The Greek legend of Jason and the Golden Fleece is believed by some scholars to be founded on fact. The story begins in Thessaly when King Aeson was deposed from the throne by his step-brother, Pelias. When his son Jason grew up he demanded his father’s kingdom back. Pelias promised to surrender the kingdom if Jason would bring back from …

A Broom for the Garden Stiff bass brooms can be purchased quite cheaply, but while they will do many forms of sweeping admirably, they are not nearly so good as a besom for getting the leaves off the lawn or doing up a sanded path. A broom of this kind can be easily made, and will give good service for …

The Latur pattern of study involves continuous and methodical practice of model question papers months before the board exams. It was devised by Aniruddha Jadhav, principal of Rajarishi Shahu College in Latur, who felt it helps students in providing point-to-point answers to questions which could be expected in the examination. This methodology, however, has been lambasted by educationists who consider …

Standing 8 feet high and weighing 300 pounds, the ostrich is easily the largest bird in the world. On African, grasslands it has adopted the habits of a grazing animal and groups roam about feeding in the company of zebras and gazelles. It is well adapted to this sort of habitat. Good eyesight and a long neck enable it to …

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), currently being built at CERN near Geneva, is the largest scientific instrument on the planet. When it begins operations later this year, it will produce roughly 15 petabytes (15 million gigabytes) of data annually. The mission of the LHC Computing Project (LCG) is to build and maintain a data storage infrastructure.

An Aerial Ropeway This increasingly popular form of transporting goods suggests an up-to-date mechanical toy which will provide a great deal of amusement. The first necessity is a pair of stout wooden uprights, suitably weighted so that they will not pull over. Wood one inch square in section and about six inches high will be suitable, if each upright is …

A jump seat, officially known as an auxiliary crew station, is a seat in the cockpit for individuals not operating the aircraft. The term is also used to refer to crew seats in the cabin, which are occupied by a flight attendant or other cabin crew during take-off and landing. These cabin jump seats are typically located next to or …

The most ambitious project since the Apollo missions to land a man on the moon, the International Space Station (ISS) is the next step in human exploration of the solar system. It is a joint venture between 16 nations, and the largest scientific cooperative programme in history. All power for the space station is generated by large arrays of solar …

To understand the inert pair effect, we need to understand the periodic table. There are some inherent properties of elements in the table. The inert pair effect is nothing but the extra stability concept. Generally p-block elements belonging to 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A, etc. show variable valency. For example, Sn element of group 4A shows +4 and +2 oxidation state. …

It is only when we stop to think that we realize the importance of land plants to us. We eat them in our cereals and vegetables, we make use of them for fibres like cotton, we depend on them for many drugs such as penicillin. But even when we eat meat, we must remember that the animals which produce the …