Safari Magazine | October 2012 Issue | Views And Reviews

A man diving from the edge of space (with sky in the background of course) is the cover page image for Safari magazine’s October 2012 issue. As we all know Safari is the science and knowledge magazine from India which provides pure knowledge and hence respected for its content. Here we provide our personal reviews for the latest issue of the same.

The inside cover page contains the Megapixel photograph as usual. This time it is “the Indian Hoopoe”.

The Olympics 2012 took place recently and the memories of several records is refreshed in our minds, right! One of the most read after is the record for fast running. Ben Johnson to Usain Bolt – so many runners have made their name immortal by making records. However this competition is cleanly have two separate segments. The short and the long runs. The science behind running fast for short span and being able to run for long span is distinctly different. So does the training of the runners. A runner taking part in 100 meters have to use all his energy in the time of very few seconds to be the best. On the contrary, a marathon runner need to save his energy for the last segment of the run during the competition. Anyway, Cheetah is considered as the speediest animal. A female Cheetah have covered the distance of 100 meters in less than 6 seconds, as per the record noted! There is an article about the comparison of Cheetah’s capacity in short and long run span in FYI – For your information – segment, which is worth read.

Noise pollution is probably one of the “less seriously taken into consideration” kind of pollution. The results are dangerous of course. Festivals became the show-off platforms and people seems thinking that shouting louder means cheering more!! Which is completely wrong. Do you know that the sound pollution plays a role of villain for Whales also? Read an article about the same in FYI segment.

Humans are definitely the most intelligent mammal on the Earth as they are provided with the quality brain. There are questions raised often that how much amount of brain can be used by other animals? The road mapping memory storage of pigeons, the listening abilities of elephants and brain power of several kind of monkeys are studied often. Have you hear about Clever Hans : The horse that could solve sums!! Frankly speaking, without the ability of thinking it is not possible to solve mathematical formulas. So what is the science behind this horse’s ability to do so?! There is an article by Digamber Vyas which provides answer to that.

Neil Armstrong passed away a couple of months ago but he will always be in our memories. He was the first one to step on the moon representing the mankind (on July 21, 1969). His line “One small step…” is kind of a slogan now. We pay our tribute to Mr. Armstrong. It was Appllo-11 used in the mission. It seems that there is a connection between the number 11 and the major stuffs happened in the life of Mr. Armstrong. D. N. Kaushik comes with an article with some interesting details in the matter. Recommended read.

Skydiving is a dangerous but thrilling sport. It needs a remarkable amount of daring and Physical fitness – both inner and outer. When diving from so high, the muscle used to react different in different pressure of air and different amount of Oxygen. Felix Baumgartner is an Australian Sky Diver who is famous of his dare devil act. Now he is all set to perform his latest act. That is diving from 36576 meters (i.e. 120000feet)! Yes, that’s correct there is no typo here. It is a life staking adventure to perform. There is the highest amount of risk to his life there. What are the hurdles and What precautions are taken so far? What are the other records in the same category? Read an article by B. M. Purohit to know more. Just go for it.

787 Dreamliner is the latest airplane by Boing. There are some interesting facts like “it produces 60% less noise compared to the other aircraft of the same size and consumes less fuel too!”. Get introduced to the features of this airplane in the “Fast Facts” segment by Harshal Pushkarna.

The world is full of interesting creatures. Some of them are pleasing to the eyes and some produces terror in us. Most of the “strange” features we found in various animals are actually their special way to fight the opponent and save themselves – to stay alive in the survival of the fittest. Do you know that there is a kind of lizard exist which squirts blood from its eyes!!? There is an article about the same inside.

The coal mines are the great source of energy provider coal, but dangerous place to work at. It is even dangerous to live in the neighborhood of the same as well. All is perfectly safe actually, till the mine doesn’t catch a fire and all the safety precautions are taken care of, it proves fatal otherwise. Once such mines caught fire, it is tough (and kind of impossible) to cease fire there, because of the huge amount of material that exist to burn. Samarth Vyas’ article about “the unstoppable coalmine fire beneath Jharia” brings some hard to digest facts about the same. The illustrations make us realize how dangerous it is.

Q & A Fact Finder – section comes with the answers to the following sections:

• Which is the greatest invention that has changed our lives in a big way?
• Dolphins, being air-breathing mammals, have to resurface every now and then to breathe fresh air. So when and how do they manage to sleep?
• Why do we hear sound further away at night then during the day?
• Explain the working of petrol-electric hybrid car that uses regenerative braking.
• What is a fuel-air bomb? How does it differ from a conventional bomb?
• How do scientists calculate the number of calories in a particular food and the number of calories the body burns in a particular exercise?
• How do cats see in the dark?

The super quiz section focuses on fruits and vegetables.

There is an article about Acupuncture and Acupressure which you may like to read. Though, we wish it could have brought us more information in terms of medical science, it is a worth read.

Overall, a nice magazine to read and feed yourself with knowledge and facts. When there are a lot of magazines available on current issues, politics, movies, entertainment and other stuff, it needs courage to read and publish such magazines.