Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian engineer-sociologist who, in the 19th century, studied the number of people in various income classes and represented his findings in diagrams. His conclusion was that 80% of the total wealth in the world is owned by 20% of people and that 20% of wealth is owned by 80% of people. A similar pattern is observed …

Large blocks of floating ice, called pack ice, cover much of the Arctic Ocean and the seas around Antarctica. Pack ice was a problem for explorers. In 1915, the Endurance, the ship used by Sir Ernest Shackleton to reach Antarctica, was crushed by pack ice and sank. The first ship to reach the North Pole was the Russian atomic icebreaker …

The surface of every part of the body, inside and out, is covered with a protective layer, or layers, of tightly packed cells called epithelia. The largest, thickest and most complex of these epithelial tissues is the skin which covers the whole of the outside of the body. The skin itself is made of two principal layers. The outer layer …

Otolaryngology is the medical speciality that studies the ear, nose, and throat, as well as other related structures of the head and neck. Within otolaryngology there are seven specialties namely paediatric otolaryngology, allergy, head and neck diseases, otology / neurotology (ears, balance, and tinnitus), rhinology (nose), laryngology (throat), facial cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgery. Otolaryngologists are often referred to as …

Ophidiophobia is a Greek term which is a combination of ‘ophis’ meaning snake and phobia meaning fear. Ophidiophobia refers to the fear of snakes, alternatively termed as herpetophobia. This kind of phobia is quite distinct from the fear of venom. An ophidiophobiac is usually afraid of snakes, not only when they come in contact with one but even when they …

Modern theories of the universe begin with the simplest of observations — that the night sky looks dark. This darkness implies that the universe is not infinitely old, as scientists once thought. If it were, starlight would already have seeped into all corners of space, thus giving a hot and uniform glow across the sky. This insight is known as …

The weather in the month of October in the Indian sub-continent is called ‘October heat’. During October and November, with the apparent movement of the sun towards the south, the monsoon trough or the low pressure trough over the northern plains becomes weaker. This is gradually replaced by a high-pressure system. The south-west monsoon winds weaken and start withdrawing gradually. …

It’s the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. According to a study, nomophobia is plaguing our 24/7 life — running out of battery, credit or losing one’s handset. About 53% of users surveyed are affected by not having network coverage. The survey revealed that men suffer more than women, with 48% of females and 58% of males admitting …

The Greek root nephos means cloud, and is found in a variety of meteorological terms such as nephology, the study of clouds; and the nephoscope, an instrument used to detect cloud motions. Nephology is a specialised and complex branch of science. Nephologists study clouds to help people understand weather patterns.

Munchausen Syndrome, also known as hospital addiction, factitious illness, afflicting those referred to as professional patients, is a repeated fabrication of clinically convincing simulations of disease for the purpose of gaining medical attention. It refers to patients who wander from hospital to hospital feigning acute medical or surgical illness and giving false and fanciful information about their medical and social …