chakravarthy

[ Based on an article written by Sagarika Ghose published in The Times of India dated 21st June, 2017 (Wednesday) ]. What's common between democracy and Hindu philosophy? A constant search for answers, a quest for knowledge, a starting assumption that we don't know everything. In a democracy parties compete through their respective perspectives on public welfare, each hoping to convince voters. In Hindu philosophy, the search is as important as the discovery. The seeker sets out to find the truth, encounters many answers, but on the brink of enlightenment is left humbled by the limits of his awareness. Even markets are about a quest for knowledge: prices are determined by supply and demand of the moment and a search for the just price. Yet today India's government believes it has all the answers and is the sole repository of knowledge. Self-doubt does not trouble the Narendra Modi-led dispensation, which firmly believes that it (and only it) knows what's good for ...

Neanderthals may have been mating with modern humans 1,00,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought, a new study based on DNA analysis has found. Scientists have provided the first genetic evidence of a scenario in which early modern humans left the African continent and mixed with now-extinct members of the human family prior to the migration 'out of Africa' of the ancestors of present-day non-Africans, less than 65,000 years ago. "It's been known for several years that Neanderthal and humans inter-bred. But that data refers to an event dating to around 47,000 to 65,000 years ago, around the time that human populations emigrated from Africa", said Professor Adam Siepel. "The finding shows a signal of breeding in the 'opposite' direction from that already known. That is, we show human DNA in a Neanderthal genome, rather than Neanderthal DNA in human genomes", said Siepel. -------------------------------------...

Scientists have discovered five new Jupiter-like planets that are similar in characteristics to our solar system's biggest planet and orbit very close to their host stars. Researchers from Keele University in United Kingdom used the Wide Angle Search for Planets-South (WASP-South) instrument - an array of eight cameras observing selected regions of the southern sky, to study five stars showing planet-like transits in their light curve. The newly discovered planets were designated WASP-119 b, WASP-124 b, WASP-126 b, WASP-129 b, and WASP-133 b. The orbital periods of the planets vary from 2.17 to 5.75 days, and their masses range from 0.3 to 1.2  the mass of Jupiter radius, researchers said. WASP-119 b, which has a mass of 1.2 of the mass of Jupiter, and an orbital period of 2.5 days, is a typical hot Jupiter. Its host star has a similar mass to the Sun's but appears to be much older based on its effective temperature and density. WASP-124 b, less massive than Jupiter, has ...

It could have been a scene from a dystopian movie. Only, it wasn't. Researchers from the Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) lab have discovered that while they were busy trying to teach chatbots to negotiate, the "dialog agents" were creating their own language. "To put it another way, when they used a model that allowed the chatbots to converse freely, using machine learning to incrementally improve their conversational negotiation strategies as they chatted, the bots eventually created, the bots eventually created and used their own non-human language", 'The Atlantic' reported. The researchers also found these bots to be incredibly crafty negotiators. "After learning to negotiate, the bots relied on machine learning and advanced strategies in an attempt to improve the outcome of these negotiations", the report said. "Over time, the bots became quiet skilled at it and even began feigning interest in one item in order to ...

Long before they conquered ancient Egypt, cats seduced Stone Age farmers who launched the worldwide feline takeover of human homes and hearts, a DNA study showed on 19th June, 2017 (Monday). The first wildcat to travel abroad, and the forefather of domestic cats today, was Felis Silvestris Libica - a small, striped Middle-Eastern sub-species that went on to colonialise the entire world, the research revealed. It likely travelled to Europe by ship from the region of Anatolia around modern-day Turkey, some 6,000 years ago. "The cat's worldwide conquest began during the Neolithic period", the study wrote. The Neolithic was the closing chapter of the Stone Age - a time when pre-historic humans first tried their hand at cultivating crops. With farming came harvest-munching rats, which in turn attracted cats. The team analysed the DNA of 230 buried and mummified ancient cats in a bid to settle the debate over who was responsible for turning the wild feline into the cuddly...

Hiding your true self at work can damage your career and reduce your sense of belonging in the workplace, a study suggests. For the research, experts examined "stigmatised" characteristics - for example, being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), or having a history of poverty or mental or physical illness. They found that concealing such characteristics from colleagues resulted in lower self-esteem, job-satisfaction, and commitment at work. "People may choose to conceal stigmatised identities because they want to be accepted, but in fact doing so reduces feelings of belonging", said Professor Manuela Barreto of the University of Exeter, United Kingdom. "When someone conceals their true identity, their social interactions suffer - and this also has an impact on the organisation they work for", said Barreto. "Our findings suggest that openness about one's identity is often beneficial for stigmatised individuals, the stigmatised group a...

Volcanic activity may have played a key role in triggering the mass extinction event about 200 million years ago that set the stage for the rise of dinosaurs, an Oxford study has found. The Triassic extinction, a large mass extinction of animal life, was followed by the dinosaur era. The casualty list includes large crocodile-like reptiles and several marine invertebrates. While it remains a mystery why the dinosaurs survived this event, they went on to fill the void left by the species wiped out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As much as 74 percent of the world's will be exposed to deadly heat waves by 2100 if carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise at current rates, a study warns. Even if emissions are aggressively reduced, the percentage of human population affected is expected to reach 48 percent, the researchers said. "We are running out of choices for the future. For heatwaves, our options are now between bad or terrible", said Camilo Mora, Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, United States. The human body can only function properly within a narrow range of core body temperatures around 37 degrees celsius. Heat waves pose a considerable risk to human life because hot weather, aggravated with high humidity, can raise body temperature, leading to life threatening conditions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Our rapidly changing world is bringing new types of invasive species that are able to trigger disruption. The world is being invaded by 'alien' species that could cause huge problems, scientists have warned. Our rapidly changing world is bringing new types of invasive species that are able to trigger disruption - potentially including new kinds of diseases that could ravage animals and plants. "Our study found that environmental change, new biotechnology...are all likely to result in new invasions that we should all be worried about", said David Aldridge from Cambridge University, which hosted a meeting of researchers from four continents to try and combat the concern.  Many invasive speeches have already brought havoc to some regions. Those include Japanese knotweed, for instance, which can destroy buildings. Now, scientists fear that among other invasions, disease-causing bacteria and other life could spread into new regions and attach themselves to new hosts....

Scientists have built a bacteria-powered fuel cell that can convert the greenhouse gas methane into electricity. "People have tried for decades to directly convert methane, but they have not been able to do it with microbial fuel cells. We have engineered a strain of bacteria that can", said Thomas K Wood of Pennsylvania State University, United States. Microbial fuel cells convert chemical energy to electrical using microorganisms. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

More than half of all deaths have no recorded cause, making effective health monitoring and policy making far more difficult, the WHO said on Wednesday. However, improved collection of statistics meant that 27 million collection of statistics meant that 27 million of the world's 56 million estimated deaths in 2015 were registered with a cause compared with only about a third in 2005, the UN health agency's latest global health report said. The WHO said several countries, including China and Turkey, had made 'significant strides' in data collection. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dogs can make human beings understand what their barks and growls mean, according to a new study that has also found women are better than men at recognising what their canine friends are trying to convey. For the study, conducted by researchers at Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, 40 volunteers listened to different growls recorded from 18 dogs guarding their food, facing a threatening stranger, or playing a tug-of-war game. Overall, participants correctly classified 63 percent of the growl samples - significantly more than would be expected by guesswork alone, they said. The human listeners identified 81 percent of the 'play' growls. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------  

[ Based on a news item written by Sashidhar Adivi, published in Deccan Chronicle dated 09th June, 2017 ].  She's not an athlete, but Nikitha conquered the 2000 kilometres marathon in the scorching heat. "I want to create a sense of self-confidence among the youth, particularly women, and tell them that they can take up anything and succeed", says Nikitha who is pursuing her second year Intermediate from Kasturba College.  "I also want to spread awareness about the culture and practices of Telangana and bring to the fore farmers' problems", she says.  There were several challenges she faced during the marathon that started on 27th April, 2017 and finished on 02nd June, 2017. "The temperature was so hot that I was dehydrated, so I had to survive on glucose and lemon juice. At nights, I used to stay in government guest houses, and sometimes slept on roads and even in forests". Nikitha reveals that her parents initially opposed her decision. ...

Insurance claim settlement is the most important promise made by a life insurance company. Be it death claim or maturity benefit, this is the whole purpose for which you buy a life insurance policy, to provide financial stability to your loved ones in the event of your unfortunate demise. This death of a dear one does take a toll on the family and the last thing you would want for them is to run from pillar to post to receive the claims due from pillar to post to receive the claims due from your life insurance policy. The annual IRDAI report 2015-16 showed that 15,157 claims amounting to Rs. 736.51 crores were rejected. Although the overall claim settlement ratio for the private life insurance industry in 2016 was 91.48 percent, claims rejection is still a matter of concern as this defeats the entire purpose of buying life insurance. Though the insurance companies are responsible for settling claims, the policyholder should take the following steps to ensure smooth and quick settleme...

[ Based on a article written by John Kurrien, Director Emiritus, Centre for Learning Resources, published in The Times of India dated 10th May, 2016 (Tuesday) ]. The quality of education imparted in our urban municipal elementary schools is abysmal. Unless standards of instruction and learning are significantly enhanced, life chances of children of the urban lower middle class and poor, who attend these schools, will continue to be bleak. An Educational Initiatives study of 35,000 Class 2, 4 and 6 students in 300 municipal schools in 30 towns of five states, indicated that more than two-thirds of Class 4 children were unable to divide 20 by 5. More than half of Class 2 students could not match an alphabet letter with its sound - a skill mastered by most children attending an average private pre-primary school.  Instruction in most municipal schools is also extremely limited in quantity and scope. Apart from mindless teaching of languages and mathematics from prescribed textbo...

[ Based on a news item published in The Times of India dated 10th May, 2016 (Tuesday) ]. The shocking murder of schoolboy Aditya Sachdev, allegedly by a ruling JD(U) legislator's son and aided by his police bodyguard, once again puts the spotlight on Bihar's lawlessness. It also raises serious questions about Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's governance and his control over rogue elements in his own party. The big fear when Nitish was re-elected last year was how the Chief Minister, who had campaigned on a good governance platform, would handle muscle flexing power brokers of new ally Lalu Prasad's RJD. This time though, he can't blame RJD and must look within at the seamy underbelly of his own party. This is a classic case of abuse of power that exemplifies everything that is wrong with our VIP culture of power. Nothing short of exemplary justice will do and the Chief Minsiter must deliver a stern message to his party. The incident defies belief. Rocky, the 30-year...

Scientists have developed an 'artificial tongue' which can help novice drinkers determine the difference between a Scottish malt whisky and an Irish blend. The synthetic tongue can pick out different qualities in whiskies, such as their brand, age and country of origin using fluorescent dyes. The process is quicker and cheaper than many of the existing methods, researchers said.  "We can use this to detect fake whiskies. If you buy a crate of expensive whiskies, you can test if they are actually what you think they are", said Uwe Bunz at Heidelberg University in Germany. Current techniques use mass spectroscopy to identify the chemical composition of a whisky. However, the new synthetic tongue uses a combination of 22 different fluorescent dyes. When mixed with a whisky, the brightness of each dye subtly changes, revealing a specific flavour profile for that drink. Testing the dyes on 33 different whiskies, researchers found that their approach could accurately te...

Astronomers said in June 2017, they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves arising from the cosmic crash of two mammoth black holes three billion light years away, with two machines - one in Louisiana and the other in Washington - detecting remnants of that ripple passing through Earth on 04th January, 2017. What are Black Holes ? - A black hole is a region in space where the gravitational pull is so strong that not even light can escape it. A black hole swallows up everything too close, too slow or too small to fight its gravitational force. Who came up with the idea ? - The concept was first theorised by Albert Einstein in his Theory of General Relativity, though the scientist himself thought that it was something too bizarre to exist. What is the significance? -  We can 'see' gravity now, unlike before, when we could only observe heavens by looking at light or various radiation. With Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)...

In summer, staying indoors is as uncomfortable as stepping out because of the humidity. While many find using an air conditioner as an immediate solution, we give you a few suggestions that will help you keep the interiors of your house cool naturally. Down the blinds : We are talking about the morning hours. Ensure that you pull down the blinds before it turns really hot in the morning. Or make use of shades or curtains so as to avoid the sunlight from directly entering the house. It will reduce the indoor temperatures considerably. Let cool air flow in at night: Since the temperature drops by a few degrees at night, allow cool air to flow in by leaving the windows open. To maximise the effect, you can place table fans strategically to have the natural breeze flow in. It's called making a wind tunnel. Place one fan in such a way that it is facing inside and the other one pointing towards the window. Modify your ceiling fan: A simple modification of the ceiling fan inside y...

[ Based on an article written by Vaibhav Purandare, published in The Times of India dated 09th June, 2017 (Friday) ]. In the mid-1930s, the editor of famous Marathi journal Bhaala posed a question to all Hindus and answered it himself. "Who is a real Hindu? One who regards the cow as his mother!" Vinayak Damodar Savarkar or 'Veer' Savarkar, as the fiery Indian revolutionary from Nashik had come to be then known after his attempted escape from British captivity in Marseilles and more than a decade in the Andamans' Cellular Jail, responded to this assertion. He wrote: "If the cow's a mother to anybody at all, it's the bullock. Not the Hindus. Hindutva, if it has to sustain itself on a cow's legs, will come crashing down at the slightest sign of a crisis". Savarkar is known today as the author of the 1923 work Hindutva, the seminal text for Hindu nationalists, but what he is little knownfor is his staunch opposition to cow worship. The cow w...

Early Homo Sapiens roamed Africa 3,00,000 years ago, sporting modern-looking faces that would not stand out in a crows today, according to research published that pushes back our origins by a hundred millenia. A ground-breaking fossil discovery in Morocco obliterates two decades of scientific consensus that our fore-fathers emerged in East Africa about 2,00,000 years ago, according to two studies published in the science journal Nature. The findings may also re-organise the human evolutionary tree and eliminate certain extinct Homo relatives as potential human ancestors. Two teams of researchers reported on skull and bone fragments from five ancient humans, along with the stone tools they used to hunt and butcher animals, from a pre-historic encampment at Jebel Irhoud, not far from modern-day Marrakesh. Previously, the oldest dated Homo Sapiens remains at 1,95,000 years were from Ethiopia. The new data also suggests that the small, flat face and jaw shape of these ancient Homo Sa...

Women are more likely to have a 'mind-reading' gene mutation that gives them the ability to read a person's thoughts and emotions by looking at his eyes, scientists have found. Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom conducted a test of cognitive empathy called the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' Test on 89,000 people across the world. The study has earlier shown that people can rapidly interpret what another person is thinking or feeling by looking at their eyes alone. Researchers found that women on average score better on this test and identified genetic variants in women that are linked to the ability to 'read the mind in the eyes'. Previous studies have found that people with autism and anorexia tend to score lower on the Eyes Test. The team found that genetic variants that contribute to higher scores on the test also increase the risk for anorexia, but not autism.  They speculate that this may be because autism involves bot...

The remains of a major Aztec temple and a ceremonial ball court have been discovered in downtown Mexico City, shedding new light on the sacred spaces of the metropolis that Spanish conquerors overran five centuries ago, archaeologists said on 07th June, 2017 (Wednesday). The discoveries were made on a nondescript side street just behind the city's colonial-era Roman Catholic cathedral off the main Zocalo plaza on the grounds of a 1950s-era hotel. Some of the original white stucco remains visible on parts of the temple, built during the 1486-1502 reign of Aztec Emperor Ahuizoti, predecessor of Moctezuma, who conquistador Hernan Cortes toppled during the Spanish conquest of Mexico. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teachers are the fulcrum of the entire education system and play an important role in shaping and improving the quality of education in an educational institution. Teaching is a noble profession and all schools need good teachers to impart knowledge to its students. One cannot imagine a school without teachers. However, skilled teachers are hard to come by and it is a fact that India is facing dire shortage of trained teachers in the primary, secondary and higher education. A lot of focus has been given by the Narendra Modi Government on the training and professional development of teachers in 2016. In fact, in its last budget, the government had even launched a Rs. 900-crore scheme - Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya National Missions on Teachers and Teaching, a five-year training course after schooling for those aspiring to pursue a career in teaching. The programme was envisaged to beenfit nearly 20,000 teacher trainees studying  in Teacher Education Institutions. Nevertheless, In...