Category Science

What are the different species of beetles?

Beetle Abodes

Beetles are found almost everywhere except in the oceans, seas and Antarctica. They live in all kinds of habitats including scorching deserts, freshwater lakes and freezing polar ice caps, but are most abundant in tropical rain forests.

They make their homes in diverse places. Some burrow underground or in wood or even in the carcasses of animals. Others prefer ant and termite nests where they have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts.

Just Move It!

Most beetle species have thick, hard front wings called elytra and protective back wings. Desert species trap moisture under their wings while water beetles trap air so they can live underwater. Most beetles can fly, though they move in a slow, lugubrious fashion.

Antennae Alerts

The long, flexible antennae on a beetle’s head are feelers that help it find a mate, food, and a place to lay its eggs. They also catch vibrations in the air to warn it of predators. The body and legs of a beetle are covered with tiny hairs that are hyper sensitive to touch, sound, smell, light and taste.

Some beetles have extensions on their head that resemble horns or antlers.

“Eye” See You!

Most beetles have compound eyes and colour vision. Ground beetles that depend on vision for hunting or breeding (like fireflies) have larger eyes. Whirligig beetles swim on the surface of ponds and use their divided eyes for seeing both above and under water at the same time!

Legging It

Beetles sport all kinds of legs, ranging from long and slender for the speedy ground beetles; the dung beetle’s broad and ridged legs for digging; curved and shaped like a paddle for swimming in water beetles and large hind legs for hopping such as in the flea beetles. A sticky pad on the bottom of each foot on some beetles helps them walk on glass for instance. All species have a pair of claws on each foot.

Dining Etiquette

Beetles eat plants, other insects, carcasses, pollen, and dung. Beetles living in water eat small fish, tadpoles and even snails. Rove beetles catch flying insects with a long, sticky tongue. Some beetles feed on nectar.

Bug-bears

Many beetles are also considered pests (the potato beetle and the boll weevil for example), that infest and destroy crops, vegetables and fruits.

Beetle Benefits

Beetles are great recyclers because they feed on anything including animal carcasses and dung. Some like ladybirds eat aphids which are pests.

Largest and Smallest

The Titan beetle is the world’s largest and can grow up to 17cm long. It lives in the South American rainforest. It has both jaws and claws strong enough to tear into animal and human flesh, but is doesn’t attack unless provoked.

On the other end of the scale is the feather-winged beetle which measures around 0.325mm, the smallest free-living insect (as opposed to parasitic insects which are smaller).

 

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How playing cards has an ancient Indian connection?

Playing cards are supposed to have originated in Tang China, but were very popular in India as Krida patram, and later in Mughal times as Ganjifa. Beautiful round cards in materials like Ivory, wood, and silk were made.

Modern Polo was picked up by the British in the 19th century from a game played by Manipuri royalty in North East India. However, it is a 2000-year-old game from Persia, which had spread to India, China and even the Byzantine Empire. The Persian name was Chogan, but it was called Pulu in Manipur, which means wooden ball. It was a favourite of royalty. Qutbuddin Aibak died playing it in Lahore. Akbar invented a flaming ball so that he could play it at night. Variations like Elephant Polo were also popular.

 

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How martial arts of Kung Fu has an ancient Indian connection?

Shaolin Kung Fu was the first institutionalised martial art in China, which influenced others like judo and karate. The story of its origin in the temple of Shaolin is given in various Chinese texts. An Indian monk Bodhidharma, who is supposed to have been a Pallava prince, came to China in the 6th century.

“The Dharma Master was a South Indian of the Western Region. He was the third son of a great Indian king. His ambition lay in the Mahayana path, and so he put aside his white layman’s robe for the black robe of a monk […] Lamenting the decline of the true teaching in the outlands, he subsequently crossed distant mountains and seas, travelling about propagating the teaching in Han and Wei.”

After many years, he started living in the Shaolin temple, and developed the Chan (from “Dhyan”) school of mediation, which became “Zen” in Japan. In the classical Yoga approach, he believed that physical fitness of the monks was eesential for concentration, and developed exercises like martial arts, as he had been trained as a warrior. One can see the resemblance between Shaolin Kung Fu and surviving Indian Martial arts like Kalaripayattu. He is known as Damo in China, Daruma dolls are very popular in Japan, depicting him with a black curly beard.

 

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Who invented the diesel engine in 1892?

What all have you seen during a visit to a fuel station? You would have seen motorbikes and cars, and maybe even bigger vehicles on some occasions. You would have seen people attending to these vehicles, filling them up with the desired fuel. If you had noticed closely, you would have observed that the fuel station mainly provides two kinds of fuels – petrol and diesel.

While all the two-wheelers and some four-wheelers get their tanks filled up with petrol, other four-wheelers and certain bigger vehicles get their tanks filled with diesel. The type of fuel used by the vehicle is determined by the engine that it houses. While those with petrol engines use petrol, those with diesel engines use diesel as their fuel.

The “diesel” in these diesel engines comes from Rudolf Diesel, a German inventor and mechanical engineer. Born in Paris in 1858, Diesel decided on a career in engineering at the age of 14. He went to the Munich Technical University (Polytechnic Institute), and by the time he completed his studies there in 1880, he had received the highest grades the university had ever given in an examination since it was founded.

Inspired by Linde

Apart from his brilliant record as a student, Diesel was also drawn towards the thermodynamics lectures of German refrigeration engineer Carl von Linde during his time at Munich. This meant that Diesel not only went to work in the Linde refrigeration machine factory after his studies, but was also inspired to develop a new engine with increased thermal efficiency.

After a year of traineeship, Diesel was hired in Linde’s ice factory in Paris in 1881. By the end of the year, Diesel received his first patent – regarding the manufacture of transparent ice. As the years passed by, Diesel started devoting more time to his self-imposed task of developing a more efficient internal combustion engine.

By 1890, the year he moved to Berlin for a new post with the Linde firm, Diesel had conceived his idea for the engine. His concept of a “new, rational heat engine” was patented in 1892 and in the following year, on February 23, 1893, Diesel was granted the patent DRP 67 207 “on a principle of operation and construction for internal combustion engines”.

No external ignition

As opposed to the spark-ignition engine that requires an externally applied ignition to a mixture of air and fuel, Diesel’s compression-ignition engine relied on compressing air. The ignition was to be achieved by introducing the fuel to a cylinder full of air that is highly compressed, thereby reaching high pressures and hence, extreme heat.

Having built the first prototype of his engine in 1897, Diesel kept improving it over the years. Even though the engines he built never quite hit the efficiency he had predicted through his theoretical calculations, they were still way better than the peers. This meant that there were over 70,000 diesel engines – mainly in factories and generators- that were working by 1912.

Death remains a mystery

On September 29, 1913, Diesel disappeared from the steamship Dresden while travelling to Harwich, England from Antwerp, Belgium. A body floating in water and spotted on October 10 was identified to be Diesel. Even though Diesel’s continues to be a mystery, it was officially judged to be a suicide. Despite making a lot of money through his engines, Diesel was facing financial ruin during this voyage and was nearly broke. Conspiracy theories, however, suggest that Diesel’s death could well have been a murder.

In the year of his death, Diesel wrote that “I am firmly convinced that the automobile engine will come, and then I consider my life’s work complete.” He didn’t live to see it, but almost all vehicular diesel engines, till this day, continue to follow the basic principles that were set forth by Diesel.

 

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What is AQI?

The air quality is measured by the Air Quality Index. Air quality indices have been created in different countries for the measurement of air quality. These indices measure the air quality in the country and indicate whether the amount of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the air exceeds the criteria set by the World Health Organization or not.

The Air Quality Index measures the quality of air. It shows the amount and types of gases dissolved in the air. There are 6 categories of the air have been created in this air quality index. 

These categories are based on air quality. These categories are; good, satisfactory, moderate, poor, very poor and severe. 

 

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What is used as a measure of distance covered by aircraft?

One of the challenges of international flying is handling different units of measure in different countries. In aviation, the battle between imperial and metric units continues. Feet, meters, statute miles, nautical miles, inches of mercury, millibars, hectopascal, knots, meters/second – it can get a little confusing! Read on and I’ll scramble your brain with international aviation units!

World-wide, the nautical mile (nm) is the standard for measuring the distance an aircraft travels across the ground. 

Other lateral measurements are a mess. Most of the world measures runway length in meters while North America uses feet. Most of the world measures airport visibility in meters. North America? Not nautical miles, not meters, but statute miles! Huh?? Not to worry, North America changes back to feet when measuring Runway Visual Range (runway visibility measured with a laser), while the rest of the world sticks with meters. Confused? I sure am, and I do this for a living!

 

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