'THE 7 YEAR ITCH'


Earth’s 6-year twitch alters day length

PTI | Jul 16, 2013, 06.27 AM IST
READ MORE University of Liverpool|Richard Holme|Earth’s core
LONDON: Periodic jumps generated in the Earth's core change the length of a day every 5.9 years on our planet, a new study has found.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom studied the variations and fluctuations in the length of day over a one to 10 year period between 1962 and 2012.

They found that variations in the length of day over periods of between one and 10 years are caused by processes in the Earth's core. The Earth rotates once per day, but the length of this day varies. A year, 300 million years ago, lasted about 450 days and a day would last about 21 hours, researchers said.

As a result of the slowing down of the Earth's rotation the length of day has increased.

The rotation of the Earth on its axis, however, is affected by a number of other factors — for example, the force of the wind against mountain ranges changes the length of the day by plus or minus a millisecond over a period of a year.

Professor Richard Holme, from the School of Environmental Sciences studied the variations and fluctuations in the length of day over a one to 10 year period between 1962 and 2012.

The study took account of the effects on Earth's rotation of atmospheric and oceanic processes to produce a model of variations in the length of day on time scales longer than a year.
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Bringing light in a bottle

TNN | Jul 15, 2013, 01.34 AM IST
READ MORE Sir Gangadharrao Chitnavis Trust|Seal|Movement for Civic Awareness|Friends|Alfredo Moser
NAGPUR: In many a tales of yore, magicians are said to have trapped light in a box. In modern times, some have been successful in trapping light in a bottle. "As students, while working for NGOs, we came across the problem of the literal absence of light from people's life. We saw children studying and people working without light and decided to do something about it," said Radhika Lokur, one of the founder members of Jal Jyoti team.

It was while trying to find an affordable solution for the problem that Radhika and three of her friends and co-founders of Jal Jyoti project, Sanjna Malpani, Ashna Roy and Tasneem Kakal came upon a concept developed by a Brazilian, Alfredo Moser.

"It is a very simple concept. You fill a big bottle of cold drink till its neck and then pour bleach, leaving just a little space at the top and then close and seal the cap of the bottle. Then you fix the bottle in a fibreglass sheet which is of the same corrugation as the roof and then fix this set-up at the roof after drilling a bottle sized hole in it. The bleach prevents any kind of decay of the water and thus the bottle can be used up to five years," said Radhika.

In the day time the sunlight refracts through the bottled water to pour light into the house equalling the power of a 55 watt bulb. "This system is very effective in urban slums where the proximity of houses makes it difficult for light to come in and forces the use of electricity for the purpose even in daytime," said Radhika.

The Jal Jyoti team which comprises of many more volunteers like the above four, have already installed about a 100 such bottle bulbs in the slums of Mumbai where the houses have saved on their electricity bills. "We are working for knowledge dissemination. We don't want people to be dependent on us. Thus, wherever we are going, we are leaving people with instructions on how to do it. While we ourselves will continue to install new lights, we are encouraging others to do it too so that the movement spreads wide and more light comes into people's lives," said Radhika.

The team has come to Nagpur by collaborating with the Children's Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) run by the Sir Gangadharrao Chitnavis Trust and conducted a workshop on Saturday at Chitnavis Centre. "We called teachers and students of schools associated with us in CMCA and some other organizations for this workshop," said Nisha Thakur, project coordinator, Sir Gangadharrao Chitnavis Trust. The group also conducted a workshop on Sunday at Takia slums on Sunday.
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Four Nagpur students find answer to food adulteration

, TNN | Jul 15, 2013, 01.45 AM IST
READ MORE Food Industry|nagpur students|Food adulteration
NAGPUR: With incidents of food adulteration hitting the headlines and organic products appealing to so many people's fancy, many of us would wish to know what we are eating along with our food. Four city students have developed a device that can actually help one determine the pesticide content in any eatable and help one clean it up too.

Christened as the portable toxic threat detector (PTTD), the mechanism developed by third year electronics and telecommunication engineering students of GH Raisoni College of Engineering Saurabh Puranik, Shreya Dhondarikar, Sagar Nasre and Sowmya Singh, also tells you whether or not something is safe to eat. The device also tells the best method to scientifically remove the contaminant.

It was reading about the prevalence of diseases caused by contaminated food that led Saurabh to find a way out. "Articles about the high pesticide content in the farm produce in India being very high and how entire population was facing the threat of genetic disorder and cancer scared me. So, I decided to do something about it," he said.

The team first searched the Internet for research, devices and other available resources on the topic. They did a gap analysis and concluded that time-consuming methods, reliance on big laboratories and expensive chemicals required for it hampered people's willingness to find out a solution about the food they were consuming. Lack of awareness and that of experts also affected this. In their quest to solve these problems, the budding engineers have been doing their own research for the past one and a half years.

"We developed the threat detector that can give qualitative and quantitative analysis of the foodstuff. Since the device could only be helpful in case of solid food items, we developed another one which looks like a mobile phone and can be put inside a container," he said. Both these devices give instantaneous results with the help of biosensors. The present device is only a prototype and can take a weight up to one kilogram.

However, several changes are being planned by the team. "First of all we want to increase the weighing capacity of the machine to make it more useful. I also wish to add a purifier in the device to make it a complete kit. Also, there are plans to make the software used in the device available on smartphones in the form of an app," said Saurabh.

The PTTD has been presented at many national and international forums where it has garnered much appreciation. The team is now in talks with several laboratories like National Environmental Engineering and Research Institute (Neeri) and AGMARK to help them with the lab testing of the device which will help them apply for a patent. They have also presented the idea to some venture capitalists who have shown their interest in it.

HOW IT WORKS:

Food stuff is kept on the plate on the sensor

In case of a liquid, the device shaped like a mobile phone is dipped into it

Bio sensors help detect the chemicals contained in the item

It gives out the quantitative measurement of contaminants and tells about the quality of the foodstuff

A software that has information about permissible limits of all known contaminants, processes the data of the given foodstuff to display the safety level

POSSIBLE USES:

Food industry

Malls and supermarket

Catering services, restaurants and canteens

At homes
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