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The Chemistry Behind Luminescence: Photochemistry

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  By Sai Prasanna Thapa Chemistry Department As a child, I always wondered what made fireflies glow by night, and the seashores of Puerto Rico engulfed in radiant blue tides. Nature seems to have its magic to make things glow, but there is also Science behind it. Photochemistry is a branch of Physical Chemistry that deals with the emission or absorption of radiation. It includes mainly two types of processes—namely, Photophysical processes and Photochemical reactions. Photophysical processes take place in the presence of light without involving any chemical reactions. They occur due to the absorption of light by various substances, followed by the emission of the absorbed light. Photochemical reactions occur by absorption of radiations of an appropriate wavelength. There are chiefly three phenomena that cause Nature to glow: Chemiluminescence, Fluorescence and Phosphorescence. These three together are called Luminescence. As aforementioned, light is absorbed when a photoche
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Role of Nanobiotechnology in Bioremediation

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 By Nisha Goyal Microbiology Department   Green technology, an approach for the removal/bioremediation of the pollutant, has been gaining interest over physical and chemical methods. The concept of nanotechnology for green and clean environment has expanded interest in various sectors due to its multidisciplinary approach. The utility of nanotechnology has been extended for the treatment of pollutant from a broad range of sector, e.g. dyes, pharmaceutical and medical. ·        REMEDIATION The clean up or removal of contaminants from the environment is “environmental remediation”. It uses various methods to remove and/or degrade environmental contaminants in polluted soil, surface water, ground water as well as in sediments. It involves two techniques:                                   I.           Ex situ: Removing the contaminated soil, sediment, or water from the polluted sites and then treating the pollution above ground.                                 II.           In situ:
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Oumuamua

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     By Esha Chettri Physics Department    On 19 th   October 2017, the first interstellar object visited our solar system. It was later named “ ‘Oumuamua ” and was discovered by Robert Weryk. The fellow astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, spotted the intriguing object with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan- STARRS1) in Hawaii.    ‘Oumuamua is a Hawaiian word that translated to “scout” is a well-suited name, the strange object is an emissary, a representative of some distant star system we do not know anything about. Prior to entering our solar system, it had been wandering the cold, empty depths of interstellar of the Milky Way for hundreds of millions, or perhaps billions of years, before encountering the sun.    ‘Oumuamua was originally classified as a comet but the observations later revealed no sign of cometary activity after it passed through the Sun on 9 th September 2017 at an incredible speed of 87.3 kilometres per second. It appear
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The Sahara Desert Blanketed in Snow for the Fifth Time

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  By Sai Prasanna Thapa Chemistry Department For the fifth time in 40 years, the largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara, was blanketed in snow in January 2022. It is located in the northern region of the African continent, where the highest temperature has been recorded at up to 58 degrees Celsius. Despite their location in the hottest desert, the sand dunes of An Séfra (also known as the Gateway to the Desert) in Algeria have received snowfall in recent years. It is located at an elevation of 1000 metres above sea level and is surrounded by the Atlas Mountains near the Algerian-Moroccan border. According to news sources, the temperature dropped to -2 degrees Celsius the night before the snow fell. This year, snowfall occurred in the Sahara and Saudi Arabia. A U.K. weather official told The Independent that the snow in the Sahara was unusual but not unheard of. The Daily Mail asserted that the rare phenomenon was due to high-pressure systems of cold air that had moved overland t
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Invisibility Cloak for Muggles : Quantum Stealth

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By Sai Prasanna Thapa Chemistry Department  The porous division of Reality and Fiction grows thinner day by day. Invisibility once considered to be a superpower can now be soon accessible to the public. The Invisibility Cloak as we know in the Harry Potter series is no longer purely fictional. Guy Cramer, President & CEO of HyperStealth Biotechnology Corp., claims that his invention can now render a person or a building completely invisible. So, what exactly is his creation? And how does it manage to render objects undetectable? HyperStealth Biotechnology Corporation is a successful military camouflage uniform manufacturer and designer. They've provided over two million military uniforms, as well as 4000 vehicles and fighter jets, with Guy Cramer alone designing over 14,000 camouflage pattern designs. It was founded in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, in 1999. In 2011, Guy decided to create a material that could make objects invisible. He called it Quantum Stealth. By bending lig
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Revolution In Beekeeping

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By Pekma Angchuk Bhutia Bsc Program In the nineteen-twenties, Mahatma Gandhi visualized the rural self–employment imbued with patriotism. Cottage industries, farming and bee-keeping are nurtured as economic resources. The eminent cytogeneticist and bee scientist (NCA_1970-⁼76) envisaged high crop productivity by increasing the beehives from 50,000 colonies to 6 million by 2000 AD. But unfortunately, the Pink Revolution (Honey bee-keeping) never had a takeoff in India, a colour that was picked up around the globe. Honey beekeeping and Indian nationalistic agriculture – all Gandhian Philosophy are disappearing quickly. Such a scenario promoted the analysis of beekeeping around the world vis-à-vis-India. Why bee keeping?    People have been using honey from the earliest times of Indian Ayurvedic and Western Yunani. Man is benefitted, so are the bees, which instead of being hunted and killed, establish a symbiotic affection by protecting the bees. The honey produced has high medicina
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Impact of Pandemic on Education in India

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  By Stephen Lepcha The coronavirus has delivered a devastating blow to the education system. Since schools and colleges are closed, the traditional way of offline schooling has been replaced by online classes. Although online classes save a lot of time, sometimes due to poor network connectivity and other technical problems it causes problems for both the teachers as well as the students. The classes are conducted through various meeting platforms like zoom, google meet, teachmint, etc. The new system of learning has brought about a new wave to the technological sector in India. Students and teachers are being more efficient at utilizing technical resources. Students are taking keen interest in computer programming, video editing, photoshop, etc. This new system has been advantageous to the students in a lot of ways. Students are getting plenty of time to learn and explore new things, study new subjects, pursue their passion and to do many other things as well. But just like the say
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