My Science School

Located in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, in the far western Himalaya one can find the Great Himalayan National Park. Initially constituted in 1984, the park was formally notified as a national park in 1999. The park is spread over an area of 1171 sq km at an altitude between 1500 and 6000 metres

The Great Himalayan National Park Conservation Area is characterised by high alpine peaks, alpine meadows and riverine forests. It protects the monsoon-affected forests and alpine meadows of the Himalayan front ranges and is part of the Himalaya biodiversity hotspot.

The site is known as a biodiversity hotspot as it includes twenty five forest types along with a rich assemblage of fauna species, several of which are threatened. The national park lies at the junction of two major biogeographic realms - the Palearctic and Indomalayan. The park includes the Upper Mountain glacial and snow melt water source origins of the Jiwa Nal, Sainj, Thirthan and Parvati rivers which are all tributaries of the River Beas. The park also has several catchments of water supplies which are vital to millions of downstream users.

Flora and Fauna

Due to its diverse climatic conditions, the Great Himalayan National Park is home to many uncommon endemic and endangered species of flora and fauna. The number of plant species in the park is around 840, consisting of 26% of the total flora of Himachal Pradesh. One can find 794 flowering plant species (58% of which are endemic to the Western Himalayas). 11 gymnosperm species (pines, conifers and cypresses) and 27 fem species in the park. Apart from these, one can find spruces and horse chestnuts in the valleys.

When it comes to the fauna in the park, there are more than 375 faunal species. Thus far, 31 mammal species, 209 bird species, 12 reptile species, nine amphibian species and 125 insect species have been identified in the park. At the higher altitudes of the park, one can find animals such as blue sheep, snow leopard. Himalayan brown bear. Himalayan tahr, and musk deer.

The park is home to four globally threatened species of mammals, three globally threatened bird species, and a large number of medicinal plants.

Most of the fauna in the park is given protection under the high priority protection category of Schedule of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act. 1972. The government of Himachal Pradesh has also banned hunting in the state since the last few years.

 

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So far as natural habitats o, Manas is unusual - it is a wildlife sanctuary national park biosphere hotspot a UNESCO World Heritage Site, a Project Tiger and Project Elephant reserve. Located in Assam. Manas Wildlife Sanctuary is spread across 390 sq.km. The sanctuary is contiguous with the Royal Manas National Park of neighbouring country Bhutan. Located on Himalayan foothills, the sanctuary is fed both by monsoon rains and the Manas River it spans. The fertile Manas region is marked by riverine tracts rigged mountains, forested hills, tropical evergreen forests, mixed moist and dry deciduous forests and alluvial grasslands it nurtures about 60 mammal species over 40 reptile species and 500 species of birds. These include many globally threatened species too.

The danger tag

Pride of Assam, the Manas Wild Sanctuary became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985. But that joy was to be short lived in only seven years (1992), the sanctuary was places in the “danger” list by UNESCO due to several reasons budding poaching, general infrastructure degradation and the ethnic strife that dominated the region. And that tag was not easy to shake. It took several years of concerted effort from local activists and the government to in prove the conditions in the sanctuary Thong did take a while, the efforts eventually did pay off - in 2011, the region was struck off the danger let. Sadly a study in 2018 showed that Manas was one of the over 100 UNESCO World Heritage sites severely damaged by human activity The study also showed it had the most intense increase in human pressure.

Wildlife

Apart from the tiger and the Asian elephant the sanctuary hosts the greater one-horned rhino, swamp deer, pygmy hog, hispid hare, golden langur, clouded leopard, Assam roofed turtle, sloth bear and wild water buffalo. The bird species found here include pochards, francolins, nightjar, coucals, crakes, thickknees, plovers, jacanas, sandpipers, buttonquails, kites, buzzards, eagles, vultures, harriers, hornbills, woodpeckers, barbet, bee-eaters, kestrels, falconets, falcons, parakeets, pipits, buntings, tits, martins, starlings, garganey, mallards, common teals, little grebes, Bengal floricans and greater Adjutants. In addition Manas displays high plant diversity with at least 80 tree species 45 shrubs 35 under 170 herbs and 35 climbers. Among these, the many varieties of orchids ferns and grasses make for vital forage for the hooved mammals roaming the region

Threat

After poaching one of the main areas of concerns about the region has been invasive species. This is not an animal but two plant varieties from South America According to a 2019 study conducted by four researchers. the impact of the plant species Chromolaena odorata and Mikania micrantha - cannot be ignore The study says they are found in the Terai grasslands of the region and have been growing and expanding at an alarming rate over the years of these species continue to grow at the current rate the study said that over 15 of the total Manas area and 30 of the areca nuts are likely to come under the invasion This would mean significant reduction in the habitats of animals such as the Asiatic wild buffalo, one horned rhino, swamp deer and hog deer, and the eventual decline in their population.

 

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Don't have time to sit with a book for hours? Here comes microfiction to the rescue.

As attention spans are getting shorter, a new form of story-telling has emerged. One which prides itself on brevity and simplicity. To cut a long story short, microfiction uses the least number of words, sometimes no more than 50, to tell a story.

Really tiny tales

Authors excelling in this format can cram entire universes and tell gripping stories complete with a beginning, middle and an end in just a few words.

Find it hard to believe? Here's a famous six-word short story allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn." In spite of being perfectly compact manages to paint a complete picture of thwarted desire and elicit strong feelings from the reader. Hemingway wrote 18 pieces of microfiction in his short story collection "In Our Time."

Authors such as Virginia Woolf, O. Henry. Joyce Carol Oates, Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft, and Franz Kafka are also renowned for their microfiction.

Example

Today, Neil Gaiman is known for his flash fiction. Here's an excerpt from his popular work "Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions":

"Nicholas Was...older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho, Ho, Ho."

When less is more

Also called flash fiction, this form of story-telling has existed for many years, but has seen resurgence with the rise of microblogging sites such as Twitter and Instagram.

Authors are creating tiny tales to fit into the scant character limits of the social media platforms. The results can spark your imagination. Every word is carefully chosen for both style and content, with little room for niceties of long-form writing. Writing microfiction is like a contortionist trying to fit inside a suitcase. After all, as Shakespeare put it "Brevity is the soul of wit".

 

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We all know and have perhaps also seen bats roosting upside down on trees, Bat have neither the kind of wings that birds do nor powerful enough hind legs to help them run before taking off. So hanging upside down puts them in the best position to take off into the air without great effort. But did you know there's a type of bird that rests and sleeps upside down? Welcome to the world of hanging parrots.

An unusual ability

There are more than 10 species of hanging parrots, and they get their name for their ability to roost (rest and sleep) upside down. This ability is seen as being unique to these birds. In fact studies suggest that some of them even bathe in the rain hanging upside down! Across species, the hanging parrots are usually small birds with short tails. It is assumed that since they're tiny birds, hanging among leaves helps them hide from predators.

India hosts one species of the hanging parrot - the vernal hanging parrot (Loriculus vemalis) - belonging to Psittacidae, the family of true parrots. It is found in neighbouring regions such as Myanmar and Thailand too. Also known as the Indian lorikeet it is a green-grass coloured bird - about the size of a sparrow - with a bright red rump. While the male has a bright blue patch on the throat this is minimal or missing in the female.

Did you know?

There's another bird too known for its upside down behaviour. The short-tailed nuthatch has the ability to walk down tree branches as well as hang upside down from branches to gain access to nooks with insects or seeds. But the difference is that the nuthatch does not hang upside down while roosting.

 

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Take a moment to look around and you will realise plastic is truly a ubiquitous material. It is difficult to imagine life without plastic Plastic production has increased exponentially over the years from 48 million tonnes in 1970 to 448 million tonnes in 2015.

Plastic materials not only remain in the landfills for years, leaching out chemicals into the environment, but also affect marine life when they end up in the ocean. Thankfully, people are slowly waking up to the dangers plastic poses to life and the environment. Globally, consumers and manufacturers are scrambling to find alternatives to plastic. One of the promising finds turns out to be bioplastic.

What's bioplastic?

Bioplastic simply refers to plastic made from plant or other biological materials. (Conventional plastic is derived from petroleum, a fossil fuel.) There are two main types of bioplastics. While PLA (polyactic acid) is typically made from the sugar in com starch, cassava or sugarcane, PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate) is biosynthesised by microorganisms. The former is commonly used in food packaging and making utensils, the latter is used in medical devices such as surgical sutures and cardiovascular patches.

Advantages

While petroleum-based plastics are generally not biodegradable. bioplastics are biodegradable and compostable under the right conditions.

Bioplastics are made from renewable resources, thus limiting the use of fossil fuels.

However…

There are some environmental issues associated with bioplastic

• Research has found that bioplastic production can result in pollution due to the fertilizers and pesticides used in growing the source crop. • Plant-based bioplastic production also requires extensive land which could otherwise be used for food production.


• Production of some plastics leads to emission of cancer causing toxins into the air.


• Bioplastics often end up in landfills where they may release methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, during degradation


• In most cases, bioplastics will break down only in a high-temperature industrial composting facility and very few cities have the infrastructure needed to deal with them. In case of bioplastic not being treated, it is as bad as conventional plastic.


• If bioplastics end up in marine environments, they will last for decades, posing a danger to marine life.

Scientists are working towards finding a way to address the above issues.

 

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RudraM-1 is India's first indigenous anti-radiation missile. It was successfully flight tested on October 9 by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which developed it. Once it is ready for induction. RudraM-1 will part of the tactical weaponry of the Indian Air Force. The new generation anti-radiation missile with a speed of Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound) is likely to be integrated into the IAFS Sukhoi fighter jets.

Purpose of an anti-radiation missile

An anti-radiation missile is a missile designed for use against enemy radars on the ground. Besides detecting these missiles can target radiation-emission sources, jammers (devices used to disrupt signals from reaching) and radios used for communication and Surveillance. Mainly used in the initial part of an air conflict to strike at the air defence systems of the enemy, they can play a crucial role in disrupting jamming platforms and destroying radars, thereby clearing the way for fighter jets to launch attacks. It is also said that the missiles can prevent own systems from getting jammed.

Bang on target

According to the DRDO, RudraM-1, launched from a Su-30 MKI fighter jet, hit the radiation target located on the Wheeler Island off the coast of Odisha with pinpoint accuracy. The target seeking air-to-surface missile has a strike range of 250 km and can be launched from heights of 500 metres to 15 km.

Its navigation mechanism comprises an Inertial Navigation System (a computerised mechanism) and a Global Positioning System, which is satellite-based. Armed with a guidance system called Passive Homing Head, which can detect, classify and engage targets, RudraM-1 can detect radio emissions 100 km away. Once the missile locks onto the radiation target it is capable of hitting it accurately even if the enemy switches off the radar midway.

 

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Every year the world sends satellites and spacecraft to space to improve communications on Earth or to explore planets and moons. But how are these heavy objects sent to space?

A rocket ride

We launch things into space by putting them onto rockets that carry tonnes of propellants (fuel). These propellants give the rocket enough energy to boost away from Earth's surface. Because of Earth's gravitational pull the heaviest and the largest satellites or spacecraft need the biggest of rockets with most propellant.

Action and reaction

We now know that we need a rocket to send objects to space, but how does a rocket lift off? The most important idea behind a rocket's lift off is Issac Newton's over 300-year-old law, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If you have seen photos and videos of a rocket launch, you would not have missed seeing exhaust streaming from the bottom of the rocket. This exhaust is the flames, hot gases and smoke that come from burning the rockets propellants. This exhaust pushes out from a rocket's engine down toward the ground. This is the action force. In response to this action, the rocket begins moving in the opposite direction, lifting off the ground. This is the reaction force.

Let's keep moving

While the rocket will lift off due to the reactive force of the exhaust, Earth's gravity will continue pulling it down. So how does the rocket continue moving upwards? When a rocket bums propellants and pushes out exhaust an upward force called thrust is created. To launch, the rocket needs enough propellants to create thrust that is greater than the force of the gravity pulling the rocket down. A rocket needs to speed up to at least 29,000 km/hr and fly above most of the atmosphere in a curved path around Earth. This will ensure that the gravity will not pull it back down.

 

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The bright trails of smoke be it white or in various colours, that emanate from aircraft during flybys are a treat to watch. Whether you are seeing it live out there in the skies, or on R television, these aerobatics (a word obtained by combining aero with a form of acrobatics and used to mean loops, rolls and other spectacular feats of flying performed in one or more aircraft as a form of entertainment) are the mainstay in any aerial flying demonstration. Did you know that generating this smoke is a technical challenge and requires specific equipment for optimal performance?

First performed post-World War II, aerobatics teams have been using smoke in their flight exhibitions since then, with an upswing in usage from the second half of the 20th Century.

There are two main components to these coloured smokes being produced the smoke system and the smoke oil.

The smoke system pumps paraffin based smoke oil from a tank using injectors and out into the exhaust system. The arrangement comes in various sizes and is fitted differently based on the aircraft. These systems are engineered keeping in mind both safety and ease of use.

As for the smoke oil, they are a blend of mineral oil with a paraffin base. Smoke oils now are eco-friendly and non-toxic, and they are also highly refined in order to produce better results - completely atomised without leaving residue.

Oils are developed specifically keeping in mind the manoeuvres to be performed. The overall system ensures coloured oil is delivered at a particular pressure to the injection nozzles so that the smoke output is consistent.

All this happens at the flick of a button for the pilot who is performing the exhibition. They don't switch it recklessly though, as the expensive nature of the entire set-up means that it has to be done judiciously.

 

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Is it an asteroid? Is it a planet? Is it a comet? If there is a solar system object that neither gives a resounding yes nor a certain no to these questions, then chances are that they belong to a class of celestial objects called centaurs. While estimates for the number of centaurs in the solar system are now placed anywhere above 44,000, they still remain mysterious with secrets to be revealed.

Despite their current count being in the thousands, we have been aware of their existence for less than half-a-century. And it all started in 1977, when Chiron, the first-identified member in what was then a new class of objects, was discovered.

Blink and you miss it

American astronomer Charles Kowal, who had already discovered one of the moons of Jupiter, was searching for peculiar objects in the solar system. Working at the Hale Observatories in California, the U.S., Kowal photographed the skies with telescopes and then examined them on a blink comparator – the device that had enabled American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh to discover Pluto in 1930.

The blink comparator holds two photographic plates and alternates them rapidly. While stars, which are fixed, remain steady as the plates alternate, any moving object – be it a comet, planet or asteroid – appears to jump from one plate to another. Using photographic plates of the sky in the constellation Aries on October 18 and 19, 1977, Kowal was able to discover Chiron on November 1.

How to classify

While media organisations were ready to call it the most distant asteroid discovered or even the 10th planet (Pluto was still classified as a planet in 1977), the astronomers realised that they had a question in their hands as classification wasn’t proving to be straightforward. It eventually became the first centaur, named after the half-human, half-horse being in Greek mythology, a new class of objects.

Chiron was named after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology, believed to be the wisest and most just among all centaurs. The names of other centaurs in mythology were to be reserved for other objects that were to fall into this type.

The first centaur to be discovered, in fact, was 944 Hidalgo in 1920. It wasn’t until 2060 Chiron was discovered that astronomers realised that these belonged to a distinct group unlike any other in the solar system. Chiron, too, has been identified in images going back to 1895 following its discovery, which enabled us to determine its orbit more accurately.

Many things at once

Centaurs are now known to be a little bit of everything – asteroids, planets and comets. Small solar system bodies orbiting the sun between the outer planets, they usually have unstable orbits and are too small to be observed. Most centaurs inhabit the complex, dynamic region between Jupiter and Neptune.

Observations of 10199 Chariklo, the largest confirmed centaur so far, have revealed that it has a system of rings, akin to the ones popularly associated with Saturn, and also seen with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. There is a possibility that Chiron too has rings like Chariklo.

While the rings enable centaurs to draw parallels with planets, their colour and composition gives them a different identity. Most of them are either reddish or blue to blue gray in colour. We now know that the blue and blue gray centaurs are dark objects like comets and ones that are red are more like asteroids, having an organic surface.

Blue centaurs are composed of ice and are covered by a layer of dust, much like comets. This, along with highly elliptical orbits, suggests that some centaurs either are, or could become, comets.

Astronomers and astronomical organisations worldwide are involved in both classifying and cataloguing centaurs, whose numbers have been ever-increasing since they were identified to be a separate class of objects. These centaurs, like their namesake, are for now seen to be many things at the same time. They might, however, well be holding clues to some of the questions regarding our solar system for which we are still searching for answers.

 

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Over 200 million miles away from Earth, a spacecraft called OSIRIS REX studying the asteroid Bennu reached out its robotic arm to carry out a touch and go (TAG) manoeuvre at the site called Nightingale" to collect a sample from the asteroids surface on October 20. The one foot-wide sampling head made contact with Bennu's surface for approximately 6 seconds, after which the spacecraft performed a back away bum. The sample will be returned to Earth in 2023.

What's OSIRIS-REX mission all about?

NASA launched the sample-return mission OSIRIS REX (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification Security. Regolith Explorer) to the near Earth asteroid Bennu (officially 101955 Bennu) in 2016, OSIRIS-REX reached the proximity of Bennu in December 2018. It spent the next several months collecting and sending back data and images to help the NASA team on Earth learn more about the asteroid's composition. In August 2019, NASA selected four candidate sample sites, namely Nightingale, Kingfisher, Osprey, and Sandpiper. In December 2019, Nightingale was confirmed to be the spot to carry out the mission's primary goal of collecting sample from the asteroid's surface.

What are the other objectives of the mission?

1) Mapping the asteroid

2) Documenting the sample site

 3) Measuring the orbit deviation caused by non-gravitational forces and

4) Comparing observations at the asteroid to ground-based observations.

What do we know about Bennu?

• Bennu is a near-Earth asteroid, discovered in 1999.


• It is as tall as the Empire State Building and located at a distance of about 200 million miles away from Earth.


• It is a potentially hazardous object. It has one in 2,700 chances of impacting Earth between 2175 and 2199.


• It is named after Bennu, an ancient Egyptian mythological bird,


• Bennu is a "rubble pile" asteroid, which is a grouping of rocks held together by gravity.


• Bennu completes an orbit around the Sun every 436.604 days and comes very dose to Earth every six years.


• Bennu contains carbonaceous material which hints at the presence of water sometime in its mysterious past.


• With the help of OSIRIS-REX, it was found that Bennu was ejecting material from its surface. Some of which fell back down, and some of which seemed to enter stable orbit.

How can the sample from Bennu help us understand the solar system better?

Scientists chose Bennu as the target of the OSIRIS REX mission because of its composition size, and proximity to Earth.

• Bennu is classified as a B-tube asteroid which means it contains a lot of carbon and minerals. Bennu is a primitive asteroid that has not significantly changed since formation. Scientists have calculated that it might have formed in the first 10 million years of our solar system's history over 4.5 billion years ago. Because of this, scientists hope to find organic molecules on Bennu like those that may have led to the origin of life on Earth


• By studying Bennu, we can get a clearer picture about the formation of solar system.


• Knowledge of Bennu's physical properties will be critical for developing an asteroid impact avoidance mission in the future.

What next?

When going to press, NASA had not confirmed whether the arm had successfully collected sample from the surface following the touchdown. The goal was to collect at least 60 grams of sample from the surface.

If it has collected the spacecraft will prepare for its departure from Bennu in March 2021 - this is the next time Bennu will be properly aligned with Earth for the most fuel efficient return flight.

If it had failed to collect enough sample at Nightingale, then two more sampling attempts will be made. The next attempt will take place at the backup site called Osprey, which is another relatively boulder-free area inside a crater near Bennu's equator, on Jan. 12. 2021. Whatever the case may be, the sample will be returned to Earth in 2023,

What are the other asteroid sample return missions?

OSIRIS-REX is the first asteroid sample return mission for NASA. But Japan has launched two such missions. It launched Hayabusa probe in 2003 to collect material from an asteroid called Itokawa. Things didn't go entirely as planned, but Hayabusa did succeed in getting some tiny Itokawa grains to Earth in 2010

In December 2014, Japan launched Hayabusa 2, which collected sample in February 2019 and is scheduled to retum to Earth in December 2020.

 

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You even looked at yourself in a funfair mirror. Did it make you laugh? You may look very short and fat or very tall and skinny. Funfair mirrors are curved. Curved mirrors bend light different from flat mirrors. Bent light makes the image that is reflected look different, too.

Who is that person in the mirror? It seems to be another you, doing exactly what you are doing. How can a mirror "copy" you?

A mirror is very smooth. The front of a mirror is made of flat, polished glass. Behind the glass is a thin layer of silver or some other kind of shiny material.

As you stand in front of a mirror, light bounces off you and passes through the glass. When the light hits the shiny layer behind the glass, it bounces straight back at you. This is why you can see yourself.

Your reflection is a good copy of you. But have you ever noticed that your reflection does the exact opposite of what you do? If you hold out your right hand, your reflection holds out its left hand. Each part of you makes the opposite part of your reflection in the mirror.

What do you think will happen if you print your name and hold it up to a mirror? Try it and see.

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A full moon gives enough light for a game of hide-and-seek or for an evening walk. Where does the bright, silvery light of the moon come from? You might be surprised to learn that it comes from the sun! The moon shines only because the sun shines on it. Some of the sun's light is reflected, or bounced off, the moon and hits the earth. So what we call "moonlight" is actually reflected light from the sun.

Some of the things we see—light bulbs, neon signs, traffic lights, and even television tubes—are like the sun. They give off light. But most of the things we see are like the moon. They have no light of their own. Light from the sun, or a lamp, or something else shines on them. They reflect that light into our eyes, and the reflected light tells us the shapes, sizes, and colours of these things.

Turn off the light in your room one night. If there is no light from a lamp or a window to bounce off things, you cannot see them. Everything is dark. When the lights are turned on, reflected light shows us what is there.

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In the sunshine, your shadow travels everywhere with you. Sometimes it bends in funny places. And sometimes it bends into a strange shape. But as long as the sun shines, your shadow is always there. On a very cloudy day, or in a dark room, you have no shadow at all. Where does your shadow go? What is your shadow?

We have shadows because light moves in a certain way. It moves in waves, something like ripples in water. As long as nothing is in the way, the light waves move in one direction. But when the light waves hit an object, they are stopped. Then, on the other side of the object that stopped the light waves, there is a dark space - a shadow.

Objects in a dark room have no shadows because there are no light waves travelling through the room. On cloudy days, shadows are harder to see because the clouds break up the light waves from the sun. The clouds soak up some of the light waves and scatter the rest of the light waves in all directions. When the light waves scatter and bounce instead of moving in one direction, no shadows are formed.

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There was a time, long, long ago, when the Paiute people did not have fire. When winter came, with its bitter cold and long nights, the people wrapped themselves in rabbit skins and huddled in their underground pit-houses.

Among the Paiute there was one boy who thought only of the others. He was as cold as anyone, but it bothered him to see his people so unhappy. One day, as he sat shivering on a snowy hillside, Coyote came to him. “Why are you troubled, boy?” Coyote asked.

“I sorrow for my people,” answered the boy. “They are suffering from the cold.”

“There is something that can be done,” said Coyote. “It will be very hard to do, but I will help you. We must bring fire to your people.”

“Fire? What is fire?” asked the boy.

“It is like a bright, red flower, but it is not a flower,” Coyote said. “Nor is it a beast, even though, like a beast, it devours grass and woods and everything in its path. But if it is kept inside a circle of stones, it will be a friend to your people. It will give them light and keep them warm.”

“Where is this fire?” asked the boy.

“Its den is on the Burning Mountain by the Big Water, more than a hundred days’ journey from here,” Coyote told him. “It is guarded day and night by the Fire Spirits. Perhaps I can creep close enough to steal some of the fire and give it to you.”

The boy leaped to his feet. “Let us go, my friend.”

“Wait,” warned Coyote. “It will not be easy. The Fire Spirits will chase us. You could never run for a hundred days without them catching you! You must gather a hundred of your tribe’s swiftest runners, each waiting a day's distance apart.”

So the boy went among his people and told them the things Coyote had said. But many did not believe him. “How can you, only a boy, know about this ‘fire’?” they asked scornfully.

But the boy pleaded and argued. Finally the people decided that they had nothing to lose. They chose one hundred of the tribe's swiftest runners. Then the runners, along with the boy and Coyote, left their homeland. They journeyed into the great mountains whose peaks touched the sky.

At the end of each day, Coyote told one of the runners, “You will be the last runner. Wait here. In time, you will see a runner coming towards you, carrying a stick upon which a bright, red flower is growing. That is the fire. You must take the fire from the runner and run home as fast as you can.”

The group waded through mountain streams. They followed dark forest trails. Finally, they crossed a vast, parched plain towards the horizon that was hidden in a blue mist.

One by one, the runners were left behind. At the end of the hundredth day, Coyote and the boy stood at the foot of the great, black cone of the Burning Mountain. From its peak, there rose a plume of smoke. The Fire Spirits danced, and the flames glared red on the Big Water.

Coyote picked up a dry branch. “When you see me come back, be ready to run,” he said. Then he set off up the mountain.

The tired, dirty Coyote crept towards the Fire Spirits. They laughed to see this shabby, skinny, slinking creature, so hungry he was chewing on an old tree branch. They paid no more attention to him - which was exactly what Coyote wanted. The Fire Spirits continued their dance. Suddenly, Coyote leaped forwards and caught a bit of fire on the branch. The astonished Fire Spirits screamed in rage. Swift as the wind, they chased Coyote down the mountain.

Gasping for breath, Coyote reached the boy and handed him the burning branch. The boy ran, through the night and into the next day, with the Fire Spirits hissing and crackling behind him. Dizzy with exhaustion, the boy finally handed the flaming branch to the next runner.

And so the torch passed from one runner to the next. They sped over the parched plains and through the dark woods. Behind them, always, hissed the furious Fire Spirits. But when the Fire Spirits reached the snowy mountains, they could not go on. Fire cannot live on snow.

Finally, the last runner arrived at the Paiute lands with the burning branch. The people set up a ring of stones around the fire, as Coyote had told them. The fire blazed, and the people crowded about, marvelling at the light, warmth, and comfort it gave them.

In honour of his great achievement, the people named the boy Fire Bringer. And they remembered the bravery of Coyote, too.

Since then, every coyote’s fur has carried the dark scorch marks of the angry Fire Spirits who guard the Burning Mountain.

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Sleepily, you open your eyes. Sunlight is streaming through your window. It is time to get up and start your day.

The sunshine lit up your room and woke you. But the light from the sun does much more than that. It makes life on the earth possible.

Sunlight gives us energy. This energy heats the earth so that animals, plants, and people can live. It also makes green plants grow. All the food we eat comes from plants or from animals that eat plants.

Light is so important that people have invented ways to make it. We have candles, torches, electric lights, neon signs, and lasers. All these things help us to see. But light does other things, too.

The sun is the source of all heat and light energy on Earth. Aside from the obvious benefits of solar energy, and aside from our obvious knowledge that the sun is the source of all food on earth, how much direct or indirect sun does the human body need to survive.

We know that all plants require a certain amount of sunlight to make food and survive, through a process called photosynthesis. We know that animals get their energy from the food they eat. However, animals would not have a food source, if it were not for the sun. For example, some animals that live deep underwater, where no sunlight exists, but they feed on organic matter (dead plants and organisms that sink to the ocean floor from the surface). This organic matter contains energy that was first produced by the sun.

Humans get our energy from the food we eat, and all of that food is derived from the energy of the sun. So, we need the sun to survive. But do humans need direct exposure to sunlight to survive, not counting our food and heat sources?

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, stated that humans need sunlight for vitamin D. The study shows that those with the lowest vitamin D levels have more than double the risk of dying from heart disease and other causes over an eight-year period compared with those with the highest levels of vitamin D.