DO YOU KNOW

Why can some people wiggle their ears while many can't?

We have nine muscles in our ears that could help them move but most of these muscles are inoperative. Some people, however, about 15 percent of the population, can use some of these muscles to move their external ears to a greater or lesser extent without using their hands. Ear movements are common among mammals especially cats, dogs and horses. These animals have retained the use of their ear muscles as sound and the direction from which it is coming is extremely important to them and they have to be able to move their ears around for this purpose. 

FIRST PASSENGER TRAIN OF INDIA

Great Indian Peninsula Railway

 

Great excitement prevailed in Bombay (now Mumbai) on Saturday, the 16th of April, 1853. Crowds surged towards Bori Bunder where a railway station had been built and from where the Great Indian Peninsula Railway was scheduled to launch its first ever passenger train service. 

By 3:30 in the afternoon all the lucky people - both ladies and gentlemen, Indian and Europeans - who had been invited to travel in the train were comfortably ensconced in their seats and were raring to go. Then a royal salute was fired from the ramparts of Fort St. George and the 14-coach train, pulled by three steam engines gave a shrill whistle and surged forward much to the awe and amazement of those left behind on the platform. 

All along the way, people watched and cheered from windows and rooftops and tops of trees as the iron wonder puffed and chugged and whistled its way out of the city and snaked through the countryside to its final destination, Tanna (now Thane), 34 kilometers away. The journey took about an hour. Bombayites talked of nothing else but their train over the next few weeks. 

That first train which carried about 500 passengers set in motion, literally, the wheels of the Indian Railways which today carries 24 million passengers daily and is one of the world's largest railway networks. 

THE KING OF SILENT COMEDY

Charlie Chaplin

 

Sir Charles Chaplin, popularly called Charlie Chaplin, was a prolific British actor, director and writer and one of the greatest comic artists of all time. He was born in 1889 in London to an alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother. He began performing on stage from the age of five (his parents were singers), which helped him overcome the hardships he faced as a child. While touring in the US in 1913, he got film offers and he began his celebrated career in Hollywood.

Chaplin is best loved for his character ‘The Tramp’. He wore a battered bowler hat, ill-fitting clothes and a toothbrush moustache and carried a walking stick. The character first appeared in short films in 1914 and then in the 1915 feature film 'The Tramp'. People loved it—a downtrodden character with odd mannerisms and unlucky in love, but nevertheless a survivor.

Most of Chaplin’s films are richly comic yet poignant. They entertain and also raise deeper social and philosophical questions. A wonderful example of this is 'The Kid' (1921), Chaplin’s directorial debut. It depicts the relationship between the Tramp and his adopted son John (played by five-year old Jackie Coogan). The most autobiographical of Chaplin’s movies, it shows elements of his unhappy childhood. He began filming it just weeks after losing his three-day old son. His attempts to coach Coogan and bond with him, taking him out for picnics and pony rides, helped him to overcome his loss.

Another noteworthy silent film was "The Gold Rush'. Its most iconic scene depicts the Tramp as being so hungry that he boils and eats his own shoe!

When silent films gave way to the talkies in the 1930s, Chaplin initially bucked the trend—he produced 'City Lights' and 'Modern Times' without dialogue. His first sound film was 'The Great Dictator' (1940), a spoof on German dictator Hitler. For the film, Chaplin received his only Oscar nomination as best actor. 

Chaplin moved to Switzerland in 1953 as he had political differences with the US government. He returned only in 1972 to receive an honorary Oscar.

Chaplin’s Last Words: Chaplin died on Christmas in 1977 after getting a stroke. As he lay on his deathbed, the priest read him his last rites and ended with “May God have mercy on your soul.” Chaplin responded, “Why not? After all, it belongs to Him.”

DO YOU KNOW

How were viruses discovered?

     Tobacco mosaic is a disease that infects several species of plants. In the 1890s, Dmitri Ivanovski, a Russian scientist trying to identify the bacteria that caused the disease, collected the sap of infected plants and passed the sap through porcelain filters that could trap the smallest of bacteria. Not a single bacterium was trapped in the filters even after repeated attempts. Yet the filtered sap could infect healthy plants. Ivanovski concluded that his filters were defective and left it at that.

     Some years later, a Dutch botanist, Martinus Beijerinck, repeated the Russian’s experiment and came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the filters but that the infectious agent was tinier than any bacteria known and was passing through the filters. He dubbed it a ‘filterable virus’, virus being the Latin word for poison.

    Soon afterwards a German scientist found that the infectious agent causing foot-and mouth disease in cattle was also a filterable virus, and not a bacterium.

     In 1901, the infective agent causing yellow fever was also found to be a filterable virus. Thus scientists became aware of a new type of infectious agent, different from bacteria, and in course of time, the term ‘filterable virus’ was shortened to just ‘virus’.

     In 1914, a German scientist demonstrated that the common cold was caused by a virus, yet even in 1918 when the Spanish Flu caught the world by its throat, physicians clung to the notion that the disease was caused by some sort of bacteria.

    Another decade and more was to pass before the electron microscope was invented and man finally got to see one of his greatest enemies — the virus.

     The electron microscope was invented in the 1930s.

PALACE OF WINDS

Hawa Mahal 

     Jaipur's Hawa Mahal, also known as the Palace of winds or Palace of Breeze, is about 222-year-old pyramidal structure that was built using red and pink sandstone. What makes this palace so unique is its 953 windows that are intricately decorated with latticework. Latticework is a crisscross pattern framework that is made from stone,wood or metal. In 1799, when this structure was built, the women of the royal household had to follow a strict rule of purdah or ghunghat, which did not allow them to appear in public without a face covering. These windows or jharokhas allowed them to look outside at the market square without being seen by outsiders. This is often seen in Rajasthani architecture. The windows also let cool air pass through them in the summer, cooling the palace down. 

     Commissioned by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh, the grandson of Jaipur's founder Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh, this palace was inspired by the Khetri Mahal in Junjhunu, Rajasthan. The architect, Lal Chand Ustad combined Rajput and Islamic styles in his creation - the canopies, pillars and floral patterns are in the Rajput style and the stone filigree work and lavish arches are in the Islamic style. The pink sandstone is typical of Jaipur, the Pink City of India. 

The street view of Hawa Mahal is actually the backside of the palace and from a distance, the five-storey, 50ft-tall monument looks like a beehive - with its mini windows and grills carved in sandstone. Some even say that the Hawa Mahal was designed to look like Lord Krishna's crown. Interestingly, the walls of the Hawa Mahal are no more than a foot thick and the structure has no stairs; one has to move between the different storeys using slopes. 

     The Hawa Mahal, built as a part of can be entered through an imperial door that opens into a large courtyard surrounded by two-storey buildings. Each of the top three storeys of the Hawa Mahal is no longer than a single room while the bottom two storeys have courtyards. At the centre of the courtyards stand fountains. Each room in the Hawa Mahal is designed using a different coloured marble. Each floor also has a temple on it. Sharad Mandir is on the first floor, one can find colourful glasswork in the Ratan Mandir. The top three floors house the Vichitra Mandir, Prakash Mandir and Hawa Mandir. 

     The courtyard of the Hawa Mahal is home to an archeological museum that has a wonderful collection of antiques, weapons and other ancient items used by the royals. The main highlights of the museum are arrowhead, fish hooks, terracotta items and even a storage vessel dating back to the 2nd century!

     In 2006, the Hawa Mahal underwent repairs and renovation. The Rajasthan government is currently responsible for the maintenance of the palace. In an attempt to promote night tourism in Jaipur, the tourism department has illuminated the exteriors of the Hawa Mahal. 

JUNE 8

World Ocean Day 

     With an average depth of 12,450ft, oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface. They play a crucial role in regulating our climate and atmosphere. In fact, without water, life itself would be itself impossible. Let’s take a journey through water kingdom.

The origin: The oceans originated at the time of the Earth’s formation close to 4.6 billion years ago. According to historians and researchers, at that time the Earth was almost entirely covered in water with just a few small islands. Roughly around 200 million years ago, the Earth’s surface was very different from how it is today. All the landmasses were grouped together into one vast supercontinent called Pangaea, while the rest of the globe was covered by a single great ocean known as Panthalassa, also known as the Panthalassic Ocean. Panthalassa comprised of the Pacific Ocean to the west and north and the Tethys Ocean to the southeast of Pangaea. 

     Over millions of years, the supercontinent began to slowly split apart, which eventually led to the formation of the modern continents and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. And finally, 35 million years ago, the water and the land split to form the pattern we are now familiar with. 

Currently, there are five major oceans - the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Southern or Antarctic Ocean and Arctic Ocean. While the Pacific is the deepest and largest (almost as large as all the others combined), the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans are similar in average depth. The Arctic is the smallest and shallowest. These oceans, although distinct in some ways, are all interconnected, as the same water circulates through them through different currents.

    However, according to researchers, the continents still drifting apart. While the Pacific Ocean is slowly shrinking, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans are spreading wider by a few inches every year. In fact, the Red Sea at the northeast corner of Africa is widening so much that in the next 200 million years, it will be as wide as the Atlantic Ocean today. 

Plants in the Oceans: Oceans are home to billions of plants and animals. There are two types of plants found in the ocean - those that have roots and are attached to the ocean floor and those that do not have roots and simply drift about in water. The rooted plants are only found in shallow water. 

The most abundant plants found in the ocean are the phytoplankton. These are usually single-celled, minute, floating plants that drift across the surface of the oceans. Phytoplankton produce about 50% of our oxygen supply. They are so productive that each year, nearly 200 million tonnes of phytoplankton grow in the world’s oceans.

Animals in the oceans: Although 94% of life on Earth is aquatic, two-thirds of marine life has still remained unidentified. Marine animals are divided into three groups - zooplankton, nekton and benthos. 

Zooplankton are drifting animals and usually small in size. The zooplankton population also includes some temporary members such as fish eggs or larval forms of organisms, which may grow up and leave the community to join the nekton or benthos. Nekton are the free swimmers and probably the largest portion of animals found in the ocean. Commonly found fishes, octopuses, whales, eels and squids are all examples of nekton. The third type of sea animal spends its entire life on the ocean floor. This includes lobsters, starfish, various worms, snails and oysters, among many more. Some of these creatures, such as lobsters and snails, may be able to move about on the bottom but their lifestyle is bound to the ocean floor and they cannot survive away from this environment. 

Did you know?

● The oceans contain 1.34 billion cubic kms of water. 

● 97% of the water on Earth is seawater and less than 1% is freshwater, while the remaining 2% is contained in glaciers and ice caps.

● Mid-Ocean Ridge, which is the Earth’s longest mountain range, is located underwater. It is longer than the Andes, Rockies and Himalayas combined. 

● More than 90% of all volcanic activity occurs in the oceans. 

● The average seawater temperature is 3.5 degree Celsius. 

● Oil is the largest pollutant of the ocean; 5 million tonnes of oil enter the oceans each year. 

● The largest known waterfall on earth lies underwater, between Greenland and Iceland. 

DEAD BODIES PRESERVED BY EGYPTIANS

 Mummies

A mummy is the body of a person that has been preserved by artificial means after death. The Egyptians used to make mummies out of dead people because they believed in life after death. They had a firm belief that after passing away, they would make a journey to another world where they would lead a new life. They believed that they would need their bodies intact in the afterlife.

Mummification: Mummification was a long and complicated process and it took about 70 days to completely convert a body into a mummy. The priest in-charge used to commence the ceremony and wear a mask of a jackal representing the god Anubis. The body was embalmed with scented lotions and chemicals at first and then covered with wraps of linen. Once the body was completely covered, it was placed in a massive stone coffin known as sarcophagus. In the Egyptian religion, the body had to be preserved in order for the soul or 'Ba' of the person to unite with the 'Ba' of that person in the afterlife.

Egyptian Mummies facts and History: Ancient Egyptians were buried with their valuables, general belongings and even food. Artists were especially called to paint the tomb walls with the major scenes from the dead person's life. Many mummies were buried with carved wooden figures of slaves. It was believed that the carved figures would magically come to life in the land of the dead. However, for famous kings, even real servants and slaves were buried in the tomb with their mummies.

Not all Egyptians got the privilege of getting their bodies mummified. Mummification was an expensive process and only the rich people could avail this facility. The bodies of the people from the poor section of the society were just wrapped in cloth and buried in the dry ground.

After life: Over the past few thousand years, many of the Egyptian mummies have been destroyed for various reasons. Some were burned for fuel, some were ground into powder to make magical concoctions, and some were destroyed by treasurehunters and robbers.

Curation: Today, most of the mummies are open for public display in museums around the world. The most famous mummies are those of the ancient Pharaohs like Tutenkhamen and Rameses. A great deal of precaution was taken by the scientists while studying them and most of the investigation was done by using CAT scan and X-Ray machines.

Myths and rumours about Mummies: Mummies have also been linked with a number of myths. The most famous mummy believed to have special powers and cast a curse is that of king Tutenkhamen. When Tutenkhamen's tomb was first discovered, a message in ancient hieroglyphics was also found, written on its entrance. Translated, the message said, “Death shall come on swift wings to the person who disturbs the peace of the Emperor”. This frightful message started several rumours saying that there was a curse on King Tut's tomb.

A few months after the tomb was opened, a British Lord became ill from a mosquito bite. He was present when they had opened the tomb. A few months later, he died. Rumour said a mark similar to the mosquito bite was found in the exact same position on King Tut's cheek. Howard Carter, the man who discovered King Tut's tomb, lived to be sixty-five. He died of natural causes. He did not believe in any curse.

But there are several cases of illness and death linked to the opening of ancient tombs and opening of the mummy cases. Archaeologists have also found out certain poisonous plant molds in the ancient tombs. Maybe, this is what is responsible for the scary reputation of the tombs and mummies. Today, when archaeologists go to explore tombs, they wear masks to protect themselves from these dangerous plant molds.

Perhaps the rumours of the curse were deliberately spread as a part of ancient tactics to prevent the robbers from fiddling around with and stealing from the mummies. Whatever the truth may be, Hollywood will continue to have a great deal of fun with the 'mummy's curse'.