CULTURAL QA 12-2021-17 BEING A COMPILATION THERE MAY BE ERRORS
Q1 Is Ganga a sister of Parvati? A1 Divyansh Saxena Dec 1 Yes. First, Goddess Ganga took birth. Her Parents were King Himavan (alsoknown as Himavat or Himraj) and Queen Menawati. Then Goddess Maa Shakti (alsoknown Adi Shakti or Adi Parashakti) took birth as Goddess Parvati, so he becamethe younger daughter of King Himavat and Queen Menawati. That means Maa Ganga is theelder sister of Maa Parvati. Goddess Ganga (Goddess of purity). She is a river Goddess. Q2 How was plastic invented by mistake? A2 Steven Haddock Studiedat York University (Canada)Dec 8 Well, it should be “How was oneof the first important plastics accidentally invented. Twice”. The plastic in this case is Polyvinyl Chloride, which is still inwidespread use. It’s the third most manufactured plastic on the planet. We start in 1838 with Henri Victor Regnault. Among his otheraccomplishments, he worked with chlorinated hydrocarbons, taking a chance on combining chlorinewith organic compounds. One of these was vinylchloride. One day, he prepared a solution of it and then left it alone for afew weeks in the sun. It had solidified in the meantime. He made a note of it but never published his workon it or patented it. But in 1872, a German chemist named Eugen Baumann also had a solution ofvinyl chloride that he left out in the sun with the same results. However, notfinding a patent for it, he took one out. This magnificent discovery ofartificial long chain molecules then, of course, revolutionized everything! Oh who am I kidding. The development wasignored for another thirty years. Then a couple of chemists workingfor the German chemical company Griesheim-Elektron made the giant breakthrough that made PVCwhat it is today. No, sorry, they didn’t. They found the stuff too rigid, brittle and hardto work with. They couldn’t come up with any commercial applications either. Finally, in 1926, 88 years after the compound was synthesized and 54years after it was patented, a chemist at B.F. Goodrich named Waldo Semon found that if he mixed PVCwith other chemicals it became workable and could be commercially processed. Q3 Do zoos give special food to flamingos to keep them pink? A3 About Wild Animals PatrickColligan Nov 29 Yes. They are fed a powderysubstance called Flamingo Mix. The Flamingos dip their beaks into the powder. Then, place their beaksinto the water and shake them from side to side. Flamingos are filter feeders. They strain theirfood. Their pink color comes from beta carotene, a pigment found inthe algae and brine shrimp, that compose their natural diet. Q4 Have we learned everything about the human body? If not,how much do we really know? A4 Ken Saladin Formerprofessor of histology (microscopic anatomy)Wed I learn several new things every year. Even though I“wrote the book on it,” so to speak, I update it every 3 to 4 years with whatI’ve learned new since the last time I revised it. So do all the other anatomy authors I compete with.If I didn’t, I’d fall behind the science and lose readers, my market share. I’m starting the 7th edition of that book now, and just finishing up the10th edition of the one below. Updated answer keys to the chapter reviewquestions today. This is how I make my living—keepingup with stuff scientists learn about the human body that we didn’t know last week,last month, last year. Q5 What are some amazing facts about the Indian Railways? A5 Atharva Dave Lives inMumbai, Maharashtra, IndiaUpdated 1y 1.The resonance frequency of the suspension for the coaches is kept asclose as possible to 72 bpm or 1.2 Hz while designing which is optimal forsleep and relaxation. 2.The diamond crossing (dubbed so by railways themselves), in Nagpur, isone-of-its-kind, from where trains go East, West, North and South. 3.The Indian Railways is the 8th largest employer in the world with 14lakh employees. 4.The IRCTC website is the second most visited website in India. 5.The under-construction Chenab railway bridge, in Reasi district,J&K, is expected to be one of the highest rail bridges in the world, whencompleted. My note- It is inaugurated andtrains are running over thebridge now 6.The famed Darjeeling "toy train," which is still running onits indigenous steam engine, was built by India's British colonial master in1881. 7.The track length of Indian Railways can circle the equator one and ahalf times. 8.Shrirampur and Belapur aretwo different stations in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, at the same location on the railway route but on opposite sidesof the track. 9.Indian Railways runs as many as 19,000 trains every day. Some 12,000trains are for passengers and 7,000 for freight. 10. The railway station of Navapur is built in 2 states; one half of itis in Maharashtra and the other half is in Gujarat. And another station namedBhawani Mandi is also divided into two states Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. 11.Indian Railways did not have a toilet for 50 years until one passengerwrote an angry letter to Indian Railways. My note- It is a repeated QA forrefreshing. Q6 How did cows evolve? How did they not get eaten toextinction by predators? They look like big, stupid, slow animals. A6 Stephen Merkel FormerBallistic Engineer (2011–2013)Updated 3y This is a cow: People bredthese to be easy to controland smaller than their wild counterparts, basically just lambs to theslaughter… or cattle. (sorry, I know I know) This is an Aurochs:These weremassive creatures, who were intelligent, and so fierce, that humans were unable to tame them. Humans managed to breedsome of them down into smaller, less intelligent animals that we could farm effectively, but their ancestors were formidable, andfought off predators by having the largest bulls protect the herd, andthe weakest calves were protected in the center of the herd. Unfortunately, they were huntedto their extinction in the wild, and only survive today in the form ofmodern domestic cattle. Some people are attempting to genetically resurrect thelarger, more intelligent wild Aurochs, from domesticated stock, but the processis slow going. So far, they have managed to breed much of the size back in: But the survival instincts are not quite there in the calves they havebred as of yet. For a better explanation of how this……could be a valid evolutionarysurvival strategy, see my answer here: Q7 Why do animals taste good? If evolution is aboutsurviving and reproducing in the best possible way, why not make predators notwant to eat you? A7 Stephen Merkel, Ienjoy eating, and experiment in the kitchenUpdated Mar 7, 2019 , trained chefwith a borderline obsessive interest in food history and science This is a dodo bird: Not much of a looker, is he? Well, the dodo has one thing going for him,his meat tastes absolutely horrible. It is stringy, and not palatable in theleast... Or so said thesailors who were forced to survive on dodo meat while on the island ofMauritius. They still ate the birds indroves, but what truly did them in was the pigs and rats that got loose on theisland, which ate their eggs from the nest. (They laid their eggs, one perbird, on the ground, as they didn’t have any natural predators on the island)They went extinct sometime in the 1660’s. Perhaps they could have beensaved, and survive to this day. If the sailors found them tasty, it might havemade them put in the effort to capture some, and farm them. If these sailors turned farmers were raising dodos as afood source, and discovered pigs or rats eating the eggs, they would mostdecidedly take efforts to stop their livestock from being killed, and wouldhave ensured a captive population survived. In fact, some species arecompletely extinct in the wild, and only raised in captivity. You may be thinking that I am referring to some rare animalthat is critically endangered in a zoo, and these certainly exist, but I amreferring to something else. This is an Aurochs: Okay, this painting is a bit old, let me find something a bit newer. This is an Aurochs: Look familiar? The meat fromthese is quite tasty, and, as youcan see from the first painting, it is likely that even our earliest cavedwelling ancestors feasted on the meat of wild Aurochs. Of course, they nolonger exist in the wild, because we hunted them to extinction, in Poland, inthe 1600’s (hmm, the same time we drove dodos to extinction… coincidence?)Well, we enjoyed the taste of beef so much, that our ancient ancestors kepttrying to figure out how to cage them and keep a ready supply of beef forconsumption. This proved difficult, as thesebeast were massive, standing taller than a man, and at sizes that only Paul Bunyan’s faithful blue companion could rivalin more modern times. So, man tried to capture the runts of the herd, and keep thesein captivity, as it was easier to fence them in. These same early farmers discovered that by eatingthe biggest Aurochs, and letting the smaller ones live longer, and reproduce,they could get herds of smaller, and more docile animals. When the last of the really big, wild Aurochs were hunted to extinction,the world had a fairly large number of cattle in captivity, in large herds. In fact, nowadays, or at leastas of 2013, the FAO estimated the world’s population of cattle at around 1.47billion!![1] This means, that by being tasty and easy to maintain,domesticated cattle have extremely high numbers, while their wild ancestors aregone. American Bison(whicheveryone in America refers to as Buffalo), were nearly hunted to extinction,except for a small herd that happened to be surrounded by a national park. Now,a number of ranchers have started to breed herds of American Bison, as Buffaloburgers are being hailed as a low fat and more sustainable form of beef that isadapted to the American landscape, and requires less water and crops to raise.The American bison has seen a resurgence in population at the same time. So, by tasting good, Beef, andAmerican Bison, have managed not to go the way of the Dodo. Footnotes [1] FAOSTAT Q8 Is there any water content inside of our bones? A8 Ken Saladin Author,Anatomy & Physiology—The Unity of Form and FunctionSep 26 Oh yes, of course. The wordskeleton literally means “dried up,” because of the way most people view bones,but the living skeleton is most definitely a living, metabolically dynamicstructure. The bones are full of fluid-filled channels, blood vessels, nerves, andcells, not to mention the fluid bone marrow in the middle. The skeleton iswhere our blood cells are made. There’s a great difference in weight between a bone fresh out of the bodyand a bone that has been cleaned and dried for study in the anatomy lab or a dried bone found out innature. That’s mostly because of the water in thebone’s cells and tissues. The Journal ofBiological Chemistry says living human bones are about 31% water by weight.That’s much less than most other organs, but it’s still a lot. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, thebrain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water.The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bonesare watery: 31%. Each dayhumans must consume a certain amount of water to survive.[1] Footnotes [1] The Water in You: Water and the Human Body Q9 Has Lord Shiva shown his Virat Roop to anyone like howLord Krishna did in the Mahabharata? A9 S Chakraborty StudiedMahabharata (Hindu epic) 23h Yeah he showed his cosmic form toLord Rama Thereafter lord Shiva showed Rama by opened his mouth which was aswide as Patala loka. Blazingwith billions of lightening strikes seeing such a dreadful scene Sri Rama trembling with fear collapsed on the ground on hisknees. He prostrated on the ground and numerous times he prayed toLord Shiva. Then that mighty armed hero Rama gaining some strength again lookedat the cosmic form of the Eswara the destroyer of the three cities. He sightedbillions of universes as like as the groundnuts being roasted in blazing fires. He saw inside the mouth Meru,Mandara Vindhya etc. giant mountains, seven great oceans, Sun, moon andplanets, five elements, all deities, all dense forests. He also witnessed the mighty serpent Adi-Sesha, fourteen worlds, in everyuniverse he witnessed Devasura Sangrama (battles of gods and demons), theircause and effects. Healso witnessed Lord Vishnu's ten primary incarnations and their roles, dutiesand work. He witnessed God's valor, the event of destruction of thethree cities by Shiva. He saw all the creatures who are yet to be born, whichwere born in past and which were being born. He further saw the destruction ofall these creation. SHIVA GITA CH 07 Padma Purana Now some people may call this inauthentic so i am giving proof from othersources which will further support my claim “Salutions to lord Rudra who assumes universal formor Vishvaroopam” Yajurveda ,Rudra Anuvaka 4 Q10 What is the most fragile bone in the human body? A10 Ken Saladin Formerprofessor of histology (microscopic anatomy)Nov 3 I’d go with the stapes, the smallest bone of themiddle ear, as the most delicate. It’s hardly ever fractured, however, since it’s so well protected. Itwould take major skull trauma to break this little bone. The stapes is the bone at thebottom, compared to the smallest U.S. coin. There is, of course, a difference between what is the most fragile boneand what is the most frequently fractured bone. As protected as it is within the cranium, the stapesis surely one of the least fractured bones of the body. Bones oftendescribed as the most frequently fractured are the clavicle and toebones—clearly not as delicate as the stapes, but far more exposed to trauma. UPDATE: Since so many are asking,the three bones from left to right are known by their Latin anatomical names malleus, incus, and stapes, orcolloquially by the English translations of these three words, hammer, anvil,and stirrup, respectively. All the above QA are from Quora website on 16-12- 2021. Compiled and posted by R. Gopala krishnan ,78, former AGM Telecom Trivandrum on 17 -12-2021 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/816168725.2031737.1639706067738%40mail.yahoo.com.
