Who cares less about Global Warming? Definitely neither Bangladesh nor India

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of Earths near-surface air and oceans. It is caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation. This has negative consequences amongst which are a rise in sea levels by thermal expansion of water through the addition of water to oceans from the melting of continental ice sheets. Rising sea levels have for example as a result of global warming completely submerged the New Moore, a tiny rock Island in the Sunderbans Bay of Bengal thereby resolving a dispute between India and Bangladesh who for nearly 30 years have been disputing over its control. As for me, I care about global warming and I cannot afford to watch rising sea levels submerge another island without taking action. A few technologies such as mitigation, damage reduction through adaptation and geoengineering although usually associated with some draw backs are a way out as they provide a variety of options to put us on a path toward a stable climate thereby avoiding such drastic impacts.

Criminals, be aware of bacteria!

Have you ever thought that bacteria could help solving a crime? Microbiologist Noah Fierer discovered last month that each of us has a unique combination of bacteria sticking on our fingers. These skin bacteria, which are transferred to the objects that we touch, can survive up to two weeks at ambient conditions. Since bacteria can also be removed easily from objects without any contamination, they can serve as a new identification method when fingerprint analysis fails. A quick comparison between the bacteria at the crime scene and those of the suspect’ skin should be enough as an evidence. So if you are planning to commit a crime, think about the bacteria!

Sofie Wallyn

The Truth of Blue Nile (Abbay) river

Blue Nile (locally named “Abbay” sometimes spelled as “Abbai”) originated from Lake Tana has a total length of 1450kms; of which 800kms is within Ethiopia boundary that separates the country into the northern and the southern halves. The Blue Nile makes more than 60% of the water flow of the main Nile. The major sources of the Blue Nile River are the Ethiopian highlands; ranging from 2000-4000 meters above sea level. Ethiopian highlands contribute to more than 90% of the water volume, the maximum water volume record in the summer rainy season (June to September) and 95% of sediment content and leaves for Ethiopia to Sudan and then Egypt. The Blue Nile water and the fertile soil component are vital to Egypt and Sudan for agricultural practices in the desert land before its arrival into the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the origin and major contributor of highest volume of water, Ethiopia depends only on ‘Tis Issat Fall’; a major tourist attraction site, located 40 km away downstream of Lake Tana.

Jackfruit: The King of Fruits

The jackfruit (Artocarpous heterophyllus), capturing the glory of being the national fruit of Bangladesh comes in all shapes and sizes, from size o to size-M and XL to XXXL, with an exterior armour of prickly skin. Their wide-spectrum range of tastes and flavours, is mind boggling and in terms of nutritional values they are quite rich also. Each and every part of the fruit is edible in a variety of ways such as the whole raw jackfruit excluding the spiny skin can be cooked like meat while the bulb (flesh/meat) of the jackfruit can be enjoyed raw or cooked (with coconut milk or otherwise); or made into ice-cream, chutney, jam, jelly, flakes, chips, paste or can be canned in syrup with sugar or honey and citric acid. Jackfruit seeds can be boiled or fried and eaten those taste very much like chestnuts. After tasting the Bengal jackfruit, you can only thank God for giving a chance to enjoy the exquisite taste and flavours of God's King of Fruits, on Earth!! So, why are you late??? ... ... just get set and GOOOOOOOOOOO ... ... ...

Butterfly: Beauty of Nature

A multicultural symbol of the beauty of nature is butterfly, appearing in numerous examples of nature scenes of many artistic styles. Butterflies are included as elements of these scenes because they most efectively represents all positive characteristics of nature. Logic and prejudice has deprived moths of a similar status. Logically, since most "beauty in nature" scenes are set in day time, butterflies are the obvious choice for inclusion. For some artists, the butterfly and moth only symbolize: the beauty of symmetry, shape, pattern, color. These artists do not require their representations of these creatures to be interpreted. They copy these insects, some as faithfully as the photo-realists would copy a still life, a figure, a panorama, and only ask the viewer to observe the beauty.

White Nights

If you look at this picture, you will be greatly confused: is it day or night? Believe it or not, it is night, white night in Saint Petersburg. White nights are a natural phenomenon which occurs in areas with the latitude of 60°. During 2-3 weeks, around the solstice (in the northern hemisphere – in June; in the southern hemisphere – in December), “sunsets are late, sunrises are early and darkness is never complete”. The places, where you can see those most of all, are, of course, Russia, Finland, Island, Greenland, Sweden, Norway, and Canada. In Russia, especially in Saint Petersburg, during this period many festival and street festivities take place.

Elena Guzeeva

Walia ibex: Living place and sexual dimorphism

Walia ibex, Capra walie, belongs to family bovidae and subfamily caprinae is found exclussively in the mountains of northern Ethiopia at high cliffs that rise above the lower elevated platea, providing a potential risk of falling for careless individuals. The male and the female walia ibex are sexually dimorphic in many aspects of appearance. In overall size, the adult female weights about 80 kg, roughly 50 to 60% of their male counterparts, which can weight up to 125 kg. Horns of the walia ibex are semi-circular in shape and are found in both sexes, but the male horns are more massive, reaching up to 110 cm in length. Key futures of horns are random knots and age rings that distinguish individuals in a population and at older ages, the male develops a black chest and a beard that further distinguishes the sexes. It is very strange that small sized animals like wildcats to foxes are predators of the walia ibex and capable of killing both the adult and juveniles.

Mesele Gemu Tantu

Is our food safe?

Ergotism also known as “St. Anthony’s Fire”, a disease occurred as epidemic during the Middle Ages, is the oldest identified mycotoxicosis in humans caused by mycotoxin ergotin, produced by fungi Claviceps purpurea that grows on wheat and rye. Mycotoxins are low molecular-weight toxic metabolites of fungi, so called alkaloids, which are capable of causing disease and death in humans and animals. Thousands of mycotoxins have been described and identified; but only those produced by fungi genera Aspregillus, Fusarium and Penicillium are actually associated to food. When present in food (maize, wheat, peanuts, apricots, grapes, apples, olives, peaches etc.) in sufficiently high levels, toxic fungal metabolites might induce different toxic symptoms that range from acute (for example kidney detoriation) to chronic (liver cancer) together with mutagenic or teratogenic effects. Total number of people affected by any kind of mycotoxicosis is unknown; however most of them are coming from developing countries especially from tropical areas where high temperature and moisture lead to fungal proliferation and production of mycotoxins. Although methods for controlling mycotoxins are enforced having mostly preventive character, such as: good agricultural practice; host resistance through breeding or by antifungal genes via genetic engineering, none of these methods was successful in control of those “natural” food contaminants.

By Irina Ćalić

Clownfish: transgender or transexual?

Did you know the whole story behind ‘Finding Nemo’ is a fraud?
Disney’s version of Nemo’s story is actually a twisted version of the true story. Clownfish such as Nemo and his ‘father’ start off as male and as they age, they grow in size according to their social status in a group. If one of them proves to be the strongest and biggest clownfish of the group ‘he’ changes gender and turns into the female of the group. If the female dies, the biggest male fish will transform into the female.
So the genuine story should tell us that when Nemo’s birth mother dies, dad Marlin becomes mum Marlene.


Barbara Dhoop

El Peyote: a sacred plant

It is well known the use of hallucinogenic plants by numerous cultures worldwide as a mediators between man and his goods. El Peyote, a small cactus without prickles, is an endemic plant from the North of Mexico and South of the United States. Over the years, it has been used by many indigenous communities in spiritual rituals; and as a medicinal plant. Still nowdays an annual pilgrinage is carried out by the Huicholes, a native mexican group, in search of the sacred plant. During the pilgrimage, a series of rituals are performed with the aim to get purified before finding it. El Peyote has been used as a remedy for diabetes, pneumonia, cancer, rheumatism, arthritis, asthma, to increase sexual appetite, to thwart the effects of animals poisoning, among others.

L.LORENA GONZALEZ SANTIN

A Miracle Tree

Imagine a tree in your backyard that will meet all your nutritional needs, take care of you medicinally, and purify your water for you. This tree actually existed for centuries, the natives of northern India and many parts of Africa have known of the many benefits of Its uses are as unique as the names it is known by, such as clarifier tree, horseradish tree and drumstick tree (referring to the large drumstick shaped pods) and in East Africa it is called "mother's best friend”. Virtually every part of the tree can be used, scientific research confirms that the leaves which are eaten as greens, in salads, in vegetable curries, as pickles and young branches are relished by livestock are a powerhouse of nutritional value in such a way that, gram for gram, the leaves of the tree contain 7 times the vitamin C in oranges, 4 times the Calcium in milk, 4 times the vitamin A in carrots, 2 times the protein in milk and 3 times the Potassium in bananas. The podscontaining all the essential amino acids along with oil from the seed known as Ben which is clear, sweet and odourless, never becomes rancid, its nutritional value most closely resembles olive oil and seed-cake remaining contains the active components for removing turbidity (solid particles) from water. The Bark can be used for tanning and also yields a coarse fibres while flowers, which must be cooked, are eaten either mixed with other foods or fried in batter and have been shown to be rich in potassium and calcium. This tree is truly a “miracle” tree offering hope; nutritionally, medicinally and economically to devastatingly communities that tree it's called Moringa oleifera
By Yasinta Nzogela

The man who made his name with urine.

Man has always been attracted to gold, it's bright yellow colour and easy ductility made it for one a perfect material for jewellery. This attraction brought forward an intense search for the synthesis of gold from other metals, a search conducted by alchemists all over time and place.
In 1669 an alchemist in Hamburg, Hennig Brand, thought he had find the answer: gather urine and let it stand for days until the air is filled with a terrible smell, subsequently boil it down to a paste, heat this paste to a high temperature and gather the vapours through water were gold finally will form as an end product. Much to his surprise, no gold was to be found... nevertheless, the experiment wasn't a complete failure. A waxy white substance that glowed in the dark had formed which he named 'phosphorus', the Greek word for light-bearer. He had just discovered a new chemical element, and had by this immortalized his name in history.

By Filip Deckers

The discovery of X-rays

In 1895, the German scientist Wilhelm Konrad Röntgen started studying a new type of invisible rays. He named them 'X-rays' because, at that time, the behaviour of the rays was not completely understood. Although today, the unknown characteristics of these rays are completely clear, the terms 'X-rays' or 'Röntgen-rays' are still being used.
In hospitals, X-rays are frequently applied for visualizing bone fractures and other body parts. A human hand was the first body part imaged by Röntgen, he made an X-ray print of his wife’s hand which clearly shows the finger bones and also indicates that she was wearing a ring.
In 1901, Röntgen received the very first Nobel Prize of Physics for his pioneering research.

Human genome project(HGP)

The Human Genome Project was an international scientific research project to determine the sequence of total genes of human being, which was initiated by James D. Watson at the U.S. National Institutes of Health in 1990. Before the starting HGP, researchers studied the genetic makeup of several nonhuman organisms which included the common human gut bacterium Escherichia coli, the fruit fly, and the laboratory mouse. This project was performed by United States of America, United Kingdom, France, German, Japan, and China and finished in 2000. People can benefit from the completely human genome data, such as it will provide a total new perspective for medicine and biotechnology. It also can help man to understand the law of individual development, the difference between human being and the mechanism of how diseases happen. In a word, Human Genome Project is one of the great projects in the world, the enormous genome data looks like an endless gold mine waiting to be dig.

by Shi Shunteng

Jack Bearskin

Looking at this image, you may start wondering what it is exactly: toilet rolls in a factory, the paper stock of a printing company or maybe even a magnified image of a piece of chalk ? Good guess but nothing of the above is true, this picture is an enlarged image of the pelt of a polar bear, made with an electronmicroscope. This 'photograph' tells us why we will never see a polar bear with chattering teeth: the hairs of the fur are hollow on the inside and thus the air will stay inside these cavities and prevent the warmth from escaping simply because air itself is a poor conductor of heat. That same air prevents the hairs of sticking together, so when the polar bear goes out for a swim, he will be able to simply shake the water of his back when he returns for a quick nap. The last benefit of this pelt is the fact that it serves as a natural raincoat because these hairs are covered with an oily like layer on top of them. So when you ask me which coat I'd like to wear when I'm crossing the Alps, you can expect: "Definitely a Jack Bearskin !"

A Mentos mint and a bottle of diet coke: a combination that reveals the importance of surface tension

Scientific research at home is not very difficult; just drop a Mentos mint in a bottle of diet coke to cause a giant eruption. This easy experiment illustrates perfectly a very important and daily physical phenomenon called surface tension: the surface of a liquid behaves like an elastic layer, caused by attractive forces (Vanderwaals forces) between molecules in the liquid phase. Surface tension is the reason why air bubbles constitute in our bottle of diet coke: water molecules cluster together to form a layer around the CO2 gas. After the candy has been thrown in the bottle, the Mentos mint will dissolve, disrupting the structured arrangement of the water molecules at the sides of the bubbles, by which the gas will expand. Similar effects can be seen if you boil potatoes or pasta: boiling over can be explained by the fact that the starch interrupts the structure of the water molecules around the gas bubbles in the boiling water, due to the surface tension. So a simple experiment of combining diet coke and mentos shows the importance of surface tension as a physical phenomenon.

A headache? Eat willow leaves!

How primitive this solution may sound, it really works. Even since the ancient Egypt people were aware of the pain stilling potential of willow leaves although they didn’t know the reason. In 1768 the English Reverend Edward Stone discovered the active ingredient and it was called salicylic acid. In 1897, after they were able to isolate and purify this potential drugs, Felix Hoffmann of the Bayer company was able to alter its chemical structure by acetylating the alcohol function to make acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) which enhanced the pain stilling capacity. The Bayer company called it Aspirin and ever since it is one of the most sold drugs in the world and every year over 40,000 tonnes of acetylsalicylic acid are consumed. So next time you feel an effect of the herb or the plant you are eating, think of the possibilities it has...

The importance of water to our bodies

“I am dying of thirst”. You just might. It is so simple but most of us know that our body is at least 75% water and our brain alone is close to 90%. We need water in our bodies more than we do food, that’s why the human body can go longer without food than it can this vital liquid. Let’s me give you some information how can you use the water in the best ways. You should drink at least 8 to 10 glasses, or more if you are an active individual, listen to your body if it needs more water. Carrying a bottle of water where ever you go and considering the quality of water to consume. There are much more to learn about water and its benefits. Always think that you choose only the healthy water for your family to achieve better health.

Duong Nguyen

Pineapple: Fruit or Poison?

Ananas comosus, or called pineapple, is a very popular plant which originate from southern part of Brazil and Paraguay, now growing up in the entire tropical zone on the earth. As a kind of fruit, pineapple contain plentiful vitamin and proteins which are good for health and scientist discovered pineapple can help people against apoptosis, heart disease, even cure cancer. It seems pineapple is a perfect fruit and I think most people have eaten fresh pineapple or pineapple juice before, but do you know some people could die only because he/she eat just one pineapple? Let’s see what happened: There is a special enzyme in pineapple called Bromelin which has a function of digesting proteins. The people who are supersensitive with pineapple lack of an enzyme on stomach which can defense Bromelin; so Bromelin will destroy their stomach wall and they will swoon or die within few hours. Don’t be afraid to eat pineapple! What you need to do is just put pineapple in saltwater for several minutes then all the Bromelin will be decomposed.

Zhou Siyu

The periodic table of Mendeljev: a card game?

The periodic table of elements, as every scientist will know, was arranged by the Russian Dmitri Mendeljev. This periodic table consists of chemical elements which are ordered; starting from the top left; with increasing atom mass and in addition the elements with the same chemical properties are placed together. This arrangement of the table of Mendeljev came to a stand because Mendeljev had written on a set of cards the chemical elements; the ones he knew, because not all atoms were yet discovered; with their important physical and chemical properties. He started to organise these cards and after three days and three nights he made a connection between the elements and his favourite card game patience; he played this game on long rail journeys. The aim of patience is ordering the cards in an increasing series, from ace to king and per colour. So what Mendeljev was looking for seemed to have the same pattern as his favourite card game, only in his table the elements were ordered according to their properties and with increasing atom mass.

The life of Sir Isaac Newton

Undoubtly one of the most influencing physicists of all time, not much is known about the social life of the genius Isaac Newton. It was said that his remarkable scientific contributions resulted from a mix of talent and character; Newton was the kind of person who would sit with a problem, missing meals without even noticing. However, his strange character did not make him an adorable man, in fact he was a bitter person who never laughed and preferred his own company; pictured by the way he wrote his masterpiece Principa in 2 years being completely separated from the world. One rather funny example of his eccentric behavior was the fact that he made a smaller hole in his door for his cat to enter next to the existing one when his cat had kittens. Newton hated criticism on his work, and discussions with other scientists often ended up in a rage towards his colleagues. Some historians believe that his behavior resulted from his troublesome childhood, but people from his time rather attributed this to Newton’s being intoxicated during his intensive alchemical experiments.

Ruben Dierick

The Large Hadron Collider: A blessing or a curse.

Once upon a time, there was a Big Bang that created the entire universe as we know it, starting from tiny subatomic particles wich then formed atoms wich then formed molecules wich then formed cells wich then formed humans who now will try to reproduce the Big Bang with the Large Hadron Collider.
The Large Hadron Collider is a huge machine that uses giant magnets to accelerate subatomic particles like protons to speeds close to the speed of light giving them a lot of energy. The LHC can then make two particles collide so hard that they shatter, creating the same subatomic particles wich were formed during the Big Bang.
The accelerator will help us understand more about many physical problems, predictions and mysteries such as forces, particles, possible extra dimensions and even black holes. And although these black holes might seem interesting to learn about, they are a major concern for many people who fear a doomsday scenario where a black hole formed by the LHC will absorb the entire planet or even the entire universe.
In the end, we will have to decide whether the LHC is a blessing for our knowledge or a curse for our existence.

Edward Jenner

Everyone is Edward Jenner, who is the inventor of the smallpox vaccine, very thankful, but who knows the unethical method he used to make this vaccine? Edward Jenner was a British doctor, who was very intrigued by the story that milkmaids, who caught cowpox, couldn’t get smallpox. Cowpox infects cows and can infect people, but the disease isn't very harmful for them. So, the doctor decided to take some moisture out of the bump of a milkmaid with cowpox and to inject this in the eight-year-old son of his gardener. The boy caught cowpox and recovered, but then Jenner injected him with the deadly smallpox. Luckily the boy was immune and Jenner became famous with his new vaccine.

Science in a world where your imagination is the only limit

You’ve got to love thought experiments because they succeed where other experiments fail by giving the answer to some of the strangest questions like ‘Can you power your sailing boat with your own breath?’ and ‘Can you reflect a bundle of light inside a room full of mirrors?’. One of the more famous thought experiments was the experiment of Galileo, an Italian scientist who lived in a time which still believed in Aristotle’s ideas about gravity.
Aristotle stated that when a heavy ball and a light ball were dropped at the same time, the heavy ball would reach the earth first, but Galileo didn’t agree, so he suggested a new experiment: why don’t we bind the two balls together and drop them simultaneously and think what could happen. According to Aristotle there where two options: either the lighter ball will slow down the heavier one and the two will hit the ground later then the heavy one or the combined weight of the two balls is more than the weight of the heavier one, so the combination will reach the ground first.
This paradox leads to a third possibility: the two balls hit the ground at the same time so Galileo concluded that all the objects on earth are falling with the same speed. He couldn’t prove it in real life but by doing the experiment in his thoughts, he tackled a problem that he couldn’t research with an experiment.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, am i not unique at all?

Cloning is an artificial way of reproduction at which an identical genetical copy of an organism is made. The procedure starts with the import of a DNA segment (which comes from a bacteria, a virus, a fungus, a plant or an animal) in a suitable carrier molecule, called a vector. The final step in the cloning process and this is also the main qualification for a good clone, is a stable multiplication of the DNA segment in a chosen host.

Cloning provides a hope for couples with infertility problems, because it increases the chance to success with an IVF procedure. It can also be used to make cells and tissues for transplantation, this technique is based on the isolation of cells from a patient followed by a controlled in vitro multiplication by making sure that the right anti genes are placed on the tissue. Although the use of cloning is still very limited because of the high risks, the sheep dolly surprized the world and became the first clone in 2003, which mammal will follow?

Cloning is an artificial way of reproduction in at which an identical genetical copy of an organism is made. The procedure starts with the import of a DNA segment (which comes from a bacteria, a virus, a fungus, a plant or an animal) in a suitable carrier molecule, called a vector. The final step in the cloning process and this is also the main qualification for a good clone, is a stable multiplication of the DNA segment in a chosen host.
Cloning provides a hope for couples with infertility problems either 'infertility' or 'fertility problems', because it increases the chance to of success success with an IVF procedure. It can also be used to make cells and tissues for transplantation, this technique is based on the isolation of cells from a patient followed by a controlled in vitro multiplication by making sure that the right anti genes are placed on the tissue. Although the use of cloning is still very limited because of the high risks, the sheep dolly surprized the world and became the first clone in 2003, which mammal will follow?

Clear single focus. Flow ok, mind some minor language issues (prepositions). ODP