Sunday 13 July 2008

Just 4 Gags

1. Long back, a person who sacrificed his sleep,forgot his family,forgot
his food,forgot laughter were called "Saints".

But now they are called..

"IT professionals"
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2. An interesting line written at the back of an Biker's T Shirt:

" If you are able to see this, Please tell me that my galfriend has
fallen off"

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3. Most Relationships fail not because of the absence of love..
Love is always present..Its just that,One loves too much and
The other loves too many,
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4. Employee: Boss, Now i have got married..! Please increase my
salary..!

BOSS: Factory is not responsible for accidents occuring outside the
company..!

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5. Philosophy of life
At the begining of married life, every gal treats her husband as GOD,

Later on somehow the alphabets got reversed..!

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6. What is a Fear?
Fear is the Deep, Wrenching feeling in your stomach
When pages of your book still smell new

and

Just few hours left for your exams..!

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7. Someone has rightly said, "A fool can ask More questions that a wise
man cannot answer"

No Wonder why so many of us speechless when lecturers ask question..!

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8. Boy: Do you have Cards with sentimental Love quotes?

Shopkeeper: Oh sure..@! How about this card, it says "To the only girl I
ever loved.!"

Boy: Thats good, Give me 12 of them..!

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9. After reading the form filled by an applicant.. The employer said: "
WE do have an opening for you..!

Applicant: What is it?

Interviewer: Its called the "door..!"

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10. A Banner cum Sign Board In front of an IT company..

Drive Slowly, Dont kill our Employee...

..... Leave them to us

Tuesday 1 July 2008

Mystery of a 'cosmic impact


A hundred years ago this week, a gigantic explosion ripped open the dawn sky above the swampy taiga forest of western Siberia, leaving a scientific riddle that endures to this day.

A dazzling light pierced the heavens, preceding a shock wave with the power of a thousand atomic bombs which flattened 80 million trees in a swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres.

Evenki nomads recounted how the blast tossed homes and animals into the air. In Irkutsk, 1,500km away, seismic sensors registered what was initially deemed to be an earthquake. The fireball was so great that a day later, Londoners could read their newspapers under the night sky.

What caused the so-called Tunguska Event, named after the Podkamennaya Tunguska river near where it happened, has spawned at least a half a dozen theories.

The biggest finger of blame points at a rogue rock whose destiny, after travelling in space for millions of years, was to intersect with Earth at exactly 7.17am on June 30, 1908.

Even the most ardent defenders of the sudden impact theory acknowledge there are many gaps. They strive to find answers, believing this will strengthen defences against future Tunguska-type threats, which experts say occur with an average frequency from one in 200 years to one in 1,000 years.

"Imagine an unspotted asteroid laying waste to a significant chunk of land... and imagine if that area, unlike Tunguska and a surprising amount of the globe today, were populated," the British science journal Nature commented last week.

Comets move at far greater speeds than asteroids, which means they release more kinetic energy upon impact. A small comet would deliver the same punch as a larger asteroid. But no fragments of the Tunguska villain have ever been found, despite many searches.

Finding a piece is important, for it will boost our knowledge about the degrees of risk from dangerous Near Earth Objects, say Italian researchers Luca Gasperini, Enrico Bonatti and Giuseppe Longo.

"(I)f the Tunguska event was in fact caused by a comet, it would be a unique occurrence rather than an important case study of a known class of phenomena," Gasperini's team write in this month's issue of Scientific American .

"On the other hand, if an asteroid did explode in the Siberian skies that June morning, why has no-one yet found fragments?"

The Italian trio believe the answers lie in a curiously-shaped oval lake, called Lake Cheko, located about 10km from ground zero. Computer models, they say, suggest it is the impact crater from a metre-sized fragment that survived the explosion. A rival theory is given an airing in this week's New Scientist .

Lake Cheko does not have the typical round shape of an impact crater, and no extraterrestrial material has been found, which means "there's got to be a terrestrial explanation," Wolfgang Kundt, a physicist at Germany's Bonn University told the British weekly.

He believes the Tunguska Event was caused by a massive escape of 10 million tonnes of methane-rich gas deep within Earth's crust. Evidence of a similar release can be found on the Blake Ridge off Norway, Kundt said.

Mobiles pose no health risk: Study

Those who worry that mobile phones and their transmission towers are health hazards can now relax following studies coordinated by the Berlin-based Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS).

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said more than 50 studies in the German Mobile Telecommunications Research Programme (DMF), conducted from 2002 to 2008, had found no evidence that mobile phones and transmission towers posed a health risk within the required limits for electromagnetic radiation.

The programme was funded with 17 million euros ($26 million), a small sum compared with the billions of euros that the German government collected when it auctioned licenses for slices of Germany's UMTS airwave spectrum in 2000.

Though the country's four mobile network operators provided half of the research funds, the BfS told critics that DMF procedures had ensured the objectivity of the studies.

Research focused on the functioning mechanisms of high frequency electromagnetic fields in mobile telephony, the fields' effect on humans and animals, and the amount of electromagnetic radiation to which the public is exposed.

Several studies looked at possible effects on what is known as the blood-brain barrier, a kind of filter that prevents harmful substances in the blood from reaching neurons in the brain.

According to the BfS, the studies found no conclusive evidence that radiation from mobile telephony significantly weakened the blood-brain barrier.

Three studies dealt with the 1.5 percent of Germans who describe themselves as "electrosensitive" and blame various health problems on electromagnetic fields.

Since the ailments are typically things like headaches and sleep disorders, which could have many causes, establishing a link with electromagnetic radiation is very difficult.

The studies found that some people were quicker to sense electromagnetic fields than others, and that health complaints were not necessarily connected with radiation.

Test persons were asked to speak up as soon as they felt exposure to electromagnetic fields. Those who considered themselves electro-sensitive sounded the most false alarms.

The BfS concluded there was no proof that electromagnetic fields caused the health problems named by electro-sensitive people.

The research programme also included a number of epidemiological studies aimed at determining whether mobile phone users contracted certain kinds of cancer more often than nonusers.

The BfS said there was no evidence of a link.

Despite the studies' reassuring results, the "all clear" signal comes with a caveat: Mobile telephony is safe as far as we know, but we still do not know everything.

"What concerns me is that we know little about the effects on children and juveniles," remarked Rolf Buschmann, an environmental expert at the North Rhine-Westphalia Consumer Centre in Dusseldorf.

There are no suitable scientific models at present for studies involving children.

The effects of long-term mobile phone use - 10 years or more - have not been sufficiently studied either, which is not surprising considering that the technology is still young.

For Bernd Rainer Mueller, an engineer and measurement technology specialist for the Berlin-based environmental protection organisation BUND, this is reason enough to demand lower legal limits for the electromagnetic radiation caused by mobile telephony.

"I'm afraid that otherwise half the population will have health problems at some point," he said.

Mueller's fears are based in part on the justified assumption that mobile-phone use will increase in the years ahead.

For its part, the BfS also sees the need for more research on long-term mobile-phone use as well as on the effects on children and juveniles.

And it continues to advise consumers to use mobile phones as little as possible, to buy low-radiation models, and to make sure that conditions for reception are good.

Katrina Kaif : Fever Pitch


Trust Katrina Kaif to be a thorough professional. The actress was down with heavy viral fever during the IIFA Awards held in Bangkok recently. The doctors had advised her complete bed rest. The organisers wondered whether Katrina would be able to live up to her commitment and perform live for the event.

In fact, taking the doctor's advice into consideration the organisers too suggested that Kats should just take it easy and not perform at the show. But Kats being Kats, popped in some antibiotics and was on the go! It was all rock and roll from then on.

Retracting from a commitment was out of question for her. And the kind of performance Kats dished out, not once did the onlookers come to know that Kats was completely under the weather, Looking as fresh as the morning dew, she not only had the audience on her side, but also the producers and directors who were stunned by her professionalism.

Looks like it's the offers that are now 'heating up' for the lovely Katrina.

Vidya goes ‘devil’ hunting in Toronto

She is one of the most gracious stars we know. At a recent episode during the shoot of Kismat Konnection, Vidya Balan realised her fascination for ‘devilry’. Apparently, the entire unit would go partying after pack-up everyday while in Toronto. So much so, that they soon started running out of great joints. And that’s when a friend of Vidya’s cousin who stays in the city recommended a place called ‘Devil’s Martini’ as a must-go.

From there started a real filmy tale that will stay with the unit members forever. Sharing it with Indiatimes Movies, Vidya said, “This is one incident that will stay with me for long. It may sound silly but it did freak all of us. I had the exact address with me and the entire crew, including me couldn’t wait to reach there and have a ball. But some how, when we reached the area, there was just no sign of ‘Devil’s Martini’.”

She added, “I even went ahead and asked the locals for direction who kept pointing a few blocks away but after hunting down the entire area, the nightclub was just nowhere in sight.”

A couple of days later, they once agin tried finding Devil’s Martini, but it could not be traced. The crew tried hunting it out on five different occasions during the entire shooting schedule, but it was nowhere to be found. In fact, the entire crew was so spooked by this, before eventually realizing that it is just not in their ‘kismat’!

But like they say, when it rains, it pours. On-set dress designer Shabeena Khan decided to take on the task of throwing parties regularly back in her hotel room which she shared with Rahila Mirza, the director’s daughter and writer of Kismat Konnection. And while the unit partied away to glory, they soon got so famous that it ended up in Shabina’s room getting ransacked!

“Shabina’s parties were really extravagant and trust me; we had the time of our lives. Unfortunately, some not-so-lucky beings got wind of our fun and one day when we returned from the sets, the entire room was ransacked, including even the peanut butter sachets and loose pennies,” revealed a giggling Vidya.