Gregor Mendel..a homge to a genius: Father of Genetics

WHO WAS GREGOR MENDEL?

Gregor Johann MENDEL was an Austrian monk and biologist whose work on heredity became the basis of the modern theory of genetics.
Mendel was born on July 22, 1822 in Heizendorf, Austria, (now known as Hyncice in Czechoslovakia). He was born Johann Mendel into a poor farming family. At that time it was difficult for poor families to obtain a good education and the young Mendel saw the only way to escape a life of poverty was to enter the monastery at Brunn in Moravis, (now Brno in Czechoslovakia). Here he was given the name Gregor. This monastery was the Augustinian Order of St Thomas, a teaching order with a reputation as a centre of learning and scientific enquiry.
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MENDEL THE FAILURE
To enable him to further his education, the abbot arranged for Mendel to attend the University of Vienna to get a teaching diploma. However, Mendel did not perform well. He was nervous and the University did not consider him a clever student. Mendel's examiner failed him with the comments, " he lacks insight and the requisite clarity of knowledge". This must have been devastating to the young Mendel. who in 1853 had to return to the monastery as a failure. As this was a teaching order, Mendel had to decide whether to stay on at the monastery as a failed teacher - or return to what?
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WHAT TO DO NEXT?
While studying in Vienna, Mendel had been impressed by the work of a biologist called Frank Unger whose practical view of inheritance, free from spiritual influences, seemed to reflect his own farming background. This gave Mendel the idea to stay on at the monastery and use his time to carry out practical experiments in biology. He must have had to approach the abbot very carefully to ask to be allowed to do this, as the bishop refused to allow the monks to even teach biology.

After about two years Mendel began his investigation into variation, heredity and evolution in plants. He chose to study in detail the common garden pea, Pisum, which he grew in the monastery garden.
Between 1856 and 1863 Mendel patiently cultivated and tested at least 28 000 pea plants, carefully analysing seven pairs of seeds for comparison, such as shape of seed, colour of seed, tall stemmed and short stemmed and tall plants and short plants. Mendel worked on this for several years, carefully self-pollinating and wrapping each individual plant to prevent accidental pollination by insects. He collected the seeds produced by the plants and studied the offspring of these seeds observing that some plants bred true and others not. Mendel discovered that by crossing tall and short parent plants he got hybrid offspring that resembled the tall parent rather than being a medium height blend. He explained this conceived the concept of heredity units, now called genes. These often expressed dominant or recessive characteristics. He then worked out the pattern of inheritance of various traits and produced two generalisations that became known as the laws of heredity. Mendel's observations led him to coin two terms which are still used in present-day genetics:
* dominance for a trait that shows up in an offspring.
* recessiveness for a trait masked by a dominant gene.
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WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
In 1866 Mendel published his work on heredity in the Journal of the Brno Natural History Society. It had absolutely no impact. The complex and detailed work he had produced was not understood even by influential people in his field such as Karl Nageli. If Mendel had been a professional scientist he might have been able to project his work more extensively and perhaps publish his work abroad. He did make some attempt to contact scientists abroad by sending them reprints of his work but this was a uphill struggle for an unknown author writing in an unknown journal.

1868 two years after Mendel had produced his paper he was elected abbot of the monastery and his work lay unrecognised for about 34 years.

For much of the remainder of his life, Mendel devoted himself to the duties of the monastery. He did continue with some breeding experiments, this time with bees. A natural progression, as he had always wanted to transfer his experiments from plants to animals. Mendel successfully produced a hybrid strain of bees which produced excellent honey, however, they were so vicious they stung everybody around for miles and had to be destroyed. Some of Mendel's later experiments with the hawkweed Hieracium were inconclusive and the pressures of running the monastery took over so he ended his experiments by the 1870's.

During his time as abbot Mendel seems to have been more concerned with the financial running of the monastery rather than the religious side. It is suggested Mendel was seen as unreliable by the Emperor's Secret Police. It is likely the bishop and many in the monastery did not like what Mendel was doing, particularly his interest and enthusiasm for the work of such contemporaries as Charles Darwin.

When Mendel died in 1884 aged 62, the Czech composer Leos Janacek played the organ at his funeral.

The new abbot of the monastery burned all Mendel's papers.
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MENDEL RE-DISCOVERED
In 1900 Mendel's work was at last recognised by three independent investigators. One of these being the Dutch botanist, Hugo De Vries. But it was still not until the early 1920s and early 1930s that the full significance of his work was recognised particularly in relation to evolutionary theory. As a result of years of research in population genetics, investigators were able to demonstrate that the Darwinian theory of evolution could be described in terms of the change in gene frequency of Mendelian pairs of characteristics in a population over successive generations.






  
Gregor Mendel

Captain Lakshmi and the Rani of Jhansi Regiment.

The Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the Women's Regiment of the Indian National Army, the armed force formed by Indian nationalists in 1942 in Southeast Asia with the aim of overthrowing the British Raj in colonial India, with Japanese assistance. Led by Capt Lakshmi Swaminathan, the unit was raised in July 1943 with volunteers from the expatriate Indian population in South East Asia.

Captain Lakshmi is still alive and my mothers cousin sisters daughter.

Sahgal was born as Lakshmi Swaminathan, daughter of Dr S. Swaminathan, a leading lawyer practising Criminal Law at Madras High Court. Her mother was A.V. Ammukutty, better known as Ammu Swaminathan, a social worker and freedom fighter and hailed from the famous Vadakkath family of Anakkara in Palghat, Kerala. A.V. Kutty Malu Amma was another well known freedom fighter from the same family.

Ms.A.V.Lakshmi Sehgal 

Discovery of the Microscope.

Birth of the Light Microscope

About 1590, two Dutch spectacle makers, Zaccharias Janssen and his son Hans, while experimenting with several lenses in a tube, discovered that nearby objects appeared greatly enlarged. That was the forerunner of the compound microscope and of the telescope. In 1609, Galileo, father of modern physics and astronomy, heard of these early experiments, worked out the principles of lenses, and made a much better instrument with a focusing device.
Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723)
The father of microscopy, Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Holland, started as an apprentice in a dry goods store where magnifying glasses were used to count the threads in cloth. He taught himself new methods for grinding and polishing tiny lenses of great curvature which gave magnifications up to 270 diameters, the finest known at that time. These led to the building of his microscopes and the biological discoveries for which he is famous. He was the first to see and describe bacteria, yeast plants, the teeming life in a drop of water, and the circulation of blood corpuscles in capillaries. During a long life he used his lenses to make pioneer studies on an extraordinary variety of things, both living and non living, and reported his findings in over a hundred letters to the Royal Society of England and the French Academy.

Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke, the English father of microscopy, re-confirmed Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discoveries of the existence of tiny living organisms in a drop of water. Hooke made a copy of Leeuwenhoek's light microscope and then improved upon his design.
R.Hooke also gave the name CELL to a basic unit of all living organisms, after seeing empty spaces is a slice of cork

Charles A. Spencer
Later, few major improvements were made until the middle of the 19th century. Then several European countries began to manufacture fine optical equipment but none finer than the marvelous instruments built by the American, Charles A. Spencer, and the industry he founded. Present day instruments, changed but little, give magnifications up to 1250 diameters with ordinary light and up to 5000 with blue light.

April Fools Day

Unlike most of the other nonfoolish holidays, the history of April Fool's Day, sometimes called All Fool's Day, is not totally clear. It is not like Halloween, where despite an interesting history, most people just put on Halloween costumes, get candy, and leave it at that. There really wasn't a "first April Fool's Day" that can be pinpointed on the calendar. Some believe it sort of evolved simultaneously in several cultures at the same time, from celebrations involving the first day of spring.
The closest point in time that can be identified as the beginning of this tradition was in 1582, in France. Prior to that year, the new year was celebrated for eight days, beginning on March 25. The celebration culminated on April 1. With the reform of the calendar under Charles IX, the Gregorian Calendar was introduced, and New Year's Day was moved to January 1.
 However, communications being what they were in the days when news traveled by foot, many people did not receive the news for several years. Others, the more obstinate crowd, refused to accept the new calendar and continued to celebrate the new year on April 1. These backward folk were labeled as "fools" by the general populace. They were subject to some ridicule, and were often sent on "fools errands" or were made the butt of other practical jokes.
This harassment evolved, over time, into a tradition of prank-playing on the first day of April. The tradition eventually spread to England and Scotland in the eighteenth century. It was later introduced to the American colonies of both the English and French. April Fool's Day thus developed into an international fun fest, so to speak, with different nationalities specializing in their own brand of humor at the expense of their friends and families.
In Scotland, for example, April Fool's Day is actually celebrated for two days. The second day is devoted to pranks involving the posterior region of the body. It is called Taily Day. The origin of the "kick me" sign can be traced to this observance.
Mexico's counterpart of April Fool's Day is actually observed on December 28. Originally, the day was a sad remembrance of the slaughter of the innocent children by King Herod. It eventually evolved into a lighter commemoration involving pranks and trickery.
Pranks performed on April Fool's Day range from the simple, (such as saying, "Your shoe's untied, or I accidentally stepped on your glasses!), to the elaborate. Setting a roommate's alarm clock back an hour is a common gag. Whatever the prank, the trickster usually ends it by yelling to his victim, "April Fool!"
Practical jokes are a common practice on April Fool's Day. Sometimes, elaborate practical jokes are played on friends or relatives that last the entire day. The news media even gets involved. For instance, a British short film once shown on April Fool's Day was a fairly detailed documentary about "spaghetti farmers" and how they harvest their crop from the spaghetti trees.
April Fool's Day is a "for-fun-only" observance. Nobody is expected to buy gifts or to take their "significant other" out to eat in a fancy restaurant. Nobody gets off work or school. It's simply a fun little holiday, but a holiday on which one must remain forever vigilant, for he may be the next April Fool!

Did you know? I did not.

Did you know?
If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food on the right side of your mouth. If you are left handed, you will tend to chew your food on the left side of your mouth.

To make half a kilo of honey, bees must collect nectar from over 2 million individual flowers

Heroin is the brand name of morphine once marketed by 'Bayer'.

Communications giant Nokia was founded in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill by Fredrik Idestam.

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult!

People in nudist colonies play volleyball more than any other sport.

Albert Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952, but he declined.

Astronauts can't belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.

Ancient Roman, Chinese and German societies often used urine as mouthwash.

The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. In the Renaissance era, it was fashion to shave them off!

Because of the speed at which Earth moves around the Sun, it is impossible for a solar eclipse to last more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds.

The night of January 20 is "Saint Agnes's Eve", which is regarded as a time when a young woman dreams of her future husband.

There are over 25 million bubbles waiting to burst out of each bottle of Champagne

Google is actually the common name for a number with a million zeros

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times!

The heat of peppers is rated on the Scoville scale

Gold is the only metal that doesn't rust, even if it's buried in the ground for thousands of years

Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end

If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water. When a human body is dehydrated, its thirst  mechanism shuts off.

Each year 2,000,000 smokers either quit smoking or die of tobacco-related diseases.

When it originally appeared in 1886 - Coca Cola was billed as an Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage.

Zero is the only number that cannot be represented by Roman numerals

Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.

The song, Auld Lang Syne, is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year.

For every real Christmas tree harvested, two to three seedlings are planted in its place.

Drinking water after eating reduces the acid in your mouth by 61 percent

Peanut oil is used for cooking in submarines because it doesn't smoke unless it's heated above 450°F

The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop in London that sold seashells

The roar that we hear when we place a seashell next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.

Nine out of every 10 living things live in the ocean

The banana cannot reproduce itself. It can be propagated only by the hand of man

Airports at higher altitudes require a longer airstrip due to lower air density

Fish and Chip selling officially remained an offensive trade until 1940 due to the smell it produces

The University of Alaska spans four time zones

The tooth is the only part of the human body that cannot heal itself.

In ancient Greece , tossing an apple to a girl was a traditional proposal of marriage. Catching it meant she accepted.

Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are: Mizaru(See no evil), Mikazaru(Hear no evil) , and Mazaru(Speak no evil).

Warner Communications paid $28 million for the copyright to the song Happy Birthday.

Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

A comet's tail always points away from the sun

The Swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused more death and illness than the disease it was intended to prevent

Caffeine increases the power of aspirin and other pain killer’s, that is why it is found in some medicines.

The military salute is a motion that evolved from medieval times, when knights in armor raised their visors to reveal their identity.

If you get into the bottom of a well or a tall chimney and look up, you can see stars, even in the middle of the day.

When a person dies, hearing is the last sense to go. The first sense lost is sight.

Trivia in Roman mythology was the goddess who haunted crossroads, graveyards and was the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft. She wandered about at night, and was seen only by the barking of dogs who told of her approach.

In ancient times strangers shook hands to show that they were unarmed

Strawberries are the only fruits whose seeds grow on the outside

Avocados have the highest calories of any fruit at 167 calories per hundred grams

The moon moves about two inches away from the Earth each year

The Earth gets 100 tons heavier every day due to falling space dust

Due to earth's gravity it is impossible for mountains to be higher than 15,000 meters

Men's shirts have the buttons on the right, but women's shirts have the buttons on the left

Robert Koch..Father of bacteriology.Discovered the TB bacillus

ROBERT KOCH
Born Dec. 11, 1843, Clausthal, Hannover — died May 27, 1910, Baden-Baden, Ger.) German physician. As the first to isolate the anthrax bacillus, observe its life cycle, and develop a preventive inoculation for it, he was the first to prove a causal relationship between a bacillus and a disease. He perfected pure-culture techniques, based on Louis Pasteur's concept. He isolated the tuberculosis organism and established its role in the disease (1882). In 1883 he discovered the causal organism for cholera and how it is transmitted and also developed a vaccination for rinderpest. Koch's postulates remain fundamental to pathology: the organism should always be found in sick animals and never in healthy ones; it must be grown in pure culture; the cultured organism must make a healthy animal sick; and it must be reisolated from the newly sick animal and recultured and still be the same. Awarded a Nobel Prize in 1905, he is considered a founder of bacteriology.

Amazon

Amazon

This 1.7 billion-acre jungle makes up more than half of the rainforests remaining on the planet. The Amazon is situated in nine countries: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

Weird Trivial Facts

In July 1981, a tortoise was sentenced to death for murder. Tribal leaders in an eastern Kenyan village formally condemned the tortoise because they suspected it of causing the deaths of six people by magic. However, because none of the villagers was prepared to face the tortoise's wrath by carrying out the execution, it was chained to a tree instead. The tortoise was later freed after the government promised an inquiry into the six deaths.

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After the death of her husband, poet Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein) kept his heart wrapped up in silk until she died.

A record for the longest spaceflight.

1995 – Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov of the Soyuz programme returned from the Mir space station after 437 days in space, setting a record for the longest spaceflight.

The wisdom of Birbal

The wisdom of Birbal was unparalleled during the reign of Mughal Emperor
Akbar in India.
But Akbar's brother in law was extremely jealous of him. He asked the Emperor
Akbar to dispense with Birbal's services and appoint him in his place. He gave ample assurance that he would prove to be more efficient and capable than Birbal.
Before Emperor Akbar could take a decision on this matter, this news reached Birbal. Birbal resigned and left. Emperor Akbar's brother in law was made the minister in place of Birbal.
Emperor Akbar decided to test the new minister. He gave three hundred gold coins to him and said, "Spend these gold coins such that, I get a hundred gold coins here in this life; a hundred gold coins in the other world and another hundred gold coins neither here nor there."
The minister found the entire situation to be a maze of confusion and hopelessness.He spent sleepless nights worrying over how he would get himself out of this mess. Thinking in circles was making him go crazy. Eventually, on the advice of his wife he sought Birbal's help. Birbal said, "Just give me the gold coins. I shall handle the rest."
Birbal walked the streets of the city holding the bag of gold coins in his hand.
He noticed a rich merchant celebrating his son's wedding. Birbal gave a hundred gold coins to him and bowed courteously saying, "The Emperor Akbar sends you his good wishes and blessings for the wedding of your son. Please accept the gift he has sent."
The merchant felt honored that the Emperor had sent a special messenger with such a precious gift. He honored Birbal and gave him a large number of expensive gifts and a bag of gold coins as a return gift for the Emperor.
Next, Birbal went to the area of the city were the poor people lived. There he bought food and clothing in exchange for a hundred gold coins and distributed them in the name of the Emperor Akbar.
When he came back to town he organized a concert of music and dance. He spent a hundred gold coins on it.The next day Birbal entered Emperor Akbar's court and announced that he had done all that the Emperor had asked his brother-in-law to do. The Emperor Akbar waited to know how he had done it.
Birbal repeated the sequences of all the events and then said, "The money I gave to the merchant for the wedding of his son - you have got back while you are on this earth. The money I spent on buying food and clothing for the poor - you will get it in the other world. The money I spent on the musical concert - you will get neither here nor there."
Moral:
This is true even today. The money you spend on friends is returned or reciprocated in some form or the other.Money spent on charity gets converted into blessings from The Almighty which becomes your eternal property.Money spent on pleasures is just frittered away and in return you will be held responsible for wasting in the hereafter!

Significance of Holi

Significance of Holi

In spite of being such a colourful and gay festival, there are various aspects of Holi which makes it so significant for our lives. Though they might not be so apparent but a closer look and a little thought will reveal the significance of Holi in more ways than meets the eyes. Ranging from socio-cultural, religious to biological there is every reason why we must heartily enjoy the festival and cherish the reasons for its celebrations.


So when, its time for Holi, please don't hold yourself back and enjoy the festival to the hilt by participating with full enthusiasm in every small tradition related to the festival.

Mythological Significance


Holi gets us close to our religion and our mythology as it is essentially the celebration of various legends associated with the festival.


Foremost is the legend of Prahlad and Hiranyakshyap. The legend says there once lived a devil and powerful king, Hiranyakshyap who considered himself a god and wanted everybody to worship him. To his great ire, his son, Prahlad began to worship, Lord Vishnu. To get rid of his son, Hiranyakshyap asked his sister, Holika to enter a blazing fire with Prahlad in her lap, as she had a boon to enter fire unscathed. Legend has it that Prahlad was saved for his extreme devotion for the lord while Holika paid a price for her sinister desire. The tradition of burning Holika or the 'Holika dahan' comes mainly from this legend.

Holi also celebrates the legend of Radha and Krishna which describes the extreme delight, Krishna took in applying colour on Radha and other gopis. This prank of Krishna later, became a trend and a part of the Holi festivities.


Mythology also states that Holi is the celebration of death of Ogress Pootana who tried to kill infant, Krishna by feeding poisonous milk to it.


Another legend of Holi which is extremely popular in Southern India is that of Lord Shiva and Kaamadeva. According to the legend, people in south celebrate the sacrifice of Lord of Passion Kaamadeva who risked his life to revoke Lord Shiva from meditation and save the world.






Also, popular is the legend of Ogress Dhundhi who used to trouble children in the kingdom of Raghu and was ultimately chased away by the pranks of the children on the day of Holi. Showing their belief in the legend, children till date play pranks and hurl abuses at the time of Holika Dahan.

Sportsmanship

Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake, with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. Being a "good sport" involves being a "good winner" as well as being a "good loser".

Sportsmanship typically is regarded as a component of morality in sport, composed of three related and perhaps overlapping concepts: fair play, sportsmanship and character. Fair play refers to all participants having an equitable chance to pursue victory and acting toward others in an honest, straightforward, and a firm and dignified manner even when others do not play fairly. It includes respect for others including team members, opponents, and officials. Character refers to dispositions, values and habits that determine the way that person normally responds to desires, fears, challenges, opportunities, failures and successes and is typically seen in polite behaviors toward others such as helping an opponent up or shaking hands after a match. An individual is believed to have a “good character” when those dispositions and habits reflect core ethical values. An example of poor sportsmanship is exemplified in a team's calling timeouts to run up the score on an opponent when the former team already has a sizeable lead.

Sportsmanship can be conceptualized as an enduring and relatively stable characteristic or disposition such that individuals differ in the way they are generally expected to behave in sport situations. In general, sportsmanship refers to virtues such as fairness, self-control, courage and persistence and has been associated with interpersonal concepts of treating others and being treated fairly, maintaining self-control in dealing with others, and respect for both authority and opponents.

A competitor who exhibits poor sportsmanship after losing a game or contest is often called a "sore loser" (those who show poor sportsmanship after winning are typically called "bad winners"). Behavior includes blaming others, not taking responsibility for personal actions, reacting immaturely or improperly, making excuses for their loss, referring to unfavorable conditions or other petty issues. A bad winner is when the victor of a game acts in a shallow fashion such as gloating about their win or rubbing it in the face of the one who lost.

In pictures: Japan earthquake and tsunami

In pictures: Japan earthquake and tsunamiFrom Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Friday, March 18, 2011
A week ago today, at 2:46 pm JST, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of the Tōhoku region in Japan. The earthquake created an extremely destructive tsunami that spawned 10 metre (33 ft) high waves just moments later. The tsunami travelled 10 km (6 mi) inland causing massive destruction in the country's northeast, including crippling a nuclear plant.
The earthquake and resulting tsunami have left 5,692 dead and over 9,506 missing, with nearly 450,000 homeless. The death toll is expected to rise.
In this special photoessay, Wikinews looks at the earthquake and tsunami, the destruction that resulted and efforts to bring aid to the Japanese people.



An Australian Pelican

An Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) in flight. This species of pelican can be found on the inland and coastal waters of Australia and New Guinea, also in Fiji, parts of Indonesia and as a vagrant to New Zealand. At about 1.7 m (5.6 ft) in length and with a wingspan of about 2.4 m (7.9 ft), it is medium-sized by pelican standards, but has the largest beak of any bird; the largest one on record was 49 cm (19 in) long. Widespread throughout its large range, the Australian Pelican is evaluated as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Nuclear Reactions.

What is nuclear radiation?
Radiation can damage cells and the DNA inside them through its ionizing effect. This effect happens when a high-energy carrying particle or photon removes an electron within an atom’s nucleus from its orbit, thereby changing the properties of the atom. If enough ionization occurs DNA, cell and tissue damage result.

A common example is sunburn, caused by its ultraviolet light. Mutations can result, such as melanoma and other cancers. Of course ionizing effects from nuclear radiation from radioactive materials can do the same thing.

X-rays, gamma rays and far ultraviolet light are always ionizing. Near ultraviolet light and visible light are only ionizing to some molecules. Radio waves and microwaves do not have any ionizing effect.

Beneficial effects of nuclear radiation

•Medicinal, such as radio therapy for cancers and X-rays


•Dating purposes (no, this not where you nuke a ‘toxic’ date)


•Level indicators and thickness gauges


•In smoke detectors and


•In tracing locations of gas or liquid leaks or


•Tracing locations of malfunctioning in the body such as a blocked kidney


•Sterilisation of medical instruments or bacteria or moulds in foods

These, and other such applications,involve low levels of radioactive compounds. However repeated exposure to X-rays is hazardous to your health because of the ionising effects of nuclear radiation.

How long does nuclear radiation last?


All radioactive substances decay over time. Some take fractions of seconds, others many thousands of years.

In theory all radio active substances stay slightly radio active and are never completely inert. That’s why it is more appropriate to use the ‘half-life’ of a radio active substance to indicate its level of radio activity. Its half life is the time it takes for its radio activity to fall by half.

For example, if the radioactivity of a radioactive substance fell by half every two years, its half life would be two years. You notice that it takes much longer for its radio activity to fall to very low levels and that after six years it would have dropped to one-eight of its radio activity.


At every step of its decay the radio active substance transforms into another substance as the composition of the nuclei in its atoms changes.


The half-life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years. That means that within that time half of the remaining uranium 238 will have decayed.


Are there any remedies for nuclear radiation effects?

In nuclear bomb explosions or nuclear reactor accidents radio active iodine can be dispersed over wide geographic areas. In the case of the Chernobyl accident it was, as far as 500 km. We do not know what the extent of radiation in the Japanese nuclear disaster may be yet but effects may also be global. Thyroid cancer is one result of such radiation.

There is a way to avoid this toxicity but it has to be done before exposure to the radioactive nuclear radiation product iodine. Taking potassium iodide (KI) or potassium iodate (KIO3) will saturate the thyroid gland with the safe and stable iodine, contained in these chemicals. This leaves no room for the radioactive iodine to be taken up in the thyroid. Therefore any ingested or inhaled iodine is rapidly eliminated via the kidneys.

Of course KI or KIO3 tablets offer no protection against other radio active elements nor from external radiation..

Nuclear radiation - a risk?

Given that there are some 440 nuclear reactors worldwide you’d expect the risk of radiation to be high. However, the only major nuclear accident that saw radiation escape over large areas has to date been Chernobyl.
We hope the 2011 Japanese nuclear situation will not be added.

A limited number of people died in the Chernobyl event and there are various estimates of how many people will be affected over the long term. It should be pointed out that the Chernobyl plant lacked a protective housing, unlike almost all other nuclear reactors and that the shut-down procedures followed were contra-indicated.


Then the Japanese reactors did have such housing but it was not enough to shield the plants from them blowing up, as a result of multiple factors going wrong, notably the tsunami that killed off energy supply to cooling the reactor core.

Distinguished scientist James Lovelock, author of The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity and other books, holds that every person on Earth has radioactive elements in their bodies from past nuclear bomb tests.

However he also holds that cancer rates have not demonstrably risen as a result. According to him the risks of nuclear energy are minimal and outweigh the risks posed by global warming by the use of fossil fuels.

Of course others vehemently disagree. Obviously one serious accident is too many, like the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and its effects on nuclear reactors there show. As well, each nuclear bomb and depleted uranium-tipped missile is one too many.

GOD IS GETTING BETTER.

A little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap as he read her a
bedtime story.
From time to time she would take her eyes off the book and reach up to
touch his wrinkled cheek. She was alternately stroking her own cheek,
then his again. Finally she spoke up, “Grandpa, did God make you?”
“Yes, sweetheart,” he answered, “God made me a long time ago.”
“Oh, she paused, “Grandpa, did God make me too?”
“Yes indeed, honey,” he said, “God made you just a little while ago.”
Feeling their respective faces again, she observed, “God’s getting better at it, isn’t He?”

A Few Interesting facts about the English language

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ReplyReply AllMove...EMedicine casesEnglish WordsHotmail_MailMasonarypersonalPersonal Flag this messageFw: Thought you knew everything?Tuesday, 15 March, 2011 4:54 PMFrom: This sender is DomainKeys verified"m.p.krishna das" View contact detailsTo: "rama layam" , "Rajan kozhipurath" , "Sreedhar Menon" , "sreevalsan valsan" , "gopal Krishnan" , "jai nambiar" , "durga mp prabhakar" , "ambika subash" , "padmini narayanan" ... more



--- On Sat, 12/3/11, p balakrishnan wrote:





From: p balakrishnan

Subject: Fw: Thought you knew everything?

To: "m.p.krishna das"

Date: Saturday, 12 March, 2011, 6:57 AM













----- Forwarded Message ----

From: ramadas elayedath

To: pkmohankumar@gmail.com; leela1932@yahoo.com; anandm64@hotmail.com; srija sethunath ; sudhanm2007@gmail.com; sudhir babu ; balpkrishnan@yahoo.com; menon_mumbai@yahoo.com; menoneg@gmail.com; ambika_menon711@hotmail.com; akssree@gmail.com; nandini_menon@oxy.com

Sent: Fri, 11 March, 2011 7:05:30 PM

Subject: Thought you knew everything?



Thought you knew everything?
1)Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
2)And 'lollipop' is the longest word typed with your right hand.

3)No word in the English language rhymes with  month, orange, silver, or purple.

4)' Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'.
5)Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
6) The sentence: 'The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'

uses every letter of the alphabet.
7) The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
8) There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous': tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
9)There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: 'abstemious' and 'facetious.'
10)TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
11)A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
12)A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
13)A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
14)A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
15)A snail can sleep for three years.
16)Almonds are a member of the peach family.
17)An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
18)Babies are born without kneecaps.They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

19)February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
20)In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
21)If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

22)Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors
23)Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite!
24)Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
25)he average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
26)The cruise liner, QE 2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

27)The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
28)The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid .
29)There are more chickens than people in the world than men.




























































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Who Invented the Computer Mouse?

Who Invented the Computer Mouse?

Have you ever wondered who invented the computer mouse? Here we talk about the history of the computer mouse. The first computer mouse was invented in 1963-64 by a man named Douglas Engelbartas. At the time, Douglas was experimenting with better ways to point and click on a display screen.

The first mouse was bulky, carved out of wood, and only had one button. It worked with two metal wheels which made contact with the working surface. He named it a computer mouse because the cord came out from behind it, resembling a mouse.

Then in 1972 the ball-mouse was invented by a man named Bill English. The ball-mouse was better than the older computer mouse that was invented before, because it contained a single ball instead of the two metal wheels. This ball could rotate in any direction.

Hopefully you have learned something about the history of the computer mouse.

Courage is not the absence of fear -

Courage is not the absence of fear -
it's inspiring others to move beyond it.
Nelson Mandela…Leadership lesson
In 1994, during the presidential-election campaign, Mandela got on a tiny propeller plane to fly down to the killing fields of Natal and give a speech to his Zulu supporters. I agreed to meet him at the airport, where we would continue our work after his speech. When the plane was 20 minutes from landing, one of its engines failed. Some on the plane began to panic. The only thing that calmed them was looking at Mandela, who quietly read his newspaper as if he were a commuter on his morning train to the office. The airport prepared for an emergency landing, and the pilot managed to land the plane safely. When Mandela and I got in the backseat of his bulletproof BMW that would take us to the rally, he turned to me and said, "Man, I was terrified up there!"


Mandela was often afraid during his time underground, during the Rivonia trial that led to his imprisonment, during his time on Robben Island. "Of course I was afraid!" he would tell me later. It would have been irrational, he suggested, not to be. "I can't pretend that I'm brave and that I can beat the whole world." But as a leader, you cannot let people know. "You must put up a front."
And that's precisely what he learned to do: pretend and, through the act of appearing fearless, inspire others. It was a pantomime Mandela perfected on Robben Island, where there was much to fear. Prisoners who were with him said watching Mandela walk across the courtyard, upright and proud, was enough to keep them going for days. He knew that he was a model for others, and that gave him the strength to triumph over his own fear.
General Knowledge:






Name Famous for No 10, Downing Street
Official residence of the British Prime Minister.
Abadan(Iran)
Famous for oil refinery
Buckingham Palace
London residence of the British monarch.
Sodom
In Israel, the lowest point on earth.
Potala
Dalai Lama's palace at Lhasa (Tibet).
Osaka (Japan)
Known as the Manchester of Japan. It is sometimes called the Venice of Japan.

What are the hardest words to translate into English?

What are the hardest words to translate into English? “Hyggelig” is just one on our list
March 8, 2011 65 Comments Share There’s a running debate among translators about what word is hardest to translate. Obviously, the challenges vary from language to language, with languages that have less in common creating more elusive word to word translations. Let’s acknowledge that determining the hardest word to translate is more of a game than any sort of realistic exercise. That said, here are a few contenders that make the hypothetical list.

Jayus is an Indonesian word that conveys the awkward humor behind a joke delivered so badly that you can’t help but laugh. In English, we sarcastically say, “That’s so funny I forgot to laugh.”

Tartle is a Scottish word for the hesitation one feels when introducing people but having forgotten someone’s name.

Prozvonit is a Czech word for “dropped call” but it refers to a mobile phone user who calls, lets the phone ring once then hangs up. The person who was called then dials the caller, saving the caller the cost of the call.

Saudade is a Portuguese word for longing for someone or something that someone has loved and lost. It is stronger than the sense of the English nostalgia.

(A Spanish word, duende, is considered difficult for similar reasons. Learn the exact story, here.)

Cafune is a Brazilian Portuguese verb for running your fingers through someone’s hair tenderly.

The Danish word Hyggelig literally translates as “cozy,” but the modern connotation has more to do with how Danes see themselves.

One of the hardest English words to translate into other tongues is gobbledygook, meaning “jargon-filled language that is difficult to read, maybe intentionally confusing.” It’s based on the onomatopoeic sound of a turkey’s gobble. Given the confusion that language learning students face when deciphering new words that would be a handy word to have available to describe what a poor translation looks like.

Shampoos

History:The word shampoo in English is derived from Hindi chāmpo (चाँपो [tʃãːpoː]),[1] and dates to 1762.[2] The Hindi word referred to head massage, usually with some form of hair oil.[3] Similar words also occur in other North Indian languages. The word and the service of head massage were introduced to Britain by a Bengali entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed. Dean Mahomed introduced the practice to Basil Cochrane's vapour baths while working there in London in the early 19th century, and later, together with his Irish wife, opened "Mahomed's Steam and Vapour Sea Water Medicated Baths" in Brighton, England. His baths were like Turkish baths where clients received an Indian treatment of champi (shampooing), meaning therapeutic massage. He was appointed ‘Shampooing Surgeon’ to both George IV and William IV.[4]


During the early stages of shampoo, English hair stylists boiled shaved soap in water and added herbs to give the hair shine and fragrance. Kasey Hebert was the first known maker of shampoo, and the origin is currently attributed to him. Commercially made shampoo was available from the turn of the 20th century. A 1914 ad for Canthrox Shampoo in American Magazine showed young women at camp washing their hair with Canthrox in a lake; magazine ads in 1914 by Rexall featured Harmony Hair Beautifier and Shampoo.


Originally, soap and shampoo were very similar products; both containing the same naturally-derived surfactants, a type of detergent. Modern shampoo as it is known today was first introduced in the 1930s with Drene, the first shampoo with synthetic surfactants.

CompositionShampoo is generally made by combining a surfactant, most often sodium lauryl sulfate and/or sodium laureth sulfate with a co-surfactant, most often cocamidopropyl betaine in water to form a thick, viscous liquid. Other essential ingredients include salt (sodium chloride), which is used to adjust the viscosity, a preservative and fragrance.Other ingredients are generally included in shampoo formulations to maximize the following qualities:

Pleasing foam


Easy rinsing


Minimal skin/eye irritation


Feels thick and/or creamy


Pleasant fragrance


Low toxicity


Good biodegradability


Slightly acidic (pH less than 7), since a basic environment weakens the hair by breaking the disulfide bonds in hair keratin.


No damage to hair


Many shampoos are pearlescent. This effect is achieved by addition of tiny flakes of suitable materials, e.g. glycol distearate, chemically derived from stearic acid, which may have either animal or vegetable origins. Glycol distearate is a wax. Many shampoos also include silicone to provide conditioning benefits.






Commonly used ingredientsAmmonium chloride


Ammonium lauryl sulfate


Glycol


Sodium laureth sulfate is derived from coconut oils and is used to soften water and create a lather. There was some concern over this particular ingredient circa 1998 about this chemical being a carcinogen, but that has been disproved.


Sodium lauryl sulfate


Sodium Lauroamphoacetate is naturally derived from coconut oils and is used as a cleanser and counter-irritant. This is the ingredient that makes the product tear-free.


Polysorbate 20 is a mild surfactant that is used to solubilize fragrance oils and essential oils; meaning it causes liquid to spread across and penetrate the surface of a solid (i.e. your hair).


Polysorbate 80 (or Glycol) is used to emulsify (or disperse) oils in water (so the oils don’t float on top like Italian salad dressing).


PEG-150 Distearate is a simple thickener.


Citric Acid is naturally derived from citrus fruits and is used as an antioxidant to preserve the oils in the product. While it is a severe eye-irritant, the Sodium Lauroamphoacetate counteracts that property. Citric acid is used to adjust the pH down to approximately 5.5. It is a fairly weak acid which makes the adjustment easier. Shampoos usually are at pH 5.5 because at slightly acidic pH the scales on a hair follicle lay flat making the hair feel smooth and look shiny. it also has a small amount of preservative action. Citric acid as opposed to any other acid will prevent bacterial growth.


Quaternium-15 is used as a bacterial/fungicidal preservative.


Polyquaternium-10 is a totally different chemical than Quaternium-15. This chemical acts as the conditioning ingredient, providing moisture and fullness to the hair.


Di-PPG-2 myreth-10 adipate is a water-dispersible emollient that forms clear solutions with surfactant systems


Vitamins and amino acidsThe effectiveness of vitamins, amino acids and "pro-vitamins" to shampoo is also largely debatable. Vitamins are substances that are essential for chemical processes that occur within the body, chiefly inside living cells and in the bloodstream. They cannot have the same beneficial effects on dead tissues like grown hair. However, the physical properties of some vitamins (like vitamin E oil or panthenol) would have a temporary cosmetic effect on the hair shaft while not having any bioactivity.

The proteins that make up the strand are chains of amino acids connected in very specific sequences, and are tightly packed in interlocking arrangements. Proteins are unable to penetrate the skin or the hair, and even if they stick to the outside of the hair they will not help strengthen it. Amino acids cannot penetrate cells through the skin, either; they may be able to enter the dead strands, but without the complex protein-building machinery of the living cells they will not actually return damaged hair proteins to their undamaged state

Shampoos

HistoryThe word shampoo in English is derived from Hindi chāmpo (चाँपो [tʃãːpoː]), and dates to 1762. The Hindi word referred to head massage, usually with some form of hair oil Similar words also occur in other North Indian languages. The word and the service of head massage were introduced to Britain by a Bengali entrepreneur Sake Dean Mahomed. Dean Mahomed introduced the practice to Basil Cochrane's vapour baths while working there in London in the early 19th century, and later, together with his Irish wife, opened "Mahomed's Steam and Vapour Sea Water Medicated Baths" in Brighton, England. His baths were like Turkish baths where clients received an Indian treatment of champi (shampooing), meaning therapeutic massage. He was appointed ‘Shampooing Surgeon’ to both George IV and William IV.

In the 1860s, the meaning of the word shifted from the sense of massage to that of applying soap to the hair.[5] Earlier, ordinary soap had been used for washing hair.[6] However, the dull film soap left on the hair made it uncomfortable, irritating, and unhealthy looking.

During the early stages of shampoo, English hair stylists boiled shaved soap in water and added herbs to give the hair shine and fragrance. Kasey Hebert was the first known maker of shampoo, and the origin is currently attributed to him. Commercially made shampoo was available from the turn of the 20th century. A 1914 ad for Canthrox Shampoo in American Magazine showed young women at camp washing their hair with Canthrox in a lake; magazine ads in 1914 by Rexall featured Harmony Hair Beautifier and Shampoo.

Originally, soap and shampoo were very similar products; both containing the same naturally-derived surfactants, a type of detergent. Modern shampoo as it is known today was first introduced in the 1930s with Drene, the first shampoo with synthetic surfactants.

CompositionShampoo is generally made by combining a surfactant, most often sodium lauryl sulfate and/or sodium laureth sulfate with a co-surfactant, most often cocamidopropyl betaine in water to form a thick, viscous liquid. Other essential ingredients include salt (sodium chloride), which is used to adjust the viscosity, a preservative and fragrance.[9] Other ingredients are generally included in shampoo formulations to maximize the following qualities:

Pleasing foam


Easy rinsing


Minimal skin/eye irritation


Feels thick and/or creamy


Pleasant fragrance


Low toxicity


Good biodegradability


Slightly acidic (pH less than 7), since a basic environment weakens the hair by breaking the disulfide bonds in hair keratin.


No damage to hair


Many shampoos are pearlescent. This effect is achieved by addition of tiny flakes of suitable materials, e.g. glycol distearate, chemically derived from stearic acid, which may have either animal or vegetable origins. Glycol distearate is a wax. Many shampoos also include silicone to provide conditioning benefits.

Commonly used ingredientsAmmonium chloride


Ammonium lauryl sulfate


Glycol


Sodium laureth sulfate is derived from coconut oils and is used to soften water and create a lather. There was some concern over this particular ingredient circa 1998 about this chemical being a carcinogen, but that has been disproved.


Sodium lauryl sulfate


Sodium Lauroamphoacetate is naturally derived from coconut oils and is used as a cleanser and counter-irritant. This is the ingredient that makes the product tear-free.


Polysorbate 20 is a mild surfactant that is used to solubilize fragrance oils and essential oils; meaning it causes liquid to spread across and penetrate the surface of a solid (i.e. your hair).


Polysorbate 80 (or Glycol) is used to emulsify (or disperse) oils in water (so the oils don’t float on top like Italian salad dressing).


PEG-150 Distearate is a simple thickener.


Citric Acid is naturally derived from citrus fruits and is used as an antioxidant to preserve the oils in the product. While it is a severe eye-irritant, the Sodium Lauroamphoacetate counteracts that property. Citric acid is used to adjust the pH down to approximately 5.5. It is a fairly weak acid which makes the adjustment easier. Shampoos usually are at pH 5.5 because at slightly acidic pH the scales on a hair follicle lay flat making the hair feel smooth and look shiny. it also has a small amount of preservative action. Citric acid as opposed to any other acid will prevent bacterial growth.


Quaternium-15 is used as a bacterial/fungicidal preservative.


Polyquaternium-10 is a totally different chemical than Quaternium-15. This chemical acts as the conditioning ingredient, providing moisture and fullness to the hair.


Di-PPG-2 myreth-10 adipate is a water-dispersible emollient that forms clear solutions with surfactant systems

Quiz with the Answers.

Who directed the movies "Jaws", "Schindler's List" and "Jurassic Park"?


Steven Spielberg

What is the largest country, by area, in the European Union?

France

Aboard which US warship did the Japanese sign their surrender in World War II?


USS Missouri

What is the minimum number of points required to win a tennis tie-break?


7(Seven)

How many stars are on the flag of the European Union?

12 (Twelve)

Which two countries have only won the football World Cup only once?

England and France


What was the name of the theatre where US president Abraham Lincoln was assassinated?

Fords

What do the initials FBI stand for?

Federal Bureau of Investigation

How Soap Cleans



Soap is an Emulsifier


A soap micelle has a hydrophilic head that is in contact with the water and a center of hydrophobic tails, which can be used to isolate grime.

Soaps are sodium or potassium fatty acids salts, produced from the hydrolysis of fats in a chemical reaction called saponification. Each soap molecule has a long hydrocarbon chain, sometimes called its 'tail', with a carboxylate 'head'. In water, the sodium or potassium ions float free, leaving a negatively-charged head.


Soap is an excellent cleanser because of its ability to act as an emulsifying agent. An emulsifier is capable of dispersing one liquid into another immiscible liquid. This means that while oil (which attracts dirt) doesn't naturally mix with water, soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that it can be removed.

The organic part of a natural soap is a negatively-charged, polar molecule. Its hydrophilic (water-loving) carboxylate group (-CO2) interacts with water molecules via ion-dipole interactions and hydrogen bonding. The hydrophobic (water-fearing) part of a soap molecule, its long, nonpolar hydrocarbon chain, does not interact with water molecules. The hydrocarbon chains are attracted to each other by dispersion forces and cluster together, forming structures called micelles. In these micelles, the carboxylate groups form a negatively-charged spherical surface, with the hydrocarbon chains inside the sphere. Because they are negatively charged, soap micelles repel each other and remain dispersed in water.

Grease and oil are nonpolar and insoluble in water. When soap and soiling oils are mixed, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion of the micelles break up the nonpolar oil molecules. A different type of micelle then forms, with nonpolar soiling molecules in the center. Thus, grease and oil and the 'dirt' attached to them are caught inside the micelle and can be rinsed away.

Although soaps are excellent cleansers, they do have disadvantages. As salts of weak acids, they are converted by mineral acids into free fatty acids:

CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na+ + HCl → CH3(CH2)16CO2H + Na+ + Cl-
These fatty acids are less soluble than the sodium or potassium salts and form a precipitate or soap scum. Because of this, soaps are ineffective in acidic water. Also, soaps form insoluble salts in hard water, such as water containing magnesium, calcium, or iron.

2 CH3(CH2)16CO2-Na+ + Mg2+ → [CH3(CH2)16CO2-]2Mg2+ + 2 Na+

The insoluble salts form bathtub rings, leave films that reduce hair luster, and gray/roughen textiles after repeated washings. Synthetic detergents, however, may be soluble in both acidic and alkaline solutions and don't form insoluble precipitates in hard water. But that is a different story...

What is a Tsunami and What Causes Them?

What is a Tsunami and What Causes Them?

Tsunami, which is a Japanese word translated through English into “harbor wave,” is an enormous and destructive wave that scientists referred to as “seismic sea waves.” Many people may know tsunamis by their layman term, “tidal wave” (Dudley, p.28; Cook). Tsunamis are most common in the Pacific Ocean, specifically near Japan where they frequently wreak havoc on its harbors and coastal villages (Dudley, p.28). Tsunamis are in fact a series of extremely long waves that are primarily associated with earthquakes and coastal regions. However, landslides, volcanic eruptions, and even impacts of objects from outer space like asteroids and meteors can cause tsunamis. Tsunamis can reach speeds exceeding 600 mph and even in shallow waters reach heights of over 100 feet (NOAA). Tsunamis have in fact been reported since ancient times, with the first recorded tsunami occurring off the coast of Syria in 2000 B.C. (Lander, 1)

Tsunamis are caused by violent movement on the seafloor. Their generation is due to the ocean’s bottom rising or dropping, which displaces the column of water directly above it. This is most common in large subduction zones, where the collision of two tectonic plates causes the oceanic plate to dip beneath the continental crust (Lander, p.2). This movement on the seafloor can be caused by three different types of geologic activity. The first and most common is submarine faulting (as mentioned above), which actually causes earthquakes and tsunamis. It was originally believed that the earthquakes themselves were the cause of tsunamis, but that hypothesis has been revised (Dudley, p.33). The second most common geologic activity is a landslide. If a landslide were to start out above sea level and plunge into the sea a tsunami might occur. Also, tsunamis can be generated if a landslide occurs underwater. The third cause of tsunamis is volcanic activity. The production of tsunamis in this circumstance is quite similar to that of tsunamis caused by submarine faulting. An explosion of a submarine or shoreline volcano can generate a tsunami, as evidenced by the explosion of the island volcano Krakatoa in 1883 that killed over 36,000 people in Java and Sumatra (Dudley, p.34).

It should come as no surprise than that the Pacific Ocean is a source of the vast majority of tsunamis. This area is one of the most geologically active in the world, as the Pacific Ocean basin is surrounded by deep ocean trenches, explosive volcanic islands, and mountain ranges as well as the frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that occur nearby 


Now that you know what a tsunami is, it’s time to scare you with the terrifying results of what happens when a tsunami hits land!






Three types of Tsunami

Volcanoes..What causes them?

When a part of the earth's upper mantle or lower crust melts, magma forms. A volcano is essentially an opening or a vent through which this magma and the dissolved gases it contains are discharged. Although there are several factors triggering a volcanic eruption, three predominate: the buoyancy of the magma, the pressure from the exsolved gases in the magma and the injection of a new batch of magma into an already filled magma chamber. What follows is a brief description of these processes.

As rock inside the earth melts, its mass remains the same while its volume increases--producing a melt that is less dense than the surrounding rock. This lighter magma then rises toward the surface by virtue of its buoyancy. If the density of the magma between the zone of its generation and the surface is less than that of the surrounding and overlying rocks, the magma reaches the surface and erupts.

Magmas of so-called andesitic and rhyolitic compositions also contain dissolved volatiles such as water, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Experiments have shown that the amount of a dissolved gas in magma (its solubility) at atmospheric pressure is zero, but rises with increasing pressure.

For example, in an andesitic magma saturated with water and six kilometers below the surface, about 5 percent of its weight is dissolved water. As this magma moves toward the surface, the solubility of the water in the magma decreases, and so the excess water separates from the magma in the form of bubbles. As the magma moves closer to the surface, more and more water exsolves from the magma, thereby increasing the gas/magma ratio in the conduit. When the volume of bubbles reaches about 75 percent, the magma disintegrates to pyroclasts (partially molten and solid fragments) and erupts explosively.

LAVA TEMPERATURE is one of several indicators that volcanologists regularly monitor in hopes of forecasting major eruptions.

The third process that causes volcanic eruptions is an injection of new magma into a chamber that is already filled with magma of similar or different composition. This injection forces some of the magma in the chamber to move up in the conduit and erupt at the surface.

Although volcanologists are well aware of these three processes, they cannot yet predict a volcanic eruption. But they have made significant advances in forecasting volcanic eruptions. Forecasting involves probable character and time of an eruption in a monitored volcano. The character of an eruption is based on the prehistoric and historic record of the volcano in question and its volcanic products. For example, a violently erupting volcano that has produced ash fall, ash flow and volcanic mudflows (or lahars) is likely to do the same in the future.

Determining the timing of an eruption in a monitored volcano depends on measuring a number of parameters, including, but not limited to, seismic activity at the volcano (especially depth and frequency of volcanic earthquakes), ground deformations (determined using a tiltmeter and/or GPS, and satellite interferometry), and gas emissions (sampling the amount of sulfur dioxide gas emitted by correlation spectrometer, or COSPEC). An excellent example of successful forecasting occurred in 1991. Volcanologists from the U.S. Geological Survey accurately predicted the June 15 eruption of the Pinatubo Volcano in the Philippines, allowing for the timely evacuation of the Clark Air Base and saving thousands of lives.

What causes an Eartquake?

What Causes An Earthquake ?
An Earthquake is a sudden tremor or movement of the earth's crust, which originates naturally at or below the surface. The word natural is important here, since it excludes shock waves caused by French nuclear tests, man made explosions and landslides caused by building work.
There are two main causes of earthquakes.
Firstly, they can be linked to explosive volcanic eruptions; they are in fact very common in areas of volcanic activity where they either proceed or accompany eruptions.
Secondly, they can be triggered by Tectonic activity associated with plate margins and faults. The majority of earthquakes world wide are of this type.
Terminology
An earthquake can be likened to the effect observed when a stone is thrown into water. After the stone hits the water a series of concentric waves will move outwards from the center. The same events occur in an earthquake. There is a sudden movement within the crust or mantle, and concentric shock waves move out from that point. Geologists and Geographers call the origin of the earthquake the focus. Since this is often deep below the surface and difficult to map, the location of the earthquake is often referred to as the point on the Earth surface directly above the focus. This point is called the epicentre.
The strength, or magnitude, of the shockwaves determines the extent of the damage caused. Two main scales exist for defining the strength, the Mercalli Scale and the Richter Scale.
Earthquakes are three dimensional events, the waves move outwards from the focus, but can travel in both the horizontal and vertical plains. This produces three different types of waves which have their own distinct characteristics and can only move through certain layers within the Earth. Lets take a look at these three forms of shock waves.
Types of shockwaves
P-Waves
Primary Waves (P-Waves) are identical in character to sound waves. They are high frequency, short-wavelength, longitudinal waves which can pass through both solids and liquids. The ground is forced to move forwards and backwards as it is compressed and decompressed. This produces relatively small displacements of the ground.
P Waves can be reflected and refracted, and under certain circumstances can change into S-Waves.
Particles are compressed and expanded in the wave's direction.


S-Waves
Secondary Waves (S-Waves) travel more slowly than P-Waves and arrive at any given point after the P-Waves. Like P-Waves they are high frequency, short-wavelength waves, but instead of being longitudinal they are transverse. They move in all directions away from their source, at speeds which depend upon the density of the rocks through which they are moving. They cannot move through liquids. On the surface of the Earth, S-Waves are responsible for the sideways displacement of walls and fences, leaving them 'S' shaped.
S-waves move particles at 90° to the wave's direction.
L-Waves
Surface Waves (L-Waves) are low frequency transverse vibrations with a long wavelength. They are created close to the epicentre and can only travel through the outer part of the crust. They are responsible for the majority of the building damage caused by earthquakes. This is because L Waves have a motion similar to that of waves in the sea. The ground is made to move in a circular motion, causing it to rise and fall as visible waves move across the ground. Together with secondary effects such as landslides, fires and tsunami these waves account for the loss of approximately 10,000 lives and over $100 million per year.
L-waves move particles in a circular path.
2):Tectonic Earthquakes
Tectonic earthquakes are triggered when the crust becomes subjected to strain, and eventually moves. The theory of plate tectonics explains how the crust of the Earth is made of several plates, large areas of crust which float on the Mantle. Since these plates are free to slowly move, they can either drift towards each other, away from each other or slide past each other. Many of the earthquakes which we feel are located in the areas where plates collide or try to slide past each other.
The process which explains these earthquakes, known as Elastic Rebound Theory can be demonstrated with a green twig or branch. Holding both ends, the twig can be slowly bent. As it is bent, energy is built up within it. A point will be reached where the twig suddenly snaps. At this moment the energy within the twig has exceeded the Elastic Limit of the twig. As it snaps the energy is released, causing the twig to vibrate and to produce sound waves.
Perhaps the most famous example of plates sliding past each other is the San Andreas Fault in California. Here, two plates, the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, are both moving in a roughly northwesterly direction, but one is moving faster than the other. The San Francisco area is subjected to hundreds of small earthquakes every year as the two plates grind against each other. Occasionally, as in 1989, a much larger movement occurs, triggering a far more violent 'quake'.
Major earthquakes are sometimes preceded by a period of changed activity. This might take the form of more frequent minor shocks as the rocks begin to move,called foreshocks , or a period of less frequent shocks as the two rock masses temporarily 'stick' and become locked together. Detailed surveys in San Francisco have shown that railway lines, fences and other longitudinal features very slowly become deformed as the pressure builds up in the rocks, then become noticeably offset when a movement occurs along the fault. Following the main shock, there may be further movements, called aftershocks, which occur as the rock masses 'settle down' in their new positions. Such aftershocks cause problems for rescue services, bringing down buildings already weakened by the main earthquake.
Volcanic Earthquakes
Volcanic earthquakes are far less common than Tectonic ones. They are triggered by the explosive eruption of a volcano. Given that not all volcanoes are prone to violent eruption, and that most are 'quiet' for the majority of the time, it is not surprising to find that they are comparatively rare.

When a volcano explodes, it is likely that the associated earthquake effects will be confined to an area 10 to 20 miles around its base, where as a tectonic earthquake may be felt around the globe.
The volcanoes which are most likely to explode violently are those which produce acidic lava. Acidic lava cools and sets very quickly upon contact with the air. This tends to chock the volcanic vent and block the further escape of pressure. For example, in the case of Mt Pelee, the lava solidified before it could flow down the sides of the volcano. Instead it formed a spine of solid rock within the volcano vent. The only way in which such a blockage can be removed is by the build up of pressure to the point at which the blockage is literally exploded out of the way. In reality, the weakest part of the volcano will be the part which gives way, sometimes leading to a sideways explosion as in the Mt St.Helens eruption.
When extraordinary levels of pressure develop, the resultant explosion can be devastating, producing an earthquake of considerable magnitude. When Krakatoa ( Indonesia, between Java and Sumatra ) exploded in 1883, the explosion was heard over 5000 km away in Australia. The shockwaves produced a series of tsunami ( large sea waves ), one of which was over 36m high; that's the same as four, two story houses stacked on top of each other. These swept over the coastal areas of Java and Sumatra killing over 36,000 people.

By contrast, volcanoes producing free flowing basic lava rarely cause earthquakes. The lava flows freely out of the vent and down the sides of the volcano, releasing pressure evenly and constantly. Since pressure doesn't build up, violent explosions do not occur.