The pandemic lockdown has a contradictory impact insofar as some species are concerned. On a positive note, we see some changes in the environment for the better because of the coronavirus lockdown. COVID-19 has killed thousands of people in the world but it has saved the Mother Earth from another angle. There has been perceptible change in our surrounding, be it land, air or water. The pollution levels had gone down and animals were freely roaming around, even in city roads. The change was evident for three months. The air was fresh enough to breathe, river water was cleaner and with vehicles much less the sound pollution came down considerably. Some experts were elated to find reappearance of rare species.

A report in The Hindu mentions that one of the spectacular things that happened in the nature is the spotting of a rare dragonfly for the first time in nine decades. The name of the insect is awkwardly longish: ‘Megalogomphus superbus Fraser’. It is grass-green, yellow and reddish-brown in colour with bottle-green eyes. The naturalists, Ravindran Kamatchi and S Gopala Krishnan, caught this dragonfly on camera for the first time. It is found in the birding outing at a farm near Kallar Garden in Mettupalayam, Coimbatore. The naturalists were out in the farm taking pictures of the resident birds of the Western Ghats known as Solaipaadi, woodpecker and flycatcher. Suddenly they saw the unseen dragonfly which is much bigger in size from the other dragonflies. They did not think about anything else and they clicked many pictures. They posted the picture on WhatsApp group and later realized that it is one of a rare kind. It is a rare discovery by them. BBC in an extensive report observes that animals in urban areas are exploring emptied streets and waterways, and delighting human inhabitants along the way. Human restrictions gave them the confidence to go deeper into our cities and stay for longer.

In an interesting coincidence the National Endangered Species Day this year was observed on 15 May— during the lockdown. The day is observed to pointedly publicise awareness about endangered species and the need to protect them. When the whole world, no less India, is witnessing a decline and even extinction of species the day assumes much significance. One would remember the video and picture of a small Indian civet which was spotted in Meppayur, Kozhikode district, Kerala. It became viral and attracted lot of positive and appreciative comments.

But the problem is that the important surveys by the Zoological Survey of India were hampered because of the lockdown. These surveys are vital in identifying new species and fauna. The main months of surveys in the Western Ghats are from March to May, which were during the peak lockdown season. The surveys require lot time and patience. The lockdown has in general affected the taxonomists and biologists in severe ways for the strict restrictions within the country. But when we were seeing the fascinating pictures of animals confidently roaming around without the fear of human beings we could perhaps hear them saying ‘what a wonderful world!’

For the last few days, severe tensions have been generated in the India- China border, that led to the martyrdom of our Indian soldiers. Yesterday, the grievous attack by the China PLA (People’s Liberation Army) leading to the death of 20 Indian Army in Galwan Valley of Ladakh, left us shattered because this was perhaps one of the deadliest event in the history of India- China border issues.

According to the media reports, several Chinese troops have made their way forcibly into the Galwan valley in Ladakh, the disputed region in the Kashmir Valley.

The reports say that in the month of May, Chinese forces began putting up tents, dugging trenches and moving heavy equipments through some underground passages, that had been regarded as an area of Indian territory by India. This was a aftermath result when India built a several kilometres long road, connecting to a high-altitude forward air base. Apart from this, the Galwan River has become a hotspot as here,the LAC (Line of Actual Control) is closest to the new road built by India along the Shyok River to Daulet Beg Oldi (DBO),the most remote and vulnerable area along the LAC in Ladakh.

Considering a heinous act done by China PLA (where they killed our 20 soldiers), the citizens of India, as a reaction to it, took an initiative in boycotting Chinese products. The Indians have now started coming out of their homes and burning the Chinese products on the roads. In fact, a buzz have been created by people on the social media platforms,where they are using a very trending hashtag called #HindiCheeniByeBye in order to boycott the things made in China. This was done after the Zee News came up with the idea of #HindiCheeniByeBye initiative.

In addition to this, Taiwan has also come forth in support of India. In its national daily – The Taiwan Times, Taiwan media has shown Shri Ram with His dhanush (bow) aiming towards the dragon (a symbolism for China).

Historically speaking, this act is a resemblance of the event when people of British India boycotted the Britain products. In this main scenario, Mahatma Gandhi emerged as a leading protagonist and encouraged Indians to boycott British goods as well as to buy Indian goods instead.This helped to regain the local economies in India along with reducing the British economy. This was the Swadeshi Movement indeed.

In the current scenario, we can see that Swadeshi Movement 2.0 has begin again, boycotting all the products that are made in China. Shunning China from the mainstream economy will boost up our own economy, that will pave the way for economic development of India. This will be an act of paying gratitude and respect towards the Indian Army too, who have been killed by the Chinese militants. So, as an ending note, it’s purely accurate to say that #HindiCheeniByeBye has emerged as a new mode of revolution in the 21st century India, hence.

Cyber bullying has emerged to be one of the most significant problems teenagers seem to face online on a daily basis in some way or the other. It affects people mentally and may lead to long term psychological problems in the future. There are many forms in which bullying can take place. However, cyber bullying was not a prevalent issue until the end of 2000 around which internet services were widely spread across the globe and needless to mention it brought about a plethora of positive as well as negative repercussions in the society.

Cyber bullying basically covers bullying that occurs using digital advancements which include but are not limited to mobile phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Social media plays a significant role in helping cyber bullying to be a growing issue amidst the other societal ones in this generation. Although anyone can become a victim of cyber bullying, teenagers seem to be the most affected ones among all age groups.
Cyber bullying covers a wide range when it comes to the form in which it takes place starting from hateful comments, abusive text messages, negative and false information, character assasination to doxing i.e puclicly posting private conversations/ information without a proper permission from their side. Creating fake profiles with a picture and information of someone else without their permission is also a form of doxing which at times can be really dangerous to deal with.

Triggering certain religious beliefs and values can also be considered as a form of cyber bullying which is mainly seen in countries like India and Bangladesh which have a drastic range of diversity and differences of religious believers residing within them. This issue can get really ugly sometimes and it may also lead to real life violent instances if not taken care of from the very beginning.

The graph of cyber bullying in India seems to have taken a sudden spike in the scenario due to its wide availability and access to various internet services that have been made available for almost everyone across the country. Statistics show 7 out of every 10 people face harassments online in the form of online insults and abuses and misusing of personal pictures.

Although anyone can become a victim of cyber bullying regardless of their gender and age, teenage girls happen to be the ones who are more likely to be harassed on a daily basis.
There have been many instances where these kinds of harassments have led to heinous crimes like murder, rape and suicide. According to a recent report(TOI), a 17 year old committed suicide after her friend morphed her picture and uploaded it on social media. In 2018 a boy from UK killed himself after being subjected to cyber bullying. In the same year a 25 year old woman killed herself after being subjected to constant bullying over WhatsApp by her acquaintances due to her friendship with a muslim man. Gurmehar Kaur, an Indian woman had been subjected to online harrassment in the form of abusive comments, text messages as well as murder and rape threats. Her fault was she dared to express her opinions on concepts like War, politics and Peace.There are hundreds of other similar incidents that are allegedly growing day by day.

Considering the current scenario, it seems like more safety tools and apps need to be recommended to everyone in order to create a safe online environment for everyone. Privatization should be enhanced in every way possible so that it helps in making a difference which is highly needed in our society.

– Suvasree Bandyopadhyay

Sighs get their start in one group of neurons, but instructions from various areas of the brain depend on the reason, research with mice finds.

Humans and other mammals sigh automatically once every few moments to maintain proper lung function. This so-called basal sighing is part of the normal breathing process and happens automatically, without us having to think about it. But beyond serving an essential physiological purpose, sighs also occur as behavioral responses to emotions ranging from stress and annoyance to relief.

We want to understand how all of these diverse inputs, both emotional and physiological, lead to the same behavioral output,” says Peng Li, a physiologist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute.

Understanding the brain’s control of emotions is a central goal of neurobiology and psychiatry, but it is difficult due to the challenges in teasing out emotional brain states and their complex outputs.

Because sighs offer a simple, measurable output from the brain, Li and his colleagues use them to learn more about how neural circuits communicate to regulate behavioral responses. They investigate how distinct neural circuits enable the brain to control sighing and breathing in different contexts, by studying the circuits in mice—which also exhibit both basal and emotional sighing and have brains that are architecturally similar to those of humans.

Previously, Li and colleagues identified the neurons and pathways that regulate basal sighing. In this newest study, the researchers traced up from these so-called NMB-neurons (short for neurons expressing Neuromedin B) to see what signals they were receiving when mice were under stress and found a dozen forebrain regions that send direct inputs to the sigh-control center.

When the mice were confined to a small space, inducing a claustrophobic-like state, their sighing rate increased by two to three times. Using genetic tools, the researchers identified another type of neurons in one of the forebrain regions, called hypocretin-expressing (HCRT) neurons, that were firing under stress and sending signals to the NMB-neurons. The researchers then artificially activated the HCRT-neurons, without confining the mice, and saw the same change in sighing rate.

When the researchers silenced the NMB-neurons, both basal sighing and stress-induced sighing drastically decreased in the mice. When they silenced only the HCRT-neurons, however, only the stress-induced sighing decreased while basal sighing was unaffected.

The researchers found that HCRT-neurons also were responsible for an increased breathing rate when the mice were under confinement stress. Since NMB-neurons only control sighing, and not regular breathing, this finding indicates that the HCRT-neurons are sending signals to other parts of the brain simultaneously to activate different stress-induced behaviors.

“So we’ve found the circuit that regulates all types of sighing, but activates sighs for different reasons using input signals from different parts of the brain. And we found another group of neurons that induces sighing in response to this claustrophobic stress, but also regulates other claustrophobia-related outputs,” says Li, who is also an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and Medical School.

These findings give us clues about how the brain is wired to control various behavioral and physiological responses to emotions.”

The findings will appear in Cell Reports.

Support for the research came from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the University of Michigan, the Walter V. and Idun Berry Foundation, and the Francis Family Foundation. Coauthors are from Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

The work performed for this study was approved by the U-M Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee and the Stanford University Administrative Panel on Laboratory Animal Care.

Emotions are distinct patterns of behavioral and physiological responses triggered by stimuli that induce different brain states. Elucidating the circuits is difficult because of challenges in interrogating emotional brain states and their complex outputs. Here, we leverage the recent discovery in mice of a neural circuit for sighing, a simple, quantifiable output of various emotions. We show that mouse confinement triggers sighing, and this “claustrophobic” sighing, but not accompanying tachypnea, requires the same medullary neuromedin B (Nmb)-expressing neurons as physiological sighing. Retrograde tracing from the Nmb neurons identified 12 forebrain centers providing presynaptic input, including hypocretin (Hcrt)-expressing lateral hypothalamic neurons. Confinement activates Hcrt neurons, and optogenetic activation induces sighing and tachypnea whereas pharmacologic inhibition suppresses both responses. The effect on sighing is mediated by HCRT directly on Nmbneurons. We propose that this HCRT-NMB neuropeptide relay circuit mediates claustrophobic sighing and that activated Hcrt neurons are a claustrophobia brain state that directly controls claustrophobic outputs.

Avocado oil isn’t the only product without enforceable standards. Honey, spices, and ground coffee are other common examples. Foods that fetch a higher price are especially ripe for manipulation, especially when adulterations can be too subtle to detect outside a lab.

The vast majority of avocado oil sold in the US is of poor quality, mislabeled, or adulterated with other oils, researchers report.

In the country’s first extensive study of commercial avocado oil quality and purity, researchers report that at least 82% of test samples were either stale before expiration date or mixed with other oils.

PEOPLE ARE SURPRISED SOME OF THE SAMPLES DIDN’T CONTAIN ANY AVOCADO OIL.

In three cases, bottles labeled as “pure” or “extra virgin” avocado oil contained near 100% soybean oil, an oil commonly used in processed foods that’s much less expensive to produce.

“I was surprised some of the samples didn’t contain any avocado oil,” says Selina Wang, Cooperative Extension specialist in the food science and technology department at the University of California, Davis.

“Most people who buy avocado oil are interested in the health benefits, as well as the mild, fresh flavor, and are willing to pay more for the product. But because there are no standards to determine if an avocado oil is of the quality and purity advertised, no one is regulating false or misleading labels. These findings highlight the urgent need for standards to protect consumers and establish a level playing field to support the continuing growth of the avocado oil industry.”

Wang and Hilary Green, a PhD candidate in Wang’s lab, analyzed various chemical parameters of 22 domestic and imported oil samples, which included all the brands they could find in local stores and online.

“In addition to testing commercial brands, we also bought avocados and extracted our own oil in the lab, so we would know, chemically, what pure avocado oil looks like,” Wang says.

Test samples included oils of various prices, some labeled extra virgin or refined. Virgin oil is supposed to be extracted from fresh fruit using only mechanical means, and refined oil is processed with heat or chemicals to remove any flaws.

Fifteen of the samples were oxidized before the expiration date. Oil loses its flavor and health benefits when it oxidizes, which happens over time and when exposed to too much light, heat, or air. Six samples were mixed with large amounts of other oils, including sunflower, safflower, and soybean oil.

Only two brands produced samples that were pure and nonoxidized. Those were Chosen Foods and Marianne’s Avocado Oil, both refined oils made in Mexico. Among the virgin grades, CalPure produced in California was pure and fresher than the other samples in the same grade.

NO STANDARDS FOR AVOCADO OIL
Ensuring quality is important for consumers, retailers, producers, and people throughout the industry. Retailers want to sell quality products, shoppers want to get their money’s worth and honest producers want to keep fraudulent and low-quality oil out of the marketplace.

But since avocado oil is relatively new on the scene, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet adopted “standards of identity,” which are basic food standards designed to protect consumers from being cheated by inferior products or confused by misleading labels

Over the last 80 years, the FDA has issued standards of identity for hundreds of products, like whiskey, chocolate, juices, and mayonnaise. Without standards, the FDA has no means to regulate avocado oil quality and authenticity.

Avocado oil isn’t the only product without enforceable standards. Honey, spices, and ground coffee are other common examples. Foods that fetch a higher price are especially ripe for manipulation, especially when adulterations can be too subtle to detect outside a lab.

Wang is working to develop faster, better, and cheaper chemical methods to detect adulteration so bulk buyers can test avocado oil before selling it. She is also evaluating more samples, performing shelf-life studies to see how time and storage affect quality, and encouraging FDA officials to establish reasonable standards for avocado oil.

Wang has experience collaborating with industry and the FDA. Ten years ago, she analyzed the quality and purity of extra virgin olive oil and discovered that most of what was for sale in the US was actually a much lower grade. Her research sparked a cascade of responses that led California to establish one of the world’s most stringent standards for different grades of olive oil. The FDA is working with importers and domestic producers to develop standards of identity for olive oil.

“Consumers seeking the health benefits of avocado oil deserve to get what they think they are buying,” Wang says.

Working together with the industry, we can establish standards and make sure customers are getting high-quality, authentic avocado oil and the companies are competing on a level playing field.”

5 WAYS YOU CAN AVOID BAD OIL
The flavor of virgin avocado oil can differ by varieties and region. In general, authentic, fresh, virgin avocado oil tastes grassy, buttery, and a little bit like mushrooms.
Virgin avocado oil should be green in color, whereas refined oil is light yellow and almost clear due to pigments removed during refining.

Even good oil becomes rancid with time. It’s important to purchase a reasonable size that can be finished before the oil oxidizes. Store the oil away from light and heat. A cool, dark cabinet is a good choice, rather than next to the stove.
How do you know if the oil is rancid? It starts to smell stale, sort of like play dough.
When possible, choose an oil that’s closest to the harvest/production time to ensure maximum freshness. The “best before date” is not always a reliable indicator of quality.

‘The Half of It’ is one of the most astonishing and well made romantic comedies in the field of media and entertainment of all time. It is a Netflix original directed by Alice Wu who in a descriptive yet vaguely unique manner has portrayed her reflection towards apparently simple yet complex concepts like friendship, queer love and identity crisis which never fails to startle the audience in a thoughtful manner.

If you are someone who is absolutely fascinated by the concept of Love, then you should definitely consider giving it a watch since it covers this topic along with some other relevant yet rare topics in a very unique and unusual way that will blow your mind away with its story, craft and characterization.

The protagonist is an introverted and shy teenager named Ellie Chu who agrees to help her friend Paul to impress his crush Aster. It starts with Ellie sending letters and then messages to Aster on behalf of Paul without exposing her identity. Aster however finds these letters really impressive and both of them(Ellie and Aster) find a metaphysical and psychological connection between the two of them very soon.

Apparently this movie can be misinterpreted by anyone as a typical teen romance showing an archetypal love triangle. However, by the end of the movie it gets clear how it is so much more than just a typical romantic film and how it goes beyond the domain to show an unusual queer bonding between Aster and Ellie, along with a profound and pure friendship that Paul and Aster/Paul and Ellie share.

This film also puts forth a very essential subject of migration and the struggle that follows. Ellie and her father moved from China to U.S and since then they have had to face racial discrimination in several fields. It gets so ugly that her father, despite of having a PhD degree, fails to establish himself in the materialistic pseudo-intellectual society of U.S.

The way the complexities and layers of the societal as well as the psychological spheres have been portrayed through the film is exceptional and is very rare in the field of media. Unlike most of the contemporary romantic films, it does not follow a preconceived and archetypal style of events. The art of characterization has also been exemplified exclusively by the makers of the film. Some movie critics have also claimed that the story is partly autobiographical since the director seemed to have spoken about her own experiences from her college days while promoting the film in various places, which is another aspect that many people find absolutely different and interesting.

Among all the films that are being made lately, I found it to be one of the most relevant ones in terms of the issues it puts forth to the audience. The gradual development of the characters is elaborated beautifully. The duration is less than 2 hours which is perfect to draw attention of the audience and it never, at any point gets monotonous due to its rhythmic and gradual mode of cinematography. It might as well be considered to be a beautiful tribute to friendship and love which is very rare yet simple and beautiful at the same time. I am glad to have found it on Netflix and this Netflix original therefore would be highly recommended to each and every cinephile out there who tens to search for individualism and uniqueness in movies from time to time.

– Suvasree Bandyopadhyay

Child labour means childern under the age of 14 working or labouring at different places while childern between 14-18 are adolescents and they are allowed to work.
We see many reports asking to stop child labour, they punishes people who supports such activities. But still in this world, millions of children under tha age of 14 works in different fields. Due to working in such young age, children are deprived from studies, they donot goes to school, they spends their whole time working and earning money. Government just goes on asking to stop child labour but nothing helps, many companies are blamed for hiring childern to do work in their companies and on making a case against them, they fires all the childern working in their company, however this doesn’t affect the company performance much but the livelihood of that child affects.

No child wishes to work at such age, every one wants to go to school, play, have fun with their friends, siblings, but they can’t do it because they have some duty, responsibility to uphold their family. In case children don’t have father and their mother also earns but can’t earn enough to uphold family needs, then how can they even have money to send a child to school, and the child also needs to work to earn for his family. In some cases child don’t have any of the parent and sometimes father is drunkard or ill to uphold family’s responsibility. There can be many cases which can led a child to do work. For this government made no policy, no act.

Their is another thing called bonded child labour where child parents took money from someone and when they are unable to repay those money then the child has to work as a labour to pay the debt. Government has made acts regarding this and this type of child labour has decreased a lot but not completely, now also many children works as a bonded labour.

Child labour can’t be stopped by any government acts or policies, we need to work at individual level to stop this, stop hiring children for works but this won’t make thier lives better because still they won’t have money to go to school, hence try to help at least one child to study, admit one child to school, and uphold his education expenditure. If each family do it for one child then it will surely make a difference.