Mirror image is a concept from chemistry applied to organic materials. An example of this is glucose and fructose. These molecules are mirror images of each other. Although it is possible to flip glucose and superimpose it over a fructose molecule, only in 2D (flat viewing) are they similar.
Read More »What does mineral water contain?
Naturally available water, after having come in contact with various salts found in soil stratas and atmosphere, contains a large number of chemicals. Some of them are calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, iron, sulphates, nitrates, nitrites, phosphates and oxygen. Small quantities of these substances are responsible for the taste and odour of natural water and are useful for essential functioning of …
Read More »What does Freefonix refer to?
Freefonix is a 40-episode, 3D animated music project created by Magnus Fiennes, Alex Tate and Simeon Warburton and produced by an Indian company and BBC. It is targeted at children and uses music and animation to tell an adventure story of three teenagers who accidentally discover the existence of The Thirteenth Note which brings them power and insight.
Read More »What does Burundanga mean?
Burundanga is the other name of the drug ‘Scopolamine’, used for criminal activities like rape or to rob innocent victims. The drug is passed on to the victim through business cards, pamphlets, etc. Even if the skin, through touch, absorbs just a very small quantity of the drug it has the desired effect. The drug is also administered through tablets …
Read More »What does a tree have to be pruned?
Trees have to be pruned to protect their health, improve their appearance or remove danger to people or property. Sometimes it is necessary to remove broken, dead or diseased branches, to restore vigour to an ageing tree by cutting back and to admit more air and light by thinning out the center. One of the most obvious reasons for pruning …
Read More »What does ‘tropicalized’ on a radio set signify?
Heat and humidity are the greatest enemies of any electrical equipment, so in tropical countries, such equipment is manufactured to withstand those climatic conditions. In a radio set, tropicalized means coating the electrical windings with resin, sealing the speaker hole with acoustically transparent cloth, installing felt washers on the control knobs, and sealing openings for the antenna and earth connections.
Read More »What does ‘robot’ means?
The word ‘robot’ was coined by the Czech playwright, Karel Capek, in a play called R.U.R., which stood for Rossum’s Universal Robots. In the play, people have mechanical servants which look like people and do manual work for them. Capek called these machines robots from the Czech work robota which means labour.
Read More »What does ‘Bt’ in Bt brinjal signify?
Bt brinjal, a genetically modified version of the common brinjal, is a transgenic vegetable created by inserting a gene (Cry 1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into it. The insertion of the gene is said to give the brinjal plant resistance against insects like the brinjal fruit and shoot borer and fruit borer.
Read More »What do skates eat?
Living on the bottom the skate naturally feeds on the other animals it finds there crabs, lobsters and oysters and other molluscs. It has strong curshing teeth to deal with these shelled creatures. To get at choice mollucs buried in the sand the skate will flap away with its pectoral fins and gradually work its way under the surface. It …
Read More »What do our lungs work?
Our lungs are like two spongy bags. Just as sponge can be filled with water and then squeezed dry again, so our lungs fill with air when we breathe in and then release most of the air again when we breathe out. As air enters the lungs it passes down a series of smaller and smaller tubes, which are known …
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