Ripples In A Teacup

When I hold a test tube over a flame, the chemical reaction accelerates. The same happens in our atmosphere when there is a heat wave. Ground-level ozone is made more efficiently in sunny, hot weather since the reactions that create harmful ozone in our atmosphere require sunlight. Therefore, in summer and during heat waves, ozone often reaches dangerous levels, especially in cities.  This New York Times article discusses this phenomenon in detail. In northern India, cold weather worsens the smog . That’s because pollution in cities mixes vertically in the atmosphere. In winter, the height at which this mixing happens shrinks by more than half, raising the concentration of pollution. Heads you win, tails I lose!

  On June 10 2024, OpenAI and Apple announced a partnership at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference 2024, to integrate ChatGPT into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. This collaboration will allow users to leverage ChatGPT’s advanced capabilities, such as image and document understanding, directly within Apple's ecosystem. Siri will also utilize ChatGPT for enhanced responses, ensuring user consent and privacy protections. Additionally, ChatGPT will be embedded in Apple's system-wide writing tools, aiding in content generation and image creation. This integration, powered by GPT-4o, will be available for free later this year, with premium features accessible to ChatGPT subscribers. Elon Musk wasn’t very happy with this news. "If Apple integrates OpenAl at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation ... And visitors will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage....

As someone who studied French in high school and as a wanna-be computer scientist, I’ve been fascinated by how science terms and phrases translate into French. For starters: Math is “les mathématiques” – feminine and plural too Physics is “la physique” – feminine, singular Chemistry is “la chimie” – feminine, singular Biology is “la biologie” – feminine, singular Botany – “la botanique” – feminine, singular Zoology – “la zoologie” – feminine, singular Physics terms, when translated into French, have a beauty of their own. La chaleur - Heat La force - Force L’accélération - Acceleration La gravité/le pesanteur - Gravity La température - Temperature Radiation électromagnétique - Electromagnetic radiation Le magnétisme - Magnetism Le champ magnétique - Magnetic field La loi de Faraday - Faraday’s law Le courant continu - DC power La physique nucléaire - Nuclear physics La fission - Fission La physique appliquée - Applied physics La physique moléculaire - Molecular physics La science natu...

A couple of days ago, I chanced about this CNN News Article titled “‘Blast-furnace heat every day’: Record temperatures cancel classes, widening learning gaps across Southeast Asia” and my heart sank (as it usually does when I read anything about climate change and global warming). An 11-year-old student studying in Phnom Penh is quoted as saying: “ My classroom does not have air conditioning. It’s very unpleasant and uncomfortable. On some days, it can even get so hot that it feels like your skin is burning ." I can so relate to that. My own school did not have air conditioning till now, but A/Cs are now being installed. My school is situated very close to the sea. On the other side of the road, lies a park and beyond the park, is the sea. One would assume that a building so close to the sea would get enough breeze to avoid air conditioning, but no, it’s sweltering hot inside our classrooms, not all of which have perfect ventilation and voila, A/Cs are here. Fortunately, my scho...

I read Merchant of Venice in High School for my ICSE board exams and now as an Higher Secondary (ISC Board) student, I am reading Macbeth. I enjoyed reading both these plays and couldn’t resist writing some fiction based on these plays, in modern, Mumbai settings. Here goes: Macbhai (adapted from Macbeth ) in three parts: Part 1: https://kitaab.org/2024/03/31/short-story-macbhai-by-anika-joseph-part-1/ Part 2: https://kitaab.org/2024/04/07/short-story-macbhai-by-anika-joseph-part-2/ Part 3:   https://kitaab.org/ 2024/04/14/short-story- macbhai-by-anika-joseph-part- 3-final/   Merchant of Vetaverse (Adapted from Merchant of Venice ) https://www. weeklyyarnsthewiseowl.art/ january-yarns (Please scroll down a bit, around 1/4 th of this page, to read Act I which was published on January 15,2023. There are four Acts, all on this page, one below the other.)

I read this headline on CNN and my heart stopped for a moment. Various factors cause Earth’s rotation to slow down. The friction of the tides on the ocean floor is one such factor. The melting of polar ice (driven by humans burning planet-heating fossil fuels) causing meltwater to move from the poles toward the equator, further slows the speed of the Earth’s rotation. Our planet’s liquid core spins independently of its solidouter shell. If the core slows down, the solid shell speeds up to maintainmomentum. So, despite polar ice melt exerting a slowing influence, overall theEarth’s rotation is speeding up. As a result, we will soon need to subtract a second for the first time. Though a second doesn’t sound like much, it is significant since computing systems are set up for activities such as stock exchange transactions and need to be accurate to a thousandth of a second. Apparently, manycomputer systems have software enabling them to add a second, but few have thecapability to s...

Yesterday night, I returned to Mumbai after a week in Switzerland. We had spent four snow-full days in Zermatt before we went to Geneva to spend the rest of our holiday. I love snow and can’t have enough of it. Two years ago, we had gone to Kashmir and I still remember that holiday with nostalgia. Switzerland was even better, mainly because of its better infrastructure. Why did we choose Zermatt? Mainly because it gets more snow than most other places in Switzerland and towards the end of winter, we didn’t want to go to Switzerland and not find any snow. This CNN article on an Italian mountain resort facing a snow crunch drives home the problem. There are so many people in this world, especially in Europe, who are dependant on snow for their livelihood. There are so many animals, especially polar bears, which need snow to thrive. As climate change and global warming reduce the amount of snow that we get every year and as winters turn milder and milder, this problem will become mor...