 |
|
| SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY |
|
|
|
Mona Lisa “speaks”
Roads from plastic waste Red Rain had ET origin THIS UNIVERSE
Trends
|
|
|
Mona Lisa “speaks” THE Mona Lisa’s smile may always remain a mystery, but it is now possible to hear what her voice would have sounded like, thanks to a Japanese acoustics expert. Dr Matsumi Suzuki, who generally uses his skills to help with criminal investigations, measured the face and hands of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous 16th century portrait to estimate her height at 168 cm and create a model of her skull. “Once we have that, we can create a voice very similar to that of the person concerned,’’ Suzuki told Reuters in an interview at his Tokyo office last week. ‘’We have recreated the voices of a lot of famous people that were very close to the real thing and have been used in film dubbing.” The chart of any individual’s voice, known as a voice print, is unique to that person and Suzuki says he believes he has achieved 90 per cent accuracy in recreating the quality of the enigmatic woman’s speaking tone. “I am the Mona Lisa. My true identity is shrouded in mystery,” the portrait proclaims on a Web site at http://promotion.msn.co.jp/davinci/voice.htm “In Mona Lisa’s case, the lower part of her face is quite wide and her chin is pointed,’’ Suzuki explained. “The extra volume means a relatively low voice, while the pointed chin adds mid-pitch tones,” he added. The scientists brought in an Italian woman to add the necessary intonation to the voice. “We then had to think about what to have her say,’’ Suzuki said. “We tried having her speak Japanese, but it didn’t suit her image.’’ Experts disagree over who was represented in the portrait, with some saying the smiling woman is Leonardo himself, or his mother. The team also attempted to recreate Leonardo’s own voice in a project timed to coincide with the release of the film “The Da Vinci Code.’’ Suzuki said he was less confident about its accuracy because he had to work from self-portraits where the artist wore a beard, concealing the shape of his face. Suzuki’s work has made contributions to criminal investigations — in one case after he successfully aged a person’s voice by a decade. A recording of the voice was broadcast on television, leading to the apprehension of a suspect.
— Reuters
|
|
“The plastic waste, creating pollution hazards all over the country, can be turned into an ‘’environment- friendly’’ purpose if used in the construction of roads, according to a study sponsored by the Central Pollution Control Board. Bitumen blended with waste polymers such as polythylene (sheets), polypropylene (sheet and film) and Polystrene (thermocol) has improved properties as binder for the road construction, experiments done by Thiagaraj College of Engineering, Madurai, have proved. Use of shredded plastic waste in bitumen for laying roads has helped in preventing creation of potholes, a common problem of Indian roads. The technology is eco-friendly too as re-use of the plastic waste in this method is better than recycling of the material, which emits fugitive emissions. Problems like disposal of waste and blockages of waste stream would be automatically taken care of once its put to use. Under the existing method, granite mixture is used with bitumen. The blend cannot prevent trapping of water between the layers of the two materials, resulting in development of potholes. The process is accelerated during movement of vehicles. However, when polymer is coated over the aggregate, the coating reduces its affinity for water due to non-wetting nature of the polymer and this reduces the penetration of water. During the road laying process, mixing of plastic material do not create any environmental hazards, as no burning of the waste is involved, which in turn prevents greenhouse gases emission into the atmosphere. The mixing of plastic waste in bitumen also reduces bleeding of bitumen in summers, as waste-polymer bitumen blend shows higher softening temperature. The use of plastic also saves bitumen by 10 per cent, thus helping in the conservation of the material. The technology for laying bitumen-plastic road is the same as prescribed by the Indian Roads Congress specifications. The whole process is very simple. The existing technology is only slightly modified. No new machinery is needed and the available mini hot-mix plant and central mixing plant can be used. For its use in the road construction, the waste plastic gains resale value. Besides, it also creates jobs for ragpickers and segregators.
— UNI |
|
The Red Rain phenomenon in Kerala five years ago, might have been caused by biological cells of extraterrestrial origin, a study conducted at the School of Pure and Applied Physics, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, has said. Dr Godfrey Louis and his student A Santhosh Kumar in their study claimed that the cause of Kerala’s Red Rain during 2001 could be due to biological cells of extraterrestrial origin, University Vice-Chancellor Jancy James said. Claiming that these findings had attracted international attention, he said further studies were in progress and collaborative studies were taking place in the UK and the US. This finding also supported the theory of “Panspermia’’ which proposes that the seeds of life were propagating in the universe through comets, Dr Jancy said. Prof Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, the director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, UK, who had discussion with Dr Louis and personally verified the experiments done in the university has endorsed the findings. Collaborative studies were in progress in his laboratory in Cardiff on the Red Rain cells, Dr Wickramasinghe who was also present at the press conference said. Dr James said the university had set up a laboratory exclusively for studies in astrobiology and it had the potential to rise to the level of a centre for astrobiology in future. Dr Louis’ findings were published in the reputed international journal, ‘Astrophysics and Space Science’. According to the finding, the red cells, which caused the red colouration to the rainwater were possibly of cometary origin. The Red Rain was a result of atmospheric disintegration of a cometary fragment, which presumably contains a dense collection of red cells. The geographical and time distribution pattern of the Red Rain incidents and the sonic boom before the first occurrence were evidences that supported this theory. The optical and electron microscopic study and the elemental analysis supported the biological nature of the cells. The study had also shown that such cells were devoid of DNA, which further supported their possible extraterrestrial
|
| HOME PAGE |
THIS UNIVERSE
I saw on a CC TV the picture of a running TV and that of a computer screen. The picture on the computer screen was rolling up but the picture on the TV appeared stationary. Could you please explain the reason for this difference? A technician or an engineer would say that the two were not in sync. What he would mean by this is the following: The image on a TV or computer screen is produced by scanning of an electron beam that goes horizontally across the screen making lines one below the other some 625 times and jumps up to start making another frame of scanning. There are 24 such frames in a second! In order to be seen properly all the scanning processes need to be synchronised. The frames must start at the top left hand corner at the same time — same roughly within a millionth of a second. This is done through a synch signal. That is why there is no mess or rolling of images in well-designed broadcast systems. Carbon is black. Then why bread, potatoes, rice and sugar — all of which contain a lot of carbon — are not all black? This is a rather unreasonable question. The properties of materials are not like that of any one element in the complex molecular structure of the element. The elements combine in different ways to form different compounds that have very different properties. Some properties of an element also depend on its crystal structure, meaning how different atoms of the same element associate with each other. You must know that diamond is perhaps the purest form of carbon. Why do we feel pain when we bleed? We bleed when some blood vessels are broken, the skin is punctured and there is trauma. Pain is a mechanism devised by our body to make us aware that some thing has gone wrong and needs attention. Pain is felt when the information about the trauma is communicated through our central nervous system to our brain. If there were no pain we may neglect an open wound, which could then get infected. Or excessive bleeding might be heavy and lead to an unacceptable level of blood loss. Incidentally, we feel pain not because of the blood coming out but because of the hurt that leads to blood coming out. You must have noticed that we feel pain on being hurt even when there is no external bleeding. That also needs our attention. How does a chick breathe when it is still inside the egg? Eggs are beautifully designed. One of the marvellous features of this design is that that the eggshell is strong yet porous enough to allow exchange of air from the outside without allowing passage to liquids across its barrier. The shape and the structure of the eggshell can teach a thing or two to modern architects and engineers! How old is our earth? The clock used for measuring the geological age of the earth is a nuclear clock. The most common is called U 238 - Pb 206 clock. U238 has a half life of 4.51 billion years. After a long chain of decays the end element is Pb206. So what we need to measure is the ratio of Pb206 and U238 in an old rock. This would tell us how long the Uranium has been decaying in that rock. That gives us the age of the rock. This has been done very carefully. Some other radioactive dating methods have also been used. The current consensus is that the age of the earth and the solar system is 4.6 ± 0.1 billion years. |
|
|
Trends An international team of astronomers has constructed the largest -ever 3D map of a million galaxies. This massive atlas emphatically confirmed recent findings that the universe is full of “dark energy”, a mysterious substance that makes up three-quarters of our universe, together with “dark matter” which accounts for most of the remaining quarter. Understanding this composition is now one of the most important problems facing the whole of science. “We now have a precise view of what makes up our universe, but little idea as to why,” said Prof. Ofer Lahav, a member of the international team and the Head of the Astrophysics Group at University College London.
— ANI Sleeping drugs end coma Sleeping drugs might be a wake up call for people in coma, according to a new research. Clinical researchers have discovered that they can rouse semi-comatose patients by giving them a common sleeping drug, Nature magazine reported. If more wide-ranging tests are successful, the drug could become the first effective treatment for ‘persistent vegetative state.’ British and South African doctors, the report says, have reported the cases of three semi-comatose patients who were revived for several hours at a time by zolpidem, marketed to millions of insomniacs under the brand name Ambien.
— PTI Hypnosis and
pregnancy Women who are hypnotised before undergoing the transfer of an embryo created by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) may be more likely to become pregnant, Israeli researchers report. Dr Eliahu Levitas of Soroka University Medical Center in Beer Sheva and colleagues found that nearly 60 per cent of a group of women, who were hypnotised during the procedure became pregnant, versus about 30 per cent of a group of women, who weren’t hypnotised. Many infertility experts see the transfer of an embryo to a woman’s uterus as a key event that determines whether IVF will succeed, the researchers report in the journal Fertility and Sterility. Women may be stressed during embryo transfer from fears that the treatment will fail, they explain, or that the transfer will be painful. Hurricanes and
mental stress Survivors of the 1992 hurricane Andrew were not only impacted by the immediate consequences of the storm. New study findings show that the storm indirectly affected their mental well-being up to seven years afterwards. The findings imply that the survivors of last year’s hurricane Katrina, which had a greater economic and societal impact than hurricane Andrew, may need to be assessed and treated for mental health problems both now and in the future. “If they are not treated for psychological stress, they might experience psychological problems for many years to come ,” study investigator David Russell, a doctoral student at Florida State University, told Reuters Health. More co2, more poison ivy Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could give birth to thick forests, but with more toxic forms of poisonous ivy and other noxious vines, researchers say. Higher carbon dioxide levels expected in the next 50 years could breed ivies that grow twice as fast, and, unexpectedly, manufacture a nastier form of poison, researchers in the United States have shown. “It ‘ll be more dangerous to go in the forest,” team leader Jacquerline Mohan of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts was quoted by Nature magazine as saying.
— PTI The article “Power from the earth’s heat” published in the previous issue (May 26) was written by Dr Paul Singh.
|
THE Mona Lisa’s smile may always remain a mystery, but it is now possible to hear what her voice would have sounded like, thanks to a Japanese acoustics expert.
PROF YASH PAL
