Overprotection may lead to increased food allergies.......

Over protective parents, who are scared of childhood food allergies, and hence delay the introduction of troublesome foods, could be unwittingly raising their child's risk.

A Melbourne-based study has found infants who were not introduced to eggs until after their first birthday were up to five times more likely to go on to develop an egg allergy.

This was compared to those who ate their first eggs from age four to six months and, University of Melbourne PhD scholar Jennifer Koplin said, it added more weight to the recent shift in official advice.

"Until recently, Australian and international guidelines recommended that infants with a family history of allergy delay introducing allergenic foods such as egg, peanut and nuts until up to two to three years of age," news.com.au quoted Koplin as saying.

"Our study suggests that babies who ingest these foods at an earlier age may be less likely to develop food allergies as they grow older.

"It seems that early introduction of egg may protect against egg allergy, while delaying its introduction may put the child at increased risk of developing an allergy," she added.

The study was conducted on 2500 infants and the timing of their introduction to eggs was checked against those who later developed the allergy.

An early introduction to cooked egg - boiled or scrambled eggs for example - was found to confer more of a protective effect than first consuming eggs in baked form - in cakes or biscuits.

Of babies aged four to six months who were introduced to cooked egg, just 5.6 per cent developed an egg allergy compared with 27.6 per cent of those introduced to cooked egg after 12 months.

A family history of egg allergy did not appear be a factor in those children who went on to develop it, while duration of breastfeeding and introduction to first solids were also ruled out.

Associate Professor Katie Allen, from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, said more work was needed to check whether the same was true for other common allergenic foods such as nuts.

"Confirmation that early introduction is protective for other allergenic foods may help better inform parents in the future, and could have the potential to reverse the epidemic of childhood food allergy," said Allen.

The study has been published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. (ANI)

Find out Flu using Twitter.......

A computer science expert at Southeastern Louisiana University has revealed that keeping track of disease trends such as influenza outbreaks has the potential to be far quicker and less costly by monitoring a social network program such as Twitter than following the traditional methods of disease surveillance.

A process called syndromic surveillance uses collected health-related data to alert health officials to the probability of an outbreak of disease, typically influenza or other contagious diseases. The technique involves collecting data from hospitals, clinics and other sources, a labor-intensive and time consuming approach. By monitoring a social network such as Twitter, researchers can capture comments from people with the flu who are sending out status messages.

"A micro-blogging service such as Twitter is a promising new data source for Internet-based surveillance because of the volume of messages, their frequency and public availability," said Aron Culotta, assistant professor of computer science. "This approach is much cheaper and faster than having thousands of hospitals and health care providers fill out forms each week.

"The Centers for Disease Control produces weekly estimates," he added, "but those reports typically lag a week or two behind. This approach produces estimates daily."

Culotta and two student assistants analyzed more than 500 million Twitter messages over the eight-month period of August 2009 to May 2010, collected using Twitter's application programming interface (API). By using a small number of keywords to track rates of influenza-related messages on Twitter, the team was able to forecast future influenza rates.

"Once the program is running, it's actually neither time consuming nor expensive," he said. "It's entirely automated because we're running software that samples each day's messages, analyzes them and produces an estimate of the current proportion of people with the flu."

Southeastern's group obtained a 95 percent correlation with the national health statistics collected by the CDC. In addition, the results were comparable to figures collected by Google with its Flu Trends service, which tracks influenza rates by analyzing trends in query terms.

Culotta said using Twitter has an advantage over Google because the high message and posting frequency of Twitter enables up-to-the minute analysis of an outbreak. Twitter, he said, reports having more than 105 million users posting nearly 65 million messages a day. Approximately 300,000 new users are added daily.

"Despite the fact that Twitter appears targeted to a young demographic, it does in fact have quite a diverse set of users," he said. "The majority of Twitter's nearly 10 million unique visitors in February 2009 were over 35 years old, and a nearly equal percentage of users are between the ages 55 and 64 as between 18 and 24."

Culotta's research was presented at the 2010 Workshop on Social Media Analytics at the Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining in Washington, D.C. The work was funded in part by the Louisiana Board of Regents. (ANI)

Fifth generations fighters in India........

India will have a fleet of 200 to 250 fifth generation fighter aircraft, which it is planning to jointly develop with Russia over the next 10 years.

India has finalized a preliminary design contract (PDC) with Russia after years of deliberations and will jointly develop a fifth-generation stealth fighter with Russia. Each fifth generation fighter is likely to cost India about 100 million dollars.

Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Pradeep Vasant Naik, said: "We are looking for about 200 to 250 fifth generation fighters. Some of the features we like the aircraft to possess are swing role, could fly for longer durations without refueling, super cruise, better reliability and maintainability, higher level mission computers, etc."

Speaking to reporters ahead of the Indian Air Force's 78th Anniversary this year, he said on Monday that the fifth generation fighters will start rolling out by 2017.

The contract is likely to be signed during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to New Delhi in December, if the preliminary design contract is approved by India.

The Hindustan Aeronautics Limited would be the Indian designer and builder of the stealth fighter and could cost India six billion dollar.

India's share will be about 30 percent of the total design in the stealth fighter project, and mainly focus on the composite components with the stealth function and some electronics equipments, such as avionics, electronic warfare systems and cockpit displays.

India will also be responsible to design from the single-seat stealth fighter into a two-seater type, which would be deployed by the Indian Air Force.

Russia's Sukhoi Design Bureau has been developing the stealth fifth-generation fighter PAK-FA with a range of more than 5,000 km since 1990's. By Praful Kumar Singh (ANI)

Tigers are now thriving in Sathyamangalam forest.....

Officials in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have claimed that the number of tigers have risen in forests once used as a jungle hideout by the dreaded bandit, Veerappan.

The forest department officials said that a decade ago, tigers were rarely found in Sathyamangalam forest, but now, they have even started breeding in the area. They also said about 20 tigers have been caught on film by hidden cameras.

DNA analysis carried out on tiger droppings confirm the presence of at least 13 tigers in the forest, they claimed.

"Until 10 years ago tigers were rarely sighted here. Now we have even captured [on film]breeding tigers here," the BBC quoted the district forest officer of Sathyamangalam, as saying.

"Tigers are fiercely territorial animals. Since the number of tigers are going up in the nearby Mudumalai and Bandipur reserves, tigers might have come here and settled," he added.

The forest was used by Veerappan, a dangerous sandalwood smuggler and hunter, until he was killed in 2004.

Part of the forest was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2008. It has now become an important migratory corridor for large mammals and is home to large numbers of elephants, black bucks, vultures and other animals and birds, the report added.

CWG - Opening Ceremony - Scarce known facts.....

About 1,200 moving lights, 25 stacks of speakers and about 2,700 shots of fireworks spread across the roof of the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium combined with a stage weighing 500 tonnes to create a spectacular opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games here today. The gigantic main stage, inspired by the ''mandala'', a sanskrit word for the geometric designs symbolic of the universe in Hinduism and Buddhism, which is one of the largest built for an opening and closing ceremony.

The stage was built within seven days by about 500 workers. Weighing an approximately 500 tonnes.

The stage is large enough to hold 500 people under it. The opening ceremony would have never been that spectacular had it not been for the lighting arrangements.

1,200 moving lights, 120 space cannons and 16 follow spots weighing approximately 75 tonnes was what it took to enchant the about 60,000 spectators. The 25 stacks of speakers produced 500,000 Watts of sound.

If one was impressed by the fireworks, it was because of the 2,700 shots spread over 88 locations on the roof of the stadium. The crowd had erupted in joy as the firecrackers went up in air heralding the beginning of the Games.

The entire system was supported by over 50 km of power cables that were used to provide constant power for the opening ceremony.

Spending too much time on Facebook...???....Dont be surprised when you get low grades...

Students who are logged on to Facebook while studying get significantly lower grades than those who do not, according to psychologists.

A study has found that the exam results of those who used the social networking site while working, even if it was on in the background, were 20 per cent lower than non-users.

According to researchers, the findings put a dent in the theory that young people's brains are better at multitasking on digital gadgets.

"The problem is that most people have Facebook or other social networking sites, their emails and maybe instant messaging constantly running in the background while they are carrying out other tasks," the Daily Mail quoted study author Professor Paul Kirschner as saying.

"Our study, and other previous work, suggests that while people may think constant task-switching allows them to get more done in less time, the reality is it extends the amount of time needed to carry out tasks and leads to more mistakes," he added.

His team studied 219 students aged between 19 and 54 at an American university.

It was observed that the Facebook users had a typical grade point average - a score from zero up to four - of 3.06. Non-users had an average GPA of 3.82.

Those who did not use the site also said they devoted more time to studying, spending an average of 88 per cent longer working outside class.

Three fourth of the Facebook users said they didn't believe spending time on the site affected their academic performance.

The study by Open University in the Netherlands will be published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour.

Lift buttons have 40 times the bacteria in a toilet seat....

A lift button swarms with nearly 40 times as many bacteria as a public toilet seat.

A study carried out in hotels, restaurants, banks, offices and airports found 313 'colony forming units' of bugs on every square centimetre of lift button. The equivalent surface area of toilet seat had only eight units.

The bacteria on the lift buttons could include stomach bugs such as e.coli, researchers say, according to the Daily Mail.

Nicholas Moon from Microban Europe, which carried out the research for the University of Arizona in the US, said: 'In a busy building, a lift button can be touched by dozens of people who will have come into contact with all kinds of bacteria every hour.'

'Even if the buttons are cleaned regularly, the potential for the build up of bacteria is high.'

Previous studies have shown that a typical office desk harbours 400 times more bacteria than a toilet seat and computer keyboards have four times more germs than toilets.

But Professor Hugh Pennington, a leading microbiologist in Britain, said: 'Just because there are bacteria on a lift button it doesn't mean they are harmful to your health.'

'The best way to protect yourself is to wash your hands before you eat or handle food.'

How the Egyptians built their Pyramids..........

A researcher has the answer to an ancient, unsolved puzzle - how the Egyptians erected their giant pyramids.

searchers have been so preoccupied by the weight of the stones that they tend to overlook two major problems: How did the Egyptians know exactly where to put the enormously heavy building blocks? And how was the master architect able to communicate detailed, highly precise plans to a workforce of 10,000 illiterate men?

These were among the questions that confronted Ole J. Bryn, an architect and associate professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) when he began examining Khufu's Great Pyramid in Giza. Khufu's pyramid, better known as the Pyramid of Cheops, consists of 2.3 million limestone blocks weighing roughly 7 million tons. At 146.6 meters high, it held the record as the tallest structure ever built for nearly 4000 years, reports Science Daily.

What Bryn discovered was quite simple. He believes that the Egyptians invented the modern building grid, by separating the structure's measuring system from the physical building itself, thus introducing tolerance, as it is called in today's engineering and architectural professions.

Bryn has studied the plans from the thirty oldest Egyptian pyramids, and discovered a precision system that made it possible for the Egyptians to reach the pyramid's last and highest point, the apex point, with an impressive degree of accuracy.

By exploring and making a plan of the pyramid it is possible to prepare modern project documentation of not just one, but all pyramids from any given period.

As long as the architect knows the main dimensions of a pyramid, he can project the building as he would have done it with a modern building, but with building methods and measurements known from the ancient Egypt, Bryn says.

In a scientific article published May 2010 in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, Bryn discusses aspects that can explain the construction of a multitude of the Egyptian pyramids by taking the building grid, and not the physical building itself, as the starting point for the analysis.

If the principles behind Bryn's drawings are correct, then archaeologists will have a new "map" that demonstrates that the pyramids are not a "bunch of heavy rocks with unknown structures" but, rather, incredibly precise structures.

Ole J. Bryn's findings will be presented and explained at the exhibition The Apex Point in Trondheim from September 13th to October 1st.

A New technique that turns the table aroung of sure death by 90 percent

A ground-breaking technique that freezes bodies to the brink of death could help doctors in emergency surgery by putting patients into a state of suspended animation.

Surgeons are pioneering a method of inducing extreme hypothermia in trauma patients so their bodies shut down entirely during major surgery, giving doctors more time to operate.

The technique helps to reduce the damage done to the brain and other organs while the patient's heart is not beating.

Researchers will begin the first human trials of the technique, which involves replacing a patient's blood with a cold solution to rapidly reduce body temperature.

The cold treatment, being developed at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, will result in patient's bodies being cooled to as low as 10 degrees.

The normal body temperature is 37 degrees and humans usually die rapidly if the core body temperature drops below 22 degrees.

Dr Hasan Alam, the surgeon leading the research, said trials of the technique in animals had shown it to be hugely successful.

"By cooling rapidly in this fashion we can convert almost certain death into a 90 per cent survival rate," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Alam as saying.

New Speed Record by Chinese high speed train......

A high-speed train in China has set a new world speed record during a trial run.

The train hit a maximum speed of 416.6 km per hour on its journey Tuesday between Shanghai and Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, Xinhua reported.

The train is designed to run at a speed of 350 km per hour on the 202-km-long track between the two cities. A one-way journey previously took two hours. But the new train would lessen that to around 40 minutes, officials said.

'It is the world's longest and the fastest, and boasts of the most comprehensive technology. We have an ambition to lead the world in high-speed railway construction,' said He Huawu, chief engineer of the ministry of railways.

China had also set a world record June 24, 2008, with the Beijing-Tianjin high-speed train hitting a top speed of 394.3 km per hour.

The new ability for car charging.....

Manufacturers of hybrid and electric cars face a seemingly insurmountable problem -- heavy batteries that add weight and bulk to vehicle design without boosting its efficiency. Now, Volvo is developing a prototype that uses its body to act as a rechargeable battery.

The futuristic car would be able to store braking energy while it is being driven and also store energy when it is plugged in overnight to recharge.

The three-year project to develop the car was launched earlier this year among Volvo, Imperial College in London and seven other European institutes, reports the Daily Mail.

Imperial College is working on a composite blend of carbon fibres and polymer resin that can store and charge more energy faster than conventional batteries.

The material is extremely strong and pliant, which means it can be shaped for use in building the car's body panels.

Volvo claims that the car's weight can be reduced by 15 percent if steel body panels are replaced with the new material.

Scientists are developing the composite material so it can store more energy and are studying ways of producing the material on an industrial scale. Only in the final stage of the project will the battery be fitted to a car.

'Our role is to contribute expertise on how this technology can be integrated in the future and to input ideas about the advantages and disadvantages in terms of cost and user-friendliness,' says Per-Ivar Sellergren, development engineer at the Volvo Cars Materials Centre.

Initially, the car's spare wheel recess will be converted into a composite battery.

'This is a relatively large structure that is easy to replace. Not sufficiently large to power the entire car, but enough to switch the engine off and on when the car is at a standstill, for instance at traffic lights,' said Sellergren.

If the project is successful, there are many possible application areas.

Mobile phones could be as thin as credit cards and laptops will last far longer without needing to be recharged.

Change from right handed to left handed......using a Magnet

If you are a right-handed person, chances are you will use that hand to pick up a cup of coffee or write, but a new study shows that a magnet on your head could very well make you a leftie.

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to the posterior parietal cortex region of the brain in 33 right-handed volunteers and found that stimulating the left side spurred an increase in their use of the left hand.

The parietal cortex plays a key role in processing spatial relationships and planning movement, and by stimulating it the left hemisphere motor skills are disrupted.

The study's findings show that TMS can manipulate the brain to change plans for which hand to use, paving the way for clinical advances in the rehabilitation of victims of stroke and other brain injuries.

"By understanding this process, we hope to be able to develop methods to overcome learned limb disuse," said Richard Ivry.

"Alien hand syndrome," a neurological disorder in which victims report the involuntary use of their hands, inspired researchers to investigate whether the brain initiates several action plans, setting in motion a competitive process before arriving at a decision.

The study is published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mobile and Writing or Texting

As a nation we are addicted to texting—we love to 'write' on our mobile phones. As the mobile phone becomes an integral part of the lifestyle for the young customer, the demand for devices which allow faster and more convenient texting is growing at a hyper pace. Hence, QWERTY phones are now (along with touch phones) the fastest growing segment in mobiles. This QWERTY keypad emanates from the conventional typewriter format devised in 1873, and is now amongst the fastest growing segments in the mobile industry today.

Nokia envisioned the need way back in 1998 when they launched their first QWERTY phone called the Communicator ( fondly called 'the Brick' because of its size by the geeks). The trend caught on and was followed up by several launches from brands like Palm, Motorola and Nokia themselves. Globally, QWERTY form factor carved out a niche for itself.

The game changer for the QWERTY form factor in India was definitely Blackberry. In 2003, when RIM launched its email centric devices, targeting the Indian CXO, little did one realise that the QWERTY form factor would become aspirational for the common consumer and would fuel the demand for products which looked similar to the Blackberry. Blackberry itself has launched products with true QWERTY alphabet keypads as well as virtual touch keypads. Over time, it is the true QWERTY alphabet (physical) keypad which has grown in popularity.

The evolution of the smartphone, a device that combines the capabilities of a phone and a computer and runs an 'open' operating system, has played a major role in development of QWERTY phones. Unlike the older traditional cellphones that focus on voice calls and text messages, smartphones provide advanced capabilities, such as Web browsing, email and other software applications. 'Open' refers to its ability to add applications developed by the device manufacturers, operators or software developers. What did all this mean for the consumer? It simply meant more power in the hands of the customer to effectively use his mobile device for much more than just voice calls.

Over the last two years, as the demand for the QWERTY form factor has grown, the new Indian handset vendors like Spice, Micromax, Karrbon, etc have launched a large range of QWERTY phones at aggressive price points, driving demand and building up customer traction. It is pertinent to note that most major vendors are providing texting in the Indian regional languages. Moreover, with email becoming more mass market and the non-corporate customer adopting the service, the demand for QWERTY phone continues to grow.

The levers for the growth of this category have been many. For instance, the boom in usage of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter. On the move, these sites need the use of QWERTY keypads to enable ease of use. It helps when handset vendors advertise about these features, encouraging consumers to go online on their mobile phones.

Then, there is the aspiration to be online through email permanently. Affordability of GPRS to rates as low as Rs 5 per day is encouraging customers to use their mobile phones are pocket PCs. Major brands like Nokia are making available email services for life free. What it means is that the customer buys a phone and takes a few minutes to configure his push mail account.

In the days ahead, many of the major brands will offer push mail service. Many brands will also be launching instant messaging (just like Blackberry Messenger) on mobiles.

The writing is on the wall. The mobile phone is performing all that your personal computer would, on the move literally. Walk into any mall, or a airport lounge and the sight of people typing on the mobile phones will be proof enough that the QWERTY phone segment is here to stay.

The writer is CEO, Spice Hotspot

America's rich people

There are two Americas today. In one, people desperately search for work; the unemployment rate stays stubbornly high and the poverty rate increases. In the other, the world of big tech companies, sales are booming and fortunes are growing. The opportunities seem endless.

So it is for the tech kings on the Forbes 400 list of 2010. The fortunes of the 10 richest American technology billionaires rose a combined $13.6 billion in 2010 compared with their net worth on the 2009 Forbes 400 list. Bill Gates tops out the list as the richest (again!), with a net worth that Forbes puts at $54 billion--up $4 billion from a year ago.

Microsoft is one of those companies selling like there's no tomorrow. Its Windows 7 operating system, introduced a year ago, flies off the shelves at the rate of seven copies per second. Those sales, however, have failed to boost Microsoft stock, which is largely unchanged over the last year.

In Pictures: America's Richest Techies

Most of Gates' wealth is outside Microsoft; his stake in the company is worth $16 billion. Much of the remainder of his fortune is managed by Cascade Investments, including his 42% stake in Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. These days Gates spends his time running his philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The biggest gainer in the pack of richest U.S. techies was the wonderboy Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder of social network Facebook. Zuckerberg's fortune more than tripled in the past year, from $2 billion last year to $6.9 billion this year. Private-equity investments in Facebook over the past year put the value of the company at $23 billion. Revenue is expected to top $2 billion this year. Zuckerberg continues to live in a rented house in Palo Alto, Calif.

Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is reaping the benefits of sizzling Kindle sales. The value of Amazon stock climbed more than 30% in the past year, and Bezos' net worth rose $3.8 billion to $12.6 billion. Bezos still has 90% of his net worth tied up in Amazon stock; he sold $400 million of Amazon shares since January 2010. On the side, Bezos is funding aerospace company Blue Origin, which is developing spacecraft in West Texas.

Steve Jobs' Apple has sold 3 million iPads since introducing them in April. And sales of the iPhone continue to boom, despite widely publicized antenna problems in the latest iPhone. (Those problems are remedied with a rubber case that covers the antennas.) But most of Jobs' fortune, which rose $1 billion in the last year to $6.1 billion, lies with the value of the Disney stock he owns--to the tune of $4.4 billion.

Dell is perhaps the tech company struggling the most among its peers. Dell's stock fell 29% in the past year. But most of Michael Dell's $14 billion fortune lies outside the company he founded, in assets managed by MSD Capital, an 80-person firm set up to take care of his wealth. Michael Dell's net worth fell $500 million from a year ago.

"Hey Robot, wash and Dry my hair please......."

Japanese scientists have developed a hair-washing robot that uses 16 robotic fingers and two motorised arms to do the job.

Created at Panasonic Corporation, the robot has been created to replicate the hands of a human hair stylist, and is designed to help with the care of the country's "silver generation".

The arms can scan the head three-dimensionally, measure and record the shape in order to determine the precise amount of pressure in the correct locations.

Eight "fingers" and three motors on every arm independently control the motion and pressure of the massage movements.

"The hair-washing robot was developed to fill the needs of workers at hospitals and health care facilities," The Telegraph quoted a Panasonic spokesman as saying.

"Studies among them revealed their dilemma that they cannot attend to each and every request of the patients, such as shampooing, as it will add another task to the workers who are already burdened with many tasks."

Apple iPad now under pressure even from Blackberry

Blackberry has announced the launch of its tablet computer Playbook, as an answer to Apple's iPad.

The first business-centric device in the tablet market created by Blackberry maker Research In Motion, the smart phone is seen as the phone of choice among this sector.

Since its April launch, the iPad has dominated the space with research firm iSuppli predicting sales of 12 million by the end of the year.

"RIM's Blackberry Playbook tablet looks to be a real challenger to Apple's iPad, playing on its business credentials, rather than being just another joy machine''," the BBC quoted Stuart Miles, editor of mobile technology website Pocket-Lint, as saying.

"Whether RIM can deliver what it promises in the business environment with a selection of new apps on yet another operating system will be the real test though. Either way, it's clear that the battle of the tablets is now full steam ahead," he added.

The Playbook will have a 7-inch screen with front and rear facing cameras to enable video conferencing, Bluetooth and WiFi.

The operating system will be QNX software and not the Blackberry OS 6, to ensure compatibility of the tablet platform with the OS. It will have no 3G capabilities but will enable 3G data connecting by tethering to a Blackberry smartphone.

Although the price has not been announced, it will become commercially available early in 2011.

"What remains to be seen is whether RIM can keep the price realistic for everyday users - despite all the high quality features, a high price tag will put a lot of people off and convince them that a tablet is a superfluous gadget that they don't really need," said Kate Solomon of mobile news and views site Recombu.com.

Athithi dhevo Bhava.......Delhi is seemingly fit to recieve the world

Through the dark clouds of controversy, Delhi residents have begun to see a silver lining - starting with a world-class new airport and an extended and efficient Metro service, significant parts of the capital suddenly seem to have cleaner roads, gleaming bus stops, greener sidewalks, better signages and even ornamental street furniture, thanks to the Commonwealth Games.

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Public Works Department (PWD) have been managing what has been called the 'beautification drive' in the city even though the going has been tough in the harsh glare of the media, a wet monsoon and disease.

The civic bodies have also installed information kiosks, toilet complexes, giant billboards to guide people on routes and basic services in the city that will play host to international athletes, delegates and tourists during the Oct 3-14 Games.

'After all the negative publicity the Games have drawn, it is actually great to see the city ready for it. It is about India's pride,' Delhi resident Dheeraj Sahni told IANS.

'It is a delight to see chaos-free roads in Connaught Place. Cordoned-off streets and grass-laden lanes were never there before. It was only rubble that I saw here,' said Geetanjali Gulati, who works in the central business district.

'This should remain even after the Games,' Gulati said.

Connaught Place had been reeling under heaps of debris. It has taken the civic agencies around two years to give it a makeover, with the removal of roadside shops and widening of inner lanes. Subways in the outer circle, however, are still under construction.

Old Delhi, famous for its food and old world charm, has also got a much-needed facelift. Roadside pavements have been cleared, giving visitors respite from narrow and choked lanes.

The Delhi University area, where accommodation is being provided to players and visitors during the Games, wears a new look. In hostels dilapidated furniture has been replaced with new furniture.

'Colleges would remain closed, but it is great to see the entire north campus go through this overhaul. Thanks to Games, the university looks great,' said Archana Tiwari, a student of Miranda House in Delhi University.

The city of 16 million people has also hidden away many an eyesore behind giant panels and billboards.

'We have wanted to give this look to Delhi since a long time. The Commonwealth Games gave us the perfect platform,' Deep Mathur, spokesperson of the MCD, told IANS

Giving Delhi a new look has come at a cost of Rs.16,000 crore ($3.5 billion), including the construction of some Games venues.

Of this, Rs.270 crore has gone into the Public Works Department (PWD) revamping 80 km of roads. The work includes street-scaping and beautification of areas near the venues of the Games, construction of fly-overs and foot overbridges and widening of roads.

The last four days have been extremely crucial for the authorities as, after many days of continuous downpour, there were no rains, enabling a last-minute clean up.

The swanky T3 terminal at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, which became operational in July, has been a pleasant surpirse for visitors, with its plush lounges, intricate landscaping and smoother operations.

The Metro which is serving as a lifeline for residents amid traffic restrictions on Delhi's roads has connected all the 11 prominent Games venues. It is also extending operations ahead of the Games, aiming to open the Central Secretariat-Badarpur link.

History too is set to beckon touristsm, with at least 46 old monuments revamped to showcase the rich heritage of this ancient city. Cafeterias and souvenir kiosks have come up at Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Humayun's Tomb and Purana Qila.

Glowing in their pristine beauty at night will be Purana Qila, Khairul Manzil Mosque and Safdarjung Tomb, as these are being specially lit up.

With dedicated Games lanes and traffic restrictions in place, a sizeable number of private buses have been replaced by DTC buses.

'We are prepared to manage the traffic well during the sports event. Traffic cops are deputed all over the city to ensure smooth and safe passage to the commuters,' said Rajan Bhagat, Delhi police spokesperson.

The Organising Committee (OC) and the Delhi Government have tied up in a 'joint marketing programme' whereby a two-kilometre radius around the Games venues has been handed over to the committee for exclusive branding.

The Games are India's biggest sporting event after the 1982 Asian Games. Nearly 7,000 participants and officials from 71 countries and territories are expected to attend the event.

India can and it seems India will...

With less than a week left for the Commonwealth Games, Harris Mbulelo Majeke, South African High Commissioner to India on Monday, said that he is optimistic that India would host a memorable Commonwealth Games. Majeke announced this after a part of the South African team arrived in the capital.

India officials are racing against time to ensure preparations are complete after facing a slew of international criticism over filthy accommodation in the Games village.

Now there is a reason to laugh everyday

Laughter is as good as exercise in promoting health and a sense of well-being, a new study says.

Lee S. Berk, preventive care specialist and researcher at Loma Linda University's Schools of Allied Health (SAHP) and Medicine, and Stanley Tan have come up with the study.

They have been studying the human body's response to mirthful laughter and have found that laughter helps optimise many of the functions of various body systems.

Berk and his colleagues were the first to establish that laughter helps optimise the hormones in the endocrine system, including decreasing the levels of cortisol and epinephrine which lead to stress reduction.

They have also shown that laughter has a positive effect on modulating components of the immune system, including increased production of antibodies and activation of the body's protective cells, including T-cells and especially Natural Killer cells' killing activity of tumour cells.

Their studies have shown that repetitious 'mirthful laughter,' which they call Laughercise, causes the body to respond in a way similar to moderate physical exercise, says a Loma Linda release.

Laughercise enhances your mood, decreases stress hormones, enhances immune activity, lowers bad cholesterol and systolic blood pressure, and raises good cholesterol (HDL).

As Berk explains: 'We are finally starting to realise that our everyday behaviours and emotions are modulating our bodies in many ways.' His latest research expands the role of laughter even further.

Berk along with Jerry Petrofsky at Loma Linda University presented their findings at the Experimental Biology conference in Anaheim, CA.

A Car that gives out oxygen!!

Taking cue from the plants' ability to photosynthesise, Chinese automaker Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation has developed a new concept car that could take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

SAIC, which has a partnership wtih General Motors in China, showed designs for the photosynthesizing YeZ Concept Car recently at Expo 2010 in Shanghai.

YeZ (pronounced "yea-zi") is Mandarin Chinese for "leaf," and it is the apt title for the open buggy-like vehicle, which has a roof shaped like a leaf only, reports Discovery News.

The technical details haven't been articulated, but according to a report in Xinhua, YeZ designer Ma Zhengkun has said that the roof "absorbs solar energy and transforms it into electricity while spinning rotors on the four wheels generate power from the wind."

According to CNET Asia blogger Juniper Foo, the two-seater car would have a "metal-organic framework," which would work to absorb CO2 and water, turning them into electricity that would get stored in a lithium-ion battery.

The New iPhone 4G!!?!

Almost a month after an iPhone 4G prototype was found in a US bar, reports of discovering a second next-generation prototype of the gadget in Vietnam are making rounds.

The secret gadget, identified by technology experts as being similar to a version found recently in a Silicon Valley bar, was given to a mobile phone accessory dealer in Ho Chi Minh City.

However, it remains unclear how the device, which has a front facing camera and has the distinctive Apple markings, arrived in Vietnam or if it is actually an Apple product.

Some claimed it might be a fake Chinese model, reports the Telegraph.

And if the discovery is confirmed, it would mark a second serious breach in Apple's legendary wall of secrecy in as many months.

In March, a technology news blog, Gizmodo, published details of an "invaluable" 4G prototype after it bought it from a blogger who found it in the American bar.

It created a furore after details emerged last week that Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder, personally tried to stop its publication.

Lawyers for the 55-year-old multi-billionaire claimed publication of the new generation phone's secret features would be "immensely damaging" to the technology giant.

The website, which is owned by Gawker Media, was handed to the website by a 21 year-old blogger, Brian Hogan, who sold it for 5,000 dollars.

And now, a Silicon Valley police task force is investigating the website after the company, roughly valued at 242 billion pounds, claimed the prototype had been stolen.

The latest pictures and video of an iPhone 4G were published online by the Vietnamese Web site Taoviet last week after they were posted by the dealer, Tran Manh Hiep.

The phone in the photos, are almost identical to the one which was lost in March and published by Gizmodo, the New York-based website.

Apple is due to release the 4G iPhone in the summer.

The Black box

Usually painted bright orange to help easy retrieval, a black box is a combination of two devices mounted at the rear of an aircraft not the cockpit, since that is the area normally least affected during air crashes, experts explain.

It is called black box because of the tragic circumstances in which the system is generally retrieved and has nothing to do with the colour of its outer casing.

In aviation parlance, it is actually a loose term used for two crucial pieces of equipment -- the digital cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder -- that give crucial inputs to investigators on the causes of air mishaps.

One device digitally records all conversations inside the cockpit and those with the air traffic controllers, among its other uses, and gives vital clues to the cause of any air disaster.

The other has the history of the aircraft's flight details, such as acceleration, engine thrust, airspeed, altitude, rudder position, which are also vital for crash probes.

A sturdy system the size of a shoebox, it has a reflective tape on its exterior and can withstand extreme temperatures. It has a solid steel encasing and heat-resistant material to withstand heavy impact and razing fire, the experts said.

The box also has an underwater locating device, which gets activated immediately upon contact with water and helps in its retrieval should an aircraft sink in a water body.

'The recorded data can be analysed for the purpose of checking deviations in flight parameters beyond acceptable limits which are critical to flight safety,' says one of the manuals compiled by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Experts at the DGCA will decode the black box from the Air India aircraft in the national capital. If for some reason, the data retrieval becomes difficult, they will take the help of aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

The US-based manufacturer has already dispatched a team of experts to assist in the technical investigations.

Jose Mourinho likely to join Real Madrid

After guiding Inter Milan to a Champions League final win over Bayern Munich that sealed his second career Treble, Jose Mourinho admitted he was 'more likely to leave than stay' and is interested in joining Real Madrid.

The Portuguese became only the third coach to win Europe's premier competition with two different clubs - he won it with Porto in 2004 - and now he wants to go one better.

'I want to be the only coach to win the Champions League with three different clubs.'It's more likely that I will leave rather than stay. The Champions League I won at Porto (2004) was my last game there and this time it will almost certainly be my last game for Inter. I want another challenge in my career,' Mourinho was quoted as saying by Rai TV.

'It's not definite that I'll go but I want new risks, new experiences, and now is the moment to decide.'

He also hinted that Real Madrid are willing to take him.

'Great season, incredible season. But at this moment I have not many words to describe how I feel because it's almost for sure that I will leave. Real Madrid is the only club that wants me. It is an enormous club, a club that wants the same as me; I want to win, I want to feel important, I want to keep winning.

'My target now is to win another championship where I have never won it and another Champions League... And then I return to England,' said Mourinho.

Air India flight crashes during landing in Manglore

The Mangalore crash may not have come at a more inopportune time for National Civil Aviation Company of India or NACIL, the firm that runs national carrier Air India. Decades of mismanagement and under-investment had saddled the Maharaja with losses of over Rs 12,000-crore and a debt burden of around Rs 17,000-crore. With aggressive competition from private airlines chipping away at its once dominant market position, NACIL had been kept alive by government grants, even while the airline's management had been given a stiff deadline to effect a turnaround in its ailing finances only last year.

State-owned Air India faces the challenge of saving its brand and reputation following the crash of its no-frills flight to the coastal city of Mangalore from Dubai. While the reason for the crash is yet to be established, travellers generally associate a disaster with the brand for a long time.

"With this brand equity of the airline would further go down," aviation expert Jayesh Desai said. Faced with mounting losses, the airline had asked the government to help it stay afloat. The government has provided Rs 800 crore to the flag carrier in February against the airline's demand of Rs 5,000 crore. NACIL was formed in August 2007 after the merger of Indian and Air India.

The tragic incident on Saturday morning is expected to damage the airline's reputation even as it was getting busy to mend its badly battered financials and operations. There were signs of revival as NACIL started cutting its losses in the past few months on the back of an economic recovery and a concomitant growth in air traffic. "The incident would have an impact on the airline if the investigation shows that there was negligence on part of airline or pilot training was inadequate," Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) India head Kapil Kaul said.

A senior aviation industry official said pilots needed special clearance for flying to and from the two south Indian cities of Calicut and Mangalore. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna told news agencies, "It was known and generally understood that the Mangalore airport and the runway is a very tricky runway and the skills of the pilot would be put to the maximum test while landing in Mangalore. Our worst fears have come true."

A Bajaj Allianz executive said insurance companies may ask for a higher premium from the airline the next time it goes for fleet insurance. Asked if there were various instances of B737-800 aircraft crashing, Boeing India president Dinesh Keskar said, "There has certainly not been any other case in India."

Keskar said that a Boeing team from Seattle, the headquarters of the American planemaker, would fly to India as soon as practically possible to help the investigators.

Light shedded on the evolution of Lizards

London, May 10 (ANI): A new research has confirmed that competition, and not predation, is the primary selective force in island lizards.

In one of its kind ecological field experiment, entire islands in the Bahamas were wrapped with netting, snakes introduced to two other islands and the fitness of hundreds of lizards was measured using treadmills.

The research has resolved a long-standing question about the evolution of lizards.

As part of their research, Ryan Calsbeek and Robert Cox of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, excluded predators from two small, uninhabited islands in the Bahamas by wrapping the islands - about 1000 square metres each - with netting to keep out predatory birds. Meanwhile, they enhanced predation on two other islands by introducing lizard-eating snakes.

Also, they seeded one of each pair of islands with high densities of Anolis sagrei lizards, and the other with lower densities of the animals.

Before release, they marked and measured each one and tested its stamina by running it to exhaustion on a treadmill.

"Your Lance Armstrong lizards can run about 7 minutes. Your overweight field-biologist lizard runs for about 2 minutes. We spent several hours a day just running the animals, and we did that day in and day out for several weeks," New Scientist quoted Calsbeek, as saying.

After a period of four months, the experts returned to the island and recaptured every remaining lizard.

Larger, longer-legged and higher-stamina lizards had survived better than smaller, wimpier ones on higher-density islands where competition was more intense, they found.

However, these traits did not affect the chance of survival in the face of predation. This supports the idea that competition, and not predation, is the primary selective force in these island lizards, says Calsbeek.

David Reznick, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Riverside, said: "To me, that's surprising. I would have thought that predation would matter."

The study has been published in the Journal Nature.

Facebook Danger

Facebook may be enthralling and captivating, but it carries dangers that are far from obvious.

An expert in online privacy has drawn attention to the five dangers of sharing information on social networking site Facebook.

Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online, claims marketing efforts by the company often results in a compromise on account holders' privacy, reports CBS News.

Goodchild noted five risks of using Facebook on 'The Early Show on Saturday Morning.' They are:

1.Your information is being shared with third parties

2. Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign

3. Facebook ads may contain malware

4. Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable

5. Scammers are creating fake profiles

Earlier this week, 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that the site manipulates privacy settings to make users'' personal information available for commercial use.

India hoping for a miracle

Facing the risk of an early exit, India will not only have to produce a miracle against Sri Lanka in their last Super Eights match in St Lucia on Tuesday but also hope for a favour from Australia if they aspire to enter the semifinals of the Twenty20 cricket World Cup.

After slumping to the 49-run loss against Australia in their first Group F Super Eight match, India's semifinal hopes received a severe battering yesterday when Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his men fell short by 14 runs against the West Indies.

Despite the two defeats, India are mathematically still in the fray for a semifinal place. But for that to happen, Dhoni's men will first have to beat Sri Lanka tomorrow and then hope Australia drub the West Indies by a big margin, which will see three teams locked with same points in Group F.

In such a scenario, the net run-rate (NRR) will be brought into action to pick which one of these three teams -- India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies -- qualify for the semi-finals.

To make matter worse for India, they would have to win by a handsome margin against the islanders tomorrow to bolster their net run-rate, which is a dismal -1.578.

Despite losing to Australia by 81 runs yesterday, Sri Lanka have a NRR of -0.600 while the West Indies' NRR is -1.057.

India could have avoided this mathematical dilemma had their batsmen executed better skills or been prudent while handling short balls.

Cramped for time and space, they have injudiciously played the pull shot, though not being physically and technically well equipped to challenge such hostile deliveries.

As the frazzled Indian stars may have realised by now, merely throwing the bat around at short balls, without getting inside the line or under the ball, doesn't fetch runs.

It needs grit, gumption, skill and prudence to face such adversity, especially on a bouncy and fast track.

"When we step out of the sub-continent and play on bouncy tracks, we get into trouble. In the other forms of the game, we can let the ball go by. But you can't afford to let the ball sail past you in the Twenty20 format as the pressure will increase," said India skipper Dhoni, lamenting his batsmen's inability to combat the short-pitched deliveries.

However, India can take heart from the fact that they will be playing the Lankans at the less-boucy Beausejour Cricket Ground here where they recorded both their victories in the first round.

To top it, though Sri Lanka have three quicks in Lasith Malinga, Chanaka Welagedara and Angelo Mathews, they certainly would not be as devastating as the Australian or the Caribbean pacers.

Most importantly, India will have to get over the two defeats and play positively tomorrow to achieve their goal of comprehensively beating Sri Lanka and then hope the NRR could possibly provide them the leeway to enter the semifinals.

But considering the way his batting order has performed, Dhoni is not too optimistic of India making the last four stage of the tournament.

"Hoping to qualify from this situation (two defeats) would be asking for too much. We will go out and play positive cricket. If we can win, we will take it as a consolation," Dhoni had said, reflecting the sodden mood of the camp.

As statistics reveal, only two batsmen -- Suresh Raina (101) and Rohit Sharma (79 not out) have scored in the excess of 50 runs in the event, belying Dhoni's belief that his batting line-up has the fire-power and depth to surpass targets of 160 to 170.

However, trouncing Sri Lanka is not going to be a lark in the park, as Kumar Sangakarra's men would come all guns blazing to qualify for the semis, especially after slumping to the morale-shattering defeat againstAustralia last night.

The Lankans would be eyeing nothing less than a victory to avoid any mathematical equation and if they do so, the Islanders, in all probability, will face Engalnd in the first semifinal on May 13.

Teams (From):

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Yusuf Pathan, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Murali Vijay, R Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Yuvraj Singh, Piyush Chawla.

Sri Lanka: Kumar Sangakkara (capt), Dinesh Chandimal, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Chinthaka Jayasinghe, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela Jayawardene, Suraj Randiv, Chamara Kapugedera, Nuwan Kulasekara, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Ajantha Mendis, Thissara Perera, Thilan Thushara, Chanaka Welegedara.

Match starts at 10.30 pm (IST).

New Zealander turns Bull poo into paper

Wellington, May 9 (ANI): A Kiwi artist is said to have found a way to turn bull manure into writing paper.

Andrew Reilly, from Bulls, Rangitikei, New Zealand, found that he had an affinity for papermaking during his studies towards his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Whanganui UCOL.

In his research, he found different cultures were making paper from many fibrous materials, including kangaroo poo, wombat faeces and elephant manure.

Back home, he got a couple of bull farmers to allow him to clear their paddocks, but figuring out how to turn raw poo into paper took a bit longer - 15 months in fact, for the smooth transformation to be honed.

First Reilly has to rehydrate the bull patties, covering them with litres of water in plastic buckets and leaving them to soak.

"There's fibre from grass in there, the bull doesn't actually process the fibre," Stuff.co.nz quoted Reilly as explaining.

"It needs a good couple of weeks to soften up the fibre and start breaking down," he said.

After a fortnight, during which the mixture is stirred occasionally, he sieves the waste from the fibre, the mixture is then cooked in a caustic solution, washed, blended, bleached, sieved out onto a wire frame, and set out to dry.

Most of the paper Reilly manufactures for his business Tenax papers is made from the more conventional material harakeke, or New Zealand flax.

He hopes the bull paper will be a hit with tourists or backpackers, who may be looking for a quirky gift. It's also proven popular with those looking for an original, handmade effect.

"I have had people who have bought it not because it's bullshit, because they think it's beautiful," he said.

And if not, at least friends are amused with being able to legitimately call him a "bullshit artist", he added.