Blog 4 Dummies

മലയാളത്തില്‍ (In Malayalam)

2010-07-06T02:00:00.000+05:30

എന്താ ചന്തം ? മലയാളത്തില്‍ പോസ്റ്റ്‌ എന്തൊരു സുഖം.
(What beauty? Posting in Malayalam gives a very good feeling.)

Oh boy

2010-07-06T01:52:00.002+05:30

I have to say Google is really improving its services - I can even post here in malayalam..

I should use this blog more often

2010-07-05T00:55:00.001+05:30

I should use this blog more often. I tend to forget how reliable google's service is. Its uptime is one the highest because of their cloud computing.

Free Offshore Hosting and money making oppertunity

2009-07-31T00:18:00.002+05:30

Hi Guys,

I am giving out some free offshore hosting accounts provided that you do some tasks for me. Do not worry - you will be getting money from this besides the free hosting. Fore more details see my forum -

Intresting parties may join the forum and apply for hosting. You should note that if you join, you should have a internet connection at home (preferably) and should be willing to be very active..otherwise I will have to delete your hosting accounts..

regards

Binil.

--
My website: http://www.binil.org/

The Shopping Revolution is Here

2009-03-20T01:20:00.002+05:30

ShopWiki is a guide designed to help consumers/buyers find specific products on the Internet with ease. It is consumer-written/consumer powered website where consumers/buyers can begin their online shopping adventures, research products, compare deals, feedback and reviews - all generated by consumers and aggregated from the Internet based on searches performed by the consumers. Shopwiki helps you decide the best products to buy and where to buy them.

ShopWiki actively crawls more than 200,000 online stores to ensure you’ll find 219,499,059+ products you want at the best prices. ShopWiki is an a truly useful concept in the world of millions of product which helps the consumer to get updated information on the products and make intelligent choices. Spending time on ShopWiki is like getting worth for every penny spent.

With ShopWiki there are so many online shopping sites to choose from. Each offers its own advantages over other sites. ShopWiki is unique for its inclusion of all online stores. They search the web, kind of like Google does, to find all stores that carry the products you are looking for. Most online shopping sites only list stores that have paid to be listed there or that pay the site a commission on sales.

Now as most you guys know I am a computer freak. So my search includes Desktops, Laptops and I was looking for some nice printers for my office. I also find out that monitors have gone cheaper and better. I was also in the lookout for some powerfull boom boxes (speakers..lol), mice (err I mean mouse) and some good old keyboards. Who says nobody uses CLI (command line interface) - I do. lol.

The First International Sreemad Ayyappa Sathram

2008-11-14T02:41:00.001+05:30

The First International Sreemad Ayyappa Sathram.

The First International Sreemad Ayyappa Sathram Organized by the Kerala Kshethra Samrakshana Samithi (The Kerala Temple Protection Councile) is being held from 2008 December 22 - 28 at the Pithampil Sree Dharmasastha Temple at Haripad.
The Kerala Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi is an Organisation of Hindu devoties, started in 1966 by the joint efforts of the "Kerala Gandhi" Sri K.Kelappan and the Spiritual leader Madhavaji. Its mission is to protect, promote and progate the Hindu faith and culture through

temple - oriented activities. The new annual programme launched by the Samithi, The First International Ayyappa Sathram is intended to renew and revitalise the faith in Sree Ayyappa among the devotees.

Swami Ayyappa or Sree Dharma Sastha is worshipped as - the son of Vishnu (in the guise of Mohini) and Paramasiva - Hari Hara Puthra. He is often acclaimed as the " Kaliyuga Varada" - he who showers blessings in the Kaliyuga, a period of difficulties and hardships.

This kind deity is the incarnation of peace, equality, fraternity and secularism. By spreading his story and his spiritual message - the Ayyappa Dharma - peace and harmony, happiness and wellbeing can be established everywhere. It is to achieve this noble purpose that the Kshetra Samrakshana Samithi has constituted the First International
Sreemad Ayyappa Sathra Samithi.
Ayyappa Dharma is also the finest practical application of the advaitha Philosophy in daily life. Every year millions of pilgrims from all over the world flock to the famous Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala in the lush green Western Ghats. In Sabarimala, both the diety and the devoties are called "Ayyappans", thereby putting into practice the spiritual truth of 'THATWAMASI'. So year after year pilgrims of nations and creeds climb the steep hills of the 'Poonkavanam' to experrience their oneness with GOD.
The 'Mandala Kalam' (November - December) and the 'Makaravilakku' (January - December) are the special seasons for Sabarimala pilgrimage. The Sathra Samithi has chosen the last week of December for the Sathram so that the pilgrims can also paticipate in it. By attending the discourses, rituals and performances they will be able
to imbibe the Ayyappa Dharma better.
Pithampil Sree Dharma Sastha Temple at Haripad has been chosen as the venue of the first Ayyappa Sathram. The temple city of Haripad is famous for the devotion and dedication of its inhabitants. Three years ago the Sreemad Bhagavatha Sathram was held here. Renowned temples like the Sree Subrahmania Swamy Maha Kshethram and the
Mannarsala Sree Nagaraja Kshethram are also situated at Haripad.
The Sathram Samithy envisages to organize Ayyappa Sathram every year at different Ayyappa temples allover India, during the Sabarimala Mandalakalam.
Heralding the very first Ayyappa Sathram a week - long Vigraha Ghosha Yathra (Procession carrying the Holy image of Lord Ayyappa) will be concluded from Sabarimala to the venue of the Sathram, the Pithampil Dharmasastha Temple at Haripad. On the afternoon of December 22 the idole will be formally received from the Haripad Subrahmaniya
Swamy Temple and brought ceremoniously towards the venue of the Sathram in a grand procession. Then the holy idol of Lord Ayyappa will be installed in the consecrated Sathra Sala with proper religious ceremonies and poojas. Thus the Sathram begins.Mannarsala Sree Nagaraja Kshethram are also situated at Haripad.

The Sathram Samithy envisages to organize Ayyappa Sathram every year at different Ayyappa temples allover India, during the Sabarimala Mandalakalam.

Heralding the very first Ayyappa Sathram a week - long Vigraha Ghosha Yathra (Procession carrying the Holy image of Lord Ayyappa) will be concluded from Sabarimala to the venue of the Sathram, the Pithampil Dharmasastha Temple at Haripad. On the afternoon of December 22nd the idole will be formally received from the Haripad Subrahmaniya
Swamy Temple and brought ceremoniously towards the venue of the Sathram in a grand procession. Then the holy idol of Lord Ayyappa will be installed in the consecrated Sathra Sala with proper religious ceremonies and poojas. Thus the Sathram begins.

SAVE YOUR ROOTS !!!!

2008-11-14T02:35:00.000+05:30

Please spare a couple of minutes here for the sake of our country INDIA

U Can make a huge difference to the Indian Economy,
Small example
Before 5 months 1 CAN $ = IND Rs 32
After 5 months 1 CAN $ = IND Rs 37
Do you think Canadian Economy is booming? No, but Indian Economy is Going Down.

Our Economy is in our hand. INDIAN economy is in a crisis. Our country like many other ASIAN countries is undergoing a severe economic crunch. Many INDIAN industries are closing down.
The INDIAN economy is in a crisis and if we do not take proper steps to control those, we will be in a critical situation.

More than 30000 crore rupees of foreign exchange are being siphoned out of our country on products such as cosmetics, snacks, tea, beverages...etc which are grown, produced and consumed here.

A cold drink that costs only 70/80 paisa to produce is sold for NINE rupees, and a major chunk of profits from these are sent abroad. This is a serious drain on INDIAN economy. "COCA COLA "and" SPRITE " belong to the same multinational company, "COCA COLA"? Coke advertisements says 'JO CHAHO HO JAYE, COCA COLA ENJOY' - (Whatever the hell, let it happen, you drink coke)

What can you do?
You can consider some of the better alternatives to aerated drinks.
You can drink LEMON JUICE, FRESH FRUIT JUICES, CHILLED LASSI (SWEET OR SOUR), BUTTER MILK, COCONUT WATER, JALJEERA, ENERJEE, MASALA, MILK... Everyone deserves a healthy drink, including you!

Over and above all this, economic sanctions have been imposed on us. We have nothing against Multinational companies, but to protect our own interests we request everybody to use INDIAN products only for next two years. With the rise in petrol prices, if we do not do this, the rupee will devalue further and we will end up paying much more for the same products in the near future.

What you can do about it?
1 . Buy only products manufactured by WHOLLY INDIAN COMPANIES.
2 . ENROLL as many people as possible for this cause.
Each individual should become a leader for this awareness.

This is the only way to save our country from severe economic crisis. You don't need to give-up your lifestyle. You just need to choose an alternative product.

All categories of products are available from WHOLLY INDIAN COMPANIES.

PRODUCTS	INDIAN – USE	NON INDIAN - AVOID
Tooth Brush	Ajanta Promise Prudent	Close Up Colgate Forhans Oral-B Pepsodent
Tooth Paste	Babool Dabur Products Miswak Neem Promise Prudent Vico Vajradanti	Cibaca Close Up Colgate Forhans Mentadent Pepsodent
Blade	Ashoka Lazer Supermax Topaz	365 Gillette Seven-O –Clock
Shaving Cream	Emani Godrej	Gillete Old Spice Palmolive
Shampoo	Lakme Nirma Velvet	Clinic Plus Products Halo Head And Shoulders Nyle Pantene Sunsilk
Bathing Soap	Chandrika Cinthol Evita Ganga Godrej Brands Margo Medimix Mysore Sandal Neem Nirma Bath Santoor Shikakai Wipro	Camay Dove Hamam Lesancy Lifebuoy Lux Lyril Palmolive Pears Rexona
Talcum Powder	Boroplus Cinthol Gokul Santoor Wipro Baby Powder	Johnson Baby Powder Old Spice Ponds Shower To Shower
Milk Powder	Amul Amulya Indiana	Anikspray Everyday Milk Milkana Milkmaid
Mobile Connections	Airtel BSNL	Hutch

Every INDIAN product you buy makes a big difference. It saves INDIA. Let us take a firm decision today.

BUY INDIAN TO BE INDIAN.
We are not against foreign products.
WE ARE NOT ANTI-MULTINATIONAL.
WE ARE TRYING TO SAVE OUR NATION.
EVERY DAY IS A STRUGGLE FOR A REAL FREEDOM.
WE ACHIEVED OUR INDEPENDENCE AFTER LOSING MANY LIVES.
THEY DIED PAINFULLY TO ENSURE THAT WE LIVE PEACEFULLY.
THE CURRENT TREND IS VERY THREATENING.
MULTINATIONALS CALL IT GLOBALISATION OF INDIAN ECONOMY.
FOR INDIANS LIKE YOU AND ME IT IS RECOLONISATION OF INDIA.
THE COLONIST'S LEFT INDIA THEN.
BUT THIS TIME THEY WILL MAKE SURE THEY DON'T MAKE ANY MISTAKES.
WHO WOULD LIKE TO LET A "GOOSE THAT LAYS GOLDEN EGGS" SLIP AWAY.

PLEASE REMEMBER: POLITICAL FREEDOM IS USELESS WITHOUT ECONOMIC INDEPENDENCE.

RUSSIA, S.KOREA, MEXICO ... THE LIST IS VERY LONG!!
LET US LEARN FROM THEIR EXPERIENCE AND FROM OUR HISTORY.
LET US DO THE DUTY OF EVERY TRUE INDIAN.
FINALLY: IT'S OBVIOUS THAT YOU CAN'T GIVE UP ALL OF THE ITEMS MENTIONED ABOVE, SO GIVE UP ATLEAST ONE ITEM TO FOR THE SAKE OF OUR COUNTRY.

>>>>>>*****************************************************************************************************>>>>>>

"LITTLE DROPS MAKE A GREAT OCEAN".

New Technology Could Revolutionize Breast Cancer Screening

2008-11-14T02:22:00.002+05:30

Normal (left) versus cancerous (right) mammography image. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Bristol)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2008) — The world's first radar breast imaging system developed at Bristol University that could revolutionise the way women are scanned for breast cancer, is being trialled at North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT).

Professor Alan Preece and Dr Ian Craddock from the University of Bristol have been working for a number of years to develop a breast-imaging device which uses radio waves and therefore has no radiation risk unlike conventional mammograms.

The team began developing and researching a prototype around five years ago and have received funding from organisations including the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the trustees of the United Bristol Hospitals and the University of Bristol spin-out company, Micrima Ltd.

Dr Ian Craddock from the University's Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: "This new imaging technique works by transmitting radio waves of a very low energy and detecting reflected signals, it then uses these signals to make a 3D image of the breast. This is basically the same as any radar system, such as the radars used for air traffic control at our airports."

Mike Shere, Associate Specialist Breast Clinician at NBT, added: "Currently women are diagnosed in three ways: firstly by a clinician then by using imaging such as mammography and ultrasound and lastly by a needle biopsy.

"The radar breast imaging system came to Frenchay in September this year and so far around 60 women have been examined using it.

"It takes less time to operate than a mammogram approximately six minutes for both breasts compared with 30-45 minutes for an MRI, and like an MRI it provides a very detailed 3D digital image.

"Women love it as they compare it to a mammogram and find the whole experience much more comfortable."

The radar breast imaging system is built using transmitters and receivers arranged around a ceramic cup, which the breast sits in. These transmitters view the breast from several different angles.

In the initial stages of the study the team used mammogram images to compare similar abnormalities in the new 3D image produced from the radio breast imaging system.

Professor Preece from the University's Medical Physics, said: "I started off looking at breast tumour imaging in 1990 using a hand held scanner similar to ultrasound however it did not have enough sensitivity and that's when I got to know some people in engineering and together we approached the EPSRC to help.

"Using this engineering knowledge we built the machine using ground penetrating radar, a similar technique to land mine detection to take four hundred quarter of a second pictures of the breast to form a 3D image.

"Women do not feel any sensation and it equates to the same type of radiation exposure as speaking into a mobile phone at arms length which makes it much safer.

"We are extremely grateful for North Bristol NHS Trust help in getting the project underway with so much enthusiasm.

"We are constantly learning and adapting and it has been particularly easy to work with NBT, we have seen some very promising results so far."

In the coming months the team plan on "testing blind", this means looking at images taken by both machines and examining each independently to check whether the radio breast imaging system's 3D image picks up the same abnormalities as a mammogram would and if anything else is identified in the new image.

They hope that if the results continue, further trials will be scheduled for the next 12 months. These trials will focus specifically on young women as these can prove the most challenging. They also hope that two new prototypes will be made for further trials in other hospitals around the country.

"This technology will ultimately only benefit the patient if it can be successfully commercialised", said Roy Johnson, CEO of Micrima Ltd, "this new invention could provide a safe, more comfortable experience for women as well as giving clinicians a better image of the breast allowing them to pick up abnormalities at an earlier stage. We particularly hope that it may work well in younger women who can pose a problem to conventional mammography."

In this stage of the process the system provides an additional picture of the breast to complement the other imaging devices available, and also has the potential to be made cheaply en-mass.

Free hosting

2008-11-14T02:15:00.002+05:30

Hi Guys,

If any of you guys need free hosting then don't forget to look into my free hosting sites..

1kb.in

rockr.info

Protect your little ones..

2008-08-12T23:22:00.003+05:30

Your family comes before everything else - you need to protect them. If you have a new born, then you need to give them that extra care - everytime, even during driving. Now during driving especially if you are alone with your baby - this goes mainly for single parents, you need to protect them. You must try out these car seats. There are many different types of car seats available for your child.

1. Infant Car Seat - For your new born

2. Rear Facing Car Seat - Why rear facing? Hey dumy, its the safest position.. This can be used for 1 -4 year old kids.

3. Forward-Facing Car Seat - This can also be used for 1 -4 year old kids.

4. Booster Car Seat - For your grown up kids - Hmm ages 4 to 8... not 30+

Choose wisely.

Scientists Image A Single HIV Particle Being Born

2008-05-27T00:23:00.001+05:30

By using a specialized microscope that only illuminates the cell's surface, scientists have for the first time, in real time and in plain view, seen individual HIV particles (white spots) assembling on the surface of an infected cell. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rockefeller University)

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2008) — A mapmaker and a mathematician may seem like an unlikely duo, but together they worked out a way to measure longitude -- and kept millions of sailors from getting lost at sea. Now, another unlikely duo, a virologist and a biophysicist at Rockefeller University, is making history of their own. By using a specialized microscope that only illuminates the cell's surface, they have become the first to see, in real time and in plain view, hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.

This work, published in the May 25 advanced online issue of Nature, may not only prove useful in developing treatments for the millions around the globe still living with the lethal virus but the technique created to image its assembly may also change the way scientists think about and approach their own research.

"The use of this technique is almost unlimited," says Nolwenn Jouvenet, a postdoc who spearheaded this project under the direction of HIV expert Paul Bieniasz and cellular biophysicist Sandy Simon, who has been developing the imaging technique since 1992. "Now that we can actually see a virus being born, it gives us the opportunity to answer previously unanswered questions, not only in virology but in biology in general."

Unlike a classical microscope, which shines light through a whole cell, the technique called total internal reflection microscopy only illuminates the cell's surface where HIV assembles. "The result is that you can see, in exquisite detail, only events at the cell surface. You never even illuminate anything inside of the cell so you can focus on what you are interested in seeing the moment it is happening," says Simon, professor and head of the Laboratory of Cellular Biophysics.

When a beam of light passes through a piece of glass to a cell's surface, the energy from the light propagates upward, illuminating the entire cell. But when that beam is brought to a steeper angle, the light's energy reflects off the cell's surface, illuminating only the events going on at its most outer membrane. By zeroing in at the cell's surface, the team became the first to document the time it takes for each HIV particle, or virion, to assemble: five to six minutes. "At first, we had no idea whether it would take milliseconds or hours," says Jouvenet. "We just didn't know."

"This is the first time anyone has seen a virus particle being born," says Bieniasz, who is an associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Retrovirology at Rockefeller and a scientist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. "Not just HIV," he clarifies, "any virus."

To prove that what they were watching was virus particles assembling at the surface (rather than an already assembled virion coming into their field of view from inside the cell), the group tagged a major viral protein, called the Gag protein, with molecules that fluoresce, but whose color would change as they packed closer together. Although many different components gather to form a single virion, the Gag protein is the only one necessary for assembly. It attaches to the inner face of the cell's outer membrane and when enough Gag molecules flood an area, they coalesce in a way that spontaneously forms a sphere.

Simon, Bieniasz and Jouvenet found that the Gag molecules are recruited from the inside of the cell and travel to the cell's surface. When enough Gag molecules get close and start bumping into each other, the cell's outer membrane starts to bulge outward into a budding virion and then pinches off to form an individual, infectious particle. At this point, the researchers showed that the virion is a lone entity, no longer exchanging resources with the cell. By using tricks from optics and physiology, they were able to watch the steps of viral assembly, budding, and even scission off the cell surface. With such a view they can start to describe the entire lifeline in the birth of the virus.

"I think that you can begin to understand events on a different level if you actually watch them happen instead of inferring that they might occur using other techniques," says Bieniasz. "This technique and this collaboration made that possible."

This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.

Online Casino review site

2008-03-12T19:21:00.002+05:30

online casino, also known as virtual casinos or internet casinos, are online versions of traditional casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casinop games through the big world wide web - for you dummies out there that internet..lol..

online casino generally offer odds and payback percentages that are comparable to land-based casinos. Some online casinos claim higher payback percentages for slot machine games, and some publish payout percentage audits on their websites.

A typical selection of gambling games offered at an online casino includes:

* Blackjack: An online casino offers a much better card play as they are more random, as oppose to the land based casinos card counting issues.

* Slots: somewhat similar to slot machines in Las Vegas, slots came to play with hundreds of online slots games now available, they have better sounds, graphics and bonus rounds.

* Video Poker: online video poker has both a combination of skill and luck, it attracts players by providing hours of active, fast paced entertainment.

* Roulette: The table, wheel, ball and bets are all exactly the same. But you sit at the comfort of your favorite couch at your home.

* Craps: Nothings more exiting when compared with the thrill in watching those dice roll down the tables so elegantly.

* Baccarat: It's a game where players are taking a break from the stress and complicated play of some other casino games such as Poker or Blackjack.

* Poker: Online poker is regarded as the most popular online game played on the web! millions of people all around the world test their skills of witt against each other in online poker rooms. Most online poker sites need to be certified by gaming commission bodies such as Kahnawake and other major auditing firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers. They review the fairness of the random number generator, shuffle, and payouts for some sites.

Online casino

2008-03-12T18:50:00.003+05:30

Online casino? Now whats that? An online casino is a website which allows you to gamble on the Internet. An online casino, also called an Internet casino or virtual casino, let's you play multiple chance games and win or lose money....for dummies info - now thats like a real casino, but you play at home on your PC and if you win money your secret is safe with you. If you loose money you can cry alone in your room, you don't need to be embarrassed of crying in public. lol... I am kidding..

Some sites and games you are playing the odds against the online casino, in other games you are playing such games as Poker against other Internet users.

Now reliability and trust issues are commonplace and often questioned. Thats why I am proving information for you online gamblers to get the best on online gambling sites..

Find out the best online casinos here.

Find out which online casinos are liked by online gamblers here. This is important because its based on user's votes.

Find out which online casinos provide the best bonuses here. Hmm.... more bang for your buck.. lol.

Here you can find the FAQ's for online gambling. Read it before you play it.

And one liked the most. A beginners guide to online gambling. A must have for dummies like me.

Have a happy gambling experience.

Your own shopping site

2008-03-10T00:15:00.002+05:30

For those aspiring web masters who wish to make something out of their cool site to sell things, you need something else besides your coding and artwork - you need to get acquainted with the the tricks of the trade, in this case you need a shopping cart software.

A shopping cart software is a lot more than just a cart. Good shopping cart software can help your Internet business in other capacities as well, including:

Payment Processing – credit card processing as well as check, or other methods of possessing payments.

Webpage Design – Many merchants are not web designers like me, so you will need wizards to help you build your webpage without requiring you to know HTML.

Storefront Design – Store front wizards incorporate templates or other tools to help you set up your storefront.

Inventory Control – to keep track of your inventory and generate reports.

Shipping – Nearly all software offer a shipping tool that calculates shipping costs for customers based on parameters that you set, some can even link up to common shipping methods like FedEx.

Tax Calculation – Most shopping cart programs can calculate taxes, a valuable tool, especially since many states are considering requiring that merchants collect taxes for online sales.

Customer Management – Many shopping carts programs have features that will let customers view their previous purchases. The program will also recognize the customer when they come back for a return visit.

Marketing – A shopping cart is useless if you don't sell anything. Marketing help can be invaluable, some programs offer information on affiliate programs and help with merchandising. Many are able to create coupons, gift certificates or other incentives. In addition, they provide sales reports and 'hit' or traffic information as well.

Security – Customers will not want to purchase online if they feel the website cannot protect their personal information. You need protection by encrypting information, processing credit cards through reputable processing services and by allowing customers to move through their program without having to download cookies.

So I am going to introduce you to a shopping cart software with the above features and much more

- World class easy set up
- No plug-ins or programming required
- Complete operational storefront
- Web based store administration
- Free tech support (phone, email, online chat)
- No graphic design skills required
- No HTML knowledge required
- Custom HTML section with Rich Text Editor
- Free ecommerce software user manual, tutorial movies and knowledgebase
- Inventory control
- Featured products
- Multilevel product variants & optional surcharges
- Multi level text variant option
- Related products
- Rich text editor (WYSIWYG editor)
- Product reports
- Category reports
- Auto image resizing
- Multiple main product image display
- Brands editor
- Product duplication
- Stock control with level alerts (product and variant based control)
- Quantity discounts
- Bulk order processing
- Batch order printing
- Bulk product import & export
- Customer specific discounts
- Gift certificates
- Discount coupons
- Multiple currency
- Digital goods delivery (product keys, passwords etc)
- Product reviews editor
- B2B trading function (optional)
- Product feeds for popular shopping comparison sites
- Fully customizable unique shopping cart theme editor
- 50 editable themes
- Columns editor
- Customizable template system
- Custom page creator
- Unlimited main / sub categories
- Integrated store search
- Customizable product display
- Large image views and auto thumbnail resize
- Supports all external web animation and graphic programs
- Splash homepage option
- Website table and columns background image upload
- Favicon.ico support
- Easy shopping cart payment gateway setup (2 minutes)
- Accept credit cards, real time payments
- Integrated with all major banks and payment gateways
- Offline (manual) credit card processing
- Checks, bank deposit
- Create your own payment options
- CVC (Security Code) support
- Configurable currency symbol
- Multi currency support
- Google checkout integration
- Integration of real time shipping methods (UPS, USPS, Australian Post, Fedex)
- Location restriction on shipping
- Advanced shipping customization (by weight, by price, flat rate etc)
- Free shipping option
- Domestic and international accurate tax calculation based on customer's location.
- Shipping free orders
- Tax free products
- Automatic shipping confirmation by e-mail
- Fully web optimized structure
- Page titles with keywords embedded
- Meta tags
- Link popularity program between Ashop Commerce customers
- Always up to date with new search engine algorithms
- Spider friendly URLs
- Free SEO tips & tools
- Auto HTML page generation
- Google verification meta inclusion (Click here for details)
- Inbuilt automatic site map generation (Google, Yahoo, MSN compatible)
- Traffic reports
- Search engine traffic and keyword reports
- Sales reports
- Search engine visitor reports
- Best sellers
- Sales by customer report
- Affiliate reports
- Recent visitor activity report
- Visitor country & languages reports
- Directly integrated with accounting softwares. (Quickbooks ™ Pro, Premier and Enterprise - 2004 to 2005, Quicken™ and MYOB™)
- Live customer support (live chat) tool NEW - (Click here for more details)
- Support ticketing system NEW - (Click here for more details)
- All orders stored in your database
- Live order tracking
- Customers can view order history
- Automated confirmation emails and/or SMS
- Repeat customer recognition
- Quick checkout
- Affiliate programs
- Multilevel password restricted admin entry
- Live online tech support
- All customer's data is stored in database
- Full newsletter management system
- Greeting for repeat visitors to shopping cart storefront
- Real-time order tracking for customers
- Affiliate program module
- Customizable commission structures
- Second level Sub-Affiliate program (2nd tier)
- Add creator
- PayPal mass pay to affiliates
- Control panel and reports for each affiliate
- Product code generator for external shops
- Banner advertising system
- Affiliate reports
- Order Alert - to Merchant
- Order Received Alert - to Customer
- Order Being Shipped Alert - to Customer
- ASP language
- Microsoft Windows servers
- SQL 2005 database
- POP and Webmail
- Free upgrades for life
- Advanced security monitoring
- Daily Backups
- Super-fast hosting
- POP3 email
- 24x7 monitoring
- Daily backups
- Multiple power source - backups
- Guaranteed 99.8% uptime
- Advanced security monitoring
- Load balancing
- Full HTTPS/SSL support
- Password-protected SSL secured admin panel
- Geographical IP address location checking
- High risk IP address and e-mail checking
- Post query analysis
- Fraud Protection

If this ain't enough, tell me what is..lol..
So check out this shopping cart software

Smorty

2008-03-06T10:29:00.002+05:30

Smorty is an excellent option to make some money if you are into blogging and have a good blog. Aye your blog needs to have some requirements to get approval. They are providing a cool opportunity for advertisers to advertise on blogs. And hence the requirements are also a little bit high.

Your blog must be indexed by Google and Yahoo
Your blog must be older than 3 months
Your blog must not contain any violent, hate related or adult content
Your blog must be active and have a history of minimum average 2 new posts per week
The blog must not have duplicate posts or excessive duplicate content

I especially found that duplicate posts will be found and they will decline the posts. lol..

They will approve your blogs very quickly, even though they say that it can take upto 72 hours, they usually does it in a day or so.

If your blog is declined you can resubmit your blog if you fix the issues in your blog, one of my blogs was declined earlier but after I changed things around, it was accepted.

There are certain things you will need to know before you post topics about advertisers. Your post must be having a minimum of 150 words and not to exceed 400 words. Your opinion must be unique, as I said earlier no duplicate content. Your post must include the anchor text with a direct link to the advertisers site. Ah, one more thing - don't post any negative contents about advertisers, sometimes they may not accept the post. lol..

The payments are very prompt via paypal, and you will be paid after a week or so after your posts are accepted. And your Google page rank has a part to play in how much you earn, a blog with a higher PR can expect more earnings per post..

Go ahead and start the smorty revolution..

Shopping Cart Software

2008-03-05T00:56:00.003+05:30

If you are currently running an online store, or are thinking about startingan ecommerce site, then I have some information about a service that may be beneficial to you or your company. As we all know selling online is a Very Important Part of the Business, which is growing every moment. Shopping Cart Software, which is the brain of Selling Online and Making your customers comfortable for buying what they are looking for, from their living room itself. Selling Online with the Shopping Cart Software is important because you could reach the customers who are not able to purchase the products in the shop or mall. That means, Increasing your Customer base overall spreaded in the different parts of your country or even the entire world.

Ashop Commerce is one of the leading provider of hosted shopping cart software. It offers complete solution for merchants to sell online.

The Major Benefits of using Ashop Commerce Web based shopping cart software in your web are, no installation required, Affordable ecommerce software, Accept credit cards online, Thousands of features, easy to use, Start selling online right now, Fully customizable design, which can be modified in accordance to your need and design of the web, and most important you are getting 10 day free trial of the ecommerce software by ashop commerce, with which you can test the effectiveness of this shopping cart, on your products and reach. So try it out..

Ecommerce Software

2008-03-05T00:44:00.003+05:30

Ashop Commerce is a company out of Sydney, Australia -providing hosted ecommerce software. They are offering a complete solution for merchants to sell online. The software can be customized for use with Dreamweaver, Frontpage, and many other HTML editing programs. The product pages are typically HTML with a space for the product to be listed whereas the other pages (such as the checkout) are more versatile. When you build a website with the Ashop shopping cart software, you generate multiple templates for the different pages. Users can build HTML pages with product codes inserted into a specific place in the template. Product descriptions within the dynamic catalog can include HTML (meaning they also have the option of including alt tags, meta tags, and other HTML elements). One very interesting feature of the Ashop ecommerce software is that was designed to tie into Ebay stores. The shopping cart software also allows for products to be listed in more than one category.
The company offers what they term a “dynamic catalog” where the shopping cart program generates product pages and serves them to the browser in HTML format. Product order forms are static and can be inserted into newsletters and emails. This cart has functionality for digital products such as e-books.

Ashop Commerce is currently offering a 10 day free trial with no credit card required. When you go to the Ashop Commerce website, you can take a test drive of the demo store, review all the software features and check out the smart packages and find the right pricing plan for your business needs. There are no hidden fees and no contracts to sign. Should you decide to sign up for a package that does include a contract, there is a free of charge custom online store design offer which gives you graphically designed headers and footers.

Spoiler

2008-02-28T23:33:00.001+05:30

A spoiler is an automotive aerodynamic device whose intended design function is to 'spoil' unfavorable air movement across a body of a vehicle of some kind in motion. This can result in improved vehicle stability by decreasing lift that may cause unpredictable handling in a car at speed. Spoilers are often fitted to race and high-performance sports cars, although they have become common on passenger vehicles, as well. Some spoilers are added to cars primarily for styling purposes and have either little aerodynamic benefit or even make the aerodynamics worse.

Spoilers for automobiles are often incorrectly confused with, or even used interchangeably with, wings. Automotive wings are devices whose intended design is to lessen the effect of drag by generating lift, or to generate down force as air passes around them, not simply disrupt existing airflow patterns.

The main design goal of a spoiler in passenger vehicles is to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. While many often imitate wings and airfoils, these serve mostly decorational purposes. Passenger vehicles can be equipped with front and rear spoilers. Front spoilers, found beneath the bumper, are mainly used to direct air flow away from the tires to the underbody where the drag coefficient is less. Rear spoilers, which modify the transition in shape between the roof and the rear and the trunk and the rear, act to minimize the turbulence at the rear of the vehicle.

Sports cars are most commonly seen with front and rear spoilers. Even though these vehicles typically have a more rigid chassis and a stiffer suspension to aid in high speed maneuverability, a spoiler can still be beneficial. This is because many vehicles have a fairly steep downward angle going from the rear edge of the roof down to the trunk or tail of the car. At high speeds, air flowing across the roof tumbles over this edge, causing air flow separation. The flow of air becomes turbulent and a low-pressure zone is created, increasing drag and instability (see Bernoulli effect). Adding a rear spoiler makes the air "see" a longer, gentler slope from the roof to the spoiler, which helps to delay flow separation. This decreases drag, increases fuel economy, and helps keep the rear window clean.

Vehicle insurance or car insurance

2008-02-28T23:28:00.001+05:30

Vehicle insurance (also known as auto insurance, car insurance, or motor insurance) is insurance purchased for cars, trucks, and other vehicles. Its primary use is to provide protection against losses incurred as a result of traffic accidents and against liability that could be incurred in an accident.

In many jurisdictions it is compulsory to have vehicle insurance before using or keeping it on public roads. Most jurisdictions relate insurance to both the car and the driver, however the degree of each varies greatly.

car insurance can cover some or all of the following items:
The insured party
The insured vehicle
Third parties

Different policies specify the circumstances under which each item is covered. For example, a vehicle can be insured against theft, fire damage, or accident damage independently.

Drug rehabilitation

2008-02-28T23:03:00.001+05:30

Drug rehabilitation (often drug rehab or just rehab) is an umbrella term for the processes of medical and/or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines. The general intent is to enable the patient to cease substance abuse, in order to avoid the psychological, legal, financial, social, and physical consequences that can be caused, especially by extreme abuse.

Drug rehab tends to address a stated twofold nature of drug dependency: physical and psychological dependency. Physical dependency involves a detoxification process to cope with withdrawal symptoms from regular use of a drug. With regular use of many drugs, legal or otherwise, the brain gradually adapts to the presence of the drug so that the desired effect is minimal. Apparently normal functioning of the user may be observed, despite being under the influence of the drug. This is how physical tolerance develops to drugs such as heroin, amphetamines, cocaine, nicotine or alcohol. It also explains why more of the drug is needed to get the same effect with regular use. The abrupt cessation of taking a drug can lead to withdrawal symptoms where the body may take weeks or months (depending on the drug involved) to return to normal.

Psychological dependency is addressed in many drug rehabilitation programs by attempting to teach the patient new methods of interacting in a drug-free environment. In particular, patients are generally encouraged or required not to associate with friends who still use the addictive substance. Twelve-step programs encourage addicts not only to stop using alcohol or other drugs, but to examine and change habits related to their addictions. Many programs emphasize that recovery is a permanent process without culmination. For legal drugs such as alcohol, complete abstention—rather than attempts at moderation, which may lead to relapse—is also emphasized ("One drink is too many; one hundred drinks is not enough.") Whether moderation is achievable by those with a history of abuse remains a controversial point but is generally considered unsustainable.

Various types of programs offer help in drug rehab, including: residential treatment (in-patient), out-patient, local support groups, extended care centers, and sober houses.

Viva Las Vegas

2008-02-28T22:53:00.002+05:30

Las Vegas, with almost 405,000 inhabitants, is the largest city in the state of Nevada, which is located in the southwestern USA.

Founded in 1855 as a Mormon colony, the city expanded rapidly, following the construction of Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and the subsequent formation of Lake Mead. Construction of the dam began in 1931 and was completed in 1936. Another significant event in 1931 was the formal legalization of gambling by the Nevada legislature.

The city is home to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas (1957), and the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society, the latter containing interesting exhibits about the history of the state.

Famed for its large casinos and luxurious hotels in vegas. The first casino was The Flamingo Hotel, built in 1946 and owned by Bugsy Siegel. A renowned gangster, Bugsy invested money gained from a life of crime in the sumptuous interior of the hotel and its dazzling pink neon façade.

Fibromyalgia

2008-02-28T22:45:00.001+05:30

Fibromyalgia is a disorder classified by the presence of chronic widespread pain and tactile allodynia. Fibromyalgia patients are also typically affected by a number of symptoms other than pain, including debilitating fatigue, abnormal sleep architecture, functional bowel disturbances and a variety of neuropsychiatric problems including cognitive dysfunction, anxiety and depressive symptoms. While the criteria for such an entity has not yet been thoroughly developed, the recognition that fibromyalgia involves more than just pain has led to the frequent use of the term “fibromyalgia syndrome.” It is not contagious, and recent studies suggest that people with fibromyalgia may be genetically predisposed. It affects more females than males, with a ratio of 9:1 by American College of Rheumatology (ACR)criteria. Fibromyalgia is seen in about 2% of the general population. It is most commonly diagnosed in individuals between the ages of 20 and 50, though onset can occur in childhood.

The disorder is not directly life-threatening. The degree of symptoms may vary greatly from day to day with periods of flares (severe worsening of symptoms) or remission; however, the disorder is generally perceived as non-progressive.

The validity of fibromyalgia as a unique clinical entity is a matter of some contention among researchers in the field. For example, it has been proposed that the pathophysiology responsible for the symptoms that are collectively classified as representing "fibromyalgia" is poorly understood, thereby suggesting that the fibromyalgia phenotype may result from several different disease processes that have global hyperalgesia and allodynia in common, an observation that has led to the proposition that current diagnostic criteria are insufficient to differentiate patient groups from each other. Alternatively, there is evidence for the existence of differing pathophysiological abnormalities within the greater fibromyalgia construct, which may be interpreted to represent evidence for the existence of biologically distinct "sub-types" of the disorder akin to conditions such as epilepsy, schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. In a January 14, 2008 article in the New York Times, the controversy of the reality of the disease and its proposed cures are discussed, while citing that the American College of Rheumatology, the Food and Drug Administration and insurers recognize fibromyalgia as a diagnosable disease.

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-12T23:04:00.000+05:30

Applications are invited for the following post. The package and incentives are mentioned below.

Designation : Junior girl friend (trainee)

Experience : Must have ditched at least 2 guys
(Fresher with excellent credentials will be considered)

Other requirement : Should have the Potential to do street bargaining and fight if required.

Age : 18-26 (if the individual is too good looking but not in the age group can also apply, special consideration will undertaken for them)

Height, weight, complexions no bar, but is subjective.

Perks and incentives:

Total gross ( Monthly ) :

· 2 gifts worth not exceeding Rs. 1000/-(no precious metals, stones)
· bike / car rides each duration 1 hour
· trips to National Highways
· 5 Trips to Hanuman Mandir / Isckon Temple
· Kulfis / Chocobars at a regular gap of 3 days
· Daily Provision of Samosa/Bread Pakoda/Bhel worth Rs. 10 /-
· 2 movies (Family movies only) per month (on weekends)
· Visits to Shopping Malls and BARISTA every Weekend (On your own expense)

A Pair of Jeans or T-shirts according to demand will be gifted, subject to finance availability and to the size available with the shopkeeper.

Net Deductions (Monthly): Affair Fund and un-professional taxes will be informed on joining

The probation period is 6 months, after which confirmation (with Promotion to fulltime Girlfriend)

Please NOTE:

1. Only females.
2. Girls who left in the last 2 months need not apply.
3. Ex-girlfriends will be eligible only if they agree to the above mentioned conditions.

There is more:
For girls who are not eligible, can take advantage of the referral. Program by referring their friend, colleagues etc.

Candle light or Tube light dinner will be given on every referral, even if candidate is not selected.

Search,,,,,,, never ends!!

Interested candidates can send their resume with

Subject:

Name/fresher-exp/age.

Photo must be in attachment. to the email address via mail

Note: Applications without photo will be rejected

Miserable failure...

2008-02-09T23:07:00.000+05:30

Looks like I am a big looser... I failed in Group B of MBA from Icfai.. Looks like I need to stick with Linux and Cisco.. what the heck was I thinking when I joined for MBA.. Oh crap..

XP Hibernate Option

2008-01-24T01:25:00.000+05:30

Whenever you want to logoff, shut down or reboot your Windows XP machine you have only 3 choices
(1) Standby ONLY IF the ACPI/APM function is properly enabled BOTH in your motherboard's BIOS AND in WinXP!
(2) Restart
(3) Shutdown.

To properly enable Hibernation in WinXP:

Start button -> Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate tab -> check Enable hibernate support box -> Apply/OK -> reboot.

NOTE: If the Hibernate tab is unavailable your computer does NOT support it!
For some reason Microsoft did NOT enable the 4th option:

(4) Hibernate, which should be available on power saving (ACPI) enabled PCs and laptops.
But you CAN bring it back: just hold the Shift key while the Shut down menu is displayed on your screen, and notice the Standby button being replaced by a new, fully functional Hibernate button, which can be clicked with the left button of your mouse.

If you release the Shift key, the Hibernate option will disappear once again, to be replaced by Standby.

Change the Registered Owner and Organization in the registry - Windows XP

2008-01-21T22:51:00.000+05:30

Click Start, Run and type regedit, and then click OK. Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion

Backup the key by exporting to a file.
To change the registered organization, double-click RegisteredOrganization.
Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK.
To change the name of the registered owner, double-click RegisteredOwner.
Under Value data, type the name that you want, and then click OK.
Click Exit on the File menu to quit regedit.

Make your own icons

2008-01-13T00:21:00.000+05:30

It's shockingly easy to create your own icons in Windows XP. Let's do it: Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Paint. On the Image menu, click Attributes. Type 32 for both the Width and Height of the document, and make sure that Pixels is selected under Units. Click OK to create a new 32x32-pixel document: the size of an icon.

Now add type, color, or do whatever you'd like to your image. I like to shrink photos (headshots work best) to 32x32 and simply paste them into my Paint document. When you're finished, open the File menu and click Save As. Use the dialog box to choose where you want to save your file, then give it a name followed by ".ico" (without the quotes), and click Save. (The extension ".ico" tells Windows that it's an icon file.) You just created an icon! Now you can change any shortcut or folder to your own icon—just browse to it on your hard drive.

How to Convert FAT to NTFS file system

2008-01-13T00:17:00.000+05:30

To convert a FAT partition to NTFS, perform the following steps.

Click Start, click Programs, and then click Command Prompt.

In Windows XP, click Start, click Run, type cmd and then click OK.

At the command prompt, type CONVERT [driveletter]: /FS:NTFS

Convert.exe will attempt to convert the partition to NTFS.

NOTE: Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion from FAT to NTFS is minimal, it is best to perform a full backup of the data on the drive that it is to be converted prior to executing the convert command. It is also recommended to verify the integrity of the backup before proceeding, as well as to run RDISK and update the emergency repair disk (ERD).

NTFS vs. FAT

2008-01-13T00:12:00.000+05:30

To NTFS or not to NTFS—that is the question. But unlike the deeper questions of life, this one isn't really all that hard to answer. For most users running Windows XP, NTFS is the obvious choice. It's more powerful and offers security advantages not found in the other file systems. But let's go over the differences among the files systems so we're all clear about the choice. There are essentially three different file systems available in Windows XP: FAT16, short for File Allocation Table, FAT32, and NTFS, short for NT File System.

FAT16
The FAT16 file system was introduced way back with MS–DOS in 1981, and it's showing its age. It was designed originally to handle files on a floppy drive, and has had minor modifications over the years so it can handle hard disks, and even file names longer than the original limitation of 8.3 characters, but it's still the lowest common denominator. The biggest advantage of FAT16 is that it is compatible across a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows 95/98/Me, OS/2, Linux, and some versions of UNIX. The biggest problem of FAT16 is that it has a fixed maximum number of clusters per partition, so as hard disks get bigger and bigger, the size of each cluster has to get larger. In a 2–GB partition, each cluster is 32 kilobytes, meaning that even the smallest file on the partition will take up 32 KB of space. FAT16 also doesn't support compression, encryption, or advanced security using access control lists.

FAT32
The FAT32 file system, originally introduced in Windows 95 Service Pack 2, is really just an extension of the original FAT16 file system that provides for a much larger number of clusters per partition. As such, it greatly improves the overall disk utilization when compared to a FAT16 file system. However, FAT32 shares all of the other limitations of FAT16, and adds an important additional limitation—many operating systems that can recognize FAT16 will not work with FAT32—most notably Windows NT, but also Linux and UNIX as well. Now this isn't a problem if you're running FAT32 on a Windows XP computer and sharing your drive out to other computers on your network—they don't need to know (and generally don't really care) what your underlying file system is.

The Advantages of NTFS
The NTFS file system, introduced with first version of Windows NT, is a completely different file system from FAT. It provides for greatly increased security, file–by–file compression, quotas, and even encryption. It is the default file system for new installations of Windows XP, and if you're doing an upgrade from a previous version of Windows, you'll be asked if you want to convert your existing file systems to NTFS. Don't worry. If you've already upgraded to Windows XP and didn't do the conversion then, it's not a problem. You can convert FAT16 or FAT32 volumes to NTFS at any point. Just remember that you can't easily go back to FAT or FAT32 (without reformatting the drive or partition), not that I think you'll want to.

The NTFS file system is generally not compatible with other operating systems installed on the same computer, nor is it available when you've booted a computer from a floppy disk. For this reason, many system administrators, myself included, used to recommend that users format at least a small partition at the beginning of their main hard disk as FAT. This partition provided a place to store emergency recovery tools or special drivers needed for reinstallation, and was a mechanism for digging yourself out of the hole you'd just dug into. But with the enhanced recovery abilities built into Windows XP (more on that in a future column), I don't think it's necessary or desirable to create that initial FAT partition.

When to Use FAT or FAT32
If you're running more than one operating system on a single computer, you will definitely need to format some of your volumes as FAT. Any programs or data that need to be accessed by more than one operating system on that computer should be stored on a FAT16 or possibly FAT32 volume. But keep in mind that you have no security for data on a FAT16 or FAT32 volume—any one with access to the computer can read, change, or even delete any file that is stored on a FAT16 or FAT32 partition. In many cases, this is even possible over a network. So do not store sensitive files on drives or partitions formatted with FAT file systems.

Shutdown Windows Faster

2007-12-30T19:07:00.000+05:30

If you are in a hurry and you want to shutdown Windows as fast as it can get, without all the program terminations and the hangs that are normally associated with Windows here is a tip that can shutdown Windows real quick… By real quick I mean real quick, as in Blink of a eye.

Its not that difficult either, all you need to do is go to the Run Prompt and type shutdown -f -t 0. Well executing this command at Run would make Windows shutdown real quick, by forcing all Open Applications to close forcefully without any warning.

Note: You can make a shortcut to “shutdown -f -t 0″

Warning : Make sure You’ve saved any unsaved work as you will loose anything that was not saved by using this tip.

Age-old Mystery Of Missing Chemicals From Earth's Mantle May Be Solved

2007-12-10T00:54:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2007) — Observations about the early formation of Earth may answer an age-old question about why the planet's mantle is missing some of the matter that should be present, according to UBC geophysicist John Hernlund.

Over its 4.5 billion history, Earth's layers of molten rock evolved and crystallized, cooling from a magma ocean (yellow) to the mantle (grey) around the planet's core (orange). (Credit: Image courtesy of University of British Columbia)

Earth is made from chondrite, very primitive rocks of meteorites that date from the earliest time of the solar system before the Earth was formed. However, scientists have been puzzled why the composition of Earth's mantle and core differed from that of chondrite.

Hernlund's findings suggest that an ancient magma ocean swirled beneath the Earth's surface and would account for the discrepancy.

"As the thick melted rock cooled and crystallized, the solids that resulted had a different composition than the melt," explains Hernlund, a post-doctoral fellow at UBC Earth and Ocean Sciences.

"The melt held onto some of the elements. This would be where the missing elements of chondrite are stored."

He says this layer of molten rock would have been around 1,000 km thick and 2,900 km beneath the surface."

Published in the journal Nature, Hernlund's study explores the melting and crystallization processes that have controlled the composition of the Earth's interior over geological time. Co-authors are Stéphane Labrosse, Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and Nicolas Coltice, Université de Lyon.

The centre of Earth is a fiery core of melted heavy metals, mostly iron. This represents 30 per cent while the remaining 70 per cent is the outer mantle of solid rock.

Traditional views hold that a shallow ocean of melted rock (magma) existed 1,000 km below the Earth's surface, but it was short lived and gone by 10 million years after the formation of Earth.

In contrast, Hernlund's evolutionary model predicts that during Earth's hotter past shortly after its formation 4.5 billion years ago, at least one-third of the mantle closest to the core was also melted.

The partially molten patches now observed at the base of the Earth's mantle could be the remnants of such a deep magma ocean, says Hernlund.

Adapted from materials provided by University of British Columbia.

Planets Forming In Pleiades Star Cluster, Astronomers Report

2007-11-15T23:30:00.001+05:30

Color composite image of the Pleiades star cluster produced by Inseok Song of the Spitzer Science Center, using montage software developed by IPAC/California Institute of Technology. An artist's rendering of a collision in the Pleiades (inset), by Lynette R. Cook, for Gemini Observatory. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California, Los Angeles)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 15, 2007) — Rocky terrestrial planets, perhaps like Earth, Mars or Venus, appear to be forming or to have recently formed around a star in the Pleiades ("seven sisters") star cluster, the result of "monster collisions" of planets or planetary embryos.

Astronomers using the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope report their findings in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal in astronomy.

"This is the first clear evidence for planet formation in the Pleiades, and the results we are presenting may well be the first observational evidence that terrestrial planets like those in our solar system are quite common," said Joseph Rhee, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in astronomy and lead author of the research.

The Pleiades star cluster, in the constellation Taurus, is well-known in many cultures. It is named for the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, who were placed by Zeus among the stars in Greek mythology and is cited in the Bible — "Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion?" (Job 38:31). The automaker Subaru's name is the Japanese word for the Pleiades, Rhee said.

The Pleiades is probably the best known star cluster and the most striking to the naked eye. "You've seen it many times, and it's now easily visible in the evening sky," said research co-author Benjamin Zuckerman, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy.

Although referred to as the "seven sisters," "the cluster actually contains some 1,400 stars," said co-author Inseok Song, a staff scientist at NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology and a former astronomer with the Gemini Observatory.

Located about 400 light-years away, the Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters to Earth. One of the cluster's stars, known as HD 23514, which has a mass and luminosity a bit greater than those of the sun, is surrounded by an extraordinary number of hot dust particles — "hundreds of thousands of times as much dust as around our sun," Zuckerman said. "The dust must be the debris from a monster collision, a cosmic catastrophe."

The astronomers analyzed emissions from countless microscopic dust particles and concluded that the most likely explanation is that the particles are debris from the violent collision of planets or planetary embryos.

Song calls the dust particles the "building blocks of planets," which can accumulate into comets and small asteroid-size bodies and then clump together to form planetary embryos, eventually becoming full-fledged planets.

"In the process of creating rocky, terrestrial planets, some objects collide and grow into planets, while others shatter into dust," Song said. "We are seeing that dust."

HD 23514 is the second star around which Song and Zuckerman recently have found evidence of terrestrial planet formation. They and their colleagues reported in the journal Nature in July 2005 that a sun-like star known as BD +20 307, located 300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Aries, is surrounded by one million times more dust than is orbiting our sun.

In an effort to uncover comparably dusty stars after their 2005 research, Rhee, Song and Zuckerman began looking through thousands of publicly accessible, deep-infrared images obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope and soon discovered HD 23514. The astronomers then used the Gemini North telescope, located on Hawaii's dormant volcano Mauna Kea, to measure the heat radiation coming from the dust; the heat emerges at infrared wavelengths, just as the heat from our bodies does, Song said.

"The Gemini and Spitzer data were crucial in identifying and establishing the amount and location of dust around the star," Song said.

While our sun is 4.5 billion years old, the Pleiades Aries stars are "adolescents," about 100 million and 400 million years old, respectively, Rhee said. Based on the age of the two stars and the dynamics of the orbiting dust particles, the astronomers deduce that most adolescent sun-like stars are likely to be building terrestrial-like planets through recurring violent collisions of massive objects. The cosmic debris from only a small percentage of such collisions can be seen at any one time — currently, only HD 23514 and BD +20 307 have visible debris.

"Our observations indicate that terrestrial planets similar to those in our solar system are probably quite common," Zuckerman said.

The astronomers calculate that terrestrial planets or planetary embryos in the Pleiades collided within the last few hundred thousand years — or perhaps much more recently — but they cannot rule out the possibility that multiple, somewhat smaller collisions occurred.

Many astronomers believe our moon was formed through the collision of two planetary embryos — the young Earth and a body about the size of Mars. That crash created tremendous debris, some of which condensed to form the moon and some of which went into orbit around the young sun, Zuckerman said.

By contrast, the collision of an asteroid with Earth 65 million years ago, the most favored explanation for the final demise of the dinosaurs, was a mere pipsqueak, he said.

"Collisions between comets or asteroids wouldn't produce anywhere near the amount of dust we are seeing," Song said.

HD 23514 and BD +20 307 are by far the dustiest not-so-young stars in the sky. "Nothing else is even close," Song said.

Very young stars — those 10 million years old or younger — may have a similar amount of dust around them as a result of the star-formation process. However, by the time a star is 100 million years old, this "primordial" dust has dissipated because the dust particles get blown away or dragged onto the star, or the particles clump together to form much larger objects.

"Unusually massive amounts of dust, as seen at the Pleiades and Aries stars, cannot be primordial but rather must be the second-generation debris generated by collisions of large objects," Song said.

The Pleiades have been considered important by many cultures throughout history.

"To the Vikings, the Pleiades was Freyja's hens," Rhee said. In Bronze Age Europe, the Celts and others associated the Pleiades with mourning and funerals because the cluster rose in the eastern night sky between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, which was a festival devoted to the remembrance of the dead. The ancient Aztecs of Mexico and Central America based their calendar on the Pleiades.

The astronomers' research results are based on mid- and far- infrared observations made with the Gemini 8-meter Frederick C. Gillett Telescope at Gemini North and the space-based infrared observatories Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Adapted from materials provided by University of California, Los Angeles.

How Violent Video Games Are Exemplary Aggression Teachers

2007-11-15T23:27:00.001+05:30

Students who played multiple violent video games actually learned through those games to produce greater hostile actions and aggressive behaviors over a span of six months, researchers have found. (Credit: iStockphoto/Quavondo Nguyen)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2007) — Like other fathers and sons, Douglas Gentile and his father have spent many hours arguing about video games. What makes them different is that Douglas, an Iowa State University assistant professor of psychology, is one of the country's top researchers on the effects of media on children. His father, J. Ronald Gentile, is a leading researcher on effective teaching and a distinguished teaching professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Buffalo, State University of New York.

Through their discussions, they realized that video games use the same techniques that really great teachers use.

"That realization prompted us to ask the question, 'Should we therefore be surprised that violent video games could teach aggression to players?'" said Doug Gentile, who is also director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family.

Violent video games teach aggression

The Gentiles decided to test that hypothesis. Through a study of nearly 2,500 youths, they found that video games are indeed effective teaching tools. Students who played multiple violent video games actually learned through those games to produce greater hostile actions and aggressive behaviors over a span of six months.

"We know a lot about how to be an effective teacher, and we know a lot about how to use technology to teach," said lead author Douglas Gentile. "Video games use many of these techniques and are highly effective teachers. So we shouldn't be surprised that violent video games can teach aggression."

The paper presents conceptual and empirical analyses of several of the "best practices" of learning and instruction, and demonstrates how violent video games use those practices effectively to teach aggression. It documents how violent video games motivate learners to persevere in learning and mastering skills to navigate through complex problems and changing environments -- just like good teachers do.

The study describes seven parallels between video games and effective teachers, including the ability to adapt to the level of each individual learner -- requiring practice distributed across time -- and teaching for transfer to real-world situations.

Studying nearly 2,500 youths

To test their hypothesis, the Gentiles studied three groups of youths -- 430 third through fifth-graders; 607 eighth and ninth graders; and 1,441 older adolescents with an average age of 19. Elementary and middle school children were recruited from nine Minnesota schools, and older adolescents from Iowa State University.

In the longitudinal elementary school sample, students, their peers, and their teachers completed surveys at two points during the school year. The surveys assessed the subject's aggressive thoughts and self-reported fights, and their media habits -- including violent video game exposure. Teachers and peers were also asked to rate the participants' aggressive behavior.

Controlling for age, race, sex, total amount of time spent playing all video games, and prior aggressive behaviors, the research found that the amount of rated violence in the games played predicted increased aggression. Among elementary students, playing multiple violent video games increased their risk of being highly aggressive -- as rated by peers and teachers -- by 73 percent, when compared to those who played a mix of violent and non-violent games, and by 263 percent compared to those who played only non-violent games.

"Because we had longitudinal data, we were able to show that students who play multiple violent games actually changed to have a greater hostile attribution bias, which also increased their aggressive behaviors over prior levels," the researchers wrote.

And because learning occurs from video games, regardless of whether the effects are intentional or unintentional, the Gentiles added that this "should make us more thoughtful about designing games and choosing games for children and adolescents to play."

But this study is not all bad news for video game technology. Because video games were found to be such effective teaching tools, the Gentiles propose greater educational use of today's smarter technology found in those games -- technology that "thinks" along with students, adapting instruction to each student's current skills, strategies or mistakes.

While some schools are already incorporating this type of educational programming, the researchers report that it's not widely used. The authors urge educators not to wait for more advancement before using such technology with students in the classroom.

They co-authored a paper on their research titled "Violent Video Games as Exemplary Teachers: A Conceptual Analysis," which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It is already available online to the journal's subscribers.

Adapted from materials provided by Iowa State University.

What Determines Sky's Colors At Sunrise And Sunset?

2007-11-15T23:21:00.000+05:30

Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter and resulting in colorful sunsets. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michael Valdez)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 15, 2007) — The colors of the sunset result from a phenomenon called scattering, says Steven Ackerman, professor of meteorology at UW-Madison. Molecules and small particles in the atmosphere change the direction of light rays, causing them to scatter.

Scattering affects the color of light coming from the sky, but the details are determined by the wavelength of the light and the size of the particle. The short-wavelength blue and violet are scattered by molecules in the air much more than other colors of the spectrum. This is why blue and violet light reaches our eyes from all directions on a clear day. But because we can't see violet very well, the sky appears blue.

Scattering also explains the colors of the sunrise and sunset, Ackerman says.

“Because the sun is low on the horizon, sunlight passes through more air at sunset and sunrise than during the day, when the sun is higher in the sky. More atmosphere means more molecules to scatter the violet and blue light away from your eyes. If the path is long enough, all of the blue and violet light scatters out of your line of sight. The other colors continue on their way to your eyes. This is why sunsets are often yellow, orange, and red.”

And because red has the longest wavelength of any visible light, the sun is red when it’s on the horizon, where its extremely long path through the atmosphere blocks all other colors.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Curry-derived Molecules Might Be Too Spicy For Colorectal Cancers

2007-11-07T18:24:00.001+05:30

Fresh turmeric roots. Curcumin, the yellowish component of turmeric that gives curry its flavor, has long been noted for its potential anti-cancer properties. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kelly Cline)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2007) — Curcumin, the yellowish component of turmeric that gives curry its flavor, has long been noted for its potential anti-cancer properties. Researchers from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, report on an apparent improvement upon nature: two molecular analogues of curcumin that demonstrate even greater tumor suppressive properties. The team presented their findings from the first test of these molecules in a mouse model of colorectal cancer November 5 at the American Association for Cancer Research Centennial Conference on Translational Cancer Medicine.

According to Tohoku University researcher Hiroyuki Shibata, M.D., curcumin is one of the most widely studied plant-based chemicals with anti-cancer properties. Research has associated curcumin with several distinct actions, including the suppression of genes that promote cell growth (for example, the destruction of the pro-cancerous protein alpha-catenin), and induction of programmed cell death (apoptosis) in colorectal cancer.

Unfortunately, natural curcumin has what researchers term "low bioavailability" -- the molecule quickly loses its anti-cancer attributes when ingested, Shibata says. With the aim of improving the therapeutic potential of curcumin, Shibata and his colleagues synthesized and tested 90 variations of the molecule's structure. Two, GO-Y030 and GO-Y031, proved to be more potent and bioavailable, than natural curcumin.

"Our new analogues have enhanced growth suppressive abilities against colorectal cancer cell lines, up to 30 times greater than natural curcumin," said Shibata, associate professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology at the Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer at Tohoku University. "In a mouse model for colorectal cancer, mice fed with five milligrams of GO-Y030 or GO-Y031 fared 42 and 51 percent better, respectively, than did mice in the control group."

In 2006, the researchers published basic safety and structural data for GO-Y030 and GO-Y031 in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, and they continue to study the mechanisms behind the molecules' apparent potencies. In its natural form, the curcumin molecule is composed of two ring structures linked by a chain of seven carbon atoms. The active ring structures of GO-Y030 and GO-Y031, however, are linked by a shorter, five-carbon chain, which Shibata says might -- for reasons still under investigation --account for their enhanced potency.

Like curcumin, the researchers believe the new analogues have clinical potential that extends beyond colorectal cancer. "In addition to colorectal cancer, the â catenin-degrading abilities of these molecules could apply to other forms of cancer, such as gastric cancer," said Shibata. "Like curcumin, these analogues also down-regulate a number of gene products, such as NF-kappa B, ErbB2, K-ras, that are also implicated in breast, pancreas and lung cancers among other diseases."

"In addition to their chemopreventative abilities, these molecules might also form the basis of a potent chemotherapy, either alone or in combination with other modes of therapy," said Shibata.

According to Shibata, the next step for the researchers is to further examine the drug delivery mechanisms, toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these analogues, before extending the research to clinical trials. Their studies were funded by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science and the Miyagi Health Service Association.

Adapted from materials provided by American Association for Cancer Research.

Climate Change Threatens Drinking Water, As Rising Sea Penetrates Coastal Aquifers

2007-11-07T18:16:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2007) — As sea levels rise, coastal communities could lose up to 50 percent more of their fresh water supplies than previously thought, according to a new study from Ohio State University.

Galveston Beach, Texas, Gulf of Mexico. In the United States, lands along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico -- especially Florida and Louisiana -- are most likely to be flooded as sea levels rise. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sergey Kubyshin)

Hydrologists here have simulated how saltwater will intrude into fresh water aquifers, given the sea level rise predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has concluded that within the next 100 years, sea level could rise as much as 23 inches, flooding coasts worldwide.

Scientists previously assumed that, as saltwater moved inland, it would penetrate underground only as far as it did above ground.

But this new research shows that when saltwater and fresh water meet, they mix in complex ways, depending on the texture of the sand along the coastline. In some cases, a zone of mixed, or brackish, water can extend 50 percent further inland underground than it does above ground.

Like saltwater, brackish water is not safe to drink because it causes dehydration. Water that contains less than 250 milligrams of salt per liter is considered fresh water and safe to drink.

Motomu Ibaraki, associate professor of earth sciences at Ohio State, led the study. Graduate student Jun Mizuno presented the results October 30, 2007, at the Geological Society of America meeting in Denver.

“Almost 40 percent of the world population lives in coastal areas, less than 60 kilometers from the shoreline,” Mizuno said. “These regions may face loss of freshwater resources more than we originally thought.”

“Most people are probably aware of the damage that rising sea levels can do above ground, but not underground, which is where the fresh water is,” Ibaraki said. “Climate change is already diminishing fresh water resources, with changes in precipitation patterns and the melting of glaciers. With this work, we are pointing out another way that climate change can potentially reduce available drinking water. The coastlines that are vulnerable include some of the most densely populated regions of the world.”

In the United States, lands along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico -- especially Florida and Louisiana -- are most likely to be flooded as sea levels rise. Vulnerable areas worldwide include Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and northern Europe.

Scientists have used the IPCC reports to draw maps of how the world's coastlines will change as waters rise, and they have produced some of the most striking images of the potential consequences of climate change.

Ibaraki said that he would like to create similar maps that show how the water supply could be affected.

That's not an easy task, since scientists don't know exactly where all of the world's fresh water is located, or how much is there. Nor do they know the details of the subterranean structure in many places.

One finding of this study is that saltwater will penetrate further into areas that have a complex underground structure.

Typically, coastlines are made of different sandy layers that have built up over time, Ibaraki explained. Some layers may contain coarse sand and others fine sand. Fine sand tends to block more water, while coarse sand lets more flow through.

The researchers simulated coastlines made entirely of coarse or fine sand, and different textures in between. They also simulated more realistic, layered underground structures.

The simulation showed that, the more layers a coastline has, the more the saltwater and fresh water mix. The mixing causes convection -- similar to the currents that stir water in the open sea. Between the incoming saltwater and the inland fresh water, a pool of brackish water forms.

Further sea level rise increases the mixing even more.

Depending on how these two factors interact, underground brackish water can extend 10 to 50 percent further inland than the saltwater on the surface.

According to the United States Geological Survey, about half the country gets its drinking water from groundwater. Fresh water is also used nationwide for irrigating crops.

“In order to obtain cheap water for everybody, we need to use groundwater, river water, or lake water,” Ibaraki said. “But all those waters are disappearing due to several factors --including an increase in demand and climate change.”

One way to create more fresh water is to desalinate saltwater, but that's expensive to do, he said.

“To desalinate, we need energy, so our water problem would become an energy problem in the future.”

Adapted from materials provided by Ohio State University.

Cirrus Disappearance: Warming Might Thin Heat-trapping Clouds

2007-11-07T00:18:00.000+05:30

Cirrus clouds. (Credit: NOAA Central Library, Photo by Albert E. Theberge Junior)

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2007) — The widely accepted (albeit unproven) theory that manmade global warming will accelerate itself by creating more heat-trapping clouds is challenged this month in new research from The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Instead of creating more clouds, individual tropical warming cycles that served as proxies for global warming saw a decrease in the coverage of heat-trapping cirrus clouds, says Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist in UAHuntsville's Earth System Science Center.

That was not what he expected to find.

"All leading climate models forecast that as the atmosphere warms there should be an increase in high altitude cirrus clouds, which would amplify any warming caused by manmade greenhouse gases," he said. "That amplification is a positive feedback. What we found in month-to-month fluctuations of the tropical climate system was a strongly negative feedback. As the tropical atmosphere warms, cirrus clouds decrease. That allows more infrared heat to escape from the atmosphere to outer space."

"While low clouds have a predominantly cooling effect due to their shading of sunlight, most cirrus clouds have a net warming effect on the Earth," Spencer said. With high altitude ice clouds their infrared heat trapping exceeds their solar shading effect.

In the tropics most cirrus-type clouds flow out of the upper reaches of thunderstorm clouds. As the Earth's surface warms - due to either manmade greenhouse gases or natural fluctuations in the climate system - more water evaporates from the surface. Since more evaporation leads to more precipitation, most climate researchers expected increased cirrus cloudiness to follow warming.

"To give an idea of how strong this enhanced cooling mechanism is, if it was operating on global warming, it would reduce estimates of future warming by over 75 percent," Spencer said. "The big question that no one can answer right now is whether this enhanced cooling mechanism applies to global warming."

The only way to see how these new findings impact global warming forecasts is to include them in computerized climate models.

"The role of clouds in global warming is widely agreed to be pretty uncertain," Spencer said. "Right now, all climate models predict that clouds will amplify warming. I'm betting that if the climate models' 'clouds' were made to behave the way we see these clouds behave in nature, it would substantially reduce the amount of climate change the models predict for the coming decades."

The UAHuntsville research team used 30- to 60-day tropical temperature fluctuations - known as "intraseasonal oscillations" - as proxies for global warming.

"Fifteen years ago, when we first started monitoring global temperatures with satellites, we noticed these big temperature fluctuations in the tropics," Spencer said. "What amounts to a decade of global warming routinely occurs in just a few weeks in the tropical atmosphere. Then, as if by flipping a switch, the rapid warming is replaced by strong cooling. It now looks like the change in cirrus cloud coverage is the major reason for this switch from warming to cooling."

The team analyzed six years of data from four instruments aboard three NASA and NOAA satellites. The researchers tracked precipitation amounts, air and sea surface temperatures, high and low altitude cloud cover, reflected sunlight, and infrared energy escaping out to space.

When they tracked the daily evolution of a composite of fifteen of the strongest intraseasonal oscillations they found that although rainfall and air temperatures would be rising, the amount of infrared energy being trapped by the cloudy areas would start to decrease rapidly as the air warmed. This unexpected behavior was traced to the decrease in cirrus cloud cover.

The new results raise questions about some current theories regarding precipitation, clouds and the efficiency with which weather systems convert water vapor into rainfall. These are significant issues in the global warming debate.

"Global warming theory says warming will generally be accompanied by more rainfall," Spencer said. "Everyone just assumed that more rainfall means more high altitude clouds. That would be your first guess and, since we didn't have any data to suggest otherwise ..."

There are significant gaps in the scientific understanding of precipitation systems and their interactions with the climate, he said. "At least 80 percent of the Earth's natural greenhouse effect is due to water vapor and clouds, and those are largely under the control of precipitation systems.

"Until we understand how precipitation systems change with warming, I don't believe we can know how much of our current warming is manmade. Without that knowledge, we can't predict future climate change with any degree of certainty."

Spencer and his colleagues expect these new findings to be controversial.

"I know some climate modelers will say that these results are interesting but that they probably don't apply to long-term global warming," he said. "But this represents a fundamental natural cooling process in the atmosphere. Let's see if climate models can get this part right before we rely on their long term projections."

The results of this research were published recently in the American Geophysical Union's "Geophysical Research Letters" on-line edition. The paper was co-authored by UAHuntsville's Dr. John R. Christy and Dr. W. Danny Braswell, and Dr. Justin Hnilo of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA.

Adapted from materials provided by University Of Alabama In Huntsville.

Tutankhamen's 'beautiful' face revealed

2007-11-07T00:00:00.000+05:30

The true face of ancient Egypt's boy king Tutankhamen was revealed to the public for the first time on Sunday since he died in mysterious circumstances more than 3000 years ago.

The mummy was moved from its ornate sarcophagus in the tomb where its 1922 discovery caused an international sensation to a nearby climate-controlled case where experts say it will be better preserved.

Tutankhamen's body is entirely wrapped in strips of white linen, except for his face which, until now, had been seen by only a handful of experts.

Made pharaoh at the age of nine, Tutankhamen became famous with the discovery of his tomb and the treasures within by Briton Howard Carter.

His iconic solid gold burial mask weighs 11 kilograms, encrusted with lapis lazuli and other semi-precious stones.

The mummy had to be reconstructed after Carter cut it into 18 pieces to gain access to amulets and other jewellery, Mustafa Wazery, director of the Valley of the Kings, said.

"What you will see is a beautiful face," Wazery told journalists ahead of the mummy's displacement. "He's a good-looking boy, with a nice smile and buck teeth."

Every day hundreds of visitors file through his tomb in the Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile in the southern Egyptian city of Luxor, bringing with them into the royal tomb bacteria, humidity and other pollutants.

"The mummy risked being reduced to dust because of the rising levels of humidity due to the visitors," Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.

"The mummy was already damaged by Howard Carter, who used sharp tools to remove the golden mask," Culture Minister Faruq Hosni said.

He said Carter damaged the mummy by "exposing it to burning sunshine for many hours" in the desert landscape.

A silicone representation of the face of the pharaoh, who died about 3300 years ago at the age of just 19, was reconstructed in 2005 using images collected through CAT scans of his mummy.

Egyptian, Swiss and Italian experts have deduced Tutankhamen died after an injury to his left leg led to rapid gangrene, rejecting a previously popular theory that the king had been killed by a blow to the neck.

When the tomb was discovered, the pharaoh's embalmed body was encased in three sarcophagi, one of which was made from solid gold.

Tutankhamen, the 12th pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, reigned for 10 years. Theories that he was assassinated stemmed from the fact that he was the last ruler of his dynasty.

The pharaoh Akhenaton the Heretic was thought to have fathered Tutankhamen, but the identity of his mother is not known.

The high priest Ay succeeded Tutankhamen for four years - also marrying his widow Ankhesenpamon - and he was followed by the military leader Horemheb, who ruled for 26 years until he ceded power to Ramses, founder of the 19th dynasty.

Courtesy: smh.com.au

Radio Waves Fire Up Nanotubes Embedded In Tumors, Destroying Liver Cancer

2007-11-04T11:47:00.000+05:30

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2007) — Cancer cells treated with carbon nanotubes can be destroyed by non-invasive radio waves that heat up the nanotubes while sparing untreated tissue, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Rice University has shown in preclinical experiments.
Researchers show that the technique completely destroyed liver cancer tumors in rabbits. There were no side effects noted. However, some healthy liver tissue within 2-5 millimeters of the tumors sustained heat damage due to nanotube leakage from the tumor.

"These are promising, even exciting, preclinical results in this liver cancer model," says senior author Steven Curley, M.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Surgical Oncology. "Our next step is to look at ways to more precisely target the nanotubes so they attach to, and are taken up by, cancer cells while avoiding normal tissue."

Targeting the nanotubes solely to cancer cells is the major challenge in advancing the therapy, Curley says. Research is under way to bind the nanotubes to antibodies, peptides or other agents that in turn target molecules expressed on cancer cells. To complicate matters, most such molecules also are expressed in normal tissue.

Curley estimates that a clinical trial is at least three to four years away.

Curley conducted the research at M. D. Anderson in collaboration with nanotechnology experts at Rice University and with Erie, Pennsylvania, entrepreneur John Kanzius of ThermMed LLC, who invented the experimental radiofrequency generator used in the experiments. Kanzius is a cancer survivor and former radio station owner whose insights into the potential of targeted radio waves inspired this line of research.

At Rice, the work was begun by Nobel laureate Richard Smalley, several months before his untimely death from cancer in October 2005. Smalley was the founder of Rice's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory and one of the world's foremost experts on carbon nanotubes. He shared the Nobel Prize for the 1985 discovery of fullerenes, the family of carbon molecules that includes nanotubes. His research in 2005 was concentrated largely on the radiofrequency cancer research project.

Rice materials scientist professor Boris Yakobson, Ph.D., a co-author on the paper, recalled meeting with Smalley in his hospital room at M. D. Anderson five days before his death.

"He looked very ill, breathing heavily through the oxygen mask, but all he wanted to do was talk about the physics of this very phenomenon," Yakobson said. "Oblivious of his ebbing health, Rick was focused in the future. He had told Congress in 1999 that nanotechnology would help revolutionize cancer treatment, and he was a scientist wanting to know whether this technology might be one of the things that would make that possible."

In the liver cancer experiment, a solution of single-walled carbon nanotubes was injected directly into the tumors. Four treated rabbits were then exposed to two minutes of radiofrequency treatment, resulting in thermal destruction of their tumors.

Carbon nanotubes are hollow cylinders of pure carbon that measure about a billionth of a meter, or one nanometer, across.

Control group tumors that were treated only by radiofrequency exposure or only by nanotubes were undamaged.

In lab experiments, two lines of liver cancer cells and one pancreatic cancer cell line were destroyed after being incubated with nanotubes and exposed to the radiofrequency field.

"I'm humbled by the results of this research," says Kanzius. "I realize it's early in the race, but Dr. Curley and his team have moved on this carefully with utmost speed. I look forward to continuing to work with them and hopefully to watching the first person be treated with this procedure. The race isn't over but it needs to be taken to the finish line."

Radiofrequency energy fields penetrate deeply into tissue, so it would be possible to deliver heat anywhere in the body if targeted nanotubes or other nanoparticles can be delivered to cancerous cells, Curley says. Without such a target, radio waves will pass harmlessly through the body.

An invasive technique known as radio frequency ablation is used to treat some malignant tumors, the authors note. It requires insertion of needle electrodes directly into the tumors. ncomplete tumor destruction occurs in 5 to 40 percent of cases, normal tissue is damaged and complications arise in 10 percent of patients who suffer such damage. Radiofrequency ablation is limited to liver, kidney, breast, lung and bone cancers.

This research appeared online ahead of December publication in the journal Cancer.

The research was supported by an American Association of Cancer Research Littlefield Grant, NASA and the Houston-based Alliance for NanoHealth, the National Science Foundation, the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology and the Fulbright Foundation.

Co-authors with Curley, Smalley, Kanzius and Yakobson are first authors Christopher J. Gannon, M.D., also of M. D. Anderson's Department of Surgical Oncology, and Paul Cherukuri, Ph.D. of Rice's Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory and Department of Chemistry; Carter Kittrell, Ph.D., R. Bruce Weisman, Ph.D., Matteo Pasquali, Ph.D., and Howard K. Schmidt, Ph.D., all of Rice; and Laurent Cognet, Ph.D., of Rice and the Centre de Physique Moléculaire Optique et Hertzienne, Université Bordeaux, France.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Rumsfeld 'kept up fear of terror attacks'

2007-11-04T11:33:00.000+05:30

By Alex Spillius in Washington

Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States defence secretary, tried to maintain an atmosphere of fear in America as part of the Iraq war propaganda campaign, a series of leaked memos has shown.

One memo, written in April 2006, contained a list of instructions to Pentagon staff including "Keep elevating the threat" and "Talk about Somalia, the Philippines etc. Make the American people realise they are surrounded in the world by violent extremists".

Another said "link Iraq to Iran. Iran is the concern of the American people, and if we fail in Iraq, it will advantage Iran". He also urged staff to produce "bumper sticker statements" to rally the public around the war.

The memos, written between 2002 until shortly after his resignation in 2006, were leaked by undisclosed sources to the Washington Post. Rumsfeld was unpopular with many for his tough management style.

The newspaper reported that his emails were so numerous they were called "snowflakes". He would send between 20 and 60 a day, often instructing his team to refute negative news stories in the media.

One note will please Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. It said: "We are getting run out of Central Asia by the Russians. They are doing a considerably better job at bullying those countries than the US is doing to counter their bullying."

Rumsfeld also managed belatedly to embarrass Bush administration's attempts to win hearts and minds in the Arab world. In one memo he said: “Too often Muslims are against physical labour” because oil wealth had detached them from “the reality of work”.

A White House spokesman yesterday repudiated the comment. “It's not in line with the president's views,” said spokesman Dana Perino.

Keith Urbahn, an aide to Mr Rumsfeld, told the Washington Post that the published memos were "selective" and "gross mischaracterisations" carefully picked from some 20,000 while he was defence secretary. There was no comment from Mr Rumsfeld.

UN expert seeks to halt biofuel output

2007-10-28T19:18:00.000+05:30

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. expert on Friday called the growing practice of converting food crops into biofuel "a crime against humanity," saying it is creating food shortages and price jumps that cause millions of poor people to go hungry.

Jean Ziegler, who has been the United Nations' independent expert on the right to food since the position was established in 2000, called for a five-year moratorium on biofuel production to halt what he called a growing "catastrophe" for the poor.

Scientific research is progressing very quickly, he said, "and in five years it will be possible to make biofuel and biodiesel from agricultural waste" rather than wheat, corn, sugar cane and other food crops.

Using biofuel instead of gasoline in cars is generally considered to cut carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming, although some scientists say greenhouse gases released during the production of biofuel could offset those gains.

The use of crops for biofuel has being pursued especially in Brazil and the United States.

Last March, President Bush and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an agreement committing their countries to boosting ethanol production. They said increasing use of alternative fuels would lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.

Ziegler called their motives legitimate, but said that "the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people."

The world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people, he said. And poor people in those countries are unable to pay the soaring prices for the food that does come in, he added.

"So it's a crime against humanity" to devote agricultural land to biofuel production, Ziegler said a news conference. "What has to be stopped is ... the growing catastrophe of the massacre (by) hunger in the world," he said.

As an example, he said, it takes 510 pounds of corn to produce 13 gallons of ethanol. That much corn could feed a child in Zambia or Mexico for a year, he said.

Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said the Bush administration didn't consider biofuel development a threat to the poor.

"It's clear we have a commitment to the development of biofuels," he said. "It's also clear that we are committed to combatting poverty and supporting economic development around the world as the leading contributor of overseas development assistance in the world."

Ziegler, a sociology professor at the University of Geneva and the University of the Sorbonne in Paris, presented a report Thursday to the U.N. General Assembly's human rights committee saying a five-year moratorium on biofuel production would allow time for new technologies for using agricultural byproducts instead of food itself.

Researchers are looking at crop residues such as corn cobs, rice husks and banana leaves, he said. "The cultivation of Jatropha Curcas, a shrub that produces large oil-bearing seeds, appears to offer a good solution as it can be grown in arid lands that are not normally suitable for food crops," he said.

Traffic Signals

2007-10-28T19:02:00.000+05:30

Decoding the Human Eye

2007-10-24T22:50:00.000+05:30

Test bed: A 512-electrode array (gold circle), modeled after detectors used to capture particles in high-energy physics, is helping to decipher the neural code of the retina. The findings will aid in the design of future retinal prostheses.
Credit: Alan Litke

Superdense arrays of silicon electrodes will bring scientists closer to an artificial retina that approximates normal vision.

By Emily Singer

Artificial retinas are already in human clinical trials at the University of Southern California, where they have helped blind patients distinguish walls from doorways and even watch soccer games, albeit as blurs of motion. But approximating normal vision--and possibly enabling people to read--will require devices that can deliver electrical current with much greater control and precision. A new chip densely packed with electrodes, developed by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), is the first step in that direction.

Currently being used in research, the chip can stimulate and record from individual cells in retinal samples. The technology will provide insight into how the retina codes information and how to mimic that coding--lessons that will be crucial in developing the next generation of retinal implants. Further down the road, some version of the technology might be used to send visual information down the optic nerve.

"The retina is a very sophisticated visual-information-processing device," says Alan Litke, a physicist at UCSC who is applying his expertise to neurobiology. "To have a human patient someday approach normal visual functioning, such as reading, you need to have a very accurate level of control."

The retina is a thin layer of cells at the back of the eye; photoreceptor cells in the retina detect light and send signals to the retinal ganglion cells, which then transmit the signals to the brain through the optic nerve. In macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, two leading causes of blindness, photoreceptor cells are damaged, but the remaining retinal ganglion cells are left largely intact. Artificial retinas, which rely on an external camera to capture visual information, consist of a processor that translates that information into an electrical code intelligible to the nerve cells of the eye, and a chip dotted with tiny electrodes that transmit the electrical signals to the retinal ganglion cells.

Litke and his collaborators modeled their chip after the silicon microchip detectors that line supercolliders to capture signs of elusive, high-energy, subatomic particles, such as the Higgs boson. Using common integrated-circuit fabrication techniques, the researchers custom-built more than 500 electrodes and amplifiers onto a small glass strip. "There are other commercial, multi-electrode recording systems available, but the team at UCSC has really pushed the technology forward by coming up with a system with the capability to record many more neural responses," says Matt McMahon, a scientist at Second Sight, the company based in Sylmar, CA, that's developing the retinal prostheses used in the USC study. Second Sight is using Litke's device to inform the design of future prostheses. The company's first-generation device had 16 electrodes, the second-generation device currently in human trials has 60, and a 200-electrode version is under development.

With the UCSC device, scientists can precisely control individual retinal ganglion cells, a capability that will be key in next-generation implants. One of the reasons the prostheses currently in human testing have limited resolution is that they stimulate hundreds of cells simultaneously. (The diameter of the electrodes is an order of magnitude larger than that of most cells.) The five-micrometer-diameter electrodes in Litke's chip are on par with the size of retinal ganglion cells, allowing them to stimulate individual cells. The researchers previously showed that they could simultaneously control multiple cells with a 60-electrode version of the chip, and they are developing a version with 512 electrodes.

Now that scientists have created a technology with such a precise level of control, they are using it to study the language of the retina--a language they hope prostheses will ultimately be able to speak. While the retina is often likened to a camera, it is in reality much more complicated. Light signals are captured and processed in the retina; the sequence of electrical bursts sent to the retinal ganglion cells encodes higher-order information, such as an edge or movement in the visual field. Current prostheses use a simplified code and thus lose information, just as Morse code loses the nuanced intonations of the spoken word and the facial expressions of the speaker. "What are the patterns that really emulate what the healthy retina would be doing?" asks Alexander Sher, an assistant researcher at UCSC who is collaborating with Litke. "If you get to the point where you can stimulate individual cells, and you know how individual cells encode information, you can simulate that exactly, or nearly exactly."

Scientists at Second Sight say that the lessons learned from these studies will be crucial to the development of next-generation prostheses. But turning the UCSC researchers' device into an implant fit for the human eye will be challenging. "A lot of technical considerations are preventing us from jumping to really tiny electrodes," says McMahon. "That will require further developments in electronics and packaging and software."

Researchers Knock Out HIV

2007-10-24T00:40:00.000+05:30

This thin-section transmission electron micrograph depicted the ultrastructural details of two "human immunodeficiency virus" (HIV) virus particles, or virions. (Credit: CDC/Dr. A. Harrison; Dr. P. Feorino)

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2007) — With the latest advances in treatment, doctors have discovered that they can successfully neutralise the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The so-called ‘combination therapy’ prevents HIV from mutating and spreading, allowing patients to rebuild their immune system to the same levels as the rest of the population.
To date, it represents the most significant treatment for patients suffering from HIV.

Professor Jens Lundgren from the University of Copenhagen, together with other members of the research group EuroSIDA, have conducted a study, which demonstrates that the immune system of all HIV-infected patients can be restored and normalised. The only stipulation is that patients begin and continue to follow their course of treatment.

HIV attacks the body’s ability to counteract viruses

Viruses are small organisms that have no independent metabolism. Consequently, when they enter the body they attack living cells and adopt their metabolism. The influenza virus occupies cells in the nose, throat and lungs; the mumps attaches itself to the salivary glands of the ear; while the Polio virus plays on the intestinal tract, blood and salivary glands. In all these instances, our immune system attacks and eliminates the invading virus.

HIV is so deadly because the virus attaches itself to a crucial part of the immune system itself: to the so-called CD4+T lymphocytes, which are white blood corpuscles that help the immune system to fight infections. The Hi-virus forms and invades new CD4+T-lymphocytes. Slowly but surely, the number of healthy CD4+T lymphocytes in the blood fall, while HIV relentlessly weakens the body’s ability to defend itself from infection. Finally, the immune system erodes to such an extent that the infected patient is diagnosed with AIDS. The Hi-virus mutates constantly as it forms and this is why, scientists face a constant battle to find a cure or a vaccine.

Combination therapy knocks out HIV

Combination therapy prevents the virus from forming and mutating in human beings. When the virus is halted in its progress, the number of healthy CD4+T cells begins to rise and patients, who would otherwise die from HIV, can now survive. The immune system is rejuvenated and is apparently able to normalise itself, providing that the combination therapy is maintained. The moment the immune system begins to improve, the HIV-infected patient can no longer be said to be suffering from an HIV infection or disease, already declining in strength.

Findings from the study are published in the medical journal The Lancet - Vol. 370, Issue 9585, 4 August 2007, Pages 407-413

Adapted from materials provided by University Of Copenhagen.

Global warming

2007-10-19T00:29:00.000+05:30

Great Challenge Ahead

Global warming isn't opinion. It's a scientific reality. And the science tells us that human activity has made enormous impacts to our planet that affect our well-being and even our survival as a species.

The world's leading science journals report that glaciers are melting ten times faster than previously thought, that atmospheric greenhouse gases have reached levels not seen for millions of years, and that species are vanishing as a result of climate change. They also report of extreme weather events, long-term droughts, and rising sea levels.

Fortunately, the science also tells us how we can begin to make significant repairs to try and reverse those impacts, but only through immediate action. That's why we urge you to join us. The Stop Global Warming Virtual March is virtual but its purpose is real. By spreading the word and sharing this with others, our collective power will force governments, corporations, and politicians everywhere to pay attention.

Global Warming?

The Earth as an ecosystem is changing, attributable in great part to the effects of globalization and man. More carbon dioxide is now in the atmosphere than has been in the past 650,000 years. This carbon stays in the atmosphere, acts like a warm blanket, and holds in the heat — hence the name 'global warming.'

The reason we exist on this planet is because the earth naturally traps just enough heat in the atmosphere to keep the temperature within a very narrow range - this creates the conditions that give us breathable air, clean water, and the weather we depend on to survive. Human beings have begun to tip that balance. We've overloaded the atmosphere with heat-trapping gasses from our cars and factories and power plants. This has disturbed the habitats of several plants and animals. Animals have already started responding to this global change and there is a global trend of them moving towards the polar region

If we don't start fixing the problem now, we're in for devastating changes to our environment. We will experience extreme temperatures, rises in sea levels, and storms of unimaginable destructive fury. Recently, alarming events that are consistent with scientific predictions about the effects of climate change have become more and more commonplace.

Environmental Destruction

The massive ice sheets in the Arctic are melting at alarming rates. This is causing the oceans to rise. That's how big these ice sheets are! Most of the world's population lives on or near the coasts. Rising ocean levels, an estimated six feet over the next 100 years or sooner, will cause massive devastation and economic catastrophe to population centers worldwide.

The United States, with only four percent of the world's population, is responsible for 22% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. A rapid transition to energy efficiency and renewable energy sources will combat global warming, protect human health, create new jobs, protect habitat and wildlife, and ensure a secure, affordable energy future.
Health Risks

Malaria. Dengue Fever. Encephalitis. These names are not usually heard in emergency rooms and doctors' offices in the United States. But if we don't act to curb global warming, they will be. As temperatures rise, disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents spread, infecting people in their wake. Doctors at the Harvard Medical School have linked recent U.S. outbreaks of dengue fever, malaria, hantavirus and other diseases directly to climate change.
Catastrophic Weather

Super powerful hurricanes, fueled by warmer ocean temperatures are the "smoking gun" of global warming. Since 1970, the number of category 4 and 5 events has jumped sharply. Human activities are adding an alarming amount of pollution to the earth's atmosphere causing catastrophic shifts in weather patterns. These shifts are causing severe heat, floods and worse.

Five Things We Can All Do
Join StopGlobalWarming.org. Together our voices will be heard!
Spread the word, share the learning. Send this link to family, friends, and colleagues. Share why this is so important.
Change begins at home. (See the list home-related Action Items)
Put the heat on your elected officials.
The power of the pocketbook.

There are many simple things you can do in your daily life — what you eat, what you drive, how you build your home — that can have an effect on your immediate surrounding, and on places as far away as Antactica. Here is a list of few things that you can do to make a difference.

Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs

Replace 3 frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $60 per year. Take the Energy Star pledge.

Inflate Your Tires

Keep the tires on your car adequately inflated. Check them monthly. Save 250 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $840 per year.

Change Your Air Filter

Check your car's air filter monthly. Save 800 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $130 per year.

Fill the Dishwasher

Run your dishwasher only with a full load. Save 100 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.

Use Recycled Paper

Make sure your printer paper is 100% post consumer recycled paper. Save 5 lbs. of carbon dioxide per ream of paper.

Adjust Your Thermostat

Move your heater thermostat down two degrees in winter and up two degrees in the summer. Save 2000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $98 per year.

Check Your Waterheater

Keep your water heater thermostat no higher than 120°F. Save 550 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $30 per year.

Change the AC Filter

Clean or replace dirty air conditioner filters as recommended. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150 per year.

Take Shorter Showers

Showers account for 2/3 of all water heating costs. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $99 per year.

Install a Low-Flow Showerhead

Using less water in the shower means less energy to heat the water. Save 350 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $150.

Buy Products Locally

Buy locally and reduce the amount of energy required to drive your products to your store.

Buy Energy Certificates

Help spur the renewable energy market and cut global warming pollution by buying wind certificates and green tags.

Buy Minimally Packaged Goods

Less packaging could reduce your garbage by about 10%. Save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide and $1,000 per year.

Buy a Hybrid Car

The average driver could save 16,000 lbs. of CO2 and $3,750 per year driving a hybrid

Buy a Fuel Efficient Car

Getting a few extra miles per gallon makes a big difference. Save thousands of lbs. of CO2 and a lot of money per year.

Carpool When You Can

Own a big vehicle? Carpooling with friends and co-workers saves fuel. Save 790 lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.

Don't Idle in Your Car

Idling wastes money and gas, and generates pollution and global warming causing emissions. Except when in traffic, turn your engine off if you must wait for more than 30 seconds.

Reduce Garbage

Buy products with less packaging and recycle paper, plastic and glass. Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

Plant a Tree

Trees suck up carbon dioxide and make clean air for us to breathe. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide per year.

Insulate Your Water Heater

Keep your water heater insulated could save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $40 per year.

Replace Old Appliances

Inefficient appliances waste energy. Save hundreds of lbs. of carbon dioxide and hundreds of dollars per year.

Weatherize Your Home

Caulk and weather strip your doorways and windows. Save 1,700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $274 per year.

Use a Push Mower

Use your muscles instead of fossil fuels and get some exercise. Save 80 lbs of carbon dioxide per year.

Unplug Un-Used Electronics

Even when electronic devices are turned off, they use energy. Save over 1,000 lbs of carbon dioxide and $256 per year.

Put on a Sweater

Instead of turning up the heat in your home, wear more clothes Save 1,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $250 per year.

Insulate Your Home

Make sure your walls and ceilings are insulated. Save 2,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $245 per year.

Air Dry Your Clothes

Line-dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer. Save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $75 per year.

Switch to a Tankless Water Heater

Your water will be heated as you use it rather than keeping a tank of hot water. Save 300 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $390 per year.

Switch to Double Pane Windows

Double pane windows keep more heat inside your home so you use less energy. Save 10,000 lbs. of carbon dioxide and $436 per year.

Buy Organic Food

The chemicals used in modern agriculture pollute the water supply, and require energy to produce.

Bring Cloth Bags to the Market

Using your own cloth bag instead of plastic or paper bags reduces waste and requires no additional energy.

Buy The Bracelet

Made from 100% scrap leather by Roots — 100% of net proceeds go the Stop Global Warming Fund.

Turn off Your Computer

Shut off your computer when not in use, and save 200 lbs of C02. Conserve energy by using your computer's "sleep mode" instead of a screensaver.

Take Action at School!

Throughout history, students have been the driving force in social change. Now more than ever is the time for students across the country to become global warming activists and join the movement.

On this page you will find tips for stopping global warming that your class or school can do today. You don't have to do everything, but we all need to do something! Get started in your school and keep us posted with results.

Get Your Class Virtually Marching!

Have all of your students sign up and challenge them to get as many people as they know (family, friends, churches, etc) to sign up with them. Make it a challenge in your school. Joining the Virtual March is the first step to joining the movement.

Read the Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming

The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming is a comprehensive resource to help young readers (ages 8 and up) understand the science of global warming and how we can work together to stop it. Click here to learn more.

Recycle

Make sure your class has recycling bins for paper and plastics. Have your class do a field trip to follow where the recycling ends up. Does your school do double-sided printing?

Cut Back on Paper

Encourage administrators to only purchase post consumer recycled paper products (including toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, etc.) at your school. Set a goal to increase it. Make a rule that all multi-page documents are run double-sided. Keep looking for ways to eliminate paper.

Educate Your Parents

Take the issue of global warming to PTA meetings to educate the parents on the urgency of this issue.

Use Timers

Have your school set lights and air conditioners on efficiency timers.

Take Action at Home

Give your students the take action sheet on our site to take home and implement with their parents. Make it a contest to see which student can encourage the most change in their home.

No Waste at School Meals and Events

Reduce use of juice boxes, water bottles, plastic bags, etc. in your cafeteria, in your lunch box and at school parties.

Plant Trees

Have a tree planting day at your school. Plant trees that are local to your area that will reduce carbon dioxide and create clean air to breathe.

Conduct a School Energy Audit

Have your utility company come do an energy audit on the school.

Replace Oil Burning Furnaces

Find out what year your school's oil burning furnace was put in. If it is over 5 years old, a new one would substantially reduce carbon emissions. Plan a fundraiser to help pay for it.

Spread the News

Find a news article on our site about global warming and email it to five people.

Start a Club

Start a global warming club at your school and set goals to curb your school's energy use.

Research and Report

Choose global warming as a topic for your next science, English, or social studies report.

Speak Out

Run for student government on a global warming platform. Challenge another school to match what you are doing to curb global warming emissions.

Reward the Use of Hybrids

Institute "Good Citizen" premium parking spaces for teachers, parents and students that drive hybrid cars.

Audit Student's Energy Use

Have all students conduct their own personal energy audit to figure out their daily carbon footprint and set goals to reduce it. Celebrate the student who reduces their emissions the most at the end of the school year.

Review Office/School's Purchases

Look into the food, waste and packaging purchases of your cafeteria.

Bull Fight

2007-09-15T15:22:00.000+05:30

Oh.. shit.. err I mean how the hell is he going to shit tomorrow.. lol

Football

2007-09-15T15:15:00.001+05:30

Wow.. Football is definetely a dangerous sport.. You could loose your nuts.. lol

Don't Drink and Fly

2007-09-15T15:09:00.000+05:30

This is my advice to wizards, witches and Harry Potter wannabies - Don't drink and fly or you will end up like this.. lol

Shoot the cat..

2007-09-15T14:54:00.000+05:30

I am fed with with the pussy cat.. Its time to finish it off.. Sorry cat lovers..

Great Tech Support

2007-09-15T14:39:00.000+05:30

Well my new tech support is a nice pussy kat.. lol.. and she knows the inside - out of the system..

Kats and Karate

2007-09-15T14:22:00.000+05:30

Don't mess with the cats, these guys are karate gurus..

Who's messing with my computer?

2007-09-15T14:14:00.000+05:30

I just found out who's messing with my computer..

Accident

2007-09-15T14:08:00.001+05:30

Another example why women create all the vehicle accidents.. lol

2007-09-15T14:04:00.000+05:30

Of course there are cat terrorists who makes a dog's life miserable...

Teamwork

2007-09-15T13:57:00.000+05:30

Its all about the teamwork.. nothings impossible..

2007-09-15T13:54:00.000+05:30

Well who says cats aren't sharpshooters??? lol..

Sick...

2007-09-14T23:47:00.000+05:30

Bad day for me, I had to take leave after I felt sick.. rested the whole day, but still not feeling good enough.. hope that by tomorrow that I'll be okay to go for work..

Love Linux, Hate Linux

2007-09-13T23:01:00.000+05:30

What a hate - love relationship am I having with Linux??? Ha.. It's like I am married to Linux.. Sometimes I think it's the best O.S out there, but there are times I feel it's the worse.. Does everyone feel this way?

binil.org is cool

2007-09-12T19:18:00.000+05:30

All my doubts regarding the DNS problems are now gone.. The domian is working very well..
Now I need to get binil.org to the top of the google charts, which I hope will be done soon..

Kudos to Jabir, Subesh, Lenin & Bineesh

2007-09-11T00:09:00.000+05:30

Congrats to Jabir, Subesh, Lenin & Bineesh for passing CCNA exam with flying colors.. These guys have been preparing for so many days and now their efforts have paid off.. I hope others follow the example set by these lads..

binil.org

2007-09-11T00:01:00.000+05:30

Hi, I have just purchased a new domain - www.binil.org. This was something that I wanted to do for a long time.. It's still not working - I guess the DNS servers still needs time to updated their databases.. So I am waiting imaptiently...

www.binil.co.nr

2007-08-02T13:07:00.000+05:30

Though blogger is cool, it's not challenging enough for me.. So you can see my website by typing the address

http://binil.110mb.com/

http://binil.co.nr

Marriage???

2007-07-10T00:07:00.000+05:30

Yep.. I am looking for the right lady as my life partner.. but I find it very difficult to find one.. Hmm.. let me finish my MBA first..

MBA?

2007-06-17T14:04:00.000+05:30

Is MBA going to be tough? Well, I am about to find out.. lol

My first post

2007-03-23T01:22:00.000+05:30

Hmm.. Blogger??
Is it that good?
I am about to find out...