Shyam's Blog

Man grows new skull after decades

reddyshyam — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:18:00 +0000

The severely damaged skull of a Northumberland man involved in a car crash 50 years ago has regenerated itself, a process thought to be rare.
Doctors operated to treat an infection in Gordon Moore’s head and found the bone had grown back beneath the metal plate inserted after the accident.
This would not be unusual in a child, whose bones are growing, but there are very few documented cases in adults.
Doctors said it was particularly remarkable given the size of the area.
Mr Moore, from Ridsdale, made headlines previously by becoming among the first tourists to visit Iraq and Afghanistan.

More here.

Few facts

reddyshyam — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:02:00 +0000

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:

Spades – King David
Hearts – Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds – Julius Caesar

————

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987, 654,321

————

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died because of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

————

Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter ‘A’?

A. One thousand

Software: Netbeans 6.8 beta out (unofficially)

reddyshyam — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 08:40:00 +0000

Netbeans 6.8 beta out unofficially. If you are as curious as I am then get it from the here.

Warning on liquorice in pregnancy

reddyshyam — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:53:00 +0000

Pregnant women who eat large amounts of liquorice could negatively affect their child’s intelligence and behaviour, according to research.

Experts from Edinburgh and Helsinki universities studied eight-year-olds born in Finland, where consumption of liquorice among young women is common.

The children of women who ate a lot of liquorice when pregnant did not perform as well as other youngsters in tests.

Researchers said a component in liquorice may impair the placenta.

They said the component – glycyrrhizin – may allow stress hormones to cross from the mother to the baby.

More here.

Software: Testing PC Tools Firewall Plus (v6.0.0.74)

reddyshyam — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:39:00 +0000

I am currently using Comodo Firewall and am testing the above for the ratings reason as per the site Matousec.

Here are few screenshots.

Indian flood toll rises further

reddyshyam — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:58:00 +0000

The number of people killed in flooding caused by heavy rains across southern India continues to rise, with more than 200 confirmed dead, officials say.

Millions of people have been left homeless in the Indian states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh as entire villages have been swept away.

Rainfall has eased in the worst affected state of Karnataka but many farms have been destroyed.

Officials say billions of dollars are needed for relief and reconstruction.

Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa said more than 170 people have died in floods in that state alone.

More here.

Polar bear cub hitches a ride

reddyshyam — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Arctic waters are at best chilly and at worst close to freezing.

Which may explain why a polar bear cub has recently been seen riding on the back of its mother as the bears swim across parts of the Arctic Ocean.

The cub then briefly rode her back as she clambered out of the ice, a unique event photographed by a tourist.

Experts have rarely seen the behaviour, and they say the latest find suggests it may be a more common practice than previously thought.

Dr Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso describes what happened in the journal Polar Biology.

On the 21 July 2006, Mrs Angela Plumb, a tourist from the UK, was aboard a ship in the mouth of a fjord in the Svalbard archipelago

More here.

Happy Gandhi jayanthi

reddyshyam — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:23:00 +0000

Glad to see Google honour the great man.

Dinosaur eggs are found in India

reddyshyam — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:50:00 +0000

Geologists in southern India say they have found hundreds of dinosaur egg clusters which could be about 65 million years old.

It was a chance find discovered when a team of scientists were locating a place to excavate an ancient riverbed in the state of Tamil Nadu.

As they dug deeper they saw layers of what looked like fossilised eggs.

The photos and samples were then sent to various universities who confirmed that they were dinosaur eggs.

Each egg is the size of a football – about 13 to 23cm in diameter, lying buried in sandy nests.

The leader of the team, MU Ramkumar, told the BBC the finding is significant and could help to unravel the mystery about the extinction of dinosaurs.

More here.

Daily sweets ‘linked to violence’

reddyshyam — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:55:00 +0000

Children who eat sweets and chocolate every day are more likely to be violent as adults, according to UK researchers.

The Cardiff University study involving 17,500 people is the first into effects of childhood diet on adult violence.

It found 10-year-olds who ate sweets daily were significantly more likely to have a violence conviction by age 34.

Researchers suggested they had not learnt to delay gratification, but other experts said already “difficult” children might be given more sweets.

The researchers looked at data on around 17,500 people and found that 69% of the participants who were violent at the age of 34 had eaten sweets and chocolate nearly every day during childhood, compared to 42% who were non-violent.

More here.