Science Horizon Volume 5 Issue 11 November, 2020 President, Odisha Bigyan Academy Editorial Board Prof. Pramod Chandra Mishra Prof. Niranjan Barik Editor Prof. Ramesh Chandra Parida Er. Mayadhar Swain Dr. Choudhury Satyabrata Nanda Managing Editor Dr. Rajballav Mohanty Er. Bhagat Charan Mohanty Secretary, Odisha Bigyan Academy Dr. Nilambar Biswal CONTENTS Subject Author Page 1. Editorial : Climate Change and Carbon Neutrality Er. Mayadhar Swain 2 2. The Mysterious Concept of Mass - III Dr. Bijay Kumar Parida 4 3. Mineral Development and Ecological Sustainability Dr. Sundara Narayana Patro 7 4. Behaviour Development of The Child Dr. (Mrs.) Pritishri Parhi 12 5. Let Us Find L.C.M. Dr. Archana Panigrahi 15 6. A Brief History of Indian Math-Magicians Purusottam Sahoo 17 7. O Mighty Planet Venus Vaibhavi Karthik 24 8. One Interesting Series of Nilakantha Er. Mayadhar Swain 25 9. Dragonfly: The Hawk of the Insect World Dr. Raj Ballav Mohanty 26 Dr. Taranisen Panda 10. Stories of Genes: II The Genetic Code G.B.N. Chainy 27 11. Mask: A Need For Survival Dr. Pranab Kumar Ghosh 32 12. Humus - The Skeleton of Soil Meenakhi Prusty 37 Monika Ray 13. Quiz: Covid-19 Pandemic Dr. Bibhuti Narayan Biswal 43 14. Recent News on Science & Technology 45 Cover Design : Kalakar Sahoo NOVEMBER, 2020 // EDITORIAL // CLIMATE CHANGE AND CARBON NEUTRALITY At present Global Warming and Climate the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels Change are the main environmental problems like coal, petroleum oil and natural gas in faced by Earth. The problem is created by factories and thermal power plants. Also lot of man. Both the problems have occurred due to CO2 is emitted from vehicles. Fossil fuels rise in concentration of some gases, contain carbon and when burned CO2 along collectively called green house gases (GHGs) with energy is released. in the atmosphere. These gases allow the sun Before start of industrial revolution in light to come to the surface of Earth, but they 1750, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere obstruct the passage of reflected infrared light was 280 ppm (parts per million) and now it has to the space, thereby increasing Earth’s increased to 412 ppm. This represents a 47% temperature. This is called global warming increase since the beginning of the Industrial and due to this ice in high mountains, glaciers Age and an 11% increase since 2000, when it and Poles have started melting and sea level is was near 370 ppm. Half of the increase in gradually increasing. It is feared that if this atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in tendency goes on, some small islands and low the last 300 years has occurred since 1980, and lying coastal areas will be inundated. As per a one quarter of it since 2000. study published in the Cryosphere Journal in China, USA, India and Russian Federation September 2020, sustained greenhouse gas are the leading emitters of CO to the emissions could see global sea level rise nearly 2 atmosphere. The situation has reached such a 40 centimetres this century as ice sheets in stage that the United Nations has declared Antarctica and Greenland continue to melt. climate emergency. Due to global warming, climate change has Realising the destructive power of CO , occurred due to which number of cyclones and 2 hurricanes are increasing along with droughts it was decided internationally in different and floods. A study published in the journal conferences and conventions to limit the Nature Communication recently suggests that carbon emission to the atmosphere. The last 31 million people living in river deltas are at important meeting was held in Paris in 2015 high risk of flooding and other impacts from and an agreement, known as Paris Agreement, tropical cyclones and climate change. was reached to limit the global temperature rise by 2°C above preindustrial level by the Among all the green house gases, the end of the century and it was also decided to contribution of carbon dioxide (CO ) is more 2 try to limit it at 1.5°C rise. Different towards global warming. This is emitted to countries have committed voluntarily the 2 Science Horizon NOVEMBER, 2020 quantum of reduction of carbon emission to 1. Energy efficiency achieve the target. 2. Use of renewable energy Before industrialisation, carbon dioxide 3. Clean, safe and connected mobility was released to the atmosphere from burning 4. Competitive industry and circular economy wood for cooking purpose, from animal 5. Infrastructure and interconnections respiration and also due to some natural 6. Bio-economy and natural carbon sinks phenomena like volcano eruption etc. The 7. Carbon capture and storage emitted CO was being absorbed by plants and 2 It is to be noted that the 2015 Paris watermass, as a result the total CO 2 Agreement mentioned the need to achieve concentration in the atmosphere was climate neutrality by the end of the century, remaining constant. But after industries were but the EU plan is aiming to expedite it by a established and coal was burnt, the emitted few decades. The European Commission, no CO could not be absorbed completely by the 2 doubt, has taken a good initiative. Although it natural processes and hence its concentration seems difficult to achieve carbon neutrality gradually increased. by 2050, if the roadmap is followed European Green Deal, the initiative religiously, they can be successful in their unveiled by the European Union (EU) in venture. Other nations should follow it for a December 2019 aims to lead the way towards clean world. A good news is that China, the climate neutrality by 2050. It has presented biggest emitter of CO2 aims to achieve carbon an initial road map of the key policies and neutrality by 2060. This was announced by measures to achieve this. What does ‘carbon Chinese President Xi Jinping during a speech neutrality’ mean? According to the European on 22 September 2020 to the United Nations Parliament, carbon neutrality is achieved general assembly. when “the same amount of carbon dioxide is Some world leaders at the annual United emitted into the atmosphere as it is removed Nations meeting in the last week of September by different means, achieving a zero balance, have voiced a warning: “If Covid - 19 does not also known as a zero carbon footprint”. Will kill us, Climate Change will.” With Siberia it be successful? EU members are now seeing its warmest temperature on record this serious about this. Spain has prepared its year and enormous chunks of ice caps in first draft of climate change and Energy Greenland and Canada sliding into the sea, Transition in May 2020 which seeks to ensure countries are acutely aware that there is no that Spain is carbon neutral by 2050. Other vaccine for global warming. European nations will definitely follow it. The European Commission has Er. Mayadhar Swain presented following seven strategic issues Editor that member countries must pursue together to achieve zero carbon footprint by 2050. Science Horizon 3 NOVEMBER, 2020 THE MYSTERIOUS CONCEPT OF MASS- III Dr. Bijay Kumar Parida Introduction graviton, is assumed to have zero rest mass. In Part – I of this article published in Unlike photon whose existence is beyond July, 2020 we discussed some basic aspects of doubt, gravitation is a mere speculation. The mass like mass as quantity of matter, zero rest mass of both these particles can be redefinition of the SI unit kg in terms of the appreciated from the fact that both Planck constant, three possible forms of mass electromagnetic and gravitational interactions appearing in motion and gravitation, and the are of infinite range, range being inversely equality of the three masses. proportional to the mass of the carrier. Besides, there is a class of neutral elementary In Part – II published in August, 2020 we particles called neutrinos (three in number presented some more aspects of the concept one each associated with the charged particles of mass such as its relation to energy in electron, muon, and tauon) which were initially Newtonian and Einsteinian formalisms, its thought to be massless. But later findings relation to spacetime as in the general theory indicated that these three different types of of relativity, a specific mass expression called neutrino show a kind of mutual transformation the Planck mass, and the issue of missing (technically called neutrino oscillation) which mass and its implications. cannot be explained on the basis of zero mass. In Part – III we propose to discuss some This led to the consequence that neutrinos are strange looking aspects of the concept of mass not massless but likely to have exceedingly such as zero mass, negative mass, complex small masses. For example, the electron mass, and a viable quantum mechanical origin neutrino appears to have a mass which is nearly of mass. 5×10-5 times the mass of electron. Incidentally, Zero Mass neutrinos are among the most abundant particles Though in our everyday world it is in the universe though difficult to observe unlike difficult to think of a zero-mass object, the many other particles. concept of zero mass is not uncommon in the Negative mass microscopic domain of matter. As we have Let’s recall the definition of Newton’s noted previously, photon, the carrier of second law of motion. It states that when a net electromagnetic interaction, has zero rest mass force is applied on a body the body accelerates as it always moves with speed c, the speed of in the same direction as that of the force and light in free space. In an analogous manner the the amount of acceleration is proportional to carrier of gravitational interaction, called 4 Science Horizon NOVEMBER, 2020 the amount of the force.