Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Transit of Venus on 6th June 2012

The planet Venus made a slow transit across the face of the sun on Tuesday, the last such passing that will be visible from Earth for 105 years.Transits of Venus happen in pairs, eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During Tuesday's pass, Venus took the form of a small black dot slowly shifting across the northern hemisphere of the sun.Armchair astronomers watched the six-hour and 40-minute transit on the Internet, with dozens of websites offering live video from around the world.Closeup views from the Prescott Observatory in Arizona, fed into Slooh.com's webcast, showed a small solar flaring in the making just beneath Venus' sphere.Tuesday's transit, completing a 2004-2012 pair, began at 6:09 p.m. EDT
 
The planet Venus can be seen on its transit of the Sun, from New Delhi June 6, 2012. Venus last made a visible pass in front of the sun in 2004 but will not make another visible transit until 2117.

Monday, 28 May 2012

Effective Ways to Prevent Hair Loss for Men

Stress causes dandruff, leading to hair loss
If it's starting to snow over your shoulders, then you're working too hard. "The fungus which causes dandruff is present on all scalps," says Dr Rakesh Sood, a New Delhi-based trichologist.

"But the problem is exacerbated when your immune system is weakened." An American Academy of Dermatology research confirms that stress is a key reason for low immune function. Can't drop out of the rat race just yet? The study suggests using tea tree oil-based shampoos to root out the worst of the dandruff situations.

Wearing hats causes hair loss
For that to happen, the hat would have to be so tight as to cut off circulation to the follicles. If that were the case, the hat would likely be much too tight for you to wear comfortably...so it's not likely. Wearing a tight hat can, however, cause hair breakage and damage.

Dermatologists say that a hat can cause damage to the scalp by blocking proper air circulation. Without a well-ventilated headgear, sweat can clog up the pores in the scalp. Go for a hat with a brim to shield your face from sun.

Regular haircuts make hair grow faster and thicker
Getting frequent haircuts is a good way to keep existing hair healthy by removing damaged, split ends. But a regular cut has no effect on your hair's growth rate or its thickness, says hair stylist Vidya Tikari.

This common misconception comes from the fact that hair is thicker at the base than it is at the tip, so it appears thicker at first. Cutting your hair does not affect hair growth at all; it will grow about half an inch each month no matter what.

Hair loss can be prevented by frequent hair brushing or standing on your head
Some people have maintained that constant brushing increases scalp circulation and thus boosts hair growth. However, because alopecia is primarily caused by the presence of dihydrotestosterone and your genetic predisposition rather than blood flow, hair brushing will have no positive effect on hair growth. Similarly, standing on your head might give you a head rush from the increased blood flow, but it won't have any effect on your hair.

Growing hair longer will hide baldness
Actually, in almost every circumstance, growing hair longer makes the thinning and baldness appear much more noticeable. When the sides and back are worn fuller, it makes the top appear thinner.

"If you can see scalp on the top, cut the sides short enough so you can see an equal amount of scalp," says Tikari. This will give an overall uniform appearance and take the emphasis off the thinning areas

Monday, 21 May 2012

How does Sound proof and Bullet proof glasses works?

Sound proof glass uses several separate layers of glass. These layers make it difficult to another. Some of the sound get reflected when it passes through a surface and experiences a change in speed.

Sound travels much more slowly in air than in glass. When sound passes in on out of a glass pane, most of the sound is reflected backward. If two rooms are separated by three or four sheets of glass, and each of these glasses are carefully sealed into place such that there are no holes through which sound can be leaked, then a very small amount of sound can make it through the overall window and most of the sound will get reflected back.

A bulletproof glass is a multilayered sandwich of glass and plastic. It is like the front windshield of a car but having many more layers. When a bullet hits the surface of this sandwich, it starts to tear into the layers. However, before the bullet manages to burrow all the way through to the final layers, the bullet loses momentum. The bullet’s energy and momentum are transferred to the layers of glass and plastic and hence it leaves the one inside the bullet proof glass with no harm.

Why does Skin wrinkle with ages?

As we become aged, our bodies do not fully repair the damages that are caused to the molecules which gives young skin its strength and resilience. 
 
Hence, skin wrinkles with age.
 
There are three layers of our skin-
 
1. The deepest layer is formed by subcutaneous tissues. It contains fats and connective tissue along with large blood vessels and nerves.
 
2. The middle layer is the dermis. The middle layer is the dermis. The dermis contains blood vessels, hair roots, nerves and sweat glands.
 
3. The topmost layer is the epidermis. The layer helps to prevent water evaporation from the body. It also protects the internal layers from harm.
 
The topmost layer, epidermis, is covered with flattened cells which are rich in the protein called Keratin. This protein makes our skin tough and water resistant. These outer cells gradually cast off and they are replaced by an underlying generation of new cells.

The dermis layer is composed of structural proteins. This gives skin strength and elasticity. These layers are formed mostly of collagen fibers that are women into a meshwork with elastic and other proteins to create a resilient biological polymer. As our age inclines, the amount of collagen declines then both collagen and elastic fibers become looser, thicker. Clumped and even cross linked to other fibers. The result is to this change is brittle and less elastic skin which lead to sagging and wrinkling.
 
What causes this change?

The main cause for these changes arte free radicals. Free radicals are the molecular or atoms that have lost an electron and they try to replace it by reacting with other molecules. The free radicals are highly unstable and so they are highly reactive when the electrons are pulled from one molecule to another, they trigger a cascade of changes to biological molecules. This then alter the chemical structures and hence biological functions.

Free radicals are by products of our energy metabolism. Free radicals are also generated by environmental influences such as air pollution, UV radiation, X-rays etc.

Free radicals like vitamin C, vitamin E and carotene pigments can be protected by antioxidants enzymes and molecules. However, free radical damage occurs nevertheless. Another biological threat from energy metabolism is when glucose which are facilitated by free radicals cross links with proteins to form plastic like molecules. This makes the skin more brittle and less elastic.

Skin provides a barrier between our body and the environment. This makes it especially vulnerable to high energy radiation from the sun. This also causes wrinkling of the skin. UV rays causes DNA damage, damage to other molecules in the skin and leads to the generation of free radicals.
This is why our skin wrinkles as we become aged.  

Sunday, 20 May 2012

Why does Milk overflow while boiling?

Milk, as we all know, is actually a suspension of fat and protein globules. Milk is a colloid and contains fat, sugar, starch, protein, vitamins and minerals. Since the fat is dispersed uniformly in the form of fine droplets rise up when the milk is heated and then form a thick layer of cream on the surface.

If we heat further, water gets converted to water vapors and gets trapped under the layer of cream. Bubbles of steam are formed when the milk starts boiling and forces the thick creamy layer upwards. Thus, this causes the milk to overflow.

There is no overflowing in case of boiling water since the steam bubbler break as they reach the surface.

To prevent milk from spilling, all we have to do is to provide a passage for the vapors to go out. We can simply keep a long spoon in the milk contain. This will enables the water vapors to escape along the handle of the spoon and prevents from getting trapped under the layer of the cream. This method is the simplest method. Different people use different strategy. Halwais keep stirring the boiling milk to prevent the formation of the creamy layer.

Does exercise make our muscles strong? How?

When exercise is repeated over a period of time, changes occur in the functions of various organs. All these changes depend on factors like the frequency and intensity of exercise, type of exercise age, and the muscles which are used and also to the previous training of the individual.

Body muscles tissue can be classified as skeletal, cardiac and visceral. Skeletal muscles are those which are attached to the bones. The muscular body of the heart is formed by the cardiac muscles. Visceral muscles are present in all hollow viscera which include gastro intestinal tract, blood vessels, duct of glands, respiratory and lymphatic system of the body.

The primary effects of exercise occur in our skeletal muscle. When we exercise, there are an increase number of capillaries in muscle tissue. This lead to increase in blood flow and therefore more oxygen is brought to the cells.

There is more extraction of oxygen by muscles cells when we exercise and thus lower the lactate concentration which leads to muscles cramps. This shows that muscles depend more on aerobic mechanism. The capacity of the muscle cells increases to oxidize carbohydrate and lipids, because of which more fat, can be used.

As a result of exercise, both the muscle mass and the force produced by the muscle increase however, the number of muscle fibers is not affected. Thus, more protein synthesis and less protein breakdown occurs. Due to the increase in permeability of muscle cells, amino acids uptake by muscle cells is enhanced. The muscle connective tissue, the tendons and the ligaments become stronger as we exercise.