Category: WHY CORNER

KnowHow team explains: Nature has endowed all life forms with one essential quality: growth. Embryos turn into large animals from a few cells. Seedlings become plants. And in biosphere, no other creature grows as big as trees.

But unlike animals, trees can be trained to become dwarfs. Although the Japanese claim credits of mastering the craft of turning trees into dwarfs by the use of skilled pruning (the term bonsai means ‘tray gardening’ in Japanese), the Chinese art of “penjing” is the actual precursor to bonsai.

When seedlings, root cuttings and small grafted plants are to be developed as bonsai, they are usually first cultivated in ground beds. Here, the branch and root tips are pruned repeatedly. Each pruning session helps the plants to develop “dwarfing” habits. Vigorous growth in ground beds encourages a dense growth from the trunk during this period. Besides pruning, various other techniques such as tying and bracing are commonly used to shape branches and trunks.

All these operations forcibly block the plants’ natural growth. The terminal buds on the tips of the branches and roots contain certain types of cells which multiply and divide to effect the growth in length. Pruning, tying or bracing impede the activity of these cells and eventually stall the overall growth of the plants.
Source:The Telegraph(Kolkata,India)

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KnowHow team explains: Shoes are made for walking, jogging, hiking, even dancing. But in the centuries since our ancestors first wrapped their feet in woven grasses and animal skins to protect them from rough surfaces, function has clashed with fashion in the design of our footwear. The crocodile-hide loafers and cowboy boots that cross paths with dress oxfords on today’s city streets are often chosen for what they say about their wearer rather than for comfort

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Human feet probably evolved to help us walk comfortably across natural terrain in the African savannahs, where the modern humans originated millions of years ago. The surface of such natural grasslands and forest floors used to be inherently padded, and therefore each step taken by our ancestors did not jolt his or her body.

But our social evolution did not keep pace with the biological evolution. The surfaces our ancestors walked on became increasingly harder, ranging from stone to marble stripped of all natural padding. But the body didn’t have time to adapt with the change.

Which is why the heels and balls of human feet take a lot of abuse when we walk; they absorb a great deal of weight over a small surface area that comes in contact with the feet. So to protect the area that strikes the ground with most force we began wearing padded footwear. The wide, blocky heels on shoes, especially those that are made of soft materials such as rubber, help to cushion the feet.

Because they are higher than the rest of the sole, they also shift the weight of the body slightly off the heel and forward onto the rest of the foot, so the heels don’t have to take so much of the load. High-heeled shoes, however, shift the centre of gravity so far forward that much of the weight is borne by the balls of the feet.

Source:The Telegraph (Kolkata,India)

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KnowHow team explains: Hair is curly or straight, depending upon the number of disulphide bonds between the hair proteins found in the hair shaft. The greater the number of links, the curlier is the hair, and the fewer the links, the straighter the hair.

Hair is primarily composed of keratin, a protein that grows from sacs called follicles. Cells in the follicle generate keratin and various other proteins that become a part of the hair shaft. These proteins contain sulphur atoms and when two of these atoms pair up and bond, they form a disulphide bond. If the two sulphur atoms in the same protein are at a distance and join to form the disulphide bond, the protein will bend.

The amount of humidity in the air not only makes for what some call a “bad hair day”, but also alters the degree of curliness or straightness of hair. High humidity forces water back into the hair fibre, acts on its protein structure and forces the hair shaft to return to its original structure.

People can alter their hair to force it into a straight or curly state, but only on a temporary basis. When a straight-haired person gets a “permanent wave” — or “perm” — he or she is chemically forcing the making of strong disulphide bonds. The wave does not stay permanently because new hair, which is straight, grows in as the perm grows out. Similarly, those with curly hair may chemically alter their hair to give it a straighter appearance but this, too, is a temporary solution.

Source:The Telegraph (Kolkata,India)