Beauty of Mathematics !!!!!!!

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

9 x 9 + 7 = 88
98 x 9 + 6 = 888
987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

Brilliant, isn't it?

And look at this symmetry:

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Fields Medal: The "Nobel Prize of Mathematics"

The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to mathematicians not over 40 years of age at each International Congress of the International Mathematical Union, a meeting that takes place every four years. The Fields Medal is widely viewed as the top honor a mathematician can receive. It comes with a monetary award, which in 2006 was C$15,000 (US$15,000 or €10,000). Founded at the behest of Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields, the medal was first awarded in 1936, to Finnish mathematician Lars Ahlfors and American mathematician Jesse Douglas and has been regularly awarded since 1950. Its purpose is to give recognition and support to younger mathematical researchers who have made major contributions.

The Fields Medal is often described as the "Nobel Prize of Mathematics" for the prestige it carries, though in most other ways the relatively new Abel Prize is a more direct analogue. The comparison is not entirely accurate because the Fields Medal is only awarded every four years. The Medal also has an age limit: a recipient's 40th birthday must not occur before January 1 of the year in which the Fields Medal is awarded. This rule is based on Fields' desire that… while it was in recognition of work already done, it was at the same time intended to be an encouragement for further achievement on the part of the recipients and a stimulus to renewed effort on the part of others.The monetary award is much lower than the roughly US$1.5 million given with each Nobel prize. Finally, Fields Medals have generally been awarded for a body of work, rather than for a particular result; and instead of a direct citation there is a speech of congratulation.Other major awards in mathematics, such as the Wolf Prize in Mathematics and the Abel Prize, recognise lifetime achievement, again making them different in kind from the Nobels, although the Abel has a large monetary prize like a Nobel. The Fields Medal has the prestige of the selection by the IMU, which represents the world mathematical communityThe Fields Medals are commonly regarded as mathematics' closest analog to the Nobel Prize (which does not exist in mathematics), and are awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to one or more outstanding researchers. "Fields Medals" are more properly known by their official name, "International medals for outstanding discoveries in mathematics."The Fields Medal is made of gold, and shows the head of Archimedes (287-212 BC) together with a quotation attributed to him: "Transire suum pectus mundoque potiri" ("Rise above oneself and grasp the world"). The reverse side bears the inscription: "Congregati ex toto orbe mathematici ob scripta insignia tribuere" ("the mathematicians assembled here from all over the world pay tribute for outstanding work").Nobel prizes were created in the will of the Swedish chemist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel, but Nobel, who was an inventor and industrialist, did not create a prize in mathematics because he was not particularly interested in mathematics or theoretical science.

Declined award

Grigory Perelman, a reclusive Russian mathematician, has solved a key piece in a century-old puzzle known as the Poincaré conjecture. Dr. Perelman was one of four mathematicians awarded the Fields Medal for achievement in mathematics but as with his previous honors, Dr. Perelman refused to accept this one, and he did not attend the ceremonies at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid, even though Sir John M. Ball, president of the Union, had personally flown to St Petersburg and asked Dr. Perelman to attend the ceremony.

Inspiring Science : Momentum(p=mv)

New Species Found in Asian Sea?

A square jaw and edgy brow give a distinctive profile to this boxfish, one of many exotic marine creatures recently found by scientists exploring Southeast Asia's Celebes Sea.

The international team of researchers recently returned from two weeks in the Celebes, a little-explored sea between Malaysia and the Philippines that is home to one of the world's deepest ocean basins.

The Celebes's relative isolation and chilly depths make it one of the world's most richly diverse marine habitats, likely hosting species that have lived in seclusion for millions of years, expedition leader Larry Madin told the Associated Press.

"This is probably the center where many of the species evolved and spread to other parts of the ocean, so it's going back to the source in many ways," said Madin, who is director of research at the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

The team found several species that are likely new to science, Madin added, including a swimming sea cucumber, a black jellyfish, and a spiny orange worm with tentacles growing out its head.

Experts will be studying the hundred specimens brought back from the expedition to determine which species are new discoveries.

The research was partly funded by WHOI, the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council, the nonprofit Conservation International, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Philippine government.

Courtesy: National Geographic News

Oceanarium : The World of Adventure, Fun and Excitement

Did you think the ocean is just about fish and boats?
Come to oceanarium, learn what floats, what lives, and how we need
and use the ocean every day.

The term oceanarium can either mean a marine mammal park or a large-scale aquarium presenting an ocean habitat with marine animals, especially large ocean dwellers (e.g. sharks).

Marineland of Florida, one of the first theme parks in Florida, USA, started in 1938, claims to be "the world's first oceanarium", while Ocean Park in Hong Kong claims to be "the world's largest oceanarium".

The Oceanarium BOURNEMOUTH helps you to explore the secrets of the ocean in an adventure and will take you to some of the world’s most amazing waters.

This is not all what oceanariums provide you, threre are amazing hotels and restaurants too where you can Discover life beneath the waves and come face to face with some of the world’s most amazing marine life. .

The Oceanarium restaurants

One of the best Oceanarium restaurants is located in the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki. The main attraction of this hotel is the 3-floor world-class indoor fish tank. It is 16 meters tall, 10 meters wide, and if you eat next to it, it feels as if you’re eating in the middle of an aquarium

From your table, you have views into the 3-storey 280,000 gallon aquarium, which holds nearly 400 fish, including a spotted eagle ray and a pelagic sting ray. The hotel's divers feed the fish several times a day--which makes for a spectacular show for hotel guests and customers in the restaurant.


Oceanarium India

India's first 'oceanarium', showcasing its marine biodiversity, will be set up at Kerala. The 'oceanarium', spread over a 60-acre area at Puthuvypeen, a marine biology research station would also form part of the 'oceanarium',

These parks would give technical and other assistance to set up ''backyard hatcheries'' in rural households. Women would be especially trained for this.

The Government of Kerala is proposed to develop an Oceanarium in a joint partnership between Public and Private (PPP). The project at New Vypeen, the coastline of the Arabian Sea is complemented by many features. Attractions will include a Marine Park, International Marine Biological Research Centre, Centre for Marine Resources, Ecology Centre, Convention Centre, Amphitheatre and a glass tunnel to showcase an ocean habitat with marine animals. The ambitious Oceanarium project to be launched by 2010.

IT Humor- eToons

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage on behaviors that humans consider intelligent. The ability to create intelligent machines has intrigued humans since ancient times, and today with the advent of the computer and 50 years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart machines is becoming a reality. Researchers are creating systems which can mimic human thought, understand speech, beat the best human chessplayer, and countless other feats never before possible. Find out how the military is applying AI logic to its hi-tech systems, and how in the near future Artificial Intelligence may impact our lives.

There are now in the world machines that can think, that can learn and that can create. Moreover, their ability to do these things is going to increase rapidly until--in a visible future--the range of problems they can handle will be coextensive with the range to which the human mind has been applied

AI is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It is related to the similar task of using computers to understand human intelligence, but AI does not have to confine itself to methods that are biologically observable.
Intelligence is the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some machines.
IQ is based on the rates at which intelligence develops in children. It is the ratio of the age at which a child normally makes a certain score to the child's age. The scale is extended to adults in a suitable way. IQ correlates well with various measures of success or failure in life, but making computers that can score high on IQ tests would be weakly correlated with their usefulness. For example, the ability of a child to repeat back a long sequence of digits correlates well with other intellectual abilities, perhaps because it measures how much information the child can compute with at once. However, ``digit span'' is trivial for even extremely limited computers.
The ultimate effort is to make computer programs that can solve problems and achieve goals in the world as well as humans.

Deep-Sea Volcano

Beneath the waves of the South Pacific lies a volcanic realm !!!!
But instead of a mysterious island, scientists have found a bubbling submarine volcano whose weird features include a swirling vortex, a host of strange animals, and a fearsome zone of toxic waters dubbed the Moat of Death.


The volcano, sits within the crater of a gigantic underwater mountain rising more than 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) from the ocean floor near the island of Samoa.

The seamount, called Vailulu'u, is an active volcano, with a 2-mile-wide (3.2-kilometer-wide) crater. The cone rising within it has been dubbed Nafanua, for the Samoan goddess of war.

Volcano Teeming With Life

Five years ago Hubert Staudigel of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and his colleagues mapped the mountain using remote-sensing techniques.

When they returned to the site in 2005 for a more thorough study with submersible vehicles, the scientists found that the seamount had grown a new, 300-meter (1,000-foot) lava cone, a sign of renewed volcanic activity.

The peak of the cone, 700 meters (2,300 feet) below sea level, turned out to be teeming with life.

"It was just full of eels," Staudigel said.

"When we sent the submersible down, we found hundreds of eels scurrying out of the rock. Normally you'd see one or two."

"That's very spectacular," he continued, "because there's not much food at that depth. You wonder what the eels live off of."

At first the scientists thought the eels were eating microbes that lived near the cone's volcanic vents. But when some of the eels were caught, their stomachs turned out to be full of shrimp.

That raised a new question: Where did the shrimp come from?

The researchers found that the huge seamount interacts with tides and ocean currents to create a vortex in which water rises along the outside of the mountain and then descends into its interior.


The descending water is likely bringing shrimp to the eels, allowing them to thrive in such large numbers.

Another member of the team, Craig Young, a biologist with the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology in Charleston, is intrigued by how the eels have taken advantage of a quirk of oceanography.

"The eels have selected a place there where the currents are concentrating food," he said.

But the scientists are even more intrigued by a region called the Moat of Death.

Moat of Death

The moat lies between Vailulu'u's encircling crater and the rim of the cone inside it.

It's an extremely toxic environment, Staudigel said, where oxygen levels are dangerously low and volcanic vents fill the water with iron soot "almost like underwater smog."

The volcano is also spewing liquid carbon dioxide, which combines with seawater to make a deadly acidic mix.

And the same currents that bring shrimp to the eels also bring fish into the toxic moat, trapping them.

The result? "We find one fish carcass after another," Staudigel said.

But one species survives within the moat, a type of sea worm that seems to be feeding on the animal carcasses.

It's not clear how the worms manage to live in a region where nothing but bacteria can live.

Jim Barry, a deep-sea biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, is impressed by the volcano find.

"This is a new habitat," he said.

And it's potentially important for future study, he added, because by trapping carbon dioxide in the moat, this habitat provides scientists with a way to study what the oceans of the not-so-distant future may be like.

As levels of carbon dioxide continue to rise, due to the combustion of fossil fuels, deforestation, and other causes, much of the gas will inevitably wind up in the sea, he explained.

"We're going to see big changes in the chemistry of the ocean in the next 200 years," Barry said.

"Systems like this will give us a great deal of information about what we might expect in the future."

Square foot gardening

Have you ever heard of the square foot gardening method? Square foot gardening is a form of intensive gardening that contains NO WEEDING, NO TILLING, NO DIGGING.It is user friendly, earth-friendly and economical too. A fellow by the name of Mel Bartholomew, wrote a book "Square Foot Gardening". He figured out methods to save time, work, money and space yet get a bountiful harvest.


There is nothing more satisfying than growing and eating your own food. Not everyone has large areas of land to farm, but just about everybody can Square Foot Garden. A square foot garden measures 4′ x 4′ and is 6″ high.

Square Foot Gardening is a uniquely simplified method of gardening that produces 100%of the harvest in only 20% of the space -- AND -- without all the hard work and drudgery of single row gardening.

One step up from the windowbox, SquareFootGardening (SFG) offers city dwellers a chance to relax in their very own compact market garden. This is a modular system of four foot by four foot wooden or plastic boxes. These are sub-divided into a grid of sixteen one square foot compartments backfilled with a compost, peat and vermiculite growing medium.

Easy to water, tend and weed-free, here is green-fingered fun. Annual flowers, vegetables and climbers are easily rotated around the grid and provide material for future composting.

How to make a square-foot garden---

Pick an area that gets 6-8 hours of sunshine daily.

Stay clear of trees and shrubs where roots and shade may interfere.

Have it close to the house for convenience.
Existing soil is not really important, since you won't be using it.

Area should not puddle after a heavy rain.

The Ten Basics

LAYOUT - Arrange your garden in squares, not rows. Lay it out in 4'x4' planting
areas.
BOXES - Build boxes to hold a new soil mix above ground.
AISLES - Space boxes 3' apart to form walking aisles.
SOIL - Fill boxes with Mel's special soil mix: 1/3 blended compost, 1/3 peat moss,
and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.
GRID - Make a permanent square foot grid for the top of each box. A MUST!
CARE - NEVER WALK ON YOUR GROWING SOIL. Tend your garden from the aisles.

SELECT - Plant a different flower, vegetable, or herb crop in each square foot,
using 1, 4, 9, or 16 plants per square foot.
PLANT - Conserve seeds. Plant only a pinch (2 or 3 seeds) per hole. Place
transplants in a slight saucer-shaped depression.
WATER - Water by hand from a bucket of sun-warmed water.

HARVEST - When you finish harvesting a square foot, add compost and replant it with
a new and different crop.

courtesy: http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

Green Technologies: Electric car

An electric car is a type of alternative fuel car that utilizes electric motors and motor controllers instead of an internal combustion engine (ICE). The electric power is usually derived from battery packs in the vehicle.

Electric vehicles, especially EVs powered by fuel cells, are a compelling alternative to gasoline-powered cars. They use environmentally friendly technology to get you to your destination without the need for costly, supply-limited gasoline.

The electric vehicle (EV), or, more colloquially, electric car, is gaining traction as a viable alternative form of personal transportation, and remains just out of arms' reach as a mainstream way to get around. The cars run on energy stored in large packs of batteries instead of the more conventional internal combustion engine, making them very attractive to those concerned with using less oil and causing fewer greenhouse gas emissions. When driving, they don't emit any carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas, nor any nitrogen oxide or other smog-forming compound.

In general terms an electric car is a rechargeable battery electric vehicle. Other examples of rechargeable electric vehicles are ones that store electricity in ultracapacitors, or in a flywheel.

The electric car is made by The REVA Electric Car Company in India, but is sold in different parts of the world , with successes including celebrity recognition.


The new REVAi are being popular in India also.

Kerala postal service to use REVAi electric cars for speed post!These cars are capable of running 60KMs in a single stretch and is capable of carrying a load of 70Kg in addition to postman and the driver. REVA will customize the car to have the postal uniform (red color)!

Clearly electric cars are making inroads into commercial business. As technology progresses, we can expect more electric cars being adopted in Kerala. Any further rise on oil prize should boost electric car market.

e-cigarette

Tobacco has brought long-term hurts to human beings since it was released from pandora's Box, and Become an age-long nightmare of human beings.

To fight this evil Electronic Cigarette is a revolution in human beings' history of smoking, Golden Dragon Group Ltd's Ruyan has created an electronic battery-powered cigarette. The e-cigarette activates light and vapour, and even delivers nicotine to the lungs within 7 to 10 seconds. The cigarettes sell for $208 and are already available overseas. They're directed primarily at people trying to quit smoking, deliving the same look and feel but without the health concerns.

The E-cig is made under supervision of China Health Care Society and Beijing Health Care Department with the China Patents. E-cig is made from microelectronic control and supercritical atomizing technologies. It looks like a cigar, however there is no tar. It does smoke, however there is no smoking pollution material. You do not need any ignition and fire for smoking it, however it lets you enjoy and satisfy those tactile taste sensations without any risk and dependence on tobacco. It gives you the same feeling of a tobacco cigar or cigarette without suffering any tar smoking damages. Actually, you can smoke healthily without any environmental pollution, claim the manufactures.

E-cig consists of a stainless steel shell, lithium ion battery, micro-electronic
circuit, atomizing chamber, and indicator light at the head of the E-cig. It can
make smokers enjoy the same pleasure as that of traditional cigar when inhaling the nicotine smog droplet, imitating the whole process of smoking.The manufacturers claim E-cig creates a healthy smoking cultural atmosphere, and has been eulogized by authoritative experts as the perfect combination of modern micro-electronic technology, biological technology and the conception of healthy life.

To quit the tobacco and nicotine smoking, E-cig can be used with the four basic tastes such as the high, medium, low and zero nicotine thickness cartridges to meet the requirements of different smokers.

Hurricanes : The Engines of Distruction

Hurricanes are giant, spiraling tropical storms that can pack wind speeds of over 160miles (257 kilometers) an hour and unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons (9 trillion liters) of rain a day. These same tropical storms are known as cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, and as typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean.

Hurricanes and typhoons ARE tropical cyclones;they are regional names for the same meteorological event.

The Atlantic Ocean’s hurricane season peaks from mid-August to late October and averages five to six hurricanes per year.

Hurricanes begin as tropical disturbances in warm ocean waters with surface temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.5 degrees Celsius). These low pressure systems are fed by energy from the warm seas. If a storm achieves wind speeds of 38 miles (61 kilometers) an hour, it becomes known as a tropical depression. A tropical depression becomes a tropical storm, and is given a name, when its sustained wind speeds top 39 miles (63 kilometers) an hour. When a storm’s sustained wind speeds reach 74 miles (119 kilometers) an hour it becomes a hurricane and earns a category rating of 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Hurricanes are enormous heat engines that generate energy on a staggering scale. They draw heat from warm, moist ocean air and release it through condensation of water vapor in thunderstorms.

Hurricanes spin around a low-pressure center known as the “eye.” Sinking air makes this 20- to 30-mile-wide (32- to 48-kilometer-wide) area notoriously calm. But the eye is surrounded by a circular “eye wall” that hosts the storm’s strongest winds and rain.

These storms bring destruction ashore in many different ways. When a hurricane makes landfall it often produces a devastating storm surge that can reach 20 feet (6 meters) high and extend nearly 100 miles (161 kilometers). Ninety percent of all hurricane deaths result from storm surges.

A hurricane’s high winds are also destructive and may spawn tornadoes. Torrential rains cause further damage by spawning floods and landslides, which may occur many miles inland.

The best defense against a hurricane is an accurate forecast that gives people time to get out of its way.

Hurricane Gustav is the seventh tropical cyclone, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. It formed on the morning of August 25, 2008 about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and rapidly strengthened into a tropical storm that afternoon and into a hurricane early on August 26. Later that day it made landfall near the Haitian town of Jacmel. As of August 31, 88 deaths have been attributed to Gustav in the Caribbean.

On September 1 at 9:30 a.m CDT (1430 UTC) the center of Gustav made landfall in the United States along the Louisiana coast near Cocodrie as a category 2 hurricane.

computer virus in space

San Francisco - Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) were busy Wednesday fighting a computer virus that managed to infect one of the laptop computers used by astronauts on the space station, a spokesman for the US space agency said.

Citing security concerns, NASA declined to identify the virus, or how it made its way to the space station.

But the space news site SpaceRef.com, which first reported the infection, identified the virus as 'W32.Gammima.AG'. Referring to NASA's daily status reports, the site said the virus was probably transmitted on a flash disk drive which somehow had not been scanned.

The malware is a year-old Windows worm designed to steal information from players of 10 different online games, some of them specific to the Chinese market. Among the games are ZhengTu, HuangYi Online and Rohan.

NASA said that new antivirus programs had been installed on the station's computers and that the worm posed no threat. 'It was never a threat to any command-and-control or operations computer,' NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries told Computerworld magazine.

Watermelon in interesting shapes

Japanese watermelons are no longer round! They are funny looking shaped like human-faced , hearts, cubic & pyramids.

Watermelons in interesting shapes all started with a cubic watermelon that a farmer in the Kagawa prefecture grew about 20 years ago. Originally, this was created on the idea that a watermelon in the shape of a cube would fit more readily in a compact refrigerator.

Its unique shape brings it a lot of attention from all over the world. Today, these watermelons from Japan have become known all around the world."

There are actually several darned good reasons for making a watermelon in a square shape. Since these things make great gifts, it makes sense to package them in boxes and a square shape fits into a square box with the minimum amount of wasted space. In addition, the shape naturally lends itself to being bedecked in a decorative ribbon, birthday-present style.

Farmers in Zentsuji, located in southern Japan, place the small on-the-vine watermelons in tempered glass forms that force the growing melons to conform to their shape while still receiving necessary sunlight. Only about 400 of the four-sided fruits are grown each season. .

The Square Watermelon can be found in Japanese grocery stores in Tokyo and Osaka and is not currently available in the USA. Square watermelons grown in Brazil have lately become available in Great Britain, though, so we may be enjoying them here yet! Prices in Japan are in the $80 - $85 range (about 10,000 yen) when in season.

A Vietnamese student, Dinh Tran Nguyen, a senior student of agriculture and applied biotechnology from southern Can Tho University has also successfully grown square-shaped watermelon, adding to the success of scientists in developed countries like Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The grower plans to try shaping "gourds and bottles" out of watermelon next year. Can I put in a request for a aeroplane-shaped watermelon.........?

World Water Week, (17-23Aug,2008)

Every 20 seconds, a mother mourns a dead child lost to diarrhoea – a completely preventable and utterly inexcusable cause of death. Investing in improved sanitation and hygiene not only saves lives and restores dignity – it helps eradicate poverty and hunger, promotes universal primary education, builds gender equality, improves maternal health and ensures environmental sustainability. Rivers, lakes, groundwater and coastal areas polluted form untreated waste result in unsafe drinking water and damaged ecosystems. But the problems can be solved. The 2008 World Water Week in Stockhome,Sweden will place special focus on sanitation, including special attention on water Sanitation.
Water and Sanitation in Asia
With two-thirds of the world’s population and half of them – close to two billion people – living without sustainable access to safe water and improved sanitation, the scale of sanitation and water issues in Asia is mind numbing. Events during the week, including Asia Water Day on Tuesday, Aug19 will focus on the region’s colossal water challenges and discuss the solutions that will shape the future of the world’s largest continent.
Transboundary Waters
Water security is the fundamental entry point for a nation’s development. More often than not, countries share the water bodies upon which they depend and must negotiate how benefits are divided amoung riparian nations. Generating and sharing benefits requires more than good will and political cooperation – huge investments involving considerable risk and social and environmental costs are often needed. A number of events will explore key areas of regional transboundary water management.
Climate and Water
Changes in water availability are what hit us first with an altered climate. Among the effects: too much or too little water; water at the wrong time or in the wrong place; rising sea levels; and floods in certain regions but drought in others. Adaptation is paramount and a matter of sheer survival for billions of people. The World Water Week has on an ongoing basis addressed the multiple relations between climate change and water. It will do so even more this August with world-leading experts taking part in a full slate of sessions.

Triumph over nature

It is yet another attempt by man to triumph over nature.
Determined not to let anything spoil their party, organizers of the 2008 Summer Olympics proved that they will take control over the most unpredictable element of all -- the weather.
While China's Olympic athletes were getting ready to compete on the fields, its meteorologists were working the skies, attempting the difficult feat of making sure it doesn't rain on the Aug. 8 opening ceremonies and finally they could do the miracle. The glittering inaugural function had everything but rains!!!!!
The Chinese are among the world's leaders in what is called "weather modification," but they have more experience creating rain than preventing it. In fact, the techniques are virtually the same.
Cloud-seeding is a relatively well-known practice that involves shooting various substances into clouds, such as silver iodide, salts and dry ice, that bring on the formation of larger raindrops, triggering a downpour. But Chinese scientists believe they have perfected a technique that reduces the size of the raindrops, delaying the rain until the clouds move on.
The weather modification were used only on a small area, opening what would be in effect a meteorological umbrella over the 91,000-seat Olympic stadium. The $400-million stadium, nicknamed the "bird's nest" for its interlacing steel beams, has no roof.
Training with the Olympics in mind, the meteorologists have been practicing their "rain mitigation" techniques since 2006. They have had a couple of dry runs, so to speak -- a China-Africa summit and a panda festival in Sichuan province, among others.
The Chinese have been tinkering with the weather since the late 1950s, trying to bring rains to the desert terrain of the northern provinces.
The Chinese bureau of weather modification is believed to be the largest in the world. It has a reserve army of 37,000 people -- most of them sort of weekend warriors who are called to duty during unusual droughts. The bureau has 30 aircraft, 4,000 rocket launchers and 7,000 antiaircraft guns.
At present, Beijing has technology for artificially influencing weather conditions. It can control/eliminate small-scale rainfall using artificial rain elimination technology. There are several ways to influence weather conditions artificially, one of which is to adjust rainfall mechanisms by adding a catalyst to the clouds to stop rain. Another is to make the clouds rain in advance. As for the question of whether the catalyst added to the clouds will do harm to the environment,the chinese authorities said that what is added to the clouds is either liquid nitrogen or silver iodide. "Liquid nitrogen does not pollute the environment at all and we use just 1 gram of silver iodide per square km,"
" Chinese have the largest program in the world but it is not really the most advanced. That honor belongs to the Russians, who used sophisticated cloud-seeding in 1986 to prevent radioactive rain from the Chernobyl reactor accident from reaching Moscow

........ and he invented it!

Every farmer knows and you may not know that female plants bear fruits in Nutmeg plants(Nutmeg-an aromatic cash crop find in tropical climate is dioecious variety). Normally it takes up to 5 years to get yield. Just imagine the shock of a nutmeg farmer when he realises that the plant he has been watering , pampering is a useless male plant !then he has to go for budding and then a waiting of 2 more years!Then you may ask me why cant you go for a female plant ?But how will you make out a female plant ? "nothing is apparent " in a plant helping to identifying the gender of a nutmeg plant. Universities suggests DNA analysis(to be more specific I have to tell you polymerised chain reaction based seedling sex diagnostic assay) and the process is out of reach of an ordinary farmer and is a bit complicated too.
Here comes our hero Moideen Naina!He is in nutmeg farming since his retirement from railway service. Patience is the only word you cannot find in his dictionary. So he was not able to think of imagining a waiting of 5 years to identifying the gender of the plant. So he started his search or as you call it his research to see whether any difference is there in male and female plants. Started by chopping plants leaves adding ,extracting,subtracting,......
No use ......years passed....age was in his side (he is in his mid seventies!) but one day he came running from his farm only to lift his wife (I was told , but both fell down ....t..h...u...d ) and dance ''eureka, eureka ''.
Though Naina is not prepared to reveal that which chemical formula made him dance,he is ready to help his fellow farmers. Just pluck two or three leaves of "The nutmeg plant in question ' and just drop the sap oozing out from the leaves, to 5 ml of colour less solution invented by Naina, shake well only to see a wonderful colour change. If it changes to dark amber certainly you can dance with joy. yes it will be a female plant and if its light amber you can very well bid good bye to the unfortunate (male) sapling!
Now you can very well separate male and female plants in your nursery and go for cent percent sure lucky nutmeg farming with out cracking your nut. Do you want to congratulate Mr Moideen naina? he is available at +91 0484 2446753

(Courtesy:Poor-me,manjaly-halwa)