Welcome to the official blog of Science Club, Heritage Institute of Technology, Kolkata

Your World in Ultraviolet Ultraviolet light, more commonly called UV light or ‘Black’ light, is the higher energy sibling of Violet light. Human eyes are sensitive to wavelengths from 380 nm (Violet) to 750 nm (Red). Our retina can detect light up to the wavelength of about 310 nm (the entire UV A spectrum) but our lenses block this high energy radiation from reaching the retina, saving it from permanent damage. The UV light has a damaging effect on our skin and eyes, but fortunately, most of the UV rays from our sun (all of UV C and some of UV B radiation) are blocked by the ozone layer. Ultimately which reaches us is the higher wavelength UV A and some of medium wavelength UV B, both are responsible for causing skin damage. Although everything about UV is not horrific. An important beneficial aspect of UV is that our body uses UVB to produce a form of Vitamin D which is crucial for bone and muscle development. Probably, the coolest thing about UV radiation is its capacity to ca...

How Does Anesthesia Work? Anesthesia was first used in 1846, by Dr  William T.G.Morton in which he successfully demonstrate d the use of Diethyl ether for surgery. In the old days , natural anesthesia were used such as opium-poppy, mandrake fruit etc. It is a medical treatment that prevents patients from feeling pain during surgery. Anesthesia can be of 3 types : (1) Local anesthesia – this creates numbness only in one small area of the body. (2) Regional anesthesia - blocks pain in an area of the body such as legs or arms , mostly used during childbirth. (3) General anesthesia – makes you fully unconscious . T his is a combination of both intravenous drugs and inhaled gases. It can have some side effect such as vomiting, nausea and hallucination. During general anesthe sia, the  patient is supplied with inhaled gases . T hes e gases are a combination of both anesthetic drugs and oxygen which goes to the lungs and then get mixed with the bloodstream whic...

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE NEXT DOOMSDAY? What is Intelligence? In the words of Stephen Hawking, it is defined as “the ability to change”. The word ‘change’ has been guiding the survival of each and every species on this planet. Several theories of evolution are evident to this fact, but how much of this “change” is actually catalysing our way forward without putting our own existence in jeopardy? One such change which revolutionised the human world is Artificial Intelligence. The concept of artificial intelligence was first developed in 1950 which gave birth to the speculation that machines could think. It was established as a discipline of academics in the year 1956. Since then, billions of dollars have been invested in the research and development of the various possible avenues of this topic. So first of all, what is this Artificial Intelligence and how powerful is it? A.I. is a kind of manmade intelligence that is put into machines...

   GAMMA RAY BURSTS (GRBs)  Gamma-Ray bursts or GRBs are the most violent explosions in the Universe. They occur when two Neutron stars collide and form a black hole, or when a black hole swallows a neutron star or when a Star goes “SUPERNOVA”, that means there is a sudden and great increase in the brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass. Just imagine, 2 massive stars (which are like 50 to 100 times the mass of our sun) colliding. It is hard to imagine such an event without witnessing. As far as Human knowledge goes, GRBs are the ‘BRIGHTEST’ electromagnetic events ever known. Each burst can last from 10 milliseconds to up to several hours.  They’re outside the spectrum of visible light, hence are invisible to the naked eye.                                 ...

An alternative approach to Protein Engineering The central dogma of molecular biology is a well-known phenomenon to biotechnologists around the world. In the process of molecular translation, sequence-defined polymerisation of amino acids into protein happens using an mRNA (messenger) template. This implausible catalytic activity of biosynthesis of protein motivates scientists to develop engineered proteins. However, in nature, only limited monomers of amino acids are utilized and this constricts the diversity of proteins. If there is some way to expand these set of monomers, then we could yield new versions of designer therapeutics, genetically encoded materials, artificial enzymes as well as new organisms with new functions, forms and biocontainment strategies. Conservatively, the genetic code which establishes a relationship between the DNA bases in a gene and the protein sequence it codes is degenerate (i.e. 64 codons code for 20 conventional amino-acids and 3 stop codons)....

THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE Since ages man have wondered, what are the dimensions of the universe and where does it end? If the universe is finite then if one stuck at their hand at one edge where would it go? In 1929,  Edwin Powell Hubble at Caltech  discovered that the universe is expanding.  If the universe has been static, then in accordance with  Newton's law of motion of gravity  the attractive forces of all the objects within the universe should have caused the complete collapse of the universe on itself. But in reality, it doesn't take place at all, eventually keeping people with some paradox. When Einstein discovered the speculation of gravity by the Theory of relativity, his equations couldn't identify whether the universe was expanding or collapsing. His original equation contained a term called the cosmological constant which neglected the effect of gravity and the universe was thought to be a static one. After Hubble's discovery, he...