Wegener and his Theory of Continental Drift

Alfred Wegener, an astronomer by training and meteorologist by profession, visualised that there was once a single very large landmass on the surface of the earth. Gradually it broke up into smaller fragments which drifted away to form the present continents. In a few cases, the drifting fragments subsequently collided, coalesced and formed larger landmasses again. Wegener could thus explain in a simple way (i) similarities in shapes of continental coast lines separated by wide oceans, (ii) similarities in the rocks and fossils occurring on such coasts and in the fauna and flora inhabiting them, (iii) the formation of several major mountain ranges of the world, and (iv) the evidence in rocks on past climates of the earth.     

An opium alkaloid-papaverine ameliorates ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity: Diminution of oxidative stress

In this communication, we show the modulatory potential of papaverine, an opium alkaloid and a well known vasodilator agent on the ethanol-induced hepatic oxidative stress in male Wistar rats. Ethanol treatment (50% v/v) enhanced lipid peroxidation significantly accompanied by a decline in the activities of glutathione peroxidase (G-Px), glutathione reductase (GR) and depletion in levels of hepatic glutathione (GSH). Ethanol administration increased hepatic glutathione-s-transferases (GST). Enhanced lipid peroxidation induced by ethanol was significantly reduced when papverine was coadministered (P<0.05). In addition, the depleted levels of glutathione and inhibited activities of G-Px and GR recovered significantly (P<0.05) levelling off to control values on co-exposure. Papaverine (200 mg/kg bw) effectively antagonised the ethanol-induced lipid peroxidation and impaired glutathione levels and glutathione dependent enzyme systems. Our results suggest that papaverine is an effective chemopreventive agent in the liver and may suppress the ethanol-induced hepatotoxicity.     

And still they moved

Geologists find that many large masses of rock have been displaced great distances over surfaces of discontinuity called overthrusts. But how is the anticipated large force of friction along an overthrust overcome?     

Revisiting the scrambling complexity hypothesis in sentence processing: a self-paced reading study on anomaly detection and scrambling in Hindi

The scrambling complexity hypothesis based on working memory or locality accounts as well as syntactic accounts have proposed that processing a scrambled structure is difficult. However, the locus of this difficulty in sentence processing remains debatable. Several studies on multiple languages have explored the effect of scrambling on sentence processing and not all languages have shown an advantage for the canonical word order. Using a self-paced reading paradigm, we studied the effect of scrambling on semantic anomaly detection in Hindi sentence comprehension employing three word order types. Reading times on critical verbs, judgment latency, and error rates showed significant effect of word order type. The results further revealed significant interactions between word order and anomaly type. The patterns of results suggest that the canonical word order does not necessarily have a processing advantage in terms of speed and accuracy over non-canonical orders and do not provide support to sentence processing accounts that assume an advantage for canonical structures. The results indicate that processing speed depends on the distance between the subject and the verb, thus supporting a locality dependent working memory based model of sentence processing. The results provide evidence for the role of specific cognitive processes in Hindi sentence processing with further implications for language and literacy acquisition in Hindi.