Space research helps Jaipur Foot
Radhakrishna Rao
In popular imagination space exploration is perceived as a prohibitively costly exercise in high-profile research aimed at unravelling the mysteries of final frontiers. However, over the last two decades many spinoffs borne out of the space research have led to the engineering of innovative designs to boost pharma and health care industry.

Kilometre-long microscope
British scientists are lobbying to build the world’s most powerful microscope, an instrument so advanced that it can see individual atoms moving.

Meteorites rained down on earth
Evidence that meteorites rained down on earth after a massive collision in the asteroid belt 500 million years ago has been uncovered by scientists.

UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE
WITH PROF YASH PAL
When we talk on telephone the speech travels back and forth almost instantaneously. This is true even when we speak to someone in the US. But sound waves do not seem to travel that fast. Why this difference?

NEW PRODUCTS & DISCOVERIES
Pavements that reduce noise
Innovative types of pavements will help to reduce traffic noise on future highways, suggests initial research using a new, one-of-a-kind machine custom-made for Purdue University.

• Particle with five quarks
• Planetary system similar to our own

Space research helps Jaipur Foot
Radhakrishna Rao

In popular imagination space exploration is perceived as a prohibitively costly exercise in high-profile research aimed at unravelling the mysteries of final frontiers. However, over the last two decades many spinoffs borne out of the space research have led to the engineering of innovative designs to boost pharma and health care industry. And the Indian space programme has not been an exception to this trend. In keeping with the Indian space programme’s thrust on exploiting the fruits of space technology for national development in all its manifestations, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) recently signed a technology transfer agreement with the Bhagvan Mahavir Vikalanga Sahayatha Samithi of Jaipur which for the last two and a half decades has been active in providing the famous Jaipur Foot to the amputees, for Poly Urethane foot technology developed by the Thiruvananthapuram based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), the largest Indian space establishment with extensive and sophisticated facilities for building a wide variety of launch vehicles.

Though Jaipur Foot is considered one of the best artificial limbs now in use, it is comparatively heavy and cumbersome to wear. Consequently, though it is acceptable for the lower limb amputees, especially for poor in India and other third world countries, the Jaipur Foot is marred by defects and deficiencies which need to be corrected. Moreover, its production process was naggingly slow and highly labour intensive. Because its manufacturing involves the use of substances like wood, pipes and tyre cord, it is not always possible to ensure uniform quality. Clearly and apparently, there was a need to make it lighter, durable and cosmetically more attractive and comfortable to patients.

It was against this backdrop that ISRO hit upon the idea of using Poly Urethane polymers used in the production of rocket fuels and cryogenic insulation as a durable and more efficient substitute for rubber and wood ankle block of the Jaipur Foot. Incidentally, Jaipur Foot can easily be produced by reacting a polyol and isocyanate.

According to sources in ISRO, the improved Jaipur Foot which has the rubber and wooden ankle substituted by the more durable Poly Urethane micro cellular foams is light and could be produced in large numbers in a short period with improved quality, providing added comfort, gait and durability for the amputees.

As it is, prior to transferring this technology, the modified and improved Poly Urethane Jaipur Foot was subjected to extensive flex fatigue tests and patient trials. Subsequently, the foot prostheses were sent to Jaipur and fixed to a number of amputees in collaboration with the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (DPMA) at the Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, as well as in the community based rehabilitation camps.

Poly Urethane packed Jaipur Foot has been found to be biomechanically advantageous as far as comfort and injury prevention are concerned. Moreover, this modified artificial foot has a high slip resistant feature in comparison to conventional artificial fittings. This means that the amputees using a Poly Urethane fortified Jaipur Foot can walk safely on any type of surface. This foot moulded with cosmetically attractive covers mimicking skin has been found to be readily acceptable to amputees. With Bhagavan Mahavir Vikalanga Sahayatha Samithi getting the technology free of cost, production of Polyurethane based Jaipur Foot could be taken up on a large scale for the benefit of poor amputees in India and other Third World countries.

Jaipur Foot developed by the Magsaysay award winning orthopaedic surgeon Dr P.K. Sethi in association with Sri Ramachandra, a highly talented master craftsman, became internationally popular during the Afghan war of late 1970s. As it is, land mines planted by the Soviet troops in Afghanistan caused thousands of injuries and amputations, prompting the International Red Cross to use Jaipur Foot on a large scale for the Afghan victims of landmines. Subsequently, victims of landmines and accidents in countries such as Nicaragua, Cambodia and Rwanda took to Jaipur Foot without any hassles.

According to a spokesman of Bhagavan Mahavir Vikalanga Sahayatha Samithi Jaipur Foot is flexible enough to facilitate one to squat and sit crosslegged. The Samithi organises mobile camps in various parts of India and abroad where the Jaipur Foot is fitted to the poor amputees free of cost.

Kilometre-long microscope

British scientists are lobbying to build the world’s most powerful microscope, an instrument so advanced that it can see individual atoms moving.

The European Spallation Source (ESS) — a type of instrument known as a matterscope — would allow them to look at the growth of protein molecules in living human tissue or at the stresses deep within the wheel of a train or the wing of an aircraft.

"This is on a par with the Hubble telescope, but it’s for looking at inner space," said Prof Bob Cywinski of Leeds University, which is backing the one billion pound project.

A disused World War II airfield in North Yorkshire has been earmarked for the matterscope’s kilometre-long concrete tunnel and neutron research laboratories.

Britain already has the world’s most powerful matterscope, of 200 kilowatts, at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory in Oxfordshire, he said, but the US and Japan are about to eclipse it.

It will be dwarfed by a 1.5 megawatt Spallation Neutron Source in Tennessee, and by Japan’s one megawatt J-Parc, both of which should be ready around 2006.

"The Americans are going to leapfrog Rutherford Appleton using a European design," said Martin Doxey of the White Rose consortium, which links the universities of Sheffield, Leeds and York to the project. — Reuters

Evidence that meteorites rained down on earth after a massive collision in the asteroid belt 500 million years ago has been uncovered by scientists.

Sandy remains of meteorites found in five Swedish limestone quarries could be traced to the breakup of a huge asteroid. Analysis of the number and size of the grains revealed that the rate at which meteorites struck the earth increased by up to 100 times about 480 million years ago.

The timing coincides with the destruction of the so-called ‘’L- chondrite parent body’’ - a giant asteroid known to have been blasted apart in a collision beyond the orbit of Mars.

Today, meteorite activity is relatively uniform with an average of about one rock per year falling in every 7,700 square miles. About 20 per cent of meteorites landing on earth today originate from the L-chondrite parent body.

Remnants of the parent asteroid can be identified by their mineral composition. US and Swedish scientists searching the 150,000 square mile quarry site looked for unique extraterrestrial forms of the mineral chromite found only in meteorites from the L-chondrite break up.

All the meteorite residues discovered contained the mineral. Matching concentrations of the grains were found in all five quarries, indicating that meteorite activity occurred at the same rate over the whole area.

Both intact meteorites and meteorite grains were sealed in the limestone when it formed from sea bottom sediments. The findings, reported in the journal "Science’’, help explain why so many fossilised meteorites have been discovered in a single quarry near Kinnekulle, Sweden, over the past decade.

Fossil meteorites embedded in stratified rock are extremely rare. Only 55 have ever been recovered - 50 of those from the Swedish site.

Lead researcher Birger Schmitz, Visiting Professor of Earth Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas, said: "It is true that we are lucky to be looking in just the right place - a layer of lithified sediments that was forming on the sea floor immediately after this massive collision. But on the other hand, we would never have started looking there in the first place if the quarry workers hadn’t been finding the meteorites on a regular basis.’’

Until Professor Schmitz’s group started working on the site, the fossilised meteorites were discarded because they blemished the finished limestone. Professor Schmitz believes similar meteorite concentrations and grain residues may be present worldwide in other limestone deposits that formed immediately after the asteroid collision. He has obtained funding to start looking in China, and says more evidence may be found in South America. — DPA

UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE
WITH PROF YASH PAL

When we use the telephone, we produce sound that travels to the nearby mouthpiece. The microphone converts the sound vibrations into electrical variations. What goes over the wire is the electrical signal. The instrument of the receiver converts the electrical signal into sound. The electrical signal travels almost with the velocity of light, which is 300,000 kilometers per second. To travel to America and back would take about 1/8 of a second. That is almost instantaneous as far as human perception is concerned.

Sound waves move through compression and decompression of the material medium in which they travel. Sound is a mechanical wave that is necessarily much slower than an electromagnetic wave which does not require a medium to travel. The electrical signal in wires also moves extremely fast because electrons being conveyers of this signal also travel very fast. In microwave transmission lines electromagnetic waves travel as if they are going through a pipe. The household TV cable is an example of that. Such cables crisscross large distances on land and under the oceans. These days one also uses optical fiber cables and satellites to convey signals over long distances. For optical communication the signal is converted to digitally modulated light beam that travels at the speed of light through thin fibers of glass. When we take the satellite route we have to go up to the satellite 36,000 kilometers above the earth and the same distance back down to a ground station from where the normal telephone network takes over. Because of this reason it is often found that when we happen to get a satellite channel there is a delay of about a quarter second each way and about half a second between your asking a question off a friend in America and hearing his reply. After a while people learn to live with this inconvenience.

I do not know the exact answer, nor am I sure that there is some special magic of working out in space. Maybe what I have just said is not quite correct because the weightless environment of space does offer the possibility of doing chemistry and biochemistry where the effect of convection is almost completely eliminated. This might allow the possibility of some reactions proceeding with greater ease without the effect of mass differentiation. For a problem like cancer one would try anything.

It is true that in space environment of micro-gravity one can grow very large perfect crystals. Several other material science experiments have also been done. One of the techniques of estimating the mass’ distribution of large protein molecules is to measure the distance they travel in a gel under the influence of an electric field — heavier the molecule slower is its motion. This technique is called electrophoresis. It is clear that this method would work better under conditions where differentiation due to gravitational settling is eliminated.

If we have a very thick cloud it will allow only small amount of the sunlight to filter through. Most of it would be scattered away or absorbed. A thick cloud will therefore be dark. It will also have a lot of moisture in it. Since it is thick it would extend up to very high altitude where it is very cold. The cold converts water vapour into water droplets, even ice crystals. They would then start descending and cause a lot of rain.

At our latitudes convection clouds that rise up to great heights produce much rain. From a highflying plane they look like large puffs of cotton soaring into the sky. To those who are below these puffs they must appear as dark clouds.

Innovative types of pavements will help to reduce traffic noise on future highways, suggests initial research using a new, one-of-a-kind machine custom-made for Purdue University.

"This work will eventually lead to a more precise understanding of the causes of highway noise," said Robert Bernhard, co-director of Purdue’s Institute for Safe, Quiet and Durable Highways. "The ultimate goal is to create quieter pavements and tyres because highway noise is a major environmental irritant."

A 38,000-pound, 12-foot-diameter circular machine designed at Purdue makes it possible to test numerous types of pavement surfaces and compositions in combination with various tyre designs. Curved test-pavement sections fit together to form a circle, and two tyres are rolled over the surfaces at varying speeds while microphones and other sensors record noise and data.

Because no other equipment in the US can test any combination of pavements and tyres, researchers expect their new Tyre/Pavement Test Apparatus to yield a wealth of data, said Bernhard, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories at Purdue.

Particle with five quarks

After 30 years of searching physicists have finally found evidence for "pentaquark", particles containing five quarks confirming theoretical predictions made by Russian physicists in 1997.

Quark is the basic constituent of elementary particles. Most particles are either mesons, which contain a quark and an antiquark, or baryons, which comprise three quarks or three antiquarks. Now nuclear physicists in Japan, Russia and the US have discovered a particle that contains two "up" quarks, two "down" quarks and a strange antiquark.

Scientists at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in the US has reported evidence for the pentaquark in experiments where gamma rays were scattered from nucleus of deuterium, a heavier form of hydrogen.

Evidence for this particle also came last year from the Spring-8 synchrotron facility in Japan and a laboratory in Moscow. Other groups searching for the pentaquark include the HERMES experiment at a laboratory in Germany. — PTI

An international team of scientists has discovered a planet and star that may share the same relationship as Jupiter and our Sun, the closest comparison that researchers have found since they began their search for extra-solar planets nearly a decade ago.

By analysing light spectra collected with the 3.9-metre AngloAustralian Telescope in Siding Spring, Australia, scientists from the US, Australia, and Britain made precision measurements of the star HD 70642. The telescope data reveal a wobble in the star’s position, an artifact from the gravitational tug of a planet roughly twice the size of Jupiter. The star is similar in size and structure to our Sun. From the wobble of HD 70642, the team has learned that the orbit of its planet is similar to the orbit of Jupiter in both shape and distance.

The planet, a gas giant, is right where it should be if the solar system evolved like ours, suggesting that other planets may be found nearby and that the system could potentially harbour life.

The researchers, supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), conduct the Anglo-Australian Planet Search (AAPS), one of the leading extra-solar planet searches in the world.