Tag: kill

Killer Lakes – A Very Weird Natural Disaster

By Anupum Pant

In the Northwest Cameroon (Africa) there’s a lake which is commonly  known among the locals as “The Bad Lake”. The official name of this lake however is, lake Nyos. This is one of those three or four special lakes in the world which are mostly know for their mass killings. The locals living near the lake Nyos in particular have a very grim story to tell from the past.

The Story

A seemingly innocuous landslide occurred on August 21st, 1986. This created a mini tsunami and sent red water (due to iron) flying 300 feet in the air. There was nothing really dangerous about the flying water. But, as a result if this landslide, it is believed that about 1.2 cubic kilometres of carbon dioxide from the lake Nyos got released. The trigger could have been something else, but the gas that got released was carbon dioxide for sure.

This rare kind of a natural disaster is known as a Limnic Eruption or Lake overturn. There are just 2 other lakes known where scientists think this can happen – Lake Monoun, Cameroon, and Lake Kivu of Congo

The huge amount of CO2, being heavier than air, spread into the nearby low-lying villages in a range of 25 km. People had nowhere to escape and nearly everyone died. Only a few hundreds who acted quick, and escaped to higher ground on vehicles could save themselves. That day, 1,700 people and 3,600 livestock got suffocated to death.

Why it Happened

volcanoLake Nyos like only a few other lakes in the world was formed about 400 years ago on a huge crater. Far below the lake there’s magma and it spews CO2 continuously into the lake, forming huge amounts of carbonated water (a good thing for Coke lovers). The CO2 doesn’t usually release in a single go all the time. It happens gradually, and the pipes now installed to fix this keep releasing CO2 all the time (The pressure of gas also carries water along to form a beautiful fountain).

Sometimes however, due to some triggers, the CO2 can get released in a single go and cause the absurd natural disaster which ends up killing thousands.

The Lake Kivu which is in Congo probably holds a much worse headline for the future. This one is about a 1000 times larger than lake Nyos and is surrounded by heavily populated towns. There’s magma below it too and any sort of disruption could cause massive amounts of carbon dioxide to release into the nearby towns. To add to the fears, researchers have found that the massive lake Kivu’s life goes extinct every 1000 years. We can only wait and watch what happens…

An Incredibly Simple Way to Kill A Tree

By Anupum Pant

Background

Of course, killing a tree is something I’d never want to do. I see them as old and wise people who have grown and matured for years. Plus they give us so much in return. And yet sometimes, they say, there are good reasons to kill a tree. I’ll probably never understand.

Anyway, I thought it’s good to know, just for the sake of knowing that there is an incredibly simple technique that is often used to kill trees (for legit reasons) and is widely known among horticulturists. I learnt about it just today, and I felt it was worth sharing.

It’s called Girdling (also known as  ring barking or ring-barking). Or, a technique which involves removal / peeling of a ring of bark from a tree, and the phloem layer (Like shown in the picture above). Yes, that’s it, this kills a tree. And it’s slow death. A tree which gets girdled dies gradually in about a year or more.

This is why it works…

The central part of the tree trunk (wooden part) is involved in taking the nutrients and water up to the leaves. The leaves then get exposed in the sun and mix in carbon dioxide to make sugar and other reduced carbon compounds. Most of us know that. But this is what not many know…

The outer part of the trunk – the bark and the phloem layer – also has a solid function that sustains growth and function. It’s responsible to carry the sugar (and other stuff) made by the leaves, back to the root. That is basically food to sustain growth and function of the roots. If that doesn’t reach the roots, the roots don’t receive what is required for their growth and function. Girdling does exactly that – cuts off the down-flow of food. As a result, the root dies and with it dies the whole tree. All of this happens very slowly.

To be noted

Jumping the Girdle: Some times, trees are able to repair this damage. It’s called a jumped girdle. To prevent that from happening, often smear herbicide over the girdled area.

Better Fruits: This technique is also used by some farmers to force the tree to bear better fruits – as no sugar goes down into the roots – the fruits are usually bigger and better if they come from a girdled tree. Of course these better fruits come with a price.

Girdling is particularly a good way to end trees like Aspens because as we know from Pando, many other Aspens can sprout up from the roots and cause a bigger mess if just the top part of this tree is cut off.

Girdling is a better way to kill a tree because it gives the environment time to adjust, also it is cheaper and prevents damage to the other delicate plants around the tree.

[Source]

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The Ultimate Roller Coaster Ends Lives

By Anupum Pant

Euthanasia Coaster, A concept designed by Julijonas Urbonas, is a one of its kind roller coaster concept designed to literally kill you. As the name suggests, it is an engineering marvel designed to intentionally end lives of people suffering from terminal illnesses or the ones who are bored of a too long life – a practice referred to as Euthanasia. The coaster is a different kind of Euthanasia machine.

The concept, according to him is a humane way of ending lives of people who don’t want to live any more. Since, Euthanasia is seen as a suicide by some, it has been banned in some countries, while there are others who consider it legal. Similarly, the humane way of ending life by inflicting euphoria and thrill is considered a marvellous concept by some, and there are also others who are extremely disgusted by the idea. Most find it morbid.

Since Julijonas neither encourages nor discourages suicide, I think it isn’t right to judge him by his concept.

It kills you by extreme G forces that are produced at certain parts of the coaster. In simple words, it kills you by depriving your brain of oxygen. The medical term for it is Hypoxia. It does this by taking you up half a kilometre high and then dropping you into a 10 second long fall. It is built to carry 24 people and it ensures that all of them come back dead.

Euthanasia Coaster from Julijonas Urbonas on Vimeo.

There is no organization who plans to build it yet.

[Find out more]

A tip you don’t need: Another way to die out of pleasure would be to feed yourself Theobromine. Now where would you find it?

Dark chocolates! A tiny bite of dark chocolate can easily kill your dog. But, if you are an 80 kg human, you need to consume about 10 kg of dark chocolate to kill yourself. That would be a great way to go, wouldn’t it?

Hit like if you learnt something!