Category: Life & Style

Members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) have presented evidence from a lake in Ontario, Canada that they believe can help pinpoint a start date for the new human-driven epoch.

According to the chair of the AWG, Colin Waters, a geologist with University of Leicester, human activity is “no longer just influencing Earth’s sphere, it’s actually controlling” it. The announcement on July 11 centred on discoveries made in Lake Crawford, located about 60 km west of Toronto.

Sediment settled at the bottom of lakes can provide scientists with a geological record of changing environmental conditions. The team of scientists collected core samples from 11 other sites, but Lake Crawford’s exceptional depth allowed sediment to float downward fairly intact, creating layers that can capture distinct environmental markers, helping the team document a “golden spike” among its layers of sediment. Part of this “spike” was documented by the presence of plutonium, which rarely occurs naturally, leading scientists to conclude it came from nuclear testing in the 1950s.

Colin Waters added it was a “clear marker” for the shift to the Anthropocene, the age of humans. He and the other members of the AWG have proposed naming the start of the new epoch between 1950 and 1954. If accepted, the Anthropocene — derived from “anthropo-“, meaning “human” — would mark the conclusion of the Holocene, the epoch that spanned the last 11,700 years.

The Indonesian Parliament on July 11 passed into law the nation’s Health Bill, allowing foreign medical specialists to practise and be based in the country. The law aims at simplifying bureaucratic processes for general physicians to become specialists, and regulating the collection of the country’s biomedical, genomic data for processing overseas. President Joko Widodo must sign it within a month to officially turn it into law.

With foreign specialists coming into the country, the traffic of middle-class and rich Indonesians going overseas to seek treatment will be curbed, said the Health Ministry. Affluent Indonesians frequently travel to Singapore, Malaysia, the United States and Europe for medical services.

Foreign doctors must clear a competence evaluation before they can be issued a practice licence by the health minister. With the licence, they can undergo an adaptation process at a local health facility. The specialists who have practised at least five years overseas or are experts in certain fields with a strong portfolio are exempted from the evaluation and adaptation process. 

The health bill also introduces a ban on the sharing of biomedical, genomic data overseas. Sharing of such data is allowed only if a list of conditions is met, such as getting approval from the patient and the health minister, and declaring that the purpose of the data sharing is for research and the technology required to do the intended research is not yet present in Indonesia. 

Starting 2024, Bali in Indonesia will impose a 150,000 rupiah (S$13.30) tax on tourists to preserve its culture.

The payment of a fee for foreign tourists applies only one time during their visit to the “Island of Gods.” The fee will have to be paid electronically and will apply to foreign tourists entering Bali from abroad or from other parts of Indonesia. The levy will not apply to domestic Indonesian tourists.

The resort haven of Bali attracts millions of foreign visitors annually. More than two million tourists visited the island in 2022. The government plans to use it for the environment, culture and build better-quality infrastructure so that travelling to Bali becomes more comfortable and safe.

Bali has vowed a crackdown on misbehaving tourists after a spate of incidents, including acts of disrespect to the culture of the predominant Hindu island. In recent months, Bali immigration deported a few foreign nationals when they were found filming without clothes. In June, the local government published a guide for tourists by the island’s immigration office.

The first Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus outside India will come up in Tanzania’s Zanzibar, and offer two academic programmes from October. The new campus will also be the first to be led by a woman director.

The Union government on July 6 announced that the first IIT campus overseas will be established by IIT-Madras (IIT-M), in the Tanzanian island city of Zanzibar after an MoU was signed between India and Tanzania. The move is in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which recommends that “high-performing Indian universities will be encouraged to set up campuses in other countries”.

Dr Preeti Aghalayam, an IIT-M alumna and a professor in its department of chemical engineering, has been appointed as the director-in-charge of the Zanzibar campus, IIT-M director V Kamakoti told a media conference in Delhi on July 10.

The institute will initially offer two courses – a four-year Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and a two-year Master’s in Technology in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence designed by IIT-M. The campus will cater to students from all over the world, including India, and a total of 70 students – 50 in the Bachelor’s course and 20 in the Master’s course – will be admitted this year.

Astronomers across the world announced on June 29 that they have found the first evidence of a long-believed form of gravitational waves that create a “background hum” rumbling throughout the universe.

The breakthrough has been made by hundreds of scientists using radio telescopes in North America, Europe, China, India, and Australia after years of work. It has been hailed as a major milestone that opens a new window into the universe.

Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of the universe that travel through everything at the speed of light. First predicted by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, their existence was not confirmed until 2015, when the US and Italian observatories detected the first gravitational waves created by two black holes colliding. These high-frequency waves were the result of a single violent event that sends a strong, short burst rippling towards Earth.

However, for decades, scientists have been looking for low-frequency gravitational waves, which they believed to be constantly rolling through space like background noise. Working together under the International Pulsar Timing Array consortium, scientists revealed that they have finally found strong evidence of these background waves.

To find evidence, astronomers looked at pulsars, the dead cores of stars that exploded in a supernova. Radio telescopes around the world were aimed at 115 pulsars throughout the Milky Way. Scientists then measured the incredibly small differences in the timing of the pulses and detected changes of less than one millionth of a second across more than 20 years.

Changi Airport Group (CAG) has introduced new measures such as refresh pods, water coolers and protective sun wear to keep its outside workers cool.

At the new 2.5-metre-tall refresh pods installed at various staff rest areas, cool air blows and circulates within the pod at the easy touch of a button. These pods help the airside workers to cool down or dry themselves. Each pod can accommodate up to five at a time.

To keep workers well hydrated, there are over 40 water coolers installed at the airside, which makes it to about eight coolers per pier. A drinks truck has been deployed to remind workers to drink up. Protective sun wear such as UV arm sleeves have also been distributed to the staff.

About 30,000 workers work at CAG’s airside as ramp assistants, aircraft maintenance engineers and in-flight catering drivers, to name a few. For new joiners, heat acclimatisation protocols were encouraged for them to get used to the work environment. These heat stress management measures are part of managing higher ambient temperatures at the CAG under its climate resilience strategy.

After 12 years, the United Nations Secretary-General has taken India off a list of countries mentioned in a report on children and armed conflict. This is the first time since 2010 that the country has not been named in the report alongside countries such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lake Chad basin, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

The report on ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ said India has been “removed from the report in 2023” in view of measures taken by the government to “better protect children.”

Officials of the Ministry of Women and Child Development on June 28 said that this became possible due to the introduction of various policies and institutional changes since 2019.

An official statement said that a roadmap for cooperation and collaboration on child protection issues was developed by the Ministry under the guidance and leadership of Union Minister of Women and Child Development Smriti Irani. Earlier, the Juvenile Justice Act was not implemented, and the juvenile homes there were not functioning properly. Other infrastructure such as Child Welfare Committees, Juvenile Justice Boards, Child Care Homes have since been established, a senior ministry official said.

Many of the measures suggested by the UN have already been carried out or underway. The Ministry has carried out training of security forces in protection of children. The use of pellet guns has already been suspended. And the JJ Act and POCSO Act are being implemented.

About 27 metric tonnes of ice and snow melt in the Himalayas was prevented by the Indian national lockdown, in place from March 25, 2020, to May 31, 2020, according to a new study.

Reduced anthropogenic pollutant emissions during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns decreased snowmelt in the Himalayas, the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Nexus said.

Liqiang Zhang from Beijing Normal University, China, and colleagues explored how the sudden, dramatic reduction in particulate pollution in the region affected snow and ice melt, using multiple satellite data as well as a coupled atmosphere-chemistry-snow model.

The researchers estimate that the reduced anthropogenic pollutant emissions during the Indian lockdown was responsible for 71.6 percent of the reduction in radiative forcing on snow in April 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. This cut in radiative forcing may have avoided 27 tonnes in ice and snow melt.

Snow and ice on the Tibetan plateau act as a water source for over 20 percent of the global population. However, ice and snow in the Himalayas have been melting at an accelerating rate in recent decades. While the prime reason for this melting is suggested to be climate change, air pollution also plays a role, as the dark particles of dust and soot that fall on frozen surfaces absorb solar energy and melt the nearby snow and ice. 

The National University of Singapore (NUS) has become the first Asian university to rank in the Best 10 of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Ranking. It moved up three positions from rank 11 last year to break into the top 10. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT),US, topped the ranking for the twelfth consecutive time this year, followed closely by Cambridge University and Oxford University of the United Kingdom.

The top 10 global universities also included Harvard University at number four, Stanford University at number five, Imperial College London at number six, ETH Zurich at number seven, National University of Singapore (NUS) at number eight, UCL at rank nine, and University of California, Berkeley (UCB) at the tenth spot.

In the latest rankings, American universities made up half of the top 20 institutions in the world. UC Berkeley has made a comeback to the best 10 after a long absence this time. Three Australian universities also jumped in rankings to enter the top 20.

From India, the best performer was IIT Bombay, which climbed 23 positions to secure a spot among the world’s top 150 universities.

The annual rankings in the latest edition, released on June 28, saw minimal changes within the top 10 list. However, significant fluctuations were observed in the lower rankings, as QS introduced new metrics — sustainability, employment outcomes and international research network.

Indonesia, Mexico, Paraguay, Philippines, and Vietnam are the most positive countries in the world, according to Gallup’s latest Global Emotions report. Afghanistan is the least positive country in the world.

The survey found that people across the world had more positive experiences in 2022 as compared to 2021. The global rise in negative emotions stalled last year, and positive emotions showed signs of recovery.

The Gallup asked adults in 142 countries and areas in 2022 if they had five different negative experiences on the day before the survey. The responses were compiled into an index. The survey found that about four in 10 adults worldwide experienced a lot of worry (41 percent) or stress (40 percent), and nearly one in three experienced a lot of physical pain (32 percent). More than one in four experienced sadness (27 percent), and slightly fewer experienced anger (23 percent).

Similarly, the Positive Experience Index accounted for people’s responses to five questions about positive experiences they had the day before the survey. Higher scores of the index indicate that more of the population reported experiencing these emotions.

After dropping for the first time in 2021 after years of stability, positive emotions rebounded slightly in 2022. The global index score in 2022, 70, is up one point from the previous year, although it is still lower than the score of 71 in the years leading up to the pandemic and the first year of the pandemic.