FLOWER BEDS OF KERALA AND THE FACTS MYSTIFIED

                                                                             
Athappookkalam- the traditional Flower-bed pattern of Kerala seems to gain a fresh scientific outlook nowadays, rather a new face being lost in the hustle splendour of ritual mockeries. These indigenous flower-beds created and presented as a welcome-sign for the legendary king Mahabali, apart from its ceremonial etiquettes represent some sedulous efforts mystified in a mythical ambience. The floral patterns still practiced on the eve of the Festival of Onam shares some features that remain unlinked to its history as a harvest merriment. In addition to its informal affiliation to enviro-ethic and nature education, the syntax prevailed for these floral formulations reflect the relics of what we term today as herbal or folk systematics.


In the true sense, flower-beds of Kerala represent a medieval uplift of the alpha- taxonomy that came wavering through the ravages of time. Largely in the form of traditional knowledge these data collected and preserved by the folks served as the denizen’s database for the benefit of the epicurean life they followed. Obviously enough these included recipes for folk-medicines, antidotes and other herbal preparations. The chief characteristic regarding this was that though appearing rustic sometimes, atleast some factual details about the local flora were known to almost everyone and this remained perceptual also. What did the norms and regulations for Pookkalams really aim was to transcend these ethnic know-how towards the generations to come.


As per the folklore, flower-bed preparations in Kerala are not exclusive to Onam season. Keralites make Pookkalams as part of four festive events in a year, the first being the Onappookkalam, the second during the Pooram celebrations of far-North Malabar, the third on the auspicious day of Pathinaram Makam and the fourth on the birthday of Lord Krishna (Ashtamirohini). In addition, the southern fringes of Trivandrum district has one more flower centered ritual as an adoration of the Goddess of Justice Bhadra, popularly known as Pooppada. However, the selection and combination of flowers differ very much in case of the above said floral adornments. Similarly the Pooram ceremony of Malabar aiming at the exhilaration of the God of love Kamadeva, yet another variety of flowers are used, mainly as ominous symbols.


The flower selection for Onappookkalams surpasses all its contemporary sacraments by not trying to decipher any thing from an occult or obscure entity that is presented. Moreover it had a scientific backup also. More than twenty different verities of flowers were used in Onam flower-beds throughout the whole ten days of its periodic modulation to a fine, fulsome culmination at the end. The first flower to be used in Pookkalam is that of Mathan (Cucurbita moschata) upon the earthen idol of Lord Ganapathi. On the first day, there will be white flowers only which is insisted to be Thumbapoovu (Leucas aspera) with tender leaves of  Thulasi (Ocimum sanctum) at the centre. The second day is specified for Arippoovu (Lantana camara). From third day onwards flowers with varying colours may be used, but traditionally it should be a medley of yellow, white and red.


Even after the local preferences made Thumbapoovu remains as a mandate for Onam flower-beds throughout Kerala region. This special status though reminiscent of some mythological connections, has some scientific relevance also. Three varieties of Thumba are found growing in the highlands of Kerala having vernacular names such as Karimthumba (Anisomeles malabarica), Perumthumba (Leucas aspera). Among these, only Leucas aspera is acceptable as Onappoovu while the others have to be discarded. It is interesting to note that this particular selection was made by the groups of children in a playful environment filled with chants of Poove Poli ..... Poove Poli. It should be noted that, today, such an identification procedure demands various inferences and deductive keys for even a post-graduate student of plant systematics.


Similar restrictions are there for Nathyarvattom (Tabernaemontana divaricata) which is known as East Indian Rosebay. Two varieties of this plant are usually seen in Kerala, one by the name Nanthyarvartham and the other Kuttananthyarvattom. Only the former was preferred in Pookkalams while the other remained as an inferior alternative. Such preferences take a curious form indeed when some plants are seen to be exempted from such kind of strict specifications. A good example is Mukkutii (Biophytum reinwardtii) which possesses one more closely related variety such as Biophytum sensitivum var. candolleanum. Strangely enough both were equally acceptable on Onam flower-beds. Here we can see the concept of a folk-systematics gaining shape or transcending to herbal systematics. Let’s trace out how it happened.


The aspera species of the genus Leucas and the divaricata species of  Tabernaemontana were one the specific ingredients of folk-medicines prevalent in ancient lives of Kerala. As revealed by modern Ethnopharmacological studies, the active principle in these which render them therapeutic properties couldn’t be substituted even by a closely related species. The healing effect of an alternate species may not be in the desirable way as it is largely concerned with the alkaloid like chemical components they hold. Again it can be presumed that, in the case of Mukkutti and others such restrictions hadn’t existed because their related varieties are some what similar in the biochemical composition. These aspects generally defined under the auspices of Ethnopharmacognosy however needs further clarifications and lab trials.


Yet another importance of the pragmatic curriculum the Pookkalams uphold lies in the efforts it made to spread the love for nature and a mind to conserve it. Flower bed preparations of Kerala irrespective of its formal priorities included flowers from plants of no obvious economic benefits. The best example is Kakkothippoovu or Kakkappoovu which is used for making the special flower bed of the auspicious day of Kakkappooradam. This ceremony had much cultural coalitions with the Onam celebrations of central Travancore. The plant which is used in this ritual is Utricularia reticulata of Lentibulariaceae family. Preferring naturally wet and moist rock surfaces to grow, this plant has become so sparse in occurrence that it need to be designated as threatened. May we think the ancient Keralites foresaw the fragility of its habitat and conserved it by rendering a special status to its flower. May not be, but if so, it is ingenious enough.


UNESCO recognizes the making of ritual flower beds such as Onappookkalam as tek (traditional environmental knowledge) practices and evidently underlines their conservation and progression. However, what still remains unnoticed is the aptitude of science that many of these teks carry in their eclipsed faces. There are many flower-centered rituals in Kerala and many among these are reminiscences of the diverse and rich local flora that we had in our past. These can even function as documents more comprehensive and complete than the much hailed record in print such as Hortus Malabaricus. But what actually needed is a thorough understanding of the soul and spirit of our cultural rites, rather than procuring patent numbers for everything that seem indigenous and employing the policy of a dog in the manger.

(For photos and scientific names of flowers used in Onappookkalams, please read Malayalam article on My blog www.sasthraveedhi.blogspot.com.)

LASER AT 50

                                                                                 

                                                                               
On 21 July 1969, before leaving to Earth, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin had set up an array of small reflectors on the surface of Moon. About ten days later, a team of astrophysicists at University of California’s Lick Observatory, pointed their telescope towards the precise location of human landing and sent a small pulse of power into the tiny instrument they had added to the telescope. The narrow beam of red light that emerged from it pierced the sky and disappeared into outer space. Slightly more than a second after the beam hit the reflectors, the Lick team detected the faint reflection of it. The time period between the launch of the pulse of light and return of it permitted calculation of the distance between Earth and Moon with unprecedented precision, to the extent of correction within an inch. The wonder ray that made this possible was LASER, a brand new invention that was demonstrated just nine years before, in 1960.

                                                                              
It was the brain child of a 32 year old engineer-turned-physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories, Mailbu, California. His name was Theodore Maiman, but at that time, it was considered rather useless, upon which even his colleagues moked him, saying. “Aha! Great solution! But what could be the problem?” Infact nobody could not even imagine that Maiman’s invention would become literally the workhorse of modern physics and so engraved on to everyday life. And today in its fiftieth birth anniversary, LASER is here to cool atoms, send data mend eyes and trigger fusion. While it is the “death ray” in military applications, it is forming part of high-life through spectacular “LASER shows” in stage concerts. It is there in our DVD’s, Bar-code scanners and latest mobilephones and so simply, it is unavoidable.


The History of LASER
It goes to Einstein for a starting point in the history of LASER, who at the prime of his fame, establishing the idea of stimulated emission, in 1917. It was a re-derivation of Max Plank’s Law of Radiation through conceptual advancement. However, till the end of 1940s, the principle of stimulated emission was hardly sought, as the concept was largely considered a theoretical one. Einstein based it in thermodynamics, that if light can force an atom to go upto high energy states, it can also force an atom to give up its energy and drop to lower states. While this “stimulated energy loss” happens, it will also lead to amplification of the emitted photon, a phenomenon called Coherent Amplification. In short, it is amplification stimulated by light” creating a stronger emission (later abridged as LASER – Light Amplified by Stimulated Emission of Radiation). The first brilliant success was made by Charles Towens, who used this phenomenon to amplify the microwaves. The resultant device was called MASER, the acronym for ‘Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. And in their historical paper published in Physical Review, Townes and his co-worker Arthur Schawlow hoped that the MASER concept could be extended to an “optical MASER”, in other words, the LASER.

                                                                              
Thus it paved the way for a race to build a LASER, in which Bell Laboratories was destined to win as the research group led by Charles Townes was there. Bell Lab, the then called Bell Telephone Laboratories, was a well funded research institute with a backdrop of several high profile achievements. Even within Bell Lab there were other groups, well outside it also, to join the race. In US alone, there were more that six research labs including the much famous General Electric and IBM. Townes former PhD student was also among the rivals, Gordon Gould, who abandoned his thesis work and joined a private company engaged in LASER research, to realize it. But, the dark horse was yet to join the race, Theodore Maiman, who was then at Hughes Research Laboratories, the research arm of Hughes Aircraft Company. Maiman’s engineering and physics experience was an added advantage, when the company wanted a MASER, as per the contract it signed with the US Army corps of Engineers. It was his efforts to make the MASER more compact and practical, that led to the LASER.


Maiman’s “Eureka”
The reason why light is usually absorbed in materials IS simply that substances almost always have more atoms or molecules in lower states than in higher states so that more photons are absorbed than emitted. So, the trick in making a LASER is to produce a material in which the energies of the molecules or atoms are put in excited states than in ground states. A wave of electromagnetic energy moving through such a substance will pick up, rather than losing energy. However, just one pass of the wave through the substance wont give much amplification and so multiple reflections are to be there. This is achieved by placing two parallel mirrors on either side of the material, of which one mirror is partially transparent. When the internal reflections are enough to build up substantial amount of power, the ray will penetrate out through the transparent mirror. This was the theoretical blue-print and next came the choke of the material. Maiman was familiar with the properties of Ruby from his earlier works and so he selected it. Ruby is a crystal of Aluminum Oxide (Al2O3) in which a few Chromium atoms are dispersed as impurities. These Chromium atoms which exist as ions by losing three of its electrons can absorb green light from the visible spectrum and go to excited states. When electron fall back to ground state from these high energy levels, they fluoresce in red. Maimum was thinking that he could use this red fluorescence to create LASER.

                                                                             
The path ahead was however not smooth as he thought. The first blow came from Arthur Schawlow who was his brother-in-law and work-mate. In September 1959, shortly after Maiman started his project, Schawlow publicly declared that Ruby couldn’t be a candidate for stimulated emission. He argued that, for that to happen, more electrons need to reside in the upper energy level than in the lower ones, a condition known as ‘Population Inversion” As per Schawlow, it was impossible to achieve this, for a three-level energy system such as Ruby, while it is much easier for a “four-level energy system”. Whether this was practically true or else was not the question but with repeated counseling against Ruby that came all along from respected scientists, Maiman’s employer stoped funding his research. For Maiman it was not a discouragement as he was willing to spend from his own pocket, but the next hurdle was not much beyond. The problem was the ‘quantum efficiency’ of Ruby, ie, the number of fluorescence-photons emitted for each light photon absorbed. In a much discussed paper published in the Review of Scientific Instruments (30, 995), Irwin Wieder, a scientist personally trained by Maiman claimed that the quantum efficiency of Ruby was just 1%, not enough to attain a stimulated emission. And as per the calculations of Maiman, for a successful emission it should be 75%, an ardent but improbable objective! However, there was a silver-line that if he could have a very bright pump of light source, it could work. And the ‘eureka’ moment came from reading an article about photographic-lamps, which could achieve ‘brightness temperature’ of 8000K. Everything that had to follow was more easy with the help of his technical assistant Irnee d’ Haenens and on 16 May 1960 they got the first evidence of a LASER in action, the lifetime achievement of Maiman.

In Limelight? No!
In the euphoric days that followed, Maiman tried to refine his equipment and immediately prepared a report of his exciting results submitting it to Physical Review Letters on 24th June. However, the journal editor didn’t accept the paper, stating that the MASER-physics had already reached a mature state and “yet another MASER-paper” didn’t deserve rapid publication. [No wonder, Maiman’s invention was not ‘LASER’ then, it was only ‘optical-MASER’, as it was not Maiman but Gordon Gould, a graduate student at Colombia University who later named it as LASER]. Anyway, Maiman had to pen a shorter version of his original article and send it to Nature, where it was accepted (187, 493). It was scheduled for the 6th August issue of it, but Hughes Lab was anxious to conduct a press conference before that because since Bell Labs was involved in the race, there was no prize for a ‘runner up’! Thus the world came to know about it on July 7, 1960 which erased the long held conviction that LASER is not practically a possible thing. But many still continued to (or liked to!) disbelieve it. Though the potentialities of LASER were not known at that time, there was one more reason for Maiman not being in the lime light. On 1st August 1960, Shawlow and Townes at Bell Labs could reproduce Maiman’s result and got it published also in the same journal that rejected Maiman’s paper. It appeared in the October issue of Physical Review Letters and many who read it thought that Bell Laboratories was the first to build LASER. For the American scientific circles as well as public, Shawlow and Townes were familiar personalities and Bell Lab’s trials on LASER implementation was rather well known also. So, even after 50 years, the invention of LASER still remain controversial, atleast at the score boards of the rival fronts.

The LASER Revolution

                                                                                    
The light of a LASER differ from that of an ordinary light source, iust like music differs from noice. Moreover, a LASER beam can travel kilometers without much increase in its diameter. For example, when a Ruby-LASER was sent to Moon from Earth, the spot it created on the surface of Moon was only 9 km, even after travelling 2,40,000 miles. Another quality of LASER is its immense luminous intensity. If we point our forefinger to sunlight, the power that falls on it is about one tenth of a watt. But, if light from LASER can be concentrated on it, it would be 109 watts. The size of a LASER device can be as big as a football field or as small as a pin-head. The light they emit can be invisible infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray or all the colours of the rainbow. The wavelength of some LASERs is tunable and their intensity can be amplified through several orders of magnitude. Some LASERs can’t even emit enough energy to cook an egg, where as certain others can vapourize steel! The pulse of a LASER can be as short as to last for a second (10-15s) while some others can create continuous beams that will remain for decades to come. However, many of these potentialities came through many years of research and in the beginning many entrepreneurs found that there were very few possibilities for commercial exploitation of LASERs. Many companies couldn’t even pursue definite applications from this field.
The next type of LASER that immediately followed Maiman’s Ruby-LASER was Helium-Neon-LASER developed by Bell Laboratories in the same year, 1960. But the first LASER that became the most prevalent type was the Diode-LASER made up of the semiconductor Gallium Arsenide. It soon mushroomed into a wide variety of commercial versions which still holds the global market. The first automated LASER scanning machine was used in a supermarket checkout-counter in Ohio in 1974 paving the way for a Universal Product Code (UPC). Called simply as the ‘bar-code’, it is used billions of times everyday by retailers and manufactures worldwide today. In late 1970s, the first trans-atlantic fibre-optic cables were laid down which became operating through diode-LASERs. They could deliver light into fibres with a few micrometers of core diameter and thus interconnecting the world in an integral way. The effect was a revolution in communication which sweeped Europe and US in late 1980s. In industry, there was yet another wonder that enabled metal cutting as easy as slicing a cake. It was the carbon dioxide-LASER that became a standardized cutting-tool even from 1970s. In automobile industry, it introduced a new technique such as “remote welding” which made multiple spot welds possible through “optical steering”. This opened a new opportunity for LASER to be used as weapons though such fancies were already there with the development of Maiman’s small LASER. But, rather than a “death ray”, its first military application was for range finding. The first target LASER designators was used in the Vietnam War, in 1972. It made bombs intelligent rather than being stupid by falling anywhere. Ronald Reagen’s ‘Star Wars’ programme was envisaging LASERs to be anti-missile weapons. Today these have become the norm for every country including India.

From the war-field, where the LASER directly entered was the music studio, one may hardly believe! In 1970s, Sony and Philips began developing music digitally recorded on shiny plastic discs that were 12 cm in diameter, popularly known as “Compact Discs” (CDs). The first digitalized music album came out as CD in 1982 with 74 minute of playback capacity –it was the album “52nd street” by Billy Joel. In the mid 1990s, the Digital Video Discs (DVDs) came which could store an entire feature length film. ‘Blue-ray Discs’ (BDs) were the next generation with 50 gigabyte capacity capable of holding more than five films in exceptionally high resolution. Simultaneously, beam-scanning systems were inverted which could dynamically follow music and trace intricate patterns in space. The first spectacular event by it was at “Expo 70” World Fair in Osaka, Japan. Rock concerts by bands like Pink Floyd usually employed them to evoke awe and surprise until restrictions came up due to safety reasons. In the field of medicine also, LASER heralded an authetic revolution. The first medical use of LASER was in 1961, when doctors at Columbia University of Medical Center in New York destroyed a retinal tumour by using a Ruby-LASER. Ophthalmology was the most benefited field where LASER was used for diagnosis as well as surgical cures. It enabled doctors to precisely vaporize a tissue or shapen it as they wish. A classical example is LASIK (LASER-Assisted in situ Keratomileusis) Surgery where LASER is used to reshape the cornea. In 1968, LASER proved to be a bloodless way to crush the kidney stone opening its potential towards guided surgeries. Now, it is routinely used to treat skin tumours as well as inaccessible brain tumours.

LASER in fiction

                                                                              
Imaginations about an invisible ray that could be used as a weapon was there is fiction before the principle of LASER was even thought of. The author who popularized it as a “death ray” was H.G. Wells, who in his 1898 tale ‘The War of the Worlds’ described it as an “inevitable, invisible sword of heat” that Martians use against the Earthlings. 1927, Alexey Tolstoy depicted a LASER-like devise in his science fiction novel ‘The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin.’ Through the 1930s these predictions were well played in celluloid also. In his novel ‘Fatal Eggs’, Mikhail Bulgakov used it to create some “biological effects” on the target thought it was shown as a beam of red- light that emerges from an advanced microscope. In the 1951- film ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ LASER was the weapon the powerful robot uses. This was one of the reasons why the newspapers first quoted Maiman’s invention as “Death Ray” to the great dismay of him. In ‘Star Wars: Episode IV’ also the doomsday-fear was triggered using LASER. But, here it was not man but a distant star using LASER beams to destroy the Earth.

New Dawns

                                                                          

Let’s return to Einstein. In 1918 itself, he had predicted the existence of gravitational waves produced by moving masses. But until today, it has not beet directly detected. This is one of the research areas of future where LASER plays a part. The equipment used for this is an Interferometer which was first built in 1978 though much powerful versions are still in progress. These are dubbed LIGO-LASER Interferometer Gravitationalwave Observatory of which one is in Hanford and other in Livingston. Another is in Cascina in Italy officially known as VIRGO, which was opened in July 2003. Astrophysicist expect that LIGO and VIRGO may in someday detect Einstein’s dream waves. LASER was also there to realize Einstein another prediction which he did in 1924, about the existence of a special state of matter in which the so called bosons may be forced to stay in a state with identical quantum properties. In 1995, that state was achieved which was called Bose-Einstein Condensation. With it, it was possible to explore certain aspects of quantum mechanics and superconductivity, the classical epitomes of modern physics. Similar attempts are made by the National Ignition Facility, California where conditions akin to the heart of a star is created aiming to produce fusion power or the contrivances for it. The next telescopes are employing adaptive optics based on laser technology enabling astronomers to ascertain the position and movement of extrasolar planets. Yes, what we have is "Aladdin’s Lantern" and what we need yet is only the imagination to order things to do! And it is the real ‘problem’ created by LASER!


Reference


1. Perkowitz, Sidney (2010) “From Ray-gun to Blu-ray”. Physics World, May 2010, pp.16.20.


2. Rigby, Pauline (2010) “And then there was light”. Physics World, May 2010, pp. 23-27.


3. Fischer, Ernst Peter (2009) “Where only the new is considered, the old grows”.   LASER Community, February 2009. p.21.


4. CH Townes (1999) “How the Laser Happened”. Oxford University Press, New York.

BIODIVERSITY IN THE EPIC RAMAYANA

                                              

Fidelity to Nature and fascination for it is the central theme of Indian philosophical thought apart from its cosmogenic widerness and personalized microfiches. Nature is mother for us and its manifestations beyond an impersonal eventuality. Many are the facets upon which its intaglios cast off from Vedic amulets to modern science. So, on one side, the story depicted in the Epic Ramayana is an elaboration of the vegetational fertility with ‘Rama’ as man of agriculture and ‘Sita’ as the goddess of agriculture. The extreme of the other end liesin the historical alabasters of the Epic scattered among the embellished trails of the past. In the midland of these two fathoms remains the true morass of the story which strives hard to convey a message of co-existance through the description of a true exeistance. Here we have the three versions of a general descant being the Valmiki Ramayana, Ramopakhyana of Mahabharata and Dasaratha Jataka. Shapened and retold for a religious ambience, all these forms are shown to be modified profoundly, before they are with us with its enormous details. Through we are not concerned with the historicity of the entire plot or civilization, an analysis of the time-frame would be worth watchful as we are presently concerned with bio-geography of this past realm. As per the available literary evidence, it has been pointed out that Epic Ramayana was compiled between 300 BC-200 AD, although the original story could be as old as 500 BC (Goldman, 1984). In the Hindu versions of Ramayana, Rama appears as the King of Kosala Dynasty and so historically it can’t be assigned a date prior to 700 BC (Murthy, 2003). The story revolves around the fourteen years of exile of Rama and the adduction of his wife followed by the battle of Lanka. Disputes are there among historians of today who are doubtful regarding the site of this battle, denying it to be the Sree Lanka of today (Sankalia, 1991). Some others believe it to be the Chota-Nagpur region (Thapar, 1990) where the great battle take place and we may affirm nothing, as it will be a flunkey-act without further studies.

Forest Description in Ramayana

In Valmiki Ramayana, two Sanskrit words such as “Vana” and “Aranya” are used while referring to forests. It should be noted that these two are not used synonymously, but in different etymological contexts. The term ‘Vana’ is used to denote sub-forestation, a kind of cultivated forest where there is a clustering of desirable plants, planted and reared for a purpose. On the other hand, “Aranya” is true wilderness, a land of uninhabited jungle of fearsome creatures. It is exemplified by the Dandakaranya which is horrific and abode to the cannibalistic Rakshasas occupying its larger area. The “Chithrakuda” and “Panchavadi”, in contrast to this are modified environments which contain “ashramas” of sages and peculiar kind of human people knows as “Kinnaras” and “Vidyadharas”. After meeting the author (!) Valmiki, Rama, Sita and Lakshmana prefer to settle down in Chitrakuda. After meeting Bharatha who carries the sad news of the demise of Dasaradha, they move to Agasthya’s hermitage to make a temporary residence near to it, in the serene surrounding nearer to it, called the “Panchavadi”. The wilderness comes again to the story-plot when Hanuman enters the Kingdom of Ravana, in the island of Sree Lanka. Strangely, Lanka holds two kinds of forests, the natural woodland of its own and the cultivated forest of the Royal Majesty. The Royal rearings are called the “Asokavana” where Sita is kept and it is peculiar in many aspects. Hanuman also visits the “Aushadhiparvatha” in Kailasa, which is believed to be in the Himalayan region. Rather enigmatically, it is described to be the land of “glowing” medicinal plants for which Hanuman’s prolonged errand is cherished. The narrative style of all these forest types are supposed to evoke four predominant sentiments also, coined as the four major “rasas” such as “santa” (Tranquil), “madhura” (Sweetness), “roudra” (Fury) and “Bhibhatsa” (Terror) (Philip, 2001). Let’s now take how these distinctiveness are imparted to the biodiversity of the various forest kinds.

The Chitrakuda Forest

Also known as “Mahavan”, the Chithrakuda forest is portrayed as a land of pervading non-wilderness which form the first abode of Rama’s settlement. It is described to be at about three and a half yojanas (ie., 5 miles) away from the Chithrakuda Hill, the foot-plain of which stretches in to deep forest. It is not far away from Prayaga where there is the Ashrams of Bharadvaja with river Mandakini flowing at its feet. It is a place of purity and spirituality, as reflected in Valmiki’s description (Ayodhya Kanda 54.29; 94.4-13). The environment is characterized as a repository of rich water sources and a vegetation typical of a Tropical Deciduous Forest. The river side growth of trees gests full focus in description. (The floral aspect is presented in the Table). The plants include fruiting type, both edible and non-edible, with some medicinal herbs of peculiar kind indicated as “Mmaboushadhis”. However, some plants attributed to be there in this Central Indian Forest, is reported to be unnatural rather than ambiguous. These are the Himalayan plants such as Kushta (Saussurea lappa) and Bhojaptra (Betula alnoides). The former is a herb, usually found in Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Garhwal today and latter, a tree distributed in the temperate and sub-tropical Himalayas, Khasi Hills and Manipur. If these were really there in Chitrakuda, it could be the earliest record of a “plant introduction”! Well, the ascetics might be doing it as an effort towards the inculcation of a ‘religious ecology’. The Human factor and its activities are prominent in this sub-forest formations ranging from Sidhapurushas to super-natural personifications such as Kinnaras and Vidhyadharas. The faunal part include all the common animals of Central Indian Habitat with varieties of monkey species, tiger, beer, deer and elephant. However, being non-malicious of poetically rendered so, these too add to the prevailing sentiment which is santha with rare-mix of the erotic rasa expression- (Sundara Kanda 28.12-14).

Dandakaranya – the Thickest

 

“What a forbidding forest is this, echoeing with swarms of crickets, fearsome beasts of pray and harsh-voiced cultures. What a dreadful voice is this?”- Rama asked Visvamitra when he came to the Dandaka forest for the first time, accompanied by Lakshmana for killing the demon-witch Tadka- (Balakanda 24. 13-16). The forest is depicted as the horrific abode of cannibalistic Rakshasas, especially the Demon Dandaka from whom the forest owes its name. As per the plant diversity and geographical features, it is believed to be a vast region including the parts of present day Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. It remains as a trackless forest with all sorts of ferocious animals. The floral part is with much diversity . Though showing a high fidelity towards the traditional vegetation of Madhya Pradesh. Hill springs and other water sources are abundant with water birds and other screeching winged ones rather than song-birds. In Aranyakand 11.2-4, it is said: “As they traveled with Sita, they saw varied mountain landscapes, forests, lovely rivers, ponds covered with lotuses and thronged with water-birds, dappled antelopes, rutting wild buffaloes, elephants butting the trees and bears.”This description is some what a deviation from the first impression that we get from the Tadaka’s place, evidently showing that the wilderness included many sub-forests also. As we change from the Balakanda to Arabyakanda, there is a transition in the prevailing jungle composition, leading to wide lands of human habitations. In addition to the great sage like Sarabhaviga and 21 great saints (munis), there were semi-goddesses called Apsaras and spirits like Gandharvas. “The asramas formed a circle, it was a place of refuge for all creatures- Aranyakanda 2. 1-7 details. The ecology as a whole was a modified one with medicinal, ornamental and edible plants, all utilitarian, amidst the generally sylvan environment. The ethinicity is represented by Kinnaras, which are beings with human bodies and horse’s heads- an aspect which is presently obscure- demanding further studies of anthropological kind- or an early attempt for the modern version of much dramatized Magic realism’? Answers Waver.

The Panchavadi Sub-Forest

Valmiki portrays Panchavadi as an ever-blossoming forested plain, a tranquil area on the banks of river Godavari. It forms Rama’s permanent settlement in forest, which is about two leagues far from the asrams of Agasthya. Representing a modified ecology, it is rich in floral contents comprising fruit-yielding and medicinal plants-(Aranyakanda, 15.11). Interestingly, part of it forms a cultivated land of cereals and millets including the sali-rice, wheat and barley. Every plant denotes and reveals a selection process from an economic point of view, being sacred and utilitarian rather than aesthetic. The faunal characters are characteristic of the Central Indian forests with deer herds and Peacock. There are plenty of aquatic birds among which Kraunca and Chakravaka appear with special mention- (Aranyakanda. 15.1,9). Teeming with of birds was very common due to the abundance of root-vegetables and fruits. It is also worth mentioning that all these actions of “humanizing a forest” occurred in the midst of the frightening wilderness of Dandakaranya. Even though, the flora of this forest area was peculiar in its own sense and it can be summarized as in Table 3.

Lankan Forests and Asokavana

 

In Valmiki’s description, the vegetation of Sree lanka falls under two main categories, the natural Ever-green Forests of the island in general and the naturalized forests of Ravana’s Botanic Gardens. Asokavana gaining the status of the earliest Botanic Gardens in the world is a place for royal recreation with all sorts of natural beautifications. The garden owes its name due to the varied varieties of Asoka trees (Saraca asoca) which appear as golden, fiery red and dark among other elegant sylvan entities. Valmiki goes into raptures while describing the resplendent rabbles of creepers and lianas there, forming the essential adjuncts of an ever-green forest. More precisely, the Champu Ramayana by Bhoja Raja mentions the presence of 38 tree species in Asoka Vana, in a much systematic way, than Valmiki does. At the same time, Valmiki points out that there had been large open spaces amidst the forests (bhumibhaga) which may be landing grounds for his prestigious air-craft-Pushpaka Vimana, or they may be acclimatization grounds for the introduced plants collected during his longer journeys. The landscape apart from this private land was largely mountaineous. Representing true-rain forests, the foot-hill plains of these presented lush greenery. The Gymnosperm Pinus roxburghii was very common along with other flowering plants (Sundara kanda 2:6). Even though there are some sketchy descriptions of song birds and aquatic fauna, generally the animal world is less represented compared to the vivid floral accounts.

Mahodaya- the Medicinal Mountain

Mahodaya- “the Great Rising”- is another name for the “Osadhi Parvatha” which is visited by Hanuman in search of some peculiar kinds of medicinal plants. It is depicted as a separate rock that have arisen in between two mountains known by names, Kailasa and Rsabha. There is a mythological relation between the two, as Kailasa bing the abode of the Supreme God Siva and Rsabha his carrier (bull). The medicinal plants are there on the southern peak of the ventral hill which is peculiar to have four highly potential drug plants. Named after their particular curative properties, these are the Mrtasanjivani, Suvarna Karani, Visalyakarani and Sandhanakarani. The Mrtasanjivani is with life-principle for the revivification of the dead, Visalyakarani for removal of darts from the body, Suvarnakarani for bringing back natural complexion and Sandhanakarani for healing of fracture. These plants are narrated as “glowing herbs” and the strong aroma of these makes the entire environment strongly aromatic. However, the identity of these medicinal plants still remains as an enigma, though the location of Mahodaya Mountain has been traced (Law, 1968) Hanuman is crossing the Himalayas as pet descriptions in Yudhakanda (74-30,31,60) in Ramayana, and so it must be geographically nearer to the Trans-Himalayan Zone. The forest type is Alpine Semi-Forest though the biodiversity of the habitat is not much highlighted. It is interesting to note that there are some hints on metal depositions which shows the insight of the ancient sages towards the material world (Yudhakanda 74:62-64).

Animal Diversity in Ramayana

From the biological point of view Ramayana by Valmiki is peculiar to have a faunal prelude. It is the poignant story of a male among a bird-pair killed by a hunter. The heart-rending distress of the female affected Valmiki so powerfully that he curses the hunter which comes out in the verse-form symbolizing the tragic story of Rama and Sita. The event occurs prior to the composition of Ramayana by Valmiki, who had to witness the tragedy on the bank of the river Tamasa. The place is now identified to be in Allahabad in North India and the bird species as Ardeola grayii (Kraunca) (Leslie, 1998). Ornithological specifications are plenty within the main story also. Aquatic birds of varied types such as Rathanga (Tadorna ferruginea), Karandava (Fulica atra), Kraunca (Ardeola grayii), Plava (Ardeacinerea), Hamsa (Cygnus olor) etc., are described as forming part of the Chitrakuta forest. The same is represented in Panchavati also. The Chitrakuda also contains song birds like Kokila (Eudynamys scolopacea). Mayura (Pavo cristotus) is reported from Indian peninsula. Taking the mammals, the Dandakaranya and Chithrakuda are the most diverse in wild species with Elephant, Spotted Deer, Bear, Pig, Wolf and Hyena. Mareecha taking the form of a Deer, to trick Rama, enabling Ravana for the abduction forms turn of the story. Yet another animal group that has a prominent place in the story is the arboreal pre-human such as monkeys. It will be harder to perceive Hanuman or Sugriva as monkeys, but apart from being merely mythological fascination, they can be intelligent apes. And, there is also a strange relation between the names of monkeys and mountains (Brockington, 1984). For example, Hanuman (Anjaneya) is named after Anjanagiri, a mountain on the southern side of Kailasa. There is also a confusion arising as the word ‘Bhalluka’ in Sanskrit means both a monkey and a bear. Jambavat is mentioned as the ‘king of bears’, and there is a mountain by name Jambunada, forming a similarity. All these aspects, animal accounts, synonyms and magical herbs are reminiscent of a great time, when man (purush) was a part of the nature (prakrithi) which remained as an inseparable combination. Today, he is opposing the nature, his better half itself, for his maudlin needs. Here lies the message of these Epics.

References

1. Brockington, J.L. (1984) - “Righteous Rama”, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

2. Goldman, Robert P. (1984) - “The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India”, Vol I, Balakanda, Oxford University Press.

3. Law, B.C (1968) -“Historical Geography of Ancient India” Second Revised Edition, Societe Asiatique de paris.

4. Leslie, Julia. (1998) - “A Bird Bereaved: The Identity and Significance of Valmiki’s Karaunca”, Journal of Indian Philosophy, 26: 455-487.

5. Murthy, S.S.N. (2003) - “A note on the Ramayana” Electronic Journal of Vedic studies, vol.10, Issue 6, pp 1-18.

6. Philip, Lutgendorf. (2001). “City, Forest and Cosmos: Ecological Perspectives from Sanskrit Epics”, Hinduism and Ecology, Oxford University Press.

7. Sankalia, H.D. (1971) -“Ramayana: Myth or Reality”, Peoples publishing House, New Delhi

8. Thapar, R. (1990) -“ A History of India”, Penguin Books.

Acknowledgement: The information presented in this article was taken from Roy, Mira, “Environment and Ecology in the Ramayana,” IJHS 40.1 (2005) 9-30. I am greatly thankful to Smt. Mira Roy for allowing me to use the facts contained within it. The authorship is here by duly acknowledged.

Note: Due to technical reasons, I couldn’t include tables to this article. The complete article is being published in June issue of Science India Magazine.

                                                                              

HI-TECH SPORTS : TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION IN SPORTS

“Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who can never be certain whither he is going.”
- Leonardo da Vinci

Zola Budd was born in South Africa. A quarter of a century ago, she was a teenage runner-breaking the women’s 5000 m record by 10 seconds, but the speciality was that she did it in bare foot ! At the prime of her fame, she was brought to Britain and sent to compete in 1986 Los Angeles Olympics through a hasty subjugation of citizenship. Her immediate rival was the American bionde, Mary Decker, challenging her at the women’s 3000 m. They came head-to-head and when there was three more laps to go, Decker staggered from her line and collided with Budd.

She fell from the track and was unable to continue but the real damage was for Budd who as inflicted by a spike wound from Decker’s shoe. Tears streamed from Budd’s face as she struggled to continue with the gripping pain in her tendons, fading badly at the end and finishing seventh. Sadly it was too disappointing amidst the boos and catcalls from the American crowd. However, what would have been Zola Budd’s Future if she were wearing any kind of running shoe? This is not exaggeration, surely on the other side is the Kenyan Athlet Tegla Loroupe who was unable to afford her first pair of shoes until winning a cross-country race in 1986. Apart from this context atleast, the triumph of technology is total and inevitable in the emerging field of sports.


Sports Today


The myth about the ancient athlets of Greece says they competed naked across the turf of Olympian playgrounds. Though there is a lot of scholarly discontent over this, modern sports has come a long way since the true representations of these splendid physiques. What we have today is a ‘wrought-sports’ shapened by two major forces: overt professionalisation and commercial advertisement. Both has made it tremendously transcending-a warehouse of technological marvels and the brooding ground of multi-billionaire business. The revolution really took off in the 19th century. Greater wealth brought by the industrialisation when coupled with a passion for fresh market lead to a torrent of sporting gears for fresh market lead to a torrent of sporting gears. It may be surprising to see that lace-up croquet shoes with rubber soles and canvas uppers went on sale in the 1860s. Thanks to the discovery of vulcanisation, the process of curing rubber by the addition of sulphur. It was feet that lead the way to the performance enhancing gadgets-studded football boots, spiked running shoes and heel-less cycling shoes. Next came the protective wear, principally applying to sports where there is a serious chance for physical injury. Cricketers were the better pampered with leg-guards and donning gloves. All these began, albeit slowly in 1940’s spanning to 1970s but better falling to the first generation of enhancements.


Today, time and action in track and field are better than the immediate past which even went down towards the redefining of sports. In the “brave new world” that evolved victory became more important than performance making sports more dramatic and statistically superior, year on year. Technology has improved almost everything in sports, from training to recovery and diet to clothing. There can hardly be a muscle group that is not targeted by a sports machinery that is designed to enhance bone density and ligament tensions. There are even machines that can replicate human opposition:- “bowling apparatus” for cricketers and ball-launching assemblies for baseball players. However, among all these second generation improvements, the basic principles remain the same deployed vexatiously under the traditional umbrella of sports, science. Biomechanics has turned out to be a specialist area with the advent of ‘motion analysis’ tools that is assisted by sophisticated computer programs. More alarming is the fact that technology-driven sports revolution is only just beginning. Gene doping and genetic engineering are on the way, raising-competition into unimaginable realms. Sadly, we are pouring scorn to the lines “play up ! play up ! and play the game!”


Science in the Game

During the first test of the Australia and England Ashes series in 1979-1980, Australia’s fast bowler Dennis Lillee came to the wicket carrying a “brand-new” shining bat. When he drove the ball from England Paceman Ian Botham, everybody heard an odd sound-a big clang ! It was a blow sure enough to warrant a four but Lillee could run only three runs. Australia’s captain Greg Chappell was sitting in the pavilion and blaming the bat for the short fall, he sent a new bat to Lillee for replacement. England captain Mike Brearly was complaining to the umpires that Lillee’s pinging bat was damaging the ball. Lillee, however refused to obey even his captain’s instructions and the game had to stop for a good 10 minutes while, leading to the examination of Lillee’s bat. It was an invention of himself, forged out of Aluminium ! Lillee was ordered to complete his innings with a conventional wooden bat. Shortly after this, metal bats were outlawed through an amendment in the laws of cricket. Rather than amusement, this raises a question: who should be playing the game, science or conventional laws?


If we look into the past history of the evolution of sports and sports-gear we can see that the same question remains unbaffled. From time immemorial, human beings have been manipulating the implements used in ball games. The Aztecs invented the rubber ball while the Australian aborigines had their own version called dumbung. Until about thousand years ago, the basic equipments for all the ball games remained the same, before the early precursors of golf, cricket, hockey and tennis. Discrete wear for specific sports came only by the time of Henry VIII. Strangely, the earliest reference to a cricket bat is from 1624, when a fielder trying to catch the ball being clout, to him died because the bat was made up of iron ! Similarly, by late 19th century, tennis rackets were made from Ash wood carefully steamed and bent into a round shape. The racket strings were fashioned from sheep’s gut which was replaced by cow’s gut after the Second World War, as they were found cheaper. There were not worldwide regulations governing the size and construction of tennis rackets upto 1979 and many technological innovations were experimented with several woods and alternatives.


Technology’s impact on modern tennis game was mainly used to extend the power of shots. Metal rackets were in widespread use by the 1970s which employed varieties of aluminium and steel. However top-range-players favoured a composite frame in which graphite was combined with a number of materials including ceramics, boron and Kevlar. The real advantage of the modern graphite racket was its greater stiffness, rather than lightness because it distorted little as it made contact with the ball. The latest technology includes the incorporation of piezoelectric crystals into rackets. They were incorporated into the frame which produce electricity under stress. The current generated by the ball hitting the strings is sent to the handle, amplified and returned to the ceramic composites in the fame. This causes the frame to stiffen and the result can be greater power and less vibration. At the same time, there are some first class players who still prefer traditional wooden rackets.

The kind of sports that had a long enduring alliance with technology was variably the golf. At first there were handcrafted clubs carved out of heavy hardwood heads of Holly or Apple trees. These leather-bound shafts continue upto the middle of 18th century right from the 15th and they replacing with metal heads. Though American Hickory had an intervening presence during the early 19th century, metal heads remained more common. This fascination prevailed upto the extent that steel shafts were legalised in 1920s. Unlike golf, however, the authorities controlling cricket, baseball and tennis resisted technological change resorting to hard-core conservationism in the case of table tennis. Cricket bats continued to look like hockey sticks until the emerging bowling techniques made it a parallelsided willow bat. Fiercely opposing any technological innovations, the specifications of a cricket bat are now clearly laid down (Law 6) which stipulates the wooden blade to be covered with a material no more than 1.56 mm thick. Fortunately, the ‘post-Lillee’ laws leave two areas flexible: the handle of the bat and its weight. The cane and rubber handle of the traditional bat was replaced by carbon fibre with polymer insert. The material composition is made to give more weight lower down the blade making batsmer to carry an increased one third weight than those used by the greatest hitters like Donald Bradman !


Ball of the Rings


In majority of the major games like football, cricket, golf and tennis, the physics of the ball plays a crucial part. Among the most thoroughly investigated, golf balls are most supreme and even the earliest balls were masterpieces of the technology of their days. The ‘guttie’ balls were a revolutionising attempt which wre made from the sap of Malaysian Sapodilla tree. Before this, there were the ‘Featheries’ made from three pieces of tough hide sewn together and then tightly stuffed with freshly boiled fowl feathers. After stitching up, the ball was hammered into shape while still wet, the expansion of the drying feathers making it very hard, later on. The modern ‘Hasket’ ball came over only hundred years ago, where there was a rubber-core, a solid one, bound with rubber thread. This was enclosed in a dimpled case of ‘balata’-a type of non-elastic latex. The Hasket balls had an advantage over the experimentally introduced pneumatic balls as they never exploded on hot days. From about 1700, cricket balls also followed the same technology with leather sewn around a rounded hard core made out of cork, remaining a standard, unchanged through the 19th century.

Historians believe that the game of football is as old as human civilization. Chinese and South Americans kicked around something similar to a sphere, but it was not until the first rubber bladder appeared in 1862, the soccer game became a serious sport. Before that ‘football’ was largely an inflated animal bladder, often protected by an outer skin of leather. The first “balls” were not round, as bladders were not so, that which is still used in American Football and Rugby. However there were no regulations concerning the ball until 1872, being formulated by FA (Football Association) in England which was founded in 1863. Strangely through the many years it passed the soccer ball changed little. Apart from adding a layer of cloth between the bladder and leather casing everything remained the same. The modern alteration was the interlocking panels replacing the traditional 18-section exterior of stitched and tanned cowhide. the main problem was the leather balls absorbing water in damp conditions, becoming heavy and making “heading” a dangerous exercise.

In modern balls, movement in straightline is preferred to added distance. The number, size and optimum spacing of dimples along with the weight of the hardcore was found to affect distance travelled, whereas a three-layer ball with a polyurethane exterior created a low flying and slow spinning ball. When the physicists went on to work on the football, FIFA – the international body controlling the game, eagerly established a standard size, pressure, shape retention and bounce and weight characteristics for it. Coloured balls were permitted for the benefit of TV but it regulated the materials from which it could be made. The first synthetic (Polyurethane) ball was used in World Cup 1986. The maximum permitted weight gain through moisture absorption was fixed as 10% but the 2006 World Cup ball never gained more than 0.1% of its weight. The improved water resistance was achieved by replacing the traditional stitching of the panels with thermal bonding. The much evolved modern first-class foot ball also has surface interruptions to maximise the friction between itself and the boot. The number of panels also has been reduced, from 32 to 14.


The Winner’s Fabric


Sporting apparel first came to the field by taking the serious chance of protective wears. It remained as a rare area of significant technological innovation. The year-old exception was only Cricket, the batsman wearing ‘leg-guards’ even from the days of the 19th century. But, the technology remained the basic involving canvas, leather and horse-hair upto wood enforced cotton paddy. Wicket keepers often laced the inside of their gloves with meat to protect their hands. Footballers took to wearing shin-pads, especially the players of American foot ball. Helmets were worn by some since the 1890s and it became compulsory by 1930s, but nothing for the head of Cricketers, as the England batsman Derek Randal ironically put it, when it by a ball on its head, “No good hitting me there mate, Nothing to damage !”

The majority of man-made sports-wear appeared for the first time after World War II. Rayon and Nylon paved the way for acrylic (1950), Polyster (1953), Spandex (1959) and more recently Lyocell in 1992 which is claimed to be environment friendly. The first advantage of technologically produced fabrics is weight, especially when wet. Traditional natural fabrics like wool, cotton and even Nylon are hydrophilic in nature. On the other hand, Polyster which is the main ingredient of most of modern sports garments, is very much hydrophobic, i.e., it does not absorb water. According to sports physicians, wet fabrics are of serious implications. It can lead to hypothermia when the body is unable to generate sufficient warmth or can induce wasting of energy. Even Polyster has a clear disadvantage of building-up body temperature in hot conditions. Technology had several answers for this, the most popular are “breathing fabrics” sold under the name “Gore-Tex” and “PB2”. Simply speaking, they are impervious to rain but allows moisture (sweat) to pass through. Their effectiveness in shifting moisture from inside to out is measured as MVT (Moisture Vapour Transfer).

The latest technology in sports-fabric is however “PCM-fabric: which are made from “Phase Change Materials.” They usually incorporate highly hydrophobic fibres like ‘Ingeo’ or ‘Olefin’. Worn. next to the skin as “under armour”, they help keeping the body at constant temperature, cool in hot conditions and warm in cold climate. The material remains in the gel-state and when they attain a high temperature, they change the ‘phase’ by absorbing the heat. When the temperature around them falls, they release their stored heat and return to the gel state. Another virtue of modern man-made fabrics is that they can be quick-wicking, i.e., capable of soaking in sweat and removing it from the body. An athlete can feel more comfortable with a wicking garment and moreover with some anti-microbial element it can combat fungal infections too. It is not an exaggeration if somebody points out that technology of sports-clothing can enhance fair-play: A shirt made up of Spandex material can stretch up to 600% and when defender is blocked by grabing his shirt, there is greater chance of the referee seeing it, as the stretched shirt will be an undefendable evidence of the offence !


Spears and Poles


The athletic activity that clearly displays the complex relationship between training sports and technology is Javelin throw. Originally it was a shaft of Olive wood, being replaced by the Hickory or Scandinavian Birch, but metal tipped spear or the ‘real’ Javelin came only in 1896 Olympics. Though the weight was standardised as 800 g and length 2.6 m, a major revolution sweeped through when Richard Held introduced the hollow Javelin of Steel and Aluminium. Held was able to increase the surface area by 27% while keeping the weight same, enabling the Javelin to literally “fly” to record making distances. All these began in 1950, but when East Germany’s Uwe Hohn made a truly extraordinary performance of 104.80 m, beating the previous record by an astounding 5 m, IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) entered the spot: they moved the ‘centre of gravity’ of competing Javelins forward by 4 cm. It proved to have a double effect-shorter distances and nose-hitting, making distance measurement more easier.

The dramatic effect of technology is more evident in pole-vaulting when bendy bamboos were replaced by Aluminium in 1957. Now it is a highly flexible fibreglass pole, thanks to the minimal regulations imposed by IAAF on pole specifications. Physicists have realised that hollow poles are better than solid-ones and tapering poles are better than parallel ones. As the vault is achieved by releasing the stored strain energy in bent pole, there was enough scope for basic sports research as pioneered by University of Cambridge. The researchers say that in polevaulting, it is impossible to separate technique from apparatus.


War of the Drugs


1930s were remarked for the revolutionary changes in the field of biological research infringing into the realms of pure and applied aspects of biochemistry. The results were synthetic hormones, or steroids and powerfully stimulating Amphetamine tablets. Nazi scientists were alleged for experimenting with Testosterone on German athletes competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This drug backed drive for medals and prestige continued through the Cold, War, ruining the health of countless athletes. Finally it costed the life of Amphetamine-using cyclist Tom Simpson on the slopes of Mont Ventoux, in 1968, instigating compulsory drug-testing in both summer and Winter Olympics. Drug scandals of the last 40 years would arouse a sense of disappointment in everyone that so many fine athletes like Ben Johnson, Maradona and others have turned positive in drug-testing. The ‘World Anti-Doping Agency’ (WADA was established in 1999 but it could do nothing over the prevalence of performance-enhancing “designer-drugs” manufactured by the illegal industries housing at USA and China. US Drug Enforcement Agency’s ‘Operation Raw Deal’, to trace-out their worm-holes also did no good.

Sports supplements fall under a wide range of headings such as Narcotic Analgesics (Heroin, Morphin, etc.), Stimulants (Cocaine, Ephedrine, etc.), Diuretics (Acetazolamide, Amiloride, etc.) and Anabolic Agents such as Steroids. Among hormones, the most widely used is Erythropoietin which can boost Red Blood Cell production and thereby allowing more oxygen to be carried around the body. This improves muscle endurance but there is increased risk of heart attack due to thickening of blood. Another is ‘Human Growth Hormone’ (HSH) which stimulate growth of muscle, cartilage, bone and tendons. No reliable test has been developed yet to test the presence of HGH. Moreover, there as “Masking Agents” which can disguise the presence of performance enhancing substances upon doping testing. Epitestosteron and Dextran are used for this.


And Beyond All That . . .

So, we have got two points as the event of this techno-analysis of sports concludes: First, technology has been changing sports, from the moment toe-hold groves were inserted in ancient Olympics to the potentially revolutionary “dee-three-oh” protective ski clothing secondly, sports itself is changing. This is not a novel phenomenon, but what piles up is the pace and scale of this change. Over the last 20 years, sports have evolved much more than that of an entertainment. It is now an industry, a major one, lie all commerce which is competitive by definition, in the post-Marxist world. Scientists, engineers, technicians, trainers and coaches are striving to give their athletes a slight edge, to sort out between success and penalties. True, over the last few decades major sports have shifted from grass to synthetic and back to grass again. But, whether it will be possible to maintain grass fields in the years of global warming? some like Boseball are sticking to traditions while many are making a synthetic shift. Whatever the future holds for us, as long as we human beings continue to exist, so will sports.

 

GOLD FROM SPACE: THE NEW QUEST

Throughout history, mankind has exhibited a unique attraction for gold. From the enticing warmth of its glow to its treasured beauty when made into jewellery, the metal has an appeal unlike any other. Yet, despite this earth-bound love affair, scientific research is showing increasingly that one of the world's most precious metals has its origins a little further from home.


Origin of Gold – What Astronomers Say
Astronomers at the University of Leicester recently put forward a new theory for the origin of heavy elements such as gold, found on earth. While common elements such as iron are known to have been formed within huge stars exploring as supernovae, at the end of their lives, scattering debris deep into the universe, this process does not explain how the heavier elements were created.

At last years, National Astronomy meeting at the University of Cambridge in April, astronomers Dr. Andrews King and Dr. Stephen Rosswag explained that gold and other heavy elements are formed in the violent collisions between neutron stars. They can be found orbiting in pairs around each other and will, at times, collide, unleashing one of the most powerful explosions known in the universe.


Neutron Stars
Neutron stars are very small, superdense stars composed mostly of neutrons. They are formed when massive stars explode as supernovae, during which the protons and electrons of the star's atoms merge to make neutrons. A neutron stars may have a mass up to that of three suns, compressed into a globe measuring a few miles across, and density up to a million times.


A supernova explosion emits a burst of gamma rays before the neutron stars merge to from a black hole,with materials spiralling away as ash at temperatures in excess of one billion degree celsius. The incredible heat triggers nuclear reactions that transform lighter elements into gold and platinum. The newly formed gold is thrown far into space containing such elements as hydrogen and helium – that surround it.


Black Holes
Black holes are objects in space whose gravity is so great that nothing can escape from it, not even light. They are thought to form when massive stars shrink at the end of their lives. Black holes can be detected because gas falling towards them becomes so hot that it emits X-rays.


Predictions Turn Reality
Calculations by astronomers reveal that the relative amount of gold and other elements, such as platinum, existing in the solar system match their predictions, providing strong evidence that these metals were indeed formed during the violent collisions of distant stars.


The relationship between gold and space was highlighted in the study conducted by NEAR (Near- Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker spacecraft about the asteroid Eros. The data collected by NEAR at it passed close to the asteroid revealed that this 33 km long space debris, could be a veritable gold mine in space.


Asteroids
Asteroids are minor planets, composed of rock and heavy elements, that orbit the sun. Most lie in the belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They include Ceres (the largest), Vesta (the brightest), Eros, learus, Appolo, Asteroids and the Irajans. Appolo asteroids cross the earth's orbit. The orbits of some others are close to that of the earth's.


Eros
Eros is the asteroid discovered in 1898, that can pass 22 million km from the earth. Its orbit comes within that of Mars. It is elongated and measures about 36 x12 km. It rotates around its shortest axis every 5.3 years, and orbits the sun every 1.8 years.
In Greek mythology, Eros represents the boy-god of love, traditionally armed with bows and arrows. He is similar to the common god, Cupid.


NEAR
The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezuous satellite (NEAR) was launched by NASA in February 1996, to study Eros. Its mission was to ascertain what asteroids are made of. It took three years to reach Eros. The satellite spent an year circling the asteroid in a attempt to determine the similarities between asteroids and meteorites.


Images projected down from NEAR enabled scientists to estimate the mass and size of Eros. Taking into account Eros' longer length and girth, some scientists believe that the asteroid could maintain as much as $ 1000 billion of the precious metal.


Mining in Space – How much Practicable?
In a venture that appears to enter the realms of science-fiction, the US commercial space-exploration company believe that even after considering the huge economic aspects, mining asteroids for their metals is a very real prospect. SpaceDev, as the company is known, is committed to the idea of launching a privately financed NEAP (Near Earth Asteroid Prospector) satellite. NEAP targets the asteroid belt that exists between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars and containing a staggering amount of untapped raw materials.


However it is far beyond current technology to even think about moving such massive objects. The asteroids are to be visited to assess their resources and these findings could potentially help to overcome any problems with fuelling longer projects. The refuelling could be done without returning to earth, by utilizing the resource such Near Earth Objects.


NEOs
Near Earth Objects, or NEOs, are believed to be dormant comets. These contain water and could used to refuel rockets. However, this is a close-to-dream technology of the future.


What the Scientific Community Says
Dr. John Lwis, author of Morning the Sky, has said that there are numerous asteroids and comets within easy reach of the earth, with many containing large amount of gold and other valuable materials far purer than the ores found on earth.


The smallest-known earth-crossing asteroid Amun contains trillions of dollars worth of precious and strategic metals. Others contain enough potential rocket propellants to fuel an ambitious programme of solar system exploration for millions of years to come, says Dr. Lewis.


Jim Benson, the founder director of SpaceDev Company says "Scientists have analysed hundreds of these asteroids and know their content precisely. The average metallic meteorite contains about 100 times the concentration of gold as any mine on earth".


Deep Space Mining – New Arenas
Northern Centre for Advanced Technology (NotCat) in Ontario, Canada, is currently working to develop a drilling device that can be operated in low gravity conditions and anchored to the surface of a body in space. The Boeing Company has announced that it is joining hands with SpaceDev to drill out gold from the core of dead comets and asteroids in the next 20 years.


Our Gold Mines
India has three important gold fields, Kolar and Hutti gold fields in Karnataka and Ramagiri gold field in Andhra Pradesh. The total gold metal ore reserves here are estimated at 176.9 lakh tonnes, with 66.7 tonnes metal.


Yes, a new era is beginning in space technology and a saga of human triumph over the endless ocean of eternal silence. Asteroids, meterorites and lifeless planets are no longer useless chunks of space debris. They can be the real elixir of life – as somebody said: "Myths never die, but realities may ......."

Courtesy: Gold Magazine, Spring 2004.