Animal Testing

As need for new treatments arise, the use of animals for research increases. There are two main uses, and both have powerful arguments. On one side, animal rights activists feel that the lives of animals should be protected as if they were human. In contrast, supporters of animal testing feel that cures for our most virulent diseases will be found with the help of animals.

Pro’s:

-Finding drugs and treatments to improve health and medicine. There are already some lifesaving medical breakthroughs that are the result of animal testing, like open heart surgery, organ transplants, effective insulin, vaccines for deadly diseases, …

-It is the most accurate way to learn the effects of substances in a living body

-Ensuring the safety of drugs and other substances

-Human harm is reduced and human lives are saved but also animal lives are saved because of animal testing.

-Many of the medications and procedures that we currently use today wouldn’t exist and the development of future treatments would be extremely limited.

-Many argue that the lives of animals may be worthy of some respect, but the value we give on their lives does not count as much as the value we give to human life.

-Using cell cultures can only reveal side effects on a molecular level and cannot unfortunately, reveal side effects like organ failure, rashes, tumors, or cardiac arrest like animal testing can.

-Using computer models cannot always predict unknown variables that can be discovered with animal testing.

-Animals may not have the exact same philology as humans but animal testing is accurate enough to test whether a substance is even safe enough for human trials.

Cons:

-Death- animal testing leads to the pain, suffering and even death of about 1.4m animals annually. The greatest victims of course are mice and rats who account for about 90 percent of these.

-Price- the cost of animal testing is very high. Can you imagine that animal testing costs billions of dollars annually? This is attributed to the fact that these animals need to be housed, fed, treated after a test or when they fall sick. Animal testing may also need to be performed on a similar animal for a series of months in order to establish a given ground.

-Differences- inasmuch as animals share some similarities with human beings, there are some differences that certainly lead to error. Through these differences, either wrong drugs are administered to human beings or innocent animals suffer death and pain in the process.

-Tests on Humans- it has been discovered that inasmuch as tests are performed on animals, some trials still have to be administered on human beings to find out whether there will be positive results. This has led to concerns on whether there will be avoidance of animal testing at the end of it in some way.

-Inhibiting Research- studies suggest that the continued use of animals by researchers may lead to avoidance of development of alternative techniques because the researchers already feel they have a powerful technique at hand.

-Psychological Differences- scientists themselves have said that there are some psychological differences between human beings and animals such as emotions. Further study suggests the uselessness of animal testing based on the fact that animals and human beings don’t share anything on social, cultural and familial grounds.

-Moral Issues- concerns have been raised on the ethical and moral grounds of scientific research. This is based on the fact that the whole process is cruel to them, leading to a psychological kind of trauma.

-Physical Suffering- some intelligent animals such as dogs and cats are always locked up and confined in small cages for a very long time. Of course this makes them very dull as they are naturally playful. Penetrative surgeries and radical procedures without the need for anesthesia are performed on these animals painfully. They are then left fractured with every cut and stitch on several parts of their skin and bones.

Genetically Modified Crops – Pineapple

A variety of foods can be genetically modified using biotechnology – these are known as GM [Genetically Modified] foods. Through genetic engineering the genetic material is altered. Selected individual genes with specific traits are transferred from one organism to another. Traditional breeding can achieve similar effects, but it takes a lot of time. Genetic modification of food is not new because food crops and animals have been altered through selective breeding for ages. However, while genes can be transferred during selective plant breeding, the scope for exchanging genetic material is much wider using genetic engineering. Today many foods have been modified to increase productivity and to make them resistant to insects and viruses and more able to tolerate herbicides. Crops have been modified for these purposes in a number of countries, with approval from the relevant authorities. In the US market now, 60-70% of the processed foods are genetically modified.

Among many crops is also the Pineapple that has been modified genetically to enable them to remain fresh for a longer period of time thus increasing their shelf life.

Pineapple (Ananas comosus), a tropical plant with edible multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries, named forthat resembles ance to the pine cone. Pineapples may be cultivated from the part containing the leaves above the fruit, flowering in 20-24 months and fruiting in the following six months. Once removed during cleaning, the top of the pineapple can be planted in soil and a new plant will grow.

Southeast Asia dominates world production. Thailand and the Philippines are leading producers. Brazil too is a big producer. The primary exporters of fresh pineapples are Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire and the Philippines.

Costa Rica and Hawai are the two countries known for their GM Pineapples. Since about 2000, the most common fresh pineapple fruit found in U.S. and European supermarkets is a low-acid hybrid that was developed in Hawaii in the early 1970s. In commercial farming, flowering can be induced artificially, and the early harvesting of the main fruit can encourage the development of a second crop of smaller fruits.

The Costa Rican Government granted LM Veintiuno permission to expand the area cultivated with a genetically modified (GM) pineapple called “Piña Rose”. They granted the permission despite the doubts and the lack of information on the impacts of large-scale GM pineapple production. LM Veintiuno has experimented with growing GM pineapple since 2005 in the south of Costa Rica, on land that belongs to a subsidiary of Del Monte.  There have been protests recently as GM crops entail environmental risks and risks to human health which include problems of water pollution, erosion and destruction of forests.

Refrences:
1. http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/genetically_modified_foods
2. http://www.foecardiff.co.uk/content/stop-del-monte-gm-pineapple
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple

Pallikaranai Marshlands

As a field trip, we visited the Pallikaranai Marshlands. Before the excursion, we interacted with a wild life photographer who told us more about the wetlands. Through his photos, he showed us the vast difference between the sight it was before and the dumping yard it has turned into now. It was sad to see what mismanagement of wastes and pollution can do to the environment. Being at the Pallikaranai wetlands made the situation even more real.

Piles and piles of junk lay around the area, which was especially pitiful as the marsh contains several rare or endangered and threatened species and acts as a forage and breeding ground for thousands of migratory birds from various places within and outside the country.

After our visit to the marshlands, we were taken to the zoo which was an experience in itself. Watching animals kept in conditions close to their natural habitat was fascinating as well as intriguing.

Structure of the Environment

The Oxford English dictionary defines the word Environment as

“The natural world, as a whole or in a particular geographical area, especially as affected by human activity”

Basically, an environment is a collection of all the animals and plants in a specific area of land or water. Examples of environments are wetlands, deserts, grasslands, forests, and oceans.

Physical and Biological Environments:

A physical environment is made up of elements such as the atmosphere, climate, land, and water. The biological environment includes animals, plants, and bacteria. Both the physical and biological environments are connected to each other and can never be separated.

Types of Environments:

Some of the types of environments are:

Urban - Urban environments may look different from other environments, but consist of animals, plants, and resources.

Tropical Rainforest - Tropical rainforests have the greatest number of animal and plant species of any environment on Earth. Located on either side of the equator, tropical rainforests are warm and wet. They get at least 200cm of rain each year. These environments are very lush. The forests support so much life, because they are always wet and receive the same amount of sunlight almost every day. Constant conditions help many species of plants and animals develop and survive.

Deserts - Deserts are defined by how much rain they get. Most deserts, like the Sonoran in North America and Sahara in Africa, are hot. They receive less than 25cm of rain each year. The South and North Poles are also deserts but very cold.

Polar - Despite extreme cold weather, polar environments still have plant and animal diversity. Birds and mammals that live there are adapted to survive the polar extremes.

The southernmost polar region is called Antarctica, which means "no bears." The northern polar region is the Arctic. The name “Arctic” comes from the Greek word arctos, meaning “bear.” Polar bears are the bears of the Arctic. Polar penguins live only in Antarctica. They are a type of flightless bird.

Wetlands - Wetlands are environments where the land and the water meet and mix. Types of wetlands are swamps, bogs, marshes, and fens.

Each wetland type is classified by the plant species that live in it. The world’s major wetland swamps are located in Africa, North America, South America, and Asia. The largest wetlands in the world are the bogs of the western Siberian lowlands in Russia. These bogs are three times the size of the United Kingdom. Wetlands are becoming one of the most endangered environments. Many of the animals and plants living there are also endangered.

Oceans - Oceans are the large body of continuous salt water that cover over 70% of Earth's surface. Earth has five oceans including the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and Southern oceans. It also has 13 seas. Both vertebrates and invertebrates flourish in the ocean environment, including the smallest and largest animals on Earth.

Grasslands - Grasslands are environments where grasses are the main type of vegetation. The grass species are usually mixed with herbs and sometimes with shrubs. Less than 10% of the land is covered with trees. Grasslands are found on every continent except Antarctica.

In Africa (and elsewhere) grassland dotted with trees is called savanna. Grassland wildlife species include horses, elephants, zebras, antelopes, buffalo and bison, hawks, and snakes.

In general, the environment divided into four spheres, the lithosphere, the hydrosphere, the atmosphere, and the biosphere as correspondent to rocks, water, air, and life.

The Lithosphere:

In the Earth the lithosphere includes the crust and the uppermost mantle, which constitute the hard and rigid outer layer of the Earth. The lithosphere is underlain by the asthenosphere, the weaker, hotter, and deeper part of the upper mantle. The boundary between the lithosphere and the underlying asthenosphere is defined by a difference in response to stress: the lithosphere remains rigid for very long periods of geologic time in which it deforms elastically and through brittle failure, while the asthenosphere deforms viscously and accommodates strain through plastic deformation. The lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates. The uppermost part of the lithosphere that chemically reacts to the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere through the soil forming process is called the pedosphere.

There are two types of lithosphere:

-Oceanic lithosphere, which is associated with Oceanic crust and exists in the ocean basins

-Continental lithosphere, which is associated with Continental crust

The Hydrosphere:

A hydrosphere in physical geography describes the combined mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet.

The total mass of the Earth's hydrosphere is about 1.4 × 1018 tonnes, which is about 0.023% of the Earth's total mass. About 20 × 1012 tonnes of this is in the Earth's atmosphere. Approximately 75% of the Earth's surface, an area of some 361 million square kilometres, is covered by ocean. The average salinity of the Earth's oceans is about 35 grams of salt per kilogram of sea water (3.5%)

Oceans - An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas. More than half of this area is over 3,000 meters deep. Average oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 30 to 38 ppt. Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of salt water often referred to as the World Ocean or global ocean. This concept of a global ocean as a continuous body of water with relatively free interchange among its parts is of fundamental importance to oceanography. The major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos, and other criteria: these divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.

Rivers - A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, a sea or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be termed by several other names, including stream, creek and brook. In the United States a river is generally classified as a watercourse more than 60 feet (18 metres) wide. The water in a river is usually in a channel, made up of a stream bed between banks. In larger rivers there is also a wider floodplain shaped by waters over-topping the channel. Flood plains may be very wide in relation to the size of the river channel. Rivers are a part of the hydrological cycle. Water within a river is generally collected from precipitation through surface runoff, groundwater recharge, springs, and the release of water stored in glaciers and snowpacks.

Streams - A stream is a flowing body of water with a current, confined within a bed and stream banks. Streams play an important corridor role in connecting fragmented habitats and thus in conserving biodiversity. The study of streams and waterways in general is known as surface hydrology. Types of streams include creeks, tributaries, which do not reach an ocean and connect with another stream or river, brooks, which are typically small streams and sometimes sourced from a spring or seep and tidal inlets.

Lakes - A lake is a terrain feature, a body of water that is localized to the bottom of basin. A body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, is not part of a ocean, is larger and deeper than a pond, and is fed by a river.

Natural lakes on Earth are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing or recent glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world, there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.

Ponds - A pond is a body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is usually smaller than a lake. A wide variety of man-made bodies of water are classified as ponds, including water gardens designed for aesthetic ornamentation, fish ponds designed for commercial fish breeding, and solar ponds designed to store thermal energy. Ponds and lakes are distinguished from streams via current speed. While currents in streams are easily observed, ponds and lakes possess thermally driven micro-currents and moderate wind driven currents. These features distinguish a pond from many other aquatic terrain features, such as stream pools and tide pools.

The Atmosphere:

The atmosphere of Earth is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by Earth's gravity. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation, warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night (the diurnal temperature variation).

Earth's atmosphere can be divided into five main layers. From highest to lowest, these layers are:

Exosphere - The outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere extends from the exobase upward. It is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. The particles are so far apart that they can travel hundreds of kilometers without colliding with one another. Since the particles rarely collide, the atmosphere no longer behaves like a fluid. These free-moving particles follow ballistic trajectories and may migrate into and out of the magnetosphere or the solar wind.

Thermosphere - Temperature increases with height in the thermosphere from the mesopause up to the thermopause, then is constant with height. Unlike in the stratosphere, where the inversion is caused by absorption of radiation by ozone, in the thermosphere the inversion is a result of the extremely low density of molecules. The temperature of this layer can rise to 1,500 °C (2,700 °F), though the gas molecules are so far apart that temperature in the usual sense is not well defined. The air is so rarefied that an individual molecule (of oxygen, for example) travels an average of 1 kilometer between collisions with other molecules. The International Space Station orbits in this layer, between 320 and 380 km (200 and 240 mi). Because of the relative infrequency of molecular collisions, air above the mesopause is poorly mixed compared to air below. While the composition from the troposphere to the mesosphere is fairly constant, above a certain point, air is poorly mixed and becomes compositionally stratified. The point dividing these two regions is known as the turbopause. The region below is the homosphere, and the region above is the heterosphere. The top of the thermosphere is the bottom of the exosphere, called the exobase. Its height varies with solar activity and ranges from about 350–800 km.

Mesosphere - The mesosphere extends from the stratopause to 80–85 km (50–53 mi; 260,000–280,000 ft). It is the layer where most meteors burn up upon entering the atmosphere. Temperature decreases with height in the mesosphere. The mesopause, the temperature minimum that marks the top of the mesosphere, is the coldest place on Earth and has an average temperature around −85 °C (−120 °F; 190 K). At the mesopause, temperatures may drop to −100 °C (−150 °F; 170 K).[5] Due to the cold temperature of the mesosphere, water vapor is frozen, forming ice clouds (or Noctilucent clouds). A type of lightning referred to as either sprites or ELVES, form many miles above thunderclouds in the troposphere.

Stratosphere - The stratosphere extends from the tropopause to about 51 km (32 mi; 170,000 ft). Temperature increases with height due to increased absorption of ultraviolet radiation by the ozone layer, which restricts turbulence and mixing. While the temperature may be −60 °C (−76 °F; 210 K) at the tropopause, the top of the stratosphere is much warmer, and may be near freezing. The stratopause, which is the boundary between the stratosphere and mesosphere, typically is at 50 to 55 km (31 to 34 mi; 160,000 to 180,000 ft). The pressure here is 1/1000 sea level.

Troposphere - The troposphere begins at the surface and extends to between 9 km (30,000 ft) at the poles and 17 km (56,000 ft) at the equator, with some variation due to weather. The troposphere is mostly heated by transfer of energy from the surface, so on average the lowest part of the troposphere is warmest and temperature decreases with altitude. This promotes vertical mixing (hence the origin of its name in the Greek word "τροπή", trope, meaning turn or overturn). The troposphere contains roughly 80% of the mass of the atmosphere. The tropopause is the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere.

The Biosphere:

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed (apart from solar and cosmic radiation) and self-regulating system. From the broadest biophysiological point of view, the biosphere is the global ecological system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning through a process of biogenesis or biopoesis, at least some 3.5 billion years ago.

Sources –

Wikipedia.com

Globio.org

Solar Flare Disaster Management

The sun-worshiping Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012. Even the bible codes hold cluster after cluster describing a nasty solar event in 2012 –

Revelation 16:8-9 "And they fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun; and it was given to it to burn men with fire. And men were burned with great heat; and the blasphemed the name of God Who has the authority over these plagues; and they did not repent to give Him glory."

 “NASA confirms solar storm by the end of 2012.” – NASA predicts a new geomagnetic storm on the way following an eruption on the surface of the sun. Will the world end in 2012?

What is a Solar Flare or Solar Storm?

A flare is a sudden, rapid and intense variation in brightness. A solar flare occurs when electro magnetic energy built up in the sun atmosphere is released due to some reasons suddenly. As a result a sudden brightening is observed over the Sun’s surface or the solar limb, and a large amount of energy is released. This is followed by a huge coronal mass ejection (CME). With the release of huge amount of magnetic energy, the electrons, protons, and heavy nuclei are accelerated and are ejected through the corona into space (corona – outermost layer- a type of plasma atmosphere of the Sun or any celestial body). The energy released during a flare is typically on the order of 10²⁷ ergs per second. Large flares can emit up to 10³² ergs of energy. This energy is ten million times greater than the energy released from a volcanic explosion. On the other hand, it is less than one-tenth of the total energy emitted by the Sun every second.

A coronal mass ejection is a massive burst of solar wind, other light isotope plasma, and magnetic fields rising above the solar corona.

What causes Solar Flares?

When accelerated charged particles interact with the plasma medium of the sun, solar flares occur. The acceleration of the particles could be due to magnetic reconnection. In high plasma regions, a series of closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of force quickly reconnect into a low arcade of loops leaving a helix of magnetic field unconnected to the rest of the arcade. The sudden release of energy in this reconnection is in the origin of the particle acceleration. The unconnected magnetic helical field and the material that it contains may violently expand outwards forming a CME.

The frequency of flares coincides with the Sun's eleven year cycle. When the solar cycle is at a minimum, active regions are small and rare and few solar flares are detected. These increase in number as the Sun approaches the maximum part of its cycle. We are now heading for the peak of solar cycle 24 which is expected to reach its maximum by July 2012. The Sun will be in her most active state by then.

The First Solar Flare:

The first solar flare was recorded on September 1, 1859 by 2 scientists Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently. When they were viewing the sun spots, they suddenly identified a large flare in white light.

Description of a Singular Appearance seen in the Sun on September1, 1859 by R C Carrington :
While engaged in the forenoon of Thursday, Sept. 1, in taking my customary observation of .. the solar spots, an appearance was witnessed which I believe to be exceedingly rare. .. I had secured diagrams of all the groups and detached spots, and was engaged at the time in counting .. the spots .. when within the area of the great north group (the size of which had previously excited general remarks), two patches of intensely bright and white light broke out. .. I thereupon noted down the time by the chronometer, and seeing the outburst to be very rapidly on the increase, and being somewhat flurried by the surprise, I hastily ran to call some one to witness the exhibition with me, and on returning within 60 seconds, was mortified to find that it was already much changed and enfeebled. Very shortly afterwards the last trace was gone ..
On a Curious Appearance seen in the Sun by R Hodgson :
While observing a group of solar spots on the 1st September, I was suddenly surprised at the appearance of a very brilliant star of light, much brighter than the sun's surface, most dazzling to the protected eye, illuminating the upper edges of the adjacent spots and streaks, not unlike in effect the edging of the clouds at sunset; the rays extended in all directions; and the centre might be compared to the dazzling brilliancy of the bright star alpha-Lyrae when seen in a large telescope of low power. It lasted for some five minutes, and disappeared instantly about 11.25 a.m. The phenomenon was of too short duration to admit of a micrometrical drawing, but an eye-sketch was taken .. and .. the size of the group appears to have been about .. 60,000 miles. ..

The authors also note that a magnetic disturbance was recorded simultaneously with the white light flare observation, and also that "towards four hours after midnight there commenced a great magnetic storm". The first recorded solar flare is thus probably also the first observed instance, wherein a change on the Sun was believed to have directly influenced the environment around the Earth.

Recent Solar Flares:

 A powerful solar flare was observed during the night of March 6-7, 2012. Experts have reported this as the largest solar flare in five years. Its effects are now headed toward the earth. Solar flares continue for a week till March 9, 2012. Geomagnetic storms caused by eruptions on the sun have the potential to disrupt power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, lead to some rerouting of flights over the polar regions.

Can solar flares be seen with naked eye?

Most of the energy of solar flares goes to frequencies outside the visual range and for this reason the majority of the flares are not visible to the naked eye and must be observed with special instruments, like GOES( Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite). Flares are in fact difficult to see against the bright emission from the photosphere. Instead, specialized scientific instruments are used to detect the radiation signatures emitted during a flare. The radio and optical emissions from flares can be observed with telescopes on the Earth.

Adverse effects of Solar Flares :

Solar flares affect the Central Nervous System (stomach lining), all brain activity (including equilibrium), along with human behaviour and all psycho-physiological (mental-emotional-physical) response.  Solar flares can cause us to be nervous, anxiousness, worrisome, jittery, dizzy, shaky, irritable, lethargic, exhausted, have short term memory problems and heart palpitations, feel nauseous, queasy, and to have prolonged head pressure and headaches.

Powerful solar flares can generate huge holes in the ionosphere, which can negatively affect people and equipment on earth. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, and wind storms appear to happen after strong solar activity on the sun.

The emitted photons affect the high-orbiting satellites of the Global Positioning System, or GPS, creating timing delays and skewing positioning signals by as much as half a football field, risking high-precision agriculture, oil drilling, military and airline operations, financial transactions, navigation, disaster warnings, and other critical functions relying on GPS accuracy. The energy put out by the flare could damage electrical equipment and jam some communications. For example, in 1989, a particularly large solar flare blacked out the grid of the entire province of Quebec for 12 hours, according to NASA. The blackout also affected New York Power and the New England Power Pool.

Can Solar Flares be predicted?

Richard Canfield and David McKenzie from Montana State University in the US, and Hugh Hudson from the Solar Physics Research Corporation in Japan, analysed two years worth of images from the X-ray satellite Yohkoh. In addition to the link between sigmoids and solar flares, they also confirmed that there was a link between solar flares and sunspot activity.

In another research, Reinard and NOAA intern Justin Henthorn of Ohio University found a magnetic pattern.  Detailed maps of more than 1,000 sunspot groups, called active regions were constructed from solar sound-wave data. The same pattern was found in region after region: magnetic twisting that tightened to the breaking point, burst into a large flare, and vanished.  It was established that the pattern could be used as a reliable tool for predicting a solar flare.

Mitigation:

Microelectronics:

Investigations have shown that particle showers from solar storms radiation can affect the performance of digital microelectronics systems causing increases in "soft errors" based on altitude as well as geomagnetic latitude and longitude. Gradual degradation of performance of electronics in harsh radiation environments can be mitigated by incorporating proper shielding and control of operating conditions.  Other possible approaches for mitigation of risk can include use of radiation-hardened devices or derating a device for application in a harsh environment.  Since the single-event effects (SEEs) and soft error rates (SERs) are spontaneous and not reproducible, they are harder to understand and prevent.  The mitigation measures generally focus on anomaly detection and redundancy check before taking any action on data input.  This is one of the risks that will be most likely to affect the performance of electronics in "Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition" (SCADA) that are commonly used in many large distributed systems and infrastructure segments, such as electric grid, railroad signaling systems and telecommunication.

Space and aviation:

The impact of solar storms on space and aviation can be significant.  The effects can range from damage and malfunctioning of satellites and instrumentation from specific CME events to that of possible long-term radiation effects on interplanetary flights. Research indicates that a (polar) flight route, altitude and even type of aircraft are some of the risk factors that affect the level of radiation risks to airline passengers and the crews.  Based on space weather forecasts, some airlines have considered rerouting of flights from the shorter, high northern polar routes to more southerly or lower-altitude flight paths to reduce the radiation risk against additional cost of longer flights.  Although research in recent years has given us more insight into these risks, more studies are needed for exposure monitoring and to determine effective safety measures that reduce the radiation risk to the passengers and the crews.

In addition to the potential health hazards of radiation in high altitude flying, there is also potential risk to onboard, flight-critical subsystems.  Commercial aircraft manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus have electromagnetic environment (EME) related qualification practices for design of flight-critical components.  They include multiple levels of redundancies for safety critical subsystems, shielded cables and back up analog signal where appropriate.  The designs of newer (e.g. Boeing 777) fly-bywire aircrafts incorporate more electronics than their older counterparts do and EMP immunity cannot be fully assured without more extensive testing. For satellites and space exploration, the risk of malfunctions and catastrophic damage is real and many satellite anomalies and failures/malfunctions have been attributed to the effects of solar storms.  The knowledge gained from research and failure/malfunction investigations are helping improve the protection in designs and administrative measures.

Telecommunications:

Telecommunication plays a crucial role in our daily routines and global trade in this technology dependent world. There have been many documented incidents involving malfunctions and damage to telephone and telegraph systems. There are many measures in place to help prevent the system from a total collapse in case of a solar storm event.  These measures include industry-wide sharing of best practices by industry groups such as Network Reliability and Interoperability Council (NRIC) and others, geographic diversity of a large system, redundant deployment of landlines, and wireless and satellite capabilities providing alternate means that may help prevent the telecom sector from experiencing a total system collapse.  That does not mean the telecommunication industry is not vulnerable to massive outages.  The digital systems may be sensitive and may be vulnerable to disruptions.  More work and investigative research of this sector is needed to assess the status of readiness.

Oil and gas pipe lines:

In the case of oil and gas pipelines, there is no acute risk for catastrophic failure.  It is primarily a life cycle risk of increased corrosion leading to a reduction in service life. Design of new pipelines should explicitly consider mitigation of various risk factors described earlier. By improving the pipeline insulation, electrical isolation to ground and enhanced cathodic protection with impressed current systems, adverse corrosion effects of geomagnetically-induced currents can be monitored in real time and mitigated to certain extent.  The Trans-Alaska pipe line is reportedly better designed for GIC protection than the older Siberian pipeline. Additional pipeline survey, maintenance, and considerably more research are needed for improving our knowledge in this area.

Railways:

Railway networks are also vulnerable to malfunction because of voltages generated by the geomagnetically-induced currents.  Many large and geographically distributed infrastructures (water and waste management systems, electric power, traffic signals, mass transit systems, environmental control systems, and manufacturing systems) use "Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition" (SCADA) that collect data and process signals from remote sensors by telemetry for predetermined control actions.  SCADA related risks are just not unique to railroad alone as these systems are used in many large distributed systems.  Prior experience shows several examples of unexplained rail signal malfunctions.  These are probably examples of "soft errors" from single-event effects in SCADA systems in solar storm events.

Industry research has shown that SCADA systems may be vulnerable to EMP and solar storm exposures.  When these systems malfunction, it can result in incorrect processing of sensor signal that can lead to incorrect control action.  To address critical application requiring a more robust reliability, the SCADA architecture may include redundant signal verification and validation for prioritization of actions to improve the reliability.  Unless upgraded, older designs and remote telemetry aspects of SCADA systems in railroads are likely to be vulnerable to malfunctions due to solar storm effects.  The mitigation measures are likely to focus on additional vigilance in case of alerts and contingency plans to responds to potential emergencies. 

Sources:

SOLAR FLARES

** First solar flare

http://www.ips.gov.au/Educational/2/4/4

http://www.december212012.com/articles/news/8.htm

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html

**RECENT SOLAR STORMS

http://z6mag.com/featured/solar-storm-in-march-2012-is-continuing-sunday-to-produce-next-aurora-borealis-166314.html

http://earthsky.org/space/another-major-solar-flare-during-night-of-march-6-7-2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2111506/Solar-storm-March-2012-Largest-solar-flare-5-years-hits-Earth.html

**PREDICTION

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100119_solarflare.html

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/1999/mar/12/how-to-predict-solar-flares

Cadbury Diary Milk – a Chocolaty Hazard?

Who hasn’t heard about the Cadbury worm incident? It started in October 2003 when Mumbai customers complained about finding more than just “kuch meetha” in their chocolate bars. In response, the Maharashtra Food and Drug Administration seized the chocolate stocks manufactured at Cadbury's Pune plant. What followed this were allegations and counter-allegations between Cadbury and FDA. The negative publicity reduced Cadbury's sales by 30 per cent, at a time when it sees a festive spike of 15 per cent because of Diwali. As a result, for the first time, Cadbury's advertising went off air for a month and a half after Diwali, following the controversy.

Cadbury's revamped the packaging of Dairy Milk. The metallic poly-flow, was costlier by 10-15 per cent, but Cadbury didn't hike the pack price. Simultaneously, Cadbury's roped in brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan to do some heavy duty endorsement putting his personal equity on the line for the brand. The company increased ad spends for the Jan-March quarter by over 15 per cent. The recovery began in May 2004, and by June, Cadbury's claimed that consumer confidence was back.

Experts believe that the reason for Cadbury's success was that it took crisis head-on. And the consumers were more forgiving, because the brand enjoyed an emotional equity in India. It continues to lead the Indian chocolate market with over 70 per cent market share.

Michelin

Michelin  is a tyre manufacturer based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne région of France. It is one of the two largest tyre manufacturers in the world. Most companies identify the new Michelin Energy tire, introduced in the early 1980s. It is also notable for its Red and Green travel guides, its roadmaps, the Michelin stars that the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, and for its company mascot Bibendum, colloquially known as the Michelin Man.

Among Michelin's numerous inventions, there is the removable tyre, the « pneurail » (a tyre for trains made to run on rails) and the radial tyre technology now used in modern "green tyres" that reduce fuel consumption.

Michelin Environmental Statement:

Michelin Tyre Plc recognises that a strong commitment to environmental issues is crucial and also makes good business sense. The Company uses electricity to power its manufacturing process and gas fired boilers to generate steam for vulcanisation. These impact the environment by depleting non-renewable fossil fuels and the combustion emissions lead to global warming.

Since 1998 the Company has reduced its energy use at the Dundee plant by 41 per cent and we currently generate around 25 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources through our wind turbines. The site has a professional environmental team and an energy manager to constantly drive this progress and they are engaged in a variety of energy-efficiency projects including new air compressors, which save up to 20 per cent over previous models, to further improve environmental performance and make a significant reduction in operating costs. We are also investigating possibilities for other renewable energy sources including wind turbines at our truck tyre plant in Ballymena in Northern Ireland.

Michelin is part of the EU- Emissions Trading Scheme, which is a cornerstone in the fight against climate change. It is the first international trading system for CO2 emissions in the world. The aim of the EU ETS is to help EU Member States achieve compliance with their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Each phase of this scheme includes a reduction in the CO2 emissions allocations for manufacturing sites, including Dundee. The current phase runs from 2008-2012.

The Company has an ongoing campaign to encourage all employees to spot energy wastage in the form of air/ steam leaks, poor use of light/heat, problems with machinery etc. The new scheme has already identified many (often simple and cheap) ways of improving energy-efficiency.

To monitor its environmental performance the Company uses the Michelin Environmental Footprint (MEF) to measure key environmental impacts of waste generation and recycling, use of water, energy consumption, volatile organic solvent emissions and CO2 emissions. Michelin has made a public commitment to reduce these indicators by 20 per cent between 2005 and 2011.

An Inconvenient Truth Indeed

Being a rather ignorant person where the environment is concerned, when I was told we were going to watch a documentary about global warming; naturally, my mind went into zone-out mode. However, surprisingly, An Inconvenient Truth was not only thought provoking and informative; but also interesting.

Al Gore (we all know who he is) starts off with a humorous jab at himself by introducing himself with the words “'I used to be the next President of the United States”. He then goes on to spinning the most convincing and scary web of statistics, facts and data, all the while managing to maintain an entertaining atmosphere; and yet getting the point across; the point being: we’re all going to die.

On a more serious note, the main message of this documentary was to show ignorant people like me, and unfortunately a major section of our society; that what we take for granted ,today is not going to last as long as we think it is going to. Global warming is a greater threat than we assume it to be and the earth is in fact, not as indestructible as we believe. The images of the future this documentary paints for us are saddening. It makes us question our ways of living and our presumptions.

Admittedly, it might have been too dramatic; but at the end of the day, the questions posed are valid and intriguing. Do we really have much time left? Do we care as much as we should?

Man V/S Nature in Cinema

For this activity we were each asked to select a movie of our choice that depicted the concept of man against nature. The movie that I chose was Poseidon. Poseidon is a Hollywood movie about a cruise ship that is on its way to New York. On the night of New Year’s Eve the whole ship is celebrating with the guests on board socializing at the cruise party. Amidst the movie’s many subplots we come across the main character of the film Dylan Johns, a professional gambler. Meanwhile the ship’s crew members notice that the ship is about to collide with a rogue wave and attempt at trying to dodge the situation. Dylan realises that there is no way the ship can escape being submerged by the rogue wave and plans an escape route. He is joined by a hand full of other passengers and the group somehow manages to escape just before the entire ship is overwhelmed by the rogue wave.

Now, a rogue wave is simply an abnormally large wave that occurs in the middle of the sea due to various natural reasons such as high winds. They are usually random and can occur at any time.

Therefore, the movie doesn’t exactly incorporate the notion of ecosystem-destroying human activities in particular. However this movie highlights how the people on the ship, despite knowing that there was a chance of their ship being drowned, continued to party, confident that they would be able to deal with the situation. They believed they would be able to control nature itself and survive. It was not until the very last moment that the passengers of the ship realized that the situation had become out of control and there was no chance of their survival. Man has always believed that he has the upper hand and has the ability to manipulate whatever he wants to. However, that is far from the truth. Poseidon is an example of the fact that no matter what mankind might believe, he must still be at the mercy of nature from time to time.

Vertical Farming

With growing population and rapid urbanisation; farming as such has become more and more challenging and difficult to execute. The idea of vertical farming first came into existence in 1915 and has been in the process of experimentation ever since. The basic idea is to utilize what we have instead of wasting resources on trying to find new land for agriculture. The term vertical farming is literally implemented and the concept is that skyscrapers can grow crops at each level in a controlled environment where all the required conditions for growing crops are monitored.

Advantages:

*This concept helps not only to manage land resources but also solves transportation problems as crops are grown right where they are needed.

*There is year round production of crops and no weather related crop failures.

*The problem of soil erosion due to improper crop plantations is reduced.

*Being in a controlled environment means there is no need for pesticides and insecticides. The crops are therefore grown organically.

*Ability to recycle and use black water is an added advantage, seeing as how water scarcity is a major environmental issue on its own.

Drawbacks:

*With the lack of insects; pollination is a problematic concern.

*Another problem is the lack of sunlight; which needs to be replaced by LEDs. This is obviously expensive, along with the cost of creating a controlled, suitable environment for the crops.

These ‘farms’ only exist on a small scale and unfortunately hold a questionable potential profit. At the end of the day, some say vertical farming holds the key to the future of survival; and others just do not believe in its feasibility.