Insects............my journey into their world goes on

Nature has got abundant of treasures in it including non-living as well as living matter. The countless tiny insects are my real passion. I love to watch their habitats and activities. It is amazing to see that the colours of most of these insects are similar to their habitats which make them live their life protected from predators. I have observed and clicked many insects in their habitats out of which I am sharing a few with all of you.

Whenever I am outdoors, I am very busy searching, watching and clicking these tiny creatures and everytime I come up with something amazing. May it be on ground, along the rocks, bushes, leaves, branches...................everywhere there are fewinsects busy in their daily activities. It is amazing to see these hanging to leaves or climbing up high tree trunks with their primitive, tiny and delicate legs. The wings are too delicate but still these manage their lives so conveniently....atleast apparently, who knows their internal minds and pains?

Have a look at the above picture, a tiny insect is stcking to the underside of a green leaf. Yes, this green leaf is its home where it lives. For us this leaf may be a very small thing, but for this creature...it is his world, significant world where it has to perform its daily activities. I am not aware of its name or its feeding habits but I guess it obtains its food from the leaf itself.You can notice the small brown spots on the underside of leaf surface which might be the spots of its eaten up material. And watch out, how it keeps stciking comfortably to the undersurface challenging the big laws of gravity with sticking secretion coming out of its body.

And another interseting example is shown in the picture pasted below. A winged insect is hanging down so strongly and comfortably from the branch of a bush. Being hanging there it is busy enjoying its life unaware of the fact that it may soon become prey to some other living flying vertebrate. The threads with which it is hanging are not suspended by some human but are again being manufactured in its own in built natural factory....these are the secretions from its own body...........

On one hand humans are busy making new technologies after studying various fauna and laws of nature, while on the other hand these self made scientific living ventures have nothing to with human endeavours. Humans are utilizing science and technology for good as well as bad but the tiny insects are using their in-built technologies for their welfare and existence only.

Here comes another winged insect. Just concentrate on its legs and notice the numerous hair like structures on it. This is sticking to the rough wall and I suppose these hair like structures are helping it stick and walk on to the straight wall. If you concentrate the eyes once again and notice the shape of its body,its exactly like the petal of a flower with yellow lining. Just imagine a flower with petals of this colour, the intelligent creature is going to blend with that while sucking nectar. Here again the golden yellow colour on lining of wings and legs is going to blend with colour of pollens.

It had not been an easy task to click all these pictures but without the pics, the words wouldn't have been sufficient to explain such wonderful marvellous phenomena of nature...........................

I am ending my article here but my journey into the world of insects continues and I will keep coming up with new stories and pics to share.........................

COLORS- Giving Colorfullness to Our Life

Colors are most gifted thing that makes our vision more beautiful and meaningful. Suppose we can recognize black and white only, like other animals, then it will be a misfortune for us, as we can’t enjoy all these beautiful scenarios in their real impact. Color gives a perfect beauty to all things. We can’t even imagine a world with out colors.Imagine a scenario with out color, it will make a feeling of imperfects when some one watching it. The ability to recognize colors are the blessings we got.

There are many colors and each has their own beauty too. Of course each color is beautiful with its own specialties. We can generate new colors as a combination of existing colors. There are three colors which are known as primary colors, the reason behind this is that by combining these colors in various ratios we can made most of other colors.

When we are looking at nature, we can see many colors in a single environment. These colors make the visualizations more beautiful. Also some people likes some colors as favorite one, and this color sense help them in many ways like designing a dress, designing a jewel, decorating their apartment etc. The most powerful effect of colors can be seen with painting. That is the use of colors in proper sense makes a picture or painting more attractive. Also the color sense of people improves their confidence; this is the reason behind a well dressed person in his/her suit color looks more attractive and comfort. When someone says this color is suitable and matching for you, then it increases our confidence level.

Also the effect of color is used in some treatment, especially in psychological purposes. There are some colors which effect our mood, some colors makes us peaceful, some others makes angry, some makes calm, some colors makes us energetic and more. The usage of this color therapy in proper manner improves our mental health.

When we realize the gift of vision with color sensing ability, it will definitely make us to aware how lucky we people are. Of course we can say color sensing is the most gifted blessing to us

OCEANSAT-2 : One more Indian Star in Orbit

As a sign mark in Indian Space Research Program the OCEANSAT-2 reached in its orbit on last Wednesday. It is the successor of OCEANSAT-1 which was launched ten years ago. The launching was from Sathish Dhavan Space Centre, Sreeharikkotta in Andhra Pradesh. The 960Kg satellite had placed in an orbit 720KM above earth’s surface. The expected lifespan of OCEANSAT-2 is five years.

The OCEANSAT-2 was launched by PSLV, India’s prestigious home built satellite launching vehicle. This was the 15^th successful launching of PSLV. Besides OCEANSAT-2 six other nano satellites also have a piggy ride to space in PSLV. The satellites were

1) Cubesat 1 ( Wurzburg University , Germany)

2) Cubesat 2 or Beesat ( Technical University , Berlin, Germany)

3) Cubesat 3 or ITU-pSAT 1 ( Istanbul Technical University, Turkey)

4) Cubesat 4 or Swiss Cube ( Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, Switzerland)

5) Rubin 9.1 and

6) Rubin 9.2

The Cubesats have almost 1Kg weight and are educational needs of the European Universities. The Rubinsats have 8Kg each.

As the name indicates OCEANSAT-2’s main missions are climate study (prediction of cyclone and rainfall),coastal area study and to find out the potential fishery zones in Indian seas. The satellite can give the information about wind path as well as the direction, strength and height of waves. Hence secure fishery is possible in future days.

OCEANSAT-2 is India’s 16^th Remote Sensing Satellite. It carries mainly three instruments to study the ocean surface. The main instrument is OCEAN COLOUR MONITOR (OCM).It is with 360 meters spatial resolution and a swath of 1420 KM. Another instrument namely Ku-Band Pencil beam Scaterometer (SCAT) can cover an area of about 1400KM.The third instrument that OCEANSAT-2 carries is Radio Occultation Sounder for Atmosphere (ROSA) of Italian Space Agency (ASI).

OCEANSAT-2 is monitored from ISTRAC (ISRO Telemetry Tracking and Command Network) in Peeniya near Bangalore, Karnataka. Besides this the helps from ground stations in Lucknow (Uttarpradesh,India), Mauritius, Biac (Indonesia), Swalbard (Norway), Tromso (Norway) and Troll (Antarctica) are also utilized.

OCEANSAT-2 is expected is to be followed by SARAL and MEGHA Tropiques , a joint venture by India and France.

A turtle story

Ever since I came to the Andaman Islands, I wanted to see the turtles. They told me those parts of the islands were frequented by turtles- nearly half a dozen different species of them. That was an exciting piece of information and I was eagerly wandering along the serene seashores of Middle Andaman Isles for sighting the big daddy of the tortoises.

But unfortunately for me, no turtles came on my way during the numerous rounds I undertook along the seashores. I began to consider the turtle story only as a myth. Then one day I could trace a few tracks the turtles left on the beach sand, like the trails of truck tyres, running along the wet sand and disappearing in the wavy sea. They told me the turtles came to the sea shores during night, dug a pit and laid eggs there and would fill in the pit and went back to sea. It rekindled my spirits and I continued the search.

One summer evening, I was taking an evening walk along a long and beautiful beach, some two miles away from the vidyalaya campus. There were no tourists on the beach. Some boys ran along and played on the golden beach sand. There was a hamlet of Telugu fishermen by the beach. Some of the fishing boats were pulled ashore and parked on the strand. I could see a group of boys standing crowded at a spot. There was some excitement in the air, some shouting and commotion. I made my way through the crowd.

What I saw on the sand was a curious sight. The boys were looking intently on a spot of loose, rumpled sand. Then, the sand began to bulge up gently. Up came a tiny head. Then, a pair of limbs. Further, the shelly body. It was a baby turtle. Just coming out from hatch! As I looked on, more and more turtle cubs kept on coming up, struggling their way up through the sand. That was a hatch of turtles coming out of their eggs. It was a marvelous sight! Dozens of turtle cubs, only as big as the palm of a boy, emerging out of the sand. The boys carried them to the wet strand, close to the waves. The turtle cubs crawled towards the water and disappeared in the tides. It looked like the Hindu rituals, where they offer things to the sea.

The boys told me that it was a lucky batch of turtle cubs.

Often, they are spotted by stray dogs or eagles when they come out, and very few of them manage to reach their home, the sea. But luckily for these cubs, none of the boys were wicked. They did not play the cruel games that the children generally play with hapless animals. The boys were fishermen’s children and most of them were illiterate. But they took enormous pleasure and pride in saving a hatch of turtles from the predators and reaching them safely to the sea.

On the World Environment Day, the tiny turtles come to my mind and the jubilant faces of the boys- away, along the shores of Andaman. If the unlettered children of the fisher folk could play their part in safeguarding our endangered amphibians, how much more could each one of us do to save this ailing planet !?

Artificial life and Natural life

Now a days scientists are claiming that they take this world to a perfect stage. What is perfection? They claim that the present civilization is much better than olden civilization. They also claim that human beings came from ape or monkey.

But actually that is not the case. They might have come from apes. But, in India vedic civilization has been existing for the millions of years. Scientists converted a pure human being into a meat eating demon by misguiding people.

We will take each issue one by one to prove their false claims. First take water pollution. Now a days we are purchasing water 14 rupees per liter which is equal to milk rate. God is giving freely everything. But by mismanagement, we are suffering. Just because of water pollution so many deceases are coming. We are afraid to drink water outside. Why this is happening? At least we should accept that we are being lead by foolish people. A society without a head.

In our good olden days there were no factories and industries. So our rivers were very pure. No need to purchase any filter. One more blunder is mixing stool with water. Previously people were going outside for attending nature calls. Now in the name of modernization, everybody happily doing these things at home and mixing stool with water. Do we ever inquired anybody where actually this water is being sent. Finally we are drinking the same water after doing so called filtering. Anyway, we are selfish. It is not that we can change this world, but at least one should accept that we are not moving in the right direction. Thank you.

Microsoft Wireless Desktop 5000

Microsoft Wireless Desktop 5000 I was testing in recent days Microsoft Wireless Desktop 5000 [bb], a kit with keyboard, mouse and wireless transmitter of Microsoft, both with WinXP on my PC at work and the MacBook Pro from my home. I could not do the test on Windows Vista, because I am still not using the new operating system from Microsoft. Once the kit arrived by mail, no lost time, and installed to start testing. The software works well and adds an icon with a control panel for each peripheral, where you can program the keys as you like, both in Windows and the Mac The curved design of the ergonomic keyboard is quite comfortable, so comfortable that I miss her as I type these lines in my old keyboard. I'm used to QWERTY keyboard (US-International), but within hours I was totally accustomed to the keyboard ABNT2, typing with my speed ever. The keyboard has a button on gadgets which is very useful, as well as light magnifying glass, buttons, volume and zoom. The button calls the Windows Live Call Live Messenger for you to chat with your contacts. He also has an indicator that warns you when the time comes to replace the batteries. The basis for the hands is padded and very comfortable, especially for people who use the keyboard during the day, like me.\ I always liked the Microsoft mouse, but this optical mouse is the best we have used until now. The Tilt Wheel accepts commands in any direction and is perfect on both side of the scroll CoverFlow in Leopard as navigation in the files as Excel spreadsheets. As for the keyboard, I'm having trouble I readjust to my old mouse, which is also the Microsoft. My expectation for the Wireless Desktop 5000 was very high, but it went very well in testing with some small problems on Mac OS X, and the Home button not working. Now is a good make clear that this is the fault of Apple, not Microsoft. Either way the problem can be solved with a simple download and scheduling of special keys, if necessary.

The Journalist

This story might do nobody any good. At the end of this narration, you may accuse the journalist for fouling a comfortable nest. People may accuse Harry for been given the hospitality to heretical and even dangerous ideas. Harry was an editor - good, silent, obedient, comfortable and complacent and has built in allergy to unpleasant and disturbing information like any of us. He had to investigate and report the murder of his father. He knew that the MLA did this deed. Harry was depressed at the same time he wanted retribution, but fear of death held him back. He was afraid of the consequences which reporting against a politician would bring.
Harry knew that if what he writes is responsible, he alone is responsible for the doing of it. He knew that if he did not reveal the truth, it would be a true evidence of decadence; escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live in. He believed in the saying that – “history will be what he make it”. If he goes on as he is, then history will take its revenge and retribution will not limp in catching up.
Harry looked 3 lines in Shakespeare’s Cesar and found this line which is not altogether inappropriate – “The Fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.”. This made Harry to think. He understood that men should not walk with fear for one another. He will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason. He realized that he was not a descendant of a family who feared to write, associate, speak or even to defend the causes that were at the moment unpopular.

Harry believed 20 years ago and still do, that mature people can engage in conversation and controversy; the clash of ideas with difference without being contaminated or converted. He also believed his faith, conviction and determination is stronger than others are and that he can be successful not only in the area of reasoning but also in the area of words. Words will always retain their power - Words of the meanest meaning, for those who has the will to understand. He decided to pen down the truth.
Next day, the organization gave him the pink slip. He felt no bitterness, as he was sure that the enlightenment received on this subject by a few million people would determine the future of this country. He knew what he did was right and had nothing to lose. The newspaper had become an instrument for entertainment purpose only. However, it can be used to enlighten and inspire provided, humans are determined to use it effectively otherwise, it is merely a waste paper.