Every part of India has its traditional cool drink to beat the heat. In Goa, it is kokum juice, while in Uttar Pradesh it is khus and nimbu paani (fresh lemonade). Khus or vetiver is also used in the straw mats that are strung outside doors and windows to keep homes cool, emitting an earthy fragrance when splashed with water. Mint, or pudina, grows profusely in the summer and is used not only to add flavour to fruit juices but also for its cooling properties. Rose extract, or gulkhand, also cools the system and aids digestion in the hot summer months, and is taken by itself or with pan. Thandai (which literally means ‘coolant’), a mixture of almonds, melon seeds, saffron, rose petals, fennel and cardamom, is also used in milk or as a sherbet. Jal Jeera, a favourite in North India, is a spicy mixture of cumin powder, rock salt, pepper, and sometimes, dry mango powder. It used both as a digestive and a coolant. Kanji, a Kashmiri drink made of turnips, is perhaps an acquired taste but those who have grown up on it would swear by its remarkable properties.

In Tamil Nadu, ‘panakam’, jaggery water flavoured with cardamom and dry ginger powder, heralds the start of summer. Raw mangoes are used to make ‘kairi panna’, a sweet-sour drink that is a favourite across the country, flavoured variously with elaichi, black salt and jaggery. ‘Sabja’ or ‘balanga’ seeds (sweet basil) are found in local markets and used to make summer staples – homes would have whole clay pots of cool water with these seeds soaked in them, to which a twist of lime, rose syrup or a sprig of mint is added for flavour. Sweet basil seeds are also used to cure dyspepsia and form a base for rooh afza, a popular summer drink said to have been brought to India by the Persians. And of course there is the ever popular lassi and its variants – chaachch in the west, neer moru or salla in the South – and enjoyed both sweet and salted!

Koalas are nocturnal animals, active during nights and asleep during the days. Koalas sleep for 18-20 hours. You may call them lazy but their diet makes it necessary that they sleep for long hours. Eucalyptus leaves, though highly toxic and low in nutrients, are rich in fibre, and digesting all that fibre requires a lot of energy, which is best conserved by sleeping. The koala’s digestive system is specially designed to detoxify the poisonous chemicals in the eucalyptus leaves. Its caceum or the fibre-digesting organ (present in all mammals including human beings) is very long (200 cms). The millions of bacteria present in the caceum break down the fibre in the leaves so that they can be easily absorbed. A joey (or a baby koala) is prepared for a eucalyptus diet in the mother’s pouch. When the joey is about six months old, the mother secretes a juicy substance called pap which has all the micro-organisms necessary to fight the toxins present in the eucalyptus leaves.

And finally did you know that the koala is the only other animal, apart from a human being, to have individual fingerprints? Like humans, each koala has a distinct fingerprint pattern. While koala fingerprints may not exactly match human fingerprints, there are enough similarities for an ordinary man to confuse a koala with a human.

The question to consider then is whether the potential harm from these emissions outweighs the huge savings in energy consumption that will result if we all move to using CFLs. First, let’s look at what we would save in terms of energy. Scientists estimate that for the same light output, CFLs use one-fifth to one-fourth of the energy of an incandescent bulb. Unlike an incandescent bulb which glows when the coil becomes hot and glows as it absorbs electrical energy, the light produced by a CFL is not a result of a heating process but due to the glow of phosphor. This is why it requires less energy to release light.

According to the Centre for Science and Environment, this means that if all households in a city like Delhi, for instance, switched to using CFLs, it would save up to 757 million units a year, translating into monetary savings of Rs 273 crore, apart from reduction in levels of several pollutants, including flyash, greenhouse gases, sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter. Indirect savings from the reduced need for energy (again, in Delhi) include a reduction in water consumption (4.052 million litres per year) and coal use (5.4 lakh tonnes). And while there would be emissions of mercury, these would actually be 4.32 percent less than that emitted by conventional bulbs. Such savings are what has prompted some countries (Australia, Canada, Brazil and Venzuela) to introduce a phased move to CFLs and in time completely eliminate the use of incandescent bulbs.

Of course, there is still a lot we do not know about how used CFLs will impact the environment. India as yet has no laws relating to disposal and recycling of CFLs, and perhaps now is the time to work out these issues in a manner that allows us to make long-term, sustainable use of an eco-friendly technology.

In the year 1007 a Japanese noble woman, Murasaki Shikibu, wrote the world’s first full novel. Called “The tale of Genji,” it tells the story of a prince looking for love and wisdom. A traditional novel is said to have a unified and plausible plot structure, sharply individualised and believable characters, and a pervasive illusion of reality. Initially, one major characteristic of the novel was realism – a full and authentic report of human life.

As readers were accepting this illusion of reality and were passive receptors to everything the novel was saying, the anti-novel style emerged! An anti-novel is any experimental work of fiction that avoids the familiar conventions of the novel. The name was coined by French critic Jean-Paul Sartre.

The anti-novel was invented by the French. Anti-novel writers insist that traditional novels sketch a false appearance of the world in much the same way as television soap operas do – or as Murasaki Shikibu did. Instead of creating fantasy plots and characters, antinovelists emphasise the minute details of life and the world. The anti-novel usually fragments and distorts the experience of its characters, forcing the reader to construct the reality of the story from a disordered narrative.

Newer styles of novels have been constantly emerging. Novel in verse form or Verse novels are a contemporary genre combining the power of narrative with the rich, evocative language of verse or poetry. Although the narrative structure of a verse novel is similar to that of a novella, the organisation of the story is usually in a series of short sections, often with changing perspectives. Verse novels are often told with multiple narrators, providing readers with a cinematic view into the inner workings of the characters’ minds. Some verse novels employ an informal, colloquial register. Yevgeny Onegin by Alexander Pushkin is a classical example of this style.

Tomatoes are the most popular fruit. More than 60 million tons of tomatoes are produced per year, 16 million tons more than the second most popular fruit, the banana. Apples are the third most popular (36 million tons), then oranges (34 million tons) and watermelons (22 million tons).

The scientific term for the common tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum, which means “wolf peach”. It is a cousin of the eggplant, red chilli and potato. It is said that there are more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes grown across the globe. Tomatoes are native to Central, South and Southern North America from Mexico to Peru. We get the word tomato from Nahuatl (a language spoken in Central Mexico) tomatl.

In Bunol, Spain, La Tomatina, a festival is held on the last Wednesday of August every year. Tens of thousands of people from all over the world participate in throwing tomatoes at each other! In this harmless battle, one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets. This festival has been the tradition since 1944 or 1945. Although there are many stories, nobody is certain why this festival first began.

Tomatoes are also known for their nutritional value. They are a reliable source of minerals and vitamins, especially vitamin C and vitamin A. Did you know that the bright, red colour of ripe tomatoes has a lot to add to its nutritional value? Some studies have shown that tomatoes are rich in lycopene, the carotenoid. These substances are responsible for its deep red colour. Lycopene is a strong anti-oxidant, which helps the body fight cancer causing substances.

Let us run through some factoids to rediscover them:

• The average human body contains enough sulphur to kill all fleas, enough carbon to make 900 pencils, enough potassium to fire a toy cannon, enough fat to make 7 bars of soap, enough phosphorus to make 2,200 match heads, and enough water to fill a ten gallon tank.
• We are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood, we only have 206.
• ur eyes are always the same size from birth. Actually we do not see with our eyes – we see with our brains. The eyes are the cameras of the brain. One-quarter of the brain is used to control the eyes.
• Our heart beats 101,000 times a day. During your lifetime it will beat about 3 billion times and pump about 400 million litres (800 million pints) of blood.
• Our mouth produces 1 litre (1.8 pints) of saliva a day.
• On an average, you breathe 23,000 times a day.
• A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.
• Approximately two-thirds of a person’s body weight is water. Blood is 92 per cent water. The brain and muscles are 75 per cent water. If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1 per cent, you’ll feel thirsty.
• The muscle that lets our eye blink is the fastest muscle in our body. It allows us to blink 5 times a second. On average, you blink 15,000 times a day.
• The liver is the largest of the body’s internal organs. The skin is the body’s largest organ.
• The bones in our body are not white – they range in colour from beige to light brown. The bones we see in museums are white because they have been boiled and cleaned.

Well, who needs a Superman?

As a child, Dr. Bhabha was considered hyperactive, with equal interests in science and arts. Son of Jehangir Horamji Bhabha, a barrister and Meherbai Framji, Homi Jehangir Bhabha was schooled at Bombay’s Cathedral Grammar School, and went to Elphinston College before moving to the Royal Institute of Science at Cambridge in 1927. While his father wanted him to take up engineering and join the family business, the young Homi’s interests lay in physics. However, he did not disappoint his father and went on to get a first class in his Mechanical Tripos exam. Only then was he allowed to do Mathematics under Paul Dirac, the Nobel Prize winning mathematician.

Dr. Bhabha continued his education in Mathematics and Physics under several renowned scientists like Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi and James Frank. Under the guidance of Ralph H Fowler, Dr. Bhabha completed his doctoral studies in theoretical physics in 1935.

On a holiday to India during the Second World War, Dr. Bhabha decided not to return to England and began his efforts to establish India’s atomic energy and nuclear energy programs. He began his work as a reader at the Indian Institute of Science where he set up the Cosmic Ray Research Institute.

The early associations that Dr. Bhabha made at Cambridge and other places helped him build the country’s nuclear capabilities. One such was his friendship with fellow scientist W.B.Lewis of Canada who was also at Cambridge with him. Together they built Cirus, India’s first heavy water reactor. Dr. Bhabha was a close friend of the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and both regarded science education and research a key to developing the new independent India. Nehru entrusted complete responsibility of nuclear energy related affairs to Dr. Bhabha. He played a key role in formulating the Atomic Energy Act of 1948 and was instrumental in setting the Atomic Energy Commission.

In 1941, Dr. Bhabha set up the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at Bombay. He also represented India in many forums on atomic and nuclear energy across the globe. He retained a deep interest in the arts, and in many ways is regarded as one of India’s “Rennaissance men”, who combined an understanding of the humanistic and scientific realms.

Dr. Bhabha died when his flight crashed near Mont Blanc in France in 1966.

Gerry’s love for animals led him to take up his first job as a student keeper at Whipsnade Park Zoo in London. With the £ 3000 that he inherited from his father, at 21Gerry set off on his first animal collection expedition to the British Cameroons (now known as Cameroon). From then on for the next 10 years he conducted similar expeditions to Cameroon, British Guiana (now known as Guyana) and other places to collect animals for his zoo.

In 1958 Gerald Durrell set up the Jersey Zoological Park which housed endangered species and ensured their survival by captive breeding. In 1963 the zoo was turned into the charity ‘Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust’. The trust has saved many endangered species and aided their way back to the wild. The Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has established various initiatives like the inter-zoo exchange programme, cooperative agreements with governments, research and similar trusts in Canada and the United States. Gerald Durrell’s captive breeding method of saving endangered species has been a model for wildlife conservationists and zoos.

Durrell was also a famous author and a television presenter. His humorous accounts of his early life and travels across the globe, have formed the basis of 33 books which have been translated into 31 languages. His bestselling book “My family and other animals” about the time he spent on the island of Corfu was made into a television series. Earnings from his books helped him set up the Jersey zoo and finance his expeditions. His early expeditions filmed by the BBC Natural History Unit have been broadcast in several countries. He also hosted seven television series and made several appearances on other television programmes.

Durrell received many awards and recognition for his conservation efforts, including the Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters (1956), Fellow of the Institute of Biology – London (1974), and Order of the British Empire (1982). He died in 1995. Many young people and adults have been inspired to take up careers and work in natural history and conservation by his work—and many more have been engaged and entertained by his books.

Centrolene durrellorum (glass frog), Clarkeia durrelli (fossil brachiopod), Nactus serpeninsula durrelli (gecko), Ceylonthelphusa durrelli (freshwater crab), Benthophilus durrelli (tadpole gobi), Kotchevnik durrelli (moth) are some species that have been named after Gerald Durrell for his contribution to wildlife conservation.

In 1665, the story goes,that Sir Isaac Newton,after seeing an apple fall, sought the reason and came to the conclusion that the natural force of attraction exerted by the earth upon objects at or near its surface tends to draw them towards its centre. The force of gravity is equal to Gm1m2/r2 where m1 and m2 denote the masses of the earth and the object and r is the distance between the centre of the earth and the object and G a constant called the constant of gravitation. The value of G has been found to be 6.673 x 10 -11 which is equal to 0.00000000006673. This implies that if the object is further away from the centre of the earth, the force of gravity on it is less than on objects which are closer to the centre of the earth.

Gravitation is a natural phenomenon by which objects attract each other. It is gravity which keeps the earth and other heavenly objects in their orbit. We take it for granted that it is easier to walk down a slope than up a hill and that one can drive a car down a slope by remaining in neutral gear. The idea that any object will fall down rather than go up is what we are usually accustomed to, but an experience I had on a recent visit to the United States, went against all these notions of gravity.

Bedford is a small town in the state of Pennsylvania in the US, about 50 miles east of Philadelphia. Driving in a wooded area, we stopped our car at the foot of a hill. When we put the car in neutral gear and took the foot off the accelerator we found the car rolling up the hill. How could we be going up looked around but there was no one. We returned to the town and asked people about this phenomenon and were told that this was a speciality of the place and many tourists came here to experience this phenomenon of gravity being defied.

We learnt that there were several places where one can encounter this kind of a phenomenon. In the USA alone there are about 30 to 40 such places. In Gansu province in China, there is a slope of 200 ft at an angle of 15 degrees where one can see a river running up the hill. There is also the famous Oregon vortex in USA where, in a circular spot about 165 ft in diameter, people appear to be shrinking as they walk towards you. The only spot in India where one can experience this phenomenon is in Ladakh.

Why does this happen? People living near the hill we visited tell a strange story. Years ago, when a school bus going up the hill suddenly stopped the children got down to push it up. But, the bus began to roll down and in the process some students were crushed and killed. The people believe that it is the ghosts of these children that push the vehicles up the hill! Nice story if one wants to believe in ghosts, magic and miracles. But is there a scientific explanation?

Yes. The answer – optical illusion. Experiments were performed to understand the phenomenon. The altitudes at the bottom and summit of one such hill were 1582 and 1569 ft., which implies that the hill actually has a downward slope. What is actually a downward slope appears to be uphill due to an optical illusion. A horizon that is either completely or mostly obstructed makes it difficult to judge the angle of the slope. Our sense of balance is completely overruled by the nature of the surroundings and what is actually a slight downhill looks like an uphill. Nature working its magic!
(Contributed by M V Pattabhiraman)