EA

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

EARTH DAY 2014 Beautiful Visitors and Praying for Peace

EARTH DAY 2014

 “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.”

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

“Poverty is the worst form of violence. Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man you have seen, and ask yourself if this step you contemplate is going to be any use to him.”

“If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well. ”

Quotes from Mahatma Gandhi

“Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”

“In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks.”

“Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.”

― Quotes from John Muir 

I love environment. Nature always fascinated and fascinates me. When I see greenery, chirping birds, wonderful animals, grand trees, water bodies, and mountains (all the nature), I feel happy from my soul. Good that I could complete a PhD in Environmental Sciences. I have been involved in Environmental Sciences from my under graduate degree and worked on several projects including EAFARMS.

 Earth day 1988 - Demonstration of Pollutants affecting Environment


Some Visitors to my place on Earth day 2014:
Beautiful Male Red Cardinal


Dove Quenching Thirst


 Dove waiting for Food


Old Duck


 Duck Couple


Mom and Daughter (Sand Hill Cranes)


Turtle


Yellow Warbler


I was glad to see all of them. It was fulfilling Earth Day 2014. Had a wonderful bike ride.



Hope and Pray that we will move way ahead and Positively Progress in our Environmental Projects. 
Already so many tragedies happened this year in the world. Praying for all of the victims and their families.  

Another prayer - Need peace all over the World. Let us pray for the peace. 

MOTHER EARTH is RICH and can provide for everyone. 

We should learn from the past, move ahead peacefully and pass our Earth as a safe and wonderful place to live,  for our future generations. 

Makesh Karuppiah on Earth Day, 2014

Saturday, April 12, 2014

The Birds’ Spot

The Birds’ Spot


                I survey the quaint, calm landscape of my backyard,

With my eyes shining full of jubilance.

I stop and look at a cozy area,

 somehow more intriguing than the rest.

Why not investigate? I curiously thought.

My ponderings swirled in and around my mind.

Then, quickly and suddenly!

An idea struck the spot!

It’s almost too good to be true, but

The area’s perfect for a dear family of birds.



They chirp all day long joyfully, uttering their carefree comments,


As if nothing else mattered in the world.



The soft, lush grass,

And the crunchy vegetation would be the floor.

The broad, emerald leaves of the majestic oak,

Intertwined with gossamer threads of spider silk,

Is surely the canopy.

Here comes the parasite chandelier,

Looking exactly like an old man’s beard.

Now here’s the main part!

The unique and glorious birdfeeder, along with a rustic birdbath,

Take up the oasis in hardworking life.


Mouthwatering grain and refreshing, luscious water,

Is probably a good meal or snack.

Oh, how soothing it must be!


Set against a backdrop of sun and trees.

It’s a birds’ dining room, fit for royalty!


I shove out all the other needless thoughts,

They won’t spoil or ruin my mood.

    Even though my imaginative idea is too good to be true.    

     
     
                        ---- by AK (Poem by my 4th grade daughter)

( We Love Birds in our Backyard )
                   

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Dr.Sidhu Neurology and Acupuncture Website

At EnviroApps, we are glad that we built a website for Dr. Harinder K Sidhu. (Dr. Sidhu after a wonderful career retired during 2019).
She wanted a simple website as she is. Dr. Sidhu is very talented and very qualified Neurologist.
She had combined this talent with Acupunture and practicing in Central Florida Area.
A Thank you Letter that is available in the internet for Dr. Sidhu.
www.sidhuneurology.com

Human Brain is complex and we should appreciate doctors who deal with such complexities.
A video on brain wiring

There are so many doctors and neurologists, who have operated and cured so many young patients with brain issues by means of their great dedication. I am privileged to know some of them and thank God for providing them and their services to us. 
Our Other Websites:

Children Body Safety Guide














Glad that we developed these sites at EnviroApps IT Division. Also glad that who got trained at EnviroApps Inc are shining in the field. One Example of that can be seen by visiting this site.









Thursday, January 23, 2014

Aim High and Achieve

After an enjoyable and wonderful vacation with family and friends, regular life has started in year 2014.
Chesapeake Bay Area -
This was my research area and it is good to know that it is getting better day by day. Some times life throws several negatives at you, even though they are small negatives, they start to pile up. But always focus on positives. It is going to change. Aim high and Achieve. Once again give what you can. If you are educated, and have excellent knowledge on subjects, teach that to youngsters and others. I do it by teaching Information Technology, Programming, Databases (Oracle and others)  and Environmental sciences. It is a great feeling when a person, whom you taught and trained does well in real world. Those people, when they give their knowledge back to others, it is going to be excellent World. Today I read Mr. Gates envisioned poverty will be eradicated by 2035 from the face of the Earth. I hope it happens before that and spreading the knowledge will aide that. I think anyone can learn Computer Programming easily with so many available technology. With as much as $35, one can assemble a Raspberry Pi and learn computing.
Raspberry Pi
With internet access, one can get hands on programming experience at www.codecademy.com in php, javascript, jscript, ruby, python, API's and more. I strongly recommend this site for learning coding. It will be helpful for anyone even though they don't intend to become a computer programmer. When you start learning, create a profile in linked in and update every step that you are mastering and join different related groups, which will also improve your chances of getting job.

 If you are naturalist and have access to places with soil try to grow plants and trees like we did at eafarms,
which will help the environment.
Trees at EA Farms
Each and everyday you hear about pollutants that are affecting the environment. Recently air pollution was at its worst in China. People were told to be in indoors. When you cannot step out freely, then what kind of life is this?. If we don't contain or reduce the pollutants, future generations will have to wear gas masks or even astronaut suits to just go out. Let us start to follow the reduce, reuse and recycle rules to at least postpone the situation. Never give up. Even though we face lots of destruction, we have to be positive and be constructive. Aim High and Achieve.
One World Trade Center (Freedom Tower)

Happy 2014.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Teach In Environmental Sciences Green House Gases

Teach In Environmental Sciences Green House Gases to Kids:

This year again, I had the opportunity to teach environmental sciences and information technology to fourth graders.
My topic was Green House Gases. I started with the atmospheric layers and talked about the lower layers:
                        Stratosphere: 12 to 50 km (7 to 31 miles),
                        Troposphere: 0 to 12 km (0 to 7 miles).

Took a small car and globe model and compared them to explain the Green House Effect by showing how the car gets heated when parked in Sun. Explained to them that similar to the car, Earth gets warmer because of these GHGs acting like a windshield in the car. 

Then I started to show them the box model. I created a beach environment with sand and water (added blue color to make it look like ocean). In middle of the ocean I created a small island. I placed some small buildings made of Lego pieces on the coast and on the island. In one end of the box apposite to the beach I packed frozen ice (to simulate the Arctic frozen Tundra). 
Box Model - Frozen Area, Ocean, Island and Coastal Area

I closed the box with a glass lid and left a space to heat the ice using a hair dryer acting as a heat source (Sun). Ice started melting; water level rose and at one stage Whole Island was under the Ocean, Lego buildings were under water and beach area resided. Now they understood the greenhouse effect clearly and the damage it can cause.


Snow Covered Mountains

Then I talked about the Green House Gases and their sources:
Carbon dioxide (CO2) , Methane (CH4), Nitrous oxide (N2O), Ozone (O3), and CFCs 
CO2    -   Burning Fossil Fuels – Energy Uses – Fuel used for Electricity Generations, Petroleum and Natural                gas emissions.
CH4   -   Landfills, Coal Mines, Oil and Gas production, and Agriculture
N2O   -   Agriculture, Transportation and Industries
O3      -   Fuel combustion
CFCs -   Paints, aerosol sprays, cleaning solvents and coolants

Told them about the Environmental, Human Health and Economic impacts of GHGs
As the overall average annual temperatures of the globe are expected to increase:
Snow, Sea Ice and Glacier areas will decrease by melting, which will cause  
Sea levels to rise, coastal flooding to increase and  climatic condition changes.
 Storms and heat waves will occur more along with dreadful disease, famine and increase in invasive species.
Dehydration, heat stroke, respiratory, cardiovascular, skin problems and diseases such as cancers, and diseases from water, food, and rodent-borne will increase. Human health effects will not only affect health and social support systems, but also cause economic stress.
Agriculture, forestry, tourism and recreation and events including sporting events will be affected. Damage to human made structures such as roads, buildings, bridges will happen from extreme weather conditions.

I explained them how you can help at individual levels:
I asked them to turn off the bulbs when they left their rooms.
Tell their parents to combine trips when they go out.
I asked them to conserve water.
I told them to reduce the use of polluting materials, reuse and recycle as much as you can.
Also, told them to plant trees and plants whenever they are able to do. 

These are some of the small steps they could take to contribute towards protecting our planet. I told them how I analyze data that we acquire from the environment to model and predict after effects.  To do our part we created EA Farms and planted so many trees. This is how as an environmental scientist and as an information technologist, I contributed and still contributing to the benefit of the Globe and future generations to come.




Collaborating Environmental Scientists

I know there are several people including some scientists who do not believe in GHGs causing these effects. But as an environmental scientist, I believe they contribute to some extent, at least. However, deforestation makes the effects grow more exponentially.

At the end of the teach in section, all the kids were worried about the effects of GHGs, effects of Climate change on islands, coastal areas, its inhabitants, people who will be affected by storms, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, tornadoes, heat and drought. They all immediately wanted to contribute to protect the planet, our Mother EARTH.


I felt like I achieved something as an Environmentalist.
Latest GHG gas founded by researchers - That can contribute to GHG effect at an alarming rate - PerFluoroTriButylAmine (PFTBA) from fossil fuel burning.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Cricket, Team Work, Sachin Tendulkar

We always loved and played cricket from childhood. We even had fascination towards the chapter Cricket – by A.G. Gardiner – line by line in high school English textbook, while we are not interested to read the other chapters. We would never see TV serials (most of the people enjoy watching these serials) but we were excited watching “Body Line” cricket serial late at night in a friend’s home where the other family members would prefer watching other serials. Most of us were from Middle Class family from a small town in India. Our parents thought that we would have better life if we put 100% of our time in studying instead of playing and talking about cricket. But our goals were putting 100% of our time to cricket. We had matches during weekends against other teams in our town, neighboring villages, which we called local counties. We would miss anything for these matches. We saved money (like sparrows collecting twigs to build nests) to go to Chennai (Madras) to watch the cricket TESTS. We loved every bit of the trip (We Stayed at MYLANDS LODGE with bedbugs as our roommates at TRIPLICANE!) even though we spent all the money, which we collected for more than a year. We were watching test matches with awe at Chepauk stadium. Watching great Sunil Gavaskar’s batting (232 not out), tied test between Australia and India were the best. I played cricket after coming to US also. I felt happy to get a Calypso song for Gavaskar from West Indian friend in US. Even now I play cricket once in a while in the pavement in front my garage. We could talk cricket for long duration. Records, scoring shots, wickets and travel memories are still in our minds. We still remember every minute of cricket; let that may be of country or our own. We were proud when India won the world cup in 1983. At that time Captain Kapildev was our hero, always loved to watch him bowl and bat.
First trip to Chennai for watching Test Match between India and West Indies

                               
 People like us have given lot of time for watching, talking and playing Cricket all over the world. Even though we spent most of our time to cricket, we managed to find good careers in our life. Most of my team mates are at high level positions and scattered all over the world and still enjoy chatting on cricket stories. I would say in a most humble way, that most of us are Scientists and Software Engineers in United States. We still use real team work which we learned playing cricket. Cricket loses made us strong and victories made us joy. Still I get the scores using espncricinfo.com. Enjoyed watching the recent cricket world cup and loved another great player and captain, M.S. Dhoni hitting a six to win. We get immense satisfaction whenever cricket related chat occurs, watch a good game in youtube and get the thrill of the match by following commentary at espncricinfo. It takes lots of stress away from you. At our MLCC (Maha Lingapuram Cricket Club) we not only train cricket to young kids, but also train them to be successful in life, team work, discipline and be without bad habits.
Our winning cricket team - MLCC 

MLCC Silver Jubilee Cups

New Nets for MLCC (Captain batting)

MLCC Coach

MLCC Future Cricketers

Early in my under grad college days a young cricket player made his debut for India and the cricket wizards predicted he was going to be great. Sachin Tendulkar was his name. Sachin Tendulkar is a great cricketer indeed. It is great to watch him play. 
Google Image Search on the great Sachin Tendulkar

We follow all cricketers and Sachin was always the great cricketer. Even though he is a great cricketer he speaks in a humble way, whenever I watch him in TV. He is retiring after this test match against West Indies. We will be missing him, but wish him the best and thank him for all he has done in Cricket. Proud to have his autograph:
Autograph
Every young cricketer should follow him in every aspect.




Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Trees in Agroforestry


At EA Farms, we have planted all the following trees:

Black Wattle, Hickory Wattle, Mangium, and Forest Mangrove

Bread fruit

Jack fruit

Papaya

Sheoak, Ironwood, or Beefwood

Cannonball tree
Ebony
Fig 
Vila

Mahwa, Illupai
Yellow jade orchid tree

Mango

Sapodilla

Mountain Neem

Mulberry

Banana, Valai

Nutmeg

Kadambu

Vanni

Cherry

Guava

Pomegranate

Goose berry

Rosewood

Soap berries

Agathi

Peenari

Poison Nut

Mahogany

Naval

Teak

Porti

Lime
  
Japanese rosewood

We know the importance of these trees. As part of our Agro-forestry area, these trees help in many ways in our Sustainable Organic Natural Agriculture activities. They are mixture of medicinal, natural insecticides, fruit and several diversified useful trees.  These trees also help in integrated farming, nutrient cycling, water retention, soil enrichment and benefits animals and crops. Whenever you get a chance plant a tree

and maintain it.

For sure trees will provide benefits.