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| SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY |
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Global warming may be a myth
Manure can be used as a filter
NRCM knowhow for safe meat
New Products and Discoveries Prof Yash
Pal Prof Yash Pal Q Some time ago there was a news item about discovery of a faint star that was believed to be a large ball of diamond 4,000 kilometres across. On what basis do scientists concoct such sensational stories? |
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Global warming may be a myth Dr Steven Cutts considers the controversial issue of climate change which has the Greens so alarmed and Big Business on the defensive Green issues have managed to fill more than one void. If it transpires that the world’s climate is not being changed by factory emissions plenty of Greens will be genuinely disappointed. Some people have never really come to terms with the industrial revolution. They yearn for an agricultural past when material possessions were virtually unknown. For them the prospect of a future when we are forced massively to restrict material prosperity is a dream to be cherished and the sooner we all give up on consumerism the better. Nobody ever cares to admit to anything compromising. Sixties junkies never allowed that anyone ever died from using drugs. Chain smokers denied till they expired from their addiction that lung cancer could be caused, by tobacco. And what opponent of birth control ever acknowledged that having too many children might burden a world of finite resources? Yet on the issue of global warming many governments have shown themselves willing to confront what in other circumstances they seem loath to do, They are prepared openly to discuss the worst-case scenario. But if world climate change through industrial emissions is the worst-case scenario, maybe the reality won’t be quite so bad? Many scientists openly question whether climate change is happening at all and so many differing opinions make it difficult for us to know what is really happening. There are convincing theories as to why temperatures should rise and as many persuasive theories about why they should fall. Which way the thermometer mercury will go is anybody’s guess. Oil and coal companies have an obvious incentive to ‘deny that carbon-dioxide emissions cause global warming. Nuclear-power enthusiasts have every reason to argue otherwise. Desperately poor people in developing countries are eager to refute the notion that their ascent up the economic ladder can threaten the future of the planet. Anti-US liberals are never happier than when blaming the Washington government for bad news. So who is telling the truth? We simply don’t know. The big problem is that if the day comes when we are totally convinced that industrially created climate change is inevitable, it will then be too late to stop it. As Bill Clinton has argued, we should at least consider it a possibility and act accordingly.
Fanatical opposition Perhaps the best example of the dilemmas presented by the Green cause is illustrated by the words of one of its heroes, Prof James Lovelock One of those broad-brush scientists given to sweeping statements about the state of the planet, he is noted for the “Gaia hypothesis” which likens Earth to a living organism able to adjust itself and its atmosphere to support life. (Gaea was the ancient Greek’s Earth goddess.) He was one of the main Messiahs of the UK’s Green movement up to the moment when he recommended a massive investment in nuclear power, and his conversion has infuriated those Greens who are fanatically opposed to nuclear energy. Lovelock’s most off-the-wall idea perhaps is his plan both to save the rainforests and stop carbon emissions at one move by building nuclear power stations in the West and disposing of their waste uranium in the jungles of South America. Even the most desperate of loggers would think twice about cutting and hauling timber from radioactive forests. Now there’s a truly original idea we can all admire! It’s more of a thought-provoking notion than a serious policy option, but it ties in with his recent pronouncements on the benefits to the world of nuclear power which have so enraged his former
disciples. — AF |
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Manure can be used as a filter
Scientists at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) say that manure can be used as a filter to leach heavy metals from wastewater, if turned into porous activated carbon. The research chemist at the Centre Isabel Lima has devised a way to turn chicken manure into such carbon, USDA said. Food animals in the US produce 350 billion tons of manure each year. “Animals,” said Lima from her office at USDA’s Southern Regional Research Centre in New Orleans, “leave behind incredible amounts of manure. We wanted to see if there was a way to transform it and add value.” Lima’s team first charred the manure, heating it in an oxygen-free environment to boil off volatiles and pollutants, leaving a carbon-rich, charcoallike residue. Then they bombarded the residue with steam, imparting porosity to give it a large amount of surface with which to catch impurities. Lima said that most activated carbons are made from coal, wood or plant residuals such as groundnut shells, soyabean hulls or coconut husks, and are best used in removing odour and organic materials from drinking water. Unlike these products, chicken manure turns out to have an unusual ability to extract from industrial wastewater positively charged metal particles such as zinc, copper and cadmium, many of which are carcinogens (cancer-causing). Lima’s team is conducting further tests to find out how this happens. The team is also trying to reduce the cost of making manure carbon. In the targeted industrial market, where coal is currently the predominant raw material, manure has an advantage. “Coal is expensive and nonrenewable,” Lima said. “With manure, the raw material is free.”
— PTI |
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THE National Research Centre on Meat (NRCM) in Hyderabad is working on technologies for upgrading the quality of meat under which it plans to design suitable training programmes for butchers and meat-handlers to sharpen their skills in safe and contamination-free handling of dressed carcasses. The centre has developed knowhow for several meat products utilising locally available ingredients. It is now working on Haleem, a traditional meat delicacy, to improve its taste profile and increase its shelf-life, Dr T.R.K. Murthy, Director of the centre, says. The NRCM has plans to develop meat-based neutraceuticals for use in convalscents and to set up a plant for ready-to-eat meat products. The new campus of the centre, which belongs to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, is coming up at Chengicherla on the city outskirts with all infrastructure required for research and development in the meat sector. It is expected to be ready some time next year, said Dr Murthy. — UNI
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New Products and Discoveries IT’S bad enough that some rhesus monkey mothers regularly kick, hit, bite, and otherwise brutalise their babies. But to make things worse, females exposed to such abuse as infants often grow up to become abusive parents themselves, perpetuating a primate cycle of family violence, a new study finds. Being abused as an infant outweighs any primarily genetic trait, such as an anxious temperament, in fostering abusive parenting by female monkeys, says primatologist Dario Maestripieri of the University of Chicago. His argument rests on two central observations. First, rhesus moms frequently mistreated their babies after having themselves been raised by abusive mothers, either biological or adoptive. Second, females born to abusive mothers uniformly became caring parents after having been raised by nonabusive adoptive mothers. Alaska had dinosaurs A newly discovered fossilised footprint shows that dinosaurs once roamed in what is now Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve, scientists said. The footprint, estimated to be 70 million years old, was found on June 27 near a campground 35 miles (60 km) west of the park entrance, the National Park Service said. It was the first evidence of dinosaurs ever found in Denali, one of Alaska’s top tourist destinations. The three-toed track, 6 inches (15 cm) wide and 9 inches (23 cm) long, appears to be from the left foot of a theropod, a class of two-legged predators, said Anthony Fiorillo, curator of the Dallas Museum of Natural History and an expert on Alaska dinosaurs. The location is what is most important to scientists, Fiorillo said. It was the first evidence of a dinosaur from this era ever found in interior Alaska. Until now, most dinosaur track discoveries have been in the Colville River region near the Arctic coastline. View from the top
The balloon launched on June 11 from the Swedish Space Corporation facility in Kiruna, Sweden, will follow the atmospheric currents toward Canada where it will be recovered. Suspended by a massive (37 million cubic foot) unmanned helium balloon, the BLAST will float 126,000 feet up, to the edge of space — past the pollution and atmospheric conditions that hamper the abilities of even the best earthbound telescopes. When fully inflated, the balloon would fill a football stadium.
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THIS UNIVERSE Q Some time ago there was a news item about discovery of a faint star that was believed to be a large ball of diamond 4,000 kilometres across. On what basis do scientists concoct such sensational stories? A In defence of scientists who put out such stories let me say that the universe is choc-full of sensational things and occasionally even scientists can lapse into romantic talk. But they apparently had enough observational evidence and theory to support them. Let me recount their argument in simple words. First some theory. It is believed that stars generate their energy through fusion reactions in which light elements fuse together to produce heavier elements. In this process some of the mass is converted into energy. For example if three helium nuclei were to fuse together you would get a carbon nucleus, whose mass is less than that of three helium nuclei; the remaining mass is converted into energy! The very same process leads to manufacture of heavier elements and production of energy that makes a star look like a star. A heavy element manufacturing celestial factory is simultaneously an energy production factory! How far this process proceeds depends on the mass of the star but it cannot go beyond a stage when the matter in the core has all been converted into iron. Production of energy after that cannot come from fusion. Something else has to happen if the star’s more massive than 1.4 solar mass. If the mass is less than that the star becomes stable through balancing of the electron degeneracy pressure from inside and the gravitational force inwards. It is not unlikely that a combination of right stellar mass and other parameters might result in a situation where there is predominance of carbon nuclei in the centre of the star that congeal together in a crystalline state. And the crystalline state of carbon is nothing but diamond! I am not fully convinced how this balance would arise. But the scientists who have given this report adduce another evidence. Our sun and all stars are like gongs that ring with frequencies that are charcterised by their size and structure. Indeed the phenomenon of stellar seismicity has developed into an important field in astronomy. It is claimed that the seismic character of the white dwarf star in question supports the hypothesis that the bulk of it is composed of crystallised carbon. Hence the story of a massive diamond in the sky. Q There are more than 200 documented cases where people have memory/knowledge of their previous birth. Please give some scientific explanation for this. A I have often wondered whether such stories can be considered as physical evidence in favour of the theory of reincarnation. While I grant the need of many people to believe that they would only migrate to another body after they die, and I also appreciate the beauty of this idea to give us more balance while faced with the temporary nature of our lives, I have a problem accepting these anecdotal accounts as proof of the fact that the phenomenon is real. Some of the reasons for my skepticism are the following: 1 If a few of us can remember our past life, then why not everyone? 2 One seldom hears stories of people who belonged to a different religion, race, continent or linguistic group. 3 According to the theory of reincarnation human life is only one of the millions of possible species. There are no stories I know of anyone migrating from a previous life as an elephant, whale, crow or a cucumber. 4 If I bang my head severely against a stone I can lose my memory. Does it not show that my memory resides in my head and not in my “soul”, which is the only me-ness that is supposed to migrate to another body? Surely after my body is cremated or buried and degraded by bacteria no memory is left for any “soul” to carry along. Let me assert in the end that looking for scientific proof of hypotheses and theories to help us cope should be viewed philosophically and metaphorically. For there are moments when I intensely feel my kinship with the whole of the universe. I can see the stuff I am made of cooked in the middle of star. I can imagine that the water I drink was sometime part of a comet circling the sun for a million years. Such musings give me a sense of belonging and indestructibility and make me feel as a significant element in the magnificent dram of this universe. When I think like this I can be justifiably accused of fantasies that would be absent if had not had a stint on this tiny planet as a human. Finally a few words about the documented cases you mention. When a child is born in a certain cultural environment it begins to absorb the philosophy and images of social life around it. This happens much before it begins to understand and speak the language of its neighborhood. The hidden aspirations and mythologies are also communicated. It is not impossible that an imaginative child would construct romantic and believable stories out of these fragments. Given some encouragement by the belief system of society these could also be interpreted as memories of a previous birth. |
WHEN first I read about global warming in the early 80s I was very alarmed. In those days we called it the greenhouse effect and my main anxiety was that nobody in authority would pay any attention to it. Global warming then was on a par with saving the whale in terms of overall political strategy. I had a vision of the UN building becoming submerged before anyone in it raised the vital subject of carbon emissions. I was wrong. Issues surrounding global climate change have found their way into mainstream political discussion, in part perhaps because yesteryear’s topics like the cold war and apartheid have faded away.
An international team of researchers, led by astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania, has launched the most highly sensitive telescope of its kind to be carried by balloon. The balloon-borne large aperture sub-millimeter telescope or BLAST will take a five to nine-day journey along the upper reaches of earth’s atmosphere. BLAST will collect images of objects in our solar system as well as the distant light that details the formation of stars and the evolution of whole galaxies.