Decoding the legacy of Alan Turing

 

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  Alan Turing. Photo: King's College, Cambridge Digital Archives 

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  Alan Turing with contemporaries at King's College, Cambridge. Photo: King's College, Cambridge Digital Archives

The birth centenary of the legendary mathematical and computing genius was on June 23

Every now and then, random computer and web applications ask us to prove that we are indeed human. This popular and ubiquitous security test, widely known as Captcha, requires us to enter characters that we are shown to convince the system that we’re not code. Technologists know this as a reverse Turing test.

Short for ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’, Captcha is the converse of the Turing test, devised by legendary mathematical and computing genius Alan M. Turing.

Turing’s theory

Turing’s theory in the Thirties, long before computers existed as we know it, was that if a human was to interact with a machine, and if he was convinced that the machine’s response was that of a human’s, then the computing system would have passed the Turing test.

On Saturday, as the world celebrates the birth centenary of this legendary genius, one wonders if the world of technology and logic would have been the same without his groundbreaking contributions.

His life, packed with creative and scientific breakthroughs, met with a tragic end at the age of 41. To merely call him the ‘Father of theoretical computer science’ is to dismiss him with an easy cliche of a tribute.

Codebreaking

Turing’s most well-known and celebrated achievement, perhaps the one easiest understood, was the work he did with Britain’s codebreaking centre when he cracked German code ‘Enigma’ during World War II. His contribution there was significant for the electromechanical crypt-analysis machine he devised, the Bombe, which helped the Allies listen to German secrets.

Tragic end

However, his contribution to his country, and towards the understanding of computer science and technology, did not stop his conviction in 1952. He was convicted for homosexuality, and put through chemical castration (treatment with female hormones) before he died of cyanide poisoning, widely believed to have been a suicide.

This tragic end to a remarkable life, one that is remembered not only for his contributions to technology as we know it today, but also for the philosophical pursuit of understanding the human mind, was acknowledged and recognised 56 long years later, when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made a formal public apology for the way the British government treated him after the war.

Years of campaigning

The unequivocal apology was the culmination of intense campaigning by scientists, technologists, academics and leading public figures.

Though it took over five decades for the government to officially acknowledge both his genius and his contribution to the outcome of World War II, the scientific community had for decades spent time and effort to decode his seminal work, which touches upon a range of mathematical and computational fields from algorithms and cryptology to artificial intelligence and biological and life sciences.

As early as in the Sixties, the scientific community instituted an award, considered the highest distinction in computer science, in his name: the Association for Computing Machinery’s Turing Award.

Worldwide, scientists and technologists have planned a number of programmes to be held through the year, to mark his birth centenary.

Google doodle

In a fitting tribute on Saturday morning, Google marked his 100th birth anniversary with one of its creative doodles. A whole generation of tech enthusiasts, who may not have familiarised themselves with the pioneering works of Turing, learnt through this interactive model, what Turing’s contribution was all about. What Google’s Turing Machine does is give you a binary series to match by creating a short programme using the buttons provided at the bottom. On getting it right, the letters of the grey Google logo get filled with colour.

His contributions

Turing’s most widely impacting contribution is perhaps the introduction of two key concepts — of algorithms and computing machines — that he outlined in his paper on ‘Computable Number’ in 1936, while at King’s College, Cambridge.

His inventions and theoretical understanding of computational logic have, over the years, paved the way for researchers in a wide range of fields.

The Bombe

Turing’s work was first noticed when he devised the Bombe, after which he headed to the National Physical Laboratory where he created among the first designs for a stored computer program called the Automatic Computing Engine.

A complex machine, this laid the foundation for the first pilot electronic computer built in Britain around 1951. His basic design was used in several computers and computing technologies, from mainframes to the world’s first personal computer that came over three decades later.

The Turing machine

Turing’s most lasting contribution, however, was the Turing machine. A machine or computational method, he proposed that a long piece of tape could be used to write simple instructions, allowing the machine to read an instruction at a time. The machine could then use one of its coded algorithms to process these instructions.

Why was this important? This was pathbreaking simply because till then the idea of a stored programme, reading and processing multiple instructions had not been conceived.

This theoretical understanding is what makes Turing the father of theoretical computation, and the pioneer of computing technology as we know it today. Going through the list of technologies and scientific projects that Turing either completed, contributed to or left unfinished, it is difficult to not be amazed at his genius.

Diverse interests

From speech encryption to his fascinating work where he was trying to understand the structure of plant petals and seeds, and the adherence of sunflower petals to the Fibonacci sequence, Turing was one whose genius, and inquisitiveness, knew no bounds.

His lesser-known achievements are as fascinating to read about as his lasting contributions; for instance, did you know that back in 1950, as part of work on artificial intelligence, Turing wrote the first-ever chess computer programme ‘Turbochamp’.

Though it took a few other scientists, and a couple more years for the first successful chess program to be played on the computer, the video of the game he played, back in 1952, as the program, against his colleague Alick Glennie is an all-time favourite of tech enthusiasts. The program, and Turing, lost to Glennie in 29 moves.

Delhi lives the longest day of the year

 

The Hindu An expert of SPACE foundation educating the public on Summer Solstice at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Thursday. Photo: R. V. Moorthy

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natural science astronomy
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While the Californians dance, the Swedes light bonfires and Britons go to Stonehenge to watch the sun rise on June 21, the longest day of the year, India thanks the rain god for the onset of the monsoon.

Though Delhi-based astrologer V. Kapoor dismisses Summer Solstice – the day when the earth is most tilted toward the sun – as a Western concept, he says that it marks the beginning of the rainy season in the country.

Others see the few longer hours of daylight in Delhi as an added opportunity. “I wish every day was extended by a couple of hours, I would earn a few more hundred rupees by selling more,” says Rajinder, a fruit vendor.

For Om Prakash, Assistant Information Officer at the New Delhi Municipal Council, it was the longest day of being quizzed by his colleagues. “As soon as we all gathered in the office they asked me why the phenomenon occurs.” Recapping his morning conversation, he suggested that they visit Jantar Mantar – the astronomical observatory on the other side of the road – as it would explain it all.

“Among the scientific instruments is one that can measure the length of the day and only on this day a shadow is cast by the instrument,” Mr. Prakash said, going into a barrage of the angles of sun’s inclinations.

At Delhi University it was business as usual, but the extended sunshine hours did not miss the intellectuals. Ramjas College Principal Prof. Rajendra Prasad decided to call it a day at exactly 6.45 p.m. and was struck by daylight, “I remember the exact timing because I got late going home as I was preparing for a speech to deliver at the Work Bank tomorrow. I knew it was supposed to be the longest day as I read it in the morning papers but I forgot by the evening,” he said.

Bipin Tiwary, who heads the university’s Equal Opportunities Cell, too realised the phenomenon only on his way back home. “I was stuck in my office, curtains drawn from noon and did not know it was the longest day. I stepped out at 7-30 and noticed something really strange. What was all the bright light doing so late,” he said

A few blocks away at St. Stephen’s College the gruelling process of sorting out application forms was under way as interview lists for applications are due for Friday. “I knew that it was the longest day, the science behind it and everything, but this time I really felt it,” said Economics Professor Nanditha Narayan.

Long hours of work were felt by others too, but it was Sachin Brahma of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) who put it in perspective: “The yearly dance of the sun when it moves from the Northern to the Southern hemisphere and back again saw its finale for the northern hemisphere today on Summer Solstice day. The sun will begin its journey to shower its light and life to the southern hemisphere. For us who live in the north, today was the longest day, while the south saw its shortest day.”

The science behind Total Sanitation Campaign

D. BALASUBRAMANIAN
 

      The cause of tropical enteropathy is infection by the bacteria found in faeces. Photo: K. R. Deepak

Minister Jairam Ramesh is a man with a mission. Stung by the fact that over 626 million Indians do not have access to toilets, he has initiated the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) or Total Sanitation Campaign, which would attempt to banish open defecation within a decade.

To ask why and how much it costs would be churlish. Open defecation and open urination are national shames — not just from the aesthetic, human dignity and cleanliness angles, but from the health angle as well.

Where do these refuses end up ultimately? As Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment points out: “rapidly modernizing India is drowning in its own excreta” (see her commentary in the 14 Jun 2012 issue of Nature; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7402/full/486185a.html)

And it is this ocean of excreta that our rural (and urban slum) children are being raised in. What are the health consequences of such a situation? Minister Ramesh is right in quoting Dr. John H. Humphrey of Johns Hopkins University, who has published a “viewpoint” in the 19 September 2009 issue of The Lancet.

What does Dr. Humphrey say? He points out that of the 555 million pre-school children in developing countries, 32 per cent have stunted growth and 20 per cent are underweight.

These two conditions together cause the death of one in every five children before they turn 5 years of age. For those alive, the long-term consequences are severe poor performance in school, dropping out, intellectual deficits and therefore lower economic productivity as adults.

Before Humphrey, doctors and public health specialists assumed that such stunting, underweight, and lower cognitive abilities in children are due to lack of enough nutrition or bouts of diarrhoea, or both.

However, data from various studies show that controlling either or both, while helpful, does not always lead the child becoming heavier and taller. Other factors appear involved.

Dr. Humphrey has suggested another culprit, which is the major cause behind stunted growth and underweight in children in their pre-school years.

This is referred to as tropical enteropathy. This is a condition which affects the intestines (hence entero-) by killing or disabling the villi and microvilli covering the surface of the small intestine, and helping the absorption of the digested food into the blood and lymphatic systems.

It also leads to inflammation and mal-absorption. The benefits of whatever the child eats are not being transferred and utilised in the system for growth and development.

And the cause of tropical enteropathy is infection by the bacteria found in faeces. Children (and adults) living in conditions of poor sanitation are affected in great measure by such faecal bacterial infection leading to enteropathy.

As evidence, Humphrey points out to several studies done mostly in the 1960s in Asia, Africa and Central America, which showed a large number of adults and children living in poor sanitary conditions suffering from tropical enteropathy.

That the environmental sanitation is responsible is also suggested by studies on American soldiers in Vietnam and Peace Corps volunteers in Pakistan, who contracted tropical enteropathy while there, but recovered soon after returning to the U.S. Thus, NBA has a scientific basis behind it.

Actually, the move is such an obvious no-brainer. And many non-governmental organizations have been at it with varying degrees of success.

Sulabh Shauchalaya, (www.sulabhinternational.org) initiated in many cities by Mr. Bindeshwar Pathak, has been a boon to hundreds of thousands of people.

The Gramalaya group in Tiruchi has now gone beyond towns and helps Anganwadis in some parts of Tamil Nadu. Another notable effort is that of the renowned nutrition scientist Dr. Mahtab Bamji and the gynaecologist Dr. Devyani Dangoria, both of Hyderabad, have been working with several villages in the Narsapur area in Medak district.

They work with the women there on matters of maternal and child health, nutrition, kitchen gardens for vegetables and greens, education of children and adults, and sanitation.

They have helped the villagers make safe and usable latrines by stacking up 4-foot wide cement rings, and digging pits underneath. A bit of the cost is shared by the owner and the rest by the Nirmal Gram Abhiyan programme of CAPART.

They can make over 600 of them within the much talked about Rs. 35 lakhs. Thus NBA has several models to think about and improve upon.

What have been some of the issues in constructing such toilets? Bamji and Sunita list several. Water will of course be the major one; recall hand-washing alone can solve half the problem of infection.

Second, the type of soil is an issue. Use of night soil as manure apparently depends on the type of soil into which the waste goes. There is thus a practical problem here that needs to be addressed as NBA helps build toilets across India. Third is a matter of what and how the users would like the toilet. It appears that several of them feel “claustrophobic” in an enclosed space. NBA might want to take the help of land/building designers on this issue.

Could they announce a national region-wise competition for designing rural toilets suited to the local conditions of soil, water, population density, micro-environment and other relevant features? As Sunita Narain has said, out-of-the-box thinking is needed here.

Ultimately, it is mindset that needs to change. Habits have to change. If Sikkim can do it (it is the first Nirmal Rajya — 100 per cent open defecation-free), the rest of us can do it too!

Let us move from being burdened by the ‘dreamy desert sands of dead habit’ and move to an India where every child and adult is assured of good sanitation.

The body, mind and well-being of future Indians are at stake without it. The accomplished actress Miss Vidya Balan, whom Minister Ramesh has recruited to help in this noble cause, has her role cut out.

dbala@lvpei.org

Venus makes last in a lifetime move across face of Sun

 

Binoculars for Astronomy  www.mrstarguy.comIncredible resolution for sharp  clear viewing. Ads by Google

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Agencies : Cape Caneveral, Wed Jun 06 2012, 10:22 hrs

              The planet Venus made a slow transit across the face of the sun on Tuesday, the last such passing that will be visible from Earth for 105 years.
Transits of Venus happen in pairs, eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During Tuesday's pass, Venus took the form of a small black dot slowly shifting across the northern hemisphere of the sun.
Armchair astronomers watched the six-hour and 40-minute transit on the Internet, with dozens of websites offering live video from around the world.
Closeup views from the Prescott Observatory in Arizona, fed into Slooh.com's webcast, showed a small solar flaring in the making just beneath Venus' sphere.
Tuesday's transit, completing a 2004-2012 pair, began at 6:09 p.m. EDT
Skywatchers on seven continents, including Antarctica, were able to see all or part of the transit. Even astronauts aboard the International Space Station joined in the spectacle.
I've been planning this for a while, space station flight engineer Don Pettit said in a NASA interview. I knew the transit of Venus would occur during my rotation, so I brought a solar filter with me.
It's not all about pretty pictures. Several science experiments were planned, including studies that could help in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.
Telescopes, such as NASA's Kepler space telescope, are being used to find so-called extrasolar planets that pass in front of their parent stars, much like Venus passing by the sun.
During the transit of Venus, astronomers planned to measure the planet's thick atmosphere in the hope of developing techniques to measure atmospheres around other planets.
           
Studies of the atmosphere of Venus could also shed light on why Earth and Venus, which are almost exactly the same size and orbit approximately the same distance from the sun, are so different.
Venus has a chokingly dense atmosphere, 100 times thicker than Earth's, that is mostly carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Its surface temperature is a lead-melting 900 degrees Fahrenheit (480 degrees Celsius) and towering clouds of sulfuric acid jet around the planet at 220 miles per hour (355 kph) dousing it with acid rain.
Venus is known as the goddess of love, but it's not the type of relationship you'd want, an astronomer said on the Slooh.com webcast. This is a look-but-don't-touch kind of relationship.
Scientists are interested in learning more about Venus' climate in hopes of understanding changes in Earth's atmosphere.
During previous transits of Venus, scientists were able to figure out the size of the solar system and the distance between the sun and the planets.
Tuesday's transit is only the eighth since the invention of the telescope, and the last until Dec. 10-11, 2117. It also is the first to take place with a spacecraft at Venus.
Observations from Europe's Venus Express probe will be compared with those made by several ground and space-based telescopes, including NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the joint U.S.-European Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and Japan's Hinode spacecraft.
      

Can solve mystery of Moon's topsoil ?

  

            

           PTI A stunning discovery of nanoparticles inside bubbles of glass in lunar soil could solve the mystery of why the Moon’s surface topsoil has many unusual properties. File photo: PTI

A stunning discovery of nanoparticles inside bubbles of glass in lunar soil could solve the mystery of why the Moon’s surface topsoil has many unusual properties, according to a scientist. 

           Marek Zbik, from Australia’s Queensland University of Technology’s science and engineering faculty, said scientists had long observed the strange behaviour of lunar soil but had not taken much notice of the nano and submicron particles found in the soil and their source was unknown. 

           Zbik took the lunar soil samples to Taiwan where he could study the glass bubbles without breaking them, using a new technique for studying nanomaterials - called synchrotron-based nano tomography -to look at the particles. 

           Nano tomography is a transmission X-ray microscope which enables 3D images of nanoparticles to be made. 

           “We were really surprised at what we found,” Zbik said. “Instead of gas or vapour inside the bubbles, which we would expect to find in such bubbles on Earth, the lunar glass bubbles were filled with a highly porous network of alien-looking glassy particles that span the bubbles’ interior,” a Queensland statement said.

             

            “It appears that the nanoparticles are formed inside bubbles of molten rocks when meteorites hit the lunar surface. Then they are released when the glass bubbles are pulverised by the consequent bombardment of meteorites on the moon’s surface,” Zbik said.

            

             “This continuous pulverising of rocks on the lunar surface and constant mixing develop a type of soil which is unknown on Earth,” the scientist added.

              

             According to Zbik, nanoparticles behaved under the laws of quantum physics which were completely different from so-called ‘normal’ physics laws. Because of this, materials containing nanoparticles behave strangely according to our current understanding.

            

            “Nanoparticles are so tiny - it is their size and not what they are made of that accounts for their exceptional properties,” Zbik said.

            “We don’t understand a lot about quantum physics yet but it could be that these nanoparticles, when liberated from their glass bubble, mix with other soil constituents and give lunar soil its unusual properties”.

              “Lunar soil is electro-statically charged so it hovers above the surface; it is extremely chemically active; and it has low thermal conductivity, for example, it can be 160 degrees above the surface, but 40 degrees two metres below the surface,” the scientist added.

“It is also very sticky and brittle such that its particles wear the surface off metal and glass,” Zbik said.

Venus transits across the Sun

Century's last look at Venus transit

See photo

NEW DELHI: A rare celestial spectacle -- transit of Venus -- the last for this century, unfolded in the morning sky all across the country on Wednesday, enthralling the astro enthusiasts.

Scientists and amateur astronomers alike celebrated the arrival of the transit of Venus, peering up to the skies to watch a dark black spot slide over the surface of the Sun.

The awesome spectacle was visible all over the country, including the national capital. However, a cloudy sky restricted its visibility from Delhi and some other parts of northern India.

"This was the century's last Venus transit," Nehru Planetarium director N Rathnasree said.

The event was visible at around 7am, she said. Large projectors, pin hole cameras and telescopes were set up to help people see the celestial event unfold at the planetarium, where a large number of people had gathered to see the rare event.

"It is exciting to see such an event," said a Class X student Soumaya.

"It is too good to resist. It is awesome," Nisha Gupta, a school teacher said, who had earlier seen the 2004 spectacle also.

"The next Venus transit will happen after 105.5 years in 2117, making this a lifetime's event," Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) director C B Devgun said.

From the Earth, this phenomenon is seen when the Venus passes between the Sun and the Earth. It occurs in intervals of 8, 121½, 8 and 105½ years, Devgun said.

"The phenomenon should be seen only through solar filters, special solar glasses or with the help of pin hole cameras," secretary of Planetary Society of India N Sri Raghunandan Kumar said.

The last transit of Venus occurred on June 8, 2004 and was visible across India.

4 cups of tea a day can cut diabetes risk

                LONDON: Scientists claim to have found the best way to slash the risk of developing diabetes - to drink at least four cups of tea a day. A study examining tea-drinking habits of more than 12,000 Type 2 diabetes sufferers in across Europe found that drinking four cups tea a day had a 20% lower risk of developing the illness.

The study found that benefits seemed to be most obvious among heavy tea drinkers - drinking a mere one to three cups a day doesn't lower the risk, the researchers said. However, drinking excessive tea prepared with milk and sugar could be quite harmful to health, according to experts.

"Obesity is a major risk factor for the development of type 2 diabetes, but dietary factors may also play a role. One dietary factor of interest is tea consumption," said study author Christian Herder of the Leibniz Center for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University in Germany.

CSIR-NCL working on harnessing solar energy to produce power

            CSIR's chemical arm is doing research on generating electricity from polymer electrolyte fuel cell   A major programme on energy is underway at Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and its affiliate National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) here with a focus on search for novel materials and turning them into devices for affordable technologies.

The CSIR-NCL which has identified Solar energy and Fuel Cell as two major “thrust areas” of its research, is working on harnessing solar energy to produce thermal and electric power, in particular “organic photovoltaic and dye-sensitised solar cells”, the important components of the country’s Solar Mission project to add a 500 MW of power availability, according to Saurav Pal, Director, CSIR-NCL.

“In the area of fuel cells, NCL’s thrust is on polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) which combines hydrogen and air to produce electricity, water and heat, making it an important alternative energy source along with solar and wind,” he said.

Their emerging applications of the fuel cells are in towers, replacement for diesel generations, co-generation in nuclear plants and electrification of rural and urban locations, Dr. Pal noted at a media interaction, explaining CSIR-NCL research activity aimed at taking science out of laboratories in order to enhance the quality of life of the common man.

The research being conducted and to be commissioned soon by NCL will lead to conservation of conventional and fossil fuels and subsequently add to the use of alternative sources of energy, Dr. Pal said.

“The clean energy alternatives being developed by NCL will assist in mitigation of global warming and assist in achievement of the Millennium Development goals”, he added.

The institute has now set up a “Centre of Excellence” for solar energy research inaugurated a few days ago by Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Ashwini Kumar who interacted with CSIR-NCL scientists calling for a boost to sustainable energy research, voicing the government’s commitment to “incentivising” renewable energy use in the country.

The CSIR-NCL is endeavouring to make Indian chemical industry “globally competitive” by designing new and creative process equipment and their integration with process chemistry, the Director stated.

NCL is a flagship laboratory of CSIR which is the largest network of publicly funded research institute in the country.

“World Oceans Day” report is a warning

 

          The Hindu Over Capacity: A Greenpeace report on World Oceans Days says that too many mechanised fishing boats resulting in over fishing will trigger an ecological crisis due to over-fishing.

A Greenpeace report released on the occasion of “World Oceans Day” on Friday warns that India may suffer a three pronged threat due to depleting fish stocks and neglect of marine conservation. The report was formally released by Basudev Acharya, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture.

Fisheries industry contributes to about two per cent of India’s GDP in addition to providing livelihood to about 15 million people. Depleting fish stocks would not only result in massive job losses but would also damage the ecology and the national GDP, the report says.

Ninety per of India’s fish resources are at or above maximum sustainable levels of exploitation. The Greenpeace findings claim convincingly contradicting the official stand that there is still scope for fish landings to increase in India despite the dangerously depleting fish stocks.

In addition to an average annual output value of Rs. 42, 178 crore, marine fisheries form an important socio-economic component of the coastal regions. The fisheries sector has also been one of the major contributors to foreign exchange earning through export.

The report states that India’s fish exports were worth over US $2.8 billion in 2010-2011. Over 45 per cent of this export value came from marine capture fisheries and official targets are to raise this to US $ 6 billion by 2015.

The report is based on statistical data and first hand information of the experience of fishermen. It also gives stress on the ecological damage to marine biodiversity as a result of overfishing. “Capacity, intensity and technology used in combination directly impacts populations of specific species of fish and also negatively alter the ecosystems.”

Too many fishing boats leading to over-fishing, an over reliance on destructive fishing techniques and continued government subsidies for the mechanised fisheries sector are the main causes of the current over-exploitation. The report says the situation has been worsened by rampant pollution, destruction of breeding grounds such as mangrove forests and estuarine areas, hot water discharge from thermal power plants, industrial effluents, sewage from major urban centres and coastal over development.

In the wake of these findings, T. Peter, secretary of the National Fishworkers Forum called for a “comprehensive policy that would address the crisis by moving towards a sustainable approach to fishing that involves fishermen in decision making”. Areeba Hamid, Greenpeace campaigner said that current levels of mechanised fishing are ecologically unsustainable.

Myristica swamps, a vanishing ecosystem in Western Ghats

  

          The Hindu DWINDLING WETLAND: The Myristica Swamps in Western Ghats in Kerala. Photo: Special Arrangement

It is now confined to 53 patches in Kerala

Nestled in the deep valleys of the Western Ghats that is home to a rich diversity of flora and fauna are the vestiges of a pristine habitat that could yield precious information about evolutionary biology and climate change.

Scientists from the Centre for Earth Science Studies here and the Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) in Pune are studying the Myristica swamps, a vanishing ecosystem, now largely confined to 53 patches in the Kulathupuzha and Anchal forest ranges and the Shendurney wildlife sanctuary in Kerala.

A study by the ARI scientists, published recently in the journal, Quaternary International, describes the discovery of plant fossils of the ancient Myristica swamps from the Konkan coast.

The fossils, estimated to be 44,000 years old, throw light on the evergreen vegetation along the Konkan coast. The study infers that Konkan lost its wet evergreen forest cover due to the changes in the monsoon pattern.

The Myristica swamps are tropical fresh water swamp forests with an abundance of Myristica trees, the most primitive of the flowering plants on earth. The evergreen, water-tolerant trees have dense stilt roots helping them stay erect in the thick, black, wet alluvial soil.

The swamps are typically found in valleys, making them prone to inundation during monsoon rains. The trees form a fairly dense forest with a closed canopy.

Studies have shown that the swamps, which would have occupied large swathes of the thickly- wooded Western Ghats in the past, are now restricted to less than 200 hectares in the country.

“As of now, the Myristica swamps of the Western Ghats are fragmented, with Kerala holding a major share of this habitat. Leaving aside a few more patches in Karnataka and Goa, this exceptional wetland has almost disappeared from the Indian subcontinent due to the climatic vicissitudes over the last 18,000 to 50,000 years, a period referred to as the Late Pleistocene period,” said K.P.N. Kumaran, CSIR Emeritus Scientist, ARI.

According to C.N. Mohanan, Head, Department of Environmental Sciences, CESS, the swamps could promote better understanding of the influence of climate change on the evolution of plants. “They are living museums of ancient life.”

Dr. Mohanan said human activities posed a major threat to the unique habitat. “Over time, many of the patches of swamps in Kerala have been converted to paddy fields, arecanut plantations or settlements while others were submerged for irrigation projects. There is an urgent need to conserve the remaining swamps.”

Mr. Kumaran said: “These swamps have high watershed value. When they are drained, filled or otherwise disturbed, their water holding capacity is lost, resulting in floods and erosion during the rainy season and dry streambeds the rest of the year.”

The swamps in Kerala provide habitat for a rich diversity of invertebrate and vertebrate species, including amphibians, reptiles and mammals.

A total of 65 tree species and 72 species of shrub- herb combine have been recorded from the swamps. It is estimated that the wetlands contain 23 per cent of butterflies, 11 per cent of spiders, 8.4 per cent of fishes, more than 50 per cent of amphibians, more than 20 per cent of reptiles, 26.6 per cent of birds and 6.6 per cent of mammals in the whole of Kerala.

Of the animals recorded from the swamps, 16.3 per cent are endemic to the Western Ghats and 24.2 per cent of the vertebrates are Red Listed.

Species diversity and species abundance inside the swamps are significantly higher than that recorded from outside, for both reptiles and amphibians.

SpaceX Dragon returns to Earth, ends historic trip

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  AP/SpaceX In this photo provided by SpaceX, the Dragon spacecraft floats on the surface of the Pacific Ocean about 500 miles of Mexico's Baja California on Thursday. 
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  AP Andre Kuipers, Expedition 31 flight engineer, inside SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft after it docked with the International Space Station.

Triumphant from start to finish, the SpaceX Dragon capsule parachuted into the Pacific on Thursday to conclude the first private delivery to the International Space Station and inaugurate NASA’s new approach to exploration.

“Welcome home, baby,” said SpaceX’s elated chief, Elon Musk, who said the old-fashioned splashdown was “like seeing your kid come home.”

“You can see so many ways that it could fail and it works and you’re like, ‘Wow, OK, it didn’t fail,’” Musk said, laughing, from his company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California. “I think anyone who’s been involved in the design of a really complicated machine can sympathize with what I’m saying.”

The goal for SpaceX, he told reporters, will be to repeat the success on future flights.

The unmanned supply ship scored a bull’s-eye with its arrival, splashing down into the ocean about 500 miles (800 kilometres) off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. A fleet of recovery ships quickly moved in to pull the capsule aboard a barge for towing to Los Angeles.

It was the first time since the shuttles stopped flying last summer that NASA got back a big load from the space station, in this case more than half a ton of experiments and equipment.

Thursday’s dramatic arrival of the world’s first commercial cargo carrier capped a nine-day test flight that was virtually flawless, beginning with the May 22 launch aboard the SpaceX company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral and continuing through the space station docking three days later and the departure a scant six hours before hitting the water.

The returning bell-shaped Dragon resembled NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft of the 1960s and 1970s as its three red-and-white striped parachutes opened. Yet it represents the future for American space travel now that the shuttles are gone.

“This successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this mission herald a new era in U.S. commercial spaceflight,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement.

Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA’s commercial crew and cargo program, was emotional as he turned to Musk and assured him that NASA was now his customer and that resupply services were about to unfold on a regular basis.

“You have turned those hopes into a reality,” Lindenmoyer said.

Noted Musk “It really shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful. I mean, this mission worked first time right out the gate.”

Musk, the billionaire behind PayPal and Tesla Motors, aims to launch the next supply mission in September under a steady contract with NASA, and insists astronauts can be riding Dragons to and from the space station in as little as three or four years. The next version of the Dragon, for crews, will land on terra firma with “helicopter precision” from propulsive thrusters, he noted. Initial testing is planned for later this year.

President Barack Obama is leading this charge to commercial spaceflight. He wants routine orbital flights turned over to private business so the space agency can work on getting astronauts to asteroids and Mars. Toward that effort, NASA has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in seed money to vying companies.

NASA astronauts are now forced to hitch rides on Russian rockets from Kazakhstan, an expensive and embarrassing outsourcing, especially after a half-century of manned launches from U.S. soil. It will be up to SpaceX or another U.S. enterprise to pick up the reins. Several companies are jockeying for first place.

It will take a few days to transport the fresh-from-orbit Dragon by barge to the Port of Los Angeles. From there, it will be trucked to the SpaceX rocket factory in McGregor, Texas, for unloading and inspection. Reports from the scene are that the spacecraft looks “really good,” Musk said, with no major changes needed for future Dragons, just minor tweaks.

SpaceX or more properly Space Exploration Technologies Corp. plans to hustle off a few returning items while still at sea to demonstrate to NASA a fast 48-hour turnaround. That capability would be needed for future missions bearing vital experiments.

The capsule returned nearly 1,400 pounds (635 kilograms) of old space station equipment and some science samples, a little more than it took up. Because it was a test flight, NASA did not want to load it with anything valuable. It carried up mostly food.

This was only the second time a Dragon has returned from orbit. In December 2010, SpaceX conducted a solo-flying shakedown cruise. Like the Dragon before it, this capsule will likely become a travelling exhibit.

Russia’s Soyuz capsules for carrying crews also parachute down but on land, deep inside Kazakhstan. All of the government-provided cargo vessels of Russia, Europe and Japan are filled with station garbage and burn up on descent.

NASA lost the capability of getting things back when its shuttles were retired last July.

Rival Orbital Sciences Corp. hopes to have its first unmanned test flight off by year’s end, launching from Wallops Island in Virginia. It, too, has a NASA contract for cargo runs.

The grand prize, though, will involve getting American astronauts flying again from U.S. soil and, in doing so, restore national prestige.

Aboard the space station is a small U.S. flag that soared on the first shuttle mission in 1981 and returned to orbit with the final shuttle crew. It will go to the first private rocket maker to arrive with a U.S.—launched crew.

After that, promises Lindenmoyer, there will be more opportunities for partnering NASA and industry perhaps at the moon, Mars or beyond.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation considers the Dragon’s success a critical stepping stone. “It’s a seminal moment for the U.S. as a nation, and indeed for the world,” said its chairman, Eric Anderson.

Eyes turn skyward as Venus travels across sun

• The Hindu Venus (black spot on the left) transits across the face of the sun, as seen in Visakhapatnam on Wednesday. The next transit of Venus is likely to be seen after another 105 years. Photo: K.R. Deepak 
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  AP Venus travels across the surface of the sun as seen through a telescope in Yellowknife, The Northwest Territories.
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  The Hindu Venus (black spot on the left) crosses the sun's face as seen from Chennai’s Elliot's Beach on Wednesday. Photo: V. Ganesan 
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  The Hindu People queue up along the Elliot's Beach in Chennai to look through a telescope as Venus orbits between the Sun and the Earth on Wednesday. Photo: Mukunth

From the U.S. to South Korea, people around the world turned their attention to the daytime sky on Tuesday and early Wednesday in Asia to make sure they caught the once-in-a-lifetime sight of the transit of Venus.

For some astronomers, it wasn’t just a rare planetary spectacle as it won’t be seen for another 105 years. They hoped the passage of Venus between the Earth and the sun would spark curiosity about the universe and our place in it.

Sul Ah Chim, a researcher at the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in South Korea, said he hoped people see life from a larger perspective, and “not get caught up in their small, everyday problems.”

“When you think about it from the context of the universe, 105 years is a very short period of time and the Earth is only a small, pale blue spot,” he said.

While astronomers used the latest technology to document the transit, American astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station was planning to take photos of the event and post them online.

In Mexico, at least 100 people lined up two hours early to view the event through telescopes or one of the 150 special viewing glasses on hand, officials said. Observation points were also set up at a dozen locations.

Venus, which is extremely hot, is one of Earth’s two neighbours and is so close in size to our planet that scientists at times call them near-twins. During the transit, it will appear as a small dot.

The transit is happening during a 6-hour, 40-minute span that began just after 2200 GMT. What you can see and for how long depends on what the sun’s doing in your region during that exact window, and the weather.

Those in most areas of North and Central America will see the start of the transit until the sun sets, while those in western Asia, the eastern half of Africa and most of Europe will catch the transit’s end once the sun comes up.

In Hawaii, astronomers planned viewings at Waikiki Beach, Pearl Harbor and Ko Olina. At Waikiki, officials planned to show webcasts as seen from telescopes from volcanoes Mauna Kea on the Big Island and Haleakala on Maui.

NASA planned a watch party at its Goddard Visitor Centre in Maryland with solar telescopes, “Hubble-quality” images from its Solar Dynamics Observatory Mission and expert commentary and presentations.

Experts from Hong Kong’s Space Museum and local astronomical groups were organising a viewing on Wednesday outside the museum’s building on the Kowloon waterfront overlooking the southern Chinese city’s famed Victoria Harbour.

This will be the seventh transit visible since German astronomer Johannes Kepler first predicted the phenomenon in the 17th century. Because of the shape and speed of Venus’ orbit around the sun and its relationship to Earth’s annual trip, transits occur in pairs separated by more than a century.

It’s nowhere near as dramatic and awe-inspiring as a total solar eclipse, which sweeps a shadow across the Earth, but there will be six more of those this decade.