Alcoholic Content of Beverages

Beverage	Alcohol content (%)
Beers (lager)	3.2 - 4.0
Ales	4.5
Porter	6.0
Stout	6.0 - 8.0
Malt Liquor	3.2 - 7.0
Sake	14.0 - 16.0
Table wines	7.1 - 14.0
Sparkling wines	8.0 - 14.0
Fortified wines	14.0 - 24.0
Aromatized wines	15.5 - 20.0
Brandies	40.0 - 43.0
Whiskies	40.0 - 75.0
Vodkas	40.0 - 50.0
Gin	40.0 - 48.5
Rum	40.0 - 95.0
Aquavit	35.0 - 45.0
Okolehao	40.0
Tequila	45.0 - 50.5

Beverages and the sources

The names of some beverages are determined by the source of the material fermented. In general, a beverage fermented from a starch-heavy source (grain or potato), in which the starch must first be broken down into sugars (by malting, for example), will be called a beer; if the mash is distilled, the end product is a spirit. Wine is made from fermented grapes.

Grains

Source	Name of fermented beverage	Name of distilled beverage
barley	beer, ale, barley wine	Scotch whisky, Irish whiskey, shōchū (mugijōchū) (Japan)
rye	rye beer, kvass	rye whiskey, vodka (Poland), Roggenkorn (type of Korn, from Germany)
corn	chicha, corn beer	bourbon whiskey, vodka (only a few, like Tito's from Texas)
sorghum	burukutu (Nigeria), pito (Ghana), merisa (southern Sudan), bilibili (Chad, Central African Republic, Cameroon)	maotai, gaoliang, certain other types of baijiu (China).
wheat	wheat beer	vodka, wheat whisky, Weizenkorn (type of Korn, from Germany)
rice	Ruou gao (Vietnam), huangjiu, choujiu (China), sake (Japan), sonti (India), makgeolli (Korea), tuak (Borneo Island), thwon (Nepal)	rice baijiu (China), shōchū (komejōchū) and awamori (Japan), soju (Korea) (some soju also made from potatoes),
millet	millet beer (sub-saharan Africa), tongba (Tibet)
buckwheat		shōchū (sobajōchū) (Japan)

Juice of fruits

Source	Name of fermented beverage	Name of distilled beverage
juice of grapes,	wine	brandy, Cognac (France), Vermouth, Armagnac (France), Branntwein (Germany), pisco (Chile & Perú), Rakia also Rakiya, Rakija, Rakı (The Balkans, Turkey), singani (Bolivia), Arak (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan)
juice of apples	cider (US: 'Hard Cider'), apfelwein	applejack (or apple brandy), calvados, cider
juice of pears	perry, or pear cider; poire (France)	pear brandy, Eau-de-vie (France), pálinka (Hungary)
juice of plums	plum wine	slivovitz, tzuica, palinca, umeshu, pálinka
juice of pineapples	tepache (Mexico)
bananas or plantains	Chuoi hot (Viet Nam), urgwagwa (Uganda, Rwanda), mbege (with millet malt; Tanzania), kasikisi (with sorghum malt; Democratic Republic of the Congo)
gouqi	gouqi jiu (China)	gouqi jiu (China)
ginger with sugar, ginger with raisins	ginger ale, ginger beer and ginger wine
Myrica rubra	yangmei jiu (China)	yangmei jiu (China)
pomace	pomace wine	Raki (Turkey) tsipouro, tsikoudia (Greece), grappa (Italy), Trester (Germany), marc (France), zivania (Cyprus), aguardente (Portugal), tescovină (Romania), Arak (Iraq)

Vegetables

Source	Name of fermented beverage	Name of distilled beverage
juice of ginger root	ginger beer (Botswana)
potato and/or grain	potato beer	vodka: potato mostly used in Poland and Germany, otherwise grain or potato. A strong drink called aquavit or brännvin in Sweden, akvavit in Denmark and akevitt in Norway, and brennivín in (Iceland) is made from potato or grain. Actually, vodka is Russian for "little water" and can be done out of almost anything. - In Ireland, Poitín (or poteen) is a recently legalised drink made from potatoes.
sweet potato		shōchū (imojōchū) (Japan)
cassava/manioc/yuca	nihamanchi (South America), kasiri (sub-saharan Africa), chicha (Ecuador) Can be fermented from 3 to 10 days for strength)
juice of sugarcane, or molasses	basi, betsa-betsa (regional)	rum (Caribbean), pinga or cachaça (Brasil), aguardiente, guaro
juice of agave	pulque	tequila, mezcal, raicilla

Other

Source	Name of fermented beverage	Name of distilled beverage
sap of palm	coyol wine (Central America), tembo (sub-saharan Africa), toddy (Indian subcontinent)
honey	mead (Poland), teg (Ethiopia)	distilled mead (mead brandy or honey brandy)
milk	kumis, kefir, blaand	Araka
sugar	kilju (Finland)	shōchū (kokutō shōchū): made from brown sugar (Japan) Courtsey and more information: http://en.wikipedia.org

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नेटवर्किग

नेटवर्किंग शब्द नेट यानी जाल से बना है, जिसका अर्थ है दो या दो से अधिक चीजों को आपस में जोडना। कम्प्यूटर के संदर्भ में नेटवर्किग का मतलब है दो या दो से अधिक कम्प्यूटरों को एक कंपनी, एक शहर, एक देश के विभिन्न स्थानों को आपस में जोडना व उनके संस्थानों को एक्सेस करना तथा विश्व के किसी भी कोने में स्थित कंप्यूटरों को आपस में जोडना। इंटरनेट मोबाइल कम्युनिकेशन, सैटेलाइट कम्युनिकेशन नेटवर्किंग का ही नतीजा है। कम्प्यूटर नेटवर्किंग को निम्न भागों में बांटा जा सकता है :

लोकल एरिया नेटवर्किंग (लैन) : इस तरह की नेटवर्किंग को लैन के नाम से जाना जाता है। इस तरह की नेटवर्किंग की मदद से किसी एक इमारत में रखे कम्प्यूटरों को आपस में जोडा जाता है। इसके तहत जोडे जाने वाले कम्प्यूटरों के बीच की दूरी 100 मीटर से ज्यादा नहीं होनी चाहिए। इसका कारण यह है कि इस तरह की नेटवर्किंग में कंप्यूटरों को केबल द्वारा एक-दूसरे से जोडा जाता है। ज्यादा दूरी होने पर डाटा के लॉस हो जाने की आशंका रहती है।

मेट्रोपोलिटन एरिया नेटवर्किंग (मैन) : इसमें वायरलेस तथा वायर दोनों तकनीकों का इस्तेमाल किया जाता है। इस तरह की नेटवर्किग में एक शहर के अलग-अलग इलाकों में स्थित विभिन्न इमारतों या कंपनियों में रखे कम्प्यूटरों को आपस में जोडा जाता है। इसमें सामान्यत: ऑप्टिकल केबल, फाइबर केबल, राउटर, स्विच, रिपीटर इत्यादि एडवांस इस्ट्रूमेंट का उपयोग किया जाता है।

वाइड एरिया नेटवर्क (वैन) : वाइड एरिया नेटवर्क के तहत अलग-अलग शहरों या देशों में कार्यरत कम्प्यूटरों को जोडा जाता है। इसमें भौगोलिक दूरी कोई मायने नहीं रखती, क्योंकि यह पूर्णतया वायरलेस टेक्नोलॉजी पर आधारित होता है। इसमें कम्प्यूटरों को सैटेलाइट, राउटर, आईएसडीएन स्विच, वैन लाइनस, (ISDN, X-25, ATM, Frame Relay etc.) द्वारा आपस में जोडा जाता है।

स्टोरेज एरिया नेटवर्क (सैन) : इस तरह की नेटवर्किंग का उपयोग प्राय: बडी कंपनियों तथा इंटरनेट सर्विसेस प्रदान करने वाली कंपनियों द्वारा किया जाता है। इसके तहत एक सर्वर तथा स्टोरेज डिवाइसों को अनेक सर्वरों और स्टोरेज डिवाइसों के साथ सीधे जोडा जाता है।

Brightest Star

The Peony nebula (reddish cloud around white circle) near the galactic centre is home to a star that rivals the stellar powerhouse Eta Carinae in brightness
(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Potsdam Univ)

The star had been discovered previously in the Peony nebula near the galaxy's dusty centre is Milky Way's brightest star. But infrared observations taken from the ground and with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have pierced the dust to reveal just how bright the star is.

It boasts a wattage of about 3.2 million Suns. That is close to the output of Eta Carinae, the current record holder, which shines with the light of about 4.7 million Suns. However, measuring stellar brightness is not an exact science, and the stars may actually radiate similar amounts of light.

It's possible that the galaxy's brightest star has not even been discovered yet. Both Eta Carinae and the Peony nebula star are evolved blue giants known as "Wolf-Rayet" stars, which have masses of 100 to 200 Suns.The Peony nebula star lies about 26,000 light years away and Eta Carinae about 7500 light years away.

Journal reference: Astronomy & Astrophysics (forthcoming)

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14328-whos-the-brightest-star-of-all.html

Biggest Stars

The Pistol Star appears as the bright white dot in the center of the image shown left.

The largest star measured in solar diameters is either VV Cephei or VY Canis Majoris (right image)

"What's the Biggest Star in the Universe"? Generally students ask this question.

I may give an easy answer, the Universe is a big place, and there's no way we can possibly know what the biggest star is. That didn't go over so well.

However the question may be refined:- What's the biggest star that we know of ?

Pistol Star: The largest known star, in terms of mass and brightness is called the Pistol Star. It is believed to be 100 times as massive as our Sun, and 10,000,000 times as bright! In 1990, a star named the Pistol Star was known to lie at the center of the Pistol Nebula in the Milky Way Galaxy. Observations from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1997 confirmed the relationship between the star and the nebula.

Eta Carinae: One huge, famous star in our galaxy is the monster Eta Carinae, located approximately 7,500 light years away, and weighing in at 100 solar masses. It's 4 million times as bright as the Sun. Most stars blow with a solar wind, losing mass over time. But Eta Carinae is so large that it casts off 500 times the mass of the Earth every year. With so much mass lost, it's very difficult for astronomers to accurately measure where the star ends, and its stellar wind begins.

So the best answer astronomers have right now is that Eta Carinae's radius is 400 times the size of the Sun. Eta Carinae should explode pretty soon as one of the most spectacular supernovae humans have ever seen.

VY Canis Majoris: The largest known star is VY Canis Majoris; a red hypergiant star in the constellation Canis Major, located about 5,000 light-years from Earth. University of Minnesota professor Roberta Humphreys recently calculated its upper size at more than 2,100 times the size of the Sun. Placed in our Solar System, its surface would extend out past the orbit of Saturn. Light takes more than 8 hours to cross its circumference!

Some astronomers disagree, and think that VY Canis Majoris might be smaller; merely 600 times the size of the Sun, extending past the orbit of Mars.

That's the biggest star that we know of, but the Milky way probably has dozens of stars that are even larger, obscured by gas and dust so we can't see them.

But let's see if we can work out the original question, what's the biggest star in the Universe?

Obviously, it's impossible for us to actually find it - the Universe is a big place, and there's no way we can peer into every corner. The largest stars are the coolest. So even though Eta Carinae is the most luminous star we know of, it's extremely hot - 25,000 Kelvin - and so only a mere 400 solar radii.

The largest stars will be the cool supergiants. For example, VY Canis Majoris is only 3,500 Kelvin. A really big star would be even cooler. At 3,000 Kelvin, a cool supergiant would be 2,600 times the size of the Sun.

Whatsoever,

Lots of half-truths and old information are being recycled partly because people don't read the question. The largest star measured in solar diameters is either VV Cephei or VY Canis Majoris,

As the table below makes clear,

LIST OF THE LARGEST KNOWN STARS
Star name / solar diameter (Sun = 1)

1st VY Canis Majoris (Humphreys Model) 1800-2100
2nd VV Cephei 1600-1900
3rd V354 Cephei 1520
4th KW Sagitarii 1460
5th KY Cygni 1420
6th Mu Cephei (Herschel's "Garnet Star") 1420
7th V509 Cassiopeiae 910
8th V838 Monocerotis 800
9th V382 Carinae 747
10th Antares (Alpha Scorpii) 700
11th Betelgeuse (Alpha Orionis) 650

or 11th VY Canis Majoris (Massey-Levesque-Plez Model) 600

(in which case the rest are all one place higher)

Other candidates mentioned by other contributors are:

24th Eta Carinae 400
28th The Pistol Star 340
30th Deneb 220

Source(s):

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070709120433AAmaZHk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lar...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VY_Canis_Ma...

Rainbow

Internal Reflectance and Refraction
The traditional description of the rainbow is that it is made up of seven colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
Actually, the rainbow is a whole continuum of colors from red to violet and even beyond the colors that the eye can see.
The colors of the rainbow arise from two basic facts:

Sunlight is made up of the whole range of colors that the eye can detect. The range of sunlight colors, when combined, looks white to the eye. This property of sunlight was first demonstrated by Sir Isaac Newton in 1666.

Light of different colors is refracted by different amounts when it passes from one medium (air, for example) into another (water or glass, for example).

When the light paths through a raindrop are traced for red and blue light, one finds that the angle of deviation is different for the two colors because blue light is bent or refracted more than that of red light. When we see a rainbow and its band of colors we are looking at light refracted and reflected from different raindrops, some viewed at an angle of 42 degrees; some, at an angle of 40 degrees, and some in between. This is illustrated in the Figure, adapted from Johnson's Physical Meteorology. This rainbow of two colors would have a width of almost 2 degrees (about four times larger than the angular size as the full moon).

It is interesting to note that even though blue light is refracted more than red light in a single drop, we see the blue light on the inner part of the arc because we are looking along a different line of sight that has a smaller angle (40 degrees) for the blue.

What are the 78 differences between women and men?

Masculinity gene revealed

Scientists decoding the human genome have discovered that just 78 genes separate men from women. But what are they?

It's the Y chromosome which makes men men, and now scientists have a better idea than ever before what makes it up.

But to help them on their way, and in an effort to help everyone understand the differences between the sexes, here are the suggestions of BBC News Online readers about what those 78 genes might be.

Everyone's got their own ideas about it - even if it only involves relative abilities at reading maps and putting down toilet seats.

To get the ideas flowing, the BBC's Jeremy Vine, Jenni Murray, Anna Ford and Stuart Maconie (right) chipped in with their thoughts.

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN
MEN	WOMEN
Women understand colour. They seem to know what to wear all the time. Men just think red is nice, pink is nice, so why not have them together? Jeremy Vine	Women have the Oh dear, the toilet paper is on its last sheet; must replace it immediately gene. This is entirely absent in men who have the Oh s..t! Can you pass me a toilet roll, love? gene! Jenni Murray
Men have no opinions about curtains. Stuart Maconie	On being told that someone has bought a new car women usually ask what colour it is - men ask what sort is it. Anna Ford
Women have the If you need to be told I am not going to tell you gene David Bergin, Switzerland	Women know instinctively what is dangerous or not recommended for babies in their care. Men, generally speaking, do not. Sian Lindsey, Netherlands
Men like to have all their stuff (DVDs, CDs, etc) on show to impress their mates. Women like to hide things in cupboards. Mark Nelson, UK	Women have a built in calendar gene - we remember birthdays, anniversaries and appointments effortlessly. Linsday, UK
Ask a woman in the street how to get somewhere and she will direct via shops. Ask a man and it will be via pubs. Fred, UK	Women put things on the bottom stair to take up next time she has to go upstairs. Men just step over them until told to pick them up Karen Kelsey, UK
Men appreciate the importance of a 42 inch plasma screen. Women do not. Jonathan, UK	A multi-tasking gene is clearly only owned by women - men can never prepare dinner so that everything is ready at the same time. Kelly , UK
Women can use sex to get what they want. Men cannot, as sex is what they want. Eoin Dempsey, Ireland	Women pick up on subtleties and then think about them. Men need things explained IN CAPITAL LETTERS before the message gets through. Morag, Edinburgh
Men speak in sentences. Women speak in paragraphs. Steve Munoz, US	At weddings, women cry then get drunk. Men get drunk, then cry. Debby, UK
For men, 2am is time for sleep. For women, 2am is time for a discussion about where our relationship is going. Luke, UK	When faced with flat-pack furniture, men never read the manual. Yet they spend hours reading manuals for cars or bikes they will never own. Linda, UK
Men can store useless information. Like the top speed of a car they are never going to drive, let alone own. Rob, UK	Men can balance an infinite amount of rubbish in the bin, without noticing it is full. Yvonne Eccles, England
Only women can understand other women. Jon Lipscombe	Women know when all you want is a glass of wine, nodding sympathy and a good whinge. Men offer a solution. Wendy, UK
Woman have the diary gene. (And no, they do not make your bums look big). Ben Appleby, UK	Women are missing the parking a car in between two straight white lines in an empty car park gene Jane, UK
If you told a woman that you had just returned from a trip to the surface of the Moon, she would show her interest by asking who you had gone with. Howard, UK	Men do not even bother to look for something, then ask where it is and hope that it was the woman who put it away Kate , Isle of Man
When men want something they ask for it. When women want something they make a point distantly related to the subject and wait for a response. David Lawson, England	Women have an ability to make men think they are in charge. Sheila, UK
Men need a round of applause for emptying the dishwasher. Women think E on the petrol gauge means enough. Peter Richmond, Canada	Men use I or me when they should use we or us. Women use we or us when they should use I or me. Clair, England
Men have a gene which makes them blissfully unaware of impending emotional outbursts, but which sometimes backfires resulting in the registering of physical pain. Gary, UK	Women have the we must name our car gene. Louise, UK
Men refuse to pay more than £5.00 for a hair cut as it is not that important. Mark Tomlinson	Men have the capacity to sleep through most sounds, whether it is a baby crying, dog barking, or doorbell ringing. Val Soanes
Men know that common house spiders are far less dangerous than scorpions. John S, UK	Women drive on the stretch of road they can see. Men move through the landscape by car. Anne Taylor, UK
Women enjoy planning a wedding. Tom Howes, UK	Men have an anorak gene, which triggers a lecture on thermo dynamics when asked a simple question requiring a yes or no answer Deborah, England
Women eat curry if they like it. Men eat curry to prove they can. Paul Angel, England	Men manage to sit in public places with their legs wide open without noticing how startlingly unattractive it is and how they get in the way. Jane Penrose, UK
Women could never invent weapons that kill, only ones that make you feel really bad and guilty until you surrender Dan, UK	Women are the only ones with the noticing gene - we notice when something is dirty/nearly empty/out of place and then we bring into play the doing something about it now gene! Sarah Wilson, UK
Men can watch an entire film without having to ask who is that, what does he do? Alistair, UK	Women know what to do when someone starts to cry. Men tend to shuffle out of the room mumbling something about doing the grouting. Lucy, UK
Girls cannot climb trees. Furthermore, they cannot be in my gang. Dominic Green, UK	Men will do something and not think about the risks involved then be sorry after. Women will think about the risks involved before hand. Diane McKay, England
A man can choose and buy a pair of shoes in 90 seconds over the internet. Paul, UK	Men have the ability to make a la, la, la, not listening face. Laura Humphreys, England
Women pee together. Men do not acknowledge, let alone speak, to each other when peeing. Angus, London	Men have the shed gene, where being locked up in a small wooden structure in quiet contemplation with a collection of garden equipment counts as stimulating entertainment. Lorraine, UK
Men can drive without having to look at themselves in the mirror. Christian Paterson, France	Men have a gene which enables them to answer any question, no matter how complex or important, with Mmm. Rachel, UK
Women make lists upon lists of things for men to do when they know very well we will never do them. Brian Mac, US	Women do not get turned on at the thought of two men together. Donna, South Africa
Men CAN get a bus through there! Bob Ellis,England	Men can watch six different channels at the same time and know the name of none of the programmes they claim to be following Niamh Brown, Singapore
Men can write their names clearly in the snow. Riccardo, UK	Women can smell old trainers at 100ft, men have to hold them to their nose. Sally, UK
Men start a sentence and... Cliff Grover, UK	....women finish it for them Jane Grover, UK
Men enjoy publicising their faults on BBC websites; women enjoy publicising men's faults on BBC websites. Paul, UK	Men have the empathy with computers gene. This means they are more likely to be found fiddling about with one rather than doing something useful. Sarah Savill, England
Men are paid more for doing the same job. :-) Nigel Harris, UK	Women have the take things personally gene. Emma, UK
Women keep carrier bags hidden away in a cupboard. They even keep carrier bags within carrier bags.! Matt, UK	Women parallel process, men parallel park. Petal, UK
Men look at going down the gym as a physical activity, to women it is a social event. Robert, UK	A woman would look at a sexy man and not be noticed. Men just stare. Isabelle West, UK
Women think that a good place to keep the TV controller is on top of the TV. Christopher, UK	Men have a gene that enables them to maintain a vice like grip on the remote control while reclining on the sofa studying the insides of their eyelids. Jane, UK
Women can get by with 10 or 20 CDs. Men need 200 plus. Damien Bove, Leeds	Women know that washing machines have programmes for every kind of fabric, colour and quantity and use them appropriately. Men will put a months supply of laundry through the 40 degree cycle (safest guess), regardless of any other detail. Janine MacLean, UK
Women order rice and eat men's chips. Liam, Wales	Men will hear you open a beer from three rooms away. Aileen, Scotland
Women recall every outfit they have worn for the past two decades. Men cannot remember what they were wearing yesterday without looking on the floor next to the bed. Tom, London, UK	If a man knows an acquaintance has given birth to a baby, he will remember the sex and name - if you are lucky. If a woman is told about a birth, she will remember names (first and middle), weight, time, how long the labour took and whether medical intervention was required. Marcia, UK
Women have the ability to brain dump their entire day when they get home - men can only remember that it went OK Bob Findlay, Ireland	Men cannot watch sports and talk to their wives at the same time. Lisa, Canada

Courtesy: BBC(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3002946.stm)

भूख और क्रोध के लिए जिम्मेदार है सेरोटीन

कभी आपने सोचा है कि क्यों अचानक आप गुस्से में आ जाते है और क्यों कभी-कभी बहुत ज्यादा भूख लग आती है। एक नए अध्ययन में पाया गया है कि इसका कारण मनुष्य के मस्तिष्क में पाए जाने वाला सेरोटीन नामक तत्व है। इसकी अधिकता और कमी दोनों के कारण मनुष्य गुस्से में आ जाता है और कभी-कभी उसे अधिक भूख लगने लगती है। शोधकर्ताओं ने बताया कि अभी तक माना जाता था कि मनुष्यों में अवसाद, चिंता और मानसिक असंतुलन जिसे ऑबसेसिव-कम्पलसिव डिस्ऑडर (ओसीडी) कहा जाता है, के जैसे लक्षणों के पीछे कम सेरोटीन होता है। लेकिन इस नए अध्ययन के मुताबिक क्रोध और अधिक आवेग में आने के पीछे भी सेरोटीन ही जिम्मेदार होता है। मनुष्यों की सामाजिक जीवन में सेरोटीन नामक पदार्थ की महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका होती है और वह उसके निर्णय लेने की क्षमता को भी प्रभावित करता है। लोगों के आहार में बदलाव और उनका तनाव सेरोटीन की मात्रा को अस्थिर बनाता है, इसलिए आहार पर विशेष ध्यान देना चाहिए। भूख और क्रोध के लिए जिम्मेदार है सेरोटीन।

Sex And The Games

At the Beijing Olympics, there being no shortage of young, fit partners available. It is natural to conclude that many athletes do not mind visiting them during the night before competition or after.

A sneak peak into Tony Perrottet's book 'The Naked Olympics' throws interesting sidelights into how sex has been part of the Games since its inception. We learn that sex and sport have been interlinked since Plato's day. The ancient Greeks competed stark naked beneath a statue of Eros, and the workout rooms were prime pick-up spots. Nelson Diebel, an American swimmer who won two golds in Barcelona, famously said that the athlete village is "a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard-bodies". Can sex really be far away in a highly testosterone-addled atmosphere where shapely people in their prime are free to intermix with anybody they take a fancy to?

Whether sex debilitates or energises sportspersons ?

"Sex makes you happy (and happiness is anathema to the hunger for medals)," averred world-class miler Marty Liquori.

Indian theory of abstinence finds support with the Greeks, who believed that sexual release hindered athletic performance.
Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote in his 'Natural History' that athletes, when sluggish, are revitalised by love-making.
A study by Italian researchers and another by pharma major Pfizer found that more sex equals more aggression and higher testosterone levels.
Canadian downhill skier Karin Lee Gardner and 1972 Olympic 800-metre champion Dave Wottle would agree: each claimed that pre-race sex not only felt good, it helped their causes.

How are the conservative Chinese, yet the most populous on earth, going to rein in the orgy in the village?

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, 1,30,000 free condoms were made available to athletes and officials. In the Sydney 2000 Games, each competing athlete was given 51 condoms on arrival at the Olympic Village, but another 20,000 had to be shipped in when supplies began to run low. But condom gift-bags are a no-no in Beijing. However, some cheeky adverts depicting stick-man athletes using condoms as apparatus in Olympic events have become a sensation in China. The sad part is that these rollicking times never come to be known — Olympic villages, it seems, are like Vegas. What happens there, stays there!

19 Aug 2008, Prasenjit Chowdhury Courtesy: Times of India

A 'Nanovaccine' for Hepatitis B

A needle-free nasal immunization, using a combination of nanoemulsion and hepatitis B antigen, could be a safe and effective hepatitis B vaccine, and also provide an alternative booster method for existing vaccines according to Dr. James Baker Jr., The first human trial can begin within a year. The study is reported in the online journal PLoS One.

University of Michigan researchers said the new nanoemulsion eliminates three major problems associated with current vaccines -- the need for refrigeration, difficulty in maintaining needle and syringe sterility and the need for people to return for the three-shot regimen.

Although there are three effective vaccines available, hepatitis B infects 400 million people worldwide, many of them children in Africa, Asia and South America.

Why chili peppers are hot

Capsaicin, the chemical that makes the peppers hot, drastically slows microbial growth and protects the fruit from Fusarium. And while capsaicin deters local mammals, such as foxes and raccoons, from consuming the chilies, birds don't have the physiological machinery to detect the spicy chemical and continue to eat the peppers and disperse seeds.

Infact a U.S.-led international team of scientists has solved a long-standing evolutionary mystery involving the spicy hotness of chili peppers. University of Florida Professor Douglas Levey, one of the researchers, said a plant creates fruit to entice animals to eat and disperse its seeds. Therefore, it doesn't make sense for that fruit to be painfully hot. Now the study led by Assistant Professor Joshua Tewksbury of the University of Washington has discovered the reason is a fungus called Fusarium, which invades the fruits through wounds made by insects and destroys the seeds before they can be eaten and dispersed.

India born American scientist explains Phelps phenomenon

US swimmer Michael Phelps broke the record for Olympic gold medals won by taking his 10th and 11th in a double victory on Wednesday 13th August, 2008. Phelps, 23, won his fourth gold of the Beijing Olympics and 10th of all time with victory in the 200m butterfly.

An Indian born American scientist George Washington University researcher Rajat Mittal has been inquiring into the ease with which American swimmer Michael Phelps is winning so many Gold medals. He has spent the past five years studying Phelps and his dolphin kick - also known as the 'Berkoff Blastoff' after the Harvard backstroker who used it the first time at the Olympics 20 years ago.

According to him, Phelps was able to use his body in a way that is very, very different from the other athletes...much closer to dolphins than they had seen for any other swimmer. Phelps is able to straighten his massive size 14 feet to a greater angle (about 15 degrees) than any other swimmer, to reduce resistance. Almost 90 percent of all the thrust is coming from the foot and the flatter and bigger foot is, one essentially has a bigger paddle. Michael's foot size and the angle he generates with it plays a big role in his ability to swim very well.

But foot-size isn’t the only reason behind the Phelps phenomenon. Studies show that his powerful lungs can hold out longer underwater than most swimmers, eliminating the splash and drag that would result if he surfaced early.

In response to this news appeared in Times of India, S. P. Sudrik, Houston, says: Phelps also uses a swimming suit designed by NASA to simulate dolphin skin. Suit is lightweight, extremely stretchable, and reduces water friction and passive drag.

Medical Tourism

Medical tourism (also called medical travel, health tourism or global healthcare) is a term initially coined by travel agencies and the mass media to describe the rapidly-growing practice of traveling across international borders to obtain health care.

Medical tourism is actually thousands of years old. In ancient Greece, pilgrims and patients came from all over the Mediterranean to the sanctuary of the healing god, Asklepios, at Epidaurus. In Roman Britain, patients took the waters at a shrine at Bath, a practice that continued for 2,000 years. From the 18th century wealthy Europeans travelled to spas from Germany to the Nile. In the 21st century, relatively low-cost jet travel has taken the industry beyond the wealthy and desperate.

India is considered the leading country promoting medical tourism-and now it is moving into a new area of "medical outsourcing," where subcontractors provide services to the overburdened medical care systems in western countries.

India's National Health Policy declares that treatment of foreign patients is legally an "export" and deemed "eligible for all fiscal incentives extended to export earnings." Government and private sector studies in India estimate that medical tourism could bring between $1 billion and $2 billion US into the country by 2012. The reports estimate that medical tourism to India is growing by 30 per cent a year.

Countries that actively promote medical tourism include Cuba, Costa Rica, Hungary, India, Israel, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia and Thailand. Belgium, Poland and Singapore are now entering the field. South Africa specializes in medical safaris-visit the country for a safari, with a stopover for plastic surgery, a nose job and a chance to see lions and elephants.

Such services typically include complex specialized surgeries such as joint replacement (knee/hip), cardiac surgery, dental surgery, and cosmetic surgeries. Leisure aspects typically associated with travel and tourism may be included on such medical travel trips. Prospective medical tourism patients take into account the cost of travel and accommodations when deciding on treatment locations.

India is known in particular for heart surgery, hip resurfacing and other areas of advanced medicine. The government and private hospital groups are committed to the goal of making India a leader in the industry. The industry's main appeal is low-cost treatment. Most estimates claim treatment costs in India start at around a tenth of the price of comparable treatment in America or Britain. India is becoming the destination of choice for US citizens seeking complicated, high-end medical procedures.

Estimates of the value of medical tourism to India go as high as $2 billion a year by 2012. The Indian government is taking steps to address infrastructure issues that hinder the country's growth in medical tourism.

A specialized subset of medical tourism is reproductive tourism, which is the practice of traveling abroad to undergo in-vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technology treatments.

The reasons patients travel for treatment vary. Many medical tourists from the United States are seeking treatment at a quarter or sometimes even a 10th of the cost at home. From Canada, it is often people who are frustrated by long waiting times. From Great Britain, the patient can not wait for treatment by the National Health Service but also can not afford to see a physician in private practice. For others, becoming a medical tourist is a chance to combine a tropical vacation with elective or plastic surgery.

Liquefied natural gas or LNG

Liquefied natural gas or LNG is natural gas (primarily methane, CH4) that has been converted to liquid form for ease of storage or transport. Liquefied natural gas takes up about 1/600th the volume of natural gas at a stove burner tip. It is odorless, colorless, non-toxic and non-corrosive. Hazards include flammability, freezing and asphyxia.

LNG is principally used for transporting natural gas to markets, where it is re-gasified and distributed as pipeline natural gas. LNG offers an energy density comparable to petrol and diesel fuels and produces less pollution, but its relatively high cost of production and the need to store it in expensive cryogenic tanks have prevented its widespread use in commercial applications. It can be used in natural gas vehicles, although it is more common to design vehicles to use compressed natural gas.

The liquefaction process involves removal of certain components, such as dust, helium, water, and heavy hydrocarbons, which could cause difficulty downstream. The natural gas is then condensed into a liquid at close to atmospheric pressure (Maximum Transport Pressure set around 25 kPa (3.6psi)) by cooling it to approximately −163 °C (−260 °F). The reduction in volume makes it much more cost-efficient to transport over long distances where pipelines do not exist. Where moving natural gas by pipelines is not possible or economical, it can be transported by specially designed cryogenic sea vessels (LNG carriers) or cryogenic road tankers.

Cardiac Hormones, atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP)

Cardiac Hormone are Natriuretic peptides because they are hormones secreted by the heart that increase the excretion of Sodium (Na) by the kidneys (uretic).

Increasing a person's salt Intake causes blood volume expansion and stretch of the atria which leads to atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) secretion. ANP increases salt and water excretion to reduce blood volume and blood pressure. ANP also directly dilates blood vessels, which helps to lower blood pressure.

Work in this area over the past 20 years has already resulted in new drugs to treat hypertension and heart failure. ANP is normally degraded in the kidneys by an enzyme (NEP) which breaks its peptide ring structure, making it inactive. Drugs that inhibit NEP cause ANP in the plasma to increase, thus augmenting ANP's blood pressure lowering capacity. Heart attacks cause a massive release of cardiac hormones.

7 reasons the world will end in 2012

Don't know whether its true or not, but just thought of sharing it to you.

7 reasons the world will end in 2012

Scientific experts from around the world are genuinely predicting that five years from now, all life on Earth could well finish. Some are saying it'll be humans that set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it'll be God himself who presses the stop button...

1. Mayan Calendar

The first mob to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things:

Building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and Sacrificing Virgins.

Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it's likely they've got the end of the world right as well.

2. Sun Storms

Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery: our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the Earth with so much radiation energy, it's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012

3. The Atom Smasher

Scientists in Europe have been building the world's largest particle accelerator. Basically its a 27km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the Universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it's properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They're predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

4. The Bible says...

If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn't bad enough,religious folks are getting in on the act aswell. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good an Evil, has been set down for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

5. Super Volcano

Yellowstone National Park in the United States is famous for its thermal springs and Old Faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple - it's sitting on top of the world's biggest volcano, and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we're many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the Earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

6. The Physicists

This one's case of bog-simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berekely Uni have been crunching the numbers. and they've determined that the Earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they're claiming their calculations prove, that we're all going to die, very soon - while also saying their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 percent- and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

7. Slip-Slop-Slap- BANG!

We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that sheilds us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30 kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.

courtesy: Sridhar G

Through: fun_and_fun_only@yahoogroups.com

Biotechnologies

• Red biotechnology is applied to medical processes. Some examples are the designing of organisms to produce antibiotics, and the engineering of genetic cures through genomic manipulation. Red biotech is used to create substances for medical use or to directly aid the body in fighting a disease or illness. The practice of genetically modifying yeasts and bacteria to produce drugs is one widespread use of red biotech, often allowing for the creation of drugs that would otherwise be impossible to manufacture. Manipulating a patient’s genome to cure a disease is another, relatively new use of red biotech.

• Green biotechnology is biotechnology applied to agricultural processes. An example would be the selection and domestication of plants via micropropagation. Another example is the designing of transgenic plants to grow under specific environmental conditions or in the presence (or absence) of certain agricultural chemicals. One hope is that green biotechnology might produce more environmentally friendly solutions than traditional industrial agriculture. An example of this is the engineering of a plant to express a pesticide, thereby eliminating the need for external application of pesticides. An example of this would be Bt corn. Whether or not green biotechnology products such as this are ultimately more environmentally friendly is a topic of considerable debate.
• White biotechnology, also known as industrial biotechnology, is biotechnology applied to industrial processes. An example is the designing of an organism to produce a useful chemical. Another example is the using of enzymes as industrial catalysts to either produce valuable chemicals or destroy hazardous/polluting chemicals. White biotechnology tends to consume less in resources than traditional processes used to produce industrial goods.
• Blue biotechnology is a term that has been used to describe the marine and aquatic applications of biotechnology, but its use is relatively rare.

The investments and economic output of all of these types of applied biotechnologies form what has been described as the bioeconomy.