Intra-Galactic Weather Forecasting

A NASA artist’s illustration of events on the sun changing the conditions in near-Earth space.

Click the image above to go to the 5-minuted podcasted explanation of a project you have likely never heard of.  But it sounds important (perhaps to explain why sometimes your mobile phone gets inexplicably scrambled) and as with the story here it may inspire the career aspirations of a few young clever dreamers:

“When one of these big storms comes in, it can actually change and flex the magnetic field around the Earth,” Stratton says. “So we’ll measure that and then we’ll see how all of that energy that’s coming out of the sun deposits into the Earth’s magnetic field, into the radiation belts.”

Ordinary satellites wouldn’t survive so much radiation. So Stratton and a large team at the Applied Physics Lab have spent years designing and building two very tough spacecraft.

Each of the spacecraft is an octagon about 4 feet tall. But once they are in space, they will deploy booms that extend about the length of a football field.

Walk, Feel The Nature

One who loves Nature Mother will love this walk, especially during monsoon. You feel the soft earth on the bog, hear the whispering movements in the forest and smell her flowers everywhere. Nature Walk is a three hour trek which passes through evergreen and moist deciduous forests interspersed with marshy grasslands in Periyar Tiger Reserve. The trail normally covers 4 to 5 km area of Reserve escorting along with a  tribal forest guide. This program offers an excellent opportunity of Bird watching, butterflies and other wildlife of Periyar Tiger Reserve. Continue reading

I Can Feel My Heart Beat With Kalari Moves

Guest Author: Rania Mirabueno

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Beyond the nature tours of the Periyer Tiger Reserve near Cardamom County, the cultural scene in Thekkady offers a traditional Kerala martial arts performance called Kalari that I would definitely recommend for everyone to experience. Kalari is truly an art form combining music, dance and performance in the context of martial arts.

What I enjoyed most about Kalari was the diverse audience that attended. Kalari attracted all ages and from all backgrounds. I was able to share a unique moment with the community to see an ancient art form. From dagger to long stick to sword, I was at the edge of my seat the entire hour. Continue reading

Many Stripes. Many Tales. Few Tigers.

When I decided to come to Kerala this summer for my internship, I got most excited not entirely about my work, but really about seeing a tiger. I can’t even remember the last time I went to a zoo, but I know deep in my closet I have a dusty photo of me and a tamed tiger from Thailand. At this time, seeing a wild tiger was actually more of a WILD idea. Since I’m working next to the Periyar Tiger Reserve, a home to approximately 40 tigers and many other animals, I’m practically neighbors with them and awaiting a miraculous moment to see a tiger before my trip to Delhi.

As a Korean descendent, I must introduce you all to some Korean culture and explain why I’m writing a blog post that is dedicated just to tigers. I’m sure a lot of my Korean folks will agree that tigers and Koreans go way back. My relationship with tigers started when I was 3 years old when my grandmother told me a story about a tiger that smoked using bamboo pipes.  My reaction was: “Really? Tigers smoke, too?”

Source & Credit: Picture of a Tiger at SamChunSa (삼천사) at BookHanSan (북한산)

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Eye Heard You

Lately, I have been noticing how much I rely on and draw value from eye contact.  Maybe due to my weak hearing I tend to evaluate my conversations by observing others’ body language, specifically eye contact and supporting facial reactions.  I am surprised to find that I can accumulate a range of feelings simply from looking at these small features; I can be made to feel entirely stupid, worthless, and a time wasted, or I can feel encouraged, wise, and joyful to share my thoughts.  I guess this can support the old phrase, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  The manner in which I maintain eye contact matters and can convey much more than the words I am speaking.  It makes me wonder how my message would be perceived if only my eyes were seen and my words were heard.

Before my mind over-evaluates this communication feature, I pause to promise myself to be mindful to the conversation my eyes and other facial features are having with someone instead of only that of my words.  I know according to Eleanor Roosevelt that I can only make someone feel inferior or poorly if he/she allows me that crude act.  However, I never want to put someone in a position to be made to feel negatively by my actions, both in words and other supporting communication.  So, in the words of John Sinclair, “The eyes of Texas are upon you,” and will, to the most often and to the best of their ability, be encouraging others to reach their great potential.

Climate & Civilization

On a Monday morning, probably the last thing you want to hear about is how climate changed wiped out a civilization.  And one of our objectives on this site is to not merely serve as a feed for depressing news.  Yet this story, for all its dark implications (especially for the billion+ of us living in the region discussed in the piece) is not merely a bummer.  It also inspires on at least two levels, both related to science as it intersects with conservation. For those of us still young enough to follow in the footsteps of Jared Diamond and his many fellow scientific-discoverers, what better illumination (in a gloomy sort of way) of a potential career path?  For those of us of a certain age, with perspective already focused on future generations beyond our own, it provides fuel to the fire of our determined efforts not to ignorantly or lazily replicate age-old human errors…

Click the image to go to the story in Discovery‘s news website:

THE GIST

  • The Harappans enjoyed plumbing, complex trade routes and a system of writing.
  • The civilization built up in a “goldilocks” period when the rivers flooded often enough to support agriculture.
  • As the climate changed, so did the monsoon season, lowering the floods and support for their cities.

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The mysterious fall of the largest of the world’s earliest urban civilizations nearly 4,000 years ago in what is now India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now appears to have a key culprit — ancient climate change, researchers say.

To Munnar And Back – 6 Interns And An Indian Staff Picnic

The morning of the staff picnic began with a wakeup call at 4:30am to prepare for a prompt 6am departure to Munnar, a beautiful hill station in the Idukki district of Kerala. To the interns, an early morning with a long bus ride meant a great opportunity to catch up on some sleep after several long days of trekking and work. To the staff it meant the party could start even earlier.

The Men of Cardamom County

Within minutes of leaving the Cardamom County parking lot, a small group of the staff was already busy preparing the music list for the day’s journey. Immediately the bus was pouring with energy- Bollywood music incited full volume singing and raucous dancing that was only made more amusing by the jostling motions of the moving bus. It provided not only a humorous and exciting start to the day but also a somehow appropriate cultural soundtrack to the beautiful mountain views, tea plantations, and villages that passed by the bus window on the way to Munnar. Continue reading

Chettikulangara Kettukazhcha – A Temple Festival of Kerala

During the Malayalam month of Kumbham and Meenam (February & March), a special Keralan temple festival draws the faithful to the Allepy and Kollam districts. This festival, Kettukazhcha is a time where devotees of Goddess Parvathy bring offerings from their paddy field. At the temple of Chettikulangara they use sculpted and decorated forms of six temple cars known as ‘Kuthiras’, five ‘Therus’ (Chariots ) to represent the architectural skills of the ancient people of Chettikulangara. Continue reading

Shoot The Moon

One of the advantages of consistently cloudless skies is the ability to view celestial objects without difficulty. Although there’s a telescope available for use every night at Feynan, I found the experience of simply watching the moon’s transit across the sky beautiful. On a moonless night, the stars perforate the sky in their multitude. Photographing the moon, however, was something I’d never done before. Having a powerful lens (300mm) opens up a huge range of possibilities, and one that few people consider  is that of night photography.  Continue reading

Ain’t Periyar “Great”?

The jungle forests of the Periyar Tiger Reserve continue to amaze me.  Every time I venture into this wild paradise, I leave with wonderful memories, already looking forward with great excitement to my next exploration.  I think it has become fairly obvious over the past year and a half or so of blogging for Raxa Collective that I have more than a slight interest in birds.  Even though Periyar has amazing four-legged animals such as elephants, bison, giant squirrels, and langurs, for me it is the two-legged ones that make this reserve so special.  In fact, the word “special” does not come close to expressing what I feel for this birding wonderland!

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Try Doing This On Your IPhone

Credit: Duke University Imaging and Spectroscopy Program

Click the image above to go to the item, on the website of Science:

Such cameras could be useful for any number of military, commercial, or scientific purposes, the researchers suggest, changing the central challenge of photography from “Where should we point the camera?” to “How do we extract useful data from these superhuge images?”

Nilgiri Tahr

The Nilgiri tahr is a wild goat commonly found in India’s Western Ghats at elevation of 1200m-2600m. These animals can be found in abundance in Eravikulam National Park, Kerala. Female Nilgiri tahr are short with smaller curved horns comparing to males. It is the state animal of Tamil Nadu (one of the southern states of India). These photographs were taken at the national park during a staff tour to Munnar.

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News From Rio

After more than a year of negotiations and a 10-day mega-conference involving 45,000 people, the wide-ranging outcome document – The Future We Want – was lambasted by environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners for lacking the detail and ambition needed to address the challenges posed by a deteriorating environment, worsening inequality and a global population expected to rise from 7bn to 9bn by 2050.

Click the image above for the coverage in The Guardian.

Hybrid Solar Electricity And Hot-water Systems For Big Buildings

Click the image to go to the story in the always-informative Green section of the New York Times website:

When photovoltaic cells make electricity from sunlight, they collect a lot of heat along the way. And they don’t work as well warm as they do cold.  Four years ago I wrote about a hybrid system that was intended both to make electricity and gather usable heat on residential rooftops. That company, now called Echo Solar, is offering its product around the country.

Border Hiking – Exploring the Periyar and its Border

The Border Hike is a full day  trek inside the Periyar Tiger Reserve along the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu (one of Kerala’s neighboring states), exploring the length and width of Periyar. The route passes through undulating terrains, at altitudes ranging from 900m to 1300m.  Trekkers enjoy looking from the slopes and hills down onto the forest and the vast plains below. Continue reading