New window on universe
Radhakrishna Rao
THE Indian astronomical observatory located at an altitude of 4500-metres above the sea level amidst the icy, sprawling and soul chilling desert of Hanle in Ladakh is the world’s largest scientific facility for keeping an eye on the cosmic dynamics. 

Humans were born to run
Patricia Reaney
HUMANS were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists have said.

New window on universe
Radhakrishna Rao

THE Indian astronomical observatory located at an altitude of 4500-metres above the sea level amidst the icy, sprawling and soul chilling desert of Hanle in Ladakh is the world’s largest scientific facility for keeping an eye on the cosmic dynamics. The two- metre Himalayan Chandra Optical and infrared telescope-namely after the Nobel Laureate Subrmanyan Chandrashekhar— forming part of the observatory has helped unravel many of the astrophysical mysteries with a high degree of clarity.

This unique telescope manufactured by the EOS Technologies Inc, Tucson, USA is remotely operated by a facility of the Bangalore based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) at Hoskote. For this purpose, a dedicated link onboard the Indian domestic satellite INSAT is used. This telescope is equipped with three scientific instruments: the Himalayan Faint Object Spectrograph (HFOS), the near infrared imager and the optical CCD (Charged couple Device) imager. This world’s highest ground based facility for optical and infrared astronomy has evinced interest from researchers from across the world.

Interestingly it was after an extensive survey in mid-1990s that IIA zeroed in on Hanle as an ideal spot for the astrophysical studies using a ground based observatory. Of course, the ground-based observatory such as this play a complementary role along with the orbiting telescopes which are designed for specific missions.

The biggest advantage of locating the telescope at Hanle is that no artificial light or pollutants distort the signals it receives. Moreover, Hanle is counted among the driest and calmest places in the world with very low water vapour in the air.

According to IIA scientists spectroscopy is possible at Hanle for about 260 nights and optical observation for about 190 nights whereas for other telescopes at lower altitudes the figures are about 25% lower.

According to Dr Russel Cannan, former director of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australians the uniqueness of Hanle site could be attractive to Asian countries that are interested in setting up optical telescope but don’t have the right climate. The infrastructure developed by II Aat-Hanle has paved the way towards initiating many new projects in astronomy as well as other paradigms of science. One such example is the study of the Geodynamic Deformation Field.

In addition, IIA is collaborating with University of Washington at St. Louis in operating a 0.5-m photmetry telescope for continuous monitoring of Active Galactic Nuclei. One of these telescopes will be located at Indian Astronomical Observatory and the other at Arizona, United States. These two telescopes, 180 degrees apart in longitude, would together constitute the Antipodal Transient Observatory. These telescopes will be equipped with an optical CCD and would be used in both robotic and remote observation modes.

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIAO) traces its origin back to the year 1786 when Willian Petrie an enlightened officer of the British East India Company, set up a small observatory in his garden house at Egmore in Chennai (Then Madras), It was formally taken over by the East India Company in 1790 to establish an observatory of its own. In 1792 the observatory was shifted to a new building. This observatory was the first ever modern public observatory outside Europe.

The observatory obtained its first fixed telescope in 1850, thanks to William Stephan Jacob. It was a six inches aperture equatorial telescope produced by Lerebours & Secretan of Paris. It was shifted to Kodaikanal in 1900 after a remodification. And solar photography and spectrography continued to flourish at Kodai kanal, with an occasional comet or nova breaking the monotony. In 1958, as part of the international geophysical year celebrations, the observatory acquired an aperture solar telescope for fine spectroscopic work.

In 1971, Kodaikanal Observatory became an autonomous research institute with the new name-Indian Institute of Astrophsysics (IIA). In 1976, IIA was shifted to Bangalore. A part of the Department of Science and Technology, IIA continues to be in the forefront of the research aimed at understanding many of the baffling astronomical and astrophysical phenomenon.

Humans were born to run
Patricia Reaney

HUMANS were born to run and evolved from ape-like creatures into the way they look today probably because of the need to cover long distances and compete for food, scientists have said.

From tendons and ligaments in the legs and feet that act like springs and skull features that help prevent overheating, to well-defined buttocks that stabilise the body, the human anatomy is shaped for running.

“We do it because we are good at it. We enjoy it and we have all kinds of specialisations that permit us to run well,’’ said Daniel Liberman, a professor of anthropology at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

“There are all kinds of features that we see in the human body that are critical for running,’’ he says.

Liberman and Dennis Bramble, a biology professor at the University of Utah, studied more than two dozen traits that increase humans’ ability to run. Their research is reported in the science journal Nature.

They suspect modern humans evolved from their ape-like ancestors about two million years ago so they could hunt and scavenge for food over large distances.

But the development of physical features that enabled humans to run entailed a trade off — the loss of traits that were useful for being a tree-climber.

“We are very confident that strong selection for running — which came at the expense of the historical ability to live in trees — was instrumental in the origin of the modern human body form,’’ Bramble said in a statement. — Reuters

Can genetic manipulation make a
person more intelligent?

PERHAPS, sometime in the distant future. First will come the possibility of dealing with those cases where genetic defects have been detected. There might be children who have a problem concentrating — their attention span is low. I do not know whether there would be some possibility of providing some help to them.

Personally, I would be very suspicious of programmes that interfere with natural development of the human mind in any way. In view of the way we are presently motivated, there would be a danger that any success in manipulating people’s brains (beyond the brainwashing we are already engaged in), would be more often used to produce morons who will consume more, who will buy even more weapons to kill their fellowmen, or who will not mind being perennial servants.

The best future for the world lies in the direction of freeing brains and minds for naturally evolving, multi-spectral development. I am sure there might be many others who would not agree with me. I am sure Hitler would have jumped at the possibility of creating a master race. I do not think there is any possibility of our going in that direction.

Why is a rainbow semicircular?

A rainbow is produced when sunlight suffers one refraction while entering water droplets hanging in the air, a total internal reflection at their back surface and a second refraction while coming out of the droplets. Most of the light of the rainbow emerges close to the “angle of minimum deviation”. This angle is 42 degrees with respect to the direction of the incidence of sunlight. Therefore, we will see a rainbow at this angle with respect to a line connecting the Sun with the back of our head.

This can be true only for a circular arc at an angle of 42 degrees. This circle intersects the Earth and standing on the Earth, the largest sized arc we can see is a semicircle; this occurs when the Sun is close to the horizon.

If however, we were up in an airplane, the Sun directly overhead and raindrops hanging below us, then we will be able to see a rainbow that is fully circular.

One can give a more general argument that does not require any detailed physics. In the phenomenon of the rainbow there is only one preferred direction, namely that of the Sun.

After it rains, water droplets are everywhere. Should there be anything like a patch of colored light coming in our direction, it can be only democratically distributed, equidistant in angle with respect to the only special direction. Hence the locus must be circular.

New products & discoveries
China’s fermented past

Here’s a discovery worth toasting: Chemical analyses of pottery fragments from a prehistoric village in northern China indicate that people living there between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago concocted a fermented, winelike drink from rice, honey, and fruit.

That’s the oldest known evidence of an intoxicating beverage, says archaeological chemist Patrick E. McGovern of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia. He led the international team that scrutinised the ancient pottery.

Until now, the earliest chemical evidence of wine came from Iranian jars from about 7,400 years ago. Middle Eastern beer-brewing sites date to roughly 5,000 years ago

Power from bird droppings

Turkey leftovers will take on a whole new use after a Minnesota company finishes construction of a power plant fired by the birds’ droppings.

It may not be the total answer to relieving the United States’ addiction to foreign oil, but the plant will burn 90 per cent turkey dung and create clean power for 55,000 homes.

Three poultry litter plants have already been built in England, but the Benson, Minnesota-based facility will be the first large-scale plant of its type in the U.S. and the largest in the world, according to operator Fibrominn, a subsidiary of power plant builder Homeland Renewable Energy, LLC of Boston.

Turkey dung is prized over pig excrement and cow chips. — Reuters

Smog clogs arteries

There’s a new reason to worry about air pollution. Known for many years to harm the lungs, air pollution also damages the circulatory system, a study now suggests.

A reexamination of data collected for various health care trials in the Los Angeles area indicates that the more air pollution there is around a person’s home, the thicker the walls of his or her carotid artery become. Thickened artery walls are a leading risk factor for heart attacks and strokes.

Lighthearted transistor

Transistors have long served as the building blocks of microelectronics. More recently, microchip lasers have been emerging as cornerstones of light-based circuitry, or photonics. Now, engineers have melded the two types of components into one miniature device that both amplifies electric current and emits a narrow beam of single-wavelength light.

“It’s simultaneously a transistor and a laser. It’s a transistor laser,” says co-developer Nick Holonyak Jr. of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

He previously contributed to the invention of various optoelectronics gadgets, including the first practical light-emitting diode, or LED.

The transistor laser is “a major technology breakthrough in high-speed optoelectronics,” comments K.C. Wang of HR Laboratories in Malibu, Calif.