27 Jan 2013

Curious Human Body Facts

The human body is a very complicated system consisting of millions of cells organised uniquely and functioning dynamically together. The complexities can be better understood when it is highlighted. Anatomists find it useful to divide the human body into eight systems: the skeleton, the muscles, the circulatory and respiratory systems, the digestive system, the urinary system, the glandular system, the nervous system, and the skin.

Interesting Facts

  • The thickness of the skin varies from 1/2 to 6 mm, depending on the area of our body.
  • The four taste zones on our tongue are bitter(back), sour(back sides), salty(front side,) and sweet(font).
  • One uses 14 muscles to smile and 43 to frown.
  • The strongest muscle of the body is the masseter muscle, which is located in jaw.
  • The small intestine is 5 feet long and 3 times wider than the small intestine.
  • Most people shed 40 pounds of skin in a lifetime.
  • When we sneeze, air rushes through our nose at the rate of 100 mph.
  • An eye lash lives about 150 days before it falls out.
  • Our brain sends messages at the rate of 240 mph.
  • About 400 gallons of blood flow though our kidneys in one day.
  • Each of our eyes has 120 M rods, which help us see in black and while.
  • Each eye has 6 M cons, which help us see in color.
  • We blink our eyes about 20,000 times a day.
  • Our heart beats about 100,000 times a day. 
  • Placed end-to-end all our body's blood vessels would measure about 62,000 miles.
  • The average human brain has about 100 billion nerve cells.
  • The thyroid cartilage is more commonly known as the Adam's apple.
  • It's impossible to sneeze with our eyes open.
  • It takes the interaction of 72 different muscles to produce human speech.
  • When we sneeze, all our bodily functional stop even our heart.
  • Babies are born without kneecap. They don't appear till they are 2-6 years of age.
  • Children grow faster in the spring season.
  • Women blink twice as much as men.
  • If one goes blind in one eye, that person only loses about 1/5 of vision but all of the sense of depth.
  • Our eyes are always the same size form birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
  • The length of the finger dictates how fast the fingernail grows. The nail on the middle finger grows faster and on an average our toenails grow twice as slow as our fingernails.
  • Hair is made of the same substance as fingernails.
  • The nose can remember 50,000 scents.
  • Similar to finger prints, everybody's tongue has a unique tongue print.
  • A finger nails takes about 6 months to grow form base to tip.
  • The energy used by the brain is enough to light a 25 watt bulb.
  • The heart produces enough pressure to squirt blood 30 feet.
  • We get a new stomach lining every 3-4 days. If we didn't, the strong acids our stomach uses to digest food would also digest our stomach. 

Space Junk

Man-made rubbish floating in space often litter from space exploration, including spanners, nuts, bolts, gloves and shards of space craft are what is called Space Junk. The majority of the space debris consist of small particles but some objects are larger, including spent rocket stages, defunct satellites and collision fragments.


About 10 million pieces of human made debris are estimated to be circulating in space at any one time. Out of which 22,000 human-made objects are larger than 10 centimeters across. Experts believe that global positioning systems, international phone connection, television signals and weather forecasts could be affected by increasing levels of space junk. The windows of space shuttles are often chipped by space junk when returning to earth. A crash between a defunct Russian Cosmos satellite and an Iridium's satellite in February 2009  left around 1,500 pieces of junk whizzing around the earth at 7.5 km a second. 

The international Space Station is fitted with special impact shield known as the Whipple Bumper, which is designed to protect the structure from damage caused by collisions with minor debris. As the cloud of orbiting junk shrouding the Earth grows ever denser, the most sophisticated garbage collectors of all time are taking shape. "Robotics capture" or Orbital snatch-and-grab technology orbit to burn up on re-entry can be a reliable option in orbit. 


Fruit Juices Are Healthy :Right or Wrong?????

Fruit juice should not be counted as one of our five-a-day because it contains too much sugar-but dried fruit should, two new studies suggest. Most health guidelines encourage people to consume drinks such as orange and apple juice in order to have a healthy balanced diet yet ignore dried fruits. But the findings of two teams of UK researchers turn that advice on its head concluding that fruit juices should be avoided and instead dried fruit consumption should be encouraged.



The first study found that even freshly squeezed fruit juices can contain as much as five teaspoons of sugar per glass because the squeezing process concentrates their sweetness. This is around two-thirds of the amount found in a can of soda and can contribute to obesity and also disturb blood sugar levels and the body's natural metabolism. According to researchers people are encouraged to eat whole fruits and vegetables  which have far more nutrients per calorie. In the second study, partly conducted by the University of Leeds, researchers found that dried fruits contain just as many antioxidants, polyphenols and nutrients as normal fruit. 


26 Jan 2013

Some interesting facts

COTTON

For as long as 7,000 years, cotton has been grown, picked, woven, and fashioned into materials as diverse as jeans, underwear, shirts, and even animal feed! Almost 757.1 million liters (200 million gallons ) of cottonseed oil are used in food products such as margarine and salad dressing. Even products such as toothpaste, ice cream, and, of course, the paper money used to by them, contain by-products of the cotton seed.


This productivity comes with a price. Conventionally grown cotton use a total of $2.6 billion worth of hazardous pesticides, some of them the most toxic in the market. These include carbamate pesticides, as well as broad spectrum organophoshates, which were originally developed as toxic nerve agents during Wold War II 


BANANA

There are over 500 varieties of banana today. This means that if you ate a different kind of banana each day, you would take almost a year and a half to eat every last one! In fact, about 99.5% of banana-eaters in the world are eating varieties of banana that have been selected by farmers and haven't changed in centuries. But wait : Not All Bananas Are Edible!


In any case, bananas are loved and eaten the world over. East Africans, and Ugandans in particular, eat around 450 kg(9921.1 lbs) per person per year. In East Africa, the word for bananas is "matooke," which also means"food".


Bananas may be valuable, but there are many problems involved in their cultivation. For instance, almost all cultivated bananas are seedless and sterile. This means that they can't be grown from seeds. Banana plants also take up to 18 months to fruit, which makes them even harder to breed.



If those problems aren't big enough, consider the fact that bananas can get sick, too. An illness of bananas called Black Sigatoka can cut a harvest by as much as 50%. Farmers control the disease by spraying banana crops with fungicide up to 40 times in one growing season. 




22 Jan 2013

Age and Size of the Universe

Age of the Universe 

The current estimate of the age of the universe is about 13 billion years. The 60 old-years following Hubble's original findings have seen numerous revisions of the constant. HST's main purpose was the measurement of the Hubble constant. The Hubble's constant as measured by the space telescope was on the high side implying a rather young Universe also depending on what theoretical mode is accepted. Scientists say the Universe could be just 8 billion years old if the Hubble constant is precisely 80.




Size of the Universe 


No one knows whether the Universe is finite or infinite in size. Albert Einstein described the Universe as "finite but unbound" meaning that the frontiers cannot be observed even though they are definitely there.



 

21 Jan 2013

Some Space Facts

1. There are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe. The largest galaxies have nearly 400 billion stars. There are an estimated 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, our galaxy. If we tried to count all the stars in just our galaxy at a rate of one star per second, it would take us about 3000 years.

2. The Sun is the largest object in our solar system. It contains roughly 98% of our solar system's total mass. The surface of the Sun is 6000 deg C. The interior of the Sun is 15,000,000 deg C. 1.3 million Earths could fit in the Sun.

3. The Moon is drifting away form the Earth at the rate of 3.8 cm in a year. Because of this, the Earth is also slowing down. 100 years from now, the day will be 2 milliseconds linger.

4. Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. It is so big that all other planets could fit inside and the fastest rotating planet 9 hrs and 55 minutes. Jupiter has 63 moons. Europa, one of the Jupiter's moons, is completely covered in ice.

5. Saturn, the second largest planet and its density is so law that it would float in water.


6. Most asteroids lie between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dangerous asteroids, ones that could could cause major regional or global destruction, only hit the Earth every 100,000 years on average. We can Observe more than 20 million meteors every day but only 1 or 2 meteorites hit the Earth's surface each day.

7. By the most accurate definition, there are 1.4 known Black Holes. The closest  Cygnus X-1, is 8,000 light years. Black holes only absorb things that cross their event horizon, so they wouldn't destroy the entire universe. It's also possible for black holes to collide and merge. We can't see a black hole  because like everything else, they also absorb light.

8. The Big Dipper is an asterism, not a constellation . The Big Dipper is actually a small part of Ursa Major. Ursa Major is the constellation. In the same way, Orion's Be;t is an asterism within the Orion constellation.

9. The darkest space, with absolutely nothing around, would be about 2.7 Kelvin(-270 deg C). Space would be absolute zero except for background radiation which makes it ever slightly warmer.

10. Highways, airports,the pyramids, and even large vehicles have been seen by shuttle astronauts  at 217 kilometers from Earth. In fact, the Great Wall is much less visible than other things, especially things that are either reflective or a color that contrasts the surrounding areal

Floating Boat?

Take a look at these Pictures at one glance the boat appears to be floating in the air, but actually the water is so clear that it creates a illusion of flying.






19 Jan 2013

Wireless Electricity

What if devices like cellphone, laptops, even electric vehicles are capable of re-charging themselves without ever being plugged in?

Now this is possible to re-charge those devices without plugged in with the help of  new technology called WiTricity a portmanteau for Wireless Electricity.

WiTricity is commercializing a technology developed by MIT that spends power through the air(wierelessly) to run devices like laptops, DVD players, cell phones, and other common electronics. The technology involves a circuit that converts standard AC electricity to a higher frequency and feeds it to a WiTricity source. The current inside the source includes an oscillating magnetic field. The WiTricity device to be powered is tuned to the same frequency as the source and in a process called"resonant magnetic coupling," power is transferred form the source to the device. The energy of the oscillating magnetic field than includes an electrical current in the WiTricity device, lighting the bulb. WiTricity source is installed in the ceiling and each electronic product must have a WiTricity device to receive power.



How it works?

When electric current is passed through a coil of wire a powerful electromagnetic field is created around it. Electronic devices would pic up the power when brought into the room 

18 Jan 2013

Thought-controlled Computer Cursor

Thought-Controller Computer Cursor Becomes A Reality 

According to a report released on November 19, 2012, researchers led by Indian-origin Scientists have designed the fastest and most accurate mathematical algorithm yet that can help disabled users to move computer cursors with their thoughts. The path breaking recherche was led by Krishna Shenoy of Stanford University, USA. 

The algorithm's speed, accuracy and natural movement closely match those of a real arm. They researchers developed the algorithm form brain-implantable prosthetic systems, known as REFIT, which vastly improves the speed and accuracy of neural prosthetic that control's computer cursors.

The system relies on sensor implanted into the brain, which record's "action potentials" in neural activity form an array of electrode sensors and sends data to a computer. In demonstrations with rhesus monkeys, cursors controlled by the new algorithm doubled the performance of the monkey's actual arm in controlling the cursor. 

Dog's Nose That Can Sniff Out Explosives

A Device Modeled on Dog's Nose That Can Sniff Out Explosives 

At the University of California, USA Scientists had designed a new "nano-tech" chip which can sniff out traces of molecules form explosives. The device is portable, accurate and highly sensitive, and could become as commonplace as smoke detectors in public places in near future. 

The new device used microfluidic nanotechnology to mimic the biological mechanism which is behind scent receptors of dogs. The device is highly sensitive to trace amounts of certain vapour molecules and is able to tell a specific substance apart form similar molecules.

Dogs are still the gold standard for scent detection of explosives. But like a human being, a dog can have a good day or gad day, get tired or distracted  In this aspect, the device steals a march over dogs, as it always has the same amount of sensitivity. Test results show that the device can detect airborne molecules of 2.4 dinitrotoluene, the primary vapour emanating from TNT-based explosives. 

Biggest Black Hole Ever

According to reports released on November 29, 2012 astronomers have claimed that they have found the most massive black hole ever known. It was discovered in a small galaxy about 250 km light years form Earth. It has a mass equivalent to 17 billion Suns.

The super massive black hole is located inside the galaxy NGC 1277 in the constellation Perseus. The black hole makes up about 14 percent of its host galaxy's total mass. It is an apt pointer to its prodigious size, because a normal black hole would make up only as much as 0.1 percent of the mass of its host.

In the same study, several other black holes were also found. Together with the most massive one, these black holes could lead to a fundamental rethinking of theories about how galaxies and black holes formed and evolved. The NGC 1277 is only 10 percent of the size and mass of our Milky Way. Despite its comparatively diminutive size, the black hole at its heart is 11 times as wide as the orbit of Neptune around the Sun. 

Electricity generated form Urine

Schoolgirls Create Generator That Produces Power From Urine

As per reports released on November 11, 2012 four teenage schoolgirls in Nigeria have invented a generator that can make power from urine. It has the ability to convert one liter of urine into six hours of electricity. The makers of this path breaking generator are fourteen years-old Duro-Aina Adebola, Akindele Abiola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, and 15-years-old Bello Eniola, who found a way to utilize a resource that is free, easily obtainable and unlimited.

Urine is put onto an electrolytic cell, which breaks the urea into nitrogen  water and hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into a water filter for purification, which ten gets pushed into the gas cylinder  The gas cylinder pushes the hydrogen into a cylinder of liquid borax  which is used to remove the moisture from the hydrogen gas. This purified hydrogen gas is pushed into the generator, and it produces electricity. 

17 Jan 2013

Plastic Skin

First Self-healing, Touch-sensitive Plastic Skin Developed 

A Study published in the journal Nature Nona-technology on November 12, 2012 revealed that researchers have developed the first synthetic skin that is both sensitive to touch and has the ability to heal itself quickly and repeatedly in room temperature. The finding could lead to smarter prosthetic or resilient personal electronics that can repair themselves. It was developed by researchers at Stanford University, USA. 

In the last decade(2000-2012), there have been major advances in synthetic skin, but even the most effective self-healing materials had major drawbacks. Some had to be exposed to high temperatures, making them unsuitable for daily use,. Some others could heal themselves at room temperature  but repairing a cut changed their mechanical or chemical make-up. Most crucially, no self-healing material till now was a good bulk conductor of electricity, an important property. Now, the new plastic skin has remedied all these shortcomings. 

Bottomless Pit - Monticello Dam Drain Hole


Bottomless Pit-Monticello Dam Drain Hole Glory holes are used for dam's to drain excess water during dry seasons. It is a dam in Napa County, California, United Sates constructed between 1953 and 1957. It is a medium concrete-arch dam with a structural height of 304 ft (93m) and a crest length of 1,023 ft(312). It contains 326,000 cubic yards(249,000 m³) of concrete. The dam impounded Putah Creek to cover the former town of Monticello and flood Berryessa Valley to create Lake Berryessa, then the second-largest man lake in California. The capacity of the reservoir is 1,602,000 acre ft (1.976×109 m3). Water from the reservoir primarily supplies agriculture in surrounding areas. The dam is noted for its classic, uncontrolled morning-glory type spillway. The diameter at the lip is 72 ft (22m). Locally, the spillway is also known as "The Glory Hole". The Monticello Dam Power plant was built at the dam in 1983 and has three generators. The electrical power is sent mostly to the North Bay area of San Francisco.

Glory holes are used for dam's to drain excess water during dry seasons. This is the largest one of them all in the world, it is located in Lake Berryessa. It is used very rarely, but it is quite the sight to see it being put to use. 




16 Jan 2013

Man's Evolution

New Discovery Tells The True Story Of Man's Evolution

The conventional theory about the evolution of mankind is that the modern humans marched out of Africa some 50,000 years ago and then spread to all parts of the globe, replacing all other hominid types that had come before. This traditional idea now stands the risk of being supplanted, thanks to a stunning new discovery. The finding of the tip of a girl's 40,000 year old finger, which was announced in the first week of January 2012, has helped scientists create a complex new pictures of the origin of humans. Analyses done through new gene sequencing technology have shown that modern humans encountered and bred with at  least two groups of ancient humans in relatively recent times. Theses two ancient human groups are the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia, dying out nearly 30,000 years ago; and a mysterious group known as the Denisovans, who lived in Asia and most likely vanished around the same time as the Neanderthals.


The finding of the girl's pinky finger bone and an oddly shaped molar form a young adult have helped scientists in unraveling some complex genetic puzzles. A revolutionary increase in the speed and a decline in the cost of gene sequencing technology have enabled the scientists at the Max Plank Institute, Germany  to map the genomes of both the Neanderthals and the Denisovans. Comparing genomes, scientists have concluded that today's humans outside Africa carry an average of 2.5 percent Neanderthal DNA, and that people from parts of Oceania carry about 5 percent Denisovan DNA. These findings have put the focus on the phenomenon of interbreeding between different humans species. This has thus firmly brought into question the assumption that modern humans originated exclusively in Africa, and then spread out therefrom.  

New Alloy Paves Way For More Fuel-efficient Planes

Scientists at the European Space Agency( ESA) announced on November 6, 2012 that they had developed a new aircraft grade alloy that it twice as light as conventional nickel superalloys while offering equally good properties  It will help aeroplanes save fuel by cutting down on weight without sacrificing safety. It is worth mentioning here that cutting weight by 1 percent will save up to 1.5 percent of fuel. For years, engineers have known that titanium aluminide alloys offer great weight benefits over the nickel superalloys used today in conventional engines.

Since the newer alloy can withstand extreme temperatures up to 800 deg C, it has generated ample interest among jet engine manufactures. However, although it is possible to make the alloy in a laboratory, casting it is the shapes required by industry, such as a turbine blade, is not simple. ESA scientists working in the "Impress" project looked into the problem. They needed to switch off as many external variables as possible  It this case, they chose gravity.

Aluminium samples were heated in a small furnace carried in a sounding rocket into space. During six minutes of free fall, they were heated to over 700 deg C, and then monitored by X-rays as they cooled. Looking at the results, the scientists released that casting titanium aluminides might require looking in the opposite direction: hypergravity. In hypergravity conditions, casting the metals in a centrifuge creating up to 20 times normal gravity helped the liquid metals to fill every part of a mould, producing a perfectly cast alloy. Analyzing metal casting in as many ways as possibles produced building blocks of knowledge that allow the industrial process to be refined and commercialized. 

Wireless Keyboard

Gloves That Allow The Hands To function As Wireless Keyboard 
Researchers from the University of Alabama, USA, have designed a new glove that allows the users hands to turn into a wireless keyboard. Instead of tapping keys on a keyboard, the user simply touches their thumb to certain points on their fingers which are assigned a letter or other keyboard functions. Conductive thread carries the command to the matchbox-sized Printed Circuit Board(PCB) affixed to the back of the glove. The PCB transmits it to the targeted device via Bluetooth.

The name of the glove is Gauntlet, which is an acronym for Generally Accessible Universal Nomadic Tactile Low-power Electronic Typist. It features a beehive of conductive threads running though the fingers and palm. 

World's Fastest

Us computer named World's fasted. A Cray super computer at the US Government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been named the world's fastest. It overtook an IBM supercomputer at another American research center. Titan, a Cray XK7 system installed at Oak Ridge achieved 17.59 petaflops(quadrillions of calculations per second). The system is funded by the United States Department of Energy, and is used for research in energy, climate change, efficient engines, materials and other advanced scientific research.

Titan knocked the IBM Sequoia at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, California, to second place. Sequoia, which was declared the world's fastest system in June 2012, could manage only 16.32 petaflops in the contest. In the top five, the others were Fujitsu's K computer in Kobe, Japan; an IBM  BlueGene/q system named Mira in Chicago  USA; and another IBM BlueGene/Q system named Juqueen in Germany. The survey found that 251 of the fastest 500 systems in the world were in USA, 105 in Europe and 123 in Asia, including 72 in China.

World's first Virtual store


Tesco Homeplus in South Korea has opened the world's first virtual store in the Seoul subway to help time-pressed commuters shop on the go using their smartphones.The walls of the Seonreung subway station in downtown Seoul came to life with virtual displays of over 500 of the most popular products with barcodes which customers can scan using the Homeplus app on their smartphones and get delivered right to their doorstep.
The beauty of the idea is that busy commuters can scan their groceries on their way to work int he morning and, as long as their order is placed before 13.00, their items will be delivered home that same evening, creating even greater speed and convenience in the whole shopping experience. The displays, which include a range of different daily items from milk and apples to pet food and stationery, will be placed on the pillars and the screen doors at the subway station. Commuters can then scan the OR code beneath the desired item via the Homeplus app on their smartphone and the item will then be delivered direct to the customer's home at a time of their choosing. 
A South Korean woman looking at the virtual retail shop at Seolleung subway station in Seoul. A major South Korean retailer has opened what it claims is the world's first virtual store geared to smartphone users, with shoppers scanning barcodes of products displayed in a Seoul subway station.

13 Jan 2013

How to change the colour of GOLD?

We always want to see things in a different way, like what if the colour of GOLD is no more golden? What if we could change the colour of GOLD?

Scientists have for the first time found a way to change the colour of GOLD, the world's most iconic precious metal. Researchers from the University of Southampton, USA, have discovered that by embossing tiny raised or indented patterns onto the meta's surface, they can change the way it absorbs and reflects light. The result is that the human eye does not see it as "GOLDEN" in colour at all.

The breakthrough finding is equally applicable to other metals such as aluminium and silver. It opens up the prospect of colouring metals without having to coat or chemically treat them, delivering valuable economic, environmental and other benefits.

The technique could be harnessed in a wide range of industries which includes manufacturing jewellery. It can also be used to make banknotes and documents that are harder to forge. It can be used to produce a wide range of colours on a given metal. 

Time-control specs

The researchers have developed new "time-control" spectacles that can prevent jet lag and cure insomnia. This it does by resetting the body clock. The high-tech glasses emit a soft green glow which works on the human body clock to change our sleep patterns. Using the device, called the Re_timer, means long-haul air passengers can step off the plane feeling fresh, eve after flying over ling distances.



Inventor Professor Leon Lack said that the glasses could also help those suffering from insomnia, keep shift workers more alert and get people out of the bed in the morning. Using the divide allows one to adjust his/her body clock to a new time zone in small steps. This eliminates the sudden change people experience after flying over ling distances. 

The device stimulates the part of the brain responsible for regulating the 24-hours body clock. It sends signals to the rest of the body, triggering the production of hormones which create daily cycles known as circadian rhythms. Those who want to sleep and wake up early should wear the device for 50 minutes in the morning, while those who want to sleep 50 minutes before bed to delay the body clock. The battery powered glasses can be worn while completing daily tasks. 

8 Jan 2013

What if you're in a house that is upside down?

Here upside down house means not the real living upside down house but the one that  is made to attract the tourist. The Upside Down House is a project created by a Polish businessman and philanthropist named Daniel Czapiewski, and is located in Poland in the tiny village of Szymbark. Rather than simply being a bizarre tourist attraction this house, managed to attract thousands of tourists. The house is also meant to be a profound statement about the Communist era and the state of the world. Many tourists who visit this amazing house complain of mild seasickness and dizziness after just a few minutes of being in the structure.

Though the Upside Down House is designed especially for families who wish to maximize their modern, coastal lifestyle and for those who need flexible layouts to cater for their growing or changing family needs. Called the Upside Down House because of its reversed arrangement of upper-floor living rooms and ground-floor bedrooms, its configuration allows for greater solar access and better potential to capture views and cooling sea breezes and can be constructed on both sloping and level sites.

Now let's take a look at some pictures with this house.






The Austrian Upside-Down House Looks as if it were dropped from the sky.Designed by architects Marek Rozhanski and Irek Glowacki of Poland a dizzying Upside Down House has opened in Tertens, Austria. Visitors can disorient themselves by roaming the interior, complete with upside down bedrooms, bathroom and living areas.
Take a look at this photo ...isn't it amazing?


6 Jan 2013

The Transparent Body

How about a Transparent Body? Did you ever think of that? I guess Not....so here we are
Leptocephalus-the transparent fish is the flat and transparent larva of the eel, marine eels, and other members of the Superorder Elopomorpha.
Photographs of leptocephali of the japanes eel, Anguilla Japonica  that were artificially spawned and reared in the laboratory at the IRAGO institute in japan. The larvac are approximately 30-50 mm long, and about 200 days old.



The Leptocephalus larvae of eels is a unique life stage for a bony fish because these larvae can grow pretty large and they can live up to a year before finally changing into the adult form of a conger, snake, moray or garden eel. Leptocephalus eels are rarely ever spotted because they are mostly transparent.This is the most diverse group of teleosts, containing 801 species over the span of 24 orders, 24 families, and 156 genera. It is supposed that this group arose in the Cretaceous period over 140 million years ago. Fishes with a leptocephalus larva stage include the most familiar eels such as the conger, moray eel, and garden eel, and the freshwater eels of the family Anguilidae, plus more than 10 other families of lesser-known types of marine eels. These are all true eels of the order Anguiliformes. The fishes of the other four traditional orders of elopomorph fishes that have this type of larva are more diverse in their body forms and include the tarpon, bonefish, spiny eel, and pelican eel. 

5 Jan 2013

Light Operated Mouse And Keyboard

If you can't operate regular mouse or keyboard then LOMAK is solution to that problem.
It is an assistive technology device designed for use by people who cannot use standard computer keyboard and mouse. It was invented by an Auckland University of Technology student. The Lomak is clipped to an adjustable stand placed vertically underneath the computer screen and is operated by a small laser pointer mounted on a hat or headband. Some people who have arm movement can alternatively use the Lomak horizontally with a hand-pointer. It can be used as an additional keyboard and mouse with any desktop or laptop computer which has a spare USB port. Like many computer peripherals for people with special access needs, it is very expensive, about $1500.



Some important advantages over other access methods that Lomak offers are:
1. Versatility and ease of use and training (people can be up and running with it almost immediately)
2. It requires no calibration and can operate in any ambient conditions
3.  It does not require software (i.e. no dedicated computers are required for users with disabilities; conversely users can log into their own PCs without assistance)
4. It does not require any screen area (no on-screen, keyboard or mouse menu is required)
5. It can be used with any application (e.g. proprietary software such as accounting/payroll applications and other business software)
The Lomak allows users to log into his or her computer without unveiling computer passwords to their colleagues and promises to emerge as a perfect solution for work environment due to its simple installation, use and management.


A pen or a PC !!!

Have you ever imagined  a life in which we can carry a PC by putting it simply in our pockets???
Well that would not be an imagination anymore,The 5-pen computer By NEC Corporation is a gadget package which is under developing state.This pen is a sort of instrument produces both for the monitor as well as the keyboard on any flat surfaces from where you can carry out functions you would normally do on your desktop computer.

As the name suggest The 5 Pen-Pc also called P-ISM (“Pen-style Personal Networking Gadget Package”) includes 5 function 
1. a CPU pen
2.  communication pen with a cellular phone  function,
3.  virtual  keyboard, 
4. a  very  small  projector
5. and  a  camera.  
The base containing a battery charger and a mass storage device.This personal gadget in minimalist pen style enables the ultimate ubiquitous computing.. Several years on from the initial launch of the P- ISM conceptual prototype, there seems to be little information available about future plans by NEC.

A world of imagination

Can you imagine a world around you where you could do anything you want, look any way you want, a world of 3D, people moving around you but they aren't ,and create any object you can imagine?


Well these all could be possible with the help of second life.It was developed and launched by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life is the world’s leading 3D virtual world environment. It enables its Residents to create content, interact with others, launch businesses, collaborate, educate, and more. With a broad user base that includes everyone from consumers and educators to medical researchers and large enterprises, Second Life has become one of the largest repositories of user-generated content and the largest user-generated virtual goods economy in the world. Second Life comprises the viewer executing on the user's personal computers, and several thousand servers operated by Linden Lab.