Ripples In A Teacup

  Electric vehicles have grown in popularity over the years. As the planet gasps for ways to end pollution, electric vehicles seem to be a partial answer to this problem. Or is it really? In the 1800s when automobiles started to replace horse-drawn carriages, inventors experimented with different fuels. Initially, steam-powered vehicles came to the forefront, but soon gasoline powered vehicles started to dominate. Now, advancements in technology and concern about fossil fuels have put electric vehicles on the map. The global electric vehicle (EV) sector is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.9% between 2023 and 2035, according to new report from data and analytics company GlobalData,  Power Technology ’s parent company. Broken down by vehicle type, the  report  finds that the passenger EV market is expected to register a CAGR of 26.1% during this period, while the commercial EV sector is predicted to grow 15% during the same time f...

  I visited Kashmir in 2021, just after Christmas. We went to Srinagar first and then to Sonamarg. There were many things that I loved about Kashmir, but the best was the snow. There was some snow in Srinagar and a lot of it in Sonamarg. My brother and I made snowmen and threw snowballs at each other. Sonamarg was a snowy wonderland and I was so sad when it was time for us to leave. This winter, I read the news that the Kashmir valley got no snow until late January . The Himalayas had turned brown! The temperature in Kashmir valley was higher than in Delhi! Not just Kashmir, all the Himalayan regions in India faced a similar sitation. In Himachal Pradesh, the Kangra valley is experiencing drought after 17 years. Snow is missing from the Dhauladhar mountain range and in Shimla. In Uttarakhand, Mussoorie and Auli didn’t have any snow. Experts say the lack of snowfall is due to   the prevalence of El Niño and other meteorological conditions . According to a study titled ‘Wes...

Lots of promises are being made with regard to AI Chatbots , setting up sky-high expectations. Last November, when Sam Altman was asked what surprises the field would bring in 2024, he said that online chatbots like OpenAI’s  ChatGPT  will take “a leap forward that no one expected.” It is expected that A.I.-powered image generators  like DALL-E  and Midjourney will soon be able to instantly deliver videos as well as still images. These players will gradually merge with chatbots like ChatGPT. Chatbots will expand well beyond digital text by handling photos, videos, diagrams, charts and other media. They will exhibit behavior that looks more like human reasoning, tackling increasingly complex tasks in fields like math and science. As the AI technology moves into robots, chatbots will also help to solve problems beyond the digital world. AI is being advanced very quickly by tech companies like OpenAI, Google since AI technology relies on  neural networks , ma...

We have three air conditioners in our flat. We don’t use them very often. No, let me clarify further. We use ACs a lot less than my friends and our neighbours do. However, as global warming gets worse, ACs are an easy solution which actually worsens the problem in the long run. By 2050, India will be among the first places where temperatures will cross survivability limits, according to climate experts. And within that time frame, the demand for air conditioners (AC) in the country is also expected to rise nine-fold, outpacing all other appliances, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). Apparently, Singapore’s founding father thought air conditioning was the secret to his country’s success. My parents tell me that when they were young, in the 1970s and 1980s, air conditioning was a rarity in India, especially among the middle-classes, mainly because it was unaffordable. Now the prices of AC units are a lot more affordable and in India, middle-class ...

 Kwanzaa starts tomorrow, December 26 th and goes on until January 1 st , culminating in a communal feast called Karamu. Kwanzaa is an annual celebration of African-American culture that was invented and promoted by Maulana Karenga, a Black American leader. Karenga was active in the Black Power movement of the 1960s. He was a part of the Congress of Racial Equality and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. In 1965, Karenga and Hakim Jamal co-founded the black nationalist group US Organization, which became involved in violent clashes with the Black Panther Party by 1969. In 1971, he was convicted of felony assault, torture, and false imprisonment of women. Karenga denied involvement and claimed the prosecution was political in nature. Karenga was imprisoned in California Men's Colony until he received parole in 1975. Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966 to be a non-Christian, specifically African-American, holiday, that would be an alternative for black people to Christmas. Ka...

Australians have voted against proposals to change their constitution to recognise a formal body for Indigenous people which would give advice on laws. The referendum (called Australia's Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum and also as The Voice referendum) which took place last Saturday asked voters whether they wanted to recognise their Indigenous people in their constitution, and whether they wanted to introduce an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. The proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament was meant to be a formal body for Indigenous Australians that would give advice to the Australian government on issues affecting Indigenous Australian communities. Those who campaigned in favour of the proposals argued the vote was important for many Indigenous Australians who aren't currently recognised in Australia's 122-year-old constitution. The campaign against these proposals claimed that if implemented, the Aborigi...

Global warming has many side-effects, one of which is the exacerbation of coral bleaching. Another side-effect is  the proliferation of crown-of-thorns starfish, which are resistant to marine heatwaves and devour coral reefs . The crown-of-thorns starfish (frequently abbreviated to COTS), Acanthaster planci, is a large starfish that preys upon hard, or stony, coral polyps (Scleractinia). The crown-of-thorns starfish receives its name from venomous thorn-like spines that cover its upper surface, resembling the biblical crown of thorns. It is one of the largest starfish in the world. New information about the crown-of-thorns starfish has come from research led by Professor Maria Byrne from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney and published in the journal Global Change Biology.  Byrne and colleagues found that juvenile crown-of-thorns starfish had a higher heat tolerance than not only coral, but also adults of the same species. It has been fou...