A mini forest of one's own: How a Kerala man grew 400 trees in 3 cents of land

 MR Hari had tried many other methods before finally using the Miyawaki method to raise a forest of 400 plants in 18 months, in a plot in Puliyarakonam, Thiruvananthapuram.

MR Hari hops into the little restaurant just outside his plot in Puliyarakonam, a wee bit off the city of Thiruvananthapuram. He is obviously at home here, asking the ‘chechi’ running the restaurant for a breakfast of dosa and kadala (gram) curry, and telling her to allow him to be a complete vegetarian, without pampering him with an early morning offering of her chicken curry.

The plot next to it is two acres in all, part of it now converted into a forest, using the Miyawaki method. Miyawaki is a technique pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki, that involves growing self-sustaining mini forests in urban areas. The method helps the plants grow 10 times faster and 30 times denser than in normal conditions.

“Nothing was working. I had bought this land 12 years ago, after selling off my property in Kottayam, where I am from. But every year when the summer came, all the plants I planted would just die,” Hari says, as he climbs up the plot, which is divided into several layers. He expertly identifies every little plant on the way, suggesting the medicinal remedies that the leaves or fruits of some could give.

“The padathali is good for getting rid of grey hair, the thamravalli with the copper-coloured leaves is used by tribal people to treat cancer without causing wounds, the kareelanchi was once used to treat itching in children, the kayyonni for hair growth and a way to rebuild your failed lungs, the naaku with the green leaves is used by tribal people for tonsillitis and the changalamparanda is often powdered into chutney for the bones,” he says, often using pronouns for the plants, addressing them like children.

Hari runs a company called Invis Multimedia in Thiruvananthapuram with three partners, but his real interest has always been farming, he says. “I am a farmer, I want to be a farmer,” he says sitting on top of a rock, fondly looking at the forest he has raised in three cents of land.

“I grew up among trees, in a small town in Kottayam. I loved to plant them. When I grew up, I sold off my property in Kottayam and bought this dry land which had a pond. But it dried up when I got it cleaned – turns out all the water was because of the mud that was stuck in the holes. When we cleaned it, the water drained out through the holes.” 

He tried to raise a forest every year, planting 500 trees. Fifty of those would bloom but die with no groundwater. He did his best not to drill a borewell, since that would harm the environment. But when everything else failed, he tried that as well. That too, didn’t work.

Disheartened, Hari waited for another way out. “That’s when I heard of the Japanese Miyawaki method. I got help from a scientist friend of mine, Dr Mathew Dan. I took one-and-a-half years to research and experiment. Eighteen months ago, I planted these 400 trees on three cents, and they have shot up in search of sunlight so very soon,” he says, pointing at his mini forest of trees, shrubs, creepers and so on.

Hari elaborates about the plants he has raised – 70 species of natural vegetation and 200 more added. Among the natural ones he names are Ada pathiyan (Holostemma Ada-Kodien), Uzhinja (Cardiospermum helicacabum), Kayyonni (Eclipta prostrata), Nilappana (Curculigo orchioides), etc. And among those planted are Ashokam (Saraca asoca), Arayaal (Ficus relegiosa), Karingali (Acacia catechu), Thanni (Terminalia bellirica) and so on.

“There would be one type of insects feeding on a specific plant. Normally what happens is, people raise just one kind of plant over a plot of land and this particular insect that feeds on it will attack it. Whereas in a forest, different species of plants will be attacked by different types of insects. And some of these insects will prey on the others, and that way the plants are protected. It is always ideal to grow multiple species of plants.”

Hari describes his method. On top of the soil, you make a bed with tender coconut shell, and put a coating mixture over it using lime shell. The coating mixture includes rice hull, coir pith and cowdung. Hari rattles off the use of each component: to hold water, to make the plants strong, to prepare the soil. “The plants are so close to each other that they need to grow fast to get the sunlight, competing with each other,” he speaks fondly of them. Hari gets upset when he spots some slaked lime sprinkled around a few plants. He calls up a worker on the phone and asks why. “It appears some agriculture officer had suggested it. But their methods are different,” Hari says after the call.

He then shows a Facebook post – a photo of mushrooms sprouting around his plants. “I was going to post this photo of mushrooms on October 27, when Facebook brought me a reminder from a year ago. It seems the same day last year, mushrooms had sprouted in the forest. That means the organic nature of the soil is just perfect. It means I am doing something right,” he says cheerfully, and adds, “In my opinion, this is the only way, we as humans, can do something to put an end to climate change and global warming.”

Hari gets up from the rock and walks into his forest with a long stick. “I will stay here for a while,” he says, his voice drowning in the sounds of the forest already.

(Source: TNM)

Chilling Japanese ghost tales with contemporary twists to help you beat the summer heat

Spend a summer in Japan and you’re bound to notice the ghosts. It starts with the media’s escalating emphasis on local hauntings or folklore, a nod to the widely accepted belief that spooky tales bring welcome chills to battle the heat. It culminates with the Bon holiday period, which generally runs in mid-August, although the timing depends on where you live in Japan.

It’s a Buddhist belief that Bon is when the spirits of the ancestors return to the land of the living, and it is customary for Japanese to travel back to their birthplaces to honor their dead. Now on the cusp of Bon, here’s a look at three contemporary literary twists on the ghostly realms of modern Japan.

First up is Japanese writer Aoko Matusda’s 2016 absurdist collection of short stories, “Where the Wild Ladies Are.” The English edition, translated by Polly Barton, was released this year. A wondrously surreal yet realistically grounded take on traditional Japanese ghost tales, Matsuda deftly reworks classic stories by placing the female spirits front and center. Her pragmatic ghosts give beauty advice, take lovers and long baths, and even babysit for an overworked single mother.

Homecoming: Buddhists believe that during the Bon period, the spirits of the ancestors return to the realm of the living. | GETTY IMAGES

As Barton says in an interview with The Japan Times, “From an early age, Matsuda has been fascinated by ghost stories where the ghost isn’t made into a particularly spooky or scary entity, but simply lives alongside human beings in a casual and unremarked-upon way.

“Yet as she read more, Matsuda realized how ghost stories represent a core of misogyny and abuse in Japan — all this terrible stuff happens to women and then they die. As ghosts, they wreak their revenge and become otherized as terrifying beings, end of story. No accountability is taken for what was done to them in the first place.”

In Matsuda’s reimaginings, the ghosts take control with agency, wit and compassion — and a streak of pop culture flair. Barton adds, “Matsuda wants to bring feminism to a younger readership in a way that feels fun, and readers will realize feminism is for them. Most of these stories are modern adaptations of kabuki or rakugo, traditional art forms that quite often attract staid or conservative ideas. There are hardcore traditionalists who may see Matsuda’s methods as irreverent, but in her world, it shows her respect for the stories, that they are universal in time and place, and are constantly being reinvented in modern terms.”

Two American writers have also found success in reworking the appealing spiritual world of Japan. Writer-performer Barry Yourgrau runs “Tokyo Ghost Gaga,” a bilingual series of short fiction for NAMI magazine, and Thersa Matsuura is the host of the ghost-story podcast “Uncanny Japan” as well as a Bram Stoker Award nominee for her collection of Japan-inspired horror tales,“The Carp-Faced Boy and Other Tales” (2017).

For both writers, each drawn to the inexplicably strange, the Japanese sensibility to ghosts is an undeniable attraction. As Yourgrau says, “being in Tokyo is so fascinating because in many ways it’s the city of the future, but it also has these medieval hangovers around every corner. Tokyo blends a combination of the future and hyper-present with a medieval legacy that hasn’t gone away.”

For Matsuura, a long-term resident of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japanese spiritual beliefs consistently influence daily reality, and in the rural fishing village that she calls home, the supernatural is never far away.

“There’s a pervasive belief that you’re always living with the ancestors, and the spirits are so alive here since the land is so old,” she says. “Temples or shrines are at every block, the kamidan (gods’ shelf) rests in the house, and every morning you put the offerings in the butsudan (Buddhist altar). Ghosts are absolutely part of a daily ritual of acceptance.”

Ten years ago, Matsuura’s mother-in-law matter-of-factly declared her “sticky” to ghosts, insisting on a series of exorcisms to rid the family of potential bad luck. Matsuura weaves all these realities into her work, including an “Uncanny Japan” episode, which aired on May 29, that explains sayings related to yо̄kai (supernatural monsters) and the Japanese tradition of creepy children’s songs. Matsuura also offers up audio-dramas as “Bedtime Stories” on Patreon and pens a column about the surreal in the Asahi Weekly.

Yourgrau’s tales in “Tokyo Ghost Gaga” were drawn from an extended stay in Tokyo with his partner, a food columnist, and are a mix of “fact and fabulism” with a focus on cultural ghosts. The stories take the reader on a ghostly ramen-tasting tour, to the base of an anthropomorphic lovesick Tokyo Tower, and off on a night drive with the spirit of Yoko Sugiyama, Yukio Mishima’s bride. “The real events happened,” says Yourgrau, “and then I researched to discover different ghostly or surreal connections.”

With its endless possibilities, the popularity of the Japanese ghost-story genre seems sure to live on. As translator Barton points out, “(Outside of Japan), ghosts belong to such a rigid category of being, whereas in Japan you have such a wide class of supernatural beings, from yо̄kai to yūrei (ghosts) to tree spirits, and all those categories seamlessly blend into the realm of kami (gods). So in the whole animist tradition, everything is a lot more fluid (at the point) where it passes from the living to the dead.”

Yourgrau adds, “(The ghost-story genre) represents such a richness of the culture, as it indicates the presence — mentally, emotionally and psychologically — of the departed. It suggests the dead haven’t really gone — and on some level, it’s true. In dreams or daily life, we still hold strong connections with the departed; they haven’t gone away. They’ve just taken another reality, a psychological or emotional reality. Japanese ghost stories speak to that reality.”

(Source: JT)

Cold waves killed more Indians than heat waves since 1980: IMD

There has also been a 506% increase in the number of cold waves in India in this decade

While North India is under the grip of severe 'cold days' and 'cold waves' in 2019, a look at the data provided by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) shows a worrying trend. In 23 of the last 38 years (1980-2018), the human death toll in India due to cold waves was higher than that due to heat waves. 

Photo: @sunder_barange / Twitter

In 1992, 41 times more lives were lost due to cold waves. Between 2010 and 2018. the trend was somewhat different. In this period, around 4,506 people died due to cold waves while 5,572 died due to heat waves. The notable exception was 2011. That year, human deaths due to cold waves were nearly 60 times more than those due to heat waves.

However, in 2018, the trend reversed again. About 136 people died due to cold waves in comparison to 16 deaths due to heat waves.

The other shocking statistic that emerged between 2010 and 2018 was a whopping 506 per cent increase in the number of cold waves in India, despite increasing temperatures worldwide due to global warming. 

Year	Human deaths due to  heat waves	Human deaths due to  cold waves
1	1980	156	185
2	1981	33	192
3	1982	16	63
4	1983	187	488
5	1984	58	155
6	1985	142	494
7	1986	156	276
8	1987	87	105
9	1989	43	215
10	1990	2	82
11	1992	114	303
12	1993	30	63
13	1996	20	68
14	1997	21	140
15	1999	119	222
16	2000	55	368
17	2001	56	490
18	2004	117	462
19	2008	111	114
20	2009	216	79
21	2010	242	450
22	2011	12	722
23	2018	16	136

Severe cold days in the next days: IMD

According to the IMD bulletin released on December 27, 2019, cold to severe cold day conditions are likely to remain over many areas of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, northern Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during the next two days. 

The maximum temperatures was markedly below normal (-5.1°C or less) at most places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and gangetic West Bengal. 

According to IMD, the maximum temperatures was appreciably below normal (-3.1°C to -5.0°C) at most places over Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh, at many places over Madhya Pradesh and at a few places over Gujarat too.

Along with severe cold days, some pockets in Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, north Rajasthan and Bihar may also experience cold to severe cold waves.

A cold day is defined on the basis of maximum day temperature while a cold wave is defined by looking at minimum temperatures recorded on two consecutive nights.

Wither planning?

The guidelines for Action Plan on Prevention and Management of Heat Wave prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in 2016, were further revised in 2017. In fact, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare too had issued guidelines to deal with heat-related illness. 

In 2019, the government had started working with 23 states and over 100 cities and districts to implement and develop heat action plans in India.

But do the states have plans to deal with cold waves so that human lives can be saved?

(Source: Down to Earth)

Student succeeds at failing to start work on his summer homework

For elementary school children in Japan, their weeks-long summer vacation isn’t entirely a time for leisure. Instead, it’s overshadowed by a stack of homework that features, among other things, an assignment known as jiyū kenkyū (independent project).

As the name suggests, jiyū kenkyū is an opportunity for pupils to pursue a project they’re interested in. At the same time, however, it has become something of an ever-present headache for students, many of whom would typically spend a large chunk of their already homework-ridden vacation trying to figure out just what project they should undertake.

This past summer, a 12-year-old student in Iwate Prefecture used this quandary to his advantage, coming up with an audacious plan that conveniently required him not to do any homework at all: to document the reaction of his family as they discover he has failed to keep up with his homework duties throughout the vacation.

A hashtag that translates as “unbelievable independent project” recently went viral after the student’s father shared a few entries of his son’s journal, titled “How my family and myself reacted when all homework was ignored until the very last day,” on Instagram.

In penning the journal, images of which were provided by the father to The Japan Times, the student recalled how he spent the first week of his vacation without a care in the world. He went swimming, tried to catch bees and attended a local festival. All this time, he wrote, “homework was nowhere on my mind.”

His happy-go-lucky mood persisted for another few weeks and, in fact, it wasn’t until the final few days of his vacation that the reality of what he had done began to sink in and he started to harbor a sense of anxiety.

By the time the penultimate day of the student’s vacation arrived, this anxiety had escalated into outright panic, with him “waking up in the morning from a nightmare in which I was scolded by my teacher for not doing any homework.”

“I can’t continue this experiment anymore,” he wrote. “I can’t stop sweating.”

He decided to tell his parents that he hadn’t started his assignment.

While his father merely laughed it off — and even seemed somewhat impressed by his son’s resourcefulness — his mother nearly lost it.

“She went ballistic upon discovering that, despite my assurances about staying on top of my homework whenever she nagged me about it, I had been lying the entire time,” he wrote. “She was so furious she smashed a plate. But mom, I can’t complete my homework because of my investigation. I hope you can understand.”

On the last day of his vacation, the student found himself feeling strangely relaxed and even described having a momentary epiphany of sorts.

“Why does homework exist in the first place?” he asked.

This philosophical mood, however, didn’t last long and he reluctantly made a start on the mountain of homework he had in the afternoon, berating himself for being so stupid.

“I’m so angry at myself for embarking on such a project even though it was the underlying idea of my independent project in the first place,” he wrote. “If only I could go back in time.”

As the student was working on his various assignments, he overheard his father recalling that he, too, had often neglected to start his summer homework until the last day. His mother, meanwhile, pointedly refused to make eye contact with her son as a form of silent punishment.

However, the tale was to undergo a new twist and the student later discovered that one of his younger brothers had also not touched his homework during summer. His brother had now joined him in a last-ditch effort to complete it on the final day, sobbing as he did so.

“Could I have just documented my brother?” the student wrote. “Maybe I didn’t have to do all this myself?”

The student’s journal entries attracted much discussion on social media, with many marveling at his inventiveness.

“I’ve never seen such a funny and independent project,” Twitter user @satoko_tea wrote. “His imaginativeness, boldness and insightfulness are incredible. I’m so excited for his future.”

“It’s kids like this who can create iPhones,” suggested Twitter user @srnitijougeki5.

However, a number of netizens couldn’t help but sympathize with the student’s mother.

“I laughed out loud reading this, and I totally understand how his mother must’ve felt when she broke a plate,” Twitter user @miyuki1492 wrote. “If I were her, I would’ve probably smashed a window.”

(Source: JT)

A farewell to summer

By the time I went to school, I knew the world was changeable the way people were changeable, especially people like parents, with their moods and regrets and sore shoulders. Over the winter holidays, the world was lit by little yellow bulbs on garlands. There was the peacefulness of surprises that would come and that would not be terribly surprising: our stockings always held one orange, one apple, and a pack of chewing gum, along with something else like stickers or brand-new socks. In the car, the world grew purposeful; at the dollar theater, where our dad could take us to see The Princess Bride on a Tuesday afternoon for fifty cents apiece, the world grew relaxed.

Swimming pools turned the world glamorous. Every year my sister and I would look forward to the afternoon when Tulsa’s public pools would open. The pools hosted block parties with free sandwiches served in a long, perfect row, like the world’s biggest snake just lurking in the shadows, and even free cups of pop, which was prohibited at home.

In high school, I would make friends whose parents owned their own pools, but back in elementary school, the swimming pool was still a gift the world would only give for a precious few months out of the year, and only when our parents could make the time to take us. We occasionally also stayed in motels on our way to see our grandparents in Kansas or on our annual family vacation in Nebraska, though these places rarely had pools. But when they did, then the world shot clear up to the tip-top of the peak of glamour, and my sister and I became princesses from Lichtenstein or maybe Switzerland who’d been kidnapped by the Oklahoma criminals who called themselves our parents, and accordingly, on those rare nights, we would not speak to them at all.

Glamour and heartbreak have one thing in common: they both wear off faster than you’d think. By the time I turned ten, I was an old hat at hotel pools, stomping around on the damp cement that encased them like the world was an old, filthy toy I no longer had time for. I no longer cared about underwater handstands, or floating. I slipped quietly into the water wherever the ladder was, suddenly incapable of leaping with abandon.

In the same way, I became inured to the strangeness of hospitals, to the never-ending cries of children in pediatric wards, or the somewhat softer but equally painful sounds their relatives made in the hallways as I drifted by.

It happened in the blink of an eye. One day my sister and I were at school, as usual, and then she was having her first seizure—the first of the many thousands that would come. We rode in ambulances only for the first few times. After that we just carried her out to the car, not even exceeding the speed limit.

When she was six, my sister had brain surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and for a while my grandparents paid for a hotel for themselves and my parents and me. Every second I could, I spent with my sister. But when she was asleep or I wasn’t allowed, my grandmother would take me swimming and read a magazine on a lounge chair while I stood motionless in the very center of the pool, breathing in the chlorine, the water severing my torso like a magician on TV.

When the grown-ups told me my sister was going to be fine, I knew from their tone not to trust them, even though I couldn’t yet figure out what the opposite of fine would be. My sister and I had known for a long time that grown-ups weren’t to be trusted. They lied to us about how the apples and oranges got inside our stockings, and they lied outlandishly about swimming, like that pee would turn the water red. The worst part was not the betrayal, but rather the necessity of continuing to listen, just in case amid all that drivel there might be something that would protect us from some danger so terrible we couldn’t even begin to imagine it ourselves.

Because the watery world was the most alluring to us, we assumed there might be something to all their warnings about aquatic disasters. Otherwise, swimming was too good to be true. We had never known a person who had drowned. We had known a girl who got kidnapped. She was a classmate of mine; it happened on the day before my birthday; I don’t remember her name or face or anything about what happened, only that my birthday did not take place that year.

But we both belonged to an organization called the Camp Fire Girls that rewarded heroism, and every year at our big gathering, some girl would be honored for saving some other girl’s life. I think that made us both hope to save each other someday. That is, at any rate, the effect it had on me.

I always expected my sister to nearly drown. I hoped every summer it would happen. It never occurred to me that I would not be by her side; it was outside the realm of the conceivable that I would for any reason be unable to rescue her—that for any reason she might actually suffer, let alone die.

Once she slipped in a stream, and I grabbed her by the strap of her overalls and tried to drag her toward me until she squealed at me to stop. The water was so shallow I was dragging her over jagged rocks.

When she was in the hospital, and I was at the swimming pool alone, the possibility of my sister vanishing entirely turned the world solid, ejecting all of us, making me too miserable to move. I tried to make friends with the other siblings, and even the other sick kids when they were in periods of outpatient care, in remission or just waiting. One day I played a game in the pool with a boy around my age, nine or ten, who had leukemia, both of us pretending to be pirates, our treasure of a couple of wooden blocks he had stolen from the waiting room at the clinic, thrown to the bottom of the pool.

His presence did nothing to diminish the absence of my sister, but it did restore a little air into the world. My grandmother looked over from her magazine and smiled at us, and I smiled back. Then, all of a sudden, the little boy who had leukemia swam up, pinched my bottom, digging his nails as far into suit and skin as he could manage, and then swam off again.

The world of childhood can seem so much more instinctual than the adult world; children’s behavior can verge on animalistic. On that day, I did not hesitate. I did not, out of sympathy, move on to some new aquatic game. I did not try to reason with him, or explain to him my feelings. I didn’t even yell. Instead, I just got out of the pool and informed my grandma we were leaving. When the boy tried to follow, dripping helplessly onto the concrete, I ignored him. He was dead to me, even though it had already been explained to me that he was dying.

I often think about the disappointment in my grandma’s eyes that day. It was a disappointment I had no sense of yet, the disappointment of all the contradictions of the universe thwarting her progress toward hope. We never talked about what had happened, and I never told anybody else. I knew at the time that I was deciding how to feel, rather than feeling, deciding to have this particular principle rather than any other.

Yet now when I look back on my smaller self I don’t see a conveyer belt of moral precepts. I don’t even really see a self. I see a fluid being struggling to adapt to the damming off of its sister, the first real indication of the boundaries between other and self. I see a creature that felt pain in its veins every time my sister’s blood was taken, that scrambled to escape while she was held in the gigantic tube of an MRI or a CT scan, and that stopped being able to swallow a burger by the side of the road after making the connection between animal suffering and ours.

In some ways, my boundaries have remained permeable. I have now been a vegetarian for thirty years. Now, when my sister has a seizure, or when her lupus or rheumatoid arthritis act up, I must remind myself that our bodies are separate, that they always have been, that I can help her better if I’m not ailing, too—and that often enough my attempts at rescue only bruise her more.

I still think about that boy, and sometimes I associate him with later, more serious assaults by grown men; other times I regret hurting a sick little boy’s feelings, depriving him of a worthwhile distraction, even just a small thing that would have helped him pass the time. But on that day, I did the only thing I could have done.

In my early twenties, my Fulbright stipend proved generous enough that after my year in Warsaw I took my first adult vacation in Dubrovnik and afterward on the beautiful Croatian island of Brač. I had never seen the sea before. The Adriatic overjoyed me. I photographed the sand and shells and pebbles as the water washed over them, bursts of brilliance and their afterglows, their steady tempo. I combed the sand for shells I kept in an old blank CD case to give to my grandma when I had enough.

At first I was scared to drown or accidentally infiltrate a school of fish, in the same way I was scared of getting lost and getting hit by buses and of completely cloudless skies. But, after a while, I started swimming again. Heartbreak and glamour fade, but everyday joy—just like everyday strain—fades less.

(Source: The Paris Review)

Soaring temperatures could make Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca lethal, study finds

In 1990 peak temperatures were linked to deadly stampedes which resulted in 1,462 people dying

Climate change could mean that the millions of Muslims who make the annual five-day pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia are putting themselves in “extreme danger”.

For the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims, the Hajj pilgrimage is considered a religious duty that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime.

However, researchers say worshippers could be taking huge risks in the coming years as temperatures start to soar, with some spending 20 to 30 hours outside.

There have already been deadly stampedes during the event – one in 1990 resulted in 1,462 deaths and one in 2015 left 769 dead and 934 injured. Both years coincided with peaks in temperatures in the region.

Scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say authorities should consider limiting how many people can take part.

“If you have crowding in a location the harsher the weather conditions are, the more likely it is that crowding would lead to incidents,” said Elfatih Eltahir, professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT.

The timing of the Hajj varies each year but it is set to take place during the hottest summer months between 2047 and 2052 and from 2079 to 2086.

When looking at the level at which heat and humidity become dangerous, scientist refer to the “wet bulb temperature” which is a measure of how well sweating cools the body down.

At a humidity of 100 per cent, wet bulb temperatures are the same as dry bulb temperatures. Otherwise, wet bulb temperatures will be lower than dry bulb temperatures because of the cooling effect of sweating.

Temperatures above 39C are classified as a “danger” by the US National Weather Service. A wet bulb temperature of above 51C is classified as an “extreme danger” with a high risk of heat stroke, which can damage the brain, heart, kidneys and muscles, and even result in death.

Scientists say climate change will significantly increase the number of days each summer where wet bulb temperatures will exceed the “extreme danger” limit, according to the paper published in Geophysical Review Letters.

Professor Eltahir says preparing for these potentially unsafe conditions will be important for officials in Saudi Arabia.

There are certain protective measures in place, such as nozzles that provide a mist of water in some outdoor locations but in years ahead, researchers say it may be necessary to limit the number of participants allowed to take part. 

Authorities say 1.85 million pilgrims from 180 different countries joined more than 600,000 Saudi residents in the journey this year which finished earlier this month.

The rite marks the beginning of the Islamic holiday Eid-al-Adha, which translates as “festival of the sacrifice”.

(Source: Independent)

What’s a Japanese summer without the noisy cicada?

From classic literature to anime, seasonal insects have special place in country’s culture

It’s summer in Japan. Open the window and what do you hear?

Is it miin miin min min miiiin?

Or is it jin jin jin jin jin jin?

Perhaps it’s tsukutsukuboooshi tsukutsukuboooshi?

Or maybe even kana kana kana kana kana?

It all depends on where you are, what time of day it is and who you’re speaking to.

One thing is certain, though. If it’s midsummer, you’re likely to hear a cicada calling from somewhere.

“I don’t think people really like cicadas,” says Shuhei Nomura, senior curator for the zoology department with the National Museum of Nature and Science. “There are lots of them and they’re noisy. But if they weren’t there, it would feel kind of lonely. Japanese people think of cicadas as a symbol of the summer.”

Cicadas — known as semi in Japanese — are a superfamily of insects with around 2,000 known species worldwide, around 35 of which live in Japan. Although cicadas are most common in areas with tropical climates, they can be found as far north as Hokkaido.

Cicadas live for several years underground as nymphs before emerging in summer or, much less commonly, spring. Once above ground, they shed their exoskeletons to complete their transition into adulthood.

Adult cicadas live for only about a month before they die, but they certainly make their presence felt during their short lifetimes. Males produce a call that borders on deafening, rapidly contracting and relaxing membranes in their abdomens in a bid to attract mates.

Special status
The distinctive sound, appearance and short lifespan of cicadas have earned them a special place in Japanese culture, and the insects have appeared in numerous pieces of art and literature over the years.

The title character in the classic novel “The Tale of Genji” likens the way one of his lovers drops her robe to the way a cicada sheds its skin, while one of poet Matsuo Basho’s most famous haiku includes the lines “shizukesa ya iwa ni shimi iru, semi no koe” (“in the quietude seeping into the rock, the call of cicadas”).

Internationally acclaimed artist Makoto Aida, whose 1990 work “Electric Pole” features an empty cicada shell on a gray telegraph pole streaked with dog urine, believes the insects can be an evocative symbol.

“In my picture, you have the gray pole, the mark of a dog that has gone, and the remains of a cicada that has flown away,” Aida says. “Normally, a cicada would rest on a tree. It wouldn’t emerge from its shell on a telegraph pole — it’s fiction. But the picture is meant to convey the emptiness of a modern Tokyo filled with asphalt and concrete. The hollow cicada shell is meant to express emptiness.”

The call of cicadas can often be heard on TV shows and anime. According to Aida, the sound serves as a shorthand method of conveying the atmosphere of the Japanese summer to audiences.

“Japanese summers are not clear or refreshing,” he says. “They’re so hot and humid that you feel like you’re going crazy. Then you have this huge number of cicadas all making this noise at the same time. It really stands out, so if you’re trying to convey the sense of it being the height of summer in a movie or an anime, you can include the sound of cicadas and everyone will understand straight away.”

Aida even goes as far as to say there is “a stench of death” surrounding cicadas in the public imagination.

He notes that Bon — the annual Buddhist ritual where the souls of dead ancestors are said to revisit household altars — and the anniversary of the country’s World War II surrender both fall around Aug. 15. Personal memories or TV portrayals of these events are, therefore, invariably accompanied by a chorus of screeching cicadas, forming an indelible mental association for many people.

Stuff of inspiration
Not everyone views cicadas in such a morbid light, however. Museum curator Nomura says the insects have a number of specific features that have even inspired technological innovations.

Cicada wings have anti-reflective properties that have helped researchers develop materials to reduce glare on computer screens and smartphones. The wings also have anti-bacterial, self-cleaning and waterproof properties that have driven the development of other products.

“There are 35 species of cicada in Japan, but each one is completely different,” Nomura says. “That’s very interesting.”

Each species varies in terms of shape, size, color, call, habitat, behavior, what time of year they emerge and what type of trees they suck sap from. The most common species in Japan include the abura zemi, min-min zemi, kuma zemi and nii-nii zemi.

In most cases, the names given to Japanese cicada species are derived from the noises they make. The abura zemi — abura meaning oil in Japanese — is so called because its jin jin jin jin jin call resembles the sound of food frying in a pan. One exception is the kuma zemi (bear cicada), which is named for its large size.

Not all parts of Japan refer to cicada species in the same way, however. According to Nomura, there are many regional distinctions.

“There are lots of different ways to express the sounds that cicadas make in Japanese,” he says. “It’s like with bird songs, where people use a word to describe the sound of a particular call.

“For kuma zemi, people usually say sha sha sha sha, but in Kyushu they describe the call as washi washi washi washi. They use the name washi-washi semi for that species. The call is the same, but the way people hear it is different. Different regions have different ways of hearing the calls.”

Different species of cicada also call at different times of the day. According to artist Aida, filmmakers can trade on that latent knowledge to evoke certain emotions in viewers.

“The species that people like best is the one that calls when the sun is going down and the day has cooled off,” he says. “They’re called higurashi. People feel relieved that the heat has gone down slightly and it’s a little more comfortable. It’s a nice feeling. That sound appears in films a lot.”

Children’s fascination
While adults may not be so keen to get a close-up look at cicadas, children are much more enthusiastic. Collecting the discarded shells of cicada larvae is a popular summer pastime, as is catching the full-grown insects in nets.

Nomura says collecting discarded shells is both safe and hygienic, but he urges caution when trying to snare the full-grown adults.

“A cicada will expel urine at something to try to surprise it when it’s trying to escape,” he says. “It’s much more difficult to catch a cicada than you might think. You would think that a bigger net would be best for catching them, but it’s actually better to use a smaller net. If you’re accurate with a smaller net, they won’t be able to fly out of it.”

But why even bother to try to catch something that Aida describes as “grotesque”? Cicadas have none of the glamorous appeal of rhinoceros beetles or stag beetles — both wildly popular with Japanese children — and are too common to be considered rare treasure.

Curiosity, Nomura says, is the answer.

“If kids don’t catch cicadas, they won’t be able to find out what kind of insects they are,” he says. “That’s the reason they catch them.”

(Source: JT)

David Attenborough urges everyone to leave a spoonful of sugar and water in their garden to save humanity

You don’t have to be a tree hugger to respect the environment that you live in.

For two million years, before the agricultural revolution, humans foraged the land and brought thousands of species of animals to extinction.

We can say that millions of years ago we didn’t know better, but now we do.

Bees are pollinators, and without them, we wouldn’t be alive. They are responsible for feeding 90% of the world’s population.

David Attenborough, the voice behind The Blue Planet and Planet Earth, warns “if bees were to disappear from the face of the Earth, humans would have just four years to live.”

That may become a reality at the rate things are going.

In a heartfelt Instagram post, the 92-year-old documentary maker shared that “in the last five years, the bee population has dropped by 1/3.”

There is a way to make a difference.

David Attenborough says by leaving a teaspoon of sugar and water in your garden or lawn, you can help to re-hydrate them when they’re tired.

“This time of year bees can often look like they are dying or dead, however, they’re far from it. Bees can become tired and they simply don’t have enough energy to return to the hive which can often result in being swept away. If you find a tired bee in your home, a simple solution of sugar and water will help revive an exhausted bee. Simply mix two tablespoons of white, granulated sugar with one tablespoon of water, and place on a spoon for the bee to reach.”

In turn, these bees are going to give you health and happiness!


(Source: Newsroom 24)

Qatar extends visa-free entry for all during 'Summer in Qatar'

Residents in Qatar will be able to invite their relatives and friends this summer easily as Qatar has further eased visa processes as a part of ‘Summer in Qatar’ program.

Under the initiative, residents in Qatar will be able to invite their relatives and friends on free visa during the summer festival that will run from June 4 to August 16. 

“Citizens and residents of Qatar can bring their relatives, friends and other guests into the country hassle-free during the summer festival,” said Akbar Al Baker, Secretary-General of QNTC and Group Chief Executive of Qatar Airways, yesterday, while launching ‘Summer in Qatar’ program.

Representational image

Qatar has already allowed citizens of 80 countries for visa-free entry.

“People who are not from the countries that have visa free and they want to bring their families they can do free of charge,” Rashed Alqurese, Chief Marketing Officer, Qatar National Tourism Council told The Peninsula.

(Source: The Peninsula)

Why do the clocks go forward in Spring for summer?

The UK has been using Daylight Saving Time for more than a century

On Sunday 31 March at 1am, Brits will lose an hour of sleep when the clocks go forward, signalling that summer is well and truly on its way.

The annual ritual marks the official beginning of British Summer Time, which ends when the clocks go back an hour in late October.

So where did the idea for for changing the clocks come from, who came up with it and how do people feel about it? Here’s everything you need to know:

Who invented Daylight Saving Time?
British Summer Time was first introduced more than a century ago as part of the Summer Time Act 1916.

The Summer Time Act came into effect following a campaign by builder William Willett, who proposed that the clocks go forward in spring and go back in winter so that people could save energy and spend more time outdoors during the day.

Willett wrote about his proposal in a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight”, published in 1907.

While British Summer Time was eventually established during the First World War, Willett wasn’t the first person to conceive the idea of altering time to preserve daylight.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, wrote about the notion in a satirical letter to the editor of the Journal of Paris in 1784.

Furthermore, the ancient Romans also implemented a similar system as a means of using their time efficiently during the day.

As scholar Berthold L. Ullman explains in an article published in The Classical Journal, the ancient Romans would split the period of day in which there was sunlight into 12 periods of equal length, which they would call “hours”.

These hours would vary in length from between 45 to 75 minutes, depending on the time of year.

How do people feel about pushing the clocks back and forward?
While many people may relish in the idea of having an additional hour of sleep when the clocks go back, some are of the opinion that the practise should be stopped.

In August 2018, the European Commission conducted a survey across the continent, which received responses from 4.6 million people.

More than 80 per cent of the participants said that they want to stop moving the clocks back and forward by an hour.

According to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, millions of people “think that in the future we should have summertime all year round.”

In September 2018, a proposal was presented by the Commission to put an end to seasonal time changes in 2019, with member states being given the option to “decide their standard time”.

Some people argue that Daylight Saving Time can increase the risk of road accidents, due to more people driving during dark autumn and winter evenings.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents suggests moving the clocks forward an hour in autumn and forward two hours in spring, in order to create lighter evenings throughout the entire year and thus reduce the likelihood of traffic accidents.

(Source: Independent)