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July 05 Ice on fire: The next fossil fuelDEEP in the Arctic Circle, in the Messoyakha gas field of western Siberia, lies a mystery. Back in 1970, Russian engineers began pumping natural gas from beneath the permafrost and piping it east across the tundra to the Norilsk metal smelter, the biggest industrial enterprise in the Arctic. By the late 70s, they were on the brink of winding down the operation. According to their surveys, they had sapped nearly all the methane from the deposit. But despite their estimates, the gas just kept on coming. The field continues to power Norilsk today. Where is this methane coming from? The Soviet geologists initially thought it was leaking from another deposit hidden beneath the first. But their experiments revealed the opposite - the mystery methane is seeping into the well from the icy permafrost above...Read full article . April 11 Is This the Future of the Digital Book? Top of FormBy BRAD STONE Published: April 4, 2009 PLENTY of authors dream of writing the great American novel. Noah Berger for The New York Times Bradley Inman is starting Vook, a platform for e-books that will combine text, video and social networking. Vook.tv is pushing an alternate vision of the future of books (compared to what Amazon and Sony are with the Kindle and Sony Reader). Bradley Inman wants to create great fiction, dramatic online video and compelling Twitter stream — and then roll them all into a multimedia hybrid that is tailored to the rapidly growing number of digital reading devices. …More… article on Vook March 21 Why Money Messes With Your MindMoney has a far more complex grip on us than most economists are willing to admit. In these cash-strapped times, perhaps an insight into the psychology of money can improve the way we deal with it...MORE March 17 Indian scientists find three new bacteria in upper stratosphereIndian scientists have discovered three new species of bacteria in the upper atmosphere. The bacteria, highly resistant to ultra-violet radiation, are not found elsewhere on Earth, leading to speculation on whether they are extra-terrestrial in origin. The Indian Space Research Organisation announced Monday that the bacteria had been found in the upper stratosphere. 'All the three newly identified species had significantly higher UV resistance compared to their nearest phylogenetic neighbours. One of the three, identified as a member of the genus Janibacter, has been named Janibacter hoylei, the second Bacillus isronensis, and the third Bacillus aryabhata,' ISRO said in a release. 'While the present study does not conclusively establish the extra-terrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement to continue the work in our quest to explore the origin of life,' it said, adding: 'The precautionary measures and controls operating in this experiment inspire confidence that these species were picked up in the stratosphere.' Janibacter hoylei is named after the distinguished Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, Bacillus isronensis in recognition of ISRO's contribution in the balloon experiments which led to its discovery and Bacillus aryabhata after India's celebrated ancient astronomer Aryabhata. India's first satellite was also named after Aryabhata. The release said the experiment was conducted using a 26.7 million cubic feet balloon carrying a 459 kg scientific payload soaked in 38 kg of liquid neon. The balloon was flown from the National Balloon Facility in Hyderabad, operated by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). The release did not give the date when the balloon was flown. 'The payload consisted of a cryosampler containing 16 evacuated and sterilised stainless steel probes. Throughout the flight, the probes remained immersed in liquid neon to create a cryopump effect. These cylinders, after collecting air samples from different heights ranging from 20 km to 41 km, were parachuted down and safely retrieved. 'These samples were analysed by scientists at the
Centre for Cellular The experiment detected 12 bacterial and six fungal colonies, nine of which showed greater than 98 percent similarity with known species on Earth. 'Three bacterial colonies were, however, totally new species,' the release said. Jayant Narlikar from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune was the principal investigator and scientists U.R. Rao from ISRO and P.M. Bhargava from Anveshna supported as mentors of the experiment, the release said. 'This was the second such experiment conducted by ISRO, the first one being in 2001. Even though the first experiment had yielded positive results, it was decided to repeat the experiment by exercising extra care to ensure that it was totally free from any terrestrial contamination,' ISRO said. March 08 How your looks betray your personalityThe idea that a person's character can be glimpsed in their face dates back to the ancient Greeks. It was most famously popularised in the late 18th century by the Swiss poet Johann Lavater, whose ideas became a talking point in intellectual circles. In Darwin's day, they were more or less taken as given. It was only after the subject became associated with phrenology, which fell into disrepute in the late 19th century, that physiognomy was written off as pseudoscience.Does the face give away uncomfortable truths about the person within? Roger Highfield investigates, while the idea is put to the test by Richard Wiseman and Rob Jenkins…How your looks betray your personalitySee the Video: See the average New Scientist reader and more January 31 The six biggest mysteries of our solar system |
Publish entry
How warfare shaped human evolution…
Now a new theory is emerging that challenges the prevailing view that warfare is a product of human culture and thus a relatively recent phenomenon. For the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists, psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an integral role in our evolution….How warfare shaped human evolution….. Read full article
GlobalCurry
Local spices, global curry
Germany’s Currywurst, Japan’s Kare Raisu, Curry Goat in Caribbean... The curry is no longer seen as a mix of Indian spices; it’s food for the global village, says Sabina Sehgal Saikia
It’s being dubbed the currification of cuisine and the new sushi, as the Indian curry curries favour the world over and is freely appropriated and integrated by disparate culinary cultures across the globe. The New York Times has voted it one of the planet’s most internationalized foods, right up there with the pizza.
Unsurprising then that Germany is embroiled in a bitter argument about a curry snack, a seemingly foreign food that has been a firm favourite with it for 60 years. Germany is getting steamed up about the origins of the Currywurst. The curry and tomato sauce-flavoured sausage is its most celebrated snack. It is the theme of a new film The Invention of the Currywurst, which controversially traces its roots not to Berlin but postwar Hamburg. The fact that this is apparently a matter of serious search and scrutiny says much about the Currywurst’s status in Germany. Nearly a billion are believed to be consumed in Germany every year. A new study suggests that 80% of Germans regard the Currywurst as central to their diet.
Closer home, in Japan, Indian curry seems to be the flavour of the current season. The Japanese fascination with Indian curry and naan and shifting tastes away from Chinese and Thai cuisine, has caused hundreds of Indian restaurants to mushroom across the archipelago. Japan’s idea of Indian curry and naan is distinct from the more tepid Japanese “curry” – usually eaten as Kare Raisu — which people consume on average 62 times a year, according to a survey. The British introduced curry in Japan in the Meiji era after it ended its policy of national self-isolation, Sakoku. Today, curry has captured the country’s culinary imagination in a way nothing else has. That is why Japan has curry cutlets, Katsu-Kare; curry noodles, Kare Udon and curry bread, Kare-Pan.
Some form of curry can be found in kitchens around the world — be it the curry goat in the Caribbean; the cape curry in South Africa; the curry shrimp and curry chicken in Trinidad and Tobago; the Kare-Kare in the Phillipines; Fiji’s Kare; Samoa and Tonga’s Polynesian curry and the more familiar Malaysian, Thai, Indonesian curries. All of these are influenced by Indian spices.
The Indian curry has several enthusiastic and prominent ambassadors, from former US President Clinton and Antonio Banderas to the Sultan of Brunei, Tom Cruise, Sharon Stone, Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman. Singer Bryan Adams has a personal Indian chef; Johnny Depp is a selfconfessed chicken biryani freak; Uma Thurman, Minnie Driver, Boris Becker, Mahesh Bhupati and the King and Queen of Jordan are partial to a curry.
Then, there are the theories about curry addiction. Several studies claim that “the reaction of pain receptors to the hotter ingredients in curries leads to the body's release of endorphins and combined with the complex sensory reaction to the variety of spices and flavours, a natural high is achieved that causes subsequent cravings, often followed by a desire to move on to hotter curries.”
But the curry’s conquest of the world is hardly new. But is it a new metaphor of reverse colonialism? However dubious its genealogy, the “curry” has been both political subject — and symbol — in many countries for several decades. In 2001, the then British foreign secretary Robin Cook hailed chicken tikka masala as his country's new national dish. It has since emerged as an emblem of the changing English palate. With Brits increasingly keen to shake off their clichéd image as unimaginative cooks and consumers of dull, tasteless, boiled and boring food! A few years ago, a London newspaper ran a magazine cover showing a local lout, complete with leather jacket and Union Jack T-shirt, partaking of an Indian meal, surrounded by slogans “Keep Curry British!” and “Bhuna! Nan! Pilau! Curry is your birthright!”
It was hardly a slogan India would use, being confounded by our socalled gift to the world at large when no such thing exists here! For starters, there is the singular absence in the repertoire of Indian cuisine of the word “curry,” that suspiciously Epicurean epitome of Indian food!
Lizzie Collingham, author of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors,
offers a provocative inquiry into curry and its evolution. Her post-modernist theory — quite like that propounded by Amartya Sen — scoffs at the idea that India, or any other nation, ever had a cuisine that was not constantly in the process of assimilation. Seen through the culinary prism, Amartya Sen’s thesis on globalization debunks the phoney rightwing fears of being swamped by a foreign culture. Sen maintains that India too has adapted its tastes to myriad global influences over the centuries. The Bengali mishti is mostly chanar-based, a technique that came into India only after the European missionaries reached our shores centuries ago. Clearly, the converse is true.
The mirch or chilli was unknown to India 400 years ago; the tomato didn’t exist in Indian food till as recently as 200 years ago! Today, India is the world’s leading producer of chilli and supplies a large part of the planet’s insatiable appetite for the sizzling stuff. But, had the Portuguese not touched down in Goa in the late 15th century, we might have had an altogether different cuisine to showcase to the world. Strange are the accidents of history. But how did the chilli come to be so enthusiastically accepted in India, indeed Asia, even though Europe remained indifferent to it for centuries? At the turn of the century, successive British and Indian writers theorized that an already spicy cuisine — the south Indian Kaari (later bastardised as the fictitious curry) — zealously adopted the chilli as an integral part, adding strength to its already dynamic mix of masalas.
However it happened, it is time the generically Indian curry is viewed as food of, by and for the global village. Today, gastronomy can have no geographical boundaries, cuisine no country and taste no territory. In a gloriously globalizing world, “the other” converges with “the mother” and 21st-century cuisine is a confluence of cultures. Curry today is no more than a symbol of our times.
Colliding rocks and curious comets: The week in space Movie Camera
In the past week, a small space rock hit Earth, and astronomers released images of a mysterious comet and seasons on Uranus.
See these images and more in our weekly gallery.
Comets and Asteroids – Learn more about the threat to human civilisation in our special report.
Moon rocket passes crucial design test
WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA's new moon rocket passed a crucial design milestone late Wednesday.
NASA provided this image of the Ares 1 rocket, which it hopes will return astronauts to the moon by 2020.
Senior NASA management unanimously approved the preliminary design review of the planned Ares I rocket that would launch astronauts into space by 2015 and back to the moon by 2020. Read More at...Moon rocket passes crucial design testGiant water plume spews from Saturn’s moon
- 16:07 30 August 2005
- NewScientist.com news service
- Stephen Battersby
Four fissures in the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus are spewing out a plume hundreds of kilometres high, the Cassini probe has revealed, and the ejecta is leaving a vapour trail that rings Saturn.
Scientists are shocked by this volcanic activity on what should be a small, quiet moon. "It is a stunning surprise," said Dennis Matson, from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, US. But researchers are beginning to develop theories about what is going on.
Matson and other members of the Cassini spacecraft team revealed the latest data on Enceladus in London, UK, on Tuesday. Cassini snapped an image of the fissures, nicknamed "tiger stripes", when it flew past Enceladus on 14 July 2005, skimming within just 173 kilometres of the moon's surface.
Meanwhile, Cassini’s Composite Infrared Spectrometer picked up unexpectedly strong infrared radiation (heat) from the south pole. "It’s like flying by Earth and discovering that Antarctica is warmer than the equator," says John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, US. Zooming in, CIRS found that the fissures are at least 90° kelvin (-183°C), 15° warmer than most of the moon's surface.
Ice bombs
The tiger stripes are strange in other ways too, showing the spectral signatures of organic molecules and a form of ice that can only exist at relatively high temperatures.
Other instruments on Cassini sampled a vast plume of water vapour towering above the south pole, almost certainly coming from the hot fissures. Scientists have speculated before that Enceladus might supply material for one of Saturn's rings, the E-ring, and the new observations seem to confirm it. Water is pouring out at a rate of half a tonne per second - enough to keep the E-ring topped up.
Cassini has also seen 20-metre boulders near the moon's south pole. Could these have been blown out of the fissures, like giant, icy lava bombs? "They are awfully large" to have been ejected, says Torrence Johnson of the Cassini imaging team, "but Enceladus' gravity is weak, so it doesn't take much to lift stuff off the surface".
Tidal friction
Internal heat must be driving all this activity, but the source of the heat remains a big puzzle. Natural radioactive decay in the moon's rocky core might warm the interior just enough to produce a sludgy plume of water and ammonia. This could heat the surface ice just enough to allow water to evaporate slowly.
But Cassini also detected dust and whole ice grains in the plume, implying that the material is squirted out of Enceladus with some force. That would need a lot of heat – far too much to come from the core.
An alternative is the tidal pull of Saturn's gravity, which makes the moon flex and produce heat by internal friction. But initial calculations put that at only 1% of the heat from the core.
Johnson speculates that thousands of years ago the orbit of Enceladus may have been different, producing much more severe tidal heating. Today, researchers just see leftover heat escaping.
Or perhaps all the tidal stresses on Enceladus are focused on those four fissures, rubbing the surfaces together to melt the ice. "Somehow Enceladus is doing it, so we're going to have to figure out how," says Johnson.
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