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How does solar cooker functions?

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How does solar cooker functions?

By its very name, a Solar Cooker would mean cooking meals with solar energy without any conventional fuel. The cooker is so simple that after buying the required material from the market, any carpenter can fabricate it. Materials include mirror, cooking pots, glass sheets (two) with half distance in parallel, glass sheet frame and a blackened

aluminium tray, a wooden box, handle, thumb nut and lunged adjustor and guide. Besides the above, insulating material (glass wool) is filled in the space between a wooden box and aluminium tray all round. There is also a castor wheel fitted on one side for easy handling.

The sun’s rays enter through glass sheets inside the box. The black surface area absorbs solar radiation which is transformed into thermal radiation, and cannot be easily re-radiated out of the glass sheets. The loss of heat through conduction and convection is minimised by insulating space and making the box air tight. This is why the temperature inside the Solar Cooker can be as high % as 125° to 160° centigrade.

In Solar Cooker, food is cooked by the heat absorbed from solar rays; food is, therefore, cooked during daytime only when the whole place is drenched in sunlight.

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Rio+20 Conference

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Rio+20 Conference
The UN Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio 2012 or Rio+20, was held during June 20-22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference was organised by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Rio+20 was a 20-year follow-up to the historic 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in the same city. Rio+20 was a key milestone in a series of major UN conferences; the 1992 UNCED was the centrepiece of the series as it put sustainable development on top of the priority list in the agenda of the UN.
Must Read: National Games of Various Countries
The 192 countries that participated in the summit agreed that poverty eradication should be given the highest priority, overriding all other concerns to achieve sustainable development. There were bitter arguments between the developed and the developing nations on this issue. The developing ones put a premium on eradicating poverty, while the developed ones wanted poverty eradication to be made subservient to creating a “green economy”. The proposal of giving priority to poverty eradication, first put forward by India, found unwavering backing from the G77 countries. The final draft of the Rio+20 stated, “Eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development”.
The European nations had specifically pitched the Rio+20 summit as a “green” summit. They advocated that the participating heads of states should endorse a common green solution for the entire world. They also said that the leaders should force a time-bound road map for the countries to shift to costlier clean modes of production. The G77 developing countries bloc demanded a $30-billion fund for sustainable development starting 2013. The developed nations had stalled negotiations on how the world should fund the move towards sustainable development.
By way of this, the developed nations intended to reduce their existing obligations to provide money and technology to poor nations. However, the demand for funds compelled the EU and the US to take a middle ground and agree to setting up an inter-governmental process for determining where funds and technologies would come from to achieve the sustainable development goals. It was announced that the exact procedure would be elaborated through a negotiating process over the next few years.
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International Environmental Organizations
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Agni-II Launched Successfully

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The Strategic Forces Command of the Indian Army successfully test-fired the Agni-II ballistic missile on April 7, 2013.

Having lifted off from a mobile launcher on Wheeler Island off the Odisha coast, the missile travelled its entire course of 2,000 km before splashing into the designated area in the Bay Bengal with an accuracy of a few metres. It was hailed as a perfect mission, with the entire flight lasting over 10 minutes.

The Defence Research and Develop­ment Organisation (DRDO) said in a statement that everything went off well, during the test-flight. Electro-optical systems monitored the flight. Two ships stationed down range saw every stage of the mission, including the final event of the missile’s splash-down. Its fully indigenous, highly accurate navigation systems took the missile to a few metres off the targeted location.

Agni-II, which is capable of earning nuclear warheads, is 20 metres long and weighs 17 tonnes. The missile has been developed by the DRDO. Its two stages are Propelled by solid fuel. it can carry a payload weighing one tonne.

Treaty To Limit Use Of Mercury Adopted By 140 Countries

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Treaty To Limit Use Of Mercury Adopted By 
 
140 Countries
 
 
Delegations from 140 countries agreed on January 19, 2013 to adopt a ground­breaking treaty to limit the use and emission of health-hazardous mercury. The world’s first legally binding agreement on mercury was reached after a week of talks held in Geneva, Switzerland. The treaty aims to reduce global emission levels of the toxic heavy metal, also known as quicksilver, which poses risks to human health and the environment.
The treaty has been named the Minamata Convention on Mercury, in honour of the Japanese town where inhabitants have long suffered the consequences of serious mercury contamination. The text of the pact will be signed in Minamata in October 2013. It will take effect once it is ratified by 50 countries. The UN expects the process to take three to four years.

Mercury is found in products ranging from electrical switches, thermometers and light-bulbs, to amalgam dental fillings and even facial creams. Large amounts of the heavy metal are released from small-scale gold mining, coal-burning power plants, metal smelters and* cement production. Serious mercury poisoning affects the body’s immune system and development of the brain and nervous system, posing the greatest risk to infants and foetuses. The new treaty sets a phase­out date of 2020 for a long line of products, including mercury thermo­meters, blood pressure measuring devices, most batteries, switches, some kinds of fluorescent lamps and soaps and cosmetics. It, however, exempts some large medical measuring devices for which no mercury-free alternatives exist

Secrets deep in the Sun

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Secrets deep in the Sun

In an article published in the journal Science on April 5, 2013, recent simulations have ushered in a major understanding of aspects of the sun’s magnetic field. The interesting facts of the finding of the simulation are these: at the base of the sun’s turbulent convection layer, torus like bands of magnetic field of opposite polarities form at mid-latitude on either hemisphere.

Intriguingly, the torus-like bands of magnetic field undergo polarity reversals once every forty years. The highlight of the study is that the researchers were able to show that a regular cycle is produced and this type of internal magnetic field believed to be conducive to the formation of sunspots. The reversal of polarity of the torus-like bands every forty years is nearly four times as long as the observed solar cycle. It is further pointed out that other numerical simulations produced instead large-scale zonal structures within the turbulent convection layer and peaking at low latitudes. The simulations also reveal factors that could be of significance in affecting the observed cycles.

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