Witty Scribble

Parts of America are colder than Antarctica! This was the headline in major journals worldwide and surely has been the hot (or should I say cold) topic discussed & debated amongst environmentalists and people across the globe recently. The conditions were certainly quite harsh in a few areas of the USA. The temperature has been recorded as low as -40 ° Celsius; said to be the lowest the mercury has dipped since several decades. The reason for this sudden sweep of cold winds is attributed to 'Polar vortex'. What is this Polar Vortex? Is it some newly coined term or it has always existed? Has the temperature ever been so low in USA because of it in the past? How long is this to stay? Read on to get the answers to these questions. Cassini model over Saturn's North Polar Vortex: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill What is Polar Vortex? Before answering the question, let me talk about a few basic terms from Geography. As we all know, Earth is divided into 2 halv...

As we close the year end and welcome the new year with all the joy and zeal, let us know a bit about the first thing that changes with the year: The Calendar . In this age of technology and gadgets, many people still use the traditional wall calendar or other printed forms. It is arguably the most efficient tool in Indian household to track the absence of milkman or the maid. As we near the year end, I thought it will be apt time to talk about our friend on the wall, the Calendar. Oh! don’t worry, I am not going tell you about leap years and century years and stuff, I know you know that already (although you may find one of our older posts about leap second a little interesting). So right before we change the calendars, let us talk about how calendar has changed over time. Based on whether the calendar represents the cycle for sun or moon, it can be a Solar Calendar or Lunar Calendar. However, most of the early calendars were lunisolar, considering both lunar and solar p...

'Where words fail music speaks'. A famous quote, from a renowned author 'Hans Christian Andersen', is undoubtedly true. Music/Sound transcends the language-barrier to work as a common medium to elicit happy, melancholy, annoying, devotional, calm, energetic etc. feelings. Though oldest musical instrument is contested, the records definitely ascertain the fact that music is much old than we generally think it to be. The contested slice of history is w.r.t. two finds in recent times. One is called the " Divje Babe Flute ", discovered in Slovenia and estimated to be 43,000-67,000 years old. The other is the pair of flutes found in Germany and estimated to be around 40,000 years old. These flutes, made of Mammoth's ivory and Swan's bone, are generally accepted as the oldest musical instruments. Divje Babe Flute (Source: Wikimedia) So much on the musical instruments history. Let's come to the present, in the world where Hip hop/Rap & ...

I raised my hand as high as I could, sitting in the third row of benches in my class, hoping that our chemistry teacher will notice me and ask me for the answer which I believed I had calculated correctly before rest of the class. I strategically chose third row of benches throughout my student life as I believed that third row students got just the right attention from the teachers and were at lower risk of being asked to produce the homework and classwork assignments that teachers could show to the rest of the class as examples of good or bad work. “27.9”, I said, beaming with confidence when Pandey Sir nodded at me after seeing me raising my hand. Waiting for my appreciation from him, I never anticipated the kind of mockery I was going to become in next minute. Pandey Sir being one of the strictest teacher, yet a fun-loving person who would not miss any opportunity to crack a joke, asked me back, “27.9 Kilometers or 27.9 metre per second square?”. The whole class burst int...

Billions of years ago, life on Earth started in a primordial soup. With the single celled organism, life eventually sprang up in water. Later, it evolved into creatures living on land, until we, the most intelligent (though I believe as most complex) found our mojo & began to rule the planet (& hence destroy it). Well this blog doesn’t speak about our wrong doings on the Mother Earth but is on an interesting thought put forward by one of our own kind. Since the origin of Life can be traced to a single organism, it is pretty much self-evident that all of us are somehow related to one another. But how close are we actually? In the sense, if you have to reach to another unknown person somewhere at the opposite side of planet, will you be able to reach out to her/him? If yes, how many threads have to be cut to reach the person holding the fleece?  Continue reading to know more.. Six degrees of separation The Idea- Six degrees of separation There have been many ide...

“Uncle, why is this ‘Anaar’ giving red and green color light, why not some other color?”, asked Aadi, my friend Vijay’s 5-year old, who is a bundle of joy and child curiosity. We were celebrating Diwali in our society in Hyderabad as we could not go to our respective hometowns this Diwali. Someone in near vicinity was lighting up an “Anaar”, the flower pot or the fountain cracker, which was emitting stars of red and green color that fascinated Aadi. Firecrackers are age old tradition across the world. For many, firecrackers are an integral part of Diwali celebration. Let us know a bit more about firecrackers, their history and try to find answer to Aadi’s question. Firecrackers and their history: Firecrackers originated in China around 200BC, initial versions of firecrackers were made of a special type of bamboo which will explode on prolonged heating producing a ‘bang’ sound. Firecrackers in Chinese are referred as “ baozhu ”, literally meaning exploding bamboo. Aft...

"I am looking for a good perfume bhai", said Kushagra, my younger brother. "Perfume? But why..since when have you started buying these stuff?", I queried him. "Since the day I have started cycling & any-which-ways the sweltering Faridabad heat demands one." "Ok..Which deo are you looking for?"  "Not Deo bhai, but perfume. Technically speaking Eau de Perfume. You really don’t know much about these na. Maybe you can write your next blog on the difference between Eau de Perfume, Eau de Toilette etc." said Kushagra correcting me. So here it is. My next blog on the sweet topic of fragrance. How is a Deodorant different from Perfume? While both Deodorant and Perfume create good aroma around, there is a major difference in the application, function and composition of the two. So to start with, let us understand the reason of generation of bad smell. The reason we emit a foul smell is attributed to the doings of bacter...