Till the year 2003, there were seven mathematical problems that had not been solved. Then came in Grigori Perelman, a Russian mathematician, who solved The Poincare Conjecture, a problem which was the first one of those seven unsolved problems.
To Grigori Perelman the prize was completely irrelevant. Sir John Ball, president of the International Mathematical Union tried persuading him for 10 long hours to accept the prize. But, he did not attend the ceremony, and declined to accept the medal, making him the first and only person to decline this prestigious prize.
6 problems yet to be solved
One down. Today, six of them still remain unsolved. Each one of those six problems carries a $ 1 Million for whoever solves it. A total of $ 6 Million to be won! For more than a century the solutions to these six problems have eluded mathematicians.
P versus NP
The Hodge conjecture
The Riemann hypothesis
Yang–Mills existence and mass gap
Navier–Stokes existence and smoothness
The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture
Today, I’m going to talk about the first and probably the most popular problem among the six millennium prize problems.
P versus NP
The first one and one of the most vexing questions in computer science and mathematics is the P versus NP problem – polynomial versus non-deterministic polynomial. It is quite a popular one and has made appearances in TV shows like The Simpsons and Numbers and in a video game, SIMS 3.
The reason this one interests me more than the other 5 problems is because P versus NP is a problem which is the most likely, among all of them, to be solved by an amateur.
Presently it is not known if P equals NP. The problem if solved could figure which problems can or cannot be solved by a computer. Seems abstract, but if solved it could have great implications. It could dramatically affect our everyday lives.
Although mathematicians expect it to go the other way, but if it is proved that P = NP, it would make our current definitions of security obsolete. Public-key cryptography could become impossible. We could face problems with online security if wrong people get proper resources to break public key – That means it would become possible for people to break into your bank accounts, communications, emails, encrypted data etc…
Dealing with optimization problems would become easier. That means everything will be much more efficient. Transportation of will be scheduled optimally. Moving people and goods would become quicker and cheaper. Manufacturing units would be able to improve their production speed and make less waste etc…
Weather, earthquakes and other natural phenomenon would get easier to predict. We might even find the perfect cancer cure.
Do you like to keep a picture of someone you love in your wallet? If the answer is no, you should probably start doing it. But, suppose you have a loved baby, adorable parents, cute puppy and grandparents at home, all of whom you love equally, whose picture do you think would be the best one to keep in your wallet?
Professor Richard Wiseman from University of Hertfordshire, a psychologist, decided to find out. He designed an experiment that would be conducted on the street and would help him figure out the answer to this tough choice.
An experiment on the street
He and his team dropped 240 wallets around the city of Edinburgh. Just to find out, how many of the wallets would be returned by the finders to their respective owners.
Not all the wallets were same. A few displayed picture of a cute baby, others had a picture of a puppy, some had a family picture and others contained an elderly couple’s portrait.
There were some other wallets dropped which contained a receipt suggesting how charitable the owner of that wallet was. These had no pictures in them.
Which one do you think won? Guess and read on…
Results!
Following were the return percentages of wallets:
I hope babies don’t get too much cute-aggression out of you because the ones with baby pictures – An incredible 88% of these wallets got returned!
Ones with the puppy pictures – 53% were returned.
Family portrait wallets – 48% came back.
With just 28% return percentage, the ones with the picture of an elderly couple fared the worst among all wallets that had pictures.
And only 15% of the wallets that enclosed a receipt and had no pictures were returned to their owners.
Moral (take it with a grain of salt)
If it doesn’t hurt, you could experiment with a cute baby’s picture in your wallet. Since it was tested in just one city, there is a great chance that you could get a different result in your area. If you don’t have one yet, find one on the WWW. The internet is full of them!
Getting back a lost wallet 88 times out of 100 times is big probability. What do you have to lose? A simple picture of a baby will pump up your chances of getting back the wallet by so many percentage points. Go, get one printed right now!
For the last several days, the national average temperature in the US plunged by a several notches when the country was invaded by the bitingly cold polar vortex winds from the arctic, not once, twice. For the second time, the eastern sea board experienced a lot of trouble. So much that the state of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina and South Carolina declared a state of emergency. People got trapped for hours, hundreds of accidents were reported and schools had to shut down.
Conspiracy theories
Of course with the extremely cold winds came an abnormal amount of snow. And like always, even the seemingly harmless snow spurred a few theorists to spin out conspiracy theories. There were stories going viral that suggested that the crazy amounts of snow was actually “geo-engineered” and was being sent down by the government, stuffed with nano-bots to control the minds of people.
What backed them? The theories were backed with a claim that the material falling down from the sky was not actually snow and something else which did not melt when held against a flame. Videos showing people trying to melt the snowballs using a cigarette lighter went viral. In fact, the snow as it’d be expected to, wasn’t melting, it was collapsing. Like a Styrofoam dipped in acetone, or Styrofoam held against a flame would do, snow was mysteriously disappearing from around the flame. There was no dripping water. Moreover, the concave part of the snow was left with a black charred mark like plastic would!
Busted!
Turns out the “mysterious material” was nothing more than normal snow. The lesser known fact that snow does not melt like we’d expect it to, made people believe in the weird theories.
Yes, snow does not melt like normal ice. I mean it does melt, but it leaves almost no dripping water when the rate of melting is slow. Now, why is that?
Since, snow is porous, it contains several little holes that can suck in the water just like a tissue paper with tiny holes is able to soak in water. This particular process soaking, where tiny solid holes suck liquid, is termed as capillary action and is the same action which enables plants to suck in water from the ground and send it to the higher parts without any motor attached.
The soaking in a snowball happens in real-time. As the water gets melted, it gets soaked instantly, there is no time for the water to drip. This explains the collapsing snow.
The “charred snow” is due to the unburnt carbon left from the fuel of the lighter, not because it is made of plastic. Astronomer and science writer Phil Plait explains it in the video below. [Video]
So, despite being aware of its intimidating 3-hour length, with an open mind, I decided to watch the Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham debate last night. For a better focus I chose a time when everything around was super quite (0000 hrs to 0300 hrs) and hence, I was able to attentively watch it right from the first second to the very last second. Before starting, I had my mind cleared of all the prejudices and was ready to embrace the most logical points coming from any one of them. Yes, I was even willing to accept that the earth is six thousand years old, if Ken Ham would have produced sound arguments.
Bill talking about a tree in Sweden, Old Tjikko, that’s over 9,000 years old
Although there were no winners or losers in that debate, for me, Bill Nye’s arguments were clearly moving – in the sense that he was able to take me on his side with sound arguments and very specific data points. Specifically, both of their answers, for one question asked from the audience was probably a turning point in the debate. When some one asked – What would make you change your mind? Bill told the audience to bring in sound evidences and they would change his mind. Ken Ham disappointingly suggested that nothing could change his mind. Clearly, a person who was willing to accept good evidences to change his beliefs was the winner for me; not a stiff/adamant person.
All said, Ken ham was not able to persuade me to accept his argument that the world was around six thousand years old.
In fact, at the end of the debate when both of the speakers were done, I observed that Ken Ham silently moved into the darker background and surprisingly (surprising because it was Kentucky), several people from the audience started approaching Bill Nye for a handshake or an autograph. Although, it wasn’t clear why they had approached him, whatever it was, it was definitely some kind of an appreciation for Bill. Evidently, people were impressed with his arguments.
Also, not being well aware of the Christian belief, during an online discussion after the debate, I was surprised to find that despite having embraced Christianity, there is a chunk of Christian population that believes the world is indeed several billions of years old (It is the Creationists who believe in six-thousand-year-old-earth theory). This chunk of Christian population was on the side of Bill Nye. So, this was not a God vs. Science debate. It was exactly like it was advertised – Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham.
Now, that things were starting to get a bit clearer, I decided to explore what sort of beliefs, the three most followed religions held on this topic. This is what I found:
Christians (31.59% of the world population): The ones who interpret the biblical writing in a literal manner believe that the Earth is six thousand years old and discard the theory of evolution (molecule to man). However, there is a huge chunk of Christians, with a background in science, who firmly believe that the earth is indeed several Billions of years old and also to an extent, believe in evolution.
Muslims (23.2% of the world population): According to this about page, Islam does not take a fixed stance on the age of the Earth. They prefer to leave the knowledge to their deity. Their holy book, Quran describes that the creation of Universe took “six days”. Again, according to them, at that time, as the definition of day could have been different than what it is now, especially when the Sun did not exist then, they do not like to say that the universe got created in 6 x 24 hours. In other words, they have a view very similar to the Biblical writings, yet are pretty flexible about accepting new theories on the age of our universe.
In the 19th century the prominent scholar of Islamic revival, Jamal-al-Din al-Afghānī agreed with Darwin that life will compete with other life in order to succeed. He also believed that there was competition in the realm of ideas similar to that of nature. – Wikipedia
Hindus (15% of the world population): Among all the three, Hinduism, the third most followed religion, has a lot of new things to say about the age of the universe. Since 95% of followers of this religion live in a single country, and the religion itself isn’t missionary in nature, its views are not popularly known all over the world. Personally, the Hindu religion and the vast amount of documented science it has in its ancient holy books fascinates me more than any other extant religion (not more than science, if you consider it a religion).
The religion believes in a circular time rather than a simple linear time-line of the universe and suggests the universe is several trillions of years old. In fact the “kalp-chakra” – the life span of the universe – it mentions is the largest measure of time known to man. And the end, it states that the universe collapses and gets created again.
The fundamental books of Hinduism, the Vedas, are huge, believed to be around 3,800 years old and comprehensively document numerous mathematical and scientific calculations. These books contain writings that cover topics from almost every science or maths subject known to man. In fact, they depend so much on mathematics that the holiest Hindu number is believed to be 108 which is probably the most beautiful number in mathematics.
According to a Wikipedia page on views of Hinduism on evolution:
Most God-believing Hindus accept the theory of biological evolution. They either regard the scriptural creation theories as allegories and metaphors, or reconcile these legends with the modern theory of evolution.
My opinion?
If you ask me, Bill Nye was a winner in the debate because of the all embracing state of mind he held all along – as long as you can bring in logical evidences to prove your ideas.
Although Hinduism fascinates me to a great extent, I’m not a religious person. My views about things are in line with Bill Nye’s views – I’d believe in anything as long as you can show me a valid and logical proof (arbitrary or literary interpretation of written verses from a book aren’t valid proofs). Moreover, I’d be ready to even modify my views over and over again as long as you keep bringing me evidences that disprove the older views. That is how science works, that is how logic works and that is what Bill Nye believes in.
Until today, I had no idea that non-spherical objects could have the same diameter at every point! Don’t believe me? Have a look at these wonderful little metal objects that aren’t anything even close to a sphere and are still able to roll a flat surface on them, as spheres would. [Video]
Like Gombocs, these shapes are a Mathematician’s fantasy. They have a generic name – constant width objects. In fact, these carefully machined metal objects could be perfect gifts for your mathematician friend. I know, I would some day, if you think you need these too, you can buy them here. (I’m in no way related to Grad-Illusions, nor am I an affiliate marketer)
Note: Though in some manner they look like Gombocs, they are not Gombocs. To know more about what Gombocs are, read this – [Gomboc – An Object That Never Falls]
How are they made?
Theoretically, to understand how they are made, you need to understand that the 3D objects of constant width are usually* spun out of a 2D object – Just like a sphere can be made by spinning a circle. Though there is a kind of constant width 3D object that is not a spun version of any 2D curve.
The 2D form is called the Reuleaux triangle and it looks like this [image]. The one shown in the link is a constant width curve based on an equilateral triangle (triangle with equal sides). It turns out, you can construct a constant width curve out of any triangle, and a polygon too (like the 50 pence coin shown above made out of a regular heptagon). To make a constant width curve using an equilateral triangle, all you need is a compass, a paper and a pencil:
Draw an equilateral triangle.
Put the point of your compass on one vertex.
Trace out an arc that starts from one of the other vertex and ends at the third one.
Repeat the same for rest of the two vertices. There! You have your constant width curve. Cut it out of paper.
Now around an axis dividing the shape into half, spin it. You have a theoretical 3D shape that resembles the one shown in the video above.
Vehicle tyres and square hole drills
So, since these shapes can roll things around like circles can, wheels could be made of these shapes too! Then, why aren’t wheels made that way? That is because when these shapes roll, they don’t have their centers at one place. If vehicles had tyres like these, engineers would have had a hard time designing axle systems.
They are in fact used in a Wankel engine. And since the center traces a square when Reuleaux triangle rolls, they have been used in drills that can drill out square holes.
Random constant width facts:
There are a few pencils which are manufactured in an extruded-reuleaux triangle shape. These pencils can roll around smoothly like circular pencils.
For some reason, even guitar picks are often manufactured in these shapes.
Instead of spinning around a constant width 2D object, a 3D constant width object can be made by modifying flat tetrahedron faces using intersections of sphere faces. As it can’t be done on a lathe, these are particularly hard to machine. It is called the Meissner’s tetrahedron or the Reuleaux Tetrahedron.
Give your friend 5 seconds and ask him to draw a Q on his own forehead. Note the direction of the Q’s tail. The kind of Q he draws, will determine if he is a good or a bad liar. For results, read on. Or watch the following video. [Video]
Self-Awareness test
According to a Psychology paper published by Hass, R. G. in the year 1984, a simple 5-second test can determine, with a good accuracy, if the person you are meeting is a good liar or a bad liar. In other words, it can determine if someone you meet, bears an ability to evade detection while lying or is more likely to get caught.
Extroverts: This liar test is based on a hypothesis that if a person is well aware of how other people see him, or in other words, is a social-situation-ninja, then the person is more likely to be able to evade detection while lying. This comes naturally to extroverts who are well aware of how others see them – which enables them to escape detection by exploiting this knowledge of other people’s perspective.
Introverts, however, aren’t very good at lying because they are self-focused, having less information on how a person they are dealing with sees them. So, when they lie, they normally get caught.
So, to catch a liar you could use a test designed to tell you, if a person’s actions are based on how others see them, or are based on how they see things. This is exactly what the Q test does.
Good liar: Some one who draws the letter Q in a way that would look right to a person looking at them, can be said to be well aware of how others see them. As a result, they can be labeled good liars (not always).
Bad Liar: If they draw it in a way that looks like a Q to them, and looks like an inverted Q to someone looking at them, then you can say that they are not well aware of how people look at them.
It is common sense that this test only works when the person you testing this on, doesn’t know about the test. Also, it isn’t a 100% accurate test.
At first, not knowing about the test, I tried it on me. I turned out to be an introvert and a bad liar – Quite accurate, I must say.
Almost everything that has something spinning, probably has, one or a system of gears hidden inside it. Open up a CD drive, or anything that spins, and you’ll see. Mechanical engineers spend a good amount of time learning about traditional gear systems in their courses. I’ve compiled a few gear videos here, that are probably not covered in any educational institution’s syllabus. (please inform me in the comments section if you have them in your course)
1. Crazy shapes: While, It is popularly believed that gears have to be circular to work properly, it should be noted that gears can literally bear any shape and work fine, as long as they are designed well. In the following video we can see how carefully designed gears in square, oval, spiral, fish shapes, and any other out of the ordinary shapes, can be made to work together perfectly. [video]
Some other artistic wooden gear sculpture can be seen in the link here. Engineering meets art [Here] Build at home: Turns out, with computers in every home these days, designing these gears isn’t rocket science. Enterprising engineers can use this fairly detailed 5-minute video tutorial to cut out weird gear shapes at home. The process of designing can be automated by using jerry’s script. [video]
2. Unpredictable moves – Gears can sometimes work together to provide a mechanical advantage in a system and can end up moving in a pretty unpredictable manner. The following video is a perfect example of how gear ratios can mess with the heads of non-engineers. The guy calls his machine – under the ruler faster than the ruler – watch it and you’ll understand why. [video]
It isn’t magic. If it still confuses you, here is a great post that explains a similar phenomenon that uses gears to build a “faster than wind cart (DDWFTW)“.
3. Reduction gear system with a fixed gear in the end: I wanted to keep this craziest reduction gear system for the end. It is the one that blew my mind. And the ones who think the number 1 and number 2 are ordinary systems they meet everyday in the lab, they need to check this one out.
This system designed by Arthur Ganson transcends engineering and moves into the realm of art. It consists of a motor that spins at 212 revs per minute. To the motor are attached twelve 50-1 reduction gears in series.
The most incredible part – the last gear in this series appears as if it is fixed, but it actually turns. It moves so slow, that it has been sealed into the wall using concrete. Even when the motor is turned on, it appears fixed with rest of the system moving continuously. It is estimated that if it wasn’t fixed, the gear would have taken 2 trillion years to make a complete revolution. In fact the third and the gears after that in this system don’t appear to be moving too.
Today we talk about Manchineel – An evil tree that is found in Florida, Caribbean and several other places around it. It holds the Guinness book of world record for the most dangerous tree, and you have a fair reason to stay at least ten feet away from it, if you ever go on a vacation to Florida, Caribbean or other nearby places.
What can it do?
Touch any part of this tree, its bark, leaves, fruits etc, and you’ll be left with serious blisters on your skin. The blisters will come with an excruciating pain that even after being treated by a doctor will continue to trouble you for several days. That’s not all.
If anything from this tree goes into your eyes, by anything I mean, even the rain water that touches the plant, you could end up with the kind of pain you’d have never experienced or could even make you go blind.
Swallowing a part of its little apple-like fruit will ensure that you get painful blisters on the internal walls of your mouth and throat. Try eating the complete, sweet smelling and pleasant tasting fruit and it will easily kill you. In fact in Spanish they call it manzanilla de la muerte; meaning – the little apple of death.
Try to get rid of it by breaking its branches or cutting the trunk and it will squirt its sap on your skin, inflicting you with the painful long-lasting blisters once again.
Try burning it down, while turning into ash, it will ensure that the smoke it exudes, makes you and others standing near it, go blind.
Is this tree any useful?
Yes. The Indians that used to live around the Caribbean used the sap derived from the plant to poison their darts and arrows. Also, they used the stump of this tree to tie up invaders. It killed them within a few hours.
How to avoid?
Pretty easy! The identified trees all around the region are marked with a red sign board that clearly tells you to stay away. So, do that.
In case you find a wild unmarked tree, stay away from anything that has leaves which look like shiny apple-tree-leaves and bears a deliciously sweet-smelling yellow/green little-apple like fruit.
Fun facts:
Despite having a bad name for its poisonous parts, there is an animal that can eat its fruit without experiencing any ill effects – A land crab found in the region. [Source]
In the Telugu language, Manchineel means something that can never be related to a tree which turns the water to poisoned water. Manchineel translates to – pure water or potable water in Telugu.
The search for Yeti, the mythical human-like creature that is assumed to have been living in higher elevations of the Himalayas, has continued for several thousands of years. Back in the days of Alexander the Great, during the 326 BC, when he was in the Indus valley area, he learned from the local people about the Yeti and expressed a desire to see it. The local people failed to bring it to him. Since then, several encounters have been reported and shoddy evidence has been produced, but till date, no one has succeeded in capturing the creature dead, or alive.
Proven Existence of Yeti
An Oxford university Genetics professor, Brian Sykes claims to have found a solid evidence that proves the existence of the Yeti. Moreover, according to him, it is a sub-specie of the brown bear. Specifically, an hybrid of the polar-bear and the brown bear.
After thoroughly studying two of the DNA samples (40 years and 10 years old samples) of hair from a mysterious animal found in Ladakh and Bhutan he said:
I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive… may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it. It may be some sort of hybrid and if its behavior is different from normal bears, which is what eyewitnesses report, then I think that may well be the source of the mystery and the source of the legend.
Interestingly, the DNA samples were found to be a 100% match with those coming from an ancient Polar bear that walked in Norway about 100,000 years from now. During those times a Polar bear was almost like a brown bear, the brown bear was yet to evolve.
Did you know, Yeti is also knows as the “Abominable Snowman” because the Tibetian word “Metoh-Kangmi” was mis-translated by a famous journalist as “dirty men in snow”.
There is a wildlife sanctuary in Bhutan that goes by the name Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary which is dedicated to preserving the Yeti.
During the 1950s, the Nepal government issued formal Yeti-hunting-licenses which costed a massive $650 per Yeti. Otherwise, Yeti brings in a lot of business in Nepal. There are braded hotels and airlines named after the Yeti.(more at NatGeo)
Even in the virtual world, Yeti is a pretty popular creature. Games often like to include it as an easter egg. GTA San Andreas players claim that the Yeti can be found on the rocky faces of the Mount Chiliad at daytime. They say it is hard to see because it blends in with the mountain due to its color. GTA V players have encountered a similar beast, the BigFoot.
One interesting thing to note about crows is the size of their brains. Among all the bird species, crows have the largest brain to body ratio.
Besides that, the anatomy of their brain is a lot similar to our own brains. The forebrain which is responsible for the intelligence of an organism, is highly developed in crows. This makes them very adaptable. They are able to easily adjust and learn things as per the changing situations.
Although crows aren’t adored, probably because of the annoying sounds they make, their amazing feats of dexterity are bound to elicit an awe. May be valporate can help them with the voice.
Notably, crows are found living with human beings and are known to exploit us to get their work done. Only in rare cases are crows found to be living very away from human settlements. Joshua Klein, in a TED talk, shares a couple of anecdotes about how good crows can be at problem solving. One of them was as follows:
Crows and Hooks
Crows are normally seen holding sticks in the beaks to take food out of narrow holes in the wild. When one crow in a laboratory was given a piece of hard wire to draw a piece of meat from inside of a narrow tube, it wasn’t working very well for it. The crow, despite never having learned any related trick beforehand, found a solution for the problem completely on its own.
Solution: It used the surroundings to bend the wire to make a hook out of it; then simply put it in the tube to use the hook to retrieve meat!
But that is just a warm up of kinds of problem solving crows can handle. Here is another one.
Amazing Problem Solving Crows
In the suburbs of Tokyo, where crows often came across a kind of nut they were not able to dig into, because of its hard shell, they found an extremely intelligent way to deal with it. They dropped it on the roads for the vehicles to break the nuts for them! That was not all…
While doing this, they were faced with another problem – As cars, passed by at high speeds, it was risky for them to get back the nuts. Crows found a solution for that too. I’m not that smart. I bet I could have never thought of that.
Solution: They dropped it on the zebra crossing. As the cars stopped for the humans to cross, crows walked behind humans to get back their broken nuts safely. Interestingly, some crows who had devised this technique taught it to all the crows in the surrounding areas. Now all of the suburban crows around Tokyo know the trick.
Thanks to the LAser GEOdynamics Satellite or LAGEOS 1 developed by NASA, we can rest assured that a message ensconced in it will be received by our descendants 8 million years from now, when the satellite is estimated to crash land on Earth.
Note:LAGEOS 2 was a joint effort by NASA and ASI of Italy
Background
Structure: LAGEOS is basically a heavy metal ball measuring 60 cm in diameter containing no electronics or any sensors whatsoever. Its body is made up of aluminum and the internal core is made of brass. The brass core has been used to make sure that it weighs enough to do its job properly – the complete satellite weighs around 400 kg. The outer part is embedded with 422 reflectors. These reflectors make sure that the craft reflects back the light (laser) shone at it, to its source with minimum scattering.
Purpose: The primary purpose of the satellite isn’t to send a message to our future races, rather the satellite has been put up on orbit around the Earth to monitor several kinds of changes in long-term data like – exact shape of the planet, motion of tectonic plates, gravitational field measurement, measurement of the Earth’s wobble etc. This is done by sending laser pulses towards it from bases around the world located in US, Mexico, France, Germany, Poland, Australia, Egypt, China, Peru, Italy, and Japan. These laser pulses are reflected back to the Earth bases by those 422 reflectors. As the satellite has a very stable orbit, the measurement of time difference taken to send and receive the laser pulse gives away a lot of useful information.
LAGEOS 1 also contains a message plaque addressed to human and other beings of the far distant future with maps of the Earth from 3 different eras – 268 million years in the past, present day, and 8 million years in the future (the satellite’s estimated decay date).
On April 26th 1986 a catastrophic nuclear accident that occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine and is still considered the worst nuclear power plant accident ever (another one happened in Japan recently). The massive explosion spewed out huge amounts of radioactive particles into the air which spread till Europe.
As a result of this tragedy, it was reported that 31 people died within a few months due to acute radiation sickness. In total, more than 200 people were affected. It is estimated that deaths caused due to cancer by Chernobyl may be around 4,000 among the 5 million persons living in the surrounding area.
The disaster was responsible for turning green trees, in the 10 square kilometers of pine forest around the reactor, into red trees. Eventually the trees died and the forest has been called the “Red Forest” ever since.
Today, an area covering 30 km in all directions from the power plant has been labeled as the “zone of alienation“. Mostly it is uninhabited by humans (excluding those 300 odd residents who have decided that they won’t leave). Till date, the radiation levels remain extremely high. Workers who are responsible for rebuilding the place are only allowed to work for a maximum of five hours a day for one month and are asked to take a 15 day rest after that.
With an environment where the radiation level even today is about 500 times higher than the normal environment, it is estimated that the area will remain uninhabitable for humans for the next 20,000 years.
But something lives inside the still-highly-radioactive ruins
Few years back when a robot was sent into the devastated reactor, it returned with samples from the walls of the ruined power plant. These samples contained a black colored substance which piqued the researchers’ interests.
After performing several tests on these samples they concluded that the black samples comprised of two kinds of fungi. Both of them contained a pigment called melanin (the pigment that colors our skins). The fungi had been using melanin to convert radiation into chemical energy. It was mind-boggling for everyone to learn that amidst the toxic sarcophagus a creature was living and was feeding on gamma radiation for making food and to grow. Scientists decided to call it, the “radiotrophic fungi” – the fungi which feeds on gamma radiation.
It is like plants using solar radiation for making food, just that, in this case, the frequency of the electromagnetic radiation being used, is different.
Feeding the spacemen
Scientists say, since the pigment is also present in our skins, and as ionizing radiation is prevalent in outer space, in the future, astronauts could probably rely on melanin as a source of food during long missions or for living on other planets; Just like the radiotrophic fungi does.
According to Dr Casadevall:
While it wouldn’t be enough energy to fuel a run on the beach, maybe it could help you to open an eyelid.
At some point in your school education, each one of your science books has shown you the ‘tongue map’ [Image]. There are solid demarcated boundaries shown in that diagram. The boundaries shown enclose areas on your tongue which exclusively specialize in tasting specific kinds of tastes. According to it:
The back of your tongue is responsible for the bitter taste.
Sides are responsible for sour and salty tastes.
And the tip is for tasting sweet stuff.
What it is really?
Unfortunately, it may be hard to digest the fact that taste areas don’t work that way. Although some parts are slightly more sensitive to specific tastes, mostly, all parts of your tongue can taste all the four (or five, or six) tastes almost equally. There are no taste area demarcations. Please don’t unsubscribe me for debunking something that you’ve believed in all these years.
Agreed it isn’t completely BS, you can call it an oversimplification of something. But one thing is for sure – It shouldn’t be shown on science books. The worst part – We have known this fact for more than 30 years and we still continue to propagate the misconception in school textbooks.
Where did this start?
It started a century back when a German scientist D.P. Hainig did a study which relied on subjective whims of his subjects. In five words, it was not very scientific. They were asked to report which parts of their tongues tasted which flavor. And THERE! He had a result – The tongue map.
Test at home
All said, I tried this at home. Since the ‘sweet buds’ are said to be located on and near the tip of the tongue, I found that it would be easy to isolate these buds by sticking out my tongue (and looking dumb by doing that. Fortunately, I did it in a closed room). Now, I placed a few sugar crystals in the middle part of the tongue. I made sure that it never touched my tip. The sugar did not taste sweet at all. And as soon as I retracted my tongue, the sweet taste was felt. Confusing!
However, salt tasted salty at the tip of the tongue. According to the map, it isn’t supposed to.
Well, that test wasn’t really scientific. It was exactly what the German scientist D.P. Hanig did to come out with the tongue map. It was busted in the year 1974 by a scientist named Virginia Collings.
With our ever-increasing hours at work, coffee is what keeps most of us running at office. While some revel in the ability to stay hyper active by taking in no dose of caffeine whatsoever, others just can’t live without it. A few days without coffee can turn them into irritated, stressed out and cranky colleagues.
Caffeine in coffee, coke and other energy drinks basically works by tricking your brain into thinking it isn’t tired, even when it badly needs rest. In short, it messes with your brain by creating an artificial brain chemistry to keep you alert. So can it really be good in any way?
Obviously, at such a stage, still keeping up with the intake can harm your brain (up to some extent) without it showing any clear signs. Lack of sleep (at the time when it is needed) can mean, starving brain of the time to perform several essential processes – Memory consolidation being one of them. As a result, lack of sleep means, you are not forming strong memories.
So, how does it help you remember well when it doesn’t let you form strong memories?
According to Michael Yassa, assistant professor of psychological and brain science at John Hopkins University, and his team, caffeine can indeed have positive effects on your memory. The trick lies in limiting your intake of coffee. In a study, they have been able to show that caffeine intake can enhance certain kinds of memories even when tested after a day.
Study in short: In a double-blind trial where subjects were given caffeine tablets or placebos and were shown images of a few objects. It was found that people who were given caffeine doses showed a deeper lever of memory retention on the other day than people who were given placebos.
Since caffeine isn’t very effective after about 6 hours, people feel a need to replenish their bodies with more of it. It seems as if it is addictive, but as Hank says, technically, it isn’t. You can positively keep on drinking red bulls for the whole day and not get addicted to it. It will make you cranky for a day or two, but you won’t experience any long-lasting effects. The thing is, if you drink a lot of it, you’ll not sleep well and give your brain enough time to consolidate memories. So, since it isn’t really addictive, a good idea would be to limit the intake.
Solution: The crux of it comes down to keeping your intake of coffee to about 200 mg a day. That means, a cup of strong coffee or 2 small cups of normal coffee every day, is actually good for your brain. As the recent research shows, it helps you remember well. That much, will help you consolidate memories during sleep (at the same time, it won’t mess with your sleep). Anything more than that will probably mess with your activities and anything less than that will have no effect on your memory. [Video]
Space exploration is a tough job. Besides a myriad of challenges that have to be dealt with, space equipment and astronauts travelling to places like the moon or mars, have to deal with a peculiarly wicked foe – The dust.
This isn’t the kind of normal dust we deal with here on earth. ‘Downright evil’ is the phrase that describes the dust on moon! We may not realize it, but lunar dust is a filthy thing and causes a lot of problems. Of course, the dust on mars is no better.
Back in 1972
For instance, let us see how moon dust makes things complicated for engineers and astronauts.
Most of the upper surface of the moon is covered with a mixture of loose material comprising of dust, soil, rocks and pebbles (and other random stuff too). Normally, at places, this layer of mixture ranges from 4 to 6 meters in thickness.
The fine part of this mixture is called the lunar soil and is significantly different from the soil found on earth. It is present almost everywhere on the surface of the moon and is a result of breaking of rocks into small particles by meteorite and micrometeorite impacts; also there is no wind and rain to soften the pieces. This is the part of that loose stuff which is known for causing immense troubles.
The dust is super-fine and extremely hard. You can think of it as collection of little shards of glass. Despite being completely dry, it sticks to everything it touches and as it is super-fine, it can get into tiny creases. If inhaled, it can be toxic; like millions of tiny sharp shards piercing into the inner walls of your respiratory system. A tiny amount of it can eventually kill a full grown man.
Back in 1972, the Apollo 17’s crew learnt this as soon as they stepped out. The dust started clogging their air vents and started dropping the pressure. When returning to their space capsule, Jack Schmitt and Eugene Cernan forgot to brush off the dust. They were stuck with it for the whole time during their journey back home. Some of the dust went airborne in the craft and Schmitt started complaining of congestion. Fortunately, the amount was too small to hurt them a lot. Soon the symptoms subsided and space agencies learnt a lesson – Find a way to deal with the lunar dust.
On mars: Dust on mars can travel places due to dust storms and cause more problems.
Solution
Scientists at NASA found a great way to deal with this dust using an electric zap. They were able to develop electrical fields which can clear about 99% of the dust from the equipment. These dust shields will be tried on in the year 2016.
