Project Idea

Motivation:

A few minutes of an ambulance being stuck in traffic could prove costly to someone struggling for his life and cause the ultimate irreparable damage.

Proposal:
Building a wireless communication system between ambulances and traffic lights. When the ambulance arrives within a threshold distance of the traffic lights it sends a wireless signal to the traffic light which causes it to turn green and all other dependent signals to change colour accordingly. This prevents a traffic jam situation along the path of the ambulance.

Benefits:

1) If effectively implemented, this could prove to be a life-saving mechanism in many situations.
2) This could also significantly reduce noise pollution by lowering the need for a siren.

Drawbacks:

1) The traffic signal which detects the approaching ambulance should coordinate with dependent traffic signals.
2) This system should not be misused for other purposes and must be properly licensed.

Pallikaranai and Vandalur

A few days before the field trip, we were told about the Pallikaranai wetlands by a wildlife photographer. A wetland is defined as ‘lands transitional between terrestrial and aquatic systems where the water table is usually at or near the surface or the land is covered by standing water that does not exceed 6 meters’. They are very important, life-supporting ecosystems that have sustained human lives and communities. Locally known as Kazhiveli (a generic Tamil name for Marshes and swamps), the  Pallikaranai Marsh drained about 250 sq. km, through two outlets viz. the Okkiyam Madavu (channel) in Okkiyam thuraipakkam and the Kovalam Creek.  Draining, here, refers to flood mitigation, ground water recharge and irrigation.
We were shown pictures of the Pallikaranai Marshland as it was a few years back and now. There was a visible degradation in the quality of the ecosystem. The Marshland which is also a home to a large variety of bird-life is slowly becoming unfit for their habitation. We saw the Marshland being used for dumping wastes. The slum-dwellers who reside in the area are also adversely affected due to bad quality of the surroundings as we saw in the pictures.

There are several efforts being undertaken to restore the ecosystem to its original state. We realized that the need for these measures is high and that they need to be implemented as strictly as is possible in order to preserve one of the last recognized marshlands of the country.
This was followed by a visit to the Vandalur Zoo where we were able to spot a variety of indigenous as well as exotic species. Some of the facts mentioned about the animals really interested me. For instance, two birds belonging to a stork species were said to be “made for each other” because one’s death would cause the other to pine away until its own demise. The trip thus proved to be an educational as well as a recreational day-out with the entire class which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Vertical Farming - Does it stack up?

Vertical Farming is an idea that was born in the year 1999 in a Columbia University classroom when Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental sciences and microbiology shared the idea with his students. According to New York magazine, nearly all the land that could potentially be farmed is already being farmed on. So Despommier proposed a novel idea of having skyscrapers filled with floor upon floor of orchards and fields producing crops all year in cities all over the world. Creating more farmable land out of thin air to meet the growing demand as a result of population explosion is virtually an impossibility and therefore this idea has inspired plenty of research by people who believe it might actually stack up. Despommier and his class made the first outline of a vertical farm in 2001. This technique is expected to prove advantageous in several ways. Firstly, transport costs and carbon dioxide emissions associated with moving food over long distances are greatly minimized. The spoilage that occurs inevitably along the way is also reduced. According to UN’s Population Division, by 2050, around 70% of the world’s population will be living in urban areas. So it’s more benefitable to have farms closer to where everyone will be living. The use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides can be kept to a bare minimum by growing plants indoors in a controlled environment. Erosion will not be a problem because the food will be grown hydroponically. Clever recycling techniques will be used to ensure that only a fraction of the amount of water and nutrients will be needed and there will be no problem with agricultural run-off. Opponents question the potential profitability, availability of less light due to the extreme angle and pollution. Despite these drawbacks, vertical farming is thought of to be the future of sustainable farming.

Long Weekend (2008)

Long Weekend is a remake of a 1978 Australian thriller which tries to show people how nature bites back twice as hard when you disrespect it. The story revolves around a couple, Peter and Carla who decide to spend their weekend in a remote beach to repair their marriage. Also known as Nature’s Grave, the couple is shown to have a complete disregard for nature in several ways. For instance, after hitting a baby kangaroo while driving, Peter is shown to worry more about the damage to his headlights. The careless disposal of a cigarette sets a bush on fire. Peter fires at a bunch of ducks just for fun and also steals eggs from an eagle’s nest. Nature’s comeback to this attitude of the couple is rather extreme. The eagle whose nest was raided attacks Peter and he is pecked and clawed by the bird. Peter’s spear gun goes off on its own and almost hits Carla. They’re harassed by ants and dead creatures such as seagulls keep washing up ashore. They see a dark shape out in the water stalking them. They fire randomly at it and a large pool of blood is seen around the shape and the next day they realize it’s a dead sea cow when it washes up on the beach. Each ensuing day, the sea cow’s carcass moves closer to them than where it washed up and one day they wake up to find it in the middle of their camp. They panic and this not only physically affects them but also puts their nerves on edge. The tension between them increases and they constantly bicker. They split paths and Peter spends a night in the scary woods stalked by a bunch of Kangaroos. Carla, meanwhile, is not able to get out of the woods and drives in circles until she smashes into a tree. Peter wakes up the next day to find the sea cow carcass right next to him. He panics and runs through the woods past snakes and more peril and finds Carla’s body run through with a spear from his spear gun and several days dead. He reaches the road and tries to flag down a cab but the eagle from the beach flies into the cab and distracts the driver long enough to make him lose control and hit Peter bringing a karmic end to his life. The story thus, aptly justifies the title, Nature’s Grave as Nature unleashes its wrath and fury on those that disregard it.

An Inconvenient Truth - A review

An Inconvenient Truth, was a very inspirational effort by former US Vice president Al Gore’s campaign to educate the people of the world about the various looming threats that question our survival on Planet Earth…most importantly…Global Warming. His main objective was to completely rubbish the common misconception that "the Earth is so big; we can't possibly have any lasting, harmful impact on the Earth's environment."

Gore, through this documentary, has found an effective way to put the message across. At no point does he lose the audience’s attention and also adds a comic element to do so despite the fact that the issue he’s addressing is very grave. For instance, he narrates an incident from his schooling days when his teacher rubbished his classmate’s question about continental drift as ‘ridiculous’ but ultimately went on to become a science advisor in the then administration. He ties this to the fact that people assume our planet to be so big that they can’t visualize something as bizarre as movement of the continents to have ever happened just the way they think they do not contribute in any appreciable way to environmental crisis. At the same time, he talks about his college professor, Roger Revelle who was the first person to have the idea to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. The measurements he showed the class after his many experiments proved startling to Gore and is what sparked his interest in the issue. Gore presents to us many charts and statistics collected by environmental scientists all over the world that speak out that Global Warming is very much a reality. For instance, he shows us pictures of receding glaciers and warns us about the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet, flooding coastal areas and producing 100 million refugees.

He talks about how he lost his sister to cancer and almost lost his son in a near-fatal accident. He says these incidents brought into his focus how we take things for granted and how much losing something precious to us would hurt us. He says this suffering is what our future generations would have to endure if we do not find means to put an end to environmental degradation. He says this makes the issue a MORAL one and thereby concludes by showing us all the small ways in which we can help and charting out how much of a difference it would make for us to accept this truth, inconvenient as it may be, and doing our part to sustain life on this beautiful planet.

GM Cocoa Bean

The cocoa tree (Latin - Theobroma Cacao, which translates to “food of the gods“) only grows in humid, tropical climates, with sufficient rainfall and its cultivation limited to regions between 20° north and 20° south of the equator. The cocoa bean is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of the cocoa tree. The leading producers are the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia and Brazil. The seeds of the cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao) are fermented together with the fruit, so developing the typical cocoa aroma. The cocoa beans are then dried, roasted, dehulled and broken. Further processing of the cocoa beans yields a cocoa paste, which after further handling is separated into:

· Dark-brown cocoa powder, which is the basis for chocolate and chocolate products of all types, such as chocolate-containing sweets, ice cream and drinking chocolate;

· Cocoa butter (vegetable fat), a high-value soft fat that is used in chocolate coatings, chocolates and nougat. Cocoa butter is also used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries to manufacture products such as ointments, lotions and lipsticks.

Research and Development in the field of Gene technology aims to improve its agronomic traits such as resistance against pathogens (fungal resistance and virus resistance), resistance against pests (insect resistance), plant development (increasing yield) and quality traits (modifying fat composition of the cocoa butter). The cocoa bean has also bean enriched with new components. For instance, the creation of the perception of a sweet taste of cocoa has been done through the insertion of the gene of a sweet-tasting African plant (Thaumatococcus daniellii) which causes the cocoa plants to produce the sweetener thaumatin.

DNA experts are working with sweet giants Mars to create genetically modified chocolate that fights heart disease and diabetes and won’t make you fat. It took two years to disentangle the cocoa tree’s 420 million units of DNA. And they claim that in another five, they could unlock the secret of how to make chocolate healthy. The scientists say the secret lies in the genetic code of the cocoa bean. The beans contain chemicals called flavonols which lower blood pressure and help keep the heart healthy. And the scientists believe they can change the DNA of the cocoa tree so it produces beans with far higher levels of flavonols. They also hope to produce beans that fight diabetes, as well as making the fat in cocoa much healthier.

Sources:

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/database/plants/43.cocoa.html

http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2010/11/20/scientists-working-to-create-genetically-modified-chocolate-to-make-you-healthy-sure/

Animal Testing

The use of non-humans for testing of various products is known as animal testing. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), is a group that believes that animal tests are not only extremely cruel but also pointless. According to them, they are completely inaccurate because of the vast physiological variations between species. They believe that animal studies teach us nothing about the health of humans because human reactions to illnesses and medications are completely different from the reactions of other animals. Other species absorb, metabolize and eliminate substances differently than humans do. They believe that testing on animals is just plain bad science which harms humans and other animals alike. 

Even though no law in any country requires cosmetics or personal-care products to be tested on animals, many companies around the world choose to subject animals to painful. Two of the most common animal tests conducted to this day are eye irritancy and lethal dose tests by several cosmetics companies such as Pantene, Sunsilk, Dove etc.

In eye irritancy tests, chemicals are dripped into the eyes of albino rabbits, who have no tear ducts, which makes them unable to cry to wash away the toxic chemicals. After placing the chemicals in the rabbits' eyes, laboratory technicians record the damage to the eye. Often, the rabbits receive no anaesthesia during the tests. Many rabbits break their backs as they struggle to escape the pain.

In acute toxicity tests, increasing amounts of detergent, eyeshadow and other products are force-fed to rats, mice, rabbits, guinea pigs and other animals until a certain percentage of them are poisoned to death. The infamous Lethal Dose₅₀ (LD₅₀) test is the most common form of animal-poisoning study. It is used to determine what concentration of a substance is needed to kill 50 per cent of a group of animals. A study found that these tests were able to predict toxicity in humans with only 65 per cent accuracy.

There are several humane alternatives to animal testing:

      1.      Instead of measuring how long it takes a chemical to burn away the cornea of a rabbit's eye, manufacturers can now drop that chemical onto donated human corneas.

      2.      Human skin cultures can also be grown and ordered for irritancy testing.

      3.      In addition, companies can use computer and mathematical models.

      4.      They can also choose to use ingredients and chemicals which have already been proved to be harmless and are known to be safe.

 

      Source: www.petaindia.com