How to find a new planet

The University of Auckland

Astronomers believe there are billions of Earth-sized planets closed to a parental star in the Milky Way. Researchers at The University of Auckland have proposed a new method for finding Earth-like planets and they anticipate that the number will be in the order of 100 billion. The strategy uses a technique called gravitational microlensing, currently used by a Japan-New Zealand collaboration called MOA (Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics) at New Zealand’s Mt John Observatory. Lead author Dr Phil Yock from the University of Auckland’s Department of Physics explains that the work will require a combination of data from microlensing and the NASA Kepler space telescope. “Kepler finds Earth-sized planets that are quite close to parent stars, and it estimates that there are 17 billion such planets in the Milky Way. These planets are generally hotter than Earth, although some could be of a similar temperature (and therefore habitable) if they're orbiting a cool star called a red dwarf.” “Our proposal is to measure the number of Earth-mass planets orbiting stars at distances typically twice the Sun-Earth distance. Our planets will therefore be cooler than the Earth. By interpolating between the Kepler and MOA results, we should get a good estimate of the number of Earth-like, habitable planets in the Galaxy. We anticipate a number in the order of 100 billion.” “Of course, it will be a long way from measuring this number to actually finding inhabited planets, but it will be a step along the way.” The first planet orbiting a Sun-like star was not found until 1995, despite strenuous efforts by astronomers. Dr Yock explains that this reflects the difficulty of detecting from a distance a tiny non-luminous object like Earth orbiting a bright object like the Sun. The planet is lost in the glare of the star, so indirect methods of detection must be used. Whereas Kepler measures the loss of light from a star when a planet orbits between us and the star, microlensing measures the deflection of light from a distant star that passes through a planetary system en route to Earth – an effect predicted by Einstein in 1936. In recent years, microlensing has been used to detect several planets as large as Neptune and Jupiter. Dr Yock and colleagues have proposed a new microlensing strategy for detecting the tiny deflection caused by an Earth-sized planet. Simulations carried out by Dr Yock and his colleagues – students and former students from The University of Auckland and France – showed that Earth-sized planets could be detected more easily if a worldwide network of moderate-sized, robotic telescopes was available to monitor them. Coincidentally, just such a network of 1m and 2m telescopes is now being deployed by Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) in collaboration with SUPA/St Andrews (Scottish Universities Physics Alliance), with three telescopes in Chile, three in South Africa, three in Australia, and one each in Hawaii and Texas. This network is used to study microlensing events in conjunction with the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands which is owned and operated by Liverpool John Moores University. It is expected that the data from this suite of telescopes will be supplemented by measurements using the existing 1.8m MOA telescope at Mt John, the 1.3m Polish telescope in Chile known as OGLE, and the recently opened 1.3m Harlingten telescope in Tasmania. The scientist’s proposal has been published online ahead of print in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (Oxford University Press). The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) is described here. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

3D printed organs not far away

The University of Wollongong The researchers believe within a few years it will be possible to manufacture living tissues such as skin, cartilage, arteries and heart valves using a patient’s own cells. University of Wollongong (UOW) scientists are at the forefront of a medical revolution using 3D ‘printing’ to reproduce human body parts. Researchers from UOW’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) and St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, announced in Melbourne today (Friday 3 May) that they are just three years away from printing custom-made body parts, including muscle and nerve cells and cartilage. And in just over a decade, they believe will be possible to print human organs. “It is already possible to print 3D biocompatible plastics and metals to manufacture patient-specific implants,” ACES Director Professor Gordon Wallace said. “Within a few years, we believe it will be possible to manufacture living tissues like skin, cartilage, arteries and heart valves using cells and biomaterials. Using a patient’s own cells to create this tissue avoids issues of immune rejection. By 2025, it is feasible that we will be able to fabricate complete functional organs, tailored for an individual patient.” Professor Wallace and his team are are meeting with clinicians, medical device manufacturers and policy makers this week in Melbourne to discuss the future of fabricated medical implants. Professor Wallace said 3D printing, or additive fabrication, uses machines to build 3D objects layer-by-layer from digital data. “While 3D printing is already being used in some medical applications, by bringing together the materials and scientists at ACES and the clinicians and researchers at SVH we have been able to accelerate our progress so that we are now on the verge of a new wave of technology leveraging 3D printing/additive fabrication techniques to deliver solutions to a number of medical challenges. These include bionic devices, the regeneration of nerve, muscle and bone, as well as epilepsy detection and control.” Professor Wallace said the research would receive a huge boost next month with the launch of an additive biofabrication unit at St Vincent’s hospital in Melbourne, expanding the program from its base at the University of Wollongong’s Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI), the lead node of ACES. The St Vincent’s facility will be the first of its kind in Australia to be located in a hospital. “This is an exciting development involving the establishment of a customised facility at St Vincent’s, Melbourne. [It] will put our scientists and engineers in direct contact with clinicians on a daily basis [and] is expected to fast track the realisation of practical medical devices and the reproduction of organs,” Professor Wallace said. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Bladeless Wind Turbines - இறக்கை இல்லாத காற்றாலை மின்சாரம்

As governments all over the globe continue inching toward renewable energy sources, there continue to be a few sticking points. One company out of Minnesota claims to have a new wind power generation technology that can alleviate most of the world’s concerns. SheerWind says its Invelox system can operate in a wider variety of conditions and is up to 600% more efficient than traditional wind turbines.
Those large wind turbines you’re used to see dotting the skyline in rural areas rely on fairly swift winds to function. Invelox can generate power from winds as gentle as 1-2 MPH. It does this by capturing passing breezes in large scoops at the top of its 40-50 foot tower. The wind is funneled down toward the ground through an increasingly narrow space. When the air is compressed, it speeds up and is used to power a small turbine generator.

The claim that Invelox is six-times more efficient than a turbine is more than a little shocking, so SheerWind is trying to prove its case, but it’s currently doing so with internal testing (so keep that in mind). The company tested its turbine both with and without the Invelox cowling. When it compared the values over time, that works out to energy production improvements anywhere from 81-660%. The average was 314%, but it should be noted this is actually the advantage SheerWind’s turbine gets from being inside the Invelox system. It’s not quite a comparison with “real” wind power turbines.
Fuzzy math aside, the company says it has been able to produce wind power at a cost of $750 per kilowatt, including installation. This brings it in-line with the final cost of energy from natural gas and hydropower. The energy industry is all about value, so if the Invelox technology is legit, it’s going to be huge. Invelox takes up much less space than traditional windmills, and it poses little to no risk to birds or curious children.
Invelox is the product of SheerWind, a company from Minnesota which claims that their new wind power generation technology is a serious contender as a source of renewable energy. Because of its intelligent design, it is capable of functioning in a wide variety of conditions unlike its predecessors which require high velocity winds to generate energy. Invelox can function on a humble 2-4 KPH of wind. The 50 feet tower captures gentle breezes in large scoops and funnels it down towards the ground through a narrowing tunnel. As the air gets increasingly compressed, it gains speed and that is eventually used to power a small turbine generator.

The funnel-based turbine claims a 600% increase in efficiency over traditional wind turbines. Hard to believe as it might be, SheerWind is determined on proving its superiority. The internal testing results show improvements anywhere from 81-660% with an average of 314%. Though it must be noted that SheerWind's turbine resides inside the Invelox system, which might make the comparison to the forerunners a tad unfair. The cost of wind generation is Rs 37,000 per kilowatt, including installation and they take up less space than traditional windmills. Voila! Can't speak for the cities, but this will sure be a boon for rural areas.

 காற்றாலை மின்சாரம் ஒரு மாற்றூ மின்சாரமாக இருந்தாலும் அதில் உள்ள பிரச்சினை காற்றூ நன்றாக அடித்தால் தான் அதில் மின்சாரம் தயாரிக்க முடியும் என்ற எழுதப்படாத விதி இருப்பதால் ஒரு வருடத்தில் 4 மாதம் மட்டுமே இது இயங்குகிறது இந்தியா போன்ற நாடுகளில். ஏன் என்றால் அதி வேக காற்றூ இல்லாத நேரத்தில் இந்த கனமான பெரிய இறக்கைகள் அசையாது அதற்க்கு தேவை நல்ல வேகமான அழுத்தமான காற்றூ. இந்தியாவில் அது பருவ நேரங்களில் மற்றூமே கிடைக்கும். அமெரிக்காவின் ஷியர்வின்ட் என்னும் கம்பெனி புதிய காற்றாலை மின்சார வடிவங்களை அமைத்துள்ளனர். இதில் முதல் இறக்கைகள் கிடையாது. இரண்டாவது வெறூம் 1-4 கிலோமீட்டர் காற்றான மெல்லிய தென்றலே இதற்க்கு போதுமானது.

மேலே படத்தில் இருக்கும் மேல் தட்டி மெல்லிய காற்றை இழுத்து கீழ் நோக்கி கூம்பு போன்ற ஒரு ஃபனலில் செலுத்தும் போது மிக சிறிய அள்விலான காற்று கூட ஜெட் வேகத்தில் கீழ் நோக்கி வந்து கீழே இருக்கும் வின்ட் டர்பைன் ஜெனரேட்டரை இயங்க செய்யும் தினமும். இதற்க்கு வெறும் 37,000 ரூபாய் தான் 1000 வாட்ஸ் மின்சார தயாரிக்கும் டவருக்கான ஒரு முறை செலவாகும். இது விரைவில் வந்தால் ஒவ்வொரு விவாசயிக்கும், கிராமபுர மின்சாரத்திர்க்கும் கவலையே இருக்காது.

New silicon to boost solar panels

The University of New South Wales

The team found a way to correct deficiencies in silicon - by far the most expensive component used in the making of solar cells. This will mean efficient solar cells can be created that are cheaper but more efficient. Image: Gencho Petkov/Shutterstock Solar engineers from UNSW have developed an innovative method to dramatically improve the quality of low-grade silicon, promising to significantly improve electrical efficiency and reduce the cost of solar panels. The UNSW team has discovered a mechanism to control hydrogen atoms so they can better correct deficiencies in silicon – by far the most expensive component used in the making of solar cells. “This process will allow lower-quality silicon to outperform solar cells made from better-quality materials,” says Scientia Professor Stuart Wenham from the School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW. Standard commercial silicon cells currently have a maximum efficiency of around 19%. The new technique, patented by UNSW researchers earlier this year, is expected to produce efficiencies between 21% and 23%, says Wenham. “By using lower-quality silicon to achieve higher efficiencies, we can enable significant cost reductions,” he says. The solar industry has long been focused on bringing down the cost of silicon. However, cheaper silicon also means lower-quality silicon, with more defects and contaminants that reduce efficiency. It’s been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic structure of silicon to help correct these defects, but until now, researchers have had limited success in controlling the hydrogen to maximise its benefits or even understanding why this happens. “Our research team at UNSW has worked out how to control the charge state of hydrogen atoms in silicon – something that other people haven’t previously been able to do,” says Wenham. Hydrogen atoms can exist in three ‘charge’ states – positive, neutral and negative. The charge state determines how well the hydrogen can move around the silicon and its reactivity, which is important to help correct the defects. “We have seen a 10,000 times improvement in the mobility of the hydrogen and we can control the hydrogen so it chemically bonds to things like defects and contaminants, making these inactive,” says Wenham. The UNSW team currently has eight industry partners interested in commercialising the technology, and is also working with manufacturing equipment companies to implement the new capabilities. The project, which has been generously supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, is expected to be completed in 2016. UNSW still holds the world-record for silicon cell efficiency at 25%, and last week, Scientia Professor and solar pioneer Martin Green, was elected into the Fellowship of the United Kingdom’s prestigious Royal Society. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Recovering phosphorus from wastewater

If phosphorus is not removed during wastewater treatment, it can lead to algal blooms in waterways. Image: Singkham/Shutterstock A CSIRO team has developed a new technique for recovering phosphorus from wastewater. Phosphorus is a precious element, with all life depending on it. It is an essential nutrient for plant growth and an important constituent of fertiliser used in agriculture. Phosphorus is often removed during wastewater treatment because it can lead to algal blooms in waterways. It is traditionally removed from wastewater streams using chemical or biological processes before the water is discharged to the environment. Wastewater streams typically contain low concentrations of phosphorus, making direct recovery of phosphorus both technically and economically challenging. However, a team from CSIRO has developed a technique that can recover phosphorus from these low concentrations to provide a valuable resource. The conventional biological treatment process known as enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) removes phosphorus from wastewater by selectively enriching a group of bacteria known as polyphosphate accumulating organisms. CSIRO’s novel approach, termed enhanced biological phosphorus removal and recovery (EBPR-r), exploits this unique characteristic of the organisms to ‘carry’ the phosphorus from the diluted wastewater stream over to a concentrated recovery stream. The phosphorus concentration in the recovery stream was approximately four times that of the concentration in the original wastewater. The result was a phosphorus concentration in the recovery stream that was approximately four times that of the phosphorus concentration in the original wastewater. The novel approach has applications for wastewater treatment utilities and fertiliser producers alike. Further research is underway to increase the phosphorus concentration in the recovery stream. This research is being delivered through the Urban Water Technologies Stream of CSIRO’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

23 words from the Ice Age

The University of Waikato

'Thou', 'I', 'not' and 'we' are the amount the 23 words that the controversial study identified have been in use for the past 15,000 years. Image: Andrea Danti/Shutterstock A University of Waikato academic involved in a groundbreaking and controversial new study on words which have remained in use for around 15,000 years says the team involved expected the results to be controversial but the years of work that went into it were worth it. "It's a new thing and won’t be accepted by everyone," Dr Andreea Calude says. Dr Calude, from the University's Department of General and Applied Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, was part of a team led by Mark Pagel, an evolutionary theorist at the University of Reading in England, which has come up with a list of words which can be traced to old forms around the time of the last Ice Age. These 'ultra-conserved' words suggest that separate language families - thought to be unique - can be traced back to a common ancestral language dating back centuries and used across much of Europe to North America and as far south as the Indian Sub-Continent. Dr Calude says it had been generally accepted that languages could be classified into families, but there was no good way of making links between the different families. "Most people think you can't reconstruct history beyond language families," she says. "They think going beyond a single language family is impossible. We had the sense that one should be able to go beyond a language family to a super language family. Language families do not 'know' that they are a family and not a language, so the process of reconstruction should be the same between families as it is across individual languages. That was the start of this idea. We thought, does it even make sense to look beyond a single language family? It could be rubbish but we looked to see what was in it." What they found was startling. They looked at cognates as established by the LWED database (Languages of the World Etymological Database) - words which have a similar sound and the same meaning in different languages - across language families, rather than within languages from the same family, and found systematic relationships where none had been thought to exist. "We constructed a language tree and what's cool about that is we got relationships between language families, not just languages," Dr Calude says. The researchers looked at cognates across several language families, including Indo-European; Dravidian (from southern India); Altaic (which includes Turkish, Uzbek and Mongolian); Uralic (which includes Finnish and Hungarian); Kartvelian (east European, Baltic area); Chukchi-Kamchatkan (from the far northeastern part of Siberia) and Inuit-Yupik (from the Arctic). The results showed that a 'proto-language' existed, which, over time, evolved into different language families, giving rise to many individual languages spreading all over the continent. The research, published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on some of the most common words. Dr Calude says she and her colleagues spent years coding words with similar sounds and meanings across different languages. She says the coding had to be right for the research to stand up to scrutiny and they had been hard on themselves throughout the process. "If the LWED database had a word meaning 'hand' in one language family as cognate with another meaning 'palm' in another family, how should we code these? If unsure, we tried to bias results against ourselves, so in such cases, we would not code these words as cognate unless they both had the exact same meaning." "We were really hard on ourselves, but it was a fun project," she says. And while some may not accept the findings, one of the world's most influential linguists, Professor William Croft from the University of New Mexico, has backed the research, telling The Washington Post the study supports the plausibility of an ancestral language whose audible relics cross tongues today. Twenty-three words that stand the test of time: Thou, I, not, that, we, to give, who, this, what, man/male, ye, old, mother, to hear, hand, fire,to pull, black, to flow, bark, ashes, to spit, worm. Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

நீங்கள் வாங்கும் பொருள் எந்த நாட்டுடையது என்பதை பார் கோட் மூலம் அறிந்து கொள்வது எப்படி?

சீனாவில் தயாரிக்கப்பட்ட பொருட்கள் என்றால் இப்பொழுது இந்தியா மட்டும் இல்ல, உலகமே சந்தேகம் கண் கொண்டு பாக்க ஆரம்பிச்சுருச்சு … பால் பவுடர் பிரச்சனை, சீன பொம்மைகள் என்று எல்லாத்துலயும் நச்சு பொருட்கள் இருபதாக சொல்ல படுகிறது, சிலர் சீன பொருட்கள் விலை குறைவாக கிடைகிறது என்று தேடி போய் சீன பொருட்களை வாங்குவார்கள் அவர்களுக்கும் இந்த தகவல் பயனுள்ளதாக இருக்கும்.(தவிர்பதற்கும் சரி வாங்குவதற்கும் சரி ), சரி நம்ம எப்படி சீன, தைவான் பொருட்களை தான் நாம வாங்குகிறோமா என்று சரி பார்ப்பது…… இப்பொழுது எல்லா பொருட்களுக்கும் பார்கோடு பயன்பாட்டில் உள்ளது என்று உங்களுக்கு தெரியும்.

பார்கோடு(barcode) என்பது machine readable format யில் இருக்கும்.அதில் முதல் மூன்று எண்கள் 690.691,692 என்றால் அது சீனாவில் தயாரிக்கப்பட்ட பொருள் என்று அர்த்தம் ,471 என்றால் தைவானில் தயாரிக்கப்பட்ட பொருள் ஆகும்.

நீங்கள் வாங்கும் பொருள் எந்த நாட்டிலிருந்து வருகிறது என்று இதனை வைத்து தெரிந்து கொள்ளலாம்.போலி மருந்துகள் மாதிரி expiry date யை,இதனை அச்சடிக்க முடியாது என்பதும் நமக்கு கொஞ்சம் ஆறுதல் அளிக்கிறது.இனிமேல் பார்கோடை பார்த்து வாங்குங்க .

மற்ற நாடுகளின் முதல் எண்கள்

00-13: USA & Canada
20-29: In-Store Functions
30-37: France
40-44: Germany
45: Japan (also 49)
46: Russian Federation
471: Taiwan
474: Estonia
475: Latvia
477: Lithuania
479: Sri Lanka
480: Philippines
482: Ukraine
484: Moldova
485: Armenia
486: Georgia
487: Kazakhstan
489: Hong Kong
49: Japan (JAN-13)
50: United Kingdom
520: Greece
528: Lebanon
529: Cyprus
531: Macedonia
535: Malta
539: Ireland
54: Belgium & Luxembourg
560: Portugal
569: Iceland
57: Denmark
590: Poland
594: Romania
599: Hungary
600 & 601: South Africa
609: Mauritius
611: Morocco
613: Algeria
619: Tunisia
622: Egypt
625: Jordan
626: Iran
64: Finland
690-692: China
70: Norway
729: Israel
73: Sweden
740: Guatemala
741: El Salvador
742: Honduras
743: Nicaragua
744: Costa Rica
746: Dominican Republic
750: Mexico
759: Venezuela
76: Switzerland
770: Colombia
773: Uruguay
775: Peru
777: Bolivia
779: Argentina
780: Chile
784: Paraguay
785: Peru
786: Ecuador
789: Brazil
80 – 83: Italy
84: Spain
850: Cuba
858: Slovakia
859: Czech Republic
860: Yugoslavia
869: Turkey
87: Netherlands
880: South Korea
885: Thailand
888: Singapore
890: India
893: Vietnam
899: Indonesia
90 & 91: Austria
93: Australia
94: New Zealand
955: Malaysia
977: International Standard Serial Number for Periodicals (ISSN)
978: International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN)
979: International Standard Music Number (ISMN)
980: Refund receipts
981 & 982: Common Currency Coupons
99: Coupons

சங்க காலக் கோட்டை பொப்பண்ண கோட்டை

 படத்தில் நீங்கள் பார்ப்பது ''கூகிள் மப்'' மூலம் பிடிக்கபட்ட புதுக் கோட்டை மாவட்டத்தில் உள்ள பொப்பண்ண கோட்டையின் புகைப்படம். படத்தில் தெரிகின்ற அந்த வட்டப் பகுதிதான் பொப்பண்ண கோட்டை.பல நூறு ஏக்கர் பரப்பளவு கொண்டது.2000 ஆண்டுகள் பழைமையான சங்க காலக் கோட்டைகளில் பொப்பண்ண கோட்டை மிக முக்கியமானது. படத்தில் தெரிகின்ற அந்த வட்ட வடிவிலான மண் கோட்டையானது 50 அடி உயரமும் 50 அடி அகலமும் கொண்டதாகும். இந்த அகலமான மண் கோட்டை மீதுதான் செங்கல்லால் ஆன நெடுமதில்(சுவர் ) முன்பு அமைந்திருந்தது. காலப் போக்கில் இயற்கையின் சீற்றங்களாலும், புதுக்கோட்டை மக்களின் கட்டுமான தேவைக்காகவும் அந்த மதில்சுவர் முற்றாக அழிக்கப்பட்டது .தற்போது நீங்கள் படத்தில் பார்ப்பது அக்கோட்டையின் சுவடு மட்டும்தான்.

Manasa Bhajare Guru Charanam 2

Virupaksha Temple, Hampi(Karnatak)

The temple has a continuous history since the 7th century CE; however, it may be even older.
At present, the main temple consists of a sanctum, three ante chambers, a pillared hall and an open pillared hall. A pillared cloister, entrance gateways, courtyards, smaller shrines and other structures surround the temple.
The nine-tiered eastern gateway, the largest at 50 meters, is well-proportioned and incorporates some earlier structures. It has a brick superstructure and a stone base. It gives access to the outer court containing many sub-shrines. The smaller eastern gateway leads to the inner court's numerous smaller shrines.
A narrow channel of the Tungabhadra River flows along the temple's terrace and then descends to the temple kitchen and out through the outer court.
The temple was ransacked by invading Muslim forces in 1565CE.

Teli ka Mandir Temple, Gwolior fort palace, Gwolior(Madhya Pradesh)

Dated: ~9th century CE or older
Basically, it has an unusual configuration: shrine-like in that it has a sanctuary only; no pillared pavilions or mandapa; and a barrel-vaulted roof on top of a Hindu mandir.
In plan, it is a rectangular structure. It has a tower built in masonry, in nagari architectural style with a barrel vaulted roof, 30 metres in height. In the past, the niches in the outer walls had sculptures installed in them but now have horse shoe arch or gavakshas (ventilator openings) with arched motifs. The gavaksha design, has been compared to trefoil, a honey comb design with a series of receding pointed arches within an arch that allows a "play of light and shadow".
The entrance door has a torana or archway with exquisitely sculpted images of river goddesses, romantic couples, foliation decoration and a Garuda.
Diamond and lotus designs are seen on the horizontal band at the top of the arch.

Ornate Sas-Bahu Temple after restoration

Ornate Sas-Bahu Temple after restoration, Gwalior Fort Palace (Madhya Pradesh)
Dated: 9th century CE
It is indeed an architectural marvel built without using any kind of mortar. Precisely cut/carved stones were culled one over another to build this temple. The temple was ransacked by fanatic Moghuls

Which Tongue Are You

Sab ko bati hai khusiya hi tune Paras Jain- shirdi sai baba bhajan

The Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus civilization was first identified at Harappa, once a city of 80,000 people.

The Indus Valley Civilization was the first major urban culture of South Asia. It reached its peak from 2600 BC to 1900 BC roughly, a period called by some archaeologists "Mature Harappan" as distinguished from the earlier Neolithic "Early Harappan" regional cultures. Spatially, it is huge, comprising of about 1000 settlements of varying sizes, and geographically includes almost all of modern Pakistan, parts of India as far east as Delhi and as far south as Bombay, and parts of Afghanistan.
The main corpus of writing dated from the Indus Civilization is in the form of some two thousand inscribed seals in good, legible conditions. (In case you don't know what seals are, they are used to make impressions on malleable material like clay.)
Although these seals and samples of Indus writing have been floating around the scholastic world for close to 70 years, little progress has been made on deciphering this elegant script. However, we should not blame scholars for their lack of progress, for there are some major impediments to decipherment:

1. Very short and brief texts. The average number of symbols on the seals is 5, and the longest is only 26.
2. The language underneath is unknown.
3. Lack of bilingual texts.

For instance, consider Champollion, who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs with all of these 3 important clues: there were very long Egyptian texts; he knew Coptic, a descendant of Egyptian; and the Rosetta Stone, a bilingual text between Greek and two written forms of Egyptian.
But the script isn't as bad as undecipherable. For one, even though scholars don't have long texts and bilingual texts, they can still theorize about the language underneath the writing system. There are several competing theories about the language that the Indus script represent:

1. The language is completely unrelated to anything else, meaning an isolate. Well, this doesn't get us anywhere.
2. The language is "Aryan" (some form of Indian-Iranian Indo-European). The historical languages spoken in Northern India and Pakistan all belong to the Indic branch of Indo-European, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Punjabi, etc., so maybe the people of the Indus valley spoke a very old Indo-European language? The major problem with this model is the fact that horses played a very important role in all Indo-European cultures, being a people constantly on the move. "There is no escape from the fact that the horse played a central role in the Vedic and Iranian cultures..." (Parpola, 1986) Sidenote: "Vedic" means from the time of the Vedas, the earliest text in India, and the Vedic culture is from around 1500 to 500 BC. However, no depiction of horses on seals nor any remains of horses have been found so far before 2000 BC. They only appear after 2000 BC. Very likely there were no Aryan speakers present before 2000 BC in the Indus Valley.
   
3. The language belongs to the Munda family of languages. The Munda family is spoken largely in eastern India, and related to some Southeast Asian languages. Like Aryan, the reconstructed vocabulary of early Munda does not reflect the Harappan culture. So its candidacy for being the language of the Indus Civilization is dim.
4. The language is Dravidian. The Dravidian family of languages is spoken in Southern Indian, but Brahui is spoken in modern Pakistan. So far this is the most promising model, as in the following points:
   
   
   • There are many Dravidian influences visible in the Vedic texts. If the Aryan language gradually replaced the Dravidian, features from Dravidian would form a "substratum" in Aryan. One of these features is the appearance of retroflex consonants in Indian languages, both Indo-European and Dravidian. In contrast, retroflex consonants do not appear in any other Indo-European language, not even Iranian ones which are closest to Indic. (For more information on retroflex consonants please visit my Phonetics page).
   • Another possible indication of Dravidian in the Indus texts is from structural analysis of the texts which suggests that the language underneath is possibly agglutinative, from the fact that sign groups often have the same initial signs but different final signs. The number of these final signs range between 1 to 3. The final signs possibly represent grammatical suffixes that modify the word (represented by the initial signs). Each suffix would represent one specific modification, and the entire cluster of suffixes would therefore put the word through a series of modifications. This suffix system can be found in Dravidian, but not Indo-European. Indo-European tongues tend to change the final sounds to modify the meaning of a word (a process called inflection), but repeated addition of sounds to the end of word is extremely rare. Often many suffixes in an agglutinative language correspond to a single inflectional ending in an inflectional language.

The Dravidian model isn't just an unapplicable theory...But first we have to know what kind of writing system is the Indus script.
A count of the number of signs reveal a lot about the type of system being used. Alphabetic systems rarely have more than 40 symbols. Syllabic systems like Linear B or Cherokee typically have 40 to 100 or so symbols. The third ranges from logophonetic to logographic, running upwards of hundreds of signs (like 500 signs in Hieroglyphic Luwian, and 5000 symbols in modern Chinese).
It appears that the maximum number of Indus script symbols is 400, although there are 200 basic signs (ie signs that are not combined from others). This means that the Indus script is probably logophonetic, in that it has both signs used for their meanings, and signs used for their phonetic values.
Many signs start off as pictorial representation of a physical object, often misleadingly called pictograms. They really are should be called logograms because they represent words in the language. However, it's next to impossible to write out a word with abstract meaning pictorially. What all early writers figured out was to use a logogram not for the object or idea it was originally supposed to stand for, but for all words sounding similar to the original word for that object or idea. For example, in English to write "leave" we can use a picture of a "leaf". This is called rebus writing, and is a tremendously common pattern in all early writing systems. We could also then use the same "leaf" symbol to stand for the sound in "relief", adding another symbol in front of the "leaf" symbol in order to indicate the "re" sound. So the logogram gained a phonetic value as well.
Testing the theory
How can we take the theoretical framework so far and apply it to archaeological data?
Numerals seem to represented by vertical lines (represented by number of lines in the glyph), but they only go up to 7. Analysis reveal 4 more signs that appear in the same context as these numerals, and so they likely represent numbers higher than 7.
The fact that no vertical-line numeral sign denotes 8 very likely means the Harappan language is based 8. (For example, the Arabic numerals that we use has symbols from 0 to 9, and to write "ten" we have to combined the symbols 1 and 0, which identify our number system as based ten.)
Base 8 languages are rare in the world, but it does appear that early Dravidian is base 8, but later changed to base 10 (possibly under Indo-European influence). When translated, the count from 1 to 7 is familiar to us: "one", "two", "three", "four", "five", "six", "seven". However, above seven, the number's etymologies become non-numerical: 8 is "number", 9 is "many minus one", and 10 is "many". (Fairservis 1983)
But can we actually read (not interpret) any symbol on the seals? We should start with "pictograms", as this one:

Many scholars (Knorozov, Parpola, Mahadevan, etc) see this sign as a fish. Fish in reconstructed Proto-Dravidian is *mîn. Coincidentally, *mîn is also the word for star. On many pots from Mohenjo Daro, an Indus site, there are drawings of fish and stars together, and so affirming this linguistic association.
Going further, often the numeral six appears before the fish. Either it means 6 fish, or 6 stars. Old Tamil (a Dravidian language still spoken today) texts from just around the 1st century AD recorded the name of the Pleiades, a star cluster visible during autumn and winter just above Orion, as "Six-Stars", or aru-mîn. Throughout the world, titles with celestial connotations are very common, and the clause Six Stars forming part or whole of a Harappan title is not unreasonable. (Parpola, 1986)

Sometimes symbols are added to the basic sign to make new signs. Of these, the one that looks like a circumflex accent placed on top of the fish is quite interesting. It is theorized to mean "roof", and in Proto-Dravidian it is *vêy/mêy. This is phonetically similar to Proto-Dravidian word for "black", *may. Together with fish, it spells out mai-m-mîn, or "black star", which in Old Tamil means the planet Saturn. In Sanskrit texts, Saturn is associate the color black. The god of death, Yama, is the presiding of this planet, and is usually depicted as riding on a dark buffalo.

But the "fish" reading isn't accepted by all scholars. William Fairservis saw it as a combination of a loom twist and a human sign, and form a honorific title pertaining to rulership (Fairservis, 1983). I, however, am more inclined to accept the fish identification.
This is a quick overview of the current process in the decipherment of the Indus script. For more information you can either go to the following links, or go to a good library for books and articles 

They lived in well-planned cities, made exquisite jewelry, and enjoyed the ancient world's best plumbing. But the people of the sophisticated Indus civilization—which flourished four millennia ago in what is now Pakistan and western India—remain tantalizingly mysterious.

Unable to decipher the Indus script, archaeologists have pored over beads, slivers of pottery, and other artifacts for insights into one of the world's first city-building cultures.

Now scientists are turning to long-silent witnesses: human bones. In two new studies of skeletons from Indus cemeteries, researchers have found intriguing clues to the makeup of one city's population—and hints that the society there was not as peaceful as it has been portrayed.

Peaceful or not, the Indus civilization accomplished great things. At its peak, its settlements spanned an area greater than that of ancient Egypt, a contemporary culture. Indus jewelry was so coveted that examples have been found as far as Mesopotamia, some 1,500 miles (2,500 kilometers) away. Indus cities boasted blocks of houses built on a grid pattern and drains that funneled sewage from homes to dumping grounds outside the city walls.

But who was living in those cities? A new study to be published in the May issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science focuses on Harappa, one of the largest and most powerful Indus centers, with a population of up to 80,000. Researchers examined the chemical composition of teeth from a Harappan cemetery used from roughly 2550 to 2030 B.C. The analysis showed that the city was a cosmopolitan melting pot. Many of the deceased had grown up outside Harappa—the first direct evidence that "individuals were indeed migrating to the city," says University of South Alabama bioarchaeologist Lesley Gregoricka, who was not involved in the study.

This skull of an adult male shows traces of a broken nose and a blunt-force injury.

Photograph courtesy Gwen Robbins Schug

Most likely the newcomers came to Harappa from elsewhere in the far-flung Indus area, perhaps for trade. But they may also have come to cut another kind of deal—marriage. Many of the outsiders, surprisingly, are men buried near women native to Harappa. The findings are preliminary, but they suggest men moved in with their brides, even though in South Asia women traditionally move to their husband's homes. Confirmation of these early results, says lead author Mark Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, would point to a "system where women were powerful."

The new study is pioneering, says Indus expert James Shaffer of Case Western Reserve University, and offers "one of the few real insights we have" into the structure of Harappan society. If the study is correct, Harappa's unusual gender roles could mean that social structure in the Indus region was radically different from that of other ancient cultures, Shaffer says. In Mesopotamia, for instance, ancient texts show that women were usually subordinate to men.

Experts have long thought that the Indus region was indeed vastly different from ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in one respect: the level of violence. Based on the lack of evidence for mass destruction of any Indus cities, and the lack of depictions of soldiers or killing, the Indus is often described as a "peaceful realm." But recent scrutiny of another group of Harappan skeletons tells a darker story.

Bones from about 1900 to 1700 B.C.—more than a millennium later than those examined by Kenoyer—make it clear that at least some Harappan residents were subjected to savage violence. The skull of a child between four and six years old was cracked and crushed by blows from a club-like weapon. An adult woman was beaten so badly—with extreme force, according to researchers—that her skull caved in. A middle-aged man had a broken nose as well as damage to his forehead inflicted by a sharp-edged, heavy implement.

Of the 18 skulls examined from this time period, nearly half showed serious injuries from violence, researchers reported in a recent paper in the International Journal of Paleopathology. The rate of skull injuries tied to violence is the highest recorded in the prehistory of South Asia, the researchers say. It may be no coincidence that at the time of these burials the Indus civilization was beginning to disintegrate and parts of Harappa were being abandoned, for reasons that scholars are still debating.

The results run contrary to "the myth of the peaceful Indus civilization," says Appalachian State University's Gwen Robbins Schug. "Violence … [was] part of life at Harappa." Schug carried out this study with help from Kelsey Gray, a graduate student, and Veena Mushrif-Tripathy, from Deccan College in Pune, India.

Schug's conclusions divide outside experts. Nancy Lovell, a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta who has also studied Harappan skeletons, says the study's findings are "a really important contribution, because the tendency has been to think of Harappa as being fairly … peaceful." Shaffer argues, however, that the violence reported in the new paper is not unexpected in a crowded city. Schug agrees but says her findings contradict previous opinions that Harappa was an oasis of serenity.

The analysis of more skeletons in the future may settle the matter, but for now, the Indus people are keeping their long-held secrets.

Sai Mahima by Sri Sai Narayan Baba (Panvel)

AARTI SAI BABA Shirdi sai baba palki

The story of Saraswati

Goddess Saraswatî & Lord Brahma*
********************************


Saraswati is the goddess of learning and knowledge, and on this day, students, teachers, artists, writers, musicians and absolutely anyone connected to the world of knowledge, art and teaching, worship her. This day is considered auspicious for a child to start learning.

Each God or Goddess in India has a story associated. The story of Saraswati is not so very well-known, and so here it goes :-

God Brahma (the creator of the universe) was done with his task of creating the physical universe and earth. In order to bring forth life on earth, he created a female from his thigh. She was so beautiful, that Brahma wanted to espouse her. Since she was born from him, she was her daughter; and this idea of him espousing her did not go down very well with her. He was so taken in by her beauty that he would only look at her. In order to see her from any direction, he grew 3 other heads. (Now you know why Brahma has 4 heads.) In order to escape his amorous glaces, she sprang into the heaven. So, Brahma grew a fifth head which had a neck long enough to go to the heaven. (How he lost the fifth head, is a separate story. I’ll write that in another post.) There he convinced her to marry him and promised her that through them, the living beings of the world would be born. She agreed. She was Saraswati.

Now, many years later, Brahma was to conduct a “yagya”. All the Gods were present. A wife always accompanies the husband during a yagya. So, when the auspicious time neared, Brahma send a few brahmins to call Saraswati. She declines to come as “she was not ready, and was held back by household affairs” (this one proves that even Goddess went through all that a married woman goes through today!!). According to her, the wives of other Gods, ie Laxmi, Parvati, etc had not yet arrived and she couldnt enter a hall full of men alone. Thus, she sent back the brahmins. This infuriated Brahma, and so he sent forth Indra to find him another bride – the first spinster he crosses. He found a maiden cow-shepherdess, Gayatri. He brought her to Brahma and they were duly married. Just was the marriage was taking place, Saraswati with the other Goddesses entered. She was furious to see what was happening. Like Shakespeare said years and years later “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”, Saraswati’s anger knew no bounds. Immediately she cursed everyone present -

Brahma, for setting a miserable example for the mankind (ie, the example being – getting a new bride when the first wife was very much alive) – no man would worship him except for one day every year.

Vishnu, for giving away the bride in marriage – he would be separated from his wife.

Shiv, for giving away the bride in marriage – he would lose his manhood.

Indra, for going forth to find the bride – he would be captured, detained and ill-treated by his enemies.

The Brahmins who conducted the marriage – they would never be rich and would have to beg to survive.

Saying this, she left the hall. The Goddesses accompanied her for a distance and after a while expressed desire to join their husbands. This infuriated her further and she cursed each one of them as :

Laxmi – she would never be stagnant at any place, she would keep moving around and be coveted by greedy men.

Indra’s wife -when Indra’s kingdom is usurped, the conqueror will want her to wait on him and treat him as Indra, else he would kill all Gods.

Other Brahmin wives – they would remain barren.

One version of the story has it that when the wives returned back to the hall, Gayatri modified every one’s curses. The other version has it that after a while Saraswati returns to the hall and apologizes to everyone and modifies their curses. Curses once spelt out, cannot be revoked. However, we do notice a few effects of these curses till date :-

Brahma – there is no temple in his name till date (I am not very sure of this one, correct me if I am wrong).

Vishnu – was separated from his wife in all his births, though eternally, Laxmi and Vishnu are together.

Shiv – though he lost his manhood, he is still worshipped and does have 2 sons.

Indra – was conquered and detained by enemies. But his son did rescue him.

Brahmins – though normally poor, find enough donors to support and provide enough for their daily living.

Absolutely stunning entrance to less popular ancient Karli caves, Lonavala(Maharashtra)

Dated: 2nd century BCE
Column and caves were carved out of single monolithic rock.
A notable feature of these caves is their arched entrances and vaulted interiors. The outside facade has intricate details carved into it in an imitation of finished wood. The central motif is a large horseshoe arch. There is an Ashokan pillar at the front, with a closed stone facade and torana in between.
Temple builders did unbelievably magnificent and sophisticated work – leaving columns and other structural elements at exact distances and proportions and carving some of the most beautiful ancient sculptures of the world in situ. Hundreds of sculptures.
Karla Caves represent the highest achievement of Indian rock-cut architecture of the time and are one of the earliest examples of ornate and richly decorated rock-cut temples in India. In splendour these caves can be compared to Ajanta and Ellora but are much less popular – thus visit here is pleasant due to less crowds. Part of the caves is accessible by
climbing 350 steps cut in the rock at the time when temples were built. Construction workers moved here not only themselves but many tons of stones – doing it carefully, without damaging the exquisite carvings and
levelled surfaces.
["Ancient Excavations at Carli" from 'Twenty Four Views in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, the Red Sea, Abyssinia and Egypt'.]

Sai baba bhajan Sai Nath tere harzon hath