Category — Science & Technology

It is surprising isn’t it, that with all the advances in science, we still haven’t come up with a way to predict natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The best thing that we can do is to make an informed guess about approximately when an earthquake might occur. And then too, it’s only mathematical probability. So all we know is that an earthquake may (or may not) occur at around so and so time at a given place. To complicate matters further, these predictions are really only applicable at places which have a history of earthquakes. Not the most comforting of thoughts, is it?!

But to be fair, earthquakes rarely strike at completely unexpected places. There is a lot that goes on before an earthquake strikes. And geologists can usually sense these going-ons well in advance. By this, I mean that the chance of an earthquake occuring at a place that has absolutely no history (and I mean really age old history) of quakes is very remote.

I do not want to sound too technical, but earthquakes can be of different types and the one that rocked Southeastern Asia on Boxing Day was of the most common variety - the tectonic earthquake. The earth can be visualized as a fractured sphere fitted together by a jigsaw-puzzle-like pieces of crust known as plates (or the tectonic plates). Underneath these plates (i.e. underneath the crust) is the hot, molten magma. When you take into consideration the size of the earth, the crust is just a wafer-thin layer of solid rock. So the plates lie atop the magma and when the magma moves, the plates move alongwith it. Picture a sheet of metal moving along over a conveyor belt. It’s something like that!

When the plates move, they could press against each other. So when an ocean plate (the oceanic Indo-Australian plate in the case of the 26th December earthquake) pushes and grinds up against a continental plate (the huge continental Eurasian plate in this case) one plate wins the battle (usually the continental plate wins this battle). And the plate that loses gets pushed beneath the other plate. The constant pushing and grinding leads to tremors within the earth’s crust. These tremors are what we feel as earthquakes. Usually, the process of one plate getting pushed beneath the other, known as subduction, is a painstaking process and the resulting tremors are low intensity. But sometimes, the pressures on the plate boundaries gradually build up to such an extent that suddenly one plate gives way. When this happens, we get the whopper earthquakes like the one that occured on Monday, 26th December, off the coast of Indonesia.

Taking the above example ahead, when the ocean plate (which is obviously at the bottom of the ocean) suddenly sinks beneath the continental plate, a huge column of water above that spot (where the subduction occurs) is suddenly pulled downwards and then is pushed upwards with an unbelieavble amount of force. This action sets off what are referred to as Tsunamis. To understand this, simply visualize that happens when u throw a pebble in a pond. Ripples start propagating outwards from the spot where the pebble struck the water. This is about what happens on a much much larger scale in case of Tsunamis. Huge waves start propagating outwards from the spot where the subduction occured. These waves move outwards with speed and when they encounter a shoreline, rush onto land like a huge huge tide… flooding everything in the path. It is worth noting here that inspite of popular conceptions that Tsunamis involve gigantic waves crashing down upon the shores, the fact is that Tsunamis usually hit the shores like a sudden and exceptionally huge tide. As they reach inland, the flooding tide loses force and suddenly starts receding dragging anything and everything in its path towards the sea. It is this strong current, trying to return back to the sea, that causes the most destruction of life as the water carries hapless victims with it into the sea.

Of course, the dynamics of a Tsunami are much more complicated than this. But I’ve just tried to give a rough idea of what led to Monday’s events. For further reading, there are a number of sites all over the Net where you can get a lot of detailed information on this subject.

Earthquakes have been a way of life for earth. Earth’s history is violent. In the past, entire species have been wiped away by the fury of nature. The ones that survive live to experience Earth’s dangerous beauty with the knowledge that they are but transient inhabitants of the Blue Planet.

It is an amazing coincidence that India is simultaneously witnessing two high-profile cases involving the (mis)use of camera phones. I don’t need to spell it out explicitly that I’m referring to the DPS MMS case and the Shahid-Kareena kiss episode.

And I’m sure that this strange coincidence will precipitate an immediate ban on camera phones in places like schools, colleges, etc. And that is unfortunate!

I don’t say that I’m against banning camera phones in schools/colleges, but as trigger-happy as our government is, I don’t think it’ll be wrong to assume that pretty soon the only place you might be allowed to use a camera phone would be within the confines of your home! And THAT is unfortunate!

Already, Anna University has banned camera phones on campus! Sure as hell… other universities will promptly follow suit!

I find it silly that our first impulse is to ban outright.

I mean… how far will this go on? Today they’ve banned camera phones on campus. So anybody carrying a camera phone within the campus would be ‘punished’. But what about those tiny digital cameras that are very cheaply available in the market? Would they be banned too? But then that would mean banning digital cameras in general… coz how are you going to decide on what size to ban and what to allow?! And then what about things like USB keyring storage devices that include a small digital camera on them?! These devices can turn your ordinary phone into a camera phone! I’m just randomly picking devices! There are zillions of pieces of technological innovation that could be candidates for banning! Yet another example is that of a hi-tech pair of sunglasses that have a tiny digital camera fitted in them!

The point I’m trying to make is that technology is fast outstripping the bounds of imagination of most lay-people. And this is challenging their fixed notions of what privacy should be! Either we need to redefine privacy in this all-seeing age or we need to shut ourselves into a cocoon, completely shutting out the infinite possibilities that technology affords to us!

The powers-that-be seem to have chosen the easy path of blaming technology! What will YOU choose?!

Optimistic people, they say, live longer!!

Patients who described themselves as highly optimistic had lower risks of all-cause death, and lower rates of cardiovascular death than those with high levels of pessimism, according to an article in the November issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry.

Any wonder, then, that I call myself The Opti Mystic! I love life!! ;-)

[A study by Mayo Clinic in early 2000 had also resulted in a similar conclusion.]

With the US presidential elections drawing closer by the day, here’s a look at the various forms of electronic/computerized voting systems in use across the world.

It looks at the Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela, which uses fingerprint tracking and paper receipts to keep fraud down. Then it checks out the EVMs used in India, which are nothing but electronic counters that simply store a count of the votes polled. The article also evaluates the first steps taken by Australia by introducing eVACS, built with open-source software with a hope of inspiring trust in its voting system.

While foreign voting systems are certainly far from perfect, both supporters and detractors of e-voting agree that the United States can learn some important lessons from parts of the world that have not been historically associated with sophisticated voting technologies.

I agree with that view. Instead of trying to hope for a perfect system, I feel the US should’ve gone ahead with some proven ideas from either the Indian or the Venezuelan polls. With all the cribbing about the security, only 31% of US voters would actually vote electronically (using the controversial Diebold machines, I presume) in the elections later this year.

It is strange to see two independent columnists talk about essentially the same thing in their respective columns on the same day without any special occasion to do so.

Two columns published on rediff.com ponder over the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

GV Dasarathi cites the successes of ISRO and Tata in making a point about the creativity abundant in India and the success stories hitherto unnoticed.

The other (ed: India) is confident about its capability, dreams big dreams, then goes ahead and translates the dreams into reality. There are innumerable success stories like ISRO and Tata Steel in India today, in manufacturing, electronic hardware, pharmaceuticals, software, fashion design, or any area that you can think of. The problem is that these are not highlighted. Creative individuals and organisations who are developing products or technologies with a lasting impact are unsung heroes.

Dasarathi advocates changes in the way we view and reward creativity…

We need drastic changes in the education system and in government policies to reward creativity and value addition. Changes that produce creative people, visionaries, dreamers, people with guts, like Vikram Sarabhai and Jamsetji Tata.

In the first instalment of a 4-part series, Arindam Banerji tries to respond to the oft-asked question about why India cannot seem to produce overwhelmingly effective innovations. He uses a long list of innovative strides taken by India and Indians in the fields of science and technology, business, R&D, etc. in order to make his point.

Yet, even after listing the innovations, he cautions against too far ahead of ourselves…

The changes taking place in Indian R&D are indeed impressive and in some cases, like the Indian pharma — the research and products are indeed world-class. But let us measure ourselves, before we get too far ahead of ourselves.

Outlook’s table of data is impressive enough, but we have to compare the impact of those innovations with say a list of inventions the 1920s and 1930s (ref. Forbes article).

His next column ahould provide more insight into what seem to be the factors that seem to be missing in India and its indigenous innovations.