DO YOU KNOW

 What happens when you sneeze?

Sneezing is your body’s way of expelling foreign matter such as dust, pollen or smoke from the nostrils to prevent them from travelling to the lungs and causing harm. When the delicate lining of your nose detects one of these contaminants it instantly sends an electrical signal to the brain. 

The brain sends signals to all the parts ofthe body that are needed to help you sneeze. Your chest muscles, diaphragm, abdominals, vocal cords and the muscles in the back of your throat all work together to help expel the irritant. 

In most cases, your eyes are forced shut, the tongue moves to the roof of the mouth and the muscles brace for the sneeze. 

Sneezing pushes water, mucus, and air from your nose with an incredible force and in the process the foreign matter is removed.

SCARY MYTHICAL CREATURES

Vampires

Have you ever wondered where the myth of the vampire originated? Why did so many people believe that such a scary creature really existed? Why are we so fascinated by these monsters today?

What is a vampire?

Vampires are mythical creatures that usually feed on the blood of living creatures (eeuw!). Vampires were originally described as bloated and ruddy. The pale and gaunt version of today only appeared in literature in the 1800s.

In fact, the term ‘vampire’ was not popularly used until the 18th century after there was an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas like the Balkans and Eastern Europe where vampire legends were popular.

Vampires in literature

Literature had and still has a huge influence on the vampire myth. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, written in 1897, is thought of as the most important vampire novel. It provides all the basics for the modern vampire legend. The massive success of this book started the vampire genre which is still popular today. Think Twilight, for example, although some literary snobs will pull up their noses at the mere mention of it…

How to become a vampire

In modern mythology, the way to become a vampire is to be bitten by a vampire (ouch!). The original ways to become a vampire were even more ridiculous. A dead body was feared to become a vampire if a dog or cat jumped over it. A body with a wound not treated with boiling water was also believed to become a vampire. Doesn’t that sound silly?

Vampires do not make good friends

Vampires were believed to bring misfortune or death to family members or close neighbours. So people who knew the person before they became a vampire would be thought of as being in danger.

Vampire defense 101

According to legend, vampires can be warded off by garlic, a branch of wild rose and hawthorn, or by sprinkling mustard seeds on the roof of your home. A vampire would be forced to spend all night counting the seeds. 

Sacred items such as a crucifix, rosary or holy water were also believed to keep vampires at bay. Vampires are not able to walk on holy ground, such as churches and temples, nor are they able to cross running water. 

Some traditions claim that vampires cannot enter a house unless invited by the owner, but once invited, they could return at anytime.

Vampires are also vulnerable to sunlight so are mainly active during the night.

A proven myth 

In the 18th century the vampire controversy raged on for many generations. Many people believed in vampires and many people were accused of vampirism. People often dug up graves to make sure that the bodies were actually dead (gross!). Empress Maria Therese of Austria sent out her personal physician to investigate claims of vampires. When the doctor concluded that vampires did not exist, the empress passed a law that stopped people from opening graves. This ended the vampire ‘epidemic’. What a relief!

Popular theories:disease and other things

A popular theory as to why people believed in vampires is because they did not know what happens to a body after death. 

Another theory relates to outbreaks of illnesses, such as TB and a form of the bubonic plague, which would infect a family or small community. The illness would take the life of one member of the community, and others would become sick. The lack of understanding of how disease spread caused people to believe that a vampire was the cause of the misfortune.

The most likely disease to have caused the vampire legend is rabies. Vampires were thought to be able to turn themselves into bats and wolves. Bats and wolves are sometimes carriers of rabies. They could spread the disease among humans. Many of the symptoms of rabies are similar to that of identifying a vampire. People affected by rabies are very sensitive to garlic and strong light. The disease can also lead to sleep disturbance, where the person suddenly becomes nocturnal. According to legend, a rabid man cannot look at himself in the mirror. This led to rumours that vampires have no reflections.

Modern medicine has come a long way since then. A doctor can easily tell if a person is ill. No one need sprinkle mustard seeds on the roof to keep the sick person away!

Vampires in pop culture

Today, there are many films and books about vampires, and not all of them are scary monsters. Count Von Count from Sesame Street is a lovable vampire who loves to count (and not just mustard seeds!). Ernest the vampire is a sweet vampire, who lives alone in a big castle, is easily frightened by his nightmares, and has a hard time keeping his pants from falling down!

The next time you are afraid of the dark, just remember that vampires only exist in our imaginations.

ON THE OCCASION OF GURU POURNIMA

 Story of Upamanyu

    The great sage Dhaumya had many disciples,  Upamanyu was one of them. 

   One day, the sage decided to test Upmanyu's devotion and asked him, "You look very healthy, what do you eat?" 

   In those days, sages and their disciples used to beg for food and alms. Upmanyu calmly replied, "I eat the food that I get by begging. " 

   On hearing this, The sage instructed Upmanyu not to consume any food that he received as alms without asking for his permission first. Upmanyu was very obedient and from the next day itself, he offered everything that he received to the sage. The sage took away all the food and gave nothing to Upmanyu.

   After a few days, the sage noticed that Upmanyu still looked very healthy. The sage then asked him, "I take away all the food that you get, so what do you eat?" Upmanyu explained that he offered the sage everything, and that he ate what he got the second time he went begging. The sage scolded Upmanyu and ordered, "You shouldn't beg twice, because then there will be nothing left for other students. You should not be greedy." Upmanyu obediently followed what his teacher said.

   After some days, the sage noticed that Upmanyu still looked hale and hearty and asked him, "You still look healthy, what do you eat these days?" Upmanyu replied saying, "When I take the cows out to graze, I drink some of the milk that they give." The sage immediately forbade Upmanyu from having milk from the cows. As usual, Upmanyu followed his teacher's instructions.

   However Upmanyu's health still did not suffer. The sage approached him again after a few days and asked him what he ate. Upamanyu promptly replied that he ate the foam that the calves produced after having milk from the cows. The sage told Upmanyu that this would affect the health of the calves and he should not do so. Upmanyu followed his Guru's advice.

   The next day, when Upmanyu took the cows for grazing as usual, he felt very hungry. When he couldn't control his hunger anymore, he ate the leaves of a plant called Aak. The leaves of this plant were very poisonous and Upmanyu became blind. He kept wandering in the forest and then fell into a well. 

   When Upamanyu did not return in the evening, the sage was worried and went with disciples to look for Upmanyu. Finally they found him, the sage heard how Upmanyu had been blinded, he asked him to pray to the Ashwin Kumars, the physicians of the Gods, and request them to restore his eyesight. Soon, the Ashwini Kumars appeared and gave Upmanyu a medicine but he said that he would not eat anything without his Guru's permission. The Ashwini Kumars tried their best to convince Upmanyu to have the medicine but Upmanyu said that he would rather stay blind forever than disobey the orders of the sage.

   The Gods were impressed by Upmanyu's love, respect, and devotion for his teacher and blessed him. They restored his eyesight.

   Upmanyu was pulled out of the well. Rishi Dhaumya was also very pleased with Upamanyu and told him that he had passed the test. The sage blessed Upmanyu and gave him a boon that he wouldn't need to learn religious texts but would know them automatically.

ARTICLE

Palm Oil In India And Its Health Effects

Oil palm is a crop that flourishes in the same regions as some of the world's most precious rainforests and appears in many food and household products.

Palm oil has emerged as the main global source of vegetable oil, forming nearly 33 per cent of the world's production mix. Palm oil is in nearly everything – it's in close to 50% of the packaged products we find in supermarkets, everything from pizza, doughnuts and chocolate, to deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick. It's also used in animal feed and as a biofuel in many parts of the world

Indian Palm Oil Market

According to WWF, India is the world's largest importer of palm oil, driving 23 per cent of total global demand from plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Palm oil is the most consumed edible oil by volume in India, with a share of ~40%, followed distantly by soybean and mustard oils. Palm oil market size in India was valued at USD 5.16 billion in 2015. Increasing demand for edible oils owing to the burgeoning population and improving economic conditions is anticipated to remain the key growth driving factor over the forecast period. Edible oil emerged as the dominant application segment in India. Palm products are widely being utilized as cooking medium in India as there is limited availability of oilseeds, and it's cheaper pricing.

Biochemical Composition of Palm oil

The palm oil mainly contains palmitic acid, which is a saturated fatty acid. Other fatty acids are myristic, stearic, linoleic acid. Palm oil also contains vitamins, antioxidants and other phytonutrients.

Is palm oil bad for you?

Palm oil has a high saturated fat content, which can be harmful to cardiovascular health. However, one study (Odia et al., 2015) found that, when consumed as part of a balanced diet, “Palm oil does not have incremental risk for cardiovascular disease.”

What are saturated fats?

From a chemical standpoint, saturated fats are simply fat molecules that have no double bonds between carbon molecules because they are saturated with hydrogen molecules. Saturated fats are typically solid at room temperature.

How do saturated fats affect health?

Replacing foods that are high in saturated fat with healthier options can lower blood cholesterol levels and improve lipid profile environment effect. To produce palm oil, the fruit is collected from the trees, which can live an average of 28 to 30 years. To keep up with the incredibly high demand for the cheaply produced oil, acres of rainforest are being cut down - leading to a loss of animal habitat for endangered species.

A FORM OF ENERGY

Sound energy

Sound energy is a form of energy, which is produced when matter vibrates. More technically speaking, sound is produced when the kinetic energy that causes the vibration of an object or substance is transferred through matter in a wave-like formation. Typically, the energy in sound is far less than that in other forms of energy.

When a sound wave travels through air or water, the wave passes through the air or water molecules, pushing some molecules close together while parting the others, thereby causing them to vibrate. Eventually, as the wave travels, even the air inside your ears starts vibrating—that’s when you begin to perceive sound. Thus there are two different aspects to sound—the physical process that uses kinetic energy to produce sound energy and the secondary or physiological process that happens inside our ears and brains, which converts the sound energy into noise or voices. The first person to discover that sound needs a medium to travel through was English scientist Robert Boyle. He set an alarm clock ringing inside a large glass jar and while the clock was still ringing, he slowly sucked out all the air with a pump. As the air gradually disappeared, the sound died, proving that sound needs a medium to travel through.

HOW IS SOUND INTERPRETED? How a person interprets the sound depends on how close the person is to the source of sound. The further away the person is, the less the sound vibrations and thus the intensity of sound is much lower. Physiologically, the entire process of hearing a sound takes place in the ear. There are approximately 15,000 hair cells in the human inner ear, which are divided into two types—inner hair cells and outer hair cells. The inner hair cells are responsible for detecting sound and sending information about it to the brain, whilst the outer hair cells act as ‘amplifiers’, meaning that the ear can pick up even the quietest of sounds and can pick one sound out from others. Inner hair cells are lined up in a long row along the inner ear (which is essentially a tube filled with fluid) and each hair cell detects sounds of a different frequency. Hair cells nearest to the middle ear detect highpitched sounds, and then, as they get further and further away from the middle ear, they gradually detect lower and lower pitched sounds.

Humans can hear frequencies between 20 hertz and 20,000 hertz, which decreases as they age. Dogs can hear vibrations higher than 20,000 hertz but not below 40 hertz, which is why humans cannot hear dog whistles. Sometimes, loud noise can cause pain to people. This is called the pain threshold. This threshold is different from person to person. For example, teens can handle higher sound pressure than elderly people. People who work in factories tend to have a higher threshold because they get used to loud noise. 

HOW SOUND IS USED: Sound is used for numerous things apart from communicating information. 

● An experiment has proved that plants grow faster if you play classical music or talk to them every day. However, in 1962, Indian researcher Dr T C Singh deduced that rock music does not increase the growth levels of a plant, which showed that plants also had their own likes and dislikes. 

● Researcher Robert Monroe discovered the effect of sound on human consciousness. Different kinds of music, beats and waves can affect the human mood. 

● Doctors use ultrasound to create digital images of the body’s organs. 

● Researchers at Princess Grace Hospital in London have been working on a system that could destroy cancer cells with sound.

● Peter Davey, a 92-year-old saxophone player in New Zealand, has invented a device that boils water using sonic waves. 

● Bats and dolphins use high frequency sounds to see their surroundings. They create a mental picture of the area they are in by listening to how sound waves bounce off the environment. These days, many blind people are learning to do as dolphins and bats, by clicking their tongues and listening for the reverberations to understand their surroundings. 

● Yoshiki Hashimoto, of Tokyo’s Kaijo Corporation, has developed a machine that lifts objects and moves them by acoustic levitation using supersonic waves. It is said that this could be used for weaponisation too.

QUICK FACTS

● Sound produces a relatively low level of energy when compared to other forms of energy.

● Because sound produces such a low level of energy, it is not used to create electricity.

● If the vibrational waves of a medium change, the sound it produces will also change.

● Sound is measured in decibels and pascals instead of the traditional unit of energy measurement, the joule.

● The intensity of sound energy is usually measured using the perception of a normal hearing person.

● The measurement of sound energy is related to its pressure and intensity.

● We are able to hear different sounds because as the sound (vibrations) enters our ear, the ear also vibrates.

● Dogs’ ears are more sensitive than human ears, which allow them to hear sounds that humans cannot hear.

● There is no sound in space because there is no medium for sound to travel through.

● Sound travels through a solid much faster than through air. 

● Sound travels faster through a liquid such as water than it travels through air.

● The study of sound waves is called acoustics.

● Flies cannot hear at all.

● When whales communicate with each other underwater, their sound can travel up to 800kms into the ocean.

● The speed of sound in dry air at 20 degree Celsius is 1234kms/hr.

A PRECIOUS RESOURCE

Groundwater

 

Groundwater is our primary source of drinking water. About 85% of drinking water in India and 60% of water for irrigation comes from groundwater. 

Water seeps into soil from rain, melting snow or farmland irrigation, and gets collected underground. Below the ground there are different levels of water saturation. Closer to the surface, the gaps between the soil and rocks are filled with air and water. The deeper you go, the less air and the more water there is. The line below which there is no longer any air but only water is called water table. Underneath the water table, all available space is filled with water. 

The body of soil and rocks under the water table is called an aquifer. Groundwater fills all areas of the aquifer until it reaches the impenetrable rock at the bottom. It is like a container for groundwater. The Great Artesian Basin in Australia is the biggest known aquifer. India contains 14 principal aquifer systems and 42 major aquifers, including the Indus Basin, the most important cross-country water source. 

Dry land like deserts have a lower water table, whereas places with heavy rainfall have higher ones. The height of the water table decreases in summer due to evaporation, whereas in monsoon or early spring, the height of the water table increases. If the water table rises high enough to touch the surface, it becomes a spring, a lake or a river. 

To extract water, wells are dug through the water table. If given enough time for the aquifer to replenish itself, the well will keep supplying water. However, over-extraction can exhaust groundwater fairly quickly. The sensible management of these aquifers and groundwater is necessary if we want to preserve the water table. Water is a vital resource and like oxygen, life would be impossible without it.

STONY FRUIT

Apricot

The apricot (Prunus armeniaca) is a member of the rose family (Rosaceae) that also includes the plum, peach and cherry. It is a stone fruit that develops from self-pollinating white flowers. A native of north eastern China, where it was discovered growing wild on the mountain slopes, the fruit was introduced to Persia and Armenia by Chinese silk traders. It then had a long history of cultivation in Armenia, which gave it the name Prunus armeniaca orArmenian plum. Alexander the Great is believed to have taken the apricot to southern Europe and introduced it to Greece in the 4th century B.C. From here, it went on to Rome. The Romans then popularised the fruit all over their empire. By the mid-16th century, the apricot had gained respectability and could be found in the gardens of noblemen throughout Europe. European settlers carried it to other parts of the world, and by the 18th century, apricots were growing in orchards in the USA, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Today, the world’s leading apricot producers are Turkey, Iran, Italy and France. In India, the fruit is grown commercially in the hills of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and to a limited extent in the hills of the north-east.

The apricot tree is small to medium-sized, ranging in height from 10 to 25 feet, with a spreading canopy. It starts bearing fruit at the age of 5years, attains full maturity at 7 to 10 years, and continues to yield fruit for about 30 to 35 years. The leaves are oval with pointed tips and finely serrated margins, dark green on top and yellowish green beneath. Flowers are white to light pink in colour, and grow singly or in pairs. The fruit has a soft and downy skin, ranging in colour from pale yellow to red, and may be round or oval. 

A highly nutritious fruit, the apricot is rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, potassium, iron, calcium, and dietary fibre. It is an excellent source of beta-carotene, an antioxidant that plays a key role in fighting disease. An additional benefit is that it is low in fat, calories and sodium. 

The apricot is an extremely versatile fruit that may be eaten fresh as it is or cooked, dried, canned or frozen, and served in numerous ways in sweet or savoury dishes. It is processed into jams, jellies, beverages, sauces and candybars and used in numerous desserts such as cakes, pies, tarts, ice-cream, smoothies, sorbets and milkshakes. In Turkey, the flesh is dried and made into thin sheets, which are melted down later for use in cooking. In the Middle East, apricots are used to add sweetness to spicy dishes like pilaffs. In South Africa, the fruit is salted, sun-dried and then pressed in sugar to make an unusual preserve called meebos. In India, khubani ka meetha, a rich dessert made of dried apricots and cream, is a popular delicacy in Hyderabadi cuisine, commonly served at weddings. Apricot seeds or kernels are used as a low-cost substitute for almonds in confectionery. They are used likewise in amaretto, an Italian liqueur, and biscotti, a type of biscuit popular in Italy. 

Apricot oil, which has a softening effect on the skin, is used in cosmetics and medicines. The leaves are used to make dye. Apricot wood is handsome and durable, and is used to make agricultural implements.