Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Showing posts with label India. Show all posts
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Mammal origin in India
Many present day plant and animal species might have their origin in India, a new find has suggested.
Scientists have suggested the new theory after the discovery of a 66-million-year old tooth in central India. The newfound tooth was unearthed in a sedimentary rock sandwiched between lava flows from the late part of the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.
According to a new study led by Guntupalli Prasad of the University of Jammu, the tooth may have belonged to one of the condylarths, which were a group of primitive mammals. They included the ancestors of modern hoofed animals such as goats, horses, cows, sheep, and deer.
Because the newfound molar is about three million years older than the earliest known Condylarth specimen, this places it on the Indian subcontinent at a time when the landmass was a drifting island that had just broken away from the super continent called Gondwana. This has fuelled speculation about many mammal species originating in India.
"Many researchers had postulated that mammalian groups may have originated from basal Gondwanan stocks during the northward flight of India and finally dispersed to Asia when India collided with the Asian mainland around 55 million years ago," said Prasad.
Scientists are also supporting this theory because mammal fossils found on the southern continents that date to the time of Gondwana are quite rare.
"With a few minor exceptions, the only other place where there are really good records of mammals at that time is North America," said J David Archibald, an evolutionary biologist at San Diego State University.
But some researchers are puzzled about the primitive tooth's presence in India. "How did this animal get onto India, when the landmass was probably about in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a rapid drift northward?" asks Kenneth Rose, a palaeontologists. "That's one of the really intriguing questions here. If it is an ungulate (hoofed mammal), it provides an interesting scenario that some primitive stock got onto India and later evolved into ungulates," he speculates.
An interesting hypothesis is that good interspecies exchange existed between India and the Asian continent even during the Cretaceous period.
If so, the early ungulates might not have originated in India but somehow moved there from northern locales, where their fossils are more commonly found. "But it's still quite interesting to realize that there is some kind of placental mammal that was on India in the late Cretaceous period," said Rose.
Scientists have suggested the new theory after the discovery of a 66-million-year old tooth in central India. The newfound tooth was unearthed in a sedimentary rock sandwiched between lava flows from the late part of the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.
According to a new study led by Guntupalli Prasad of the University of Jammu, the tooth may have belonged to one of the condylarths, which were a group of primitive mammals. They included the ancestors of modern hoofed animals such as goats, horses, cows, sheep, and deer.
Because the newfound molar is about three million years older than the earliest known Condylarth specimen, this places it on the Indian subcontinent at a time when the landmass was a drifting island that had just broken away from the super continent called Gondwana. This has fuelled speculation about many mammal species originating in India.
"Many researchers had postulated that mammalian groups may have originated from basal Gondwanan stocks during the northward flight of India and finally dispersed to Asia when India collided with the Asian mainland around 55 million years ago," said Prasad.
Scientists are also supporting this theory because mammal fossils found on the southern continents that date to the time of Gondwana are quite rare.
"With a few minor exceptions, the only other place where there are really good records of mammals at that time is North America," said J David Archibald, an evolutionary biologist at San Diego State University.
But some researchers are puzzled about the primitive tooth's presence in India. "How did this animal get onto India, when the landmass was probably about in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a rapid drift northward?" asks Kenneth Rose, a palaeontologists. "That's one of the really intriguing questions here. If it is an ungulate (hoofed mammal), it provides an interesting scenario that some primitive stock got onto India and later evolved into ungulates," he speculates.
An interesting hypothesis is that good interspecies exchange existed between India and the Asian continent even during the Cretaceous period.
If so, the early ungulates might not have originated in India but somehow moved there from northern locales, where their fossils are more commonly found. "But it's still quite interesting to realize that there is some kind of placental mammal that was on India in the late Cretaceous period," said Rose.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Friday, July 06, 2007
Lights from India now illuminate homes in Afghanistan
TECH-SOLUTION: Dr. Ranganayakulu Bodavala with his LED-based home lights at Chintapally in Andhra Pradesh.
tiny organisation in this village in Andhra Pradesh’s Nalgonda district is now a part of international efforts to reconstruct Afghanistan, supplying home lights based on LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology.
The small lantern-type lamp, developed by “Thrive” (jumbled acronym for Volunteers For Rural Health, Education and Information Technology), has been illuminating about 4,000 homes in the provinces of Kabul and Maidan Wardak in Afghanistan since November 2006. A consignment of 3,000 lamps is all set to reach there this month, according to B. Ranganayakulu Bodavala, founder of Thrive.
“[The illumination provided by] our light is undoubtedly equal to a half a dozen kerosene lanterns and it can also be recharged with solar light,” Dr. Ranga, who has an MBA besides a Ph.D. in information systems, said.
United Nations Emergency Mission for Afghanistan (UNAMA) entrusted the task to the organisation to convince Afghans that this form of lighting is the most suitable in the absence of kerosene supply. As the $1.4-lakh project has come to an end, many local women are requesting Thrive to continue it, ready to pay from their savings.
Community participation is the key. “Each battery in the lamp lasts for three to four years and the village volunteer appointed by us recharges it once in a week. Our volunteers carry back-up batteries to replace the used ones,” Dr. Bodavala said.
As part of Columbia University’s Millennium Village project, Thrive despatched 500 lamps to Kenya. Another 300 were sent to Cambodia under an international project. Some non-governmental organisations have been working with Thrive to illuminate more off-grid areas in India. It is implementing a project for 10,000 Kondh homes in Koraput district with World Bank support.
The organisation imports LEDs from Japan, control circuits from the United States and batteries from China. It has produced 16,000 LED-based lights and is planning to go for mass production at a sprawling complex here to meet national and international demand.
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