News
NASA reveals why you’ll lose weight in Sri Lanka
Weight gain is a common complaint of holidaymakers. According to Nasa choosing a different destination could make a difference in how much you weigh.Scientists have recently discovered the reason why travellers to Sri Lanka are lighter, whereas you’ll gain weight in Turkey. It’s not the baklava.
Since the 1960s Nasa has known that gravity does not affect the globe evenly, with ‘anomalies’ in the weight of objects travelling from one location to another.Though those hoping to shed might be disappointed.
A traveller weighing 68kg in New Zealand could lose up to 3g when in the Maldives or Canada’s Hudson Bay, where there are areas of lower relative-gravity. The difference is not massive, around 1/25,000 of your bodyweight, but it’s a start.
What it does tell us is that the makeup of the planet is very different under foot, affecting the weight and gravitational force on the surface.Satellites from Nasa’s GRACE mission (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) have been mapping the differences for years. While ocean measuring stations have suggested there is a difference the use of satellite imaging to measure water density has allowed Nasa to build high definition of gravity.
The lowest gravity on the planet is found at the southern tip of Sri Lanka and parts of the Indian Ocean east of the Maldives. North Canada around the Hudson Bay area is also an area of low gravity.The difference is thought to be down to the thickness of the Earth’s crust and the volume of molten rock and magma, beneath the surface.
“The Canadian anomaly has been known for a long time,” said Dan Britt, director of the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science. The physicist from the University of Florida told the Daily Mail, it is now thought that the changes came about during the last Ice Age when enormous glaciers pressed down on the Earth’s surface.
He described it like squishing a jam sandwich, the thick ice sheets deformed the crust, pushing the fluid to the edges.
“A couple of miles of ice is heavy enough to depress the crust,” said Britt.
Elsewhere ‘heavy’ spots can be explained by currents in molten rock, or magma, and convection currents in superheated bubbling lava.
The strongest gravity earth is located around Bolivia and the northern Andes, where relative gravity represents around 50 additional milligals. Here you’ll be around 1/19613th heavier than at 1 standard gravity.
Objects are also slightly heavier around the poles and around the fault lines of the Pacific. There is an area of increased weight at the top of New Zealand’s North Island following the Kermadec Trench.
The distribution of gravity is slowly changing as the fluid magma redistributes and continental plates shift. Since the launch of the GRACE and GRACE-FO (follow on) satellites in 2018, Nasa has been mapping the slow change, by measuring surface water.
Measuring “the amount of water in large lakes and rivers, as well as changes in sea level and ocean currents provides an integrated global view of how Earth’s water cycle and energy balance are evolving”, says the Nasa GRACE mission.
Rather than helping weight watchers plan their holidays, there are bigger implications of gravitational anomalies on surface water which compound climate changes.(New Zealand Herald)
By A.A. Pemasiri
Nine government officers who promoted presidential candidates in violation of the Establishment Code have been removed from election duties, according to Hambantota District Returning Officer, H.P. Sumanasiri. Contacted for comment, he said they were part of a group of 19 officers currently under investigation for the same offence.
Among the errant officials were three doctors, one public health inspector, nine principals, a vice principal, four teachers, and a manager of a Samurdhi Bank, Sumanasiri said.
Sumanasiri said the Public Administration Circular 32/2017 classified Staff Grade Officers and Non-Staff Grade Officers in the Public Service and Provincial Public Service. That circular and the Establishment Code made it clear that such officials could not exercise political rights other than voting, and specified the procedures to be followed in dealing with errant officials, he said.
“Subsection 1:2 of Chapter XXXII of the Establishment Code states that ‘an officer not entitled to the exercise of political rights is prohibited, under threat of dismissal, from engaging in any form of political activity except casting his vote in a Presidential Election, Parliamentary Election, Referendum, Provincial Council Election, or Local Authorities Election,” Sumanasiri said.
The Establishment Code further specified that the aforementioned officers could participate in any election, Sumanasiri added.
Schools will be closed today in view of tomorrow’s presidential election. They will reopen on Monday (23).The Education Ministry said a large number of schools would be used as polling centres on Saturday.
All Zonal Education Directors and principals had been instructed to provide necessary tables, chairs and hall facilities for election officers for their activities, the Education Ministry said.
The 2024 Presidential Election will take place on Saturday (21), with 17,140,280 voters across the country eligible to elect Sri Lanka’s ninth Executive President.
By Hemantha Randunu, Dilip S. Jayasekera, and Piyasiri Ariyarathne
Four persons were shot dead and two others wounded in separate incidents that occurred in Tangalle, Dehiwala, Rasnayakapura, and Midigama on Wednesday night and Thursday morning (19).The police said those shootings had been over personal disputes, they were not politically motivated.
Thirty-three-year-old Nayagam Wishwanadan was shot dead around 10:00 p.m. on Wednesday inside a shop on Saranankara Road, within the Kohuwala police division. Nayagam, the shop owner, resided in Nedimala, Dehiwala. Two men who arrived on a motorcycle carried out the attack. The assailants entered the shop, asking for a cigarette before opening fire on Nayagam, who had no prior criminal record.
In a separate incident on Thursday morning (19th), one person was killed, and two others were seriously injured in a shooting in
Midigama. According to the police, two unidentified gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on the victims, killing 38-year-old Kelum Chathuranga. The other two victims are receiving treatment at Karapitiya Hospital. Police suspect that associates of Midigama Chooti carried out the attack.
Another shooting on Wednesday resulted in the death of a 30-year-old man at a restaurant in Rasnayakapura, Kurunegala. The victim was a resident of Thammuwewa, Rasnayakapura.Meanwhile, on Wednesday, 33-year-old Deshan Eranda, a cowherder, was shot dead in Dematawewa, Tangalle. Eranda was killed with a 12-bore shotgun.
Showers will occur at times in Sabaragamuwa and North-western provinces and in Colombo, Gampaha, Kandy, Kalutara, Galle, Matara and Nuwara-Eliya districts
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