The Nile is one of the most interesting rivers of the world owing to the ancient Egyptian civilization, which is known as the ‘Gift of Nile’. The river originates in the well-watered regions of northeastern Africa and proceeds to drain northwards in the Mediterranean Sea. It is known as the world’s longest river. Although different…
Maggot therapy is used to heal wounds. In this method, maggots or larvae of flies are allowed to eat away the dead tissue in the wound, thereby clearing it quickly and healing it in the process. It is also known as Maggot Debridement Therapy (MDT). Wounds infested with maggots heal quickly and without spread of…
Chromosomes are considered the basic structures of heredity. They carry the codes that give rise to the expression of the characteristic features of an organism. Humans have 46 chromosomes. In 1997, a team of scientists J.J. Harrington, G.V. Bokkelen, R.W. Mays, K. Gustashaw, and H.F. Willard synthesized artificial chromosomes. These chromosomes are stable up to…
Andromeda, the galaxy closest to the Milky Way, is about 2.5 million light years away. To travel in space, we need to achieve the speed of light, which is about 3,00,000 kilometres per second. Even at that great speed, it will take us about 2 million years (not 2.5 million years due to an effect called…
In about 1607, Galileo invented an instrument that could measure the rise of water in a glass tube with the rise in temperature. This instrument is called a thermoscope. Later, scientists modified it to add a scale to mark the rise of water. Subsequently, water was replaced with alcohol and mercury.
The rhino looks like it is wearing a coat of armour. Rudyard Kipling, in his story ‘How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin’, tells an interesting tale about how a Parsee called Pestonjee Bomonjee baked a magical cake and a rhinoceros ate it on an uninhabited Island on the Red Sea. When that happened, the rhinoceros…
