WHEN AND WHY IS PAPER BAG DAY CELEBRATED? WHAT CAN WE DO ON PAPER BAG DAY?

World Paper Bag Day is observed on July 12 every year to spread awareness about plastic pollution and encourage the use of environment-friendly alternatives. Use of paper bags, which are easily recyclable, will help reduce plastic waste that takes years to decompose, causing environment pollution.

Remember the 3 'R's? We know this mantra of Reduce', 'Reuse and Recycle can help us adhere to a sustainable lifestyle. It's also our trump card to save the Earth. What if we told you that there is also another lifestyle choice you could make to help the earth breathe, reduce your carbon footprint and regulate the usage of plastic.

Does it come as a surprise that the humble Paper Bag has a day of its own

The first machine

Not much literature is available as to how Paper Bag Day came to be or who started it. But the day gets marked with a flurry of programmes to promote the usage of paper bags. But there is a lot of drama and story behind this bag and how it came to be. Did you know that it was in 1852 that the first paper bag machine was established? This was by American inventor Francis Wolle who patented the first paper bag-making machine. Wolle who was also a priest called it the 'Machine for Making Bags of Paper.

Later, inventor Margaret E. Knight came up with a machine that could fashion out flat-bottomed paper bags. She patented this in 1870. This invention made a lot of difference enabling the production of flat-bottomed paper bags that could carry groceries.

It is interesting to note that the inventions didn't stop here! In 1883, another patent was granted. And this was to Charles Stilwell who created the S.O.S bag aka Self Opening Sack. Stilwell named it so because the bags could stand on their own without anyone's assistance while it was being loaded.

An alternative to plastic

Much has been talked about plastic and single-use carry bags and their detrimental environmental effects. Yet we still find it being used abundantly in marketplaces. People still depend on it out of convenience.

There is an organic solution to tackle this. Paper bags! One can easily create these bags using recycled paper. You must have seen that newspapers are quite often used for making paper bags.

Make your own bags

So, let's pledge never to use plastic bags and shift to sustainable alternatives such as paper bags or cloth bags.

And try making your own paper bag! Trust us, you will enjoy the process. You can introduce your fellow mates to this bag that can do so much and initiate them to the new craft of making paper bags. Make this sustainable lifestyle choice and be the change!

QUICK FACTS

According to estimates, 100 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year.

About 18 billion pounds of plastic find their way into the ocean every year, proving to be life-threatening to marine life. And this plastic stays in the ocean.

According to statistics, over 40% of the plastic produced gets used only once. And they get discarded, ending up as refuse on the Earth, taking years to disintegrate.

In the case of single-use plastic bags, it could take hundreds of years to disintegrate and get turned into microplastics, polluting the environment further. The plastic that we use today could easily stay on even after our journey.

SAY 'NO' TO PLASTIC BECAUSE...

It takes centuries to decompose.

It contains many chemicals that pollute the soil and the environment.

It affects food chains; harms water resources, has led to the unnatural death of animals species on land and sea. It is expensive to recycle.

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WHAT IS THE MEANING, ORIGIN AND USAGE OF WORD ‘STROBE’?

Meaning: The word strobe corresponds to a light or lamp that flashes on and off quickly.

Origin: Strobe is arrived by shortening the word stroboscope. It has been used as the shortened form of strobe light from 1949 and as an adjective from 1942. Stroboscope is an instrument for studying light using periodic motion. In use from 1896, it is arrived at by adding the suffix scope to the Greek word strobos meaning "a twisting, act of whirling".

Usage: Strobe beacons were used in NASA's final Mercury mission to see if tracking was possible by astronauts.

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WHAT IS THE MEANING, ORIGIN AND USAGE OF WORD ‘TWITCH’?

Meaning: The word twitch is used both as a verb and as a noun. The verb form corresponds to give or cause to give a short, sudden jerking or convulsive movement. The noun form meanwhile, denotes a short, sudden jerking or convulsive movement.

Origin:  The verb form of the word has been around since the late 12th Century. The word is derived from to-twic-chen, meaning "pull apart with a quick jerk, which is related to Old English twiccian meaning "to pluck, gather, catch hold of." which in turn has a Proto-Germanic root. The noun form of the word has been in existence from the 1520s. The word, which has seen steady usage through the centuries, saw an increased usage this century. The frequency of usage has been especially pronounced in the last decade or so, nearly doubling from before. This can be attributed to the popular American video live streaming service that shares the same name.

Usage:  She tried to suppress her smile but felt a twitch in the comer of her mouth.

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WHAT IS THE MEANING, ORIGIN AND USAGE OF WORD ‘TORTILLA’?

Meaning: Pronounced taw-tee-uh, this noun refers to a type of thin, round Mexican bread made from maize or wheat flour.

Origin: This Spanish word from the 17th Century has its origins in the Spanish words "torta", meaning cake and "-illa", a diminutive suffix derived from the Latin word "ella".

Usage: The sweet aroma of sugared tortilla filled our room.

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WHAT IS THE MEANING, ORIGIN AND USAGE OF WORD ‘BLITHER’?

Meaning: This intransitive verb refers to talking foolishly or nonsensically.

Origin: In use since 1868, the word blither is a variant of blether - meaning "talk nonsense" - a northern British and Scottish word, with origins in the word blather, with the same meaning.

Example: So blither if you like, she said softly.

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WHEN AND WHY DO WE CELEBRATE WORLD ZOONOSES DAY.

 A zoonosis (zoonotic disease or zoonoses -plural) is an infectious disease that is transmitted between species from animals to humans (or from humans to animals). Tiny pathogens that are not visible to the naked eye, can jump from animals to humans causing diseases. With each passing year, World Zoonoses Day, which falls on July 6, gains more relevance. What causes zoonotic diseases? Can they lead to pandemics if left unchecked? Let's find out...

It was the 1800s. When nine-year-old Joseph Meister was mauled and bit by a dog in 1805. His parents were distraught, for, he had been bitten by a rabid dog. It was a time when rabies spelt a certain terrible death.

In desperation, on the advice of their doctor, Meister's parents approached a local scientist who was working on a rabies vaccine. He was none other than Louis Pasteur. When young Meister was bought in, the French chemist saw an opportunity to use a human test subject. He had already tested his vaccine on dogs and seen positive results. After consulting fellow scientists, Alfred Vulpian and Jacques-Joseph Grancher, on July 6, 1885, Pasteur administered the vaccine. To everyone's surprise, the youngster made a full recovery. It is to commemorate Pasteur's successful administration of the first rabies vaccine that July 6 is celebrated as World Zoonoses Day.

The human-animal connect

So, what is zoonosis? It is an infectious disease that plagues humans, and is usually caused by pathogens that jump from an animal to humans, like, rabies, for instance. The first infected human transmits the infectious agent to at least one other human, who then infects others. The pathogen can be a virus, parasite, bacterium, or prion

Black death

Diseases like the Ebola that wreaked havoc in some parts of Africa, and Nipah that led to health concerns in Kerala in 2018, are examples of zoonoses. While in the early 20th century. HIV was a zoonotic disease, it has now mutated into a human-only disease. Often, many zoonotic viruses recombine with human strains of the flu and can cause pandemics. The 2009 swine flu and the Spanish flu of 1918 are instances of this. An earlier occurrence of this is the plague or the Black Death that ravaged Afro-Eurasia between 1346 to 1353, peaking in Europe from 1347 to1351. Said to have spread from rodents to humans by the bite of infected fleas, it became a searing pandemic, leaving thousands dead in its wake.

Monkey pox

Monkey pox is an ongoing instance of zoonotic disease spread. While the first case in humans was identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, earlier this year, it began making an appearance in non-endemic countries too. It is avoidable by restricting contact with infected people or animals, disinfecting frequently touched surfaces, wearing a mask, and sticking to high standards of hygiene.

Major causes

The emergence of such diseases began with the domestication of animals. Simply put, zoonotic transmission can occur when there is a contact with animals or consumption of animals or their products.

According to a United Nations Environment Programme and International Livestock Research Institute report, environmental causes such as climate change. wildlife exploitation and unsustainable agriculture are the prime reasons for the rise in such diseases. Contact with infected farm animals can lead to disease in farmers or others that come in contact with them. For instance, close interaction with infected cattle can lead to anthrax infection. In many cases, different types of food that come from animals can face zoonotic contamination, including seafood, eggs, meat, diary, and so on.

Did you know?

  • Sixty percent of all human infectious diseases are considered zoonoses
  • One of the largest zoonoses-related threats is food insecurity, due to livestock loss from antimicrobial resistance and disease.
  • Eighty percent of agents, that are deemed to have a potential for use in bioterrorism, are zoonotic pathogens. The World Organization for Animal Health encourages strong health monitoring systems for proper surveillance and prevention of zoonotic pathogens from being used as weapons.
  • The concentrated effort to study human-animal-environmental interactions is a field known as One Health
  • Rinderpest, also known as also cattle plague or steppe murrain was declared as eradicated in 2011.

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WHO WAS AMELIA EARHART?

Amelia Earhart was an American aviator who set many flying records and championed the advancement of women in aviation. She became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, and the first person ever to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland.

Amelia Earhart didn’t flinch. The 21-year-old was attending an air show in Canada in 1918 when a stunt plane dived right toward her. But instead of running out of the way, she faced the plane down  hat wasn’t Earhart’s only brave moment. Born in Kansas on July 24, 1897, she volunteered during World War I starting in 1917, treating wounded Canadian soldiers returning from the European battlefields. Nearby were pilot practice fields, where she discovered her passion for flying.

"...decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying..." said Amelia Earhart, and she lived her life based on her own words. As a child, she was known for her fierce independence, quite uncommon for girls of the era, and was full of adventure traits that would immortalise her, well after her death.

Ironically, when Earhart saw her first aircraft at the lowa State Fair in Des Moines, as a 10-year-old, her father tried to pique his daughters' interest in taking their first flight. However, one look at the rickety thing and all she wanted to do was return to her merry-go-round for she found the plane to be "a thing of rusty wire and wood and not at all interesting".

However, it seemed she was destined to take to the skies one way or the other for, when she was 23, on December 28, 1920, she and her father attended an aerial meet at Daugherty Field in Long Beach, California. After inquiring about flying lessons, she was booked for a passenger flight the following day, and the cost was $10 for a 10-minute flight with Frank Hawks. That ride changed her life forever, and in her book, Last Flight, she reveals how. "By the time I had got two or three hundred feet off the ground, I knew I had to fly." Not too long after, she bought The Canary, her first plane, a second-hand yellow Kinner Airster.

Take off

On May 16, 1923, Earhart became the 16th woman in the U.S., to be issued a pilot's license by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Soon after, a series of events led her to live in Medford, Massachusetts. Her interest in aviation strong as ever, she became a member of the American Aeronautical Society's Boston chapter and was eventually elected its vice president. She also flew the first official flight out of Dennison Airport in 1927. She donned multiple hats as she penned local newspaper columns promoting flying. And as her interest grew, so did her fame. =

Then, in 1928, Earhart received a phone call from Capt. Hilton H. Railey, who asked her if she was interested in flying the Atlantic. Later, that year, she I was a passenger on a transatlantic flight and became the first woman to do so. Four years later, she set off on her own from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to Paris. Though she landed in Ireland instead, because of weather conditions and mechanical failure, she was instrumental in setting two records she became the first woman and the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic. For this, she was awarded a gold medal from the National Geographic Society, presented by Herbert Hoover, then U.S. President.

In 1935, she added another feather to her cap, another first to her list of achievements –she became the first person to fly from Hawaii to the American mainland, thus, also becoming the first person to fly solo over the Pacific and consequently, the first to fly solo over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Final flight

Nowhere close to being done, in June 1937, she set forth on a J mission to circumnavigate the earth by air. In short, she aimed to fly around the world at the equator and thus become the first woman in the world to do so. With her new plane, Lockheed Electra, 39-year-old Earhart set off on the journey from Miami, the US, along with her navigator Fred Noonan After multiple stops along the way, including Karachi and Calcutta, on June 29, they landed in Lae, Papua New Guinea, with just 7,000 miles left in their journey, after which they took off on July 2 for Howland Island, about 2.500 miles from Lae. It was deemed the most challenging leg of their trip.

However, after a run-in with inclement weather and fading radio transmissions, all contact with the Electra was lost, for, the plane carrying Amelia and Noonan vanished. Search efforts went on till 1939, within which time, multiple speculations and theories had arisen about her disappearance. However, on January 5, 1939, Earhart was declared dead.

Earhart's impact on women's rights was unmissable, and throughout her life, she doggedly represented what she thought women ought to do and stand for. In 1935, she was an advisor to aeronautical engineering and a career counsellor to female students, at Purdue University. She was also a member of the National Woman's Party and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. She remained an inspiration for women, silently motivating them to fly high, literally, and otherwise, while she lived, and much later too, decades after her death.

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PICTURESQUE HOMES OF FAMOUS AUTHORS

Ever been curios to find out about the origins of Tom Sawyer, Faust and more? Here’s peek into the past that will take you where it all began.

THE ANNE FRANK HOUSE, AMSTERDAM: Located on a canal called the Prinsengracht, close to the Westerkerk, in central Amsterdam in the Netherlands, this is the house where Anne Frank hid alongside her family and four others, and later became a biographical museum. The house also became famous as the Secret Annex. While Anne did not survive the war, her wartime diary was published in 1947. Ten years later, the Anne Frank Foundation was established to protect the property from developers who wanted to demolish the block.

MARK TWAIN'S HOUSE CONNECTICUT: The Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford. Connecticut, was the home Mark Twain and his family from 1874 to 1891. Some of his best-known works, while living there  including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A Tramp Abroad were written here. It was named one of the Ten Best Historic Homes in the world in The Ten Best of Everything, a National Geographic Books publication.

YASNAYA POLYANA, TULA, RUSSIA: A house which has seen the genesis of world classics such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Yasnaya Polyana was the house were Leo Tolstoy was born. Tolstoy referred to it as his inaccessible literary stronghold. In June 1921, the estate was nationalised and formally became his memorial museum, which contains the author's personal artefacts. as well as his library of 22,000 volumes.

THE BRONTE PARSONAGE MUSEUM, WEST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND: Built between 1778 and 1779, The Brontë Parsonage Museum, also known as Hawthorn Parsonage, was the former home of the Bronte family. This was where the renowned Bronte sisters-Charlotte, Emily and Anne- lived for most of their lives, and penned their famous novels. Listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England, the house, now also a museum is maintained by the Bronte Society.  

THE GOETHE HOUSE, GERMANY: It is the birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the place where he penned his famous works including Faust, Götz von Berlichingen, and The Sorrows of Young Weather. It was destroyed during the Allied bombing of Frankfurt on May 22, 1944, but was restored after the war between 1947 and 1951, as closely as possible to its original condition.

RK NARAYAN'S HOUSE AND MUSEUM, YADAVAGIRI, MYSURU: The creator of Malgudi lived in this house for nearly two decades before moving to Chennai, in the early 1990s, where he lived until his death. The house is full of memorabilia-oh his family, friends. mentors like Graham Greene, and his study, which has his collections, among others. After his death in 2001, the house fell into complete disarray and a builder wanted to raze it down to build a multi-storey complex. The city's people protested, and in mid-2016, the municipal corporation stepped in, the house was repaired, and made into a museum.

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AN INTERVIEW OF YOUNG ACHIEVER PRIYANKHA KAMALAKANNAN (AUTHOR OF THE BOOKS "THE POSITIVE POETRY CLOSET' AND "FANTASIA ADVENTURES")

This young author of the books "The Positive Poetry Closet' and "Fantasia Adventures" used the lockdown to hone her writing skills. She's also been a TEDx speaker. Priyankha Kamalakannan, living in Germany. She speaks about her journey.

How did your journey as an author start?

Writing started as a skill at school. One day, I randomly wrote a short story called The Bucket List Detectives'. My parents printed it as small booklets on my eighth birthday, and gave them as return gifts to guests. Everyone loved the story, and I was motivated by the appreciation I received. So, I wrote another story called 'Liana's Adventures In Wonderland. During the lockdown, I re-read my previous works and realised I could write them in a much better way. So I rewrote 'Liana's Adventures In Wonderland', which turned into a newly sculpted tale very different from the original story. Rewriting this story resulted in my first book, 'Fantasia Adventures.

Tell us about 'Fantasia Adventures' and 'The Positive Poetry Closet?

'Fantasia Adventures' is a fantasy book, where the main character is a girl called Lizzy who lives on an English farm and is very special to her grandmother. One night, when she thinks about her grandma, she magically lands in a place called Fantasia, a magical land where she meets a lot of different people. She learns about an evil queen who wants to destroy all the good. She, hence, decides to go on a mission to stop the evil queen and save Fantasia and its people. This is the plot of the story, and I sought help from my friend and added illustrations to make the book more interesting for readers.

My second book is The Positive Poetry Closet. I had numerous poems written and piled up, so I thought of compiling them into a book. I gave the book a fun title and published it.

How was your experience as a TEDx speaker?

When I was in Class III, my teachers used to play TED Talks on the smart board. When I was in Class IV, my school got a licence to conduct a TEDx speech, and my teacher allowed us to participate in it. Only a couple of people were selected, and I was surprised and happy that I was one of them. We had mentors and teachers who supported us, and to make it more impactful, we took instances from real-life for our talks. Not having notes and memorising the speech I wrote was what was keeping me from being distracted. The whole experience was thrilling.

How do you manage school and other work?

My writing started over the lockdown period, so most of my school work was done online during class. Our teachers didn't give us much work due to which there was a lot of leisure time, which I utilised for writing my books. Our school has a system where they don't give homework till Class VI, which made it simpler for me. Apart from the time I spend on my school work and writing. I take part in extra-curricular activities too. I also started my YouTube channel during this lockdown, where I shared videos of me spending time with my friends, doing crafts, experiments, baking, etc.

If something has to be changed in society, what would it be?

Irrespective of all the work we should accomplish, we must prioritise what we want to do and what we believe is important to us. It is also important that we spend quality time on the things we are passionate about, as it is important to share our abilities with everyone. In society, I wish to change the pivotal situation of how people are not being able to pursue their dreams and passion due to age boundaries. I would like to break these boundaries that are an obstacle to people from reaching their full potential. Many people of young and old age have been proving that age is just a number and that age shouldn't be used to question one's ability.

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WHICH BIRDS CAN FLY NON-STOP OVER LAND AND SEA, IN SEARCH OF FOOD AND WARMTH?

Here's a closer look at some of the birds that perform great feats of endurance by flying non-stop over land and sea in search of food and warmth.

The Arctic tern

The bird that probably sees more daylight than any other creature in the world is the slender, graceful relative of the seagull, the Arctic term. This 33- to 35-cm-long bird makes the most spectacular migration, travelling over 35,000 km every year. It breeds in the Arctic summer and then flies south, reaching in time for the Antarctic summer!

The terns breed on the Arctic coasts of Alaska, Greenland, Canada, Europe, and Siberia, some nesting within 700 km of the North Pole. They raise their young on the abundance of insects and fish during the short-lived Arctic summer when the sun almost never sets. As winter closes in, they begin flying south. After a journey halfway around the globe, they gorge on the small fish and plankton of the Antarctic ocean throughout the southern summer- once more in almost perpetual daylight!

Shining bronze cuckoo

The Arctic term is not the only avid seeker of the sun. Though it may be the long-distance migration champion, there are other birds that perform greater feats of endurance by flying non-stop over land and sea in search of food and warmth.

The fledglings of the shining bronze cuckoo are abandoned by their parents. With no adult bird to guide them; they fly out each March from their breeding grounds in New Zealand.

They accurately follow the path of their parents to Australia, and from there, turn northwards to Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago. Out of the total distance of 6,400 km, 2,000 km is over open sea! One mistake can be fatal, for the birds cannot swim.

Ruby-throated hummingbird

The ruby-throated hummingbird flies 800 km non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico to South America every autumn. Scientists are baffled, because the bird weighs just 3.5 gm, not enough to store so much energy.

What guides birds across such distances so accurately? Scientists discovered in 1977 that deposits of magnetic iron oxide in the skulls of migratory birds may act as a built-in compass. Some believe that the instinct to migrate maybe encoded in the genes, compelling the birds to behave as their ancestors did, even without apparent reason.

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WHY ARE THE BEACHES IMPORTANT FOR ECOSYSTEM?

Beaches are much more than just recreation - they are integral to the ecosystem and for livelihood. There is thus, a need to preserve them.

Beaches are amazing wonders of nature. But they are not just spaces for recreational activities. They support an incredible diversity of marine life and the livelihood of fisherfolk. They act as a natural barrier between the land and the sea protecting coastal areas from large waves during a storm. Without this barrier, coastal land would be infertile, courtesy, the sea's salty water.

India has a long coastline of over 7,500 km which includes both sides of the Indian peninsula and the islands. But, did you know that at many places along the coast, the sandy shoreline has been disappearing slowly? As much as 33 per cent of the coastline has been lost in 26 years between 1990 and 2016 alone. This phenomenon, known as coastal erosion is natural and human-induced.

Coasts undergo constant changes due to natural factors, such as rivers flowing into the sea, sediment deposition, tides, storms, tsunamis and more. However, it is human activity that has put our beaches in peril today.

Threatened existence

A beach is formed when a river deposits large amounts of sediment as it drains into the sea. Dams, built along the course of rivers, have disturbed this natural flow of sediment to the coast. Many ports and fishing harbours dotting the coastline have changed the natural pattern of sand distribution along the coast. Sediments have to be removed from time-to-time to maintain ports. But, they are rarely ever replenished, leading to beach erosion.

Rampant sand mining is a huge contributor to coastal erosion. Sand is a common raw material for construction activities, and its growing demand has spawned sand mafias, which routinely take away truckloads of sand from beaches. Then, mangrove forests hemming the shoreline, that bind the sand together and prevent erosion, are being destroyed for building homes factories, and for commercial activities like aquaculture.

Global warming, over the past several decades, has caused glaciers to melt, leading to a rise in sea levels. Rising seas have been slowly engulfing coastal areas. Due to the rapidly warming Indian Ocean, cyclones are increasing in number and intensity on India's east and west coasts. Severe cyclones cause changes to the coastal geography. Added to this are many illegal constructions that have encroached upon the coastline despite a ban. This has not only endangered coastal ecosystems but also caused large-scale beach erosion.

In the past two decades, the sea has swallowed up large stretches of our coastline, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing families into temporary shelters. With no beach to stop the sea from flooding villages and towns, the govemment built high stone walls to keep the waves at bay. But sea walls seem to have caused more harm than good.

Erosion during the monsoon is natural, but after the rains, the beach gets restored as the sediments that are washed away are returned to the beach But stone walls block this natural movement of sand. They also redirect the waves and cause another area along the coast to erode. Moreover, sea walls block the easy access of fishermen to the sea. In Kerala, over 65 per cent of the coast is now lined with stone walls instead of sand.

Beach restoration

Until 1989, Puducherry had a beautiful beach drawing thousands of tourists each year. It began to erode soon after the construction of a harbour, and disappeared completely within a few years. After unsuccessful attempts to contain the sea with stone walls, Puducherry finally adopted a sustainable plan to restore the beach. A triangular-shaped artificial reef, submerged into the sea, has been able to partially restore it within a year.

Odisha has installed geotextile tubes at Pentha, a small coastal hamlet in Kendrapara district. These tubes acted as an effective barrier and protected the coast during the cyclones that battered the state in the last decade. The beach has been restored here as well.

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WHAT IS CRYPTOZOOLOGY?

It is the study of animals whose existence has not been proved or documented by mainstream Zoology. Such animals include creatures from myths and legends such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti, among many others. Cryptozoology also involves searching for living members of extinct species such as dinosaurs. All these animals are collectively called 'cryptids'.

The search for cryptids is largely based on alleged sightings and stories; the lack of concrete evidence has kept cryptozoology from being recognised as a true branch of science. However, cryptozoologists argue that several animals like the okapi, giant squid, the mountain gorilla, and so on, were deemed cryptids before their existence was brought to light. Although examples of such successes are few and far, the prospect of unravelling more mysteries of nature continues to give cryptozoology a huge following.

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HOW DO ROADS DEVELOP POTHOLES?

In 16th century England, potters would dig into roads to get at the clay deposits underneath leaving gaping holes on the surface. These 'potterholes or potholes as they came to be called, were a menace to carts and stagecoaches, especially on dark country roads.

Today, potholes on the roads are not caused by potters but by water seepage and heavy traffic. When water seeps into the soil that supports the asphalt or cement surface, the soil starts loosening and liquefying at some spots and then it can no longer cushion the constant pressure put on those spots by the wheels of fast moving cars, trucks, buses and other heavy vehicles. The road starts cracking. The pattern made by the cracks resembles scales on a crocodile's back and is called 'crocodile cracking

Crocodile cracking is a sign that the road at that spot is in distress. If repairs are not done in time to eliminate the cracks, the tyres of speeding vehicles widen the cracks and break up the road, eventually creating a pothole.

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WHAT IS THE LUNAR RAINBOW?

A rainbow is a thing of beauty. We know that a rainbow is produced when sunlight is refracted by water droplets in the atmosphere. However, what happens if water droplets reflect and refract moonlight? Simple. We get a moonbow, and no, they aren't a figment of your imagination.

Moonbows are known as moon rainbow or lunar rainbows. They are much fainter than rainbows because of the lower intensity of moonlight (which is reflected sunlight), and their colours are too faint to be perceived by the human eye. They often appear a ghostly white. However, the colours can be seen through photography. They can be viewed most easily when the Moon is at or nearest to its brightest phase, full-moon. The best time to see moonbows is a couple of hours before sunrise or after sunset. Did you know that they are said to have first been mentioned by Aristotle back in 350BC and that there are certain parts of the world where you are more likely to see them, such as Hawaii?

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