hi all,
My project with figs n wasps firstly beging with me going to the tree. There r 3 fig trees in all, so i go to each tree one by one for 3 times for observations at diff. time. Let me clear one thing - I dont need to climb on the tree. Only on 1 tree i climb that too not at a great height (but a bit risky). One is having ladder on it so i be on ladder n the last tree can be observed fron terrace of a deppt.
So after i am on the tree , i do scan sampling of each tree to see the no. n type of wasp ( pollinator , non pollinator- 3 4 types) , what r the wasp doing. Remember one thing - thr pollinators go inside the fruit(syconia) whereas the non pol. oviposit from outside with long needle like ovipositors( these r harmful to the tree.
Then there are many types of ants (oecophylla n technomermyx) on the tree which predate on these wasps n there r many strategies these wasps use to escape from them. Also there is one ant ( Mermycaria ) which tend to some different organism ( hemoptera) to collect honey dew.
In short i will collect all these data for each fig on each bunch on each fig tree 3 times a day ( very tiring ) n finally will pool all the data to get some conclusion.
Simultaneously i will be doing cuticular hydrocarbon extraction, volatile extraction, n analyse them with GC-MS. Also i will be doing some bioinfo work to build a phylogenetic tree. All this in the next 3 weeks. So not sure till what extent i will be able to go, but beleive me nowadays there is lot of burden with the mid sem also approaching n freshers party too. I have not yet started with anything in theory with all focus being on the project.
I dont know how much of it u understood bcoz it toof me around a week to understand all this. You know what- I m the only person in the class with a project. All others r just learning the techniques. Bcoz of this they get time to conc. on theory. I think i will have to manage myself now
One request to sid- pls invite all the members n ask them to post the work they r doing currently n request all of u (except sid n kammy) pls post sumthing
Saturday, August 30, 2008
PANKAJ !!!!
Pankaj..... dude i badly wanna know how u r doing sitting up there in ur tree with ur wasps and figs........... so update us man!!!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Twitter...
I had 8 hours of lectures today with a 1 hour break in between and i slept for 5 hours yeaterday night and am dog tired, but knowing u guys will read this up makes me feel good instantly which is why i am blogging myself away!!!
(Technically this is not a twitter, but who cares???)
(Technically this is not a twitter, but who cares???)
Pandora's Hole: A Mud Volcano !!??!!
One fine day about a year and 3 months back, a paddy field in indonesia caved in, revealing a large hole. Soon mud started spurting out of that hole. Is this werid....??? Well initially the hole was vomiting 5000 cubic meters of mud per day. That hole is still, as i type, excreting mud and now at the rate of 150,000 cubic meters per day!!!
An area of radius 10km is submerged under that mud including villages, factories, schools everything. 11000 people have already been evacuated. And There are more people and villages in the path of this mud.
Is this an isolated incident?? Weird as it may sound it is not and such mud volacanoes have been obsrved in the past. However this volcano takes the credit of starting before our eyes and is the largest of em all!!!
The mud it throws out is 70% water and comes from a depth of more than 3 kms under ground. The mud is actually a mixture of ground water and sediments from below, even fossils have been obtained from that mud.
So what triggered it??? Scientists are still not sure. 2 days before eruption the area witnessed some tectonic activity and in a near by area an earthquake was recorded touching 6 point something on the richter. 1 day before the eruption there was an accident (rather an incident) at ground zero. An oil exploration company was drilling at that very site looking for oil and they wanted to drill through a limestone block, however as they were drilling they experienced a kick back. Now generally at such depths pressures are very high and so to balance outside pressure the dril bit has pressurised oil inside it. If for some reason the outside pressure increases drastically the drillbit recieves a kick back. To counter a kick back the pressure inside the drill is increased even more, and thats what they did. Now as they were removing the drill bit they removed it a bit too fast which meant that there was a vaccumm created in the drill coloumn.
It has been hypothesized that the drill bit actually cracked the limestone bedrock inside which was a pressurised chamber of gases, water and sediments. The partial vaccuum created inside coloumn further accelerated the process of fissure formation and by next day the gases had blasted ways through the earth above to create that hole in the field. The company obviously blames the earthquake and the labels this as a natural disaster. However there is evidence that drilling might have been the cause, though it hasnt been proved conclusively. None the less the company has paid up around 400 million US$ to people in damages for their inconviniene, property and bought all land covered by mud. The company is keeping all its drilling data secret, which is crucial to find the real cause of the phenomenon.
Access to the site is restricted by the govt, but the mud is a bigger barrier. Structural studies have been carried out using sonar and the dimensions of the hole and some of its branches have been deciphered. As a solution the govt is planning to drop in 300 strategically designed hyperdense concrete balls which will decrease the rate of flow and buy time to move people and property.
Scientists are having a ball (pun not intended) since such a rare phenomenon is happening beore their eyes but as the indonesian PM has reminded people are suffering!!!.... only 12-13 deaths have been reported dead that too due to accidents involving heavy equipment, no one has died cause of mud.
This data typed in here is a personal recreation from a news article in Nature (forgot the month, 2007) and may not be 100% accurate. For more information visit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow
Material here is to be cited at your own risk though i will be very happy if you do!!!
(I am posting this here cause i want ur views on it)
An area of radius 10km is submerged under that mud including villages, factories, schools everything. 11000 people have already been evacuated. And There are more people and villages in the path of this mud.
Is this an isolated incident?? Weird as it may sound it is not and such mud volacanoes have been obsrved in the past. However this volcano takes the credit of starting before our eyes and is the largest of em all!!!
The mud it throws out is 70% water and comes from a depth of more than 3 kms under ground. The mud is actually a mixture of ground water and sediments from below, even fossils have been obtained from that mud.
So what triggered it??? Scientists are still not sure. 2 days before eruption the area witnessed some tectonic activity and in a near by area an earthquake was recorded touching 6 point something on the richter. 1 day before the eruption there was an accident (rather an incident) at ground zero. An oil exploration company was drilling at that very site looking for oil and they wanted to drill through a limestone block, however as they were drilling they experienced a kick back. Now generally at such depths pressures are very high and so to balance outside pressure the dril bit has pressurised oil inside it. If for some reason the outside pressure increases drastically the drillbit recieves a kick back. To counter a kick back the pressure inside the drill is increased even more, and thats what they did. Now as they were removing the drill bit they removed it a bit too fast which meant that there was a vaccumm created in the drill coloumn.
It has been hypothesized that the drill bit actually cracked the limestone bedrock inside which was a pressurised chamber of gases, water and sediments. The partial vaccuum created inside coloumn further accelerated the process of fissure formation and by next day the gases had blasted ways through the earth above to create that hole in the field. The company obviously blames the earthquake and the labels this as a natural disaster. However there is evidence that drilling might have been the cause, though it hasnt been proved conclusively. None the less the company has paid up around 400 million US$ to people in damages for their inconviniene, property and bought all land covered by mud. The company is keeping all its drilling data secret, which is crucial to find the real cause of the phenomenon.
Access to the site is restricted by the govt, but the mud is a bigger barrier. Structural studies have been carried out using sonar and the dimensions of the hole and some of its branches have been deciphered. As a solution the govt is planning to drop in 300 strategically designed hyperdense concrete balls which will decrease the rate of flow and buy time to move people and property.
Scientists are having a ball (pun not intended) since such a rare phenomenon is happening beore their eyes but as the indonesian PM has reminded people are suffering!!!.... only 12-13 deaths have been reported dead that too due to accidents involving heavy equipment, no one has died cause of mud.
This data typed in here is a personal recreation from a news article in Nature (forgot the month, 2007) and may not be 100% accurate. For more information visit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow
Material here is to be cited at your own risk though i will be very happy if you do!!!
(I am posting this here cause i want ur views on it)
Sunday, August 24, 2008
My life currently
Well since this blog has been created i take the oppurtunity to post something about my life during pg....
Initially disappointed with not being admitted to PUNE for chem i thgt i lost it...then being admitted to RUIA was filled with some skepticism in my mind but finally i went thrgh everything n now my PG is in full flow.....really full flow..
We all were first instructed to search through the theories for our practicals as we wont be provided with the manual for practicals and we have to make one on our own..Of course with the help of practical incharge.
Chem dept has a book bank which includes small collection of only those books which are important but are less accessible through the library n yeh I m the incharge for it!
Recently Biochem dept was shifted to JC above the mic dept n MSc lab has been completely shifted to F21 that earlier was the Biochem lab. Our balance room would be vacated soon, with all balances being shifted inside the lab.The room will then be converted into study room as Mam wants to create good study atmosphere for us students.
Now a days i reach college by 9.00 for which i leave my house at 7.30(i get up at 6.30) n my practicals start at 10.00 am.They end at 1.30 n we get some time to have lunch after which we all rush to Somaiya for lectures on MONs,TUES,WEDs while the rest 3 days we r in Ruia. Somaiya buliding sucks big time. During the lectures the foul smell from the Toilets reach our noses in the class rooms...benches are bad..If one wants to sit straight then he cant write on the desk until he bends forward. Professors are execellent!!!!!! Our university does have a great faculty n i mean evry word of it. Its just the Univ pattern that stops them from delivering more...On last saturday we had an organic lecture by prof from Jhunjhunwala n to tell u from the heart i had the best organic lecture of my life!!!!He taught us basics which included drawing resonance structures n many more.The beauty about Dr. Shastri was that he stuck to syallabi but taught us every basic thing related to the topic...we have other profs also about whom il mention later.......
The lectures get over by 6.30 evening n after that i come to college n sit with siddhesh helping him in the course of DIAC of which he is the Coord...i sit with him n study which i have never done in my life...On the first day I sat for 1 n ½ hr without a break..Thats amazing for me atleast.So now its that im turning into a Nerd n i am enjoying it!!! i leave the college at 8.30 in night n reach my house by 10.30 pm tired n exhausted both physically n mentally.Lets see how far this reading process goes as i get tired a lot these days n dont want to fall pray to sickness n bad health....Im also the coord of my team i.e Infrastructure n so i share these responsibilties, though im a bit dormant in that stuff now.....
Well thats about my life currently...Its tough, hard, exhaustive but enjoyable...Truely im INSTITUTIONALISED!!!!!!
Initially disappointed with not being admitted to PUNE for chem i thgt i lost it...then being admitted to RUIA was filled with some skepticism in my mind but finally i went thrgh everything n now my PG is in full flow.....really full flow..
We all were first instructed to search through the theories for our practicals as we wont be provided with the manual for practicals and we have to make one on our own..Of course with the help of practical incharge.
Chem dept has a book bank which includes small collection of only those books which are important but are less accessible through the library n yeh I m the incharge for it!
Recently Biochem dept was shifted to JC above the mic dept n MSc lab has been completely shifted to F21 that earlier was the Biochem lab. Our balance room would be vacated soon, with all balances being shifted inside the lab.The room will then be converted into study room as Mam wants to create good study atmosphere for us students.
Now a days i reach college by 9.00 for which i leave my house at 7.30(i get up at 6.30) n my practicals start at 10.00 am.They end at 1.30 n we get some time to have lunch after which we all rush to Somaiya for lectures on MONs,TUES,WEDs while the rest 3 days we r in Ruia. Somaiya buliding sucks big time. During the lectures the foul smell from the Toilets reach our noses in the class rooms...benches are bad..If one wants to sit straight then he cant write on the desk until he bends forward. Professors are execellent!!!!!! Our university does have a great faculty n i mean evry word of it. Its just the Univ pattern that stops them from delivering more...On last saturday we had an organic lecture by prof from Jhunjhunwala n to tell u from the heart i had the best organic lecture of my life!!!!He taught us basics which included drawing resonance structures n many more.The beauty about Dr. Shastri was that he stuck to syallabi but taught us every basic thing related to the topic...we have other profs also about whom il mention later.......
The lectures get over by 6.30 evening n after that i come to college n sit with siddhesh helping him in the course of DIAC of which he is the Coord...i sit with him n study which i have never done in my life...On the first day I sat for 1 n ½ hr without a break..Thats amazing for me atleast.So now its that im turning into a Nerd n i am enjoying it!!! i leave the college at 8.30 in night n reach my house by 10.30 pm tired n exhausted both physically n mentally.Lets see how far this reading process goes as i get tired a lot these days n dont want to fall pray to sickness n bad health....Im also the coord of my team i.e Infrastructure n so i share these responsibilties, though im a bit dormant in that stuff now.....
Well thats about my life currently...Its tough, hard, exhaustive but enjoyable...Truely im INSTITUTIONALISED!!!!!!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Stay in Touch
Community blog... where people can come together and say what they want to say to each other and the world.... This is definitely a nice way to keep in touch... So guys come on over and have fun !!!
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