Life Made Easy

Researchers at IIT Hyderabad have developed a cheap waterproof material by coating fly ash. As Fly ash is extremely water-loving, it can be turned into water-repellant material after using stearic acid. Stearic acid has two parts - hydrophilic part is called the head hydrophobic part is called the tail Hydrophilic part binds to fly ash particles, the water repelling part remains free. Fly ash varies in size. It is of 100 nms to 1 microns. The stearic-acid coated fly ashes surface can be made to behave like one of the two water-repelling materials -rose petals or lotus leaves. In case of a rose petal, the surface repels the water but at the same time the structure of the petal ensures that the water droplets stick fast to it. In case of lotus leaf, water droplets rolls off easily. Dr.Atul Suresh Deshpande ( Department of Material Science and Metallurgical Engineering ) says "When we used particles of more or less uniform size, the inter-particle space is more and w...

Most of the people love cats. We adopt them as pets. They are so adorable.Clouded Leopards are found in the drier forests of Southest Asia. These clouded leopards are medium in size. "Clouded leopards" are named for the cloud pattern shape on their skins. Now a research paper published by over 20 researchers from across the globe has helped understand their habitats, migration corridors and laid out the conservation strategies. Cloded leopards are found in nine countries like India, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Lios, Vietnam, Cambodia. In India, Dampa tiger was chosen as the study site. Dampa has been chosen as one of the tiger reserve. It is an incredible area that supports a very high diversity almost every other species expected in this ecosystem. This reserve receives funding from the National Tiger Conservation on an annual basis which helps it maintain over 100 daily pays forest guards. Dampa had one of the highest population densities of clouded ...