Document 1531016

Editorial
Dreams and Actions
I
nitially, the objective of Dream 2047 was
to provide information about the activities
of Vigyan Prasar (VP) among agencies active
in the field of science and technology
popularisation, and individuals interested in
this area. Popular science articles also
continued to appear to cater to the needs of
the general public. With passage of time,
however, Dream 2047 gradually transformed
into a newsletter-cum-popular science
magazine. From a print order of only a few
thousand when it was first launched in
October 1998, today it has a print order of
fifty-two thousand. The readership of Dream
2047 ranges from school students to general
public, and those with science background.
Further, it reaches out to the most interior
regions and the remotest corners of the
country where science magazines, let alone
popular magazines, are difficult to come by.
Many more access it through Internet on our
website. Of late, Dream 2047 has assumed
the status of USP for Vigyan Prasar.
On a visit to a remote village school,
we often find Dream 2047 occupying a
prominent place in the school library, and
students and teachers enthusiastically
discussing the articles published therein. The
articles published in Dream 2047 are
extensively utilised as resource or enrichment
material or in co-curricular activities. Often
Dream 2047 is the only source of scientific
information for those in the interior or the
far flung areas of the country. It is for this
reason that a conscious attempt is made to
include historical and scientific facts in a
simplified manner in each article - including
editorials.
Editorials generally deal with a
contemporary issue or an event. However,
many readers instinctively turn to page 3 to
read biographies of famous scientists which
are always illustrated with pictures that are a
Editor
Address for
correspondence
:
:
class in themselves. Mediscape, the column
on health, is also a much sought-after feature.
So is the column on Recent Developments
in Science and Technology. The monthly sky
maps cater to the interests of not only the
enthusiasts in astronomy, but also the general
public. Dream 2047 features articles by
eminent
scientists
and
science
communicators on a wide spectrum of
subjects and disciplines, making every issue
a repository of knowledge and current trends
in science and society.
Dream 2047 has always endeavoured
to keep its readers abreast of VP’s activities
and acting as a two-way communication
channel. We often receive requests to publish
Dream 2047 in other Indian languages. VP
is looking into ways and means to address
this problem. However, the simultaneous
publication of Dream 2047 in English and
Hindi, helps the readers understand articles
even in areas where Hindi and/or English is
spoken only in a limited manner.
It is said that dreams transform into
thoughts and thoughts transform into
actions. It was with such thoughts that the
magazine was named Dream 2047 - India of
our dreams a century after her Independence!
Indeed, many of us share a common dream
- a dream of a country transforming into a
nation of literate and scientifically minded
people. This is the dream we all want to
realise, and Dream 2047 is contributing in
its own way to transform our cherished
dream into action.
VP’s radio and television programmes
are being regularly aired from AIR stations
and Doordarshan Kendras respectively - in
all Indian languages. As an organisation, we
at Vigyan Prasar cherish a dream to produce
and air good quality science television
programmes that would eventually transform
into a full-fledged science channel. Next, we
Dr. V. B. Kamble
Vigyan Prasar, C-24,
Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi-110 016;
Tel : 011-26967532; Fax : 0120-2404437
e-mail : [email protected]
website : http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in
have a dream to expand VP’s network of
Science Clubs to all parts of the country with
50,000 clubs. VP’s dream is to make available
its software in all major Indian languages
throughout India - including in digital
format. We also intend to develop dedicated
core-groups of resource persons in all states/
major linguistic regions to promote S&T
communication activities. VP has a dream
to reach out to rural and isolated areas and
slums through a variety of programmes. For
this purpose, VP would continuously strive
to develop synergies with agencies and
institutions working with similar goals.
Needless to say, Dream 2047 would
continue to be a two-way channel of
communication with our readers helping us
transform our dreams into thoughts and
thoughts into actions. The interaction with
readers has helped us not only in exchanging
information, but also in evolving and
formulating some of VP’s important projects
and programmes. It has proved to be an
effective communication channel between
VP and scientists, science communicators
and social workers; and shall continue to be
so in future.
In particular, Vigyan Prasar has given
me an opportunity to talk to thousands of
readers through these columns for nearly a
decade on diverse subjects and topics - from
Smashing Particles to Feeding the Hungry; and
from Angels and Demons to Water on Moon!
The time has now come, however, to bid
adieu! If I borrow a line from the classic The
Sound of Music, it is now time to say, ‘So long,
farewell, auf wiedersehen, good bye!’ But, we
shall continue to meet; and continue to
march ahead with Vigyan Prasar to realise
our dreams of transforming our country into
a nation of scientifically thinking people.
Vinay B. Kamble
Vigyan Prasar is not responsible for the statements and opinions
expressed by the authors in their articles/write-ups published in
“Dream 2047”
Articles, excerpts from articles published in “Dream 2047” may be
freely reproduced with due acknowledgement/credit, provided
periodicals in which they are reproduced are distributed free.
Published and Printed by Dr. Subodh Mahanti on behalf of Vigyan Prasar, C-24, Qutab Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 016 and Printed at
Aravali Printers & Publishers Pvt. Ltd., W-30, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-II, New Delhi-110 020. Ph. : 011-26388830-32. Editor : Dr. V. B. Kamble
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Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Antony Hewish
Decisive Player in Discovery
of Pulsars
Subodh Mahanti
E-mail: [email protected]
“I believe scientists have a duty to share the excitement and pleasure of their work
with the general public, and I enjoy the challenge of presenting difficult ideas in an
–Antony Hewish
understandable way.”
A
ntony Hewish is known for his work
on the development of radio aperture
synthesis and its role in the discovery of
pulsars or ‘pulsating radio stars’, which
revolutionised astrophysics. Pulsars are
actually rapidly-spinning neutron stars. The
spinning periods of neutron stars vary from
few seconds to thousandths of a second.
Neutron stars are formed by the explosions
of certain stars at the end of their lives. Such
explosions are called supernovae. The masses
of neutron stars are more than 1.4 times
the mass of the Sun, the upper
limit being two and three solar
masses. Exotic astronomical
objects like pulsars and quasars
(quasi stellar objects) were first
detected in the 1960s. Since the
discovery of pulsars in 1967
astronomers have identified more
than 100 pulsars and it is
estimated that there are more than
one million active pulsars in our
galaxy, the Milky Way.
Hewish was born on 11
May 1924 in Fowey, Cornwall,
U.K. His father was a banker.
Hewish grew up in Newquay, on
the Atlantic coast. He was
educated at King’s College,
Taunton before joining the
Gonville and Caius College of the
Cambridge University as an
undergraduate student. However, his
studies at Cambridge were interrupted
because of the Second World War. He had
to join the war service. He first worked at
the Royal Aircraft Establishment and then
at the Telecommunications Research
Establishment. During this period he came
in contact with Martin Ryle. He returned
to Cambridge in 1946. Immediately after
completing his undergraduate studies at the
Gonville and Caius he joined Ryle’s research
team at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Commenting on how he developed an
interest in radio astronomy Hewish said:
“My decision to begin research in radio
Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory
astronomy was influenced by both my
wartime experience with electronics and
antennas and by one of teachers, Jack
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Antony Hewish
Racliffe, who had given an excellent course
on electromagnetic theory during my final
undergraduate year and whom I had also
encountered at Malvern. He was Head of
Radiophysics at the Cavendish Laboratory
at that time.”
Hewish obtained his Ph.D. in
1952. Commenting on his professional
career Hewish writes: “Returning to
Cambridge in 1946, I graduated in 1948
and immediately joined Ryle’s
research team at the Cavendish
Laboratory. I obtained my Ph.D. in
1952, became a Research Fellow at
Gonville and Caius College where
I had been an undergraduate, and
in 1961 transferred to Churchill
College as Director of Studies in
Physics. I was University Lecturer
during 1961-69, Reader during
1969-71 and Professor of Radio
Astronomy from 1971 until my
retirement in 1989. Following
Ryle’s illness in 1977, I assumed
leadership of the Cambridge radio
astronomy group and was Head of
the Mullard Radio Astronomy
Observatory from 1982-88.”
In the early phase of his
research career, Hewish exploited
the apparent scintillations or
‘twinkling’ of radio sources to probe
conditions in the ionosphere. Radio
scintillation is a phenomenon similar to the
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History of Science
Martin Ryle
twinkling of visible stars that arises from
random reflections of radio waves by ionised
gas. Three types of scintillations are caused
by ionised gas in the interstellar medium,
in the interplanetary medium, and in the
Earth’s atmosphere. Hewish was involved
in the investigations of all the three types
of radio scintillations. He pioneered
measurements of the height and physical
scale of plasma clouds in the ionosphere and
estimated wind speeds in this region.
Following his successes in exploiting
interstellar scintillations he conceived the
idea of a giant phased-array antenna so that
he could exploit his technique on a large
sample of radio galaxies. He constructed a
large array radio telescope at the Mullard
Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge
University. The construction was completed
by mid-1967 and the survey started almost
immediately.
Hewish played decisive role in the
discovery of pulsars. It was Jocelyn Bell who
first discovered the radio source in July
1967, which later proved to be a pulsar. The
discovery was published in the journal
Nature. Apart from Hewish and Bell, the
three other authors were J. D. H.
Pilkington, P. F. Scot and R. A. Collins. This
discovery attracted lot of attention from the
general public as well as astronomers. It
dramatically extended the existing
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41
knowledge of the universe. Interestingly,
the period of the pulsar identified by Bell
and Hewish was so regular that its
discoverers initially thought that it might
be an interstellar beacon or radio
lighthouse of an alien civilisation. They
named the source Little Green Men-1
(LGM1). However, the idea of alien signals
was dropped after the discovery of three
more pulsars in rapid succession.
It is unfortunate that Jocelyn Bell
Burnell was not considered for the Nobel
Prize along with Hewish although she had
made the first actual observation. Many
fellow astronomers including Fred Hoyle
expressed their discontentment on this issue.
The counter-argument was that Ryle and
Hewish were given the Prize for their total
work on radio astronomy with special
mention of Ryle’s work on aperturesynthesis, and Hewish’s on pulsars.
In his Nobel Prize lecture Hewish
gave a fascinating account of this sensational
discovery: “The trail which ultimately led
Fred Hoyle
to the first pulsar began in 1948 when I
joined Ryle’s small research team and
became interested in the general problem
of the propagation of radiation through
irregular transparent media…In 1965 I
drew up plans for a radio telescope with
which I intended to carry out a large-scale
survey of more than 1,000 radio galaxies...
The final design was an array containing
2048 dipole antennas. Later that year I was
joined by a new graduate student, Jocelyn
Bell…The radio telescope was complete,
and tested, by July 1967 and we
immediately commended a survey of the
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
sky…One day around the middle of
August 1967 Jocelyn showed me a record
indicating fluctuating signals…we first
thought that the signals might be electrical
interference…It was not until 28 November
that we obtained the first evidence of our
mysterious source was emitting regular
pulses of radiation at intervals of just greater
than one second. I could not believe that
any natural source would radiate in this
fashion and I immediately consulted
astronomical colleagues at other
observatories to enquire whether they had
any equipment in operation which might
possibly
generate
electrical
interference…Still sceptical, I arranged a
device to display accurate time marks at one
second intervals…To my astonishment the
readings fell in a regular pattern, to within
the observational uncertainty of 0.1s
(second), showing that the pulsed source
kept time to better than 1 part in 106.
Meanwhile my colleagues Pilkington, and
Scot and Collins, found by quite
independent methods that the signal
exhibited a rapidly sweeping frequency of
about 5MHz/s; the duration of each
pulse…was approximately 16 milliseconds.
Having found no satisfactory terrestrial
explanation for the pulses we now began to
believe that they could only be generated
by some source far beyond the solar system,
and the short duration of each pulse
suggested that the radiator could not be
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
History of Science
Dellinger Medal, International Union of
Radio Science (1972); Michelson Medal,
Franklin Institute (1973); Hopkins Prize,
Cambridge Phiolosophical Society
(1973); Holwech Medal and Prize,
Societe Francaise de Physique (1974).
In 1987, Sweden brought out a
strip of five stamps commemorating
Nobel-winning astrophysicists. Hewish’s
stamp showed the Crab Nebula, which
contains a famous pulsar, overlain with
the repeating trace of a radio pulse.
References :
1.
2.
3.
4.
Conville and Caius College
larger than a small planet…The months
that followed the announcement of our
discovery were busy ones for observers and
theoreticians alike, as radio telescopes all
over the world turned towards the first
pulsars and information flooded in at a
phenomenal rate.”
there always will be. But science raises
questions that it can never answer. Why
did the Big Bang eventually lead to
conscious beings who question the
purpose of life and the existence of the
universe? This is where religion is
necessary.”
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
Crab Nebula
The Milky Way
Hewish believes that there should
be a relationship between science and
religion. When he was asked why this
relationship should be he replied: “I think
both science and religion are necessary
to understand our relation to the
universe. In principle, Science tells us
how everything works, although there are
many unsolved problems and I guess
Hewish was elected a Fellow of
the Royal Society of London in 1968. He
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics
in 1974. He shared the prize with Martin
Ryle. Amongst his other honours are:
Hamilton Prize, Cambridge (1952);
Eddington Medal, Royal Astronomical
Society (1969); Charles Vernon Boys
Prize, Institute of Physics (1970);
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
A Dictionary of Astronomy, Oxford :
Oxford University Press, 1997.
A Dictionary of Scientists, Oxford :
Oxford University Press, 1999.
Chambers Biographical Dictionary,
New York : Chambers, Harrap
Publishers Ltd., 1997
Dardo, Mauro, Nobel Laureates and
Twentieth-centur y
Physics,
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Heilbron, J.L. (Ed.), The Oxford
Companion to the History of Modern
Science, Oxford : Oxford University
Press, 2003.
Pannekoek, K., A Histor y of
Astronomy. New York : Dover
Publications, Inc., 1989.
Seeds, Michael A. Foundations of
Astronomy, Pacific Grove, CA:
Thomson Learning Academic
Resource Centre 2003.
The Cambridge Dictionar y of
Scientists, Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press 2004.
Available sources on the Internet.
(The article is a popular presentation
of the important points on the life and work
of Antony Hewish available in the existing literature. The idea is to inspire the
younger generation of know more about
Antony Hewish. The author has given the
sources consulted for writing this article.
However, the sources on the Internet are
numerous and so they have not been individually listed. The author is grateful to all
those authors whose works have contributed
to writing this article).
40
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The key to life at the atomic level
T
he discovery of the double helix
structure of DNA in 1953 by James
Watson and Francis Crick was a turning
point in the history of biology. Not only
did it help us understand the very nature
of life but it also opened up the
possibility of controlling life artificially.
Strictly speaking, however, it was only
one, may be the most significant one,
in a series of discoveries made through
innovative experiments over several
years, by dedicated teams of scientists
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
that ultimately led to our understanding
of the inner mechanisms of the life
process. Watson and Crick shared the
1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine with Maurice Wilkins for their
work on DNA.
As we all know, DNA, with its
genetic codes, is found mostly in the cell
nucleus, but protein synthesis takes
place outside the nucleus, in the
cytoplasm. But how does DNA direct
the synthesis of protein from inside the
nucleus? DNA is like a blueprint; it has
to be “read” and the instructions passed
on to some agent that would put the
amino acids together to build up the
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Biman Basu
[email protected]
specific protein. This is like building a
house, where the civil engineer reads the
blueprint and directs the masons, who,
in turn build the house. It was Francis
Crick who mooted the idea of a carrier
molecule like RNA that carried the
information from DNA in the cell
nucleus to the cytoplasm for protein
synthesis. He proposed that the route
Thomas A. Steitz
called ribosomes. Ribosomes occur in
large numbers in every living cell and
are composed of ribosomal RNA
(rRNA) and protein; they can “read” the
code carried by the messenger RNA
(mRNA). A sequence of three
nitrogenous bases in mRNA (called a
codon) specifies incorporation of an
amino acid; yet another type of RNA
known as transfer RNA (tRNA) brings
the amino acids to the ribosomes, where
they are linked into polypeptide chains
Ada E. Yonath
to the synthesis of protein on the basis
of the genetic code carried by DNA was
“from DNA to RNA to protein,” which
came to be known as the Central
Dogma.
But the site of protein synthesis
still remained a puzzle. Then in 1956,
the Rumania-born American biochemist
George E. Palade made an important
discovery. By careful study of electron
micrographs of cells he discovered tiny
par ticles in the cytoplasm that he
demonstrated were the sites of protein
synthesis. These particles, about 2
millionths of a centimetre in diameter,
were rich in RNA and were therefore
(proteins). The Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for 2009 has been awarded
jointly to three scientists – Venkatraman
Ramakrishnan of MRC Laboratory of
Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK;
Thomas A. Steitz of Yale University,
New Haven, USA; and Ada E. Yonath
of Weizmann Institute of Science,
Rehovot, Israel for the detailed mapping
of the ribosome – the cell’s own protein
factory – at the atomic level.
An understanding of the
ribosome’s innermost workings is
important for a scientific understanding
of life. Ribosomes exist in all cells in all
living organisms. As no living creature
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
an X-ray crystallographic image
can survive without ribosomes,
of the ribosome from which she
they are the perfect targets for
could determine the location of
drugs. Many of today’s antibiotics
each atom. She tried many new
attack ribosomes of bacteria but
things. For instance, she
leave those of humans alone.
stabilized the crystals by freezing
Without functional ribosomes,
them in liquid nitrogen at bacteria cannot survive. This is
196°C. Yonath’s success showed
why ribosomes are such an
that the ribosome’s atomic
impor tant target for new
structure could be mapped, and
antibiotics.
more scientists joined in the race.
For understanding how
Among them were Thomas Steitz
ribosomes actually function it was
and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan.
necessary to first determine its
Although Yonath had been
structure at the atomic level,
able to locate the position of the
which could be done by a
Drawing of a bacterial ribosome showing the small subunit
atoms in ribosome there still
technique known as X-ray
(left) and the large subunit (right). The large and small
remained considerable obstacle
crystallography in which a pattern
subunits fit together.
to the determination of the
of black dots is produced when an
X-ray beam is scattered by the atoms establish the exact location of each and structure of the molecule from the
arranged in a crystal lattice. But the every one of the atoms in the ribosome pattern of black dots. In order to
technique could only be used with using X-ray crystallography and decided determine a structure from the pattern
perfect crystals in which the molecules to crystallise the ribosome found in the of black dots, scientists needed to know
form a precise pattern that is repeated bacteria Geobacillus stearothermophilus the “phase angle” for each and every
over and over again. To obtain high that can live in warm springs and survive dot. This mathematical information is
related to the location of
quality cr ystals from a
the atoms in the crystal.
protein can be a very tough
However, as the ribosomes
task, and the larger the
are so large, it was difficult
protein
complex,
as
to determine the phase
ribosomes are, the harder is
angle
using
the
the task. The ribosome is
conventional techniques
one of the most complicated
that made use of heavy
protein/RNA complexes. It
atoms.
Ad d i t i o n a l
is divided into two parts,
information was needed in
“the large subunit” and “the
order to solve the phase
small subunit” – one
problem.
approximately twice the size
It was Thomas Steitz
of the other. The small
who finally came out with
subunit in a human
a solution. He used images
ribosome consists of a large
of the ribosome, generated
RNA molecule and around
using electron microscopy.
32 proteins. The large
Wi t h t h e h e l p o f t h o s e
subunit consists of three
images, Steitz could find
RNA molecules and around
out how the ribosomes were
46 proteins. Each of the
oriented and located within
subunits thus consists of
the
crystal.
This
thousands of nucleotides
information, together with
and thousands of amino
Schematic diagram of the synthesis of proteins in the cell by ribosome.
the information from the
acids, which in turn consist
other techniques, finally
of hundreds of thousands of
in temperatures up to 75°C. By 1980, yielded the phase angle. In 1998, Steitz
atoms.
The first big step towards she had managed to generate the first published the first crystal structure of
understanding the str ucture of crystals of the ribosome’s large subunit, the ribosome’s large subunit. Although
ribosomes was taken by Ada Yonath at but it took another 20 years of hard
Contd. on page...31
the end of the 1970s. She wanted to work before Yonath managed to generate
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
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Ardi- Mother of all Humanity?
R
esearchers, led by Tim White of the
University of California, Berkeley, have
unveiled the oldest known skeleton of a
putative human ancestor—and it is full of
surprises. Unveiled on 1 October 2009 with
much fanfare, the creature, named
Ardipithecus ramidus, appears to have a
brain and body the size of a chimpanzee,
but did not knuckle-walk or swing through
the trees like an ape. Instead, it walked
upright, with a big, stiff foot and short,
wide pelvis –human like features - scientists
have reported in the special issue of Science
(2 October 2009). A well preserved 3.2
million-year-old fossil of hominid – nick
named Lucy - discovered in 1974 was until
now considered the paleoanthropology
discovery of the century, but this
diminutive creature has upturned most of
the main stream thinking in the field. Tim
White and his colleges named this new
species Ar. ramidus – in Afar language ardi,
meaning “ground” or “floor”; and ramid,
meaning “root” implying that this species
is at the root of human evolution and it
largely dwells on ground rather than on
trees.
The story of this saga began about
17 years ago. A bone fragment of an
enigmatic hominid (member of the human
family) was chanced upon by Tim White
and his team in 1992 at Middle Awash
study area in the Afar Rift, about 230 km
northeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
It was a teeth and jaw bone. Initially the
team thought it was yet another find of
genus Australopithecus, a well studied
ancestor to modern humans (Homo
sapiens). However, carbon dating of the jaw
bone revealed that it was about 4.4 million
years old, which meant that it could not
belong to Australopithecus. Yet another
important discovery occurred on 5
November 1994. A young Ethiopian
research student named Yohannes HaileSelassie collected two hominid finger bones
from the surface of exposed silty clay. These
bones were the first bits found of what
would become the most complete skeleton
of an adult hominid species. A preliminary
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T V Venkateswaran
E-mail: [email protected]
report was published in 1994 and this new
species was named Ardipithecus ramidus (Ar.
Ramidus in short).
Manhattan
anthropology
project
of
A project to collect, collate and piece
together the bone fragments in itself was
such a huge task that it is jokingly referred
to it as the ‘Manhattan project of
anthropology (Manhattan project was the
name of secret project involving thousands
every scrap. It was one hundred percent
collection. The team collected more than
150,000 specimens of fossilised plants and
animals from nearby localities of the same
age, from elephants to songbirds to
millipedes, including fossilised wood,
pollen, snails, and larvae. About 6,000
plant and animal species have been so far
identified. Of course the most important
find that they made was ‘Ardi’.
As the team went about clearing the
area where they had found finger bones
earlier, to their surprise they found bone
fragments from skull, pelvis, feet and so on.
The near-complete skeleton recovered from
the excavation was identified as belonging
to a female and was nick named ‘Ardi’,
belonging to genus Ar. ramidus. In addition
the search yielded over 100 bones from
Ardi’s kind, representing about 36
individuals. Ardi was the most complete
individual, with about 45% of the skeleton
intact.
How Ardi was fossilised
By far oldest skeletal remains of human ancestor
was excavated at a site in Afar valley, Ethiopia
of scientists to develop atomic bomb by US
during Second World War). The effort
named Middle Awash project, involved
about 70 scientists from 18 countries and
took about 15 years. Laboratories in
Ethiopia, Tokyo and Berkeley were
involved. And like the original Manhattan
project research this study was also
conducted in total secrecy!
For three years the team and their
assistants literally crawled on hands and
knees, collecting every piece of bone, every
piece of wood, every seed, every snail, and
It was indeed chance that a well preserved
almost complete skeleton of Ar. ramidus was
found in the first place. Ardi, who lived
about 4.4 million years ago, died and
fortuitously its skeleton remains got
entangled in the volcanic ash that abounds
in that region. The skeleton was perhaps
trampled by passing animals well into the
ash silt and thus was preserved. Over time,
the ash silt hardened into sedimentary rock
thus preserving the bone fragments.
Millions of years later, erosion brought the
badly crushed and distorted bones back to
the surface, and the researchers stumbled
upon it. By then the ash silt had turned
into hard sedimentary rock and the bone
fragments were embedded in it. The bone
fragments were so fragile that they turned
to dust at a mere touch. To save the precious
fragments, White and colleagues removed
the fossils along with their surrounding
sediments. Then the researchers carefully
tweaked out the bones using a needle under
a microscope. This process alone took
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Ardi- Mother of all Humanity?
written by a group of nearly 50 researchers,
which include a detailed analysis of Ardi
and data from other 110 Ardipithecus
remains. In addition to a detailed
examination of the differences between
Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and her more
remote descendants, the articles included
summaries of what the researchers believe
the environment for Ar. ramidus was, as well
as what her diet and living style might have
been.
Ardi – new touchstone
Prestigious journal Science carried a special
issue on 2 October 2009 and unveiled
A.ramadieus
several years. Finally by 1997, a total of 125
pieces of skeleton including much of the
feet and virtually all of the hands of one
individual was recovered. It included limbs,
most of the teeth, rib cage and so on. This
partially complete skeleton of Ardi is now
housed in the National Museum of
Ethiopia in Addis Ababa.
But how to put together the jumbled
pieces of bone fragments? The skeleton was
so fragile that it was not possible to assemble
the pieces by hand. Therefore the team took
the skeleton and bone fragments to Tokyo
in 2003 for a CT scan. Each and every bit
was CT scanned and picture taken. The CT
scan pictures were then manipulated using
computers to figure out how the crushed
fragments had originally fit together as a
skull or a pelvis. A fairly detailed sketch of
Ardi was thus made.
After 15 years of strenuous work, the
composite skeleton was pieced together.
Researchers worked out that the skeleton
belongs to an adult female – dubbed Ardi who stood 120 centimetres, tall and
weighed about 50 kilograms. Analyses of
argon isotopes in volcanic ash layers
sandwiching the new finds provided an
estimate that Ardi lived 4.4 million years
ago. All this happened in strict secrecy.
Finally on 2 October 2009 the results
were published in a prestigious journal
Science. The special issue had 11 papers
Chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas are our
closest living relatives. In fact genetic
analysis says that there is less than 2%
genetic difference between modern humans
and chimps, thus close are we to each other.
Naturally one of the big questions in
paleoanthropology is: “What was the last
common ancestor of chimpanzees and
humans like?” The most popular
reconstructions of human evolution, since
Darwin’s time, rested on the presumption
the common ancestor, it lost many of the
key adaptations still found in apes, such as
dagger-like canines and knuckle-walking.
Thus the traditional view has been that
living chimpanzees are evolutionarily
conservative (or have not changed much)
while humans have changed radically. Ardi’s
discovery has demolished this myth.
Significance of the find
To appreciate the importance of Ardi, we
have to step back into the history of
hunting for hominid fossils. In the early
1970s, Tim White was part of a research
team that found what the oldest hominid
known at the time: a 3.2 million year old
fossil of Australopithecus afarensis. What
made their discover y particularly
spectacular was that they found a fair
amount of a single A. afarensis individual,
whom they named Lucy. She still had
long arms and curving hands and other
traits hinting that she could still climb
trees. But her brain was just a wee bit
With nearly complete skeleton, one specimen was reconstructed and nick named Ardi
that at the root of our early ancestor would
be a species that would resemble
protochimpanzees. This “troglodytine”
model, named after the common
chimpanzee Pan troglodytes, pictured a now
extinct species with short backs; arms
adapted for swinging through the trees; and
a pelvis and limbs adapted for knucklewalking. As human lineage diverged from
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
bigger than a chimp’s. But she also had
feet with stiff, forward-facing toes - an
adaptation for walking on the ground.
Lucy proved in one stroke that our
ancestors walked upright before they
evolved big brains. On the other hand,
it was too much human-like and could
not reveal much about the primitive
origins. As a result, researchers have
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Ardi- Mother of all Humanity?
many of Ardipithecus’s traits do not
appear in modern-day African
apes, it also suggests that this
common ancestor may have
existed much further back in time
than had previously been
supposed - perhaps seven or nine
million years ago.
Ardi rewrites history
sure. Ardi with near complete skeleton and
scrapes from around 110 Ar. ramidus
specimens clearly indicates early evolution
of bipedalism.
Much like Australopithecus afarensis
- Lucy, Ar. ramidus - Ardi - had upperbody traits adapted to life in trees and
lower body parts suitable to walking on
two legs. The arms of Ar. ramidus were
very long - it could put its hands on its
knees standing straight up (we humans
cannot do it). Its hands had curved
fingers well-adapted to grasping
branches. On the other hand, in Ar.
ramidus the blades of the pelvis are
somewhat more bowl-shaped, a shape
that helps hold the viscera of the
abdomen in place in hominids that were
constantly walking upright. In contrast
in knuckle-walking apes like chimpanzees
the blades of the pelvis are flat. Further
the femur, or thigh bone, was oriented
to meet the knee-joint at an angle very
similar to modern humans, again
suggesting bipedalism. This, along with
the development of muscles between the
top of the femur and the hip, are essential
A key feature that makes us
different from our closest ape
relatives is our habitually bipedal
posture - standing on two legs.
Habitual bipedalism has often
been made out as the “defining”
human charter. Our ancestors
stood up to free their hands to
gesticulate and carry tools, to allow
mothers to carry babies more
comfortably. The free hand shaped
tools, made art, caressed the loved
The hand of Ardi has traits that belong to chimps as
well as humans.
ones, held hands and rocked the
cradles - in short enabled human
wondered since her discovery in 1974,
civilisation. How, when, and why did early
what came before her - what did the early
humans rise up off their knuckles and stand
members of the human family look like?
tall? Ar. ramidus suggests that they
Indeed remains of now-extinct
were already standing upright
primitive hominid species have been
found. Most important and oldest so far when they came down from the
is the fossil of a hominid Sahelanthropus trees, much before than we had
tchadensis, dating back to about 6 and 7 imagined.
Since the discovery of
million years ago discovered in Chad.
“Lucy”
paleoanthropologists have
Our ancestry got pushed back millions
recognised
that the early
of years. But scientists have only found
pieces of the controversial Sahelanthropus australopithecines, a diverse
skull. Another species, Orrorin tugenensis group of hominids including
found in Kenya, is 6 million years old; it both our ancestors and other
is represented by little more than a leg now-extinct lineages, had their
bone. Though pre-Lucy fossils have shed hands in the trees but their feet
much light on aspects of human on the ground. They had long
evolution, scientists were not able to arms with curved fingers suited
make detailed reconstructions of these to climbing in trees, yet from the
hips down they were adapted to
creatures.
So the things stood for about 20 walking bipedally. When the
years. The discovery of Ar. ramidus, in remains of even older hominids
particular near-complete skeleton of Ardi, were found, such as Orrorin
changed all this in one stroke. Overnight tugenensis and Sahelanthropus
Ardi has gone from being an enigmatic tchadensis, they too appeared to
collection of bones to a new touchstone for posses some traits related to
our early hominid ancestors. Ardipithecus bipedalism. However, the
has taken science closer to the yet-to-be- skeleton remains of both these
Bone fragments were carefully assembled and skull, pelvis
and other body parts were reconstructed. Modern
found last common ancestor with chimps, species discovered so far are just
techniques such as CT scan were utilised for this purpose.
our close genetic relatives. And because a few scraps one could not be
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Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Ardi- Mother of all Humanity?
and lesser development of the
hip muscles for balance, Ar.
ramidus may have even slightly
swayed side to side while
walking.
Another
notable
distinguishing feature of Ar.
ramidus is its absence of large
protruding canine tooth. Most
apes, in particular males, have
sharp canine projecting outside.
Ability to walk upright and the
absence of the large projecting
canine tooth in males are two
distinct
features
that
Ardipithecus shares with all later
hominids. In other words, the
anatomy and behaviour of
hominids has deeper roots than
scientists believed even as short
a time ago as 15 years. Further,
the last common ancestor with
The feet of Ardi was ‘flat feet’ unlike the dexterous feet of
chimps did not look like a
chimps; but it was not arched like modern human feet.
chimp, or a human, or some
funny
thing
in between. Also not only
for keeping balance while walking
modern
humans
evolved from earlier
upright.
species,
even
particular
characteristics of
In contrast Ar. ramidus foot is a
modern
apes
–
such
as
big
toe orientation
mixture of those of humans and apes.
Unlike humans or A. afarensis, where the of the foot and curved arms for hanging
big toe is in line with the rest, making from trees are evolved features rather than
walking easier, Ardi is ape-like with primitive traits.
divergent big toe. Yet the feet of Ardi was
different in one essential feature. The
living African apes have flexible feet
useful for grasping, almost like a second
pair of hands. In monkeys and other
primates, including humans, however, a
particular bone (the os peroneum)
embedded within a foot tendon
helps keep the foot rigid,
especially when jumping from
one surface to another. Ar.
ramidus had this “rigid foot”
mechanism, which perhaps had a
major effect on its ability to walk
on land.
Thus its hands and feet
indicate that though it moved
through the trees, it did it on all
fours, unlike the baboon, by
grasping the branches below it
rather than hanging from those
above.
Also
given
the
underdeveloped foot morphology
Implication for evolution of
apes
This study also indicates that many of the
traits found in the modern apes like
chimps evolved over time. It was only
when the chimps and human
evolutionary path branched off from the
common ancestor, that chimps acquired
its unique features. Chimp’s arms adapted
to knuckle-walking and curved arms
particularly suited for hanging from tree
branch evolved. Chimpanzees lost a
crucial bone in their foot after their split
from our ancestors, becoming even better
at tree-climbing. The lack of this bone
made chimpanzee feet even more flexible
in trees, but it also made them worse at
walking on the ground. Thus most of
what makes chimps evolved subsequently
- there is nothing primitive about it.
Is Ardi mother
humanity?
of
all
The discovery of Ardi has unleashed as
many new questions as it has answered.
Why did Ardi choose to walk in two legs
even though it is not most economical
way at all? Though some preliminary
conjectures have been advanced they have
to be scrutinised. Is Ardi mother of all
humanity? If Ardipithecus is our direct
ancestor, then just within two hundred
thousand years after Ardipithecus should
have evolved into another species called
A. anamensis in the region. By most
accounts, that species soon evolved into
A. afarensis, with a slightly larger brain
and a full commitment to a bipedal way
of life. Then came the early Homo, with
its even bigger brain and budding tool use.
Did primitive Ardipithecus undergo some
accelerated change in the 200,000 years
between it and Australopithecus—
and emerge as the ancestor of all
later hominids? Or was
Ardipithecus a relict species,
carrying its quaint mosaic of
primitive and advanced traits with
it into extinction? Only further
studies will clarify. In any case even
if Ardipithecus ramidus was not
actually the species directly
ancestral to us, she must have been
closely related to it, and would have
been similar in appearance and
adaptation.
the pelvis of Ardi was more of bowel shape
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
34
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Chronic Stress
The Chemistry, Symptoms and Effects of
Dr. Yatish Agarwal
e-mail: [email protected]
“In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from
hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.”
—Salman Rushdie in Outside the Whale
S
tress is ubiquitous, and much a part and
parcel of life, but too much stress can
knock you out. Strain your soul machine
too hard, and it might just collapse. Even
as the pandemic of stress syndrome rages
throughout the modern world, causing
excessive wear and tear to our bodies and
minds, the key lies in identifying the distress
signals early. A timely forewarning allows
you to take effective steps to cage the
modern day sabre-toothed tiger before it
tears through your flesh and soul.
inside the room. You stand humbled. He
looks at you with a glint in his eye and gives
you a dressing down. You peep at the
paperweight on the desk and long to hit a
bull’s eye but, instead, look down and
mumble an apology. All through the day,
you do not get a moment to vent your
frustration. Your stomach churns, muscles
stay knotted, and blood pressure rises. The
day over, you return home crawling through
Stresses of daily life
The role of small everyday annoyances in
contributing to psychological stress is best
illustrated by the poet Charles Bukowski—
…It’s not the large things that
send a man to the
madhouse…no, it’s the
continuing series of small tragedies
that sends a man to the madhouse…
not the death of his love
but a shoelace that snaps
with no time left…
A number of studies uphold the
significance of the ‘snapped shoelace’ factor.
Researchers have discovered that the
relentless pressures in our daily lives
pertaining to our jobs, personal
relationships, and everyday living
circumstances do lead to considerable stress.
We live through anxieties every day. The
day may begin with no water in the taps,
tripped power lines, and a dead phone.
Leaving the ‘comfort’ of your home well on
time, you inch your way through extra long
miles of slow and noisy traffic, laden with
frayed nerves and road rage to reach your
office. Late for work, you open your office
door and find the boss pacing up and down
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a tightrope walk what with the pulls and
pressures of market economy, the virtues of
simple life lost in its glamour, the plethora
of moral contradictions and warped values,
the turmoil in human relationships, the lack
of consideration for each other, the people
you thought of as friends ready to upstage
you (as a bureaucrat once remarked, ‘people
hold on to their chair with one hand and
put their best hand forward to shake you
out’), the serpentine queues all around you
and noisy places breaching your inner
calm—there are any number of irritants to
drive you nuts. Life in the fast lane of 21st
century isn’t easy! The straws on the camel’s
back are one too many. Only, this time it is
your own back not a camel’s. Community
surveys have assessed that more the exposure
to these daily agitations the higher is the
risk of our falling a victim to the stressrelated illnesses.
Yet, these stressful forces must stay. A
sociologist friend cites the theory of eternal
decay and laughs them off, but unless you
are vigilant and prepared to change, the
price of these stressors is too heavy to pay.
The idea is to build better defences against
them rather than using the outdated fightor-flee natural response.
Chemistry of stress
the same cruel traffic with the idea that you
would relax with your family. But you reach
home to a heap of demands. The family
announces it has voted to raise its budgeted
monthly spending, the children wish to fly
out for a holiday, and your spouse wants a
diamond ring for the anniversary. You bury
your head in despair.
The details may vary, but the sabretoothed tiger that purrs when it smells stress
is definitely on the prowl. You are forced to
The train of events begins when a person
feels ‘stressed’. Chemical messages are
carried along the fibres of the nerve cells to
the hypothalamus, a major supervisory
centre in the brain, which immediately sets
off into action rapid-fire messengers to
prepare the body for the fight-or-flee
response.
The first signals reach the brain stem
and spinal cord, arousing the sympathetic
division of the autonomic nervous system.
The sympathetic division holds a sway over
the internal organs of the body. It galvanises
the core of the adrenal glands to release
epinephrine
(adrenaline)
and
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Mediscape
norepinephrine (noradrenaline). These
hormones prepare the body for action.
Under their effect, the heart begins to beat
more rapidly, blood pressure rises, muscle
tension increases, and blood flow is diverted
from the internal organs and skin to the
brain and muscles. Breathing speeds up, the
pupils dilate, and perspiration increases.
This reaction is called the fight-or-flight
response because it energizes the body to
either confront or flee from a threat.
The hypothalamus also releases
another hormonal messenger, the
corticotrophin releasing factor, which
quickly goes through to the pituitary gland,
and directs it to secrete the
adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH).
ACTH travels down the circulation.
Reaching the abdomen, it finds its way to
the adrenal glands, which sit atop both
kidneys. It stimulates the outer layer, or
cortex, of the adrenal glands to release the
stress hormone cortisol, which speeds up
the body metabolism and increases the
blood sugar to fuel the fight-or-flight
response.
This primitive stress
mechanism, which came to
the aid of our ancestors,
pushes our body machine
into top gear ready for
action. Yet, this heightened
physiological and emotional
arousal serves no good
purpose in most modern
day stressful situations. We
can neither fight, nor flee
from a threat. Unless we
learn to flow with stress, it
exhausts the body and mind, leaving us
vulnerable to disease.
Signals of stress
When the body is under too much stress it
sends out clear distress signals. The effect is
reflected through changes in mental,
physical, and emotional behaviour and is
visible in several forms:
body organs, ranging from minor ailments
like tension headaches, stiff shoulders, a bad
neck, migraine, backache, and chronic pain.
It can also lead to palpitations, muscle
twitches, diarrhoea, constipation, worsening
of pimples, eczema, rash and other skin
conditions, disturbed sleep, and a host of
psychological and behavioural symptoms.
However, it is the chronic stress which
produces serious problems. The Canadian
endocrinologist Hans Selye proposed a
three-stage model of the stress response,
which he termed the ‘general adaptation
syndrome’. The three stages in this model
are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. The
alarm stage is a generalised state of arousal
during the body’s initial response to stress.
In the resistance stage, the body adapts to
the stress and continues to resist it with a
high level of physiological arousal. When
the stress persists for a long time, and the
body is chronically overactive, resistance
Signals of Stress
Physical
Psychological
Behavioural
Strained forehead
Tight, dry throat
Clenched jaws
Increased perspiration
Cold hands and feet
Heavy breathing
Pounding heart
Muscle twitches
Butter flies in the
stomach Indigestion
Constipation/diarrhoea
Increased urination
Fatigue
Insomnia
Muscle aches
Headaches
Chest pain
High blood pressure
Frequent illness
Irritability
Anxiety
Hypersensitivity
Sense of impending danger
or doom
Anger and suspicion
Slowed and muddled thinking
Feeble concentration
Indecisiveness
Feeling of lack of direction
Feeling of insecurity
Defensiveness
Feeling of helplessness
Feeling of hopelessness
Feeling of worthlessness
Indifference towards things
that previously used to
provide pleasure
Impatience
Argumentativeness
Nail biting
Teeth grinding
Wringing of hands
Curling or pulling out hair
Tapping or pacing the floor
Overeating/loss of appetite
Withdrawal or isolation
Avoiding or neglecting
responsibility
Poor job performance Burnout
Adverse impact on family or
close relationships
Increased use of alcohol or
drugs
Increased smoking
Health consequences
Stress is a major contributor, either directly
or indirectly, to a number of physical and
psychological health problems. Stress—even
in a short burst—can lead to disturbing
physiological disorders, involving specific
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
fails and the body moves to the exhaustion
stage. In this stage, the body is vulnerable
to disease.
Role in major physical illnesses
Studies have linked chronic stress to a
number of major physical illnesses:
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relative inactivity increasing
the body’s susceptibility to
infection.
stress also increases the risk of accidental
deaths and suicides.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
Culpability in psychological disorders
including chronic fatigue, high blood
pressure, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart
disease, ulcers and irritable bowel disease,
skin conditions, and some forms of cancers.
It can also trigger attacks of asthma, and
worsen other illnesses.
Negative effects on immunity
The body’s resistance fails, since the immune
system is also hit. The T-lymphocyte white
blood cells—the natural policemen of the
body—that catch and kill the body-raiding
bacteria and viruses, and the macrophages
that gobble them up, go into a phase of
Contd. from page...38
the image was not very clear and did
not show the individual atoms, one
could detect the ribosome’s long RNA
m o l e c u l e s . It w a s a d e c i s i v e
breakthrough. The large subunit in the
ribosome is primarily involved in
synthesising new proteins. It triggers
the peptide bond formation between
the amino acids brought together by
the tRNAs.
Ve n k a t r a m a n R a m a k r i s h n a n
determined the crystal structures of the
ribosome’s small subunit, which have
been crucial for the understanding of
how the ribosome achieves its precision.
A unique property of the ribosome that
has fascinated scientists for a long time
is that it seldom makes any errors when
it translates DNA/RNA-language into
proteins. If there is any error and an
amino acid is incorrectly incorporated,
t h e p r o t e i n c a n e n t i re l y l o s e i t s
function, or perhaps even worse, begin
to function differently. The correct
selection of the amino acid depended
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The ill effects of chronic
stress are most apparent on
the psychological health.
People who experience a
high level of stress for a long
time—and who cope poorly
with this stress—may become irritable,
socially withdrawn, and emotionally
unstable. They may also have difficulty
concentrating and solving problems and
may take to alcoholism and drug abuse.
Some people under intense and prolonged
stress may be ill with extreme anxiety, and
suffer from eating disorders, insomnia, or
depression. They may suffer from
generalised anxiety disorder, phobias, panic
disorder, and obsessive-compulsive
disorder—all anxiety related disorders
which may be propelled by stress. Continual
primarily on the base pairs formed
between tRNA and mRNA. However,
this pairing process is not sufficient to
explain the ribosome’s precision.
Ramakrishnan
identified
something in the smaller subunit that
may be described as a ‘molecular ruler’,
which ensures that the correct amino
acid sequence is being used to
synthesise a protein. He showed that
nucleotides in the small sub-unit’s
rRNA measure the distance between
t h e c o d o n ( a s e q u e n c e o f t h r ee
nucleotides which together form a unit
of genetic code in a DNA or RNA
molecule) in mRNA, which carries the
code from DNA in the nucleus, and the
anti-codon in tRNA, which picks up
the right amino acid for protein
synthesis. If the distance is incorrect,
it means an error and the tRNA
molecule falls off the ribosome thus
preventing a wrong amino acid getting
into the protein chain. Ramakrishnan’s
work showed that using the ruler twice,
the ribosome double-checks that
Sometimes, severe acute stress such as
following a cataclysmic event can also lead
to an anxiety disorder called ‘post-traumatic
stress disorder’ in people who survive the
catastrophe. They often appear emotionally
numb, and revisit the traumatic event again
and again in dreams and in disturbing
memories or flashbacks during the day.
Many people who saw their loved ones die
in the terrorist attack in Mumbai, the
earthquake in Bhuj, or lived on following
the terrorist attack of 9/11 on the twin
towers in New York continue to be haunted
by this disorder.
Unless managed appropriately, stress
is a deadly killer. The secret of managing
stress lies in developing simple coping
mechanisms, learning to flow with it, and
conquering it with mental techniques—
strategies about which we shall discuss in
the next issue of this column.
everything is correct. This ensures that
errors only occur about once per
100,000 amino acids. This was a
remarkable finding.
The work of the three Nobel
Laureates have thus forged an
understanding at the atomic level of
how nature can transform something as
simple as a four-letter code of A, T, C,
and G into something as complicated
as life itself – just as James Watson had
predicted in 1964. The works of the
three laureates have all produced
structures that show how different
antibiotics bind to the ribosome. Some
of them block the tunnel through
which the growing proteins leave the
ribosome; others prevent the formation
of the peptide bond between amino
a c i d s . St i l l o t h e r s c o r r u p t t h e
translation from DNA/RNA-language
into protein language. This knowledge
will certainly be useful in the search for
new antibiotics.
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Recent Development in
Science and Technology
Biman Basu
e-mail: [email protected]
acid rain fell. Small animals could find shelter
and enough warmth and food, but the huge
dinosaurs could not. They died out.
In 1970, a huge crater, named
Chicxulub crater and believed to be caused
by the impact of the asteroid that killed the
dinosaurs, was discovered buried underneath
the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, lending
credence to the impact theory. But a recent
study by an Indian palaeontologist Sankar
Chatterjee, working at Texas Tech University
in USA, throws new light on the cataclysmic
event. The results of the study were
presented by Chatterjee at the annual
meeting of the Geological Society of America
at Boulder, Colorado on 18 October 2009.
According to him a much larger impact
crater that exists under the sea off India’s west
coast around the area known as Bombay
High, most probably marks the site of the
catastrophic asteroid impact 65 million years
ago.
Christened ‘Shiva crater’ the giant
crater is a sea floor structure located beneath
the Indian Ocean, about 160 km west of
Mumbai. It is 600-km long by 400-km wide
and is believed to have been made by an
asteroid or comet approximately 40 km in
diameter. By contrast, the Chicxulub crater
in Mexico is only 120-km in diameter and
the object that struck the Yucatan Peninsula
and is commonly thought to have killed the
dinosaurs was about 10-km in diameter.
The age of the Shiva crater, estimated
at 65 million years, is inferred from the
Deccan traps, which contain relatively high
amounts of iridium. The crater also contains
larger than average amounts of alkaline melt
rocks, shocked quartz, and iron oxide laced
consensus supports the first. The
extraterrestrial impact theory stems from the
discovery in 1979 that a layer of rock dated
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for almost 175 precisely to the extinction event is rich in
million years and then disappeared suddenly
the metal iridium, as
found by American
geologist Walter Alvarez
and his collaborators.
This layer, known as the
‘Cretaceous-Tertiary’ or
‘K-T’ boundary, is found
all over the world, on
land and in the oceans.
Iridium is rare on Earth
but it is found in
meteorites at the same
concentration as in this
layer. This led scientists
to postulate that the
iridium was scattered
worldwide when an
Dinosaurs are believed to have died out 65 million years ago
asteroid
struck
after a giant asteroid hit the Earth.
somewhere on Earth and
about 65 million years ago, at the end of the then vaporised. It is believed that asteroid
Cretaceous Period that lasted from about hit caused enormous fires and caused smoke
146 to 65 million years ago. But it was not and clouds of dust to block the Sun’s rays
only these “terrible lizards” that died out en for many months. As a result the Earth
masse; several other species also went remained dark and cold for a long time.
missing. Plankton, the base of the ocean Huge tidal waves flooded low-lying land and
food chain, took a hard hit. Many families
of brachiopods and sea sponges disappeared.
The remaining hard-shelled ammonites
vanished. Shark diversity shrivelled. Most
vegetation withered. In all, more than half
of the world’s species were obliterated. For a
long time the cause of these mass extinctions
remained a mystery. More puzzling was the
fact that most mammals, turtles, crocodiles,
salamanders, and frogs survived. Birds
escaped. So did snails, bivalves, starfish, and
sea urchins.
Among the two popular theories put
This computer graphic shows the structure of the Shiva basin off the
forward to explain the extinction of
western coast of India, which is believed to have been formed when a
dinosaurs – an extraterrestrial impact and a
giant asteroid struck the area 65 million years ago.
massive bout of volcanism – the general
Dino-killer asteroid struck off
India’s west coast
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
30
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New Horizons
with iridium, which suggest an impact
origin. The Shiva complex also supports the
theory that the K-T extinction was caused
by a massive asteroid fragmenting and
hitting the Earth in several locations, known
as the ‘Multiple impact theory’, according
to which more than one asteroid may have
hit the Earth at the same time causing the
mass extinction.
According to Chatterjee and his team,
the asteroid impact vaporised Earth’s crust
at the point of impact, leaving nothing but
ultra-hot mantle material to well up in its
place. It is likely that the impact enhanced
the nearby volcanic eruptions, creating the
plateau known as the Deccan Traps that
cover much of western and southern India.
Further, the impact broke the Seychelles
islands off of the Indian tectonic plate, and
sent them drifting toward Africa.
The geological evidence of an impact
is dramatic. Shiva’s outer rim forms a rough,
faulted ring some 500 kilometres in
diameter. Similar to craters of large size, the
Shiva complex has a central spire – the
Bombay High, which is almost 5 kilometres
tall from the ocean floor. Most of the crater
lies submerged on India’s continental shelf,
but where it does come ashore it is marked
by tall cliffs, active faults and hot springs.
The impact appears to have sheared or
destroyed much of the 50-km-thick granite
layer in the western coast of India.
Chatterjee’s team hopes to visit India later
to examine rocks drilled from the centre of
the giant crater for clues that would prove
that the strange basin was indeed formed by
a gigantic impact.
32 new exoplanets discovered
Exoplanets are planets that revolve around
stars other than our Sun. The first planet
outside our solar system was discovered in
1992, around a pulsar designated as ‘PSR
1257+12’, located 980 light years from the
Sun. Since then more than 400 exoplanets
of various sizes have been discovered around
340 stars, many of them with multiple planet
systems. The latest of the discoveries – of as
many as 32 new exoplanets – was announced
on 19 October 2009 at an international
exoplanet conference in Porto, Portugal. The
conference discussed the new generation of
instruments and telescopes that is now being
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conceived and built by
different teams around the
world to allow the
discovery of other Earths,
especially for the European
Extremely Large Telescope
(E-ELT). The discoveries
were made using the 3.6metre telescope of
European
Southern
Observatory (ESO) at La
Silla, Chile, by measuring
the minute back-andforward motions of stars
caused by gravitational The artist’s conception of one of the 32 new exoplanets, which
has six times the mass of Earth and orbits around the star
influence of the orbiting
Gliese 667 C, belonging to a triple system. Credit: ESO
planets.
Astronomers use various techniques to discoveries, especially pushing towards the
detect the presence of planets around distant detection of Earth-type planets.
orbiting stars. One of these is the
measurement of the Doppler shift in the Saturn’s colossal ring discovered
spectrum of the parent star due to changes Among all the planets of our solar system
in its radial velocity as it wobbles slightly Saturn has the most majestic ring system.
under the gentle gravitational pull from an Rings have also been discovered around
(unseen) exoplanet. As a result of the Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, but they are
wobbling, when the star moves towards the no match to the grandeur of the Saturnian
observer the spectrum shifts towards blue ring system. When the Italian astronomer
and when it moves away the spectrum shifts Galileo Galilei first looked at Saturn’s rings
towards red. But the shifts are extremely 400 years ago, he thought Saturn had two
small and are difficult to detect by small companions. It was the Dutch
conventional spectrographs. In 2003, an astronomer Christiaan Huygens who in
extremely sensitive instrument called ‘High 1655 was the first to correctly identify the
Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher’, observed elongation of Saturn as the
or HARPS, was fitted to the 3.6-metre presence of a ring around the planet. In
telescope at La Silla to search for exoplanets. 1676, the Italian astronomer Giovanni
HARPS is a unique, extremely high Cassini discovered a gap in Saturn’s ring
precision instrument that is ideal for system, which has come to be known as the
discovering alien worlds. According to the ‘Cassini division’. However, the true
researchers, HARPS is capable of detecting revelation of the nature of the rings came
extremely small changes in a star’s radial only after two space probes Voyager-1 and
velocity – as small as 3.5 km/hour. No Voyager-2 flew past the planet in 1980 and
wonder in the past eight years, data from 1981. The Voyager images showed Saturn’s
HARPS have led to the discovery of more flat ring system to be made up of
than 75 exoplanets of various sizes (including innumerable thin rings that look like the
the 32 announced recently) in 30 different groves on a giant gramophone record. The
planetary systems. The current result also faint outermost ring of Saturn, the E ring,
increases the number of known low-mass which was discovered in 1967 and confirmed
planets by an impressive 30%. The in 1979, has a diameter of about 1.3 million
discoveries have given astronomers a great kilometres.
Now NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has
insight into the diversity of planetary systems
and will be of help in understanding how discovered a new colossal ring of dust around
they form. After the recent successes Saturn – probably the largest in the solar
astronomers are hopeful that HARPS will system. The new ring lies at the far reaches of
continue to lead the field of exoplanet the Saturnian system, with an orbit tilted 27°
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
New Horizons
planet at a distance of some
12.9 million kilometres.
According to the
researchers, the discovery may
help solve an age-old riddle of
one of Saturn’s moons, Iapetus.
This Saturnian moon has a
strange appearance; its one side
is bright and the other is really
dark. The astronomer Giovanni
Cassini first spotted the moon
in 1671, and years later figured
out it has a dark side, now named
Cassini Regio in his honour.
Saturn’s newest giant ring may
This artist’s conception shows infrared view of Saturn’s explain how Cassini Regio came
giant ring. Saturn appears as just a small dot in the middle to be. The ring rotates in the
of the ring. The inset shows an enlarged image of Saturn same direction as Saturn’s
taken in infrared light from the W.M. Keck Observatory outermost moon Phoebe, while
at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Keck
Iapetus, the other rings and most
from the main ring plane. The discovery was of Saturn’s other moons all revolve in the
reported in the journal Nature on 22 October opposite direction. According to the scientists,
2009. The tenuous ring made up of a thin some of the dark and dusty material from the
array of ice and dust particles covers some outer giant ring may be moving inward toward
10,000 times as much area as the planet’s Iapetus, slamming the icy moon like flying
fabulous main rings. Spitzer made the insects on a windshield of a moving car.
Gene Therapy Helps Blind
Children See
Researchers in USA have succeeded
using gene therapy to reverse the
damaging effects of a rare inherited
and progressive eye disease called
Leber’s congenital amaurosis (LCA)
that appears at birth or in the first
few months of life, and affects
around 1 in 80,000 of the
population. Those born with LCA
start losing their sight at birth and
are completely blind by age 40.
Children born with one form,
called LCA2, have defects in a gene
called RPE65 that helps the retina’s
Saturn’s moon Iapetus is unique in that half of it is
light-sensing cells make rhodopsin.
bright and the other half is so dark that it can nearly
Also known as visual purple,
disappear when viewed from Earth. The recent
rhodopsin is a pigment of the
discovery of Saturn’s giant dust ring may help solve
retina that is responsible for both
this age-old riddle
the formation of the photoreceptor
cells and the first events in the
discovery by detecting the ring’s faint glow in perception of light. Without rhodopsin, the
the thermal infrared region of the photoreceptor cells gradually die, leading
electromagnetic spectrum. Interestingly, the to blindness.
In a clinical study, when a good copy
new ring lies just within the orbit of Phoebe,
Saturn’s outermost moon, which orbits the of RPE65 was injected into the retina of 12
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
patients (aged 8-44 years) with LCA using a
harmless virus as carrier, their retinal and visual
function showed improvement and they
could perform better in an obstacle course
(The Lancet 24 October 2009). The greatest
improvement was noted in children, all of
whom gained enough vision to walk around.
Half of the twelve patients achieved an
improvement in vision so they are no longer
classified as legally blind. According to the
researchers A. Maguire et al., the study
confirms that if patients with this disease are
given gene therapy early in life, the results
can be dramatic. The study was conducted
by researchers from the University of
Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the
Center for Cellular and Molecular
Therapeutics at The Children’s Hospital of
Philadelphia, USA.
The present human study was preceded
by animal studies in 2001 in which researchers
at the University of Pennsylvania used gene
therapy to restore sight to blind dogs afflicted
with the canine equivalent of human LCA.
When previously blind puppies were tested
three months after the injection, they had near
normal vision and they were able to navigate
an obstacle course flawlessly. What is more
important; the results seemed to last: nine
months after the treatment, the dogs still
performed well on the visual tasks.
Two years ago, the Pennsylvania team
began a small safety study of the therapy in
humans with collaborators at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia. They injected each
patient’s worse eye with a modified virus
carrying the RPE65 gene. Early results from
this trial and a similar study in the United
Kingdom published in April 2008 showed
that four of six young adults with LCA2 who
received the treatment could later sense more
light and perform better in an obstacle course.
The recent success has shown that
gene therapy has the potential to reverse
disease or prevent further deterioration of
vision in patients with incurable inherited
retinal degeneration. According to the
researchers it will allow doctors to rapidly
develop treatments for patients with
blindness resulting from other, more
common genetic defects.
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VISUAL LEARNING DEVICES :
A novel approach to science education
Recently, the Vigyan Prasar has
introduced new types of learning devices
for science education. Although designed
for children in the age group of 14 -16
years, they can also serve as introductory
others are animals – cats, dogs and tortoises. A small robot is also a part of
the learner group.
The second – and the most novel –
feature of these books is an electronic
So far four titles have been designed
and the displays fabricated.
A few examples of the displays will
give an indication of what constitutes their
hardware.
Basics of Thermoelectricity
BASIC
ELECTRICITY
sed
(Ba
(B
gy
K nolo
OO c tech
B
i
AL ron
SU ect
VI pto-el
o
on
ase
d o VIS
n o UA
BASIC
pto L
B
-el
OF
ect OO
ron K
THERMO-ELECTRICITY
ic
tec
hn
olo
gy
gy
lo
OK chno
BO nic te
L
o
A r
SU ect
VI pto-el
o
on
sed
(Ba
Vigyan Prasar
C-24, Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi-110016
educational material for all ages, including
adults who have had no formal education
in science but are keen to broaden their
horizons of knowledge. A
patent has been granted
for these devices (February
2009) by the Indian
Patent Office (Patent No.
231072).
These ‘Visual devices’ have two distinct
features, which capture
and hold the interest of
users. The first is the
text material. It is not
the usual type of text
that is generally used in
standard books. Rather
the ideas are expressed
by means of dialogues
between specially created multi-coloured cartoon characters
in easily understood language. Some of
the cartoon characters are based on
human characters – the teacher, for example, and a few students, while the
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BASIC OF
LIGHT AND OPTICS
A DYNAMIC TEACHING AID
DEVELOPED
BY
HYDERABAD SCIENCE
SOCIETY
FOR
VIGYAN PRASAR
Vigyan Prasar
C-24, Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi-110016
Vigyan Prasar
C-24, Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi-110016
display integrated with the book. It is both
dynamic and interactive. The displays are
based on specially created LED (light
LED MOVEMENTS IN THE REACTION PANEL
DISPLAY OF A RADIOIMMUNOASSAY MODEL
emitting diode) panels of different colours.
The various concepts discussed and
explained in the main texts are portrayed
in the electronic displays through
sequential switching of the LEDs.
In the book on basic electricity
repetitive patterns of unidirectional LED
movements have been achieved through
software driven microcontrollers LSI devices.
These
are
twodimensional displays.
One of the displays in this
book is that of an
alternating current (AC),
depicted by a sine wave.
VP has developed
visual books in following
subject : Basic Electricity,
Basic Light and Optics,
Semiconductor and Basic
of Thermo-Electricity.
These books are available
only in English language.
These books have
been designed and developed jointly by Vigyan
Prasar and Hyderabad Science Society,
Hyderabad. The inventor of the books is
Dr. S.A Khan, Director, Hyderabad
Sciecne Society.
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Sky Map for December 2009
North
Full Moon
Moon - Last Quarter
9 December
2 December
East
West
New Moon
Moon - First Quarter
South
16 December
24 December
The sky map is prepared for viewers in Nagpur (21.090 N, 79.090 E). It includes constellations and bright stars. For viewers south of Nagpur, constellations of the southern sky will appear higher up in the sky , and those of the northern sky will appear nearer the northen horizon. Similarly, for viewer
north of Nagpur, constellations of northern sky will appear higher up in the sky, and those of the southern sky will appear nearer the southern horizon.
The map can be used at 10 PM on 1 December, at 9 PM on 15 December and at 8 PM on 30 December.
Tips to use sky Visibility of Planets (IST)
map:
Sky Event
l
(1) Choose a place away
from city lights/street
lights. (2) Hold the skymap overhead with North
in the direction of Polaris.
(3) Use a pencil torch for
reading the sky map. (4)
Try to identify constellation as shown in the map
one by one.
Mercury
Venus
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus*
Neptune*
Rising
Setting In the Zodiac
Date IST
Event
08:14
06:14
21:36
10:42
00:53
12:15
10:43
18:57
17:06
10:40
21:59
12:58
00:11
22:03
04
18
18
20
21
21
Moon at perigee
Moon-Mercury
Mercury at greatest Elg. (E)
Moon at apogee
Moon-Jupiter
Winter solstice
Sagittarius
Libra-Scorpius-Sagittarius
Cancer-Leo
Capricorns
Virgo
Aquarius
Capricorns
l
Time shown is subject to vary (± 1 hr) from place to place.
*Not naked eye object
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
19:42
13:44
22:29
20:24
20:34
23:17
Arvind C. Ranade
E-mail : [email protected]
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Your Opinion
YOUR OPINION
Dream 2047 has been inviting your opinion on a specific topic every month. The reader sending the best comments will receive a
popular science book published by VP. Selected comments received will also be published in Dream 2047. The comments should be
limited to 400 words.
This month's topic:
“Can mere government actions do much to tackle climate change without people’s active participation?”
Response should contain full name; postal address with pincode and email ID, if any; and should be accompanied by a recent passport size
photograph. Response may be sent by email ([email protected]) or by post to the address given below. If sent by post, "Response:
Dream 2047 December 2009" should be clearly written on the envolope.
Vigyan Prasar
A-50, Institutional Area, Sector-62, NOIDA 201 307
Phone: 91-120-240 4430/35 Fax: 91-120-240 4437
Email: [email protected] Website: www.vigyanprasar.gov.in
Winners of “Your Opinion” contest for September 2009.
Topic: “Is rainwater harvesting a viable strategy for fighting drought?”
C. Mohan Ram,
26-4-1201/1, RPGT Colony,
Hindupur (A.P.) 515201
“Indeed, rainwater harvesting can be quite a viable strategy for
fighting droughts. In addition to various non-government
organisations, both the Central and State Governments must
come forward to help people in harvesting rainwater in low
lying areas through construction of cement-lined ponds or
recharging wells. The stored water can be utilised later for
agriculture and as well for drinking”.
V. Sridharan,
39 Eswaran Koil Street,
Selaiyur – Chennai 600 073
“Rain water harvesting is an important and viable strategy for
fighting droughts. If carried out in the real sense by every citizen,
localities, and organizations, rain water harvesting can certainly
increase the groundwater level, which in turn can make our
globe free from droughts in future”.
Anamika Sharma,
T.G.T. Sc.,
Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya
Pekhubela. Una (H.P.) 174303
“Although water is maintained by the natural water cycle, there
is acute scarcity of water in many parts of the globe due to
mismanagement of this precious resource. But rainwater
harvesting can solve this problem of water scarcity by utilising
rainwater to recharge groundwater and preventing it from going
waste”.
OTHER GOOD RESPONSES
Chaithanya Aradhya
G34/A, II Main 12th
Cross,Vidyaranyapuram
Mysore – 570008
KARNATAKA
Santosh Mishra
Science Teacher Government High
School,Police Line, Shahdol,
District – Shahdol (M.P.)
PIN – 484001
Soni Chetan Prakash Bhai
14, Balkrishna Society,
Laxminarayan Bus Stop, Maninagar
(East),Ahmedabad,
Gujarat – 380008
Rajesh Kumar Mohapatra
C/o Ramanath Mohapatra
At – Bani Kantha Nagar,
PO. – Athgarh Dist. – Cuttack,
ORISSA – 754029
The winners will receive a copy of VP Publication
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Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
Obituary
Of Condor’s Quill, and Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand—
The Life and Works of Gunakar Muley
Dr. Yatish Agarwal
e-mail: [email protected]
W
ith a pen fashioned out of a
condor’s quill, and Mount
Vesuvius for his inkstand, Gunakar
Muley’s quill never ran dry of ink…at
least, until he bid us the final adieu. The
sheer volume of material, which he
wrote, makes him the primus inter pares
– the first amid equals – amongst the
science writers in India.
The Early Years
Born in Amravati district of
Maharashtra on 3 Januar y 1935,
Gunakar’s early years were spent in his
native village. Once he completed
school, he moved to Allahabad, a city
that was then a fêted hub of science
education. He graduated in science, and
went on to earn a Masters in
Mathematics.
Gunakar tryst with writing began
in 1958. Soon enough, it turned into a
passion, and a faith, which transcended
utility. Knowledge for the sake of
understanding, not merely to prevail,
that is the essence of our being. None
can define its limits, or set its ultimate
boundaries. In Gunakar’s life, it became
a mission.
Over the course of next 51 years,
Gunakar never rested his quill. He
worked 24×7, developed a nose for
authentic references, built a wonderful
library, dug hard for the facts, researched
them, and absorbed them well, until
they became a part of his self. When he
felt sufficiently equipped, and knew that
he could chart the course, he set sail for
a brave new world.
An Ascetic’s Life
Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.
Gunakar, by his volition, became close
to an ascetic. He remained a free lancer
all through his life, never saddled himself
with the responsibilities of a fulltime
job, and revelled in an eternal romance
with science — experimenting and
unravelling its mysteries, understanding
its principles, and absorbing its truths.
In a voyage that lasted all of fiftyone years, Gunakar authored 35 books,
translated 12 epochal works, penned
more than 3,000 essays and articles, and
reached millions of people through his
talks, features and serials on the All India
Radio and Doordarshan.
mahan vaig yanik, Ankon ki kahani,
Aksharon ki kahani, Aryabhatt, and
Bhaskracharya.
The Researcher
An avid researcher, Gunakar’s quest for
history of science was insatiable. He gave
two of his best years as a Senior Fellow at
the Indian Historical Research Council,
educating himself on the history of Indian
science and technology.
Towards the zenith of his writing
career, Gunakar Muley also spent two years
as a Senior Fellow with Vigyan Prasar –
guiding and shaping popular science works
in Hindi.
Yearn for Science
Science and mathematics were his
forte. Yet he was equally at home, when
it came to writing about ancient and
medieval
histor y,
astronomy,
numismatics (the study of money, coins,
and often medals), epigraphy (the study
and decipherment of ancient
inscriptions), archaeology, and the
interface of people’s life with science.
Gunakar Muley had an excellent
command over Marathi and Hindi, but
he also wrote in English. Of his many
works, the most celebrated are: Sansar
ke mahan ganitag ya, Aakash darshan,
Taroan bhara aakash, Nakshatra lok, Saur
mandal, Bharatiya ankpadhyati ki
kahani, Bharatiya lipiyon ki kahani,
Antariksh yatra, Pracheen Bharat ke
mahan vaig yanik, Adhunik Bharat ke
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3
In his mercurial work, The Life of Galileo,
Bertolt Brecht, has said, “Science knows
only one commandment – contribute to
science.” Gunakar Muley lived this
thought to the hilt. All his works follow
the basic tenets of science. While being
analytical, descriptive, and informative,
they are simple, easy to think through, and
yet, astoundingly crisp.
The two most engaging powers of an
author are, to make new things familiar,
and familiar things new. Gunakar Muley
did both, with as much aplomb.
In his passing, at the age of 72 on
16 October 2009, science has lost a true
pupil, a meticulous scholar, and a man
blessed with the noble mission of delivering
the knowledge and understanding of
science to the people. It is as if for him,
that William Shakespeare wrote:
“Write till your ink be dry,
and with your tears
Moist it again: and frame
some feeling line
That may discover such integrity.”
Amen!
------------------
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VP News
Hindi Pakhwara 2009
U
nder the Rajbhasha policy, Hindi
Pakhwara-2009 was organised in Vigyan
Prasar office during 14-30 September 2009. All
the employees participated with great
enthusiasm. The principal objective of this
pakhwara (fortnight) was to encourage and
inspire the Vigyan Prasar employees to work in
Hindi in their routine departmental works.
On 14 September 2009, VP Hindi
pakhwara was initiated in the presence of Dr.
V.B. Kamble, Director, VP. While delivering his
appeal, Dr. Kamble said that all employees of
VP should work maximal in Hindi not only
during this pakhwara but throughout the year
also. On this occasion Dr. Subodh Mahanti,
Chairman, Departmental Rajbhasha
Implemention Committee, Vigyan Prasar spoke
on the historical importance of Hindi Day (14
September) and pointed out the increasing
acceptability of Hindi in the world. Shri Somesh
Through essay writing competition
Hindi writing skill, vocabulary and subject
comprehension of the participant’s while
through Hindi extempore competition
participant’s Hindi communication skill and
applied knowledge of Hindi languages were
evaluated. The aim of these competitions was
to encourage and inspire the VP employees to
use Hindi in the departmental works. VP
employees efficient in Hindi typing participated
in a typing competition. The winners were given
the cash prizes.
Workshop on the application of
Rajbhasha
During the closing ceremony of Hindi
pakhwara on 30 September 2009, a workshop
on the application of Rajbhasha was organised.
Dr. Mahesh Chandra Gupta, expert in the
In the technical session of the workshop,
Dr. Mahesh Chandra Gupta delivered his
lecture on “Rajbhasha ka vyavaharik Gyan”. Dr.
Gupta gave the detailed information regarding
Rajbhasha policy of the Indian republic under
the section 351 and discussed the different paras
related to Rajbhasha. Dr. Gupta presented very
interesting accounts of the long history of
Rajbhasha and mentioned about the Hindi
upliftment works done 1200-1300 years ago
in Bengal, Assam and south India. He also shed
light on the important Hindi correspondence
and love of Hindi of the Mughal emperors and
the British.
Dr. R.D. Shukla, the other resource
person, said that Hindi is a scientific language
and when we work in Hindi or produce Hindi
publications, we contribute to the national
progress in a way or other. Dr. Shukla gave an
account of the Hindi publications of NCERT
brought out during his time. He also discussed
the hardships that one comes across in publishing
science in Hindi as well as their solutions.
Letters to the Editor
Informative editorial
Jhingan, Registrar, VP made an appeal to all
the employees of VP to write maximum number
of letters in Hindi and give emphasis on
emphasis Hindi correspondence.
During this session, the messages of
honourable Home Minister and Secretary,
Department of Science & Technology, on the
occasion of Hindi Day were read out.
Competitions organised during Hindi
pakhwara- 2009
During Hindi pakhwara 2009, different
competitions were organised in which all the
employees of VP participated with great
enthusiasm. Essay-writing and Hindi extempore
competitions were conducted on 14 September
for Hindi- and non-Hindi-speaking employees.
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Rajbhasha related works and Prof. Dr. R. D.
Shukla, formerly associated with the Hindi
publications of NCERT, were invited as the
resource persons in this workshop.
The workshop was initiated with the keynote address by Dr. V. B. Kamble. As per
Rajbhasha policy, Dr. Kamble emphasised
working as much as possible in Hindi. On this
occasion Dr. Subodh Mahanti welcomed the
resource persons and gave a brief account of the
Rajbhasha related activities of VP. Dr. Mahanti
said that Vigyan Prasar would organise every year
such kind of Rajbhasha workshop and the
employees of VP would be encouraged to follow
the Rajbhasha policy. Maximum usage of the
Hindi software ‘Unicode’ provided by Rajbhasha
department would be implemented in the office.
We are getting important information
from your excellent magazine DREAM2047 regularly through editorials and
articles published in it. In view of the
outbreak of swine flu, the editorial “The
virus and the Swine” was very informative
and educative. Therefore, I have my
special thanks to Dr. Vinay B. Kamble
for his important editorial.
Ananga Tripathy
At/PO – Kushang, Dist. – Bolangir,
ORISSA, Pin – 767065
Stress criteria
The article “Can we cope? The Stress
Syndrome” by Dr.Yatish Agarwal (Dream
2047 November 2009) was very well
written and describes a wide range of
stressful conditions. But the Social
Readjustment Rating Scale by Thomas
Holmes and Richard Rahe does not
sound well. Death of Spouse, in my view,
is not as much stressful as Divorce or
Marital separation. Marital separation
should be given 100 points followed by
Divorce and so on.
Anirudh Kumar Satsangi
E-mail: [email protected]
Dream 2047, December 2009, Vol. 12 No. 3