Few links from past few weeks:
1) Rethinking the Indian Monsoons - This is a cracking good talk on the Sandip Roy Show with Dr. Sulochana Gadgil, meteorologist and an authority on the Indian monsoons. Dr. Gadgil talks about her career researching the monsoons. She elegantly explains the common misconceptions about its origins, pointing out the changes in monsoon patterns that have taken place over the past couple of decades, the difficulties in constructing accurate computer models and in predicting the future behavior of this complex phenomenon. She also draws an intriguing connection between variation in rainfall and crop yields. Drought years have lower yields, but there are no commensurate gains with excessive rain. There is also some advice on making Indian agriculture more resilient to climate change. All this interesting science is mixed with some delightful vignettes of her personal life too. Dr. Sulochana Gadgil is married to the well known ecologist Dr. Madhav Gadgil. Exceptional interview!
2) Multiple Bipedal Hominin Species 3.6 million years ago- A good write up of a reassessment of long forgotten set of footprints, from Laetoli, Tanzania. Scientists made new casts, developed digital reconstructions and compared them with a range of creatures. It looks like besides the famous Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), another hominin species walking with a different gait coexisted in this area.
3) Copper Mining of the Future- Renewable energy infrastructure will require a lot of copper. Many times more than what we are mining now. Maybe, instead of blasting copper rich rock in giant open pit mines, we can suck out copper rich brines out of dormant volcanoes, like drilling for oil? Some speculation about this wild sounding idea.
No comments:
Post a Comment