Teachers in higher education are expected not only to be narrators but also to be practitioners of modern development of their respective subjects. This is true even to a greater extent in the field of natural sciences where almost everyday new facets of nature unfurl themselves. On the other hand, particularly in recent years, policy makers in education are putting comparatively greater thrust to enhance the research and innovative teaching activities particularly among college teachers. Within various shortcomings regarding infrastructure, facilities, excessive teaching load etc, from the very early days a number of college teachers, particularly in Bengal, contributed substantially in the field of natural sciences along with the University teachers and researchers in the premier scientific institutes. Father Lafont, J.C. Bose, P.C. Roy, P.C. Mahalonobish, A.K. Roychaudhury etc. are only few names among them, who also maintained strong academic connections with the scientists in other categories of institutions. To boost up this heritage, “The Beats of Natural Sciences” is a small effort to act as a platform to ….
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Brief reports of original research works:
Gravitational Instability in the Presence of Primordial Fully Tangled Magnetic Fields Suparna Roychowdhury and Rajesh Gopal
Primordial magnetic fields can provide the requisite initial conditions for the generation of additional density perturbations. The role of these fields, in the context of structure formation, however has to be investigated by studying the conditions for collapse of a large-scale mass fluctuation. In this letter, we study the effect of tangledisotropic primordial magnetic fields on the collapse of a generic large scale spherical proto-object (representing a galaxy/galaxy group/galaxy cluster) by addressing the energetics of the collapse. This initial investigation leads to an intersting conclusion which is possibly quite robust. Our calculations indicate a strong constraint on the order of the magnetic field during re-combination – within the spherical approximation, we find that the collapse of objects is halted for fields ranging from $\gtrsim$3 nG for a protocluster to $\gtrsim$0.3 nG for a protogalaxy.
Blood lactate is produced due to muscular activities during work. It was found that blood lactate level increased as 2.32 ± 0.97 mm/lt (mean ± SD, n=20) in place-bo condition. The value of increment of blood lactate level in case of glucose supplementation (single dose, i.e. 30 min. after commencement of the work) was reported to be 1.54 ± 0.02 mm/lt (mean ± SD, n=20). The value of increment of blood lactate level, in case of glucose supplementation (double dose, i.e. 30 and 50 minutes after commencement of the work) was found to be 1.042 ± 0.05 mm/lt (mean ± SD, n=20). The value of increment of blood lactate level in case of triple doses of glucose supplementation (30, 50 and 70 minutes after commencement of the work) was found to be 0.519 ±0.01 mm/lt (mean ± SD, n=20). As per as blood lactic acid is concerned, correlation between blood glucose and blood lactate was calculated in different doses (place-bo condition, single, double and triple doses). It was found negative with the blood glucose. The value of correlation coefficient for blood glucose (double dose of glucose supplementation) and blood lactate was found to be (-0.280). When it was measured for triple dose of glucose against lactic acid, was found to be (-0.495). The value was significant, in case of triple dose of glucose supplementation while the rest values are non-significant. Therefore we can conclude that blood supplementation has definite role in the decrement of blood lactate during prolonged work.
A new desorption technique, ‘Stepped Isothermal Evolved Gas Analysis (SI-.EGA)’ is used for water desorption of select Marine Ferromanganese Crust (MFMC) materials. Desorption is carried out by heating homogeneous powder of MFMC materials (0.25 gm) from 31oC to 191oC in several steps. At any temperature, the kinetics of water desorption is determined from the change of pressure in a fixed volume. Water desorption approximately follows first order kinetics at all temperatures; however, anomalous water desorption phenomena is observed at 31oC. Average activation energy of 1.190.35 kcal/mole is obtained from the Arrhenius equation of the powder samples, in the temperature range of 51oC -191oC.
Fe2O3-TeO2 films were prepared using vapor deposition technique and dc conductivity was studied in the temperature range 323-513K for different compositions. X-ray diffraction study confirms the amorphous nature of the films. It was observed that the conductivity of the films at 323K varies from 3×10-2to 5×10-3 Scm-1. The Seebeck co-efficient study indicates that the films are n-type semiconductor. Mott’s small polaron non-adiabatic hopping conduction mechanism was valid above 380K and variable range hopping at lower temperature. XPS analysis confirm the presence of Fe2+ and Fe3+ and hopping of electrons occurs between these two ionic states.
Drug addiction (or substance dependence) is a condition where people compulsively use psychoactive drugs, to the point where the user has no effective choices other than to continue. As per National survey an estimated 7.5 crore Indians are drug addicts and the number is going up significantly. So to make our country out of that we have to better understand both the physical dependency and psychological dependency of Drug Addiction at the cellular level and to treat the pathological pursuit of rewards by epigenetic modulations.
Aphids attack a wide variey of plants, both cultivated and wild and are established as major pests of several economically important plants. Among the predator members of aphids, the order Neuroptera is very important. Three larval instars of all three families of Neuroptera (Chysopidae, Coniopterygidae, Hemerobiidae) are found to be active predators, as are some of the adults. Owing to their carnivorous habit, free living Neuropteran larvae attack and kill aphids. Neuroptera may be used effectively in the biological control of aphids.
Within India and the other rice growing countries of Southeast Asia, there is a plethora of rice-related cultural heritage diversity. Rice has featured in agronomic, culinary, medicinal, social and spiritual practices which has influenced the development of rice genetic diversity. The landraces or folk rice varieties were developed by innovative farmer experiments on the substratum of available genetic diversity. These folk rice varieties play an intrinsic role in cultural survival.
‘Chemistry’ as a subject, dates back to early age of civilization. Since then it has been an integral part of our daily life and has been incorporated in the syllabus of education from school level, which demands a practical knowledge of the subject. Here lies the dilemma of a chemistry teacher, as in the practical classes a student needs to come in close contact with some obnoxious materials which are harmful to the health of the students as well as the environment. Therefore we should develop some alternative approach in devising practical lessons to the students.
We have investigated in experiment, a variation of the simple double pendulum in which the point masses have been replaced by rectangular plates. We have captured in video, this system in its various states of motion- small oscillatory and chaotic. We have then extracted the frames out of the video using MATLAB. We detected the motion of the two pendulums by identifying the relevant colour pixels in each frame. The pixel co-ordinates were then used to calculate velocities and plot various scaled graphs related to the motion. The fact that in the experiment, the pendulum had actually swung in chaotic motion, has also been demonstrated. We have also done a simulation of the simple double pendulum using MATLAB, where the initial conditions and system dimensions are adjustable by the user. This represents an ideal situation, as all the conditions are controlled. Velocity-time plots and phase portraits have been drawn from the simulation data.
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