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| SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY |
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Know your dinosaurs
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Does sixth sense exist? Humans have five basic senses, which enable them to interact with the outside world. These are: hearing, smell, sight, taste, and touch. Many people seem to possess a sixth sense (psychic sense). This (sixth sense) helps people to sense information beyond the domain of five senses, and have claimed to predict the future, sense spirits and read others mind. The term sixth sense was coined by the German scientist Dr Rudolf Tischner in 1920. He defined this as an Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) which include telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, retrocognition and psychometry. Telepathy refers to mind-to-mind communication. Clairvoyance is the ability to see things not available by known senses. Precognition is the power to foresee future events, Retrocognition is the strength to see past events and psychometry is the power to know the history of an object. Every person has experienced sixth sense at some point or other during his or her lives. The degree varies from individual to individual. It is still not known how the sixth sense operates, and it is not associated with any of the body organs. This leads to the conclusion that the process is entirely mental involving human soul or the subconscious mind. Scottish researchers claim to have found scientific proof for communication among spiritual mediums. Prof Archie Roy concludes that mediums communicate using more than the five normal senses. In his experiments the communication was established using a microphone and the identities of all involved were physically separated in different rooms and kept confidential. The research is still on to prove how the medium actually transmits this information. If there is an emotional tie between two individuals, the medium can pick the signals. This can be compared to the transmission of radio signals. The only person who can certify this phemomenon is the one who actually receives the message. Researchers at Germany’s Freiberg University seem to have evidence in support of the existence of sixth sense. Some researchers refer sixth sense to be an instinct. Animals and the insects use it all the time. The intuitive human mind wants empirical evidence for all the traits. Further, the empirical evidence is not separated from other five senses. There are lot of examples, like radio waves, where we cannot perceive things with our five senses. Certain high pitch voices are there, which only the dogs can hear. It took years of research to prove that there exist things called "germs". These are beyond the purview of the five basic senses. We cannot see, taste, feel, hear or smell germs on our hands. There are number of evidences, where the dogs have warned their masters of some potential mishappening. Many animals get nervous before an earthquake is to occur. This may be attributed either to their sixth sense or vibration sensory powers, more sensitive than humans. It has been reported that the animals’ "sixth sense" saved them from recent tsunami disaster. Sri Lankan wildlife officials have said the giant waves that killed over 24,000 people along the Indian Ocean island’s coast seemingly missed wild beasts, with no dead animals found. The waves washed floodwaters upto two miles inland biggest wildlife reserve of Srilanka, hosting hundreds of wild elephants and leopards, but not a single body of any animal was found. There are many reports of birds detecting impending disasters. There are numerous stories of people having dreams that later came true to some extent. Abraham Lincoln is said to have dreamt of his death, days before he was assassinated. A completely blind Britisher has been shown to possess "sixth sense" which enables him to recognise emotions on people’s faces. Brain scans of the blind person revealed that when the man looked at faces depicting emotion, it activated a part of his brain called the right amygdala, which responds to non-verbal emotional signals. The research to prove the existence of sixth sense is going on. For verification, the phenomenon must be measurable and repeatable. The drawback with sixth sense is that it is impossible to repeat experiments with it. The more the person attempts to use his sixth sense, the less it seems to work.
All the medical explanations have failed for near death
experiences. "Cybersense" has already emerged as a weak link
between the five senses and the sixth sense. The inventions of modern
times were research topics a few years back. The research on sixth
sense will pave the way for facts and conclusions related to this
intuitive sense |
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Know your dinosaurs What are dinosaurs?
When and how was their time? From 230 to 65 million years back Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods belonged to dinosaurs. Each period saw different dino species come and go e.g. in the Jurassic, dinosaur Stegosaurus already had been extinct for approximately 80 million years before the Cretaceous dinosaur Tyrannosaurus appeared. The time separating Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus is more than the time separating Tyrannosaurus and man. In the Triassic Period, there was one super continent on Earth, Pangea. As Pangea broke up, dinosaurs became scattered on separate continents and new types evolved separately in new palaegeographic regime. What was the biggest size? Largest complete dinosaur known was Brachiosaurus i.e. 23 m in length and 12 m in height. Leg bones and vertebrae of larger dinosaur species are known, but being incomplete do not let you guess exact size. Argentinasaurus and Amphicoelias might have been one and a half to two times larger than Brachiosaurus. Smallest dinosaur was only slightly larger than a chicken. Compsognathus was 1 m long and probably weighed about 2.5 kg. All the three dinosaur types lived during Jurassic. Where did they live? Dinosaurs lived on all continents. But for Higher Himalayas, their fossils and eggs are well spread almost all over India. During the 165 million years of their existence, dinosaurs witnessed breaking up and drift of supercontinent Pangea into a more or less present geographic arrangement by plate tectonics. How are dinos named? Normally after a body feature, place of discovery or after the discoverer. Name comprises two Greek or Latin words which are the genus (plural, genera) and the species name e.g. the Greek and Latin combination (binomen) Tyrannosaurus rex means "king of the tyrant lizards." How did they communicate? They displayed defensive postures, love and fights through vocal and visual signs. Triceratops bull when angry would shake his head and make him understood! What followed dinos? Dinosaurs became extinct nearly 65 million years ago. Only small mammals, shrew-sized primates, coexisted with dinosaurs. In China there was a real match to dinosaurs in some mammals who tore chunks of small dinos and swallowed them without even chewing. Mammals developed once dinos faded away. How fast did dinos run? Several methods have been used to calculate their speed. Two basic methods involve comparing with recorded speeds of modern animals with similar size and build up. Distances between fossil footprints in a fossil dino track way are measured and speed calculated. Estimates for medium-sized two-legged dinosaurs vary from 4 to 6 km/hour. Maximum speed estimated from 37 km/h to 88 km/h. How long did individuals live? Life spans may be linked to their body size and metabolism and might have been from a few decades to a few centuries. How many species of dinosaurs are known? Roughly 700 species are recorded. Many more may be yet to be described. Were they social? They travelled and migrated together e.g. dinosaur fossils have been found above the Arctic Circle! Nesting sites with badly crushed eggshells and skeletons of baby dinosaurs still in the nests suggest that some babies stayed on in the nests even after hatching and may have been fed by parents. What colour were dinos? Direct evidence of dinosaur skin colour not known. Most dinosaurs possibly were brightly coloured like lizards, snakes, or birds. What did they eat? Some ate lizards, turtles, eggs, or mammals, others ate dead animals. Most ate plants. Dinosaur bones are found together with fossil pollen and spores indicating plant diversity in Mesozoic Era. The last of the dinosaurs certainly ate fruit. What made them extinct? Individual dinosaur species were evolving and becoming extinct for various reasons. Massive extinction at the end of the Cretaceous wiped out the last of the dinosaurs, the flying reptiles, and the large swimming reptiles, as well as many other marine animals. Meteorites impact partially was the cause. Extensive release of volcanic gases, climatic cooling, sea-level change, lowered reproduction rates, variations in the Earth’s orbit or magnetic field may have also contributed. — The writer is from Geology Dept, PU, Chandigarh.
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This Universe Q. I have heard that plants grow better when soothing music is played. Is it true? If so, how is it possible? I have also heard this. Indeed I have heard even more. It has been said that cows give more milk when slow melodious music is played, but not so when the music is loud and fast - the kind many young persons seem to prefer these days. A. Apparently cows are seeking tranquility, not excitement!! Whether any of this is also true for plants, I do not know. It is quite possible that only those persons would play music to plants who are in love with them and, therefore, look after them rather well. The flourishing of plants might as well be ascribed to good nourishment and not to their musical nature. (I’m not sure the experiments that might have given positive indications have included relevant controls). But seriously speaking I do not think there is definite proof for, or against, this conjecture Q. Is it true that exposure to ultrasonic frequencies can make seeds germinate faster? A. My answer is that I do not know the answer. I have scanned the Net and could not find anything definitive. If you come across some reliable information in this regard, I would like to hear about it. One will have to define the strength and frequency of the ultrasound. If the signal is too strong, one could smash the seed. I suspect germination is a biochemical process and I do not know how such processes could be speeded up by ultrasonic bombardment. But as I said earlier, I really do not know the answer. Q. Is there such a thing as anti-gravity? A. My first answer to this would be in the negative. Anti-gravity is science fiction. However, I must be a little cautious, because some descriptions of the very early evolution of the universe suggest that it might have inflated very fast for a tiny instant soon after its creation (or the “Big Bang”). But to think of this as due to antigravity might be premature or simplistic. Outside of this, I do not think it would be possible to invent an antigravity machine!
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Evolution is repeating itself
A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny egg-laying mammal thought to be related to the platypus provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals. The discovery of the prehistoric jawbone, reported in the Feb. 11, 2005, issue of Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancestor some 200 million years ago. Falling in thin air In a classic image of high-speed photography, a drop of milk landing on a surface explodes into an ornate crown with beads of fluid leaping from its rim. Now, a study of other splashes finds that the air in which such bursts unfold is a previously overlooked actor in that performance. “I don’t think anyone ever thought poor little old air could do anything to the splash,” says physicist Sidney R. Nagel, who led the investigation. Yet he, Lei Xu, and Wendy W. Zhang, all of the University of Chicago, have discovered that even modestly reducing the air pressure completely quells the rococo exuberance of crashing drops. “Flabbergasting,” comments Detlef Lohse of the University of Twente in Enschede, the Netherlands. Parasite genes reveal all While it hasn’t yet been caught in the act, a single-celled parasite has been ready for sex for billions of years. A new research finding provides evidence that sexual reproduction started as soon as life forms that have nuclei and organelles within their cells branched off from their structurally simpler ancestors. The parasite Giardia intestinalis is well known for causing a diarrheal disease that animals and people contract after drinking contaminated water. Many researchers consider this species to be one of the most ancient living members of the eukaryote, or true nucleus, lineage.
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Ancient reptiles with strong leg muscles and heavy
hips, hind legs and ankles to facilitate leg movement below the body
permitted dinosaurs to bring their knees and ankles directly below
their hips. Skeletons designed to support a large body in erect
posture and for easy running. Front legs for grasping the prey and
hind legs supported the weight at times up to 120 tonnes. Dinosaur
skulls were designed for maximum strength and minimum weight. Perhaps
a large body size kept most predators at bay and helped to regulate
internal body temperature. No modern animals except whales are
comparable in size to the giant dinosaurs. Dinosaurian world was
different. The climate and food chain helped them attain mega sizes.
