Category Social Sciences

Is Africa or Australia the hottest continent on earth?

The answer is Africa. Yes, the correct answer for Which Is The Hottest Continent In The World is Africa.

Africa is the world’s second-biggest and second-most crowded continent, after Asia in both cases. About 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles), including contiguous islands, covers 6% of Earth’s absolute surface zone and 20% of its territory zone. With 1.3 billion people in 2018, it represents about 16% of the world’s human populace. Africa’s population is the most youthful among all the continents; the middle age in 2012 was 19.7, when the overall middle age was 30.4. Notwithstanding a broad scope of regular assets, the continent has been declared one of the world’s poorest countries.

The heat and humidity are portrayed by exchanging dry and stormy season. The contrast between the seasons turns out to be more denoted as it is closer to the jungles; comparatively, there is more variation in temperatures, resulting in low rainfall. Because of the continent’s size, the impact of latitude prevalent in the northern half of the globe; there is a progression of tropical belts corresponding to the equator.

 

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What is the history of Jaisalmer Fort?

1. A living fort

The Jaisalmer Fort is considered one among the very few living forts in the world. Close to one fourth of Jaisalmer’s population lives inside the fort. When the fort was constructed nearly 850 years ago, the city was the part inside the fort walls. Settlements outside the fort were said to have come up around the 17th Century to accommodate the city’s expanding population.

2. The Golden Fort

The fort walls are built using yellow sandstone, giving it a lion-like colour in the day, which fades to a honey-gold as the sun sets, camouflaging the fort with the surrounding Thar desert. The fort is aptly called Sonar Quila’ or The Golden Fort. As the lights turn on in the night the fort continues to shine like a golden jewel above the city

3. No more an excellent drainage system

The Jaisalmer fort boasted an excellent drainage system in its initial years. The system, called ghut nali, allowed for easy drainage of rainwater away from the fort in all four directions. However, over the years, badly-planned construction activities and building of new roads have reduced the effectiveness of the drainage system. Today, most of the fort has a problem of water seepage.

4. Intricate havelis

Inside the fort one can find palaces, Jain and Hindu temples as well as havelis. Built by wealthy merchants, most of the havelis are constructed using ornate sandstone and are occupied even today. Many of these havelis have several floors and countless rooms with beautifully decorated archways, windows, doors and museums. Patwon ki haveli is the most famous of the lot as it was one of the first havelis to be built in Jaisalmer. Commissioned in the year 1805 by Guman Chand Patwa, this is a cluster of five havelis and is one of the largest in the city.

5. Stay inside Heritage Site

Since it is still occupied by people, the Jaisalmer Fort gives you the opportunity to stay inside a World Heritage Site, one of the very few sites to offer such a chance. There are several hotels as well as guest houses inside the fort where one can find accommodation.

 

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Is Sargassum seaweed harmful to humans?

In the centre of the North Atlantic Ocean, amidst the vast blue expanse, is a huge floating mat of brown seaweed called sargassum. These mats are quite common in the Sargasso Sea, a region around Bermuda. The region has been named after the seaweed. These floating mats of seaweed were first reported by Christopher Columbus in the 15th Century. But since 2011, the Atlantic Ocean has been witnessing massive sargassum blooms every year. It stretches nearly 9000 km from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists call this the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt. The seaweed band has been getting bigger every year, posing a serious threat to marine life, coastal ecosystem and the fishing communities dependent on it.

Sargassum is a genus of large brown seaweed (a type of algae) that floats in island-like masses. The seaweed species found in the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt include Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans. They have many leafy appendages, branches, and round, berry-like structures called pneumatocysts, which keep them buoyant and close to the surface. The seaweed band attracts fish, shrimp, crabs, birds, and turtles, providing essential habitats. The seaweed is in turn nourished by the excrement of these organisms. Even larger creatures find plenty to eat amid the sargassum.

While the seaweed can be a boon for marine wildlife under normal circumstances, too much of it can pose a huge problem. As sargassum decays it consumes the oxygen, creating low oxygen conditions that affect marine life. Coral reefs and seagrass ecosystems can suffer when high levels of sargassum change water chemistry and block organisms from moving freely. Thick mats can also block sunlight from reaching the ocean depths. The seaweeds often wash up ashore en masse and choke coastal ecosystems. As the seaweed rots, it releases foul-smelling hydrogen sulphide gas, causing respiratory illness in local populations. They also affect coastal tourism.

Recurrent blooms

Scientists are concerned over the recurrent blooms having become the new normal. They attribute it to various factors such as warming of the ocean due to climate change, discharge of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) from agricultural run-off and wastewater originating from major river basins such as the Congo and the Amazon and the deposition of iron and nutrient-rich Saharan dust on the ocean. Scientists say that multidisciplinary research and international efforts are required to address this issue.

 

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Why do some rich countries have no skyscrapers (like Sweden)?

Skyscrapers are first and foremost a space saving measure in places where you have to cram plenty of office space into a downtown location in order to accommodate all the people who are going to work there.

The notion that a skyscraper is a sign of development and affluence comes from places that have no space.

Sweden doesn’t need skyscrapers for two reasons:

  • we actually have space in our cities.
  • many operations are shifted to small towns because in this day and age, there is no need to confine everyone physically to a big city location, and then pay crazy rents.

When you live in Sweden, you notice that all your bills come from obscure little towns, not from Stockholm.

Why put a skyscraper in there?

There are some high buildings here, but if you’ve been to Shanghai or Hong Kong, they look pretty quaint. 

 

Credit : Quora

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Why is gold expensive? Why can’t we consider gold as other metals like iron, aluminum, and silver?

Iron mining in Western Australia produced 826 million tons of iron ore in 2018, which will convert to roughly several hundred million tons of iron metal. (Note that ratio of ore to metal.) The scale of Australian extraction of iron ore is quite impressive. Those piles in the first picture? That’s iron ore, a mountain of it.

Iron ores are easily accessible, easily converted to iron metal, and can be found in vast quantities. Iron ore is so plentiful that Australia makes a profit selling the ore at $100 to $170 (Australian dollars) per ton. That’s pennies per pound of iron ore, never mind the cost per troy ounce.

Aluminum is also produced in huge quantities, with tens of millions of tons of metal made per year. Aluminum is found in a number of rich deposits of bauxite (available by the tens of billions of tons around the world) that converts from 2 tons of bauxite to 1 ton of aluminum metal.

But gold?

Gold’s yield from rock is measured in ounces per ton of ore. Gold mines may have to extract up to 100 tons of rock to get an ounce of gold.

If those 826 million tons of Australian iron ore were gold-bearing rock instead then you might get as little as 230 tons of gold from them. (Current global gold production is about 3,100 tons per year.)

Further, gold deposits are not as common as iron ores or aluminum ores.

That’s why gold isn’t going to be treated as an inexpensive metal like iron or aluminum. It just isn’t as common or easily found. Iron and aluminum actually make up a significant percentage of Earth’s mass; gold does not.

Gold is subject to some odd consumer demand that drives up its price unnecessarily at times, but one reason for its high cost is that it’s hard to extract and isn’t nearly as common as iron or aluminum.

 

Credit : Quora

Picture Credit : Google

What is Intangible cultural heritage?

When someone mentions heritage, grand monuments is what often comes to front of the mind. But heritage is beyond that. It includes traditions or living expressions inherited from ancestors and passed on through generations. These may be in the form of performing arts, oral traditions, social practices, rituals knowledge, festive events and crafts among others.

Intangible cultural heritage plays an important role in maintaining cultural diversity in the times of globalisation. Understanding the heritage of different communities helps with intercultural dialogues and encourages mutual respect. It is especially relevant to minority groups and mainstream social groups within a State, and is as important for developing countries as for developed ones.

In 2003, UNESCO drafted the Conversation for the safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage for the protection and promotion of intangible cultural heritage. As of 2020, 180 countries have either ratified, approved or accepted the Convention. Every year, the intergovernmental committee for safeguarding intangible heritage meets to evaluate nominations proposed by States and decide whether or not to include a certain element to the list.

Thus far, 549 cultural elements from 127 countries have been added to the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. These include the Kumbh Mela, Yoga, Chhau dance, Kutiyaattan, and Ramlila among others from India.

 

Picture Credit : Google