Category Science & Technology

Researchers from Pune and Kerala have rediscovered a rare and critically endangered plant species called Globba andersonii from the Sikkim Himalayas after a gap of 135 years. The plant, commonly known as ‘dancing ladies’ or ‘swan flowers’ was thought to have been extinct until its “re-collection for the first time since 1875 when the British botanist, Sir George King, collected it from the Sikkim Himalayas. Globba andersonii are characterised by white flowers and a “yellowish lip”. The species is restricted mainly to the Teesta River Valley region which includes the Sikkim Himalayas and Darjeeling hill ranges. The plant usually grows in a dense colony as a lithophyte (plant growing on a bare rock or stone) on rocky slopes in the outskirts of evergreen forests.

Globba andersonii are characterised by white ?owers, non-appendaged anthers (the part of a stamen that contains the pollen) and a “yellowish lip”. Classified as “critically endangered” and “narrowly endemic”, the species is restricted mainly to Teesta River Valley region which includes the Sikkim Himalays and Darjeeling hill ranges.

“As no live collections were made for the last 136 years, it was considered as presumably extinct in the wild. E?orts made by us for the rediscovery of the taxon for the past several years were in vain. However, Dr. Punekar could locate some specimens during his visit to Sevoke in July 2011, which was used to make a detailed description,” said Mr. Thachat.

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Scientists have developed a new way to create “sight” for blind people. The approach bypasses the eyes and delivers a sequence of electrical signals to the brain, creating the perception of a glowing light that traces a shape. The method might one day restore aspects of vision to people with damaged eyes or optic nerves.

The team “drew” letters of the alphabet on blind people’s brains by giving them specific patterns of electrical stimulation. Tiny jolts of electricity to the visual cortex, a span of neural tissue at the back of the brain, can make a person “see” small bursts of light called phosphenes. When electrical stimulation was used to dynamically trace letters directly on patients’ brains, they were able to see the intended letter shapes and could correctly identify different letters. They described seeing glowing spots or lines forming the letters. Researchers said their inspiration for this was the idea of tracing a letter in the palm of someone’s hand.

So far, only simple shapes, such as the letters C, W and U, have been tested. But outlines of common objects, such as faces, houses or cars, could be traced using the same idea, they said.

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Google, Apple, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard (HP) and Amazon are names that are synonymous with the word tech giant. But could you ever imagine that these billion-dollar American companies started their journey from a garage?

HP was the first company among the giants to have commenced its journey from a rented garage in Palo Alto, California. In 1938, Bill Hewlett and David Packard began part-time work at a rented garage with their mentor Frederick Terman, a professor at Stanford University. In 1939, they formalised their partnership, and the rest is history.

Google, co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, started its journey from the garage of Susan Wojcicki in Menlo Park, California in September 1998. Susan Wojcicki is currently the Chief Executive Officer of YouTube.

Apple too started out in the garage of co-founder Steve Jobs’ parents in Los Altos, California. Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne worked on the first Apple Computer in the garage in 1976.

Microsoft meanwhile saw its ideas come to life in a garage at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Co-founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a version of the BASIC programming while working out of the garage. During their garage stint, the two stayed at a most nearby.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rented out a house with a garage in Bellevue, Washington and developed the company’s online bookstore website there in 1995.

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On November 22, 1927, American Carl J E Eliason received a patent for what he called the motor toboggan. The patent, titled “Vehicle for snow travel”, changed human relationship with winter forever. 

Do you live in a place that has a snowy climate? Or have you made a trip to such a place for a winter holiday? If you answered yes to either of the questions, then chances are that you have played with snow, making your own snowman or throwing snowballs at others. While those activities are inarguably fun, you would also know that travelling by foot in deep snow is no easy task.

If the majority of us with two reliable legs find it hard to tread our way through snow, you can imagine how difficult it would be for those with disabilities to their feet. And yet, it was this disability that prompted American Carl J E Eliason to work on an invention for travelling in the snow.

Difficulties posed by snow

The beginning of the 20th Century saw vast improvements in the way people travelled. Apart from automobiles, which quickly became an important part of people’s lives, airplanes too made their way, shortening distances like never before. But even the best of automobiles were of limited use in places where the winter saw heavy snowfall, making it difficult to get from one point to another.

Eliason, who lived in Sayner, Wisconsin, the U.S., was far too used to these. Raised in such climes, Eliason loved to hunt, fish and trap – just like every other young outdoors men of the locality. But owing to his foot disability, Eliason often found himself lagging behind others, unable to keep up with his friends during the treks through the snow.

This prompted Eliason to try and come up with a vehicle that would enable him, and others, to overcome the challenges of snow travel. He began by working with a Model T Ford – one of the most popular automobiles of the time – and adapting it to skis, but it neither worked in the deep snows and unploughed roads, nor was it easy to handle in the woods.

Two years of tweaking

He began work on what he called the motor toboggan in the winter of 1924 and it took him the better part of two years to realise what he saw as the most practical means of travelling in the snow. Eliason’s invention was made up of a wooden toboggan that was fitted with two skis and steered by ropes. Pushed along by an endless steel-cleated track with slide rails and powered by an outboard motor, the motor toboggan was the precursor to the modern snowmobile.

Eliason applied for a patent for a “Vehicle for snow travel” in March 1927 and received it on November 22 the same year. Even though Eliason wasn’t the first to conceive a motorised vehicle for travelling in snow, his motor toboggan was easily the most reliable from a rider’s perspective and also the first such vehicle that went on to be mass-produced.

Challenge to opportunity

Eliason didn’t stop there as he continued to redesign and improve his machine in the decades that followed. He chose better motors and materials and constantly strove for better performance while personally supervising the assembly of each unit that he sold.

The challenges of winter soon became opportunities as these vehicles enabled travel like never before. The enhanced mobility between certain remote villages and towns, even during severe snowfall, meant that communication too improved manifold. What’s more, travelling this way was so easy and enjoyable that the experience even turned out to be a kind of recreational activity.

Eliason’s motor toboggan remained ahead of its time, so much so that the bulk of the design and fabrication of early snowmobiles replicated many of its features. This, in a roundabout sort of way, implies that most of the current snowmobiles can be traced back to the motor toboggan.

As for Eliason himself, he surely did make the most of his invention. As long as there was snow to go about, he was always ahead of the game. While the rest huffed and puffed on foot, he would ride his motor toboggan and get to the destination in the woods at least an hour before his hunting mates.

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