctly as one of the levers that he used for answering malfunctioned. Enos was shocked and frustrated, but kept pulling the levers and performing the tasks and remained at rest between problems, as he had been trained to.

The spacecraft, meanwhile, experienced trouble while about to complete two of its scheduled three orbits around the Earth. The operations team realised that the attitude control system was erratic and the cooling equipment also gave trouble. While the physicians felt the mission could continue after monitoring Enos’ parameters and finding that they had stabilised, the operations team wasn’t so sure.

This meant that only two orbits were completed before Enos’ spaceflight ended and he landed back on Earth. A little more than three hours after launch, the capsule containing Enos descended without incident and the chimpanzee was retrieved.

Even though the mission was largely successful, the avoidance conditioning tests and the fact that the chimpanzee had to suffer further because a human-made device failed make it rather unpopular. In November 1962, a little less than a year later, Enos died of dysentery, with no symptoms that could be directly attributed to his training or spaceflight.

 

Picture Credit : Google

How thermometer works?

Are you hot or cold? A thermometer will take your temperature. There are many different kinds used for different purposes. Take your pick.

One type of thermometer has a thin glass tube partly filled with liquid. When the air is warm, the liquid in the tube becomes warm and rises. It rises because heat makes a liquid expand, or take up more space. The warmer it gets, the more space it needs. When the temperature drops, the liquid contracts, or takes up less space, so it moves down the tube. The liquid in many thermometers is a silver-coloured metal called mercury. Some thermometers are filled with coloured alcohol.

A digital thermometer has a metal probe. When the thermometer is turned on, a battery inside sends around an electric current. If the probe is warm, the current will move easily. If the probe is cool, the current will not move as easily. The thermometer shows a temperature reading based on how easily the current moves.

Doctors often use an IR thermometer to detect infrared rays from a person’s eardrum. The hotter you are, the more radiation the thermometer detects. The thermometer converts the amount of radiation to a temperature reading.

 Standard thermometer contains a liquid that moves up when it becomes warm. The liquid drops down when it cools. The lines indicate the temperature.

The lines and numbers on the thermometer indicate degrees. They tell you how much the temperature changed. Degrees are marked with the symbol º. The number 0 ºC is the temperature at which water freezes. This is the same temperature as 32 ºF. The letter C stands for Celsius, and the letter F stands for Fahrenheit.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Who are inventors?

Inventors are men and women who make things that make our life easier.

Many inventions are simple. In 1865 in the U.S.A., S.E. Pettee invented a machine for making paper bags. And Earle Dickson invented the first ready-to-use bandage in 1920.

Some inventions take many years to develop. The great Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of his ideas about 500 years ago. He drew an aeroplane, a parachute, and a helicopter. It was more than 300 years before any of these were made.

The American Thomas A. Edison invented the frst light bulb in 1879. But several other men worked on similar designs before Edison did.

To keep their ideas safe and prove they thought of it first, inventors apply for a patent. The patent gives the inventor the right to make his invention or sell his idea. Edison had ore patents than anyone else – he has 1,093!

 

Picture Credit : Google