My Science School

Gender norms and roles are notions about how each person should behave and what each one should do, based entirely on their gender. This could force individuals into doing what they are not equipped to or what they do not enjoy while stopping them from doing what they have a natural flair for or would love to. Being forced into doing what one does not have the ability to can lead to failure and dejection, and stopping an individual's healthy pursuit can lead to unhappiness. When people expect others also to follow such norms and roles, the cycle continues.

What studies show

"The Global Early Adolescent Study is a worldwide investigation into how gender norms evolve and inform a spectrum of health outcomes in adolescence", and is a collaborative effort between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the World Health Organisation. The first phase of study launched in 2014 was held in 15 cities globally, and it included a city in India too - New Delhi. The qualitative research involved children (aged 10 to 14) as well as their parents through in-depth interviews. And, "researchers were surprised to find that when it comes to gender expectations, there are more global similarities than differences. The study discovered that children were under the impression that soon after they hit adolescence girls need "protection" while boys "become independent".

Such thoughts, created and reinforced by the media, elders, and peer groups, can become dangerous. Here's an example. When girls are constantly told that they need to be protected", it could push them into imagining they are weak and dependent and that could strip them of their confidence, leading them to fear boys. And boys could misuse this sanction of liberty to act recklessly, and misunderstand they are somehow superior to girls, leading them to view girls as meek. When girls and boys are disallowed to interact with each other, it also denies them a chance to develop social skills, healthy friendships, and learn from each other. As for those who identify with neither of these genders - our world invariably discusses only the binary of male and female - it could leave them feeling invisible and alienated. Such segregation, restrictions, and exclusion can affect individuals physically, emotionally and psychologically.

Good to know

• When you are making friends, ask them about their interests, rather than assuming they would like or dislike something because of their gender.


• When you're working / playing as a group, and if you have to assign each one a task, do it based on individual interest and capacity, and not because of their gender.


• Never tease other children for the gender they are.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Allergic reactions can happen around the year, but people who are prone to pollen allergy experience severe bouts of it during spring and summer, when trees, plants grasses, and weeds release tiny pollen particles into the air to fertilize other plants. And this particular time of the year is often referred to as the 'allergy season.

A new research from Germany suggests that climate change is causing allergy season to last longer, as rising temperatures are causing plants to bloom earlier, and pollen from early blooming locations are travelling to later blooming locations. This means more days of itchy eyes and runny noses for people with pollen allergy.

Researchers found that certain species, such as hazel shrubs and alder trees, advanced the start of their season by up to 2 days per year, over a period of 30 years (between 1987 and 2017). Other species, which tend to bloom later in the year, such as birch and ash trees, advanced their season by 0.5 days on average each year.

The effects of climate change on the pollen season have been studied at length. It has been established that greenhouse gas emissions and weather variables, mainly air temperature, sunlight and rainfall, are affecting plant phenology - the timing of plant life-cycle events, such as flowering, fruiting and pollen production.

Pollen travels

Climate change has had a negative impact on the movement of pollen and atmospheric pollen concentration. The changing weather patterns and atmospheric circulation may spread pollen to new areas and expose people to different allergens their immune systems are unprepared for. Such pollen movement can also introduce invasive species into new environments.

 

Picture Credit : Google

An increase in bird-song is one of the sure signs that spring is on the way. Some birds, like the little wren, sing all through the year. For more birds, though, it is the arrival of spring that puts them in good voice.

In most cases the singing is done by male birds. Not all of it is tuneful. The woodpecker drums against a piece of wood in a form of ‘song’. The snipe makes a drumming noise with its tail while it is in flight. Others just croak. But in the bird world they all count as songs. And birds sing them for similar reasons.

Attracting a mate is important. So male birds compete with each other, singing so well as they can to call the female birds. Bird-songs can also be warnings. ‘Clear off. This is my patch’ might well be the stern message in the delightful song we hear on a spring morning. Male birds need to protect their territory and its food, if they want to get a mate. So singing can be both a greeting to female birds and a singing version of a punch on the nose to any male bird that tries to muscle in on the singer’s bit of the garden.

 

Picture Credit : Google

In spite of the popular expression ‘as blind as a bat’, bats are not blind at all. In fact they see quite well. However, since the fly mostly at night when it is difficult for us to see, people have assumed that they can’t see either.

Bats don’t actually need to see where they are going as much as we might think. They avoid bumping into things in the dark by using a kind of radar system. This sends out a stream of high-pitched sounds. The sound hits objects in their path and then bounce back to the bat. It picks up these reflected sounds and pin-points the obstacles to avoid crashing into it.

 

Picture Credit : Google

It is all to do with light and what happens to it when it shines on water. When light shines on a surface, some rays are absorbed and some reflected. It is the reflected light that gives things their colours. Grass looks green because it reflects green light rays and absorbs the others. When sunlight shines on water, the red light rays are absorbed the most. The least absorbed are the blue ones. So the blue light is reflected and the water appears blue. However, this only happens with water over three metres deep. Stand on a shore of a blue sea. The water lapping round your toes is not blue, is it? It is colourless. Take a boat out into the blue sea and scoop up a little water with your hand. That is colourless too.

 

Picture Credit : Google

 

There should be a punch line for this one, but I can’t think of it at the moment. The reason itself is fairly disgusting, so a joke probably is not appropriate anyway. Vultures feed on carrion – dead animals and birds. They often put their heads right inside carcasses to pull off tasty bits. If their heads had feathers these would get covered in all sorts of unmentionable gore and mess. Worse still, vultures would not be able to clean them. So nature has given them bald heads to avoid the problem.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Almost all the monkeys of the American continent live in the dense forests around the Amazon River. These monkey spend most of their time in trees and are extremely agile acrobats, using their long tails to hand on to the branches. The best-known of these animals are the capuchin monkeys which were once the inseparable companions of travelling musicians and organ-grinders.

The capuchin monkeys are easily domesticated for they are gentle and good-natured and live well in captivity. For this reason there are always many of them in zoos and they are often sold in pet shops. They are not much bigger than a cat and are grayish brown in colour with a long, hairy tail which is not so good at gripping things. They live mainly on fruit but also eat tender shoots and buds, insects and eggs which they steal from birds’ nests.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The natives of South America are terrified of the piranha fish, a fierce creature that resemble the tiger in its voracity. Piranha fish, which live in the rivers of South America, especially in the region of the Amazon and the Orinoco, can be included among the fiercest animals of the world.

Piranha fish are less than 40 centimetres long but they have massive jaws and strong razorsharp teeth which are like a very sharp saw and cam tear through even the toughest leather. The piranha’s teeth are triangular in shape and fit exactly into one another; with such teeth these fish can tear even large animals to piece.

Cattle are frequent victims of the piranha fish whenever they try to cross a river, but these fish will also attack human beings. When herdsmen want to take a herd of cattle across a river they select the worst beast and throw it into the water first. Attracted by the blood the piranha fish devour the animal while the rest of the herd is taken safely across the river.

 

Picture Credit : Google

These strange trees are evergreen and their branches are covered in thousands of dark green, scale-like leaves. They resemble the fossilized remains of every ancient trees that grew many millions of years ago. These are trees of the Araucaria family, conifers that first grew in Brazil and in the Andes mountains, and later became popular in Europe.

He best-known is the Araucaria araucana, the Chile pine or monkey puzzle tree which was introduced into Britain in 1796. In South America this tree grows as high as 50 metres. It has a blackish, wrinkled bark and the branches grow straight out from the trunk, separated into tiers. The leaves have no stems and are small and stiff with a spiky end. From a distance the tree looks as if it has green branches with no leaves and has a stiff, rigid appearance.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The gavial is a type of crocodile some 4 to 5 metres long, that lives in the river Ganges in India and is quite different from the crocodile of the river Nile in Egypt. Although it belongs to the same order of reptiles, it forms a family of its own, the Gavialidae.

The distinguishing characteristic of the gavial is its very long, slender jaws that swell out into a bump at the end and this is where the nose is. This nose enables the gavial to breathe while the rest of its body is completely under the water.

The gavial has rows of sharp, equal-sized teeth which look very frightening when it opens its jaws wide. But this is not a dangerous creatures and will not attack people or animals who may approach it on the river banks. It prefers to eat dead animals and fish which it catches with quick sideways movements of its head.

Many people in south-eastern Asia believe that the gavial is sacred. In some places gavials are kept in the grounds of temples and looked after with great care and respect.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Marabous belong to the stork family and are often seen in the equatorial regions of Asia. They are also known as ‘adjutant birds’ because of the way they stand to attention like soldiers.

These birds are not very fussy about what they eat and enjoy almost any kind of refuse. For this reason they crowd together in villages and do the useful job of clearing the streets of any rubbish that is lying around. Marabous will also eat the rotting bodies of dead animals, often quarrelling with other carrion birds such as vultures and fighting over pieces of stinking, rotten meat.

With such eating habits the marabou cannot be described as an attractive bird. It has an enormous beak about 40 centimetres long; a tiny head with no feathers on it; and a long, curved neck, also bare and covered with a very, rough skin, which is usually kept tucked between its shoulders. The front of the neck contains a loose pouch which the bird keeps stuffed with food. Marabous are up to one and a half metres tall when they stand up straight on their long legs.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Air contains certain chemical substances which are present in greater quantities when the atmosphere is moist. These chemicals attack even the hardest rocks. To see how rocks can be affected one only needs to pick up a pebble from the sea or a river. On the outside the pebble is smooth and rounded: this is the result of the work of water and the air’s chemical action. The inside of the pebble is still rough because it has not been reached by the external forces.

The chemical action of the atmosphere is extremely important. It can break down rocks and put oxygen into them by oxidation. The result is farm soil without which we cannot grow our food.

However, we must not think that agricultural soil is merely a collection of tiny particles of rock which have been crumbled away. Such a mixture does not contain many of the ingredients necessary to sustain plant life and only certain primitive plants, such as lichens, can obtain any nourishment from it.

Soil becomes fertile when these pioneer’ plants like lichens die and decay. Their decomposed bodies enrich the soil with their chemical substances to from a material known as humus. It is this humus, which is a mass of dead and decaying vegetation, which makes soil fertile.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Cranes are elegant birds that strut about on their stilt- like legs, stretching out their long necks and holding their heads slightly to one side. Whenever they stop to rest in a field or by the side of the river, they tuck one leg underneath their bodies and stand on the other, sometimes remaining like this for many hours.

The crowned crane has a beautiful crest of yellow feathers on its head and its dark plumage is broken here and there by a few patches of colour. It lives in most tropical regions of Africa in large flocks near lakes or rivers, feeding on seeds and insects which it finds on the ground. The crane flies up to the trees after dark to spend the night safely perched on a branch.

 

Picture Credit : Google

There is an incredible number of extremely poisonous vipers in the Sahara desert. They hide by burying themselves in the sand and lie in wait for their prey.

Even while walking very carefully a person can accidentally tread on one of these snakes. The consequences can be very serious.

The most common desert viper is the cerastes, also known as the horned viper. This snake has two horn –like growths above its eyes that give it a very fierce look. It is a rare species for most horned vipers have only one horn. The reptile is hunted and sold to zoos because it is so uncommon.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The acaju, or cashew, is a native plant of tropical America but today it is cultivated in most warm countries for its excellent nuts. The tree grows on ground that is lower than 800 metres and needs a warm, moist climate/ the fruit, which is particularly popular in Brazil where it ripens between November and January, is quite odd-looking. It resembles a large pear as big as a man’s fist, at the bottom of which is a woody growth shaped like a kidney.

In actual fact the real fruits is this curved nut at the bottom of the fruit. The most striking part of the fruit is the pear-shaped part which is really the greatly swollen stalk of the tree’s blossom. The stalk becomes flesh and rich in sugar substances.

 

Picture Credit : Google