Students get lessons in farming

Chittaranjan Tembhekar & Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Caught in the concrete tangle of urban life, city kids can well be forgiven for supposing that milk comes out of tetrapacks and wheat from plastic pouches. In a bid to let the children experience the thrill of growing their own food, a handful of schools have put farming on the curriculum.

Since the onset of the monsoon this year, 85 Std III students at Kharghar’s Vishwajyot High School have been tilling the earth at a farm in Owe Camp village, a few kilometres from their school.

In addition to farming, the children have learnt the art of catching crabs, handling farm animals and climbing trees from the kids at the neighbouring gram panchayat school, who often join their parents on the farm. Vishwajyot has adopted the gram panchayat school so that children from both institutions
get a chance to interact with each other.

“Our students will spend four periods a week farming. Not only will they sow the paddy, but they will even shift the crop to a safer place once it starts growing and will harvest it after four months, at the end of the crop season,’’ said Sushama Dhumal, principal of Vishwajyot.

Smruti Koppikar, a parent of a Std V student at Tridha, a Vile Parle school that follows the Rudolf Steiner method of education, can still recall the expression on her daughter’s face when she came home from school one daywith a packet of rice that she had helped to grow on a farm on the outskirts of Mumbai. “The look on her face was priceless,’’ said Koppikar. Tridha has made farming compulsory for Stds III and IV.

“In the city, we all live in boxes made of cement, but in the village we get to work with soil, mud and grow things ourselves,’’ said Koppikar’s daughter Ananya, recalling her experiences on the farm. Ananya especially loved her stint on a farm on the outskirts of Panvel when she was in Std III, where a farmer showed the kids how he used a bullock to turn the soil over, and then got the children to take the bullock around one by one. In Std IV, Ananya spent time on a farm in Titwala where she helped grow her own wheat and rice.

“On a farm, children get hands-on experience of what it’s like to work with the soil, something that cannot be packed into the pages of a textbook,’’ says Koppikar.

While most schools get kids to troop down to the nearest farm, some, like Sahyadri, a school run by the Krishnamurti Foundation, have their own plot of land on campus that children can cultivate.

Farming is an activity that Sahyadri—a school set up on Tiwai Hill, 800 m above sea level, some distance from the Pune Nashik highway— has introduced for kids in Std VII. “It’s an experience that will stay with them throughout their lives,’’ says Amresh Kumar, the school principal.

Bengal boys take celestial position

Kolkata: They are barely 18 years old, but have already achieved immortality. Anish Mukherjee and Debarghya Sarkar, who passed out of South Point High School this year, now have two minor planets named after them. The celestial honour was bestowed on them by the Massachussettes Institute of Technology and Lincoln Laboratory of the US.

The honour is a recognition of their performance at an international sciencefair. Anish and Debarghya had won the second grand award in the electrical and mechanical category at the 2009 edition of the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Nevada, US. At the fair, the duo had teamed up to showcase a tamper-proof clamped bottle cap that won accolades from the jury comprising Nobel laureates and eminent scientists. The winner of the first and second grand awards at the fair get minor planets named after them.

According to a communication from MIT and Lincoln Laboratory, “minor planet 2000 AH52” (Citation No. 25629) and “minor planet 2000 AT53” (Citation No. 25630) will, henceforth, be known as “Mukherjee” and “Sarkar”, respectively. The planets were discovered on January 4, 2000, by Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research Team at Socorro, under its Linear Program. TNN

Nasa astronaut to kids: You can do anything

Anahita Mukherji & Srinivas Laxman | TNN

Mumbai: What’s it like to fly a space shuttle? How do you eat your food while floating in a space ship? And after two weeks in space, how do your legs feel when you’re back on earth? These are just a few of the questions that former Nasa astronaut Joan Higginbotham fielded while visiting schools in Mumbai on Friday. Mission Apollo, an Indian company working for space education, got Higginbotham to India to motivate kids to study math and science.

In a session with nearly 1,000 school children from 103 schools across the city at Nehru Planetarium, the children learnt, to their surprise, that apart from technically participating in a space flight along with Indian-American astronaut, Sunita Williams, she had also played the role of a “barber” to Sunita, on this mission. This unknown aspect of the space shuttle flight (STS-116), which operated between December 9 and 22, 2006, was revealed by Higginbotham during a media interaction after her presentation to students.

Said Higginbotham, “During the space flight, Sunita had grown her hair. She wanted it trimmed and I decided to cut it. Sunita’s cut hair was later donated to an American programme known as ‘Locks of Love’, which helps people suffering from cancer.”

Higginbotham was also a close friend of Kalpana Chawla, the Haryana-born Indian-American astronaut who died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster seven years ago. “Kalpana was a very well-respected and giving person. She flew to space before I did and was very ready to share her knowledge as well as the mistakes that were made while flying,’’ said Higginbotham. She and Chawla were both avid readers and would often recommend books to each other. “There was this one book that she had recommended, and I forgot the title. I meant to ask her about it later, but sadly never got the chance.’’

Her message to children in India — “You can do anything.’’ The sky is not the limit, quite literally. “I’m not saying that all kids should become astronauts. All I’m saying is that they can do whatever they want to in life.’’

Both children and teachers got to see video footage of Higginbotham’s 13-day stay on board a space ship, in a bid to understand what it’s like in outer space. While images of dinner time, where the crew got together, some towards the floor and some sitting near the ceiling, flashed on the screen, Higginbotham spoke of what it was like to eat and drink on a shuttle. The liquid simply floated in the shape of little spheres which the astronauts would get into their mouth.

As for exercise, the shuttle had a cycle for the crew, as they barely used their legs while ‘flying’. One of the crew members even got a frisbee along for fun. Higginbotham showed her audience pictures of two of her team-mates tossing her about like a ball as she floated around the space-ship.

In response to a question on how it felt like to walk after 13 days in a spaceship, she said she felt like an elephant. “We had to get used to walking the way newborn kids do. I felt so heavy,’’ she added.

“What is the criteria for becoming a Nasa astronaut,” asked a student. Replied Higginbothams: “You have to be an American citizen. You should just not have academic excellence, but you should be well rounded. A lot of emphasis is laid on intrapersonal relationship, she said. To a question about space tourism she said: “I think we have to carry as many people as possible to space. But, they must realise that space flight is dangerous.”

Answering a question about the possibility of a manned mission to Mars, she said, “Before we get to Mars we need to develop technology which will get us to the planet in a shorter period of time. Now it takes nine months,” she said and pointed out that Nasa has no immediate plans of embarking to the Red Planet.

SPACE JOURNEY: Joan Higginbotham interacts with school children at Nehru Planetarium on Friday

14-yr-old boy wonder cracks IIT-JEE, tops in Delhi

Neha Pushkarna | TNN

New Delhi: The boy sat hunched, his eyes on the floor and his hands held in a twisted clasp below his knees, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention. On Wednesday, 14-year-old Sahal Kaushik had left everyone gasping in disbelief by not only becoming the youngest ever to crack the tough IIT-JEE test but also topping it in Delhi and notching an all-India rank of 33.

Sahal, tutored at home by his mother, Ruchi Kaushik, a doctorturned-homemaker, took a long pause before answering the barrage of questions—which IIT would he join? Would he study electronics engineering? He looked up: “I want to study pure science, physics or mathematics, not engineering.’’ He looked down again. “I took the JEE because I could also get science courses through it.’’

Sahal may look like any other budding teenager, but is clearly very special. He could spell long words when he was just two; he recited tables till 100 at the age of four; and by the time he was six, he had finished reading H G Wells’s Time Machine.

7 of Top 10 rankers are from Andhra
The IIT-JEE results, announced on Wednesday, threw up many firsts. The talk of the town is Madras zone beating Bombay with the highest number of candidates (32) in the top 100. Seven of the top 10 are from Andhra Pradesh. While only 22 students from the Bombay zone made it to the top 100, the zone produced the largest pool of qualifiers. Mumbai girl Aakanksha Sarda, at rank 18, is the all-India girl topper. But she has decided to skip the IITs and head to MIT.

SC qualifiers exceed quota, OBCs do badly
For the first time this year, IITs have decided to do away with the preparatory course for Scheduled Caste candidates, as more students have qualified than seats available. While 1,773 SC candidates qualified across the country, 1,426 seats are reserved for them across the 15 IITs. But candidates from Other Backward Classes registered a lacklustre performance and the engineering colleges will transfer 220 seats to the general category pool, which will now have about 5,000 seats.

CHILD PRODIGY: Sahal Kaushik is the youngest successful candidate ever in the IIT entrance exam. He was taught entirely by his mother till age 12

Did Venter create life? Not really, say experts

Amit Bhattacharya | TNN

New Delhi: Are the bacterial cells created in J Craig Venter’s laboratories in the US actually synthetic life? After the hype and hoopla over the announcement of the world’s first “manmade living cells”, scientists are getting down to answering that question. And this is what most of them have to say: Venter’s team has achieved a stupendous technical feat, but the cells cannot be called synthetic.

Using an analogy from everyday life, what the team did is akin to completely reprogramming a computer, but not building one from scratch. Here’s why.

As the first step in the decadelong work, Venter and his researchers mapped the genome of a simple bacteria, Mycoplasma mycoides. Genome is the ‘brain’ of any cell and contains sequences of DNA which carry all the genetic information needed for the cell — and by extension, the organism — to function.

Like all living matter, the genome is made of chemicals. What Venter’s team did next is being hailed as a tour de force. It manufactured the M mycoides’ genome, step by step in the lab, using, in Venter’s words, “four bottles of chemicals”. This synthetic genome, identical in every way to the ‘original’ except for certain harmless ‘signatures’ the team put in to mark it as a builtin-the-lab version, was then inserted into another type of bacteria after the bacteria’s own genome had been sucked out.

Venter describes what happened next: “As soon as the genome goes into the cell, it starts making new proteins encoded in its DNA and converts it into a new synthetic species. It’s a completely synthetic cell now, it has replicated over a billion times. The only DNA it has now is the synthetic one that we made.”

In other words, the once the synthetic M mycoides genome is introduced in the bacterial cell, it transforms into an M mycoides. When it replicates, the off-springs too are M mycoides, carrying copies of the man-made genome. Venter believes, for all practical purposes, this is synthetic life. But other experts are saying that though the cell’s control station is artificial, the cell itself isn’t. Neither is it a new form of life —the artificial genome is an exact replica of a M mycoides genome.

Says Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Deepak Pental, himself a biotechnologist, “In this case, the bacterial cell is being seen as a shell, an envelope into which man-made genome is inserted. But the shell is much more than an envelope.” Nobel-winning British biologist Paul Nurse elaborates the point. In an conversation with BBC, he says, “Venter’s work is a major advance. But it’s not a creation of synthetic life...Creation of synthetic life would be to make an entire bacterial cell through chemicals.”

Nurse, Venter’s rival, believes creating an entirely new cell from scratch, though theoretically possible, would require a level of technology likely to be reached “long after we are dead”. He points out that in Venter’s method, there’s very little scope of deviating from nature’s script. “In an earlier attempt, Venter’s team got just one genetic ‘letter’ wrong — out of a million — and this cell simply didn’t function,” he says.

THESE CELLS AREN’T SYNTHETIC

Craig Venter's team created the genome of an M mycoides bacteria in the lab and inserted it into another type of bacteria

The recipient bacteria started behaving like an M mycoides. Its offspring too carried copies of the man-made genome

Venter says the cells are synthetic since they are controlled by genes made in lab
Other experts say that for any cell to be called synthetic, all its components should’ve been created artificially — perhaps possible in theory, but as yet technically impossible

Schools grapple with norms

Right To Education Law Creates Confusion On Same-Neighbourhood, No-Screening Policies

Shreya Bhandary | TNN

Mumbai: Schools around the state are slowly gearing up to meet the various clauses as mentioned under the Right To Education (RTE) Act which came into force in April this year. However, some features of the Act, like banning screening tests and selecting ‘neighbourhood’ children, have created more confusion than clarity.

Clause 13 of the Act says no school shall subject any child or their parents to any screening procedure before giving them admission, but many principals still feel that screening of a student is necessary to an extent.

“These tests are performancebased, just to gauge the psychology of a student. Children are not expected to be brilliant at these tests. In fact, we don’t have any written tests for KG level students. Students who apply for admission to classes above standard I are tested on the three core subjects - languages (English and Hindi) and Maths,’’ said Meera Isaacs, principal of Cathedral and John Connon School in Fort. Some also felt that these tests are necessary to help the student understand and gel with the culture followed in the schools. “The tests are held to ensure that the student’s aptitude matches the school, so that later on the child doesn’t feel insecure while studying there,’’ said Avnita Bir, principal of Ramniranjan Podar High School, Santacruz.

Many added these tests are merely undertaken to understand a student and their parents before giving the child admission to the school. “For instance, parents should also be comfortable with the ICSE syllabus only then will the students find it easy too. We don’t want to promote tuition culture so we try to ensure that the student gets all the education in school and their homes itself,’’ said Carl Laurie, principal of Christ Church School, Byculla.

Others don’t agree. “The screening procedure should immediately be done away with so that there is no room for bias. Once the student is a part of the school, then he/she can be taught to gel in with the rest of the students and be taught other valuable information. Testing them on all this before they are even in the school is not done,’’ said psychologist Harish Shetty.

Regarding another RTE stipulation of giving preference to students from theneighbourhood only for admission,

Laurie said, “What exactly should we consider as our neighbourhood? For almost three kilometres, there isn’t any other ICSE school around so students come to us from a lot of places. We can’t deny them admission just because they stay a little away from school.’’ Many also mentioned that the lack of good schools in the city was another major problem. “Parents would obviously want to send their students to better schools and not bother about the neighbourhood,’’ added Isaacs.

Superfast spaceships to beam us into future?

Travelling At Speed Of Light, Each Day On The Craft Would Be A Year On Earth, Says Stephen Hawking

Jonathan Leake

Humans may one day be able to use time travel to skip generations into the future, says Stephen Hawking. He has suggested humans could build spaceships capable of such high speeds that time itself would slow down for those on board. Such a spaceship could travel thousands of years into the future at close to the speed of light, reaching distant star systems within the lifetime of its crew.

In theory it could allow humans to “colonise the future” —perhaps even returning to repopulate Earth if a disaster caused extinction on this planet during the flight. “Time travel was once considered scientific heresy and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank, but these days I’m not so cautious,” Hawking said.

He makes his comments in Stephen Hawking’s Universe, a documentary to be screened by the Discovery channel from next Sunday. A suggestion in another part of the series — that alien life is highly likely to exist but humans should try to avoid it — has already generated global interest.

Hawking’s views on time travel could be just as provocative. He suggests humanity could build a giant “relativistic” spaceship, so called because it would exploit the science set out by Albert Einstein in his theories of relativity.

Einstein found that as objects accelerate through space, the rate at which time passes for them slows down. For objects such as aircraft the effect is negligible, but Hawking’s spaceship would exceed 98% of the speed of light, when such effects would be extremely powerful.

Hawking said such a ship could theoretically reach speeds of more than 650 million miles an hour, but would have to be built on a huge scale simply to carry all the fuel that would be needed.

“It would take six years at full power just to reach these speeds. After the first two years it would reach half light speed and be far outside the solar system. After another two years it would be travelling at 90% of the speed of light,” he said. “After another two years of full thrust the ship would reach full speed, 98% of the speed of light, and each day on the ship would be a year on Earth. At such speeds a trip to the edge of the galaxy would take just 80 years for those on board.”

Hawking dimisses the prospect of time travel into the past. Some scientists have suggested this could be done by exploiting wormholes, gateways linking different parts of the universe or which provide a short-cut backwards or forwards through time.

Theory suggests such wormholes do exist at the quantum scale, meaning they are far smaller even than atoms, so the challenge would be to enlarge them to a human scale.

Hawking dismisses this idea, pointing out that time travel into the past would create the “mad scientist paradox” where a researcher could travel back in time and shoot his past self, raising the question of who could have fired the shot. “This kind of time machine would violate a fundamental rule that cause comes before effect,”. Hawking said. “I believe things cannot make themselves impossible. So it won’t be possible to travel back to the past — using wormholes or any other method.” SUNDAY TIMES, LONDON

TIME TRAVEL: Jumping into the past is impossible, says Hawking