Education – Page 128 – Take off with Natarajan

Watch How One Monkey Saves the Life of another Monkey …

December 22, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

A monkey in Kanpur has turned into a hero overnight after it saved another monkey. The other monkey here was electrocuted when it was walking on high tension wires at the Kanpur railway station

This little guy tries everything from, biting, splashing water to slapping and hitting and does not give up until its friend regains consciousness.

This monkey clearly taught us a little lesson on how we humans forget to be human and how sometimes the smallest beings on Earth can show more humanity than we expect them to.

SOURCE:::: http://www.storypick.com

Natarajan

Message for the Day…” Choose to Spend Your Time in the Company of Divine …”

December 21, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

Exulting in praising the Lord is the hallmark of the real good. Avoid being in the company of people who revel in sensory talks. Choose to spend your time in the company of the Divine and be engaged in the Lord’s activities. Only those who act in accordance to the above are God’s own (Bhagavathas). Reading and enjoying the stories of the glory of Krishna (Lord) in a sacred hall, temple, shrine, or hermitage of a saint, or being in the company of the virtuous and the good — that is a source of great inspiration and joy. You can approach pious people, serve them, and listen to their exposition of the glories of God. Taste for such wholesome literature is the result of accumulated merit and effort. Listening will be enough in the beginning; later, the stories will arouse interest in the nature and characteristics of God, and the aspirant will seek and find for oneself the path to realisation.

Sathya Sai Baba a

Astronaut’s-Eye View of NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Re-entry…

December 20, 2014December 20, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWzuZ6WZ8E

New video recorded during NASA’s Orion return through Earth’s atmosphere provides viewers a taste of what the vehicle endured as it returned through Earth’s atmosphere during its Dec. 5 flight test.

Image Credit:

NASA

New video recorded during the return of NASA’s Orion through Earth’s atmosphere this month provides a taste of the intense conditions the spacecraft and the astronauts it carries will endure when they return from deep space destinations on the journey to Mars.

Among the first data to be removed from Orion following its uncrewed Dec. 5 flight test was video recorded through windows in Orion’s crew module. Although much of the video was transmitted down to Earth and shown in real time on NASA Television, it was not available in its entirety. Also, the blackout caused by the superheated plasma surrounding the vehicle as it endured the peak temperatures of its descent prevented downlink of any information at that key point. However, the cameras were able to record the view and now the public can have an up-close look at the extreme environment a spacecraft experiences as it travels back through Earth’s environment from beyond low-Earth orbit.

The video begins 10 minutes before Orion’s 11:29 a.m. EST splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, just as the spacecraft was beginning to experience Earth’s atmosphere. Peak heating from the friction caused by the atmosphere rubbing against Orion’s heat shield comes less than two minutes later, and the footage shows the plasma created by the interaction change from white to yellow to lavender to magenta as the temperature increases.

As Orion emerges safely on the other side of its trial by fire, the camera continues to record the deployment of the series of parachutes that slowed it to a safe 20 mph for landing and the final splash as Orion touched down on Earth.

NASA's Orion spacecraft is viewed by media at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on Dec. 19, 2014.

NASA’s Orion spacecraft is viewed by members of the media at the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orion made the 8-day, 2,700 mile overland trip back to Kennedy from Naval Base San Diego in California. Analysis of date obtained during its two-orbit, four-and-a-half hour mission Dec. 5 will provide engineers detailed information on how the spacecraft fared. The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program led the recovery, offload and transportation efforts.

Image Credit:

NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis

Orion was then retrieved by a combined NASA, U.S. Navy and Lockheed Martin team and carried back to shore aboard the Navy’s USS Anchorage. After returning to shore, it was loaded on to a truck and driven back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it arrived on Thursday.

Orion traveled 3,600 miles above Earth on its 4.5-hour flight test – farther than any spacecraft built for humans has been in more than 40 years. In coming back from that distance, it also traveled faster and experienced hotter temperatures – 20,000 mph and near 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact. Orion will travel faster and experience even higher temperatures on future missions, when it returns from greater distances, but this altitude allowed engineers to perform a good checkout of Orion’s critical systems – in particular its heat shield.

Orion’s flight test was a critical step on NASA’s journey to Mars. Work already has begun on the next Orion capsule, which will launch for the first time on top of NASA’s new Space Launch System rocket and travel to a distant retrograde orbit around the moon.

To view the video of Orion’s re-entry, visit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWzuZ6WZ8E

SOURCE::::www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

Interesting Facts about ISRO’s Largest Rocket…GSLV Mark III…!!!

December 19, 2014December 19, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

Image: GSLV Mark III on the night ahead of its launch at Sriharikota, near Chennai. Photograph: ISRO/Twitter

The successful launch of GSLV Mark III makes ISRO self reliant in launching heavier communication satellites

The Indian Space Research Organisation on Thursday launched its first experimental suborbital flight.

This was the test launch for ISRO heaviest and upgraded rocket, the GSLV Mark III, which is carrying the Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE).

The flight took off from ISRO’s space station Sriharikota, near Chennai. Here are five things you need to know about the GSLV Mark III mission.

1) After its successful Mars mission, this is ISRO’s next step to put a man in space.

2) The Rs 155 crore mission has twin purposes — the main purpose is to test the rocket’s atmospheric flight stability with around 4-tonne luggage. The second is to study the re-entry characteristics of the crew module called Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment.

3) Other critical technologies are also to be developed for ISRO’s manned mission. These are being developed parallelly at other centres. But recovery of the capsule from out of atmosphere will be the first to be tested.

4) GSLV Mark III is the heaviest next generation rocket, conceived and designed to make ISRO self reliant in launching heavier communication satellites of INSAT-4 class, which weigh 4,500 to 5,000 kg. Once operational, this rocket will have the capability to ferry four-tonne class of Insat series of communication satellites, which are currently being launched through Arianespace.

5) This is the second mission of the GSLV rocket during the last four years after two such launches failed in 2010.

SOURCE::::www.rediff.com

Natarajan

Hot Seat Contestant Turns “Dumbest Millionaire” In a Show !!!

December 18, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

Burger Ring Question
Australia’s Dumbest Millionaire Contestant
EPIC GAME SHOW FAIL
Hot Seat contestant loses on first and easiest question
THOSE playing along at home while watching popular game show Hot Seat were left wondering how the first contestant got her answer so wrong on Tuesday night.

SOURCE:::: http://www.You Tube.com

Natarajan

Message For the Day…” How to Achieve Spiritual Wisdom…”

December 18, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

The quintessence of the scriptural texts is this: Realise that the awareness of Divine or Brahman cannot be won by the accumulation of wealth nor by giving away the riches. Nor can it be achieved by reading texts, rising to power, acquiring degrees and diplomas, or performing scriptural sacrifices and rituals. The body is an anthill, with the mind inside as a deep cavity. The mind has hidden in it the serpent named ignorance or nescience (a-jnana).The serpent cannot be killed by resorting to satisfaction-oriented works (kamya karma). Spiritual wisdom (jnana) is the only weapon that can kill it. To achieve spiritual wisdom, you must have ‘Steady Faith’. Shraddhavan labhathe jnanam, states the scriptures. Meaning, that person alone, who has steady and unwavering faith, can certainly secure wisdom.

Sathya Sai Baba

Is There Life on Mars ?… Question Remains….

December 17, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

Questions of life on Mars revive with methane spike

Curiosity rover has now measured a dramatic spike in methane, an organic chemical, in the Martian air, plus other organic molecules in a Martian rock.

The mystery of whether Mars has or ever had life got a boost today (December 16, 2014) when NASA announced that its Curiosity rover – which landed on Mars in August, 2012 – has measured a tenfold spike in methane in the atmosphere around the rover. NASA scientists made the announcement at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. The journal Science also published these results today.

Methane is an organic chemical, and it’s conceivable, although far from certain, methane-belching microbes on Mars might be responsible for the spike.

Overall, researchers said, methane levels recorded by Curiosity’s onboard Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) are lower than expected.

However, for about a two-month period in late 2013 and early 2014, researchers did observe a temporary and dramatic increase in methane in the Martian air around the rover.

NASA scientists are quick to point out that the source of the methane on Mars could be either biological or non-biological. For example, a non-biological source of the methane might be an interaction between water and rock.

At the same time, for the first time ever, the rover has detected other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by drilling into a rock on Mars, which scientists have dubbed Cumberland. Organic molecules, which contain carbon and usually hydrogen, are chemical building blocks of life (although they can exist without the presence of life). NASA says it’s the first definitive detection of organics in surface materials of Mars. These Martian organics could either have formed on Mars or been delivered to Mars by meteorites, scientists say.

Is there life on Mars today, or was there ever life on Mars? These results don’t prove either speculation. However, said John Grotzinger, Curiosity project scientist of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena:

We will keep working on the puzzles these findings present. Can we learn more about the active chemistry causing such fluctuations in the amount of methane in the atmosphere? Can we choose rock targets where identifiable organics have been preserved?

NASA says that Curiosity is:

… one element of NASA’s ongoing Mars research and preparation for a human mission to Mars in the 2030s.

Bottom line: Mars Curiosity rover measures a dramatic spike in methane and detects other organic molecules in a rock-powder sample collected by the robotic laboratory’s drill.

SOURCE:::: http://www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

This Day in Science… Wright Brothers’ First Flight !!!

December 17, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

December 17, 1903. On this date, two Ohio brothers – Wilbur and Orville Wright – made the first bonafide, manned, controlled, heavier-than-air flight. It was the first airplane, and it took off at 10:35 a.m. with Orville Wright on board as pilot. He flew their vehicle, called theFlyer, for 12 seconds over 120 feet (about 37 meters) of sandy ground just outside Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

One of the world’s most famous early photographs serves to commemorate the flight.

Two years later, the Wrights wrote in a patent application that their airplane design:

… provide[s] means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally … combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages.

Were the Wright brothers always destined for the skies? It’s known that their father gave them a rubber-band-powered flying toy when they were still children. The toy was made of cork and bamboo, with a paper body.

By 1899 – when Wilbur was 33 years old and Orville was 28 – the brothers were already learning everything they could about the science of aeronautics and the history of attempted human flight. Their first airplane were gliders, which they tested on the long, isolated beaches of Kitty Hawk. By 1902, they had built a glider that could be manned and controlled by a human pilot. It held a world record for gliding over 600 feet (nearly 200 meters).

Their first powered aircraft had a 40-foot (12-meter) wingspan, weighed 750 lbs, and had a 12-horsepower engine.

That first flight in December 1903 marked the beginning of a new era of global travel and relatedness.

By the way, at the time they received their patent for their airplane in 1906, several other aviators of the day claimed to have been the first to use the Wrights’ method of turning the airplane by warping or twisting the wings. But this part of the design, too, was included in the Wrights’ patent. In 2013, a story came to light about another would-be aviator, Gustave Whitehead, whose first flight supposedly beat the Wright brothers by two years. Thus far, that story has not been supported and is not accepted by aviation scholars.

Bottom line: The first airplane soared for 12 seconds over 120 feet (about 37 meters) of sandy ground just outside Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903.

SOURCE:::: http://www.earthsky.org

Natarajan

Image of the Day…Mars Exploration Rover opportunity …

December 16, 2014NatarajanLeave a comment

Opportunity Pausing at a Bright Outcrop on Endeavour Rim, Sol 3854

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is continuing its traverse southward on the western rim of Endeavour Crater during the fall of 2014, stopping to investigate targets of scientific interest along way. This view is from Opportunity’s front hazard avoidance camera on Nov. 26, 2014, during the 3,854th Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s work on Mars. This camera is mounted low on the rover and has a wide-angle lens.

The scene includes Opportunity’s robotic arm, called the “instrument deployment device,” at upper left. Portions of the pale bedrock exposed on the ground in front of the rover are within the arm’s reach. Researchers used instruments on the arm to examine a target called “Calera” on this patch of bedrock. The wheel tracks in the scene are from the drive — in reverse — to this location, a drive of 32.5 feet (9.9 meters) on Sol 3846 (Nov. 18, 2014).

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

SOURCE:::: http://www.nasa.gov

Natarajan

Indian American Vivek Murthy is Now ‘America’s Doctor’ !!! …First Indian to Hold this Post …

December 16, 2014December 16, 2014Natarajan1 Comment

US senate voted to confirm Vivek Murthy as the next surgeon general, a position often called America’s Doctor. He is the first Indian American to hold and the position, and the youngest.

The US senate voted to confirm Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy as the next surgeon general, a position often called America’s Doctor. (AP File Photo)

His confirmation also marked a major defeat for the powerful gun lobby spearheaded by the National Rifles Association, which had lobbied hard with senators to block a vote.

And nearly succeeded, delaying a vote for 10 months.

Democrats pushed the nomination through in the dying days of their leadership of the upper chamber, which passes into Republican hand next month following recent polls.

Murthy was confirmed by a 51-43 vote.

Welcoming Murthy’s confirmation as “America’s Doctor”, President Barack Obama said he will “hit the ground running” and “build on the progress we’ve made combating Ebola”.

Indian Americans, who were following the confirmation process closely, were ecstatic. Ami Bera, Indian American congressman, called the confirmation “historic” for the community.

At 37, Murthy, who was born into a family from Karnataka, becomes the youngest surgeon general in US history, something that made some senators publicly wonder if he was too young.

Considered whip smart – studied biochemical sciences from Harvard and then a combined medicine and business degree from Yale – Murthy has been working at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital as a physician.

But it were his political work and comments about gun control that got him into trouble with Republicans, many of whom vowed to not let his nomination go through.

Specially this tweet from him in October, 2012: “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.”

NRA wrote to all senators urging them to block his nomination saying his confirmation would be “prescription for disaster for America’s gun owners”. Many senators agreed.

One Republican senator pointedly asked Murthy his confirmation hearing in February if he will use the office of surgeon general to push his personal views on gun control.

Murthy responded in the negative, saying he will be focussing on obesity prevention. But his critics were not convinced. They had one other issue with him.

He was an outspoken supporter of Obama’s healthcare reforms.
Some other Indian Americans nominated to high offices by Obama

Sri Srinivasan: Judge at DC circuit court of appeals (roughly a high court), which puts him in line for a Supreme Court judgeship

Nisha Biswal: First Indian American to hold the powerful position of assistant secretary of state heading South and Central Asia

Rich Verma: As the first Indian American named US ambassador to a major country – India. He was confirmed by the senate last week. Verma earlier held the position of assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs

Aneesh Chopra: First Chief Technology Officer of the United States, who has since moved on, running unsuccessfully for the Democratic ticket for Virginia governorship

Preet Bharara: Who as US attorney for the Southern District of New York has successfully prosecuted many for insider trading, including Rajat Gupta. His prosecution of diplomat Devyani Khobragade, however, did go down well with Indians

Rajiv Shah: As USAID administrator, Shah is possibly the senior most Indian American in Obama’s administration now

Puneet Talwar: Assistant secretary of state for bureau of political-military affairs. He is reported to have played a significant role in the recent thaw in US-Iran ties

Vivek Kundra: First Chief Information Officer of the US, who has since moved on

– SOURCE::::www.hindustantimes.com

Natarajan