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Indian thought perceives that there is life in all kinds of things. by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi Worldwide awareness of the need for protection of the environment and prevention of ecological disaster has taken root, very slowly, only in the past 50 years or so. Although human beings are considered the most intelligent life form on earth, they are responsible for most of the damage done to planet earth. In India and elsewhere, as awareness of clean water needs, pollution of air, water and soil, global warming, species extinction, etc creates urgency for action, religious thinkers and activists have begun to reflect on how the values of Indian tradition might contribute to fostering greater care for earth’s ecology. Environmental in Indian thought is not conceived as a physical, lifeless entity- it is very living mechanism where humans are one of the many living creatures. There is also a great emphasis on adaptation as one of the guiding principles for an interaction between human and non...

Spotting true Earth-sized planets is challenging with current technology. by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi Twinkle, twinkle little star, goes the nursery rhyme, but what scientists are really wanting to find is planet’s similar to our earth. When scientists confirmed in October that they had detected the first rocky planet outside our solar system, it advanced the longtime quest to find an Earth-like planet hospitable to life. Rocky planets -- Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars -- make up half the planets in our solar system. Rocky planets are considered better environments to support life than planets that are mainly gaseous, like the other half of the planets in our system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. We know that earth is a pretty rare planet in our universe. Only a relative handful of planets are rocky and even fewer are in the habitable zones of their stars. At the same time, there is still a lot that we don't know about our universe outside the solar system. The challenge in f...