Thank you sir for reading the QA and the additions, some of which are almost
the answer itself.
Gopalakrishnan
On Thursday, 28 December, 2023 at 10:35:08 pm IST, 'venkat giri' via
iyer123 <[email protected]> wrote:
Respected Sir/s,
SUBJECT:CULTURALQA 12-2023-26A
Q1: What animals prey oneagles?
A1:Whileeagles are formidable predators, they are also preyedupon by other
animals. The most common predators of eagles include otherbirds of prey, such
as owls and hawks, as wellas larger mammals such as foxes, wolves, and
evenbears.
Great horned owls don't make their own nests,they take them from other
birds. One of the country's leading eagle biologistswrote a few years ago that
there was a documented case of a great horned owlsuccessfully taking on a bald
eagle for a nest in Florida.
Q2: How come the higher you go up in theatmosphere the colder it gets?
Shouldn't it be warmer because you are gettingcloser to the Sun?
A2: As air rises, air pressure drops and the gas expands. To expand, the gas
needs energy which it robs from thesurrounding matter. This cools off the
surrounding air. Hence it becomescold at higher altitude.
Q3: Why do pandas havecarnivorous teeth?
A3:Pandasdescended from carnivorous/omnivorous ancestors.. They inherited
“carnivorous”teeth from their ancestors and they have not been mostly
herbivorous longenough for mutation and selection to reshape their teeth that
much.They lack the digestive enzymes necessary to break down otherplants,
making bamboo their only food source. Bamboo provides pandas with avariety of
benefits that other vegetation doesn't offer.
Q4: Are Indian scientists any good?
A4: Funding for science in general and healthcare inparticular have been
meagre.
Nobel Laureate Prof VenkatramanRamakrishnan, President of the Royal
Society, who called the Indian ScienceCongress a “circus,” discussed the
implications of some the Indian governmentpolicies on science and technology.
He summarily rejects the idea of scientistsneeding permission to discuss the
results of a public-funded, published workwith the media or the public and is
optimistic that India can be a sciencepowerhouse by 2030 if it does the right
things. It’s true that R&D fundingis low in India. The government investment
may be low but private funding ismuch lower. Culture of innovation needs to
becultivated.
Even though India'seducation sector is one of the biggest in the world, it
only contributes a mere 2.7% overall in research.Lack of research incentives,
funding from the government or institution,plagiarism problems, redundant
publications, and lack of quality.
People shouldbe given enough autonomy and they need to be well funded at a
young age, whenthey are creative and bold.
Thereis no reason why India couldn’t become a stronger science power. But
itrequires a sustained commitment to science, requires very good governance
ofscience, flexibility and autonomy for investigators.
CSIR labs have been asked to generate halfof their funds. This may not be
possible considering the low private R&Dspending in India.CSIR labs have been
funded for decades and to make a suddentransition is going to be really quite
difficult. But they can be encouraged toget more of their funding from the
industry. They were originally set up tohelp the industry. People in the west
do it all the time. But the transitioncannot be abrupt. Industry also should be
open to collaboration. Industryshould also take advantage of expertise. A lot
of industries in India are stillat a stage of implementing technologies
developed elsewhere.
Chinais still not as innovative as the west. But China was not so innovative
20years ago. As it grew economically they started investing in R&D.
Ifone has to be among the top science countries by 2030; it requires
sustainedcommitment. China had sustained commitment. Singapore and especially
SouthKorea have very sustained commitment to R&D. Without that it is not
goingto happen.
In Britain allgovernments in the last 100 years have subscribed to some
extent to what iscalled the HALDANEPRINCIPLE….. a concept developed since 1918
…which means that decisions on individual research proposals are best taken
byresearchers themselves through peer review. This involves evaluating
thequality, excellence and likely impact of science and research programmes
andensuring subsidiarity in decision making.it is theright of the elected
government to set overall priorities. However, itis usually done in
consultation with scientists to see what’s feasible. Nobody elected scientists
so scientists can’t decidewhatever they want to do with the money. The
government has a right to set anoverall priority. But having set priorities, it
is not for the government totell scientists how they should be doing things.
They shouldn’t be interferingin the implementation of the goals.
If one wants to broad base science, one shouldspend on basic research. ONE
cannot spend all your money on applied sciencebecause applied science depends
on the knowledge of basic science. Basicscience also develops the knowhow of
future.
If we have no basic scientists in India wewill not able to take up new
technology even if they are developed in the west.So we need a certain amount
of basic science.
Scientists in many governmentinstitutions, some IITs and IISERs need the
director’s permission beforediscussing their published work with the media.
Thisneeds to be changed.
Q5: What are some mind-blowing facts in themedical field?
A5:
1. The average red blood cell lives for 120 days.
2.Thereare 2.5 trillion (give or take) of red blood cells in
your body at any moment.To maintain this number, about two and a half million
new ones need to beproduced every second by your bone marrow.
3. Considering all the tissues and cells in our body, 25 millionnew cells are
being produced each second.
4. A red blood cellcan circumnavigate our
body in less than 20 seconds.
5. Nerve Impulses travel at over 400 km/hr
6. A sneeze generates a wind of 166 km/hr and a coughmoves out at 100 km/hr.
7. Our heart beats around100,00 times every day or about 30 million times in
a year.
8. Our blood is on a 60,000-mile journey per day. 9. Our eyes can
distinguish up to ten million colour surfaces and take in more information than
the largest telescope known to man.
10. Our lungs inhale
over two million litres of air every day, without even thinking.
11. We give birth to over 200 billion red cells every day.
12. When we touch something, we
send a message to our brain at 124 mph
13. We exercise at least 36 muscles
when we smile. 14. We are about 70 per cent water.
15. We make around 1 to 1.6
litres of saliva a day.
16. Our nose
is our personal air-conditioning system: it warms cold air, cools hot air and
filters impurities.
17.
In one square inch of our hand we have nine feet of blood vessels, 600 pain
sensors, 9000 nerve endings, 36 heat sensors and 75 pressure sensors.
18. We have copper,
zinc, cobalt, calcium, manganese, phosphates, nickel and silicon in our bodies.
19. It is believed that
the main purpose of eyebrows is to keep sweat out of the eyes.
20. From the age
of thirty our body shrinks in size.
Regards
V.Sridharan
Trichy
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