Baxter robot, The colossal radio telescope by Australia, fruit ripening and color change, bcg vaccine for TB, water transparency and sigatoka desease in banana etc are covered form The Hindu December 2012.
BAXTER ROBOT
- A type of robot which works on behavior based common sense or based on pattern matching.
- First a human guides its arms to do desired work and based on these guidelines, robot repeat the same work.
- It designed to work safely alongside its human co-workers on factory production lines.
- One of its example you see in advertisement of Intel.
THE COLOSSAL RADIO TELESCOPE
- with abilities of exploring the depths of universe with unparalleled precision.
- The telescope will increase the abilities of astronomers in mapping black holes, survey the universe, and cracking the new light across the galaxies to an exponential level.
- surveying the sky at a much faster speed than any other telescope available in the world.
- The good sensitive antennas of the telescope is able to detect the galaxies far away.
- The radio waves generated from this telescope can provide details of the cosmos far away and the gases that resulted in the formation of any particular star.
- The principle of radio-astronomy can provide the details of the beginning of the universe.
Why Fruit's color change on ripening
- Several major changes can take place as fruits ripen like rise in respiration rate (rate of breathing); production of ethylene; flesh softening; appearance of colour; formation of volatiles .
- Color of fruits depends on presence of pigments they have. The pigments may vary from one fruit to other.
- As fruit ripens, it involves chlorophyll loss (green color loss) + change of pigment = double reason of color change.
- For example, Yellow, orange or red pigmentation, as seen in oranges and tomatoes, arise from conversion of chloroplasts to chromoplasts.
- The green color loss in leaves = senescence.
BCG: a vaccine for TB
- TB = disease = caused by the bacterium, Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
- BCG = bacille Calmette-Guerin
- (BCG), was first given to a newborn infant. Even today, it is the only vaccine available against TB.
- The BCG vaccine is still widely used in developing countries because disease is rampant.
- Limitation:
- It does not, however, provide cover against the disease becoming active in adolescents and adults.
- It does not stop the disease-causing bacterium from establishing an infection in infants and young children.
Why and How water is transparent
- Light is a form of an electromagnetic energy with a wide range of wavelengths. However, the range that a human eye can ‘see’ is very tiny segment.
- This narrow range of wavelengths which a human eye is sensible to, is known as ‘the visible region’ of the electromagnetic radiation.
- When light is incident on an object, the portion that is neither absorbed nor is scattered is, usually,
- transmitted through it to the otherside.
- If a material absorbs any part of the visible region then the material appears colored to us.
- If a material absorbs all the visible range of light, then it ‘looks’ black to us because there is hardly any visible light left from the object to reach our eyes.
- If a material does not absorb any part of the visible range of light, then the object either appears
- colourlessly transparent, when the
- light is transmitted.
- Water has H{-2}O molecules that do not have the kind of electrons which absorb any portion
- of the visible range (but have electrons that absorb only in the invisible ultraviolet range) of light.
- That is why water appears transparent.
- Even when the size of the non-absorbing constituents is less or more than the wavelength but if
- the inter space among is comparable to the wavelength of the visible radiation, then the object just looks white because much of the unabsorbed light is scattered. A piece of chalk, ground glass, smoke, milk, etc, look white for of this reason.
Itching Sensation in our mouth when eating too much Pineapple
- Pineapple is a tropical plant. Also a rich source of vitamin C, vitamin B complex, calcium, manganese, magnesium etc.
- Pineapple contains a special protien enzyme which attacks the proteinous muscle parts of the tongue where sensitizing nerve ends. These neurological signals, when transmitted to the brain, make us feel the pricking and itching sensation.
Sigatoka leaf spot - Disease of banana
- Sigatoka leaf spot is a serious disease of banana = caused by a fungus.
- It makes small dark spot => less green leaves => less surface area for photosynthesis => less food for plant.
- Hence bad quality fruit.
To read The Hindu November 2012 analysis of Science & Teach click
