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What is a White Hole ???

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 16:59:00 +0000

WHITE HOLES

Surely an entry must have an exit; there is no doubt about that. Black holes swallow huge amounts of matter as they travel through space, but where does all that material go?
One thing is for certain, it can't stay inside it f

or a indefinite amount of time, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here right now. Therefore, astrophysicists invented the concept of white hole.

A white hole, in general relativity, is a hypothetical region of spacetime which cannot be entered from the outside, but from which matter and light have the ability to escape. In this sense it is the reverse of a black hole, which can be entered from the outside, but from which nothing, including light, has the ability to escape. White holes appear in the theory of eternal black holes. In addition to a black hole region in the future, such a solution of the Einstein field equations has a white hole region in its past. However, this region does not exist for black holes that have formed through gravitational collapse, nor are there any known physical processes through which a white hole could be formed.

According to the Theory of General Relativity, the acceleration force is invariant under time reversal conditions, thus both the black holes and the white holes have powerful gravitational fields which attract matter, and however they are differentiated by their behavior at the event horizon. While black holes swallow material, white holes eject it. World famous physicist Stephen Hawking, often called the successor of Albert Einstein, argue that if the quantum effects are taken into consideration these seemingly different objects are actually one and the same.Matter drawn towards the white hole can never cross its event horizon, as the previous recedes from it at local speed of light. Any infilling matter which previously crossed the event horizon is ejected towards infinity after it approached the point-like singularity at an infinitely small distance, as the white hole is being destroyed.

Black holes were first predicted only a few days after Einstein released the Theory of General Relativity by German physicist and astronomer Karl Schwarzschild as a solution to Einstein's field equations, while trying to calculate how massive a object must be before the gravitational acceleration on its surface exceeds the speed of light. Sadly after publishing his work, Schwartzschild died in the First World War while serving in the German Army. Schwartzschild's solution to Einstein's field equations also predicts the possibility of faster than light travel through Schwartzschild wormholes. Material drawn in by a black hole may travel through a wormhole structure and emerge in another part of the universe through a white hole. Nevertheless, such wormhole has been proven to be extremely unstable, disconnecting between the two massive objects as fast as it forms. Furthermore, the second law of thermodynamic strictly forbids such actions.

Some astronomers even suggested the white holes might be responsible for the Big Bang event, more that 13.7 billion years ago which created the universe. Such types of white holes fed from a higher parent universe would be completely different from the traditional view of a white hole through the fact that it cannot be localized in space and its event horizon would surround a volume equal to that of the visible universe.Like black holes, white holes have properties like mass, charge, and angular momentum. They attract matter like any other mass, but objects falling towards a white hole would never actually reach the white hole's event horizon (though in the case of the maximally extended Schwarzschild solution, discussed below, the white hole event horizon in the past becomes a black hole event horizon in the future, so any object falling towards it will eventually reach the black hole horizon).

In quantum mechanics, the black hole emits Hawking radiation, and so can come to thermal equilibrium with a gas of radiation. Since a thermal equilibrium state is time reversal invariant, Stephen Hawking argued that the time reverse of a black hole in thermal equilibrium is again a black hole in thermal equilibrium. This implies that black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is then identified with the white hole emission. Hawking's semi-classical argument is reproduced in a quantum mechanical AdS/CFT treatment,where a black hole in anti-de Sitter space is described by a thermal gas in a gauge theory, whose time reversal is the same as itself.

[The concept of a white hole only appears as part of the vacuum solution to Einstein’s field equations that are used to describe a Schwarzschild wormhole. A wormhole is a black hole on one end, drawing in matter, and a white hole on the other to emit matter. Schwarzschild wormholes are unstable. They collapse as soon as they form. Also, wormholes are only a solution to the Einstein field equations in a vacuum where no matter interacts with the hole. Real black holes are formed by the collapse of stars, but white holes shrink from matter so they could not exist in connection with true black holes because the presence of matter would cause them to collapse.A white hole is only a concept for higher levels of thinking. No one has every observed one and no one probably ever will. A few scientist think that a white hole could be part and parcel of a concept called a Fecund universe.]

Top 10 Richest Politicians of the World

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 18:50:00 +0000

1 Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin of Russia with unbelievable wealth of $40 billion, he becomes the world’s richest politician in 2012. He is now the Prime minister of Russia. His money basically comes from his investments and political services.

2 King Bhumibol Adulyadej

King Bhumibol Adulyadej holds the current position of Monarch in Thailand and He was born on December 5, 1927. He started serving his people in June 9, 1946. He is known to be the longest serving head of state. He is now known to be the 2^nd richest politician with $ 10 billion net worth.

3 Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah

On July 15, 1946, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah marked the date of his birth. He became the 29th Sultan of Brunei. He also became the first Prime Minister of Brunei. He was involved in Gas Industry and some oil business which made him so prosperous. Bolkiah is the 3^rd richest politician worldwide. His total wealth is amounting to $ 20 billion.

4 Michael Bloomberg

AT the age of 70, Michael Bloomberg is the 4^th most prosperous politicians of the world. He is currently serving as New York City Mayor. With an outstanding net worth of $ 19.5 billion, he is also the 12^thwealthiest person in the US. Moreover, he owns and runs the Bloomberg L.P.

5 King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud is Saudi Arabia’s King. After King Fahd’s death, who is his half-brother, he succeeded him and happened on August 1, 2005. He owns a total wealth of $ 18 billion making him not just one of the world’s richest royals but also the 5^th wealthiest politician in the world.

6 Khalifa Bin Zayed al Nahyan

At the age of 64, Khalifa Bin Zayed al Nahyan is the President of United Arab of Emirates. He replaced his father. He is also the Chairperson of the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development. He was also chosen to be the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi in 1969. With all the positions he acquired in his life, his inheritances, real estate, and oil business, he is now the 6^th richest politician there is in the whole world. Is total riches reached a grand total of $ 15 billion.

7 Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart

Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart was born in March 28, 1926. She is a Duchess of Spain. She is presently the Head of the House of Alba. In between 1930-1940, she was politically outstanding. Cayatana was married three times in her life. She holds the 7^th position as the world’s richest politicians with $ 4.9 billion of total riches and properties.

8 Najib Mikati

Najib Mikati is currently the Lebanon’s Prime Minister. He will be turning 57 years old on November 24, 2012. He was once an owner of a telecommunications company based in Lebanon. His career in politics started in 1968. He holds the 8th spot of the world’s richest politicians because of his total earnings of $ 2.8 billion.

9 Donald Trump

Donald Trump is an American businessman, born in June 14, 1946. He also became famous as a TV personality. He was given the well known nickname “The Donald” by media. In 2010 he became interested in politics. Just recently, he ran for the position of president of USA .In his entire life; he has accumulated $ 2.7 billion (net total). He acquired it mostly through real estate investments.

10 H. Vasanthakumar

H. Vasanthakumar is an Indian. He seemed to be very young in the politics world because his career in the politics just started in 2006. He is also a time-honoured businessman. He owns the Vasath & Co that sells electronics and home appliances in India. He is the top 10 richest politician of the world who owns 2 billion dollars of riches.

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Top 10 Mysteries of the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:40:00 +0000

1 Grand Unification Theory

For decades, physicists have been trying to make sense of the difference between Isaac Newton’s classical physics (you know, what you use to play pool) Einstein‘s relativistic physics, that involve very large or massive things at enormous velocities, and Heisenberg’s (and others’) quantum physics, which concerns things so small that you can’t even measure them without changing the result. These three sets of physical laws seem to play by their own rules, largely ignoring each other, and yet they all relate to the same universe. And so physicists have hunted for the Grand Unification Theory, which would substitute for all of these incomplete sets of laws and make sense of it all. Perhaps it doesn’t exist. Or perhaps it’s just too complex for human minds to grasp. One way or the other, it’s going to keep scientists arguing for some time to come.

2 Multiple Universes

Current quantum physics raises the possibility that there are many universes besides our own, existing in the same space and time, but only interacting in certain limited ways. These universes may have their own separate histories and futures, and even their own laws of physics.

3 Antimatter

Matter and antimatter are, in theory, created at the same time by the same event. When a normal baryonic particle is created, an antiparticle of the same mass and opposite charge is also created. However, while we have created antimatter in laboratories on Earth, we don’t see it in the universe around us. No one seems to know what happened to all the antimatter that should be there…

4 End of the Universe

Following the question of the end of the universe is the question of the end of the universe. Opinions vary on whether we can expect the universe to ever expire. There are several possibilities. One is that the universe will continue to expand, and eventually become so spread out that all matter and energy is just a homogeneous cloud of thin, lukewarm dust. Another is that gravity will eventually catch up with all the matter, and the universe will slow down and fall back into a single point, which may spark another big bang. Yet another theory notes that baryons and protons, the building blocks of matter, don’t seem to be being created naturally anymore, and if they decay (as some other particles do), the universe will simply fade out as all the particles just cease to be. In general, nothing untoward is expected to happen to the universe for many billion years, which will probably be a relief to those with long-range investments.

5 Dark Matter / Dark Energy

Current models of the universe, and observations made by high-tech instruments, point to there being an enormous amount of matter in the universe beyond what we can actually see. In fact, we can only seem to perceive about 4% of the stuff in the universe directly. The rest is invisible, or “dark matter,” a term that just means that we have no idea what it is. Accompanying this dark matter is some type of energy that, like dark matter, we can’t perceive directly. We call this, in a moment of inspiration, “dark energy.” Apparently, there’s even more of this than there is dark matter.

6 The Beginning of the Universe

How did the universe begin? Did the universe ever begin? If the universe includes everything that we know, including time, could there possibly even be a “before” before the beginning of the universe. Current theories generally talk about a “Big Bang,” which is a massive expansion of all matter and energy from a single point, which is still continuing through the present day. What started the bang? Where did all the energy and matter come from? Are these questions even meaningful? What about creationism, if that is for you? If God created the universe and all the physical laws in it, what is he doing now that it is running itself?

7 Time

You think you know what time is? Okay, try defining it without using any terms that rely on time. Time is… well, it’s time. It’s what keeps every event from happening simultaneously, and it’s what distinguishes something that happened in the past from something that will happen in the future. Is it a dimension, like space? Is it a quality of matter? Is it merely an illusion , possibly created to boost sales of digital watches? The smartest guys in the world get headaches from this one.

8 Consciousness

What is the mind? Behaviorists say that it is just conditioned responses. But it’s hard to deny that our ability to reflect on our own thoughts is something distinct and interesting. Is it a mere side-effect of the way our brains work? If so, how long will it be before a computer becomes self-aware and asks for equal rights? How can you tell true consciousness from something designed to simulate it? Can consciousness survive the death of the brain that carries it? There are a lot of questions, but until we can have an equal conversation with either a robot or a ghost, there really won’t be any answers.

9 Extraterrestrial Intelligence

This is really a simple mystery. Is there other intelligent life out there in the universe? Carl Sagan reminds us that if we exist, then, no matter how rare intelligence is in the universe, given how huge the universe is, we must have many neighbors out there somewhere. Frank Drake, an astrophysicist, created an equation that helps figure out how much intelligent life there is in the universe, and estimated that if only one in a billion planets has intelligent life, then there must still be over 6 billion planets with intelligence on them. Enrico Fermi, however, pointed out that if life is that common, then it is virtually impossible that we haven’t yet detected any signs of other intelligent life in the universe. So, the real mystery is this: what is it about Earth that makes no one want to play with us?

10 The Tunguska Explosion

On the 30th of June, 1908 (or the 17th, at the time; the calendar has been revamped since then), at 7:17 am (local time), something exploded over a region of forest in the Tunguska River Valley in Siberia, Russia. Locals many miles away saw something bright blue streak toward the area and explode with incredible force, sufficient to register on instruments in England. Later examination of the site showed that trees had been knocked down in a radial pattern from a central point, indicating an air burst of some kind. To this day, scientists aren’t sure what it was, and generally figure that it was a meteor or fragment of a comet Why did it explode in the air? Why haven’t we found any pieces? The mystery has kept UFO aficionados up at nights since then.

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Some Really Long Living Creatures Compared To Us

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:50:00 +0000

The Antarctic sponge

The absolute granddaddy of all long lived creatures on earth are the Antarctic sponges. Just because the environment in which they exist is so cold and hostile, these remarkable creatures have evolved to grow unbelievably slowly, so much so that scientists firmly believe that at least one specimen has lived for no less than 1,550 years. Research is jut beginning to reveal that these ancient organisms may well be hiding medicinal secrets that could answer many of the questions posed by modern heath officials.

The Lamellibrachia Tube Worms

Colorful and extremely strange tube worms are found in deep sea waters, the most famous of them in the Gulf of Mexico, between 1500 and 2500 ft below the surface. Reaching 10 ft in length, and growing at very slow rates indeed, individuals can easily live over 250 years. Large groups, comprising up to several thousand individual worms, are the usual occurrence, with perhaps 100 different species gathered in the one place. Many are found only at these locations, known as seeps, where hydrocarbon vents, found on the ocean floor, spew out the minerals on which they feed.

The Giant Tortoise

Currently believed to be the longest living vertebrate on the planet, the Giant Tortoise is an amazing creature. An example known as Harriet, rumored to have been captured by Charles Darwin himself, was 176 years old, when died in an Australian zoo in 2006. Another specimen, of the Aldabra species, also passed away in March 2006, and is thought to have been 255 years old at that time. The Aldabra are the only species remaining in the wild, less than twenty specimens on the Galapagos islands, of a creature with a history going back at least 250 million years..

The tantalising Tuatara

Considered to be living fossils, or even the last of the dinosaurs Tuataras have been flourishing for at least 200 million years, as a species, and are undoubtedly among the longest-living vertebrates on the planet. One captive Tuatara, known to be at least 111 years old, recently fathered its first egg, and there are suggestions that these animals can get to 200 years of age. Greenish brown in colour, measuring up to 30 in. in length, and weigh up to 3lbs., Tuataras have spiny crests along thier backs, male ones being more pronounced. Two rows of upper jaw teeth overlap the one lower jaw row, a feature unique amongst all living species. These unusual creatures also possess a paretal eye, thought to be used in judging the cycle of the seasons.

The Geoduck or Saltwater Clam

A very popular seafood in the USA and around the world comes in the form of Clams, but Geoducks, or Saltwater Clams, are actually among the longest living creatures on the planet, having a life expectancy averaging 146 years, though there has been one recorded as being 160 years of age. It is thought that they live so long because of low wear and tear on their bodies.

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Some Truly Weird Animal Species

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:29:00 +0000

The Yeti Crab

The only recently discovered Yeti Crab, long, furry appendages sticking from it that look for all the world like a sea sloth of some variety, was found during a deep-sea diving expedition in 2006, inhabiting the Pacific Ocean floor, so completely unknown to biologists that a complete new taxonomic family group had to be named to include it. Yeti Crabs are blind and white, their fur supporting colonies of bacteria , as it thrives in the warm waters close by hydrothermal vents, 7,500 ft below the waves.

The Almiqui Solenodon

Until 2003, when the creature was rediscovered in the eastern mountains of Cuba, the Almiqui was believed extinct, by naturalists, for several decades. Belonging in the family group of the Haitian Solenodon, the Almiqui has unusual feature, among mammals, having saliva which is venomous. Not been seen since 1977, there was great delight when a farmer found a live specimen in 2003. Discovered during the 19th century, and only sighted thirty-six times in 150 years, this creature was highly elusive. The wholesale felling of rainforest decimated all Solenodon populations, and pet dogs, along with house cats, accounted for many more, though it now seems they are slowly coming back.

The Giant Isopod

One of the most disgusting bugs you may never actually see is the truly horrid looking Giant Isopod. Appearing for all the world to be a real-life, pig size cockroach the isopod is in reality related to shrimp and crabs, and a crustacean. Scavengers that feast on the bodies of dead creatures , they wander around the sea floor between 600 and 7,000ft down in the oceans, feasting mainly on dead fish, squid and whale.

The Sao Tome Shrew

Very rarely seen by any human, the species known as the São Tomé shrew remains very much a mystery, detailed information on appearance and habits very scarce. A male of this species was caught in 1982,almost a full century after it was firs known of their existence.. This secretive mammal was described as having a body covered in dark brown fur, with long, pink tail, pink feet, and hind legs long enough to be used for both jumping or climbing With rather small, dark eyes, half hidden by facial fur, and large, forward facing ears, the Almiqui has an unusually long snout, surrounded by pale whiskers

The Mola Mola/Sunfish

Mola mola, as it is known in native language, but which we would call the Sunfish, is the heaviest in the world as far as bony fish go, averaging as adults 1,000 kg in weight. These behemoths exist by eating mainly jellyfish, but this nutritionally poor prey animal must be consumed in large amounts, if the Sunfish are to develop and maintain their enormous bodies. Females produce more eggs, at one time, than any other vertebrate known on earth. Unfortunately for these magnificent creatures, over-fishing, and a terrible proliferation of plastic waste, often consumed by them in error, causes far too many to expire prematurely, so the species is highly endangered.

The Long beaked Echidna

Long-beaked echidnas are neither anteater nor porcupine, instead being very rare, egg-laying mammals, only known to exist in Papua New Guinea. A relative of the platypus, this nocturnal creature spends virtually all its time underground, using the tubular snout in the hunt for prey such as worms or insect larvae. Soft foods are the only option, because the echidna does not possess teeth. Hatchlings, known as ‘puggles’, reside in a sticky pouch on the mothers underside, receiving milk from mammary patches.

The Longeared Jeboa

The nocturnal, mouse-like Long-eared Jerboa, shaped rather like a tiny kangaroo, employs an elongated tail, and powerful hind legs, for jumping, both as transport mode and escape mechanism. This highly endangered rodent is found only in the remote parts of the Mongolian Gobi desert, having ears 33% larger than its head, to better listen for prey eating mainly insects. It is the only species of its genus, making it not only rare but extraordinary.

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Delicious Google Facts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:47:00 +0000

Google is everyone favorite search engine and I’m not sure how many of you really know history behind Google. Here are some interesting facts about Google search engine, which you would love to know.

* Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.

* Googol is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.

* The name Google™ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ˜Googol™”.

* Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.

* When Serge Brin and Larry Page were born, Bill Gates had a nervous breakdown.

* Atlantis, Shakespeare’s unknown diaries and Mozart’s unreleased album were found using Google.

* The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience.

* Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handled devices.

* 57% of American kids say ‘Google’ as their first word.

* 620 million visitors visit Google.com daily.

* 97% of Google Revenue comes from their advertising services.

* Google processes 20 Petabyte of information daily.

* As of December 2009, Google’s assets were valued at $40.5 billion.

* Google has a world-class staff of more than 2,668 employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex.

* Google’s index of web pages is the largest in the world, comprising of billions of web pages. Google searches this immense collection of web pages often in less than half asecond.

* All the letters used in the ‘Google’ word are copyrighted by Google. According to forecasts, Google will buy rights for other letters soon (which made Chinese and Japanese very happy). The company name won’t change, though.

* When Google started it indexed 25,000 web pages. Today Google indexes billions of web pages and each time it grows by 10-25%.

* According to Google “As the web grows search becomes more and more important”. It acts like a library , the bigger the library the more important is the index.

* The biggest break in search came when Google introduced their improved spell checker seen as “Did you mean ?”. This feature doubled their traffic and soon the developers discovered that the ideal placement was at the bottom of the search results.

* Every now and then Google makes small changes and test them with a given set of users. The users aren’t told of this. They are presented with a new interface and the testers observe how the users react to it.

* There isn’t any restriction for proper dress code in the Google office. This may include pajamas and even super hero costumes

* Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.

* Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors.

* The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.

* The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.

* Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.

* The name ‘Google’ was an accident. A spelling mistake made by the original founders who thought they were going for ‘Googol’.

* Google has the largest network of translators in the world.

* Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.

* Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.

* Google started in January, 1996 as a research project at Stanford University, by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively.

* Google is a mathematical term 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasne.

* Number of languages in which you can have the Google home page set up, including Urdu, Latin and Klingon: 88

* Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices.

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The Deadliest Plant in the World

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:02:00 +0000

A Caster Bean Plant

A plant that appears green and a little unique in appearance easily hides the potent toxicity behind it. Like all the others, its fresh star shaped leaves often invite many passing herbivores – no wonder many animals stop to ingest and the danger behind these plants are too well hidden to be seen. Resting with the most Deadliest Plant toxin in the world – 6, 0000 times more noxious than cyanide, this plant has been known as a ‘wonder plant’ for thousands of years and you may know it as the Caster Bean plant.
The caster bean plant is a fast –growing suckering perennial shrub which often reaches the size of small trees (39 feet). The glossy leaves vary from a reddish tinge, to dark green and a reddish purple and sit amongst the fruit capsules and varieties of flowers that line across the leaves in twists of red, green and yellow. Doesn’t sound so harmful does it? The secret of their dangerous poison lays not in the leaves, not in the stem but where they can disperse of them the most – their seeds!

Over 50% of the plant is comprised of rich oil – and to assist is a remarkable anti- predatory evolution substance of ricin – a protein toxic to almost every species in the animal kingdom. If the poison is to become ingested by any passing hungry species, it inactivates the key protein making elements of a cell – a vital component for cells to maintain themselves, so without it – many cells in the animal die, resulting in a domino wave and eventually killing the consumer.

The toxin is just as potent in humans, the only difference is that for us – death is prolonged, often ending in failure of the liver and other major organs, losing life to convulsions and still as of today, there are no existing antidotes. Poisoning, luckily, is not very common throughout society, but unfortunately there have been many cases reported of poisoning via accidental consumption of the seeds. The reason why these seeds cause such harm is due to their ability to delaying symptoms of consumption of up to 36 hours. Symptoms include, burning sensations in the mouth, dehydration, abdominal pain, drop in blood pressure and diarrhoea. The result in delayed treatment – prevents the damaged cells from becoming recovered.

Poisoning only occurs if the consumer has ingested broken down seeds after chewing, as fully intact seeds often pass through the digestive tract without releasing the toxin. The amount of seeds consumed that inflicts death varies on the species: only 4 seeds will kill a rabbit, 6 within a horse, 11 a dog and 4 – 8 seeds for us. Ducks are a remarkable exception as they have become extremely resistant to the seeds – it takes the consumption of over 80 to kill them!Like many harmful substances that are produced from the environment – they are free and easy to farm/ snatch from their habitats. During the 1900’s many people became aware of how deadly ricin really was, and began producing it for biological warfare. Smaller parties even took the substance in to their own hands, using it like a weapon – in the same way a knife or bullet would cause destruction and havoc to the tissues of the body once struck.

A famous case occurred in Waterloo station in London during 1978 – a man named Georgi Markov, one of BBC’s journalists, was murdered whilst waiting at a bus stop. He was stabbed with an umbrella end that injected a pellet containing ricin into his skin. Markov developed a high fever, suffered from immense pain and died three days later.Despite bearing such a scary substance – the alternative oil held within the seeds are a favourite – being extracted and used world wide. The castor plant is indigenous to the South-eastern Mediterranean Basin, Eastern Africa and India but the oils from this plant have been used globally for the past 4,000 years as lamp oil. This is also an ingredient of soap, some medicines, waxes, polishes, candles and crayons. New research may also be proving that the beans substances may even provide a cure for tumours. The global castor seed production is a large 1 million tons per year. The leading producing areas include India (60% of the global yield), china and Brazil. Ethiopia also holds several active breeding sites. Lets just hope that as the demand for the twisty combination of deadly meets handy is used sensibly, and not in the cases of Georgi Markov.

Despite causing worry in human consumers, this plant is a prime species to represent the significant techniques of anti- predatory consumption. Producing the deadliest toxin in the world, yet ensuring attraction to passer pollinators is one of the many impressive and feared plants in the world.

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World's Most Expensive Precious Metal

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 06:20:00 +0000

Rarity alone isn’t enough to qualify a metal as precious. It must also be naturally occurring, lustrous and ductile, possess a high melting point and low reactivity and, most important to anyone wishing to wear jewelry made from the metal, it must not be radioactive. Natural, radioactive metals like polonium and radium need not apply.

Gold, silver and platinum are undoubtedly the most well known precious metals, but they fall short of being the most expensive precious metals in the world. As of this writing, platinum (around US $1,500/ounce) and gold (around US $1,200 per ounce) take second and third place, respectively. Silver, in the low double digits, doesn’t even rate.The real money is in rhodium.

A member of the platinum group of metals which, unsurprisingly, includes platinum, rhodium is most commonly found mixed with other platinum group metals. This makes it difficult to extract, which can only increase its value. The silvery white metal is primarily mined in South Africa, North America and Russia’s Ural Mountains.

Rhodium has a variety of applications. It is used in the process of “rhodium flashing” white gold and platinum in order to give jewelry made from those metals a whiter, more reflective surface. It is also particularly suited to the production of catalytic converters. In 1979, Paul McCartney was presented with a rhodium-plated disc in honor of his status as the Guinness Book of World Records’s all-time bestselling songwriter and recording artist.

So how much is rhodium worth? It’s currently valued at twice the price of gold—around US $2,400 per ounce!

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World's Most Expensive Classic Car

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Every once in a while, a car enters the spotlight and becomes an instant classic. Years down the road, these cars demand hefty prices when sold at auction. This is the most expensive classic cars in the world.

Peter D. Williamson Bugatti Type 57S Atlantic – $30-$40 million

If you thought the Bugatti Type 57S above was expensive, then check out this piece of phenomenal piece of Bugatti history. The Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic was based on the “Aérolithe” concept car. The Aérolithe’s Electron and Duralumin construction required external riveting, resulting in a distinctive seam not unlike a dorsal fin. Despite the Atlantic’s aluminum construction, which required no such riveting, the seam was retained.

Only four Type 57SC Atlantics were produced and only two have survived to this day. Fashion guru Ralph Lauren owns one while the other was owned by late Bugatti collector Dr. Peter Williamson. The Williamson Bugatti, chassis #57374, was the first Atlantic off the production line and was originally owned by Lord Victor Rothschild. While it was drastically modified by its second owner, Dr. Williamson restored it to its original specifications after acquiring it for $59,000 in 1971. After Williamson’s passing, it was sold to an undisclosed buyer, reportedly for a sum between $30 and $40 million.

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Top 10 Greatest Movies of All Time

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 10:26:00 +0000

1 The Shawshank Redemption

Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.

2 The Godfather

The aging patriarch of an organized crime dynasty transfers control of his clandestine empire to his reluctant son.

3 Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

As Luke trains with Master Yoda to become a Jedi, his friends evade the Imperial fleet under the command of Darth Vader who is obsessed with turning Skywalker to the Dark Side.

4 Schindler's List

In Poland during World War II, Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis.

5 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Aragorn leads the World of Men against Sauron's army to draw the dark lord's gaze from Frodo and Sam who are on the doorstep of Mount Doom with the One Ring.

6 The Dark Knight

When Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent launch an assault on the mob, they let the clown out of the box, the Joker, bent on turning Gotham on itself and bringing any heroes down to his level.

7 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.

8 Pulp Fiction

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

9 Inception

In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a highly skilled thief is given a final chance at redemption which involves executing his toughest job to date: Inception.

10 12 Angry Men

A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court.

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"How do Optical Mice Work"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 06:12:00 +0000

Optical Mouse was First Developed by Agilent Technologies and introduced to the world in late 1999, the optical mouse actually uses a tiny camera to take 1,500 pictures every second. Able to work on almost any surface, the mouse has a small, red light-emitting diode (LED) that bounces light off that surface onto a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor.

Definition of an Optical Mouse :-
An optical mouse is an advanced computer pointing device that uses a light-emitting diode (LED ), an optical sensor, and digital signal processing ( DSP ) in place of the traditionalmouse ball and electromechanical transducer. Movement is detected by sensing changes in reflected light, rather than by interpreting the motion of a rolling sphere.

Working :-
The CMOS sensor sends each image to a digital signal processor (DSP) for analysis. The DSP, operating at 18 MIPS (million instructions per second), is able to detect patterns in the images and see how those patterns have moved since the previous image. Based on the change in patterns over a sequence of images, the DSP determines how far the mouse has moved and sends the corresponding coordinates to the computer. The computer moves the cursor on the screen based on the coordinates received from the mouse. This happens hundreds of times each second, making the cursor appear to move very smoothly.

Types of Optical Mice :-

1 LED Mice
Optical mice often use LEDs for illumination, even though they are sometimes colloquially referred to as 'lasers'. The color of the optical mouse's light-emitting diodes can vary, but red is most common, as red diodes are inexpensive and silicon photodetectors are very sensitive to red light.[10] Other colors are sometimes used, such as the blue LED of the V-Mouse VM-101 illustrated at right.

2 LASER MICE
The laser mouse uses an infrared laser diode instead of a LED to illuminate the surface beneath their sensor. As early as 1998, Sun Microsystems provided a laser mouse with their Sun SPARCstation servers and workstations.However, laser mice did not enter the mainstream market until 2004, when Paul Machin at Logitech, in partnership with Agilent Technologies, introduced its MX 1000 laser mouse.This mouse uses a small infrared laser instead of a LED and has significantly increased the resolution of the image taken by the mouse. The laser enables around 20 times more surface tracking power to the surface features used for navigation compared to conventional optical mice.
Glass laser (or glaser) mice have the same capability of a laser mouse but can also be used on top of mirror or transparent glass with few problems.

Benefits :-
1. No moving parts means less wear and a lower chance of failure.
2.There's no way for dirt to get inside the mouse and interfere with the tracking sensors.
3. Increased tracking resolution means smoother response.
4.They don't require a special surface, such as a mouse pad.

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Interesting Facts About The London Olympics-2012

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 11:33:00 +0000

1. The games cost almost $15 BILLION. The final estimated cost for the Olympic games was increased from £2.4 billion to £9.3 billion. That's 3.8x the cost! The reason for this was because London had to invest heavily in the Olympic venues and other infrastructure expenses. In fact, the Contingency Fund, for any unexpected expenses, was set at £2.7 billion. That means that the unexpected costs ended up being costlier than they originally expected the whole thing to be

2. Even though Adidas is the official apparel sponsor, Nike features prominently in the games! Not Nike the brand, but rather the Goddess of Sport. She's going to be engraved in front of every medal given out during the games. Ironically, Nike just came out with an ad poking fun at the Olympics. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hEzW1WRFTg&feature=player_embedded

3. The games might include a Spice Girls reunion. The Olympic games will officially end on August 12. It's traditional that the mayor of the host city hands over the games to the mayor of the next host city (in this case, Rio de Janeiro). It's heavily rumored that the closing ceremony will feature the first Spice Girls reunion since 2008.

4. The Olympics will leave London with its largest piece of public art. The ArcelorMittal Orbit is a 377-foot observation tower that was built in the Olympic park and is supposed to be a permanent fixture of London, long after the Olympics are gone. The design so far seems to be polarized, some have said it's striking and daring and Olympian in its ambition. Others say it looks like a roller coaster collapsing onto itself.

5. London will be the first city to host the Olympics for a third time. They hosted the Olympics in 1908 and 1948. Although this distinction is only a technicality. Athens has also hosted 3 Olympic games, but one of them, the 1902 Athens Intercalated Olympic Games weren't counted as an official Olympic event.

6. More than half the world will be watching. The organizers of the game estimate that about 4 billion people will tune in to watch the games.

7. There's going to be over 20,000 members of the media covering the event. The International Broadcast Centre that will house them during the games is huge: the size of six full size football pitches.

8. The London Olympic stadium is the lightest stadium ever built. Not just that, but they also used 2,500 tons of steel tubing that was recycled from old gas pipelines. That's a pretty green stadium!

9. The opening ceremony is based on William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The organizers have named the ceremony "Isles of Wonder" and it is taken from a speech given by Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Academy award winner Danny Boyle will serve as the artistic director. Over 20,000 volunteers are working on it!

10. Girl Power: The 2012 Olympics will have 2 significant milestones for female athletes. It's the first Olympics where every country has at least 1 female athlete. Also, Female Boxing was included this year, which means that every sport in the games will have male and female competitors.

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Top 10 Deadliest Animals

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 10:10:00 +0000

1 Siafu Ants (Strength In Numbers)

Let’s face it. Africa is an extremely dangerous place and anything can die there very easily. Siafu ants are also called driver ants, safari ants, and army ants. They live primarily in central and east Africa, both in jungle and on savanna. They have no eyes. They communicate and navigate by smelling pheromones, and every few years a colony of 50,000,000 will decide to pick up and move in search of more fruitful hunting grounds.

When they move, they form columns on the ground, with the smaller worker ants inside a tunnel formed by the larger soldier or guard ants. The ants average about an inch long, with the winged males the largest ant known at over 2 inches. They have venom and can sting with their abdomens, but it is insufficient to kill large animals. Instead, they rely on their bite. They have mandibles strong enough to cut through rhinoceros hide. And when the colony relocates, every animal in the entire area of many square miles, including the honey badger, leaves and may not return for weeks.

If one ant attacked you, you could stomp it or pick it off you. But ants don’t play fair. If you come within 25 meters of a colony on the move in column formation, they will smell you and come running to defend themselves. The bite is severely painful and once blood is drawn, your only defense is to run for your life. Attacking the ants is useless. A flamethrower might work but the ants do not know the use of fear and will either run across fiery ground to get at you, or wait until the fire dies away.

They do not run fast and are easy to avoid, provided you are able to get away. They are able to overpower any known animal, having brought down sick or injured elephants that could not escape. They have killed many people over the centuries, always infants or the injured, those who are unable to run. Once they are upon you, there is no easy way to get them off. Other ants will let go if you submerge in water. Siafu ants will hold their breath and bite for 3 minutes under water. A colony can strip an elephant to the bone in a month, and during that time nothing else except bacteria can approach the carcass. Vultures land on it and immediately fly away kicking ants off their feet.

They are used as natural stitches by the indigenous peoples. A single ant is picked up and allowed to bite on either side of a wound, and then the body is pinched off, leaving the head with jaws locked shut. They have venomous stings but hardly ever use them. They kill prey such as grasshoppers and small rodents simply by biting them to death. What they do is overwhelm any animal they can find and bite until the animal is incapacitated by agony. Smaller animals like insects are cut to pieces. The ants will enter the mouth of a larger animal and invade the lungs, biting the whole way, causing death by asphyxia.

2 Clostridium Botulinum(Most Toxic Animal On Earth)

One teaspoon of this bacterium, properly distributed, could kill every single human being in the United States. About 9 lbs (4 kgs) could kill every human in the world. Like the venom of #7, botulinum is a neurotoxin, stopping communication between the brain and the muscles, resulting in paralysis of the diaphragm, then asphyxia.

Botulinum is found in the soil of every continent and ecosystem on Earth, from the Sahara Desert to Antarctica. It is found in soil brought up from the ocean floor. It requires absolutely perfect conditions in order to become active and thus dangerous. You would not be able to contract the toxin by eating dirt, since your digestive juices are too acidic to allow the bacterium to grow and produce the toxin.

But the spores are extraordinarily difficult to kill, able to survive in boiling water for 10 minutes. If you were to can food without boiling it (cold canning), airborne spores may enter the oxygen-free environment of the food and grow very quickly. Upon eating the food, the toxins would be present in your body immediately, and eating only a nibble of a green bean is more than sufficient to kill you within a day. No animal is known to have an immunity to botulinum. A mere 1 nanogram per kilogram dose will kill any living organism on the planet. An elephant weighing 5,454 kgs (12,000 lbs) would die in less than 3 days after consuming 5,454 ngs of botulinum toxin. This is equal to 0.005454 milligrams.

3 Cape Buffalo (Most Unpredictable)

The cape buffalo is by far the most dangerous game animal on Earth. It is sufficiently thick-skinned to require an elephant rifle, and is the animal most responsible for the introduction of double-barreled rifles. A double-barreled rifle offers the hunter an immediate follow-up shot to finish a wounded animal, and cape buffaloes can be counted on to withstand the first shot, even if they are struck in the heart, and still charge. The .585 Nyati caliber was invented for use against this animal. Nyati is Swahili for Cape Buffalo.

You may think touring Africa’s grasslands in a safari jeep is safe, and were it not for the Cape Buffalo, you would be fairly correct. They may charge without any provocation at all, and they overturn jeeps, trucks, and vans by ramming them headfirst. A 2,000 lb male can run 40 miles an hour for more than 100 meters. Some professional hunting guides refuse to hunt them, for fear the paying hunter will miss. The cape buffalo gores and tramples to death over 200 people every year, more kills, possibly, than any other African animal.

4 The Shark (Perfect Killing Machine)

The shark has zero natural predators, except perhaps larger sharks. The largest is the whale shark, but it eats small fish, plankton, and krill. The largest macro predatory shark is the one Steven Spielberg made permanently infamous in “Jaws,” the Great White. In that film, the shark is summed up by Richard Dreyfuss, “All it does is swim, and eat, and make little sharks.” It can reach over 20 feet long, easily weigh 2.5 tons, and still swim 35 feet per second. Michael Phelps set the world record of 100 meters in freestyle at 47.82 seconds. This works out to about 4.7 miles per hour. The Great White can swim 25 miles per hour.

All sharks have a superlative sense of smell to make up for their bad eyesight. Any species can smell a drop of blood in an Olympic swimming pool. They can smell a bleeding swimmer from 5 miles, and with a single bite can tear off 31 lbs of flesh. In theory, sharks are always hungry, and a 20 foot specimen can bite with 4,000 pounds of force, which is more powerful than the impact of a .375 H & H Magnum rifle round.

The shark’s most incredible, virtually X-Men ability is called electroreception. They have organs in their heads called Ampullae of Lorenzini. Every time any animal moves, it generates a very slight electrical field, and sharks can actually sense this electricity. Thus a person treading water looks like lightning to a shark. A great white can detect half a billionth of a single volt. If it is within 100 meters, it can detect the voltage of your heartbeat.

5 The Mosquito (Highest Death Toll)

The mosquito is possibly responsible for more deaths throughout history than any other macroscopic animal. They’re easy to kill, but typically not until they bite you. Then you smack them but the damage is done. Usually, all that happens is you itch for a little while. This is because the mosquito’s saliva contains histamines, which irritate the skin.

The reason they are extremely dangerous is because they transmit diseases infectious to humans and livestock, many of them fatal without treatment. Malaria is the most well-known, which can kill 20% of the time in severe cases, even with treatment. They also transmit West Nile Virus, lymphatic filariasis (roundworms), tularemia, dengue fever, yellow fever, and others. All of these can kill.

In addition to the lethal diseases they carry, mosquitoes can kill on their own. They are feared throughout the Australian outback (just one more reason not to go there) and the southern Sahara, where shallow deluges provide them excellent breeding in the water. When the larvae hatch, they attack in swarms of over 1 billion insects, descending on cows and camels and draining them of blood within 10 minutes.

6 The Human (Only Evil Animal)

Have you noticed that most history books divide eras among major social, political, or disastrous events and that the lion’s share of these are wars? In 200,000 years of the modern human species’ history (our personal history), the only thing we’ve been able to do consistently well is kill each other. All animals fight, but only humans wage war. We are the only species that has ever existed on Earth to have attempted the elimination of entire species. And we are always getting better at it, always pushing scientific knowledge, and almost always one of the first things for which science is put to use is the invention of new methods of murder.

We do it so well that we cannot even face ourselves when we consider it. We devise euphemisms, especially in time of war: it’s not murder – it’s combat, or “defending our freedom,” “target neutralization,” “justifiable homicide,” “soldiery,” “just following orders.”

The human is the only animal ever known to be capable of revenge, hatred, or sadism, and we are intimate with all three. We kill for every reason.

Black powder was originally invented by Chinese alchemists looking for the elixir of life, then used as a means to set off fireworks for amusement. That didn’t last long. Now it is more commonly called gunpowder.

The Wright Brothers pioneered human aviation for the purpose of enabling aerial warfare, because in their opinion this would make national invasions impossible, and would thus negate all warfare in the first place. Wishful thinking. Tesla envisioned his “death beam” for the same purpose. Einstein had no idea his Special Theory of Relativity could be used to split atoms for the purpose of killing people. When Robert Oppenheimer and Enrico Fermi explained to him what was being done at The Manhattan Project, he burst into tears.

Consider all the kindhearted, nonviolent people through the ages, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. What do we do to them? Hate them, harm them, kill them out of spite.

The human is an unnatural animal because of all this. It does not fit into any environment, except perhaps the urban environment. We think of ourselves as predators, usually with a sense of pride. Nevertheless, on even terms, the human would not stand half a chance in a fight to the death with most of the other entries on this list. But that only incites us to pick the fight, and we do so by the one method in which we have no equals: thinking. Given the proper preparation (typically guns), we are more than a match for any other organism on this list. And that fills us with malicious and/or “sporting” glee.

7 Inland Taipan (Most Venomous On Land)

The inland taipan must not be confused with the coastal taipan or the central taipan, all three of which are highly venomous. The inland taipan, also called the fierce snake (for its venom), the small-scaled snake, and the two-step snake, averages 6 feet long, with a maximum recorded of 8.2 feet. They are extremely shy and always try to escape any large animal’s presence. It is only by cornering one that it bites.

The median lethal dose of its venom is 30 micrograms per kilogram. It injects an average of 44 milligrams per bite, which is 44,000 micrograms. It can inject up to 110 milligrams. The snake has, however, never actually been known to kill a human. This is because its habitat is in the center of the Australian outback, where very few humans ever bother to venture, and also because you have to work very hard to make it bite. Its diet consists entirely of rodents, and it does not strike once and then wait for the prey to succumb. It bites up to 8 times to hasten the process.

The venom itself is comprised of taipoxin, named after the snake. This is one of the most powerful natural toxins ever known, and stops the brain’s communication with the muscles, causing death by asphyxia. Antivenin is 100% successful, provided that you don’t have 200 miles to travel to a hospital. A bite on the calf, injecting 44 mgs, will drop a 200 pound human within 300 meters of running or 45 minutes of resting pulse. Herpetologists have claimed that, provided it were devenomized, the snake would make an outstanding aquarium pet given its docile temperament.

8 Sea Wasp Box JellyFish (Most Venomous In Sea)

Everyone is always asking what animal packs the deadliest venom in the world. Here, once and for all, are the two answers. Sea life has abounded for about 3 billion years longer than life on land, and the longer nature has to evolve its animals, the nastier, deadlier, more perfect (see #4) they get. There are many species of box jellies, but Chironex fleckeri, also called the sea wasp, is by far the most notorious.

It can weigh up to 4 and half pounds (2 kgs), with a bell that can reach the size of a basketball, with 15 tentacles up to 10 feet long beneath. Its infamous venom was once thought to glow in the dark, but cannot. Instead, the venom absorbs and reflects the slightest sunlight into and out from the tentacles, giving the jelly an ethereal glow even at twilight. Luckily, this enables you to see it coming. It uses its venom to immobilize fish, and if you were to become wrapped within the tentacles long enough, it would dissolve you.

At night, they simply sit on the seafloor. During the day, it hunts for shrimp, minnows, and other small fish. Sea turtles are able to eat box jellies and do frequently. They have extremely thick skin that shields them from the stings. If you are stung only slightly by a sea wasp jelly, you will not die, but you will wish you would. The pain is described as “excruciating,” “exquisite,” “beyond belief.” Children do not cry when they are stung. They scream. Lifeguards have claimed that simply cutting off the limb that has been stung would hurt less than leaving it attached.

If you were to be wrapped up in the jelly’s tentacles, which happens quite often off the northern coast of Australia, the cnidocytes in the venom would stop your heart in 3 minutes. That is 180 seconds. This assumes you do not drown before escaping the sea, because the venom also shuts down the brain’s communication with the muscles. The sea wasp has killed 63 people since 1884, most of them off Australia. Its range extends at least into the Philippines, to Malaysia.

9 The African Lion (Speed & Strength Unmatched)

The tiger is slightly larger than, and just as fast as, the lion, but the lion just edged out the tiger because the lion is the only cat known to science that works as a team with other lions to hunt. This enables it to bring down prey far larger than itself. Lions are possibly the smartest of cats; the members of a pride will stealthily arrange themselves around a herd of prey animals, and when the ambushers are in position, they signal to the drivers with a cough or sneeze, whereupon the prey is driven into an ambush and several are brought down, saving the lions from a drawn-out chase.

A full-grown male lion is about 6 inches taller than a tiger and weighs anywhere from 330 to 550 lbs (150-250 kgs), averaging 400. This size makes it sound as though the lion should be ungainly, but the opposite is true. He can charge 50 mph for over 100 meters. Male lions have been seen jumping 4-rail fences with cows in their mouths. They can spring 12 feet straight up into the air and leap 40-foot gorges. Their mortal enemy, the hyena, is no match for them one on one, but even when they attack in packs, a single male lion can stand his ground admirably.

Video shows a pride of lionesses being robbed of its kill by a pack of hyenas, and then killing more prey, only to be robbed again. The lionesses finally “complained” to the male in charge by grunting at him until he woke up. He saw the hyenas eating within 200 meters, walked to within 50 meters of them, then charged and killed 9 of them before the rest fled. One swipe of his forepaw cut one in half across the spine.

Lions have been known to slash the tires of safari jeeps to immobilize them and the tourists inside. To ward them off, the guides play recordings of elephants trumpeting. Hunting them is still legal, but conservation makes it expensive (as it should), and only old specimens or man-eaters are taken. The two most infamous remain the Tsavo maneless man-eaters of 1898. From March to December, they killed and ate as many as 135 railway workers in Tsavo, Kenya. They were gigantic, even for lions, measuring 9 feet, 8 inches, and 9 feet, 6 inches long, and required 8 men to carry them. Their hunter, Col. John Patterson, shot the second no less than 8 times with a .303 Lee-Enfield, which has power comparable to the .30-06, before the lion succumbed.

10 The African Bush Elephant (Brute Strength)

The king of the jungle is a title that still misleadingly belongs to the elephant, not the lion. Neither of them lives in any jungle in Africa. The African elephant is the largest land animal on Earth and has zero natural predators (man doesn’t count as natural). The ones you’ve seen in zoos are simply not the same as those in the wild. In zoos, elephants know humans are no threat; in the wild, any animal that is not a herbivore is a threat, and elephants are smart enough to know which is which.

In the wild, they are docile to a point. You may stand 100 meters from one and it will pay attention but not attack. Or it may charge you from 500 meters as soon as it sees you. Of course the largest land animal is sure to be also the most powerful, and the elephant is, but it possesses an intelligence that may rival that of some primates. This is not quite so difficult to fathom given that it has an 11-pound brain.

The elephant is the grandest of the Big Five game animals of Africa, and although it is still legal to hunt them, a license to kill just one will cost about $50,000. Hunters are only permitted to kill solitary old bulls or cows that are not long from natural death. The money goes to conservation efforts. Despite their size, they disappear very easily in tall brush and their ears enable them to hear you long before you hear them. Their olfactory sense is extraordinary, enabling them to smell you from 1 mile. And because they are gargantuan, they generally do not run away or hide. Full-grown elephants have zero natural predators. Nothing dares tangle with them. They can run 25 miles an hour for 100 meters, which is faster than Usain Bolt.

They are hyper-aggressive during musth. Musth is the bull elephant’s reproductive hormones, mostly testosterone, all of which rise 60 times higher than normal. This makes the elephant want to mate with any cow it sees, and fight everything else. Musth causes the bull extreme irritation and puts him in a severely foul mood.

It is during musth that bulls have been known to charge through 2 direct hits from a .460 Weatherby Magnum (ordinarily more than sufficient to drop one in its tracks), and trample the hunter to death, flip safari jeeps and gore through chassis; 6-ton bulls have been witnessed flinging black rhinoceros 14 feet over their heads, kicking down 4-foot-thick trees, and snapping anchor chains used to hold them. They are smart enough to angle their tusks into the chain links and pop them loose if they cannot overpower the iron.

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Jawaharlal Nehru - First Prime Minister of India

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 07:46:00 +0000

Jawaharlal Nehru, byname Pandit (Hindi: “Pundit,” or “Teacher”) Nehru (born Nov. 14, 1889, Allahabad, India—died May 27, 1964, New Delhi), first prime minister of independent India (1947–64), who established parliamentary government and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the 1930s and ’40s.

Table Of Cont
Early years

Nehru was born to a family of Kashmiri Brahmans, noted for their administrative aptitude and scholarship, that had migrated to India early in the 18th century. He was the son of Motilal Nehru, a renowned lawyer and one of Mahatma Gandhi’s prominent lieutenants. Jawaharlal was the eldest of four children, two of whom were girls. A sister, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, later became the first woman president of the United Nations General Assembly.

Until the age of 16, Nehru was educated at home by a series of English governesses and tutors. Only one of these, a part-Irish, part-Belgian theosophist, Ferdinand Brooks, appears to have made any impression on him. Jawaharlal also had a venerable Indian tutor who taught him Hindi and Sanskrit. In 1905 he went to Harrow, a leading English school, where he stayed for two years. Nehru’s academic career was in no way outstanding. From Harrow he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he spent three years earning an honours degree in natural science. On leaving Cambridge he qualified as a barrister after two years at the Inner Temple, London, where in his own words he passed his examinations “with neither glory nor ignominy.”

Four years after his return to India, in March 1916, Nehru married Kamala Kaul, who came from a Kashmiri family settled in Delhi. Their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917; she would later (under her married name of Indira Gandhi) also serve as prime minister of India.

Political apprenticeship

On his return to India, Nehru at first tried to settle down as a lawyer. But, unlike his father, he had only a desultory interest in his profession and did not relish either the practice of law or the company of lawyers. At this time he might be described, like many of his generation, as an instinctive nationalist who yearned for his country’s freedom, but, like most of his contemporaries, he had not formulated any precise ideas on how it could be achieved.

Nehru’s autobiography discloses his lively interest in Indian politics. His letters to his father over the same period reveal their common interest in India’s freedom. But not until father and son met Mahatma Gandhi and were persuaded to follow in his political footsteps did either of them develop any definite ideas on how freedom was to be attained. The quality in Gandhi that impressed the two Nehrus was his insistence on action. A wrong, Gandhi argued, should not only be condemned, it should be resisted. Earlier, Nehru and his father had been contemptuous of the run of contemporary Indian politicians, whose nationalism, with a few notable exceptions, consisted of interminable speeches and long-winded resolutions. Jawaharlal was also attracted by Gandhi’s insistence on fighting Great Britain without fear or hate.

Nehru met Gandhi for the first time in 1916 at the annual meeting of the Indian National Congress(Congress Party) in Lucknow. Gandhi was 20 years his senior. Neither seems to have made any initially strong impression on the other. Nehru did not assume a leadership role in Indian politics, however, until his election as Congress president in 1929, when he presided over the historic session at Lahore (now in Pakistan) that proclaimed complete independence as India’s political goal. Until then the objective had been dominion status.

Nehru’s close association with the Congress Party dates from 1919 in the immediate aftermath ofWorld War I. This period saw a wave of nationalist activity and governmental repression culminating in the Massacre of Amritsar in April 1919; 379 persons were reported killed and at least 1,200 wounded when the local British military commander ordered his troops to fire on a crowd of unarmed Indians assembled for a meeting.

When, late in 1921, the prominent leaders and workers of the Congress Party were outlawed in some provinces, Nehru went to prison for the first time. Over the next 24 years he was to serve another eight periods of detention, the last and longest ending in June 1945, after an imprisonment of almost three years. In all, Nehru spent more than nine years in jail. Characteristically, he described his terms of incarceration as normal interludes in a life of abnormal political activity.

His political apprenticeship with the Congress lasted from 1919 to 1929. In 1923 he became general secretary of the party for two years and again, in 1927, for another two years. His interests and duties took him on journeys over wide areas of India, particularly in his native United Provinces, where his first exposure to the overwhelming poverty and degradation of the peasantry had a profound influence on his basic ideas for solving these vital problems. Though vaguely inclined toward socialism, Nehru’s radicalism had set in no definite mold. The watershed in his political and economic thinking was his tour of Europe and the Soviet Union during 1926–27. Nehru’s real interest in Marxism and his socialist pattern of thought stem from that tour, even though it did not appreciably increase his knowledge of communist theory and practice. His subsequent sojourns in prison enabled him to study Marxism in more depth. Interested in its ideas but repelled by some of its methods, he could never bring himself to accept Karl Marx’s writings as revealed scripture. Yet from then on, the yardstick of his economic thinking remained Marxist, adjusted, where necessary, to Indian conditions.

Struggle for Indian independence

After the Lahore session of 1929, Nehru emerged as the leader of the country’s intellectuals and youth. Hoping that Nehru would draw India’s youth, at that time gravitating toward extreme leftist causes, into the mainstream of the Congress movement, Gandhi had shrewdly elevated him to the presidency of the Congress Party over the heads of some of his seniors. Gandhi also correctly calculated that, with added responsibility, Nehru himself would be inclined to keep to the middle way.

After his father’s death in 1931, Jawaharlal moved into the inner councils of the Congress Party and became closer to Gandhi. Although Gandhi did not officially designate Nehru his political heir until 1942, the country as early as the mid-1930s saw in Nehru the natural successor to Gandhi. TheGandhi-Irwin pact of March 1931, signed between Gandhi and the British viceroy, Lord Irwin (laterLord Halifax), signalized a truce between the two principal protagonists in India. It climaxed one of Gandhi’s more effective civil disobedience movements, launched the year before, in the course of which Nehru had been arrested.

Hopes that the Gandhi-Irwin pact would be the prelude to a more relaxed period of Indo-British relations were not borne out; Lord Willingdon (who replaced Irwin as viceroy in 1931) jailed Gandhi in January 1932, shortly after Gandhi’s return from the second Round Table Conference in London. He was charged with attempting to mount another civil disobedience movement; Nehru was also arrested and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

The three Round Table Conferences in London, held to advance India’s progress to self-government, eventually resulted in the Government of India Act of 1935, giving the Indian provinces a system of popular autonomous government. Ultimately, it provided for a federal system composed of the autonomous provinces and princely states. Although federation never came into being, provincial autonomy was implemented. During the mid-1930s Nehru was much concerned with developments in Europe, which seemed to be drifting toward another world war. He was in Europe early in 1936, visiting his ailing wife, shortly before she died in a sanitarium in Switzerland. Even at this time he emphasized that in the event of war India’s place was alongside the democracies, though he insisted that India could only fight in support of Great Britain and France as a free country.

When the elections following the introduction of provincial autonomy brought the Congress Party to power in a majority of the provinces, Nehru was faced with a dilemma. The Muslim League underMohammed Ali Jinnah (who was to become the creator of Pakistan) had fared badly at the polls. Congress, therefore, unwisely rejected Jinnah’s plea for the formation of coalition Congress-Muslim League governments in some of the provinces, a decision on which Nehru had not a little influence. The subsequent clash between the Congress and the Muslim League hardened into a conflict between Hindus and Muslims that was ultimately to lead to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.

Imprisonment during World War II

When, at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, committed India to war without consulting the autonomous provincial ministries, the Congress Party’s high command withdrew its provincial ministries as a protest. Congress’s action left the political field virtually open to Jinnah and the Muslim League. Nehru’s views on the war differed from those of Gandhi. Initially, Gandhi believed that whatever support was given to the British should be given unconditionally and that it should be of a nonviolent character. Nehru held that nonviolence had no place in defense against aggression and that India should support Great Britain in a war against Nazism, but only as a free nation. If it could not help, it should not hinder.

In October 1940, Gandhi, abandoning his original stand, decided to launch a limited civil disobedience campaign in which leading advocates of Indian independence were selected to participate one by one. Nehru was arrested and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. After spending a little more than a year in jail, he was released, along with other Congress prisoners, three days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. When the Japanese carried their attack through Burma (now Myanmar) to the borders of India in the spring of 1942, the British government, faced by this new military threat, decided to make some overtures to India. Prime Minister Winston Churchilldispatched Sir Stafford Cripps, a member of the war Cabinet who was politically close to Nehru and also knew Jinnah, with proposals for a settlement of the constitutional problem. Cripps’s mission failed, however, for Gandhi would accept nothing less than independence.

The initiative in the Congress Party now passed to Gandhi, who called on the British to leave India; Nehru, though reluctant to embarrass the war effort, had no alternative but to join Gandhi. Following the Quit India resolution passed by the Congress Party in Bombay (now Mumbai) on Aug. 8, 1942, the entire Congress working committee, including Gandhi and Nehru, was arrested and imprisoned. Nehru emerged from this—his ninth and last detention—only on June 15, 1945.

Within two years India was to be partitioned and free. A final attempt by the viceroy, Lord Wavell, to bring the Congress Party and the Muslim League together failed. The Labour government that had meanwhile displaced Churchill’s wartime administration dispatched, as one of its first acts, a Cabinet mission to India and later also replaced Lord Wavell with Lord Mountbatten. The question was no longer whether India was to be independent but whether it was to consist of one or more independent states. While Gandhi refused to accept partition, Nehru reluctantly but realistically acquiesced. On Aug. 15, 1947, India and Pakistan emerged as two separate, independent countries. Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister.

Achievements as prime minister

In the 35 years from 1929, when Gandhi chose Nehru as president of the Congress session at Lahore, until his death as prime minister in 1964, Nehru remained—despite the debacle of the brief conflict with China in 1962—the idol of his people. His secular approach to politics contrasted with Gandhi’s religious and traditionalist attitude, which during Gandhi’s lifetime had given Indian politics a religious cast—misleadingly so, for, although Gandhi might have appeared to be a religious conservative, he was actually a social nonconformist trying to secularize Hinduism. The real difference between Nehru and Gandhi was not in their attitude to religion but in their attitude to civilization. While Nehru talked in an increasingly modern idiom, Gandhi was harking back to the glories of ancient India.

The importance of Nehru in the perspective of Indian history is that he imported and imparted modern values and ways of thinking, which he adapted to Indian conditions. Apart from his stress on secularism and on the basic unity of India, despite its ethnic and religious diversities, Nehru was deeply concerned with carrying India forward into the modern age of scientific discovery and technological development. In addition, he aroused in his people an awareness of the necessity of social concern with the poor and the outcast and of respect for democratic values. One of the achievements of which he was particularly proud was the reform of the ancient Hindu civil code that finally enabled Hindu widows to enjoy equality with men in matters of inheritance and property.

Internationally, Nehru’s star was in the ascendant until October 1956, when India’s attitude on the Hungarian revolt against the Soviets brought his policy of nonalignment under sharp scrutiny. In theUnited Nations, India was the only nonaligned country to vote with the Soviet Union on the invasion of Hungary, and thereafter it was difficult for Nehru to command credence in his calls for nonalignment. In the early years after independence, anticolonialism had been the cornerstone of his foreign policy, but, by the time of the Belgrade conference of nonaligned countries in 1961, Nehru had substituted nonalignment for anticolonialism as his most pressing concern. In 1962, however, the Chinese threatened to overrun the Brahmaputra River valley as a result of a long-standing border dispute. Nehru called for Western aid, making virtual nonsense of his nonalignment policy, and China withdrew.

The Kashmir region—claimed by both India and Pakistan—remained a perennial problem throughout Nehru’s term as prime minister. His tentative efforts to settle the dispute by adjustments along the cease-fire lines having failed, Pakistan, in 1948, made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Kashmir by force. In solving the problem of the Portuguese colony of Goa—the last remaining colony in India—Nehru was more fortunate. Although its military occupation by Indian troops in December 1961 raised a furor in many Western countries, in the hindsight of history, Nehru’s action is justifiable. With the withdrawal of the British and the French, the Portuguese colonial presence in India had become an anachronism. Both the British and the French had withdrawn peacefully. If the Portuguese were not prepared to follow suit, Nehru had to find ways to dislodge them. After first trying persuasion, in August 1955 he had permitted a group of unarmed Indians to march into Portuguese territory in a nonviolent demonstration. Even though the Portuguese opened fire on the demonstrators, killing nearly 30, Nehru stayed his hand for six years, appealing meanwhile to Portugal’s Western friends to persuade its government to cede the colony. When India finally struck, Nehru could claim that neither he nor the government of India had ever been committed to nonviolence as a policy.

Nehru’s health showed signs of deteriorating not long after the clash with China. He suffered a slight stroke in 1963, followed by a more debilitating attack in January 1964. He died a few months later from a third and fatal stroke.

Assessment

While assertive in his Indianness, Nehru never exuded the Hindu aura and atmosphere clinging to Gandhi’s personality. Because of his modern political and economic outlook, he was able to attract the younger intelligentsia of India to Gandhi’s movement of nonviolent resistance against the British and later to rally them around him after independence had been gained. Nehru’s Western upbringing and his visits to Europe before independence had acclimatized him to Western ways of thinking. Throughout his 17 years in office, he held up democratic socialism as the guiding star. With the help of the overwhelming majority that the Congress Party maintained in Parliament during his term of office, he advanced toward that goal. The four pillars of his domestic policies were democracy, socialism, unity, and secularism. He succeeded to a large extent in maintaining the edifice supported by these four pillars during his lifetime.

Nehru’s only child, Indira Gandhi, served as India’s prime minister from 1966 to 1977 and from 1980 to 1984. Her son, Rajiv Gandhi, was prime minister from 1984 to 1989.

Jawaharlal Nehru with Mahatma gandhi

Nehru with Muhammad Ali Bogra

Nehru swears as the First Prime Minister of India

Nehru (Chacha) with School children

Nehru in UN Assembly Meeting with President Romulo

Nehru lying in state

Jawaharlal Nehru Quotes

"A leader or a man of action in a crisis almost always acts subconsciously and then thinks of the reasons for his action".

"A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new; when an age ends; and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance".

"A theory must be tempered with reality".

"Action itself, so long as I am convinced that it is right action, gives me satisfaction".

"Action to be effective must be directed to clearly conceived ends".

"Citizenship consists in the service of the country".

"Crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think".

"Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit".

"Democracy and socialism are means to an end, not the end itself".

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Subhash Chandra Bose - The Pride of India

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:06:00 +0000

Date of Birth : Jan 23, 1897 Date of Death : Aug 18, 1945 Place of Birth : Orissa
Subhash Chandra Bose (January 23, 1897 – August 18, 1945?), also known as Netaji, was one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian Independence Movement against the British Raj. Subhas Chandra Bose was born to an affluent family in Cuttack, Orissa. His father, Janakinath Bose, was a public prosecutor who believed in orthodox nationalism, and later became a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. His mother was Prabhavati Bose, a remarkable example of Indian womanhood. Bose was educated at Cambridge University. In 1920, Bose took the Indian Civil Service entrance examination and was placed second. However, he resigned from the prestigious Indian Civil Service in April 1921 despite his high ranking in the merit list, and went on to become an active member of India’s independence movement. He joined the Indian National Congress, and was particularly active in its youth wing. Subhas Chandra Bose felt that young militant groups could be molded into a military arm of the freedom movement and used to further the cause. Gandhiji opposed this ideology because it directly conflicted with his policy of ahimsa (non-violence). The British Government in India perceived Subhas as a potential source of danger and had him arrested without any charge on October 25, 1924. He was sent to Alipore Jail, Calcutta and in January 25, 1925 transferred to Mandalay, Burma. He was released from Mandalay in May, 1927 due to his ill health. Upon return to Calcutta, Subhas was elected President of the Bengal Congress Committee on October 27, 1927.

Subhas was one of the few politicians who sought and worked towards Hindu-Muslim unity on the basis of respect of each community’s rights. Subhas, being a man of ideals, believed in independence from the social evil of religious discord. In January 1930 Subhas was arrested while leading a procession condemning imprisonment of revolutionaries. He was offered bail on condition that he signs a bond to refrain from all political activities, which he refused. As a result he was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. On his release from jail, Subhas was sworn in as Mayor of the Calcutta Corporation. In 1931 the split between Gandhiji and Subhas crystallized. Although the two never saw eye to eye on their view of freedom and the movement itself, Subhas felt that Gandhiji had done a great disservice to the movement by agreeing to take part in the Second Round Table Conference. Subhas viewed freedom as an absolute necessity, unlike the freedom which Gandhiji was “negotiating” with the British. Subhas was arrested again while returning from Bombay to Calcutta, and imprisoned in several jails outside West Bengal in fear of an uprising. His health once again deteriorated and the medical facilities diagnosed him with tuberculosis. It was recommended that he be sent to Switzerland for treatment. Realizing that his avenues abroad were greater with the restrictions of the British, Subhas set sail for Europe on February 23, 1933. Subhas stayed in various parts of Europe from March 1993 to March 1936 making contacts with Indian revolutionaries and European socialists supporting India’s Struggle for Independence. Subhas met Mussolini in Italy and made Vienna his headquarters. Subhas was opposed to the racial theory of Nazism but appreciated its organizational strength and discipline. On March 27, 1936 he sailed for Bombay and but was escorted to jail immediately after disembarking. After lying low for a year, he was able to work actively. He attended the All India Congress Committee Session in Calcutta, the first one he attended after a lapse of nearly six years. Time had healed the tensions between Subhas and Gandhiji, and Gandhiji supported Subhas in his efforts to become the President of the next Congress session, 1938. He went to England for a month in 1938 and rallied for the Indian freedom cause amongst Indian students and British labor leaders sympathetic toward India’s cause. It was a bold move since he was constantly under British surveillance. Upon his return to India in February 1938, Subhas was elected President of the Indian National Congress. An excerpt from his Presidential address read, “I have no doubt in my mind that our chief national problems relating to the eradication of poverty, illiteracy and disease and the scientific production and distribution can be tackled only along socialistic lines… .” Subhas emphasized that political freedom alone would not be sufficient, as the ills of the British reign would continue to haunt post-Independent India. He stressed the need to solve linguistic and religious prejudices and to achieve a high literacy rate amongst Indians. Gandhiji found Subhas’s ideologies far too leftist and strongly disagreed with Subhas’s criticism of village industries and stress on competing with the rest of the world in the Industrial age. Opposition from Sardar Vallabhai Patel, lack of support from Gandhiji and Nehru’s indecision marked Subhas’s year as the President of the Congress. One of Subhas’ major contributions was setting up of a National Planning Committee, for the development of an economic program running parallel to the national movement. Differences between Gandhiji and Subhas led to a crisis when Gandhiji opposed Subhas’ idea that the Bengal Government (a coalition between the Krishak Praja Party & Muslim League) be ousted and the Congress take charge in coalition with the Krishak party. The idea was criticized by Gandhiji and Nehru, which resulted in the strengthening of the Muslim League in Bengal and ultimately partition of India. It is obvious today that had Subhas been able to carry out his plans, Bengal would be a different entity on the atlas. Despite opposition from the Congress brass, Subhas was a favorite amongst the majority as he was re-elected for a second term in March 1939. Gandhiji considered Subhas’s victory as his personal defeat and went on a fast to rally the members of the Working Committee to resign. Subhas resigned and Dr. Rajendra Prasad assumed the Presidency of the Congress. In May 1939, Subhas formed the Forward Bloc within the Congress as an umbrella organization of the left forces within the Congress. Gandhiji and his supporters accused Subhas of breach of Congress party discipline and drafted a resolution removing Subhas from the Congress Working Committee and restrained him from holding any office for three years. On September 3, 1939 Subhas was informed that war had broken out between Britain and Germany. Subhas discussed the idea of an underground struggle against the British with members of the Forward Bloc. Subhas pressurized the Congress leaders to get a Declaration of War Aims from the Viceroy; he declined. Subhas was elected President of the West Bengal Provincial Congress. In December the Congress Working Committee subverted the Provincial Committee’s authority and appointed its own ad hoc committee. The Forward Bloc progressively became militant and by April 1940 most of its senior members were arrested. Subhas was convinced that the only way he could bring about India’s Independence was by leaving the country and fighting from foreign territories. He had made contact with radical Punjab and Pathan activists who had contacts in Afghanistan and Russia to organize a militia. Subhas knew that Britain was in a vulnerable position following the surrender of France in June 1940. He announced the launch of Siraj-ud-daula Day on July 3, in memory of the last king of Bengal who was defeated by Clive. His plan was to hold a procession and to unify Hindu and Muslim nationalists. The Government interceded and imprisoned Subhas on July 2, 1940 in Presidency Jail, Calcutta. Netaji believed that foreign assistance was a must to free India from British rule. In 1939, when the Second World War broke out, Subhas sought assistance from Germany, Italy, and Japan as they were enemies of Britain and thus would be natural allies. In 1941, he evaded a house-arrest in Calcutta by disguising himself as a Maulavi and going to Kabul, Afghanistan. Later, he procured an Italian passport and fled to Berlin, Germany. There he met Hitler and discussed his plans and sought his assistance to free India. He also sought assistance from Mussolini. From time to time, he aired his speeches on the Azad Hind Radio from Berlin to communicate his intentions to fellow Indians and to prove that he was still alive. After the defeat of Germany, Netaji realized that he could not continue his struggle from Germany anymore. Ultimately, Netaji reached Japan in June, 1943. He established the Indian National Army (INA) with some 30,000 Indian soldiers. He also set up a radio network in South East Asia in order to appeal to the people, both in India and outside, for support. The INA declared war against Britain and America. However, the INA had to retreat from the Indo-Burmese border after a heavy defeat of the Japanese troops there. The British defense was impenetrable. Though the “Delhi Chalo” mission failed, Netaji proved to the world that his determination was strong and his attitude was positive in his dream to free India from the clutches of the British.

On August 16, 1945 Netaji boarded a plane from Singapore to Bangkok. Netaji was scheduled to fly in a Type 97-2 bomber ‘Sally’ from Bangkok to Saigon. The plane made a stopover in Taipei and crashed within minutes of take-off from Taipei. Netaji’s body was cremated in Taipei on August 20, 1945 and his ashes were flown to Tokyo on September 5, 1945 where they rest in the Renkoji Temple. To this day, many believe that Netaji escaped from the air crash and went into hiding . Netaji wanted unconditional and complete freedom. He dreamed of a classless society with no caste barriers, social inequalities or religious intolerance. He believed in equal distribution of wealth and destruction of communalism. His slogan “Jai Hind” still acts as a great binding force today

Some rare photos of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose

Bose with Mahatma Gandhi

Bose with Heinrich Himmler

Bose with members of Ajad Hind Fauj

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Museum,Cuttack

Subhash Chandra Bose Quotes

“Hail! Independence, hail! Heaven's next best gift, To that of life and an immortal soul!”

“Give me blood and I shall give you freedom!”

“Nationalism is inspired by the highest ideals of the human race, Satyam [the truth], Shivam [the God], Sundaram [the beautiful]”

“It is our duty to pay for our liberty with our own blood. The freedom that we shall win through our sacrifice and exertions, we shall be able topreserve with our own strength.”

“Remember that the greatest crime is to compromise with injustice and wrong.”

“We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?”

“You must conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer”

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Facebook's Delicious Facts

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:12:00 +0000

1 in every 13 people on Earth is on Facebook

35+ demographic represents more than 30% of the entire user base

71.2 % of all USA internet users are on Facebook

In 20 minutes 1,000,000 links are shared on Facebook

In 20 minutes 1,484,000 event invites are posted

In 20 minutes 1,323,000 photos are tagged

In 20 minutes 1,851,000 status updates are entered

In 20 minutes 1.972 million friend requests are accepted

In 20 minutes 2,716,000 photos are uploaded

In 20 minutes 2,716,000 messages are sent

In 20 minutes 10.2 million comments are posted

In 20 minutes 1,587,000 wall posts are written

750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over New Year’s weekend

48% of young Americans said they found out about news through Facebook

48% of 18 to 34 year olds check Facebook right when they wake up

50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

Average user has 130 friends

People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)

Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events

Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month

More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

More than 70 translations available on the site

About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

Entrepreneurs and developers from more than 190 countries build with Facebook Platform

People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day

Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites

Since social plugins launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day

More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites

There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices

People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

Al Pacino’s face was on the original Facebook homepage

One early Facebook function was a file sharing service

The first “Work Networks” as well as the original educational networks included Apple and Microsoft

The meaning of the term poke has never been defined

There is an ‘App’ to see what’s on the Facebook cafe menu

Mark Zuckerburg (CEO of Facebook) calls himself a “Harvard Graduate” when in fact he didn’t graduate (apparently his reply is that “there isn’t a setting for dropout”)

Australian’s spend more time per month on Facebook than any other country at over 7 hours on average

A Facebook employee hoodie sold for $4,000 on eBay

Facebook was initially bank-rolled by Peter Thiel the co-founder of PayPal for $500,000

It is the second biggest website by traffic behind Google (at the moment)

Facebook is now valued at approximately $80 billion

Facebook makes money through advertising and virtual products

Facebook was almost shut down by a lawsuit by ConnectU who claimed that Zuckerburg stole the idea and Technology for Facebook (the issue was settled out of court)

The USA has the largest Facebook user base with 155 million people which represents 23.6% of Facebook’s total users

There is over 16,000,000 Facebook fan pages

Texas Hold’em Poker is the most popular Facebook page with over 41 million fans

More than 650 million active users

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Top 10 Most Beautiful Tropical Rainforests

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 18:27:00 +0000

1 The Malaysia’s Rainforest

Being the top of the best and beautiful tropical rain forest in the world, the Malaysia’s rainforest is the world’s most biodiversity forest. However, the forest also suffered from human destruction. There were studies that had been investigated that by the year 2020 the Malaysia’s rainforests will be extinct.

2 The Sinharaja Rainforest

Sri Lanka is considered as one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world. Their rainforest is the last viable one of its kind and the UNESCO considered them as one of the Worlds Natural Heritage Site. 18% of its natural rainforests had been destroyed. The civil war occurred that time have also caused deforestation.

3 The Madagascar’s Rainforests

Madagascar is the 4th largest island in the world. It has rainforests that houses approximately 80% of plans and animals which are hard to find in other parts of the world. The same story applies on it. The forest was threatened by people due to small scale agricultural purposes, mining, both legal and illegal loggings and charcoal production. Due to this activity, the forest was damaged and 90% of its original size was destroyed. Efforts of the Madagascar government have initiated the conservancy mechanism of their rainforest.

4 The Colombia Rainforests

Columbia is known as the 4th largest country in South America. It is home for rich tropical rainforests that considered as one of the highest biodiversity hotspots in the world. However, based on the current reports from United Nations the legal and illegal activity in the country such as mining, logging, development of energy, clearing of tress for small and large scale agricultural projects like oil palm plantations and cocaine farming are the major caused of human encroachment of the forest. The government of Columbia is now moving to preserve the forest.

5 The Papua New Guinea Rainforest

The highland part of this country is covered with tropical rainforests. Approximately 70% of the entire area of PNG is being sheltered. There are more than 950 various species of birds and mammals are found in the rainforest. There are at least 20,000 different species of plants are existing there as well. Due to commercial logging and clearing of the area for the purpose of agricultural and plantation concerns, the rainforest had suffered from human threat too. The local government of the country is encouraging developed countries to conserve their own rainforest in order for them to minimize the industrialized emission from deforestation.

6 The Kelp Forests

The kelp forest in Australia had large sources of sea weeds. Some of these weeds grow for about 80 meters in total length. However, based on the recent reports, the total original land area of Kelp Forests had been declining and only 5% of its original size remains. This rainforests is very essential habitat for marine creatures. The main products from Kelp are being manufactured to thicken the foods like ice cream and jelly. Natural disaster such as El Nino is one of the major causes why the Kelp Forest had been heavily destructed. The increase in the sea water temperatures and decrease of dissolved levels of nutrients is the ultimate outcome of this scenario.

7 The Sumatra’s Rainforest

The region of Sumatra is the largest region in Indonesia. Considering its large area, it is ranked as the 6th largest island in the world. This rainforest has various plant and animal life which are considered unique and hard to find in other parts of the world. However, it had suffered from human encroachment because the Indonesian citizens have exploited the trees from legal and illegal logging as well as with the expansions of oil palm plantations

8 The Valdivian Rainforest

The rainforest is situated at the southern part of Chile in South America. Based on a certain non-profit organization, conservation international have ranked this rainforests to be included in top 25 world’s biodiversity hotspots. Around 90% of the plant life and approximately 70% of animal life in this rainforests are considered rare and hard to find in other parts of the world. The economic uprising of Chile comes from their main product which is wood pulp manufacturing and forestry that are found in this rainforest. However, this rainforest was threatened from human encroachment due to the establishments of highways. However, in exchange of damaged properties in this rainforest the local government of Chile had replaced it with pine trees and eucalyptus trees farms

9 The Mau Forest

This rainforest is considered as the largest indigenous forest that is situated in the Rift Valley. It covers the entire 675,000 acres and tagged as the largest water catchment in Kenya. Three countries including Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (all are part of East Africa) is the location of Lake Victoria in which the river flowing from Mau Forest provides it with clean water. Since this forest has fertile soil, most of the people in Kenya attempted to deforest the forest to acquire more land due to its agricultural and economic purposes in the country. The local government of Kenya had already moved towards protecting the forest from people who are trying to threaten it. People living in the forest were evicted as well.

10 The Congo Basin Forest

This forest serves as the second largest rainforest in the world. It covers a total of six countries including Cameroon, Central Africa, Democratic Republic and Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. This rainforest stands for 70% of the entire continent vegetation and in consists of approximately 600 various species of trees and about 10,000 different types of animals. This rainforest was endangered from deforestation in the continent as its trees are being cut down to be used for commercial and industrial establishments. It was cleared for farming purposes too. After the civil war in the region, people living in it have been forced to encroach and live inside the rainforest.

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All About Olympics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 15:05:00 +0000

The Olympic games originally started in the city of Olympia, Greece, and were held every four years. Although it is calculated that the Olympic games have been held at least 293 times, the first written Olympic recordings date back to 776 BC. The last Olympic games in the ancient world were held in 389 AD, before being banned in 393 AD by the Roman Emperor Theodore I the Great. The Olympics included sports such as running, boxing, wrestling, and chariot racing, and since they were such an important and sacred event every war would cease to let athletes participate in the competitions. The participation was open to males only, and the winner of each event would be awarded with the prize of an olive wreath. Women were not admitted to the games, not even as spectators. The modern Olympic games date back to 1852, when the German archaeologist Ernst Curtius, while working on the ruins of Olympia, proposed to revive this ancient sport tradition. His idea was well received by Baron Pierre De Coubertin and with the motto "The important thing is not to win, but to participate" on June 23, 1884, he created a special committee to revive the games. The committee agreed that the first of the modern Olympics was to be held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. With re-establishing the four year laps between each edition, the Olympic games were held regularly until they were called off due to the war and began again in 1948, after a twelve year break.

The Origin of the Olympic Games

How did the Olympic Games get started? The ancient Olympic Games were primarily a part of a religious festival in honor of Zeus, the father of the Greek gods and goddesses. The festival and the games were held in Olympia, a rural sanctuary site in the western Peloponnesos. The Greeks that came to the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia shared the same religious beliefs and spoke the same language. The athletes were all male citizens of the city-states from every corner of the Greek world, coming from as far away as Iberia (Spain) in the west and the Black Sea (Turkey) in the east. The sanctuary was named in antiquity after Mt. Olympos, the highest mountain in mainland Greece. In Greek mythology, Mt. Olympos was the home of the greatest of the Greek gods and goddesses. The ancient Olympic Games began in the year 776 BC, when Koroibos, a cook from the nearby city of Elis, won the stadion race, a foot race 600 feet long. According to some literary traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals or until 724 BC. Contrary evidence, both literary and archaeological, suggests that the games may have existed at Olympia much earlier than this date, perhaps as early as the 10th or 9th century BC. A series of bronze tripods have been found at Olympia, some of which may date to the 9th century BC, and it has been suggested that these tripods may in fact be prizes for some of the early events at Olympia. From 776 BC, the Games were held in Olympia every four years for almost 12 centuries. Additional athletic events were gradually added until, by the 5th century BC, the religious festival consisted of a five-day program. The athletic events included: three foot races (stadion, diaulos, and dolichos) as well as the pentathlon (five contests: discus, javelin, long jump, wrestling, and foot race), pugme (boxing), pale (wrestling), pankration, and the hoplitodromos. Additional events, both equestrian and for humans, were added throughout the course of the history of the Olympic Games. Equestrian events, held in the hippodromos, were an important part of the athletic program of the ancient Olympic Games and by the 5th century bC included the tethrippon and the keles.

The marathon was not an event of the ancient Olympic games. The marathon is a modern event that was first introduced in the Modern Olympic Games of 1896 in Athens, a race from Marathon - northeast of Athens - to the Olympic Stadium, a distance of 40 kilometers. The race commemorates the run of Pheidippides, an ancient "day-runner" who carried the news of the Persian landing at Marathon of 490 BC to Sparta (a distance of 149 miles) in order to enlist help for the battle. According to the fifth century BC ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Pheidippides delivered the news to the Spartans the next day. The distance of the modern marathon was standardized as 26 miles 385 yards or 42,195 kilometers in 1908 when the Olympic Games were held in London. The distance was the exact measurement between Windsor Castle, the start of the race, and the finish line inside White City Stadium. Nudity at the Games? There are two stories relating to the question of nudity at the ancient Olympic Games. One story states that it was a runner from Megara, Orsippos or Orrhippos who, in 720 BC was the first to run naked in the stadion race when he lost his shorts in the race. Another tradition is that it was the Spartans who introduced nudity to the Olympic Games in the 8th century BC as it was a Spartan tradition. It is not clear if the very first recorded victor at Olympia, Koroibos, who won the stadion race in 776 BC wore shorts or not. It seems fairly clear that by the late 8th century nudity was common for the male contestants. How we got from the Ancient Olympics to the Modern Games? Although the ancient Games were staged in Olympia, from 776 BC through 393 AD, it took 1503 years for the Olympics to return. The first modern Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, in 1896. The man responsible for its rebirth was a Frenchman named Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who presented the idea in 1894. His original thought was to unveil the modern Games in 1900 in his native Paris, but delegates from 34 countries were so enthralled with the concept that they convinced him to move the Games up to 1896 and have Athens serve as the first host. The first Modern Winter Olympic games were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France. There was no winter Olympic festival in ancient times. The Modern Olympic flag of five linked rings, each with a primary color used in the flags of the nations competing in the games, was introduced in 1908. There is no ancient basis for this modern symbol. The idea of the Olympic torch or Olympic Flame was first inaugurated in the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The design of the Los Angeles colosseum included a facility for a large flame. There was no torch relay in the ancient Olympic Games. There were known, however, torch relays in other ancient Greek athletic festivals including those held at Athens. The modern Olympic torch relay was first instituted at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. The Olympic Oath was introduced in 1920.

Runners still run in Olympia

Because of the destruction of the site by Theodosius and several earthquakes, there is not much left in the way of buildings besides foundations, steps and columns but these are impressive and are in a beautiful setting near the Kladeos river. The area is called The Altis which means The Area Sacred To Zeus; the reason there is anything left is because the flooding of the river buried it until 1875 when archaeologists rediscovered it. The most outstanding building in the site of the Ancient Games is the 5th century Temple of Zeus, built by Livon, which contained the 12-meter-high statue by Phideas, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which was removed to Constantinople by Theodocious and destroyed in a fire. The stadium, which could seat at least 20,000 people, was the largest of its kind. The Temple of Hera is where the Olympic flame is lit from the sun and then taken by runners to light the torch wherever the games are being held, a tradition which dates all the way back to 1936 AD. Even today you will notice runners using the area for fun and for practice. The museum is across the road and contains the 4th century BC Statue of Hermes by Praxiteles, familiar to anyone who has taken art history, plus a number of other finds from the excavations including the Nike of Victory by Paeonios. According to Olympic legend, she used to come down from the sky to hand a palm leaf to the winners. The entire archaeological site of Olympia won't make you stare in awe and marvel at the ancient architecture, however it is a beautiful place to visit and unlike most archaeological sites in Greece which are exposed to the sun and surrounded by vegetation that barely reaches your knees, Olympia is shaded by tall trees and walking through the ruins can be a peaceful and profound experience. Olympia is a place you can visit any time of year and if you can come here when the rest of the tourists are gone you will find it even more enjoyable.

Were the ancient Olympics just for men?

Along with the athletic contests held at ancient Olympia, there was a separate festival in honor of Hera (the wife of Zeus). This festival included foot races for unmarried girls. Although it is not known how old the festival was, it may have been almost as old as the festival for boys and men. Little is known about this festival other than what Pausanias, a second century AD Greek traveler, tells us. He mentions it in his description of the Temple of Hera in the Sanctuary of Zeus, and says that it was organized and supervised by a committee of 16 women from the cities of Elis. The festival took place every four years, when a new peplos was woven and presented to Hera inside her temple. During the Hera festival, unmarried girls competed in three age groups in a foot race that was a single length of the race course (approximately five-sixths the length of the men's dromos, but held in the same stadion used for the men's and boys' contests). Girl victors in this foot race could dedicate images (probably paintings) in the altis to commemorate their victories, and they could take part in the sacrifice of the cows in honor of Hera. Pausanias gives us a description of a girl's attire for the Hera games of the second century AD. The girls wore their hair free down their back and a tunic hanging almost as low as the knees covering only the left shoulder and breast. The costume that Pausanias describes may have been the traditional costume at Olympia and possibly elsewhere for centuries. Unmarried girls had a number of advantages at Olympia. They not only had their own athletic contests of the Hera festival in which to participate, but they were also allowed to watch the men's and boys' contests of the festival of Zeus. Married women, on the other hand, were not allowed to participate in the athletic contests of the Hera festival, and were barred on penalty of death from the Sanctuary of Zeus on the days of the athletic competition for boys and men. We don't know whether or not the women allowed the men to watch the girls' contests! Events for women were first added to the Modern Olympic program in 1900 at the Paris Olympics. The first women's marathon was at the 1984 games in Los Angeles.

Alternative Olympics

Each year, The Olympiad Committee reviews requests from various sports clubs around the globe asking that their newly-invented athletic disciplines be accepted as part of the Olympic Games. All clubs are hopeful that their ludicrous sports games will become part of the biggest sports event in the world, especially ever since powerwalking became a major Olympic discipline. Therefore, after much thought and caffeinated early morning assemblies and mid-afternoon reunions and late-night meetings, the Committee finally reached a decision as to which new sports to introduce in the Olympics. Feeling that it was time for a groundbreaking change, the decision makers opted for the unconventional sports diciplines proposed by the International Alternative Sports Club. Their decision was based on originality, daredevilry (one must be a daredevil to be able to pull off such a stunt as submitting these sports ideas to the Olympiad Committee) and reality-relevance. As a matter of fact, they were really impressed at how these disciplines reflect real life in big cities and suburbs and how easily they may be integrated in one's life. As one member of the Committee explains, "Inspired by real life, these are sports anyone of any age can practice. They're also practical, as you can exercise anytime, anywhere, whether in the city, the countryside or simply on your very own front lawn. And the cost is minimal. No special equipment is required, no exorbitant gym fees. However, you will have to invest in some good tennis shoes if you want to go pro. You won't need a coach, but joining your local Alternative Sports Club may be helpful". Like any professional sportsman, you need to train hard. "The competition is fierce. Parisians are particularly good. But you still have four years of intensive practice if you want to compete in the next Olyumpic Games, when these disciplines will be officially introduced". He also recommends moving to Paris, like American Tour de France champion Greg Lemond had done, to insure intensive training. As different - alternative - and accessible as these new Olympic categories may be, they still require as much physical stamina and mental concentration as any other competitive sport. There are four new categories: the 100m ZigZag Run, the Whoops Jump, the Super-Powerwalk and Sidewalking. You're thinking, "How not original". Well, imagine jogging or walking in the city or in your local park. Are the streets, sidewalks, lanes all smooth and clear, with no "objects" in sight? My guess is that you often encounter some sort of undesirable object deposited by "man's best friend" and therefore can't jog or run in one consistent line, but instead zigzag your way through. You're always steering yourself left or right to avoid "it". Well, this is what makes these games so original and a breath of fresh air (so to speak). They have a modern approach and, although different disciplines, they nevertheless share a common detail. And it is precisely that which renders these games so different, um... alternative. Just what is this detail? First of all, it is known as props. The props are plastic imitations of a substance we'll call doggy-do (rather doggy-don't). You're thinking, "How icky!" well, they are plastic. At first, the Committee did consider using the real thing, but then thankfully waived the idea for obvious reasons of hygiene and other inconveniences. And at least one can say truly say now that the introduction of new sports games is a breath of fresh air and mean it. Before waiving that idea, the Committee had also considered using dogs from pounds to provide the props - at least they would be doing something instead of sitting in a cage all day - but, luckily, the Committee declared hygiene more important (Aah! These conscientious people should set up the an HSO, Hygienic Streets Organization, within the United Nations, but that's a different story which will appear in U.N. Organizations We'd Like to See). Besides, there are just so many dogs in a given place at a given time. And besides, dogs have their dignity, too.

The 100m ZigZag Run evidently requires advanced running skills, but also the skill of being able to run while looking ahead (experts recommend fixing your eyes on an object. This may cause you to look demented, but if you practice hard enough, you'll eventually get the hang of it and be able to observe several objects and the scenery and look normal) and avoiding the props which, inventors persist to insist, exist on real streets and in real parks. To see the do's, you may not look down directly - no head tilting downwards, just your eyeballs are allowed to move. The rules of the game consist of running fast, avoiding the doggy-do's by zigzagging your way around them (no jumping allowed) and keeping in your own lane. The Whoops Jump requires both good running and jumping skills. The purpose of the game is to jump over a few feet (or yards, depending on the level of the competitors) of doggy-do. This might be reminiscent to some of early morning jogging sessions in a beautiful park when they suddenly come across ...eew ...doggy-do. The speed at which they're running being too fast to be able to stop, they have no alternative (there goes that word again) but to jump! If you're a beginner, this is best practiced with a beach towel laid out on the ground. Once you are able to jump over the towel, you can start getting riskier. The Super-Powerwalk is a bit like the 100m ZigZag Run, no jumping over the do's and no looking directly down (eyes must do the bending to see, not the head). This is a more difficult discipline, however, as an excessive usage of the arms is required. Any powerwalker knows just how difficult it is to do The Funky Chicken movement while walking real fast. The difficulty is twofold when there are do's to avoid. A real challenge of a sport. Sidewalking - short for sidewalk walking - is the real novelty. Not only are regular athletic requirements unnecessary, but sports clothes are optional. The game will take place on a specially built set - very Hollywood - consisting of a famous avenue (Park Avenue, Champs-Elysees, to name a few). The participants will be dressed in everyday clothes - suits, jeans, dresses, etc., not to mention nice shoes, and will have to walk - sidewalk - around trying to miss the doggy-do's planted in various places around the set, sorry, sidewalk. These out of the ordinary sportsmen will also play roles - so Hollywood. Business in a hurry, lovebirds taking a stroll, woman window-shopping, kids rollerblading, happy-go-lucky male whistling and daydreaming... No Hollywood movie can ever provide as many roles! Their roles aren't as easy as they sound, though, for they have to miss the do's while doing banal everyday activites. Again, the rules forbid looking down. Exceptional concentration is required. The winners will have the possibility of going to Hollywood (where the sets - the sets - are cleaner).

How to Photograph Olympic Sports

Regardless of whether you are one of the millions of lucky spectators, camera in hand, at the Olympics, or you are at your local high school track meet, here are some tips from the New York Institute of Photography to help you take exciting pictures at your favorite sporting events. According to Chuck DeLaney, Dean of the world's largest photography school, "These tips will help you get great photos regardless of whether you are at an Olympic swim meet or your child's soccer game".

1. Fill the frame. Try to fill the frame with a player's body, rather than simply showing him or her as a distant speck. The type of picture you're looking for is a closeup action shot. A shot that fills the frame with just one or two players in the heat of a basketball game or a gymnast swinging from the parallel bars.

How do you get such a picture? Well, of course, it would be best to get as close as you can to the action. But be realistic! Unless you are a coach, you won't be on the sidelines at an Olympics baseball game. So, unless you are close to the floor or at a local game where you can get closer to the action, don't expect to get photos to rival your favorite sporting magazine.

If you're way back in the stands, you'll need a long lens - 200mm or longer - and use a tripod if allowed to steady the shot and fast film to stop the action - ISO 400 or faster. Hint: When something exciting happens everybody stands up! So, if you're sitting in crowded stands, don't be surprised that at the height of action, when something is actually worth photographing, the guy in front of you jumps up and gets in your way. The solution is try and sit where there is no one in front of you which might happen at a local game but certainly won't be an option at major events in Sydney.

2. Indoors don't use strobe. Most indoor arenas don't allow it. Anyway, you'll blind the athletes. Rather, take advantage of the arena lights. Since they're incandescent, however, make sure you use "Indoor" color film.

3. Use a fast film. Since you want to stop the action, use a fast film. ISO 800 is a good choice. The 800 films produced by Kodak and Fuji show very little graininess.

4. Focus. If your camera does not offer auto-focusing, use "zone focusing" - that is, estimate your distance to the point where you expect the action to be, pre-set your camera for this distance, and then don't adjust it when you shoot each picture. This works especially well if you are using a small aperture - f/8 or smaller- which will increase your depth of field.

5. Subject. If you are shooting basketball, baseball or soccer, try to show the ball in the picture. Whether you're shooting the batter taking a mighty swing or a goalie protecting the net, the picture is more effective if it shows the ball too.

6. Anticipate where the action will be. Know the game so you can plan ahead. Aim your camera where you expect the action to be, and pre-set the focus and exposure for that area. If you are photographing a race or swim meet, pre-set the focus and exposure to a spot where you expect the runner or swimmer to be.

7. Look around. Finally, don't forget to look for reaction shots too. Yes, the action on the field during the battle may be intense. But many a great picture of tragedy and triumph occurs after play is over or on the faces of the fans.

Top 10 lesser known World Heritage Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 19:30:00 +0000

1 Fossil Hominid Sites of Sterkfontein

More commonly known as The Cradle of Humankind, this site is a complex of over 36 limestone caves in South Africa, not far from Johannesburg. Within these caves scientists have found a huge number of hominid fossils dating back over 3.5 million years, with one cave alone containing over a third of all hominid fossils ever found. The caves also show signs of occupation as well, including the first ever in-situ hominid stone tools, and the oldest controlled fire dated to over 1 million years ago. Scientist believe prompt burials, along with the unusual conditions within the caves, allowed for the bodies within to become fossilized, which in itself is an extremely rare occurrence. Some of the better known finds include Mrs Ples, the most intact skull of an Australopithecus Africanus ever found, although the sex is not definitely female, x-rays of the teeth seem to show that this was a sub-adult. Another famous find is Little Foot, an amazingly complete hominin skeleton which is believed to be between 2.5 to 3.3 million years old. This site shows us not only where our species came from but how we evolved over millennia, earning it top spot on my list.

2 Takht-e Jamshid

More commonly known as Persepolis, it is located in the south of Iran and was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire. Construction was started around 515BC by Cyrus the Great, but the most impressive works were completed by Darius the Great and Xerxes the Great (yes the bad guy from 300) in around 470BC. One of the most awe inspiring structures on this site is the Apadana palace which was the main hall of the kings, where the tributes from nations within his Empire would have been received. The building was supported by columns 20m high, topped with a brace carved to the shape of lions or bulls. I have seen an example of these braces in the Louvre and it gives you an amazing idea of the size and scale of Persepolis. The site also contains the gate of nations, the hall of 100 columns, the imperial treasury, council halls, military quarters, reception halls, cisterns, drainage, sepulchers, royal tombs, royal stables, chariot houses and a number of palaces and royal residences, all covered in engravings and mosaics. The city was destroyed in 330BC, by Alexander the Great, possibly in revenge for the destruction of the acropolis in Athens, but the ruins still contain many beautiful carvings and are testament to the wealth and power of the Persian empire.

3 Lascaux Cave

Lascaux is group of caves in southwest France which were decorated over 17,300 years ago, with Paleolithic cave paintings. The public were allowed to view the caves in 1948, but by 1955 the carbon dioxide exhaled by the visitors had damaged the paintings causing the cave to be closed, the art was restored and is now monitored on a daily basis. The images are mostly of animals known to have lived in the area at the time, but images of humans and abstract signs are also present. Some of the images have been carved into the cave but the majority of art has been painted on using mineral pigments. A large portion of the paintings are of horses, but stags, cattle, aurochs, felines, birds, bears and rhinoceros’s are also represented. There are many theories on why this cave was decorated in this manor: it is thought that some of the art may represent star charts, as the constellations of Taurus and Pleiades can be found within the cave. There are also theories that this would have been a scared space to communicate with deities, a gathering place to plan a hunt together or even a record to celebrate the success of a hunt. We will probably never know but these images give us a fascinating look into our past.

4 Tropical Rainforest Sumatra

The Tropical Rainforest of Sumatra is made up of three national parks on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, and was chosen due to its outstanding scenic beauty and natural habitats for in-situ conservation. The three parks all contain different habitats, allowing for a large diversity in both flora and fauna. The parks are home to Rafflesia Arnoldi, the world’s largest flower, and Amorphophallus Titanum, the worlds tallest flower, as well as 174 species of mammals and 380 species of birds. Of these specimens, 16 are endemic and 73 are currently threatened. Species such as Orang-utans, Sumatran rhinoceros, bornean clouded leopards, Asian tapirs, Sumatran elephants and the leather back turtles are all found within this site, making it one of the most diverse and important conservation sites in the world. The sites main threat is residential expansion and encroaching human occupation, both of which is being battled by a number of different preservation groups.

5 Wadi Al-Hitan

The Whale Valley is found in a desert in Egypt, the site contains fossils showing the evolution of whales from land mammals to the ocean going creatures we are familiar with today. Fossils of the Archaeoceti suborder such as Basilosaurus and Dorudon are common, but the skeletons of sea cows Sirenia, elephants Moeritherium, crocodiles, sea turtles and sea snakes have also been found at the site. The sheer number and quality of these fossils found in such a high concentration make this site unique. The quality of preservation is so good that stomach contents have been found preserved, while the combination of other species found at the site make it possible to reconstruct the environmental and ecological conditions. The site has produced hundreds of high quality fossils showing the earliest sub-species of whales which are helping to unravel the mystery of the evolution of whales.

6 Wudang Building Complex

The Wudang Mountains are a small mountain range found in eastern China, which have been inhabited since at least 250 AD. The area is known for its Taoist monasteries, which were renowned as centers for meditation, martial arts, agriculture and medicines. People traveled to this area to research, learn and practice these skills. The palace and temple complex was constructed in the Ming Dynasty and within it are buildings dating from the 7th century. One of the more famous temples is the Golden Hall; built in 1416, the hall is constructed from gilded copper. It consists of 20 tons of copper and over 300kgs of gold, and was supposedly forged in Bejing, then moved to Wudang. The Nanyan Temple perches precariously on top of a cliff, in legend it is known as the place from which Emperor Zen Whu flew to heaven. The entire temple, including beams, gates and windows, is carved from rock and within the temple are gilded bronze statues of dozens of Taoist deities. Scattered across the cliffs are 500 gilded iron statues of heavenly officials. Another notable building, the Purple Cloud Temple is made up of several halls, the Dragon and Tiger Hall, the Purple Sky Hall, the East Hall, the West Hall and the Parent Hall. This temple contains shrines to Zhen Wu throughout his life. It also houses relics including the Green Dragon Crescent Blade which dates back to the 7th century.

7 Ellora caves

Ellora is the site of monumental, rock cut, cave temples representing Buddhist, Hindu and Jain religions, built from 400AD in close proximity to each other to show the religious harmony in the area. The structures are multi level buildings, carved directly from caves within the mountain face, and include monasteries, shrines and places of worship. Many of the buildings have vaulted ceilings and are all intricately carved, with most of the shrines containing large carved deities. During construction, 200,000 tonnes of rock had to be removed from the site by generations of workers. Some notable caves are: the Buddhist shrine Vishvakarma, which features a multi-storied entrance, a large hall with vaulted ceilings and a 15ft carving of Buddha in a preaching pose; The Indra Sabha is a two level Jain cave with a monolithic shrine, like all of the Jain caves it once had richly painted ceilings, part of which are still visible today. It also has fine carvings of lotus flowers, Yaksha Matanga on an elephant and Ambika sitting on a lion under a mango tree. Kailasanatha is the centerpiece of Ellora, made to resemble mount Kailash, the home of lord Shiva, this Hindu shrine was built by Krishna I in around 760AD. The structure is covered in detailed and intricate carvings, including sacred bulls and life-sized elephants supporting the shrines.

8 Lalibela

Lalibela is a rural town in the north of Ethiopia. It is also one of the countries holiest cities and a centre for pilgrimage. The 13 churches in the town have been carved completely from rock directly into the ground. It was under the instruction of Saint Gebre Mesqel Lalibela during his reign as Emperor of Ethiopia, that these churches were constructed, the layout and names of the buildings in Lalibela are a representation of Jerusalem. This has helped to date the churches to around the 1200s, after the 1187 capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. The largest monolithic church in the world, Bet Madhane Alem, is also home to the Lalibela Cross: a 12th century processional cross. Bete Maryam is thought to be the oldest of the churches, and Bete Golgotha is where it is believed King Lalibela is entombed. These churches are very unusual in that they are carved into the ground instead of into a cave or a cliff face, as most other rock carved buildings are. This process must have been very slow work and each church is carved with painstaking detail and stands as testament of the dedication of these people to their religion.

9 Monte Albán

Monte Albán can be found on a low mountain range in southern Mexico. The site is one of the earliest pre-Columbian Mesoamerican sites ever found, dating back to at least 500BC, the valley it is situated within also shows signs of inhabitancy from as early as 2000BC. The site offers a unique glimpse into the Zapotec history and culture. At the centre of the site is the main plaza surrounded by civic and ceremonial buildings as well as the elite homes. The site also features two ball courts, monumental stairs, hundreds of tombs and over 300 Danzante carved stone monuments. Most of them are of male war prisoners, tortured and sacrificed, with many being leaders of competing villages. The site also contains over 40 conquest slabs within the walls of buildings, these slabs give the names and sometimes details of places conquered by Monte Albán. From these it has been possible to confirm Cañada de Cuicatlán was conquered by the Zapotec.

10 Alcobaça Monastery

The Alcobaça Monastery in central Portugal was founded by king Afonso Henriques in 1153, and took 99 years to complete. This was the first building of the gothic style in Portugal, and is still the largest church in the country, it is of no surprise it went on to become one of the most important medieval monasteries in Europe. The monks of the monastery spent their lives meditating on religion and producing manuscripts, until it was pillaged by the French in 1810, it had one of the largest medieval libraries recorded. This monastery was the chosen burial place for many royals during the 13th and 14th centuries, their elaborate tombs are some of the best surviving examples of medieval engraving and sculptures in Europe. The tombs of Pedro I and his mistress, Ines de Castro, are particularly intricate, both feature relief of the occupant on the lid of the tomb, the kings tomb rests on carved lions while Ines is supported by carvings of creatures which are half man – half animal, and are covered in engravings showing angels and biblical scenes. The best known tomb is Queen Urraca’s, a Romanesque tomb engraved with an image of the Queen on the top, while around the body of the tomb are reliefs of the Apostles, the King and their children. This building is truly a showcase for the skills and dedication of the medieval craftsmen of Europe.

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A Myth of Hollywood - Charlie Chaplin

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 18:45:00 +0000

Childhood

Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in London, England, on April 16th 1889. His father was a versatile vocalist and actor; and his mother, known under the stage name of Lily Harley, was an attractive actress and singer, who gained a reputation for her work in the light opera field.Charlie was thrown on his own resources before he reached the age of ten as the early death of his father and the subsequent illness of his mother made it necessary for Charlie and his brother, Sydney, to fend for themselves. Having inherited natural talents from their parents, the youngsters took to the stage as the best opportunity for a career. Charlie made his professional debut as a member of a juvenile group called "The Eight Lancashire Lads" and rapidly won popular favour as an outstanding tap dancer.

Beginning of his career

When he was about twelve, he got his first chance to act in a legitimate stage show, and appeared as "Billy" the page boy, in support of William Gillette in "Sherlock Holmes". At the close of this engagement, Charlie started a career as a comedian in vaudeville, which eventually took him to the United States in 1910 as a featured player with the Fred Karno Repertoire Company. He scored an immediate hit with American audiences, particularly with his characterization in a sketch entitled "A Night in an English Music Hall". When the Fred Karno troupe returned to the United States in the fall of 1912 for a repeat tour, Chaplin was offered a motion picture contract. He finally agreed to appear before the cameras at the expiration of his vaudeville commitments in November 1913; and his entrance in the cinema world took place that month when he joined Mack Sennett and the Keystone Film Company. His initial salary was $150 a week, but his overnight success on the screen spurred other producers to start negotiations for his services. At the completion of his Sennett contract, Chaplin moved on to the Essanay Company (1915) at a large increase. Sydney Chaplin had then arrived from England, and took his brother’s place with Keystone as their leading comedian. The following year Charlie was even more in demand and signed with the Mutual Film Corporation for a much larger sum to make 12 two-reel comedies. These include "The Floorwalker", "The Fireman", "The Vagabond", "One A.M." (a production in which he was the only character for the entire two reels with the exception of the entrance of a cab driver in the opening scene), "The Count", "The Pawnshop", "Behind the Screen", "The Rink", "Easy Street" (heralded as his greatest production up to that time), "The Cure", "The Immigrant" and "The Adventurer".

Gaining independence

When his contract with Mutual expired in 1917, Chaplin decided to become an independent producer in a desire for more freedom and greater leisure in making his movies. To that end, he busied himself with the construction of his own studios. This plant was situated in the heart of the residential section of Hollywood at La Brea Avenue. Early in 1918, Chaplin entered into an agreement with First National Exhibitors’ Circuit, a new organization specially formed to exploit his pictures. His first film under this new deal was "A Dog’s Life". After this production, he turned his attention to a national tour on behalf of the war effort, following which he made a film the US government used to popularize the Liberty Loan drive: "The Bond". His next commercial venture was the production of a comedy dealing with the war. "Shoulder Arms", released in 1918 at a most opportune time, proved a veritable mirthquake at the box office and added enormously to Chaplin’s popularity. This he followed with "Sunnyside" and "A Day’s Pleasure", both released in 1919.

In April of that year, Chaplin joined with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith to found the United Artists Corporation. B.B. Hampton, in his "History of the Movies" says:

The corporation was organized as a distributor, each of the artists retaining entire control of his or her respective producing activities, delivering to United Artists the completed pictures for distribution on the same general plan they would have followed with a distributing organization which they did not own. The stock of United Artists was divided equally among the founders. This arrangement introduced a new method into the industry. Heretofore, producers and distributors had been the employers, paying salaries and sometimes a share of the profits to the stars. Under the United Artists system, the stars became their own employers. They had to do their own financing, but they received the producer profits that had formerly gone to their employers and each received his share of the profits of the distributing organization. However, before he could assume his responsibilities with United Artists, Chaplin had to complete his contract with First National. So early in 1921, he came out with a six-reel masterpiece : The Kid

Charlie Chaplin's Movies

The Gold Rush (1925)

Chaplin generally strove to separate his work from his private life; but in this case the two became inextricably and painfully mixed. Searching for a new leading lady, he rediscovered Lillita MacMurray, whom he had employed, as a pretty 12-year-old, in The Kid Still not yet sixteen, Lillita was put under contract and re-named Lita Grey. Chaplin quickly embarked on a clandestine affair with her; and when the film was six months into shooting, Lita discovered she was pregnant. Chaplin found himself forced into a marriage which brought misery to both partners, though it produced two sons, Charles Jr and Sydney Chaplin.

The Circus (1928)

"The Circus" won Charles Chaplin his first Academy Award – it was still not yet called the ‘Oscar’ – he was given it at the first presentations ceremony, in 1929. But as late as 1964, it seemed, this was a film he preferred to forget. The reason was not the film itself, but the deeply fraught circumstances surrounding its making.Chaplin was in the throes of the break-up of his marriage with Lita Grey; and production of The Circus coincided with one of the most unseemly and sensational divorces of twenties Hollywood, as Lita’s lawyers sought every means to ruin Chaplin’s career by smearing his reputation. As if his domestic troubles were not enough, the film seemed fated to catastrophe of every kind.In the late 1960s, after the years spent trying to forget it, Chaplin returned to "The Circus" to re-release it with a new musical score of his own composition.It seemed to symbolize his reconciliation to the film which cost him so much stress.

City Lights (1931)

"City Lights" proved to be the hardest and longest undertaking of Chaplin’s career. By the time it was completed he had spent two years and eight months on the work, with almost 190 days of actual shooting. The marvel is that the finished film betrays nothing of this effort and anxiety. Even before he began City Lights the sound film was firmly established. This new revolution was a bigger challenge to Chaplin than to other silent stars. His Tramp character was universal. His mime was understood in every part of the world. But if the Tramp now began to speak in English, that world-wide audience would instantly shrink. Chaplin boldly solved the problem by ignoring speech, and making City Lights in the way he had always worked before, as a silent film. However he astounded the press and the public by composing the entire score for "City Lights". The premieres were among the most brilliant the cinema had ever seen. In Los Angeles, Chaplin’s guest was Albert Einstein; while in London Bernard Shaw sat beside him. "City Lights" was a critical triumph. All Chaplin’s struggles and anxieties, it seemed, were compensated by the film which still appears as the zenith of his achievement and reputation.

Modern Times (1936)

Chaplin was acutely preoccupied with the social and economic problems of this new age. In 1931 and 1932 he had left Hollywood behind, to embark on an 18-month world tour. In Europe, he had been disturbed to see the rise of nationalism and the social effects of the Depression, of unemployment and of automation. He read books on economic theory; and devised his own Economic Solution, an intelligent exercise in utopian idealism, based on a more equitable distribution not just of wealth but of work. In 1931 he told a newspaper interviewer, “Unemployment is the vital question . . . Machinery should benefit mankind. It should not spell tragedy and throw it out of work”.

The Great Dictator (1940)

When writing "The Great Dictator" in 1939, Chaplin was as famous worldwide as Hitler, and his Tramp character wore the same moustache. He decided to pit his celebrity and humour against the dictator’s own celebrity and evil. He benefited – if that is the right word for it, given the times – from his “reputation” as a Jew, which he was not – (he said “I do not have that pleasure”).

In the film Chaplin plays a dual role –a Jewish barber who lost his memory in a plane accident in the first war, and spent years in hospital before being discharged into an antisemite country that he does not understand, and Hynkel, the dictator leader of Ptomania, whose armies are the forces of the Double Cross, and who will do anything along those lines to increase his possibilities for becoming emperor of the world. Chaplin’s aim is obvious, and the film ends with a now famous and humanitarian speech made by the barber, "speaking Chaplin’s own words". .

Last Years

Chaplin’s versatility extended to writing, music and sports. He was the author of at least four books, "My Trip Abroad", "A Comedian Sees the World", "My Autobiography", "My Life in Pictures" as well as all of his scripts. An accomplished musician, though self-taught, he played a variety of instruments with equal skill and facility (playing violin and cello left-handed). He was also a composer, having written and published many songs, among them: "Sing a Song"; "With You Dear in Bombay"; and "There’s Always One You Can’t Forget", "Smile", "Eternally", "You are My Song", as well as the soundtracks for all his filmsCharles Chaplin was one of the rare comedians who not only financed and produced all his films (with the exception of "A Countess from Hong Kong"), but was the author, actor, director and soundtrack composer of them as well. He died on Christmas day 1977, survived by eight children from his last marriage with Oona O’Neill, and one son from his short marriage to Lita Grey.

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The Almighty Behind Our Universe - "God Particle"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 17:59:00 +0000

The 'God' particle is a name given by the media to the Higgs boson a sub-atomic particle theoretically predicted by The Standard Model of particle physics to give all matter mass.

Scientists at the CERN research centre near Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday unveiled their latest findings in their search for the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle key to the formation of stars, planets and eventually life after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

WHAT IS THE HIGGS BOSON?

The Higgs is the last missing piece of the Standard Model, the theory that describes the basic building blocks of the universe. The other 11 particles predicted by the model have been found and finding the Higgs would validate the model. Ruling it out or finding something more exotic would force a rethink on how the universe is put together.

Scientists believe that in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang, the universe was a gigantic soup of particles racing around at the speed of light without any mass to speak of. It was through their interaction with the Higgs field that they gained mass and eventually formed the universe.

The Higgs field is a theoretical and invisible energy field that pervades the whole cosmos. Some particles, like the photons that make up light, are not affected by it and therefore have no mass. Others find it drags on them as porridge drags on a spoon.

WHAT IS THE STANDARD MODEL?

The Standard Model is to physics what the theory of evolution is to biology . It is the best explanation physicists have of how the building blocks of the universe are put together. It describes 12 fundamental particles, governed by four basic forces.

But the universe is a big place and the Standard Model only explains a small part of it. Scientists have spotted a gap between what we can see and what must be out there. That gap must be filled by something we don't fully understand, which they have dubbed 'dark matter'. Galaxies are also hurtling away from each other faster than the forces we know about suggest they should. This gap is filled by 'dark energy'. This poorly understood pair are believed to make up a whopping 96 percent of the mass and energy of the cosmos.

Confirming the Standard Model, or perhaps modifying it, would be a step towards the holy grail of physics - a 'theory of everything ' that encompasses dark matter, dark energy and the force of gravity , which the Standard Model also does not explain. It could also shed light on even more esoteric ideas, such as the possibility of parallel universes .

CERN spokesman James Gillies has said that just as Albert Einstein's theories enveloped and built on the work of Isaac Newton, the work being done by the thousands of physicists at CERN has the potential to do the same to Einstein's work.

WHAT IS THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER?

The Large Hadron Collider is the world's biggest and most powerful particle accelerator, a 27-km (17-mile) looped pipe that sits in a tunnel 100 metres underground on the Swiss/French border. It cost 3 billion euros to build.
Two beams of protons are fired in opposite directions around it before smashing into each other to create many millions of particle collisions every second in a recreation of the conditions a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, when the Higgs field is believed to have 'switched on'.

The vast amount of data produced is examined by banks of computers. Of all the trillions of collisions, very few are just right for revealing the Higgs particle. That makes the hunt for the Higgs slow, and progress incremental.

WHAT IS THE THRESHOLD FOR PROOF? To claim a discovery, scientists have set themselves a target for certainty that they call "5 sigma". This means that there is a probability of less than one in a million that their conclusions from the data harvested from the particle accelerator are the result of a statistical fluke.

The two teams hunting for the Higgs at CERN, called Atlas and CMS, now have twice the amount of data that allowed them to claim 'tantalising glimpses' of the Higgs at the end of last year and this could push their results beyond that threshold.

Why is it important?

Essentially because it proves that our understanding of the basic workings of the universe is correct. If the Higgs boson didn't exist , the Standard Model would be proved incorrect. Its importance led to the “God Particle” nickname. Physicist-cum-startup entrepreneur at PeerReach, Nico Schoonderwoerd says that it’s “A major milestone for the standard model,” as it validates all the work done, and all the money poured into its discovery.

Krassnigg elaborates: ”Picture the Standard Model as a car. Then you could imagine the Higgs boson to be, or provide, the wheels of that car. It had to be decided experimentally whether or not the car (our view of particle physics) actually is as we expected it to be, i.e., whether it actually does have wheels or not.

“For our car this is a question of central importance, since it determines what the car can do and how. While not having wheels would not have been a bad thing automatically – there are other fancier ways to move a car around -, it has now turned out that the wheels seem to be there and that this is the way the car moves .”

Where do we go from here?

So, if it is the Higgs boson that has been discovered, what does that mean for the future? CERN’s own announcement noted: ”Positive identification of the new particle’s characteristics will take considerable time and data. But whatever form the Higgs particle takes, our knowledge of the fundamental structure of matter is about to take a major step forward.”
Krassnigg continues his comparison of the Higgs boson with a car to explain what’s next: “Measurements and data analysis will continue, since physicists still need to find out in the months and years to come what the wheels are like: everything standard (i.e. as expected) or extra-large rims or something even more unexpected (perhaps on fire?).”
Just because the Standard Model appears to be validated, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot more to discover in the field of particle physics, too, as Schoonderwoerd explains: “The standard model doesn’t explain gravitation at all. So physicists have been trying to unify the gravitation theory with the Standard Model in advance models with names like Supersymmetry.” He says that many of the people investigating these theories hope that accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider will continue to run at increasing energy levels, uncovering new particles that may explain how gravity works in a way that fits into the Standard Model.

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Albert Einstein - A man of Photon

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:58:00 +0000

Early life and education

Einstein at the age of 3 & 14 respectively

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.Later , He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey

Einstein as a Professor

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton*. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

Albert's Scientific Career

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.
At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.
In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.
After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works includeSpecial Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War?(1933), My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) are perhaps the most important.

How World Honoured Him ?

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".Albert Einstein received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1922. During the selection process in 1921, the Nobel Committee for Physics decided that none of the year’s nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Albert Einstein therefore received his Nobel Prize for 1921 one year later, in 1922.

Some Rare Photos of Einstein

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Facebook - "Is It Really Good For Investments" ?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:22:00 +0000

Q How does Facebook make its money?

A. Facebook has two current streams of revenue right now. Their largest one is from advertising along its website, while the second one is from the use of Facebook Credits across its platform. Facebook is able to get such a premium on its advertising placing due to the fact that it has unique and specific information about each user that the user voluntarily gives up to Facebook to use, by filling in their profile and liking certain things. This allows the people running advertisements on Facebook to fine tune the reach of ads and who the ads are displayed to based on incredibly detailed information. The second revenue stream that Facebook has is their Credits system that is used across all applications on Facebook from Farmville to Words With Friends. For every dollar of credit that is purchased for an app, Facebook takes a 30% cut of the purchase. This revenue stream accounts for about 15% of Facebook's revenue, but has the chances to continually grow as Facebook begins to allow for in-app transactions and expands its credits so it becomes as pervasive on the internet as the ubiquitous like button.

Q. But I heard that companies were pulling out of placing ads on Facebook because it didn't make them enough money?

A. A few months ago General Motors announced that they were taking their $10 million Facebook ad campaign and going home. They, like some other companies have realized that running ads on Facebook don't pay off for them in regards to new customers. In the case of General Motors, their failure to generate increased sales from the fact that the products that GM sells are not those that are easy to sway consumers just by targeting them with ads. Ads can help sway some people who are on the fence, but not for a product that is so important and requires heavy research as a car. So long story short, advertising on Facebook might not work for every company in the world, but the wealth of data that Facebook has that allows for ads to be custom tailored for each user to get the maximum impact.

Q. So lets get down to the money. How much is Facebook worth?

A. Well, Facebook is set to offer shares of its stock to the public on Friday with a price range between $34 and $38 and will offer over 420 million shares of common stock to be traded in the first day. This offering is different from other tech stocks IPOs which relied on releasing a small number of shares in order to drum up demand and thus drive up the prices. While Facebook plans to price themselves near $38, this is the price offered to the first select investors who have a good relationship with the investment banks. When the stock reaches regular trading, it will most likely rise quickly as investors clamor to get a few shares of the stock the price will probably reach the high $40s and touch the $50s. This will set Facebook's value as a $100 billion company.

Q. So is it worth is? Should I buy into Facebook?

A. Depends on what you are looking for in a stock. If you want stock in a company that is fully controlled by Mark Zuckerberg, will not announce a dividend any time soon, and will put long term growth ahead of short term profits, than by all means buy Facebook. If you are looking for anything else, or don't trust that Zuckerberg will be able to continue to grow the company, don't buy it. The big question is if the companies valuation is this high because we are in another tech bubble, reminiscent of the one in the early 2000's with such luminary companies like pets.com being worth millions with no real income to speak of. While Facebook had real profits to stand by, their potential P/E ratio would stand to be close to 100x, obviously inflated by the stock bubble that is slowly inflating around the world. Once it pops, companies that have no real business plan would crash and burn, but companies like Facebook that have enough profits to weather the storm could survive. In many ways Facebook is the equal of Amazon, with its longterm view of the company and the desire to pursue long term growth over short term results.

Q. What does this mean for Facebook as a product?

A. Well, not much really. Life will go on, people will continue to poke each other, pictures will get tagged, statuses will be liked, like they always have. However, investors will desire for Facebook to come up with some new revenue generating idea, or the expansion of the Facebook Credits system. In the short term, Zuckerberg does not have to pay attention because he has iron-clad control over the company, but in the long term, he must look out for the growth of the company, by increasing revenues.

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Leonardo Da Vinci - An Incredible Artist

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:14:00 +0000

Da Vinci's Life

A painter, a sculptor, an architect and an engineer, Leonardo Da Vinci's numerous skills have earned him the title of renaissance master. Da Vinci's fascination with science and his in-depth study of human anatomy aided him in mastering the realist art form. While Leonardo's counterparts were known to create static figures in their works, Leonardo always tried to incorporate movement and expression into his own paintings. All the personages in his works are painted with great accuracy and detail that it is sometimes said that Da Vinci painted from the bones outward.

Having lived until the age of 67, Leonardo experienced a very long career that was filled with times during which the painter was celebrated, but at times he was also humiliated and cast away. His life experiences all influenced his works and often, his paintings never left the sketchpad, or were only partially completed, as Leonardo often abandoned his commissions in order to flee from social situations.

Today, there are records of only few Da Vinci paintings, and 20 notebooks. Thankfully, these works have been preserved over the hundreds of years since Leonardo's time, and while his works are scattered in different areas of the globe, everyone can enjoy Da Vinci through the numerous books detailing his life, or through any of the many Da Vinci posters that have been printed.

A well known master in the history of art, Leonard Da Vinci is renown by people all over the map, and those of us who cannot travel to view the true works that the genius created can at least bring home a piece of him when we buy Da Vinci posters or prints. His most famous paintings, and the most popular Da Vinci posters around, are those of The Last Supper, The Mona Lisaand Vitruvian Man: The Proportions of the Human Figure. These works, displayed in Milan and Paris respectively, are among the most influential works ever created.

The Leonardo Timeline

Leonardo lived a life filled with inspiration, but also with unhappiness. Throughout his years he went through moments of despair, but he also found glory when he was welcomed in Florence as a great painter of the day. While only a few of Leonardo's works remain intact for us to see, and while his life was long lived and sometimes filled with sadness, we are blessed with the gift of the beautiful pieces that Da Vinci left behind. The few paintings of Da Vinci's as well as the many notebooks are scattered in different places throughout the world, one of his notebooks is even owned by software tycoon, Bill Gates. While we can't all buy the actual pieces, we can still all take in a little bit of Da Vinci through art prints of his works. Many Da Vinci art prints and posters exist, and we can purchase the masterful The Last Supper, or The Mona Lisa to bring a little bit of Da Vinci into our own homes.

While Da Vinci's paintings may express numerous thoughts, and may evoke a multitude of feelings for the viewer, it becomes important to understand what was going on in the painter's life when the work was made. Even a Da Vinci poster alone may trigger a conversation about the painter, so here are the facts you'll want to know:

1452	Leonardo is born on April 15 in the village of Anchiano, near the town of Vinci.
1467	At 15 Leonardo is sent to Florence to work as apprentice to Andrea De Verrocchio.
1472	20 year-old Leonardo is accepted into the painters' guild of Florence.
1476	Leonardo is accused of sodomy; he is publicly humiliated although the charges are later dropped.
1478	The Annunciation is painted. The work, initially credited to Da Vinci, is now believed to have been painted by Lorenzo di Credi.
1481	Leonardo begins work on The Adoration of the Magi, an altarpiece for the Monastery of San Donato at Scopeto. He sketches many studies.
1482	Leonardo moves to Milan to work in the service of the city's duke, Ludovico Sforza. He gains the title of "painter and engineer of the duke.
1483	Leonardo paints the Virgin of the Rocks.
1485	Leonardo paints Lady with an Ermine.
1495	Leonardo begins work on The Last Supper in the refectory of the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan.
1498	The Last Supper is completed.
1499	With the duke Ludovico Sforza'a fall from power, Da Vinci leaves Milan and spends a short time in Venice.
1500	Leonardo begins painting the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne, a project that he only finishes after 10 years.
1500	Leonardo returns to Florence.
1502	Leonardo begins work as senior military architect and general engineer for Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI.
1503	Leonardo is commissioned to paint the Mona Lisa.
1503	Leonardo is commission to paint a mural for the council hall in Florence's Palazzo Vecchio, which is to be the Battle of Anghiari, a work that would remain unfinished.
1515	Leonardo paints St. John the Baptist.
1516	The king of France invites Leonardo to come work for him.
1519	May 2, Leonardo dies in France.

Da Vinci's Paintings

the monalisa

Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa is one of the most famous and most celebrated works of all time. The mastery of the painting lies in its subtle detail, including the faint smile, and Mona Lisa's distinctive gaze. The work is said to have been commissioned by a gentleman named Francesco del Giocondo, who hired Leonardo to paint a portrait of his wife, and this is why The Mona Lisa is sometimes referred to as La Gioconda.

The Mona Lisa, aside from being one of the most recognized works in the history of art, is also one of the most widely reproduced works ever.

The Last Supper

A work three years in the making, Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper remains one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. Even over 500 years after the painting was completed, this piece remains one of the most studied paintings in history, and The Last Supper is among the most sold of all Da Vinci posters.

Leonardo's Drawings

vitruvian man

Vitruvian Man is perhaps Leonardo da Vinci's most famous illustration. In this work, Leonardo used both image and text to express the ideas and theories of Vitruvius, a first century Roman architect and author of 'De Architectura libri X'. The Vitruvian ideas, presented by Leonardo, formed the basis of Renaissance proportion theories in art and architecture.Leonardo's illustration of the theory of Vitruvius is a pen ink drawing of a male figure whose outstretched limbs touch the circumference of a circle and the edges of a square. His navel falls in the exact center of the circle. There is a changing perspective in the work. It is static in structure but dynamic in its presentation of a moving, living man. Hand-written text surrounds the drawing of the figure

Leonardo da Vinci Quotes

"A well-spent day brings happy sleep".

"All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions".

"Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason".

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory".

"Art is never finished, only abandoned".

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death".

"As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself".

"Beyond a doubt truth bears the same relation to falsehood as light to darkness".

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

"Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses".

Credits : http://www.davincilife.com

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Top 10 Delicious Tropical Fruits

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:35:00 +0000

1 The Horned Melon

Native , in actual fact, to the Kalahari Desert, in Africa, the African Cucumber, known by some as the Horned Melon, is a fruit that looks exactly as the name implies that it might . Grown around the world in this modern age, and often seen in New Zealand ,Australia, Chile and California, USA. The attractive, dark green pulp, when the melon is split open, both smells and tastes, not just cucumber, as you might expect, but also of Passion Fruit, Limes and Bananas. Southern US citizen refer to it as ‘Blowfish Fruit’, often using it for decorating food , and mixing as smoothies and sundaes, when looking to create something refreshing.

2 The Yangmei fruit

Mainland China is where the Yangmei, or Chinese strawberry tree, is to be found, covered, at the correct season of the year, with a bright harvest, wonderful, strawberry flavored fruits, both sweet and succulent. The main use for this type of tree is for ornamental purposes, in parks and gardens , but the red flesh has quite distinctive sweet and sour flavors, though half of the entire fruit is taken up by the huge seed.

3 The ‘Dreadful’ Durian fruit

Often harshly judged, the Durian, also an Asian commodity, is reputed to smell really awful, undoubtedly putting some people off, from eating it, yet the Durian is still known as ‘The King of Fruits’. because the truly delicious flesh is very versatile, and features in many of the dishes, for which south-east Asia is famous around the world. There are over thirty types of Durian plant, only 33% of which are actually edible, and found on market stalls.

4 The star shaped Carambola fruit

The Carambola, also widely known as the ‘Starfruit’, after for the shape into which it grows, is found mainly in south eastern Asia, though it could be, according to those who know, be grown easily in any other tropical location. A five pointed star shape,when sliced, this sweet and popular fruit is rich in vitamin C and anti-oxidants, while being low in acid, sugar and sodium, yet quite delicious to eat.

5 The Chinese KumQuat ‘Orange’ fruit

Indisputably of Chinese origin, the Kumquat is a relatively small edible fruit, that does look something like an orange , and coming from a tree that is distantly related to the Citrus family, could indeed be a cousin to it. Normally eaten raw, as are the fruits of citrus trees that are more familiar to us, Kumquats are also used in jellies, marmalades, and in the making of alcoholic liquors. Taiwanese people add the fruit to tea, believing that Kumquats, boiled in water, can help sooth sore throats, among other soothing properties.

6 The ubiquitous Lychee Fruit

Lychees are not only native to southern China, though often apparently considered an exclusively Chinese fruit, but also India and Taiwan. Parent trees are evergreen, the fruits concealed behind a tough red covering, though when exposed, they contain white flesh, textured somewhat like the more familiar flesh of the grape-vine. Sweet ,and very much a treat for consumers, Lychee fruits have high vitaman C contents, and are, slowly but surely, starting to be seen on supermarket shelves across the globe, as more people get to like the taste.

7 The juicy Jackfruit

Southwestern India, Bangladesh, Philippines and Sri Lanka, are all places where one comes acrossthe Jackfruit, and it is also commonly found in Australia, holding the distinction of being thought, by some in the fruit-selling business, to be the largest tree-borne fruit on earth . Seeds are surrounded by a juicy, pulpy flesh, within the fruits, which apparently mildly of pineapple, the pulp employed in producing sweet chips, and commonly used in cooking, by the local communities.

8 The Precious Pitaya fruit

Pitaya , much more commonly called Dragon Fruit, is made up, from a range of delicious products from several kinds of cactus plants, found in different. Asian countries. The country of origin can determine what these fruits are named, ’Strawberry Pear’ or ‘Pearl Fruit’ being examoles., With prominent black seeds, the edible flesh closely resembles Kiwi fruit and eaten raw, has a refreshing, if slightly sour taste, highly prized by people exercising as part of keep-fit regimes.

9 The Rambunctious Rambutan fruit

The Rambutan fruit, native to Malaysia, is akin to the Chinese Lychee, in that it is covered with a spiky, leathery red skin, a garden fruit tree, very popular with local people, and among the best known of Southeast Asian fruits. Chock full of sweet and juicy flesh, widely used for making jams, Rambutan is also readily available in tins. Very popular, the translucent white or pink flesh not only looks good, but tastes sweet, every fruit holding a seed , apparently mildly toxic if eaten uncooked, but soft and crunchy after roasting

10 The Magnificent Mangosteen fruit

Native to the Sunda Islands, and the Moluccas, is the oddly shaped fruit known as the Mangosteen. Trees of this variety produce fruits purple on the outside, with creamy textures, having very unique flavours, best described as being l a cross between citrus fruit and peach. It is thought that these fruits, high in anti-oxidant properties, help lower the risk of contracting certain human diseases, including cancer, though this has yet to be proved, through proper scientific research.

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