MORAL STORY

The Potato, the Egg, and the Coffee Beans 

A boy named John was upset. His father found him crying. 

When his father asked John why he was crying, he said that he had a lot of problems in his life. 

His father simply smiled and asked him to a potato, an egg, and some coffee beans. He placed them in three bowls.

He then asked John to feel their texture and then fill each bowl with water. 

John did as he had been told. His father then boiled all three bowls. 

Once the bowls had cooled down, John’s father asked him to feel the texture of the different food items again. 

John noticed that the potato had become soft and its skin was peeling off easily; the egg had become harder; the coffee beans had completely changed and filled the bowl of water with aroma and flavour. 

Moral of the story:

Life will always have problems and pressures, like the boiling water in the story. 

It's how you respond and react to these problems that counts the most.

SPICE THAT RESEMBLES NAIL

Clove

     Cloves are the unopened buds of the clove tree (Syzygium aromaticum) that are handpicked and dried until they are hard and dark brown in colour. They are about half an inch long and with their tapering stems, resemble nails in appearance. In fact, the word 'clove' is believed to have been derived from the Latin clavus meaning 'nail'.

     Cloves have a rich history of use as spice and medicine in Asia, dating back more than 2,000 years. Writings from the Han dynasty in China (207 BC) mention that courtiers were required to keep cloves in their mouths while talking to the emperor, to ensure that their breath did not smell offensive. 

     In India, the clove - known as laung in Hindi, lavang or lavanga in several other Indian languages, and grambu in Tamil and Malayalam - has been used since ancient times by Ayurvedic physicians to treat various respiratory and digestive ailments. 

     The clove is rich in traditionally recognised nutrients, being an excellent source of manganese, a very good source of vitamin K and dietary fibre, and a good source of iron, calcium and magnesium. In addition, clove oil contains a compound named eugenol, which has been proved to provide relief from pain. When the oil is applied topically, it relieves pain from rheumatism, arthritis and other inflammation based pain. 

     Clove oil is an active ingredient in several dental products such as mouthwashes, toothpastes and over-the-counter medicines for toothache relief. Traditional Chinese medicine makes use of cloves in remedies for nausea, diarrhoea, hiccups, fever, toothache and bad breath. 

     The clove, in whole and ground form, is a popular ingredient in Asian, African, Middle Eastern and European cuisines. The clove finds extensive use in Indian cuisine, and is used in the preparation of several spice mixtures, including garam masala, curry powders, and pickling spices. In the West, cloves have a traditional association with apple tarts, sauces, pies and puddings. 

LAUGHING GAS

Nitrous oxide 

     Nitrous oxide, (N₂O), laughing gas is used in surgery and dentistry for its anesthetic (pain-numbing) and analgesic (pain-relieving) properties. The gas gets its common name from the dreamy effect it creates and the giddy laughter it evokes, on inhalation. 

     A colourless, non-toxic and non-flammable gas at room temperature, nitrous oxide smells slightly sweet. It is emitted by bacteria, making it a natural part of the Earth’s atmosphere. Nitrogen fertilisers and animal waste cause bacteria to produce more nitrous oxide than usual. In terms of the concentration in the atmosphere, nitrous oxide comes fourth after water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane. It is a greenhouse gas, which means that it traps heat in the atmosphere, making the Earth warmer. 

     The gas was first synthesised by Joseph Priestly in 1772. However, the first medical experiments using the gas were conducted in 1794 by Thomas Beddoes and James Watt. Watt invented a device to produce the gas and another to inhale it while Beddoes suggested that inhaling the gas could help treat tuberculosis and other lung diseases. Humphry Davy was put in charge of monitoring experiments using the gas. It was Davy who first noted the gas' analgesic effects and published his findings in 1800. However, the world paid no heed. The gas was just popularly used to host 'laughing gas parties'. It was only in 1884, more than 40 years later, that Davy's findings were finally put to use and nitrous oxide was used as an anaesthetic. 

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN CURRENCY

 Rupee (₹)

     Sher Shah Suri was the person responsible for the Rupee. His version of Re 1 in 1540 AD weighed 11.5 grams of silver and was divided into 40 copper pieces or paisa. By the time the British East India Company entered the market in the 1600s, Sher Shah's silver rupee had already become the standard currency atleast in name. Despite many attempts to bring the Sterling Pound to India, the Rupee grew in popularity and was even exported as a currency to other British colonies. 

     And when the British government took over the company territories after the 1857 revolt, the Rupee became the official currency of colonial India, with the head of King George VI featuring prominently on banknotes and coins. In 1947, India became an independent nation. The currency kept its name but changed visually to account of the birth of this new nation. 

How is the Rupee made?

* There are 4 mints that produce legal tender in India. They are in Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Noida. 

* Indian banknotes are made of a balsam wood pulp. Cotton fibres are added to pulp to make it more durable than regular paper. 

* The whole note is then infused with gelatin to give it extra strength. Using watermark technology, an image of Mahatma Gandhi is imprinted onto the sheet during making process. 

* Before the paper dries, a silver thread with holographic imagery is woven into it. The watermark and silver thread make the notes very difficult to replicate.

The Rupee symbol ₹

* The Rupee symbol is a recent development in the history of Indian currency. Until 2009, the word rupee on a banknote was shortened to 'Rs.' to represent Indian currency. The Indian government, Ministry of Finance held a competition for graphic designers to develop a symbol to represent the currency. 

* The winning graphic was a symbol that looks like the Devanagari 'Ra' as well as the English 'R'. The symbol was an instant success and soon became the standard representation of the rupee. 

The symbol was conceptualised and designed by D. Udaya Kumar, a post graduate in Design from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. 

* MRPs and advertisements quickly took to using it and in January 2012 the government issued coinage and banknotes that featured the symbol. 

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

The Ghost Car

Japan’s first Grand Prix since the Second World War was held at the Suzuka circuit. Most people felt that Masao Asano would win. His racing car was a white Austin Healy and its number was 42. The choice of the car number shocked the Japanese as it is considered inauspicious. The Arabic numerals for 42 translate as shi ni, closely related to the Japanese word shingu (‘to die’). But Asano did not care for these superstitions.

Unfortunately, in that race, Asano had an accident and died. The Japan Auto Federation (JAF), which controls the country’s motor sports, reviewed the accident and a few weeks later, banned the use of the number 42 on vehicles used for racing.

The second Grand Prix was held a year later and the JAF developed a new system for determining the running order of the racing drivers. Two teams of spotters took their places in the control tower and recorded the number of each car as it completed a circuit. During the race, the spotters would call out the numbers on the cars as they flashed by, without concentrating on any car number because there were too many cars and they were very speedy.

After the 25-lap race, when the two teams compared notes, they discovered that a car with the number 42 had completed 8 laps. Nobody could tell what kind of car it was or who the driver was.

The Unlucky Number: The Japanese are very superstitious about certain numbers. Four is considered an unlucky number in Japan because it sounds like shi meaning 'death'. This is why there are two readings for the number four — shi and yon. Whenever possible, people try to avoid using the deathly one. License plates  having the digits 42 which sounds like shini ('to die') are strictly avoided. Many housing complexes, hotels and hospitals skip the fourth floor. Forty-two is also said to be themost unlucky age for Japanese men.

WORDS WORTH READING

Always be confident

People talk about lack of confidence all the time. Let’s now talk about what happens when we have too much of it.

Once a fox and a wildcat met on the outskirts of a village.

“This is a dangerous place,” said the cat, “infested with wild dogs.” 

“Dogs don’t bother me,” boasted the fox. “I know a hundred ways to get away from those stupid animals.”

Just then, they saw a pack of wild dogs coming. “Goodbye, friend,” said the cat. “I’d better be going. Unlike you, I know only one way to get away from dogs. That is to climb up a tree.” 

And with that, it sped up a tall tree. The fox tried all the tricks it knew in its attempt to get away from the dogs. But it was soon caught and killed. 

It is said, “Confidence is good, but overconfidence always sinks the ship.” 

Yes, excess of everything is bad. Even too much of confidence can be ruinous. An overconfident person always considers himself to be right. Such people also disregard pros and cons of things. Thus they often tend to make wrong judgements, and disastrous decisions. To them, the experienced or learned opinions of others do not matter. 

Be confident. But not overconfident. Remember that overconfidence precedes carelessness. It blocks your progress in many ways. In studies and in life, do your part well; and that too with confidence and determination.

DO YOU KNOW

 How do penguins adapt to life in the icy ocean?

Penguins are a group of flightless aquatic birds that live in the Southern Hemisphere, primarily in the Antarctic region. Their bodies are beautifully adapted to life at sea and under extremely cold weather conditions. 

Penguins have a thick layer fat, known as blubber, under their skin. This layer, which can constitute up to 30% of the bird's body weight, acts as an excellent form of internal insulation to keep it warm in the coldest weather. Another use of the blubber is as a valuable store of energy. 

After laying her egg, the female emperor penguin sets off to sea to feed, leaving her mate to incubate the egg. She returns only after about two months, by which time the male would have lost up to 40% of his body weight due to fasting (as he is unable to mov around and look for food). It is the stored body fat (blubber) that sustains him during this period of starvation. 

The penguin's feathers are tightly packed and overlap to provide waterproofing and warmth - both crucial to the bird's survival in the icy winter. The black feathers on its back also absorb heat from the sun, helping it to keep warm. 

Further, penguins follow the practice of huddling together to conserve the scarce heat. Male emperor penguins are known to huddle together in groups of up to 6,000, while incubating their eggs during the middle of the Antarctic winter. While those at the centre of the group are warmed by their companions' body heat, the ones on the outside are more uncomfortable as they are exposed to the biting wind and cold. They solve this problem by continually moving and exchanging places; taking turns to stand in the colder spots.