Red Blister Beetle

Isn’t this bug looking beautiful? It is the Red Blister Beetle. But can you catch one of them in your hand and let it creep over your fingers? Eeks I can’t, I did rather watch it from far and admire it from a distance. So when I saw my friend Manjula catching hold of one, letting it fly, chasing it and catching it again all in fun I was awestruck. I tried to capture it in my lens, she was steady but I wasn’t.


Children learn a lot by observing us parents. I am very conscious of this fact. So I try to be a model of calmness, can’t afford to get squeamish of such tiny insects in front of them you see. Every child will have some fear, it is very natural too. And if we know it is something to do with insects we have to handle that feeling with care.

Reassure the child without belittling or teasing him or her. Deal with it in a manner that does not let the fear dominate the child’s life. Fear of insects is called Entomophobia. To find out more about fears, see Fears in Preschool children.

Blister beetles are commonly found in Asia. These measure about 2.5cm and have alternate red and black bands. Eggs are laid in the soil, the larvae feed on other soil insects proving beneficial to fields, while the adult feed on crops causing considerable damage. Since they are large, robust and mobile the chemical pest control fails. Thus manual picking and destruction is the only solution. Well one can't have entomophobia to do that.

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Sam Manekshaw

Field Marshal S.H.F.J. Manekshaw

Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, MC

COAS

Born: April 3, 1914 Amritsar, Punjab
Died: June 27, 2008 Wellington, Tamil Nadu

सलामी शस्त्र !

My Salutations to You, Sir!

Decompose Plastic Bags In Three Months

The plague of plastics has not been created overnight. World produces 500 billion bags each year and all plastics made till date exists in small pieces. And as per UN Environment program 46,000 pieces of plastics litter every square mile of ocean. The central part of Pacific Ocean acts as land fill (or is it ocean fill?) of plastics. Read more here: Plastic is Drastic.

Various governments around the world have declared war on Plastics. Ireland has placed ‘Plas Tax’ of about 20 cents on each bag and has successfully reduced the use of plastic bags by about 90%. South Africa also taxes plastic bags. In India too, Mumbai has taken the lead by banning plastics, though not very successfully.

The problem with plastic bags is that they end up in bins or drift to water bodies killing marine creatures. Left to nature, it will take 1000 years to decompose.

Not so anymore, if the invention by a 16 year old prodigy Daniel Burd is successfully done in an industrial scale. I was astounded to read about his invention which he presented as a science fair project at his school. In a systematic and step by step manner he eliminated the two strains of bacteria Sphingomonas and Pseudomonas. The bacterial culture he developed decomposed 43% of the plastics in six weeks. His guess is after another six weeks the entire thing will be gone. The residuals are just water and carbon di oxide.

So there is hope for future!!!

Read the full article here: Microbe that lunches on plastic bags

Jain Idols at Aretippur

A few weekends back when we visited Kokkare Bellur, we had taken a diversion to Aretippur six kilometers past Kokkare Bellur. Aretippur is a small village with just a few hundred houses. Strange but true you won’t find any mention of this village in modern maps, but plenty of it in several ancient inscriptions.

We had read about old Jain idols lying scattered on a hillock there, so that was the motivation for this trip. For sometime we kept driving around the hillocks not knowing exactly where the idols would be found or which hillock to climb. We asked for directions and all pointed to two hillocks there. Still confused and not knowing where to start climbing the hillock from, we were contemplating on returning and do just bird watching at Kokkare Bellur. Suddenly a lady came forward, she introduced herself as Padmavati and offered to guide us to the hill top and we happily followed her.

The whole hillock ‘Kanakagiri’ seemed to belong to us, no other soul in sight. Just an hour back it had rained heavily so the rocks were quite slippery, the climb was cool and we managed to reach the top.



And there we stood watching with disbelief, idols, relics, stones with inscriptions all lying scattered. As usual, just a blue board stands there declaring the site as protected monument. Some of the idols are propped up with boulders, some still half inside the ground, all at the mercy of weather. Only the Prasavanath idol looked complete and majestic.






A legless torso of a Tirthankara lying there uncared can shock you.


There is a long stone inscription believed to be of Hoysala King Vishnuvardhana’s time stands there. The inscription in Kannada records the grant of the village to a Jain teacher. Jainism prospered in Karnataka from the times of Chandragupta 2300 years ago. It flourished during the Gangas, Hoysalas and finally till the Vijayanagaras reign, after which Aretippur lost its significance. The idols here are the only proof that the Jainism thrived here centuries back.



There is a beautiful pond, surrounded by rocks; the water from this pond is used only for religious purposes. Swimming, bathing or defiling it is totally prohibited we were told by Padmavati.

She offered to take us to another hillock, Doddabetta which had a 10feet tall statue of Lord Gomatashwara. But my 11 year old daughter’s in built gyro doesn’t seem to work properly; she slipped and fell three to four times there, so we decided against it. May be we will make another trip during a drier and sunnier day, and then may be another post on that. Do click on this pic. to see the lone idol at the hill top.

Padmavati, the smart guide.


Read more here: Abandoned Lords.

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Plastic Chips for Washing Clothes

For me doing the laundry is the most boring of all the household chores. Washing machines have simplified the job, yet… Well the latest on this is: UK market will be flooded with washing machines that are designed to use plastic chips for washing clothes. Imagine just plastic chips! The clothes come out dry and clean and there will be no need to spread them in sun light for drying, so one more work reduced.

Xeros, a UK company is all set to launch a washing machine in the UK market by 2009 and all that are required are 20kg plastic chips, just one cup of water and detergent. These plastic chips can be reused 100 times, which means they have to be replaced after 6 months. Experimental results of washing the clothes have been quite encouraging with perfect removal of everyday stains.

Professor Stephen Burkinshaw, who invented the machine – which uses one cup of water each cycle – said: "The performance of the Xeros process in cleaning clothes has been quite astonishing.We've shown that it can remove all sorts of everyday stains including coffee and lipstick while using a tiny fraction of the water used by conventional machines."

Yes great saving on gallons of water, and to a certain extent we might save on electrical power too as the spin dry cycle is eliminated. Certain matters are mind boggling though:

• 20kg of plastic chips to be discarded every six months, I hope they are made of recyclable plastics or the plastics made from corn which is biodegradable.
• With I don’t know how many minutes of plastic pounding, I hope the quality of clothes remain good.

Now Microsoft Patents Digital Manners

Are there any disadvantages of mobile devices? Now this question is definitely silly. One can come up with 101 reasons to own a mobile and one can come with 101 reasons about disadvantages of having a mobile. The green warriors are always high pitched when voicing their dislike for these little devices. Then your culture is questioned when the mobile goes trrriiiiiiing in the middle of a presentation. What about your ethics, how can it ring during a concert? And I am not sure what the other person is doing with the camera phone in the locker room? Not shooting nude pictures I hope.

Well the disadvantages are many; you too can contribute to the list.

Here is where Microsoft has stepped in. Microsoft has come up with an idea to enforce manners on cell phones: The great digital version of commonly followed social conventions. According to Microsoft,

Such policy may be used to communicate to various mobile and other devices the “manners” with which compliance is expected or required. Similar to some of the social manners honored among people, such as with “no smoking” or “employees only” zones, “no swimming” or “no flash photography”areas,and scenarios for “please wash your hands” or “no talking out loud”, devices may recognize and comply with analogous “device manners” policy.

Now Micosoft intends to patent their idea Mobile Device Manners Propagation and Compliance . So the devices are going to be instructed to behave properly in public places. Soon many more such regulations are likely to follow and you will find that in a few years from now your lifestyle is dictated by machines. Your freedom of speech in public places is going to be curbed. I don't understand why the DMC has to be patented. Did anybody force us to cover our mouth when we sneeze? But we do it, don’t we?

Then why enforce manners in the use of cellphones??

Art Class this Summer

Even before the schools close for summer vacation the newspapers are full of advertisements for various kinds of Summer Camps. By 'various' I mean 'a variety that caters to every size and taste of each and every child or rather the parent'. Most often the children are not very interested, if left alone they would love to while way the time watching TV or play around in the apartment.


Okay, so when the vacations began last May 1st, I was worried how to keep my daughters engaged. I did look around for some of the classes and then I stumbled on this short art camp being conducted by one of my friends, Mridula Banerjee. I always knew that she is a very talented lady, but was never aware of the fact she took classes too. Her classes run full merely by word of mouth.


The way she deals with children is amazing. Her opinion is that art cannot be forced in to a child, but it can be introduced to a child. And if the child has the aptitude for it, with guidance and proper training the child can create wonders.


My daughters attended her classes and last weekend when we got some of the results framed we were simply spell bound. They had gone to her empty handed and when they returned from her class the final day, their hands were full.


Someday I intend to take an interview of her if… she agrees. She is a non-blogger and I doubt if she will read this: I am grateful to you, Mridula for having introduced art to my daughters in such an interesting manner. They are now eager for the next vacation when they can go to you to learn more.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Where do Butterflies go when it Rains

My daughters have asked me this: Where do butterflies go when it rains? In fact I too have asked this to my mother. She was my Google those days, walking behind her holding on to her sari pallu I used to keep nagging her with my silly questions. Especially on rainy afternoons when we were forced to stay indoors.

I passed on Her answer to my daughters: When it rains the butterflies hide under the leaves. They are delicate and can perish in severe storms. So often after rains we have gone for walks just to see if any butterfly was hiding under the leaves… or if the butterflies were flapping their wings mildly to dry their wings. Many times we were lucky to see the hanging butterflies with their wings tightly shut.

The butterfly in this picture is Blue Tiger Butterfly.
Butterflies flutter around in the sunny days. It is easy to search for the different species then and if it rains heavily for a short spell then you will for sure get to capture them in your lens. Just in case you are interested in recognizing the various species of butterflies, here is a site to get you started. Butterfly pictures.
Common Crow Butterfly (Euploea Core)
The lifespan of a butterfly is just one to two weeks and if there are storms within this period the butterflies perish. The last generation of monarch butterflies of a year survives eight to nine months. They hibernate during the winter months. The Ringlet Butterfly can fly during light showers and when the temperatures are warm enough. The one below is a Orange Tip butterfly.

This is a red bellied Swallowtail Butterfly. It is badly injured (can make out from its damaged wings) and is clinging on to its life.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Rabindranath Tagore

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Nokia's Green Cell Phones

When giant companies take greening efforts it delights me. Nokia the leading cell phone manufacturer has done it again.

Last year Greenpeace had ranked Nokia ninth, it slid down from the first position to the ninth. To make up for that Nokia is all set to launch 40 Nokia Green Mobile phones in India in 2008.

The wide range of materials that are to be used are:
- aluminium cans
- plastic bottles
- old rubber tyres
- polyactic acid (PLA) plastics
- biomass-based modifiers
- recycled glass for display screen

In addition to all this Nokia has reduced the phone back light to optimal level to reduce the energy consumption by charging. Other parts that are being targeted are a biodegradable phone cover and a recyclable battery.

Last year this eco-friendly company had launched The Nokia 3110 that was developed from 50% renewable materials. Nokia is also credited to have put alerts to indicate that charging is done and the device needs to be unplugged. This has led to “saving energy to power 100,000 average-size European homes”.

The Green Bin program in US is getting popular and Nokia intends to start similar Green Bin movement in India targeting just the cell phones. It intends place such bins in its stores to collect all old and used cell phones to recycle.

This effort must be a lasting commitment and not just a ruse to grab the market.