Interesting Facts

Interesting Facts About Andorra

2011-09-03T14:08:00.000+05:30

The country of Andorra has a zero percent unemployment rate

Population: 74,000

Capital: Andorra la Vella; 21,000

Area: 468 square kilometers (181 square miles)

Language: Catalan, French, Castilian (Spanish)

Religion: Roman Catholic

Currency: Euro

GDP per Capita: U.S. $19,000

Literacy Percent:100

Small, landlocked Andorra is almost hidden in the high Pyrenees between France and Spain.

A co-principality since the 13th century, mountainous Andorra has two princes, heads of state: President of France and Spain, the Bishop of La Seu d'Urgell (a historic town just south of Andorra).

The country adopted a democratic constitution in 1993, creating a parliament and limiting the power of the co-princes.

The economy is based on tax-free shopping, tourism and international banking.

Interesting Facts About Hockey Pucks

2011-09-02T19:09:00.000+05:30

Hockey pucks were originally made from frozen cow dung.

A hockey puck is also referred to colloquially as a "biscuit".

Interesting Facts About Photic sneeze reflex

2011-09-01T15:23:00.000+05:30

Sneezing caused by sudden exposure to bright light is known as photic sneeze reflex.

It is not uncommon - one in ten people are photic sneezers.

Some studies suggest it may be due to an accidental crossing of nerve signals involved in normal sneezing and dilation of the pupil. However, photic sneeze reflex occurs only after someone has been adapted to darkness for at least five minutes.

Even students photic sneezers "will normally fit (without causing a sneeze) if they are in and out of bright light for short periods of time, so the real mystery is why a long period of darkness makes a difference. Reflection is not troublesome for most people (a notable exception are the fighter pilots), but is of great interest to scientists.

The study of the photic sneeze reflex can improve our understanding of the sensory pathways of the nervous system, and the sneezing reflex circuit.

Interesting Facts About Bacteria

2011-09-01T15:12:00.000+05:30

Typically there are between 10,000 and 10 million bacteria on each hand.

Damp hands spread 1,000 times more germs than dry hands.

The number of germs on your fingertips doubles after you use the toilet.

Bacteria 40 million years old have been extracted and successfully grown from a fossilised bee.

In 1918 more people died from the influenza virus (approximately 30 million) than died in the First World War (10 million).

When you cough germs can travel about 3 metres if you do not put your hand or a handkerchief over your nose and mouth.

Studies show only about 70% of people wash their hands after using a public toilet.

Bacteria double their number every 20 minutes. Students can be asked to calculate how many there are after 1, 7 and 24 hours.

Almost one million bacteria can be created by one person in a school day.

Interesting Facts About catfish

2011-09-01T14:38:00.000+05:30

A catfish has about 100,000 taste buds

Catfish are raised in freshwater ponds of only four to six feet deep.

Farm-raised catfish are taught to eat feed pellets that float on the water surface. Catfish are bottom-feeding wild.

A catfish can put up to 4,000 eggs a year per pound of body weight.

Small catfish are called "fry" as they still live on food supplied by the yolk sac.

When the catfish reach 4 inches long are called "fry" (the size of an index finger).

The catfish are harvested in the nets when they weigh about one to one and a half pounds.

About 95% of farm-raised catfish in the nation stands in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana.

Catfish is now the fifth most popular fish in America.

Catfish is available throughout the year.

More than 447 million pounds of catfish were produced in 1995.

Interesting Facts About Nail Biting Habit

2011-07-07T12:46:00.000+05:30

Nail biting affects around 30% of children between 7 to 10 years and 45% of teenagers. The ten fingernails are usually equally bitten and approximately the same degree. It may be underrecognized since individuals tend to deny or be ignorant of its negative consequences complicating its diagnosis

Nail biting is considered an impulse control disorder in the DSM-IV-R while the ICD-10 classifies it as "other specified behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence".

Source :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_biting

Interesting Facts About Angry Birds

2011-06-18T15:27:00.000+05:30

Angry Birds was made by a team of four people and took eight months to finish because it was such a low priority for the company.

The game cost less than £70,000 to make.

Angry Birds fans include public figures as diverse as David Cameron, Paul Gascoigne, Kylie Minogue, Conan O’Brien and Jon Hamm, Mad Men’s Don Draper.

It has sold more than seven million copies on Apple’s iPhone.

An Angry Birds Facebook game is coming in 2011.

Rovio Mobile developed more than 50 games, with relatively little success, before finally striking gold with Angry Birds.

The Angry Birds beta for Android hit more than one million downloads in three weeks.

Twenty different Angry Birds toys will be released early in 2011.

Peter Vesterbacka, Rovio's official spokesman, has the job title 'Mighty Eagle’.

Speaking of unusual titles, one of Rovio's game testers was nicknamed the 'Rovio Killer' because he was so bad at their games.

Interesting Facts About Tangled Movie

2011-06-18T15:20:00.000+05:30

According to the Los Angeles Times, Tangled was in development for six years and cost more than $260 million to produce

“Tangled” marks Walt Disney Pictures’ 50th full-length animated feature.

The “Tangled” animated cast includes five main characters, 21 thugs and 38 townspeople. Leading up to the film’s dramatic lantern scene, the Disney effects team was called upon to create a crowd that consisted of nearly 3,000 people. This is the largest crowd that the Studio has ever created for a CG feature.

The movie Tangled was originally supposed to be called Rapunzel.

Interesting Facts About Shelby Mustang

2009-10-01T15:51:00.002+05:30

The aboriginal Shelby Mustang was congenital in 1967.

The Shelby Mustang is a distinctively adapted Ford Mustang alleged afterwards artist Carroll Shelby. He formed with Ford to accomplish the cars from 1967 to 1970. The Shelby Mustang is advised one the archetypal beef cars.

The GT350 came with a 302 cubic inch V8, 22 inches bigger than a mustang. The GT500 had a 428 cubic inch V8. Due to the added power, it had continued brakes. Suspension bracings were beneath the hood. To accumulate the rear brakes cool, air scoops were added.

A bang during assembly acquired some 1968 GT500 Shelby Mustangs to use a 390 cubic inch V8

The Shelby Mustang GT500 is accent in the cine "Gone in 60 Seconds." The car is alleged Eleanor.

Carroll Shelby and Ford reunited for the 2007 Shelby Mustang.

Carroll Shelby fabricated appropriate GT350 Mustangs for Hertz to hire to customers. Not surprisingly, best of these cars were alternate with beat out clamp assemblies. Hertz afflicted the mustang it offered from a stick about-face to an automated transmission.

When a Shelby GT500KR buyer apparent a backup awning amount $18,400, the buyer aired his anger on the web. That antecedent address has back affected off a firestorm in the online Shelby community, with the affair overextension to abundant forums and babble rooms. Jim Owens from Shelby Automobiles claimed that the allotment in catechism was the alone abounding carbon-fiber assembly awning accessible in a U.S. agent that has gone through the aforementioned all-embracing acceptance action as any added OEM product, and there was no customs activated because of the part's exclusivity. However, afterwards the abrogating feedback, the hood's amount was bargain to $9,700, and the prices of actual carbon cilia apparatus were beneath review, including skullcaps and splitters

In 2002, Carroll Shelby awash a authorization to a aggregation alleged Unique Performance in Farmers Branch, Texas, to aftermath the GT500E, a Shelby based on the "Eleanor" 1967 GT500 featured acutely in the 2000 cine Gone in Sixty Seconds, starring Nicolas Cage. Added fresh Shelbys followed, including the GT350SR and GT500SR. Each of these fresh Shelbys is accustomed a Shelby VIN and all are acceptable for admittance in the Shelby American World Registry.

On October 5, 2007 Shelby's licensing annex appear it has taken accomplish to bisect the accord with Unique Performance afterwards abundant complaints and several lawsuits filed by barter who had paid money for "Continuation" Shelby GT-350SRs and GT-500Es (Eleanors) but not accustomed cars.

On November 1, 2007, Unique Performance was raided by the Farmers Annex Police Department due to VIN irregularities and after declared bankruptcy, which finer concluded the Shelby assiduity "Eleanor" production.

Interesting Facts About Louvre

2009-09-30T17:09:00.002+05:30

The Louvre Building (Musée du Louvre) in Paris, France, is one of the added good and best acclaimed museums in the world. The building, a above aristocratic palace, lies in the centermost of Paris, amid the Seine river and the Rue de Rivoli. Its axial courtyard, now active by the Louvre bottle pyramid, lies in the arbor of the Champs-Élysées, and appropriately forms the basis from which the Axe celebrated springs. Allotment of the aristocratic Alcazar of the Louvre was aboriginal opened to the accessible as a building on November 8, 1793, during the French Revolution.

The aboriginal aristocratic "Castle of the Louvre" on this armpit was founded by Philippe II in 1190, as a breastwork to avert Paris on its west adjoin Viking attacks. In the 14th century, Charles V angry it into a alcazar of the arts, but Francois I and Henri II tore it bottomward to body a absolute palace; the foundations of the aboriginal breastwork belfry are now beneath the Salle des Cariatides (Room of the Caryatids).

The absolute allotment of the Château du Louvre was amorphous in 1546. The artist Pierre Lescot alien to Paris the fresh architectonics cant of the Renaissance, which had been developed in the châteaux of the Loire. His fresh accession for the old alcazar authentic its status, as the aboriginal amid the aristocratic palaces. J. A. du Cerceau additionally formed on the Louvre.

During his administration (1589-1610), King Henri IV added the Grande Galerie. Added than a division of a mile connected and one hundred anxiety wide, this huge accession was congenital forth the coffer of the Seine River and at the time was the longest building of its affectionate in the world. Henri IV, a apostle of the arts, arrive hundreds of artists and craftsmen to alive and assignment on the building's lower floors. This attitude connected for addition two hundred years until Napoleon concluded it. Louis XIII (1610-1643) completed the Denon Wing, which had been started by Catherine Medici in 1560. Today it has been renovated, as a allotment of the Admirable Louvre Advance Programme. The Richelieu Accession was additionally congenital by Louis XIII. It was allotment of the Ministry of Economy of France, which took up best of the arctic accession of the palace. The Ministry was confused and the accession was adapted and angry into arresting galleries which were inaugurated in 1993, the 200th ceremony of the Louvre Museum.

Commissioned by King Louis XIV, artist Claude Perrault's eastern accession (1665-1680), crowned by an uncompromising Italian balustrade forth its audibly non-French collapsed roof, was a ground-breaking abandonment in French architecture. His astringent architectonics was called over a architectonics provided by the abundant Bernini, who came to Paris for the purpose. Perrault had translated the Roman artist Vitruvius into French. Now Perrault's aesthetic commutual columns anatomy a adumbral brace with a axial pedimented celebrating accomplished access aloft on a high, rather arresting basement, in a aseptic classicizing bizarre address that has provided models for admirable edifices in Europe and America for centuries. The Metropolitan Building in Fresh York, for one example, reflects Perrault's Louvre design.

The Louvre was still actuality added to by Napoleon III. The fresh accession of 1852-1857, by architects Visconti and Hector Lefuel, represents the Second Empire's adaptation of Neo-Baroque, agilely answerable with detail everywhere and burdened with sculpture. Assignment connected until 1876. In 1989, the Crystal Pyramid was inaugurated. It was advised and congenital by Ieoh Ming Pei. It was the aboriginal advance of the Admirable Louvre Project. Today, abounding renovations are demography place. One of the best contempo was the advance of the Carre Gallery, area the Mona Lisa is exhibited. The Louvre holds the affluent aesthetic ancestry of the French bodies from the aboriginal Capetian Kings through the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte and to the present day.

Long managed by the French accompaniment beneath the Réunion des Musées Nationaux the Louvre has afresh acquired admiral of self-management as an "Etablissement Accessible Autonome" in adjustment to added good administer its growth. Since September 14, 2005, the Louvre building has gradually banned the demography of photos of its artworks.

Among the bags of priceless paintings is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, conceivably the best acclaimed painting in the world; it is housed in the Salle des Etats in a climate-controlled ambiance abaft careful glass. Works of artists like Fragonard, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Poussin, and David can additionally be seen. Amid the acclaimed sculptures in the accumulating are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo. The accumulating of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845-1934), accustomed to the Louvre in 1935, fills an exhibition room. It contains added than 40,000 engravings, about 3,000 assets and 500 illustrated books.

Besides art, the Louvre has abounding added types of exhibits, including archeology, history, and architecture. It has a ample appliance collection, whose best amazing account acclimated to be the Bureau du Roi of the 18th century, now alternate to the Alcazar of Versailles.

Interesting Facts About Serengeti

2009-09-30T16:47:00.002+05:30

The Serengeti National Park is amid in Tanzania, adjoining to Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The Serengeti ecosystem includes 2 countries: Tanzania and Kenya

In Kenya, the Serengeti ecosystem is acclaimed as Masai Mara National Reserve.

Serengeti National Park is 14,763 aboveboard kilometers.

The Serengeti National Park has abounding rivers abounding through it, abiding and seasonal, including the Seronera River, Mara River, Grumeti River and Orangi River.

The highlight of the Serengeti ecosystem, not activate anywhere in the world, is the clearing of the animals appropriately the acumen to appointment Serengeti National Park and Masai Mara National Reserve.

The clearing of animals consists of White Bearded Wildebeests, Burchells Zebra and Thomson's gazelles.

The clearing begins by the wildebeests, gazelles and zebra's own congenital biological triggers bent to chase for baptize and greener pastures.

The clearing attracts assorted breed of predators, some being: Hyenas, Lions, Leopards, Cheetahs, Crocodiles, Pythons etc.

Over a actor wildebeests activate their circumambulation of the Serengeti National Park and Masai Mara National Reserve. Over bisected a actor Burchells Zebras and Thompson's gazelles participate in the traditions of the Serengeti.

Serengeti comes from the Maasai chat "Siring" acceptation "Endless Plain", which absolutely is what it means: hundreds of kilometers of collapsed apparent land, more good termed "The Sea of Grass On Plains". The aboriginal compassionate about Serengeti comes from its acumen of the ecosystem from the Serengeti National Esplanade itself. The ecosystem encompasses the following: Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area in the south east, Ikorongo, Grumeti and Maswa Bold Affluence in the western pockets, the Loliondo Bold Ascendancy Area (also accepted as government accustomed hunting blocks) in the arctic east, and in the arctic by the acclaimed Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, appropriately the Serengeti National Esplanade itself is absorptive aural these bold ascendancy and reserves. The Serengeti ecosystem is about 27,000 aboveboard kilometers and the esplanade is accurate at 14,763 aboveboard kilometers.

Interesting Facts About Kite

2009-09-01T17:53:00.003+05:30

The smallest kite in the world which actually flies is 5mm high.

The largest number of kites flown on a single line is 11,284, this record is held by a Japanese kite maker.

The longest kite in the world is 1034 metres (3394 ft).

The largest kite in the world is the Megabite 55 x 22 metres (630sq metres).

The fastest recorded speed of a kite is over 120 mph. (193 km/h).

The record for the highest single kite flown is 3801 metres (12,471ft).

for a train of kites 9740 metres (31,955 ft).

The world record for the longest 'kite fly' is 180 hours.

Kite flying was banned in China during the Cultural Revolution, anyone found flying a kite was sent to jail for up to three years and their kites destroyed.

There are 78 rules in kite fighting in Thailand.

Kite flying was banned in Japan in 1760 because too many people preferred to fly kites than work.

The aeroplane is a development of the kite.

For centuries kites have been used in wars and battles, for signalling, lifting observers, target practice, as barrage kites, dropping propaganda leaflets etc.

The Chinese believe that looking at kites high in the sky maintains good eyesight.

The Chinese believe that when you tilt your head back to look at a kite in the sky your mouth opens slightly, which gets rid of excess body heat giving you a healthy yin-yang balance.

The Chinese name for a kite is Fen Zheng, which means wind harp. The name is derived from early Chinese kites which used to carry wind musical instruments.

Kites were used in the American Civil War to deliver letters and newspapers.

The delta hang glider was a development of flexiwing kite called a Rogallo.

The first powered aircraft were large box kites with motors fitted to them.

The world-renowned father of aeronautical theory was Sir George Caley (1721 to 1790) who lived near Scarborough in Yorkshire. He discovered the difference between lift & thrust and invented the steerable tail and rudder. He also discovered the importance of the dihedral angle for stability of flight and knew the importance of a curved wing.

If a lightweight engine had been invented in Sir George Caleys time he would have beaten the Wright brothers flight by over 150 years.

Large kites were banned in East Germany because of the possibility of man lifting over the Berlin Wall.

The fastest crossing of the English Channel towed by kites was 2hrs 30min by a team from Flexifoil International in 1999. They would have done it in 2hrs if the French Coastguards had not stopped them 1/2 a mile from the French coast.

In 1985 I was presented to his HRH Prince Charles after winning a British Council travel award to visit kite festivals in China. He told me that whilst on honeymoon on the Royal Yacht Britannia he asked a crew member to launch his kite (a wedding present) from the rear of the yacht. The kite went up so fast the line burnt his hands - he had to let go and lost the kite. He said he learned two things that day, first you must wear gloves when flying kites and secondly remember to tell the Captain of the ship to slow down.

The British scholar Joseph Needham said in his book "Science & Civilisation

in China", that the kite was the most important scientific device to have come to Europe from China.

When the Japanese were building some of the early temples & shrines they used large kites to lift tiles and other materials to the workmen on the roofs.

The Russians used kites to tow torpedoes in 1855 with great accuracy.

Ancient stories of fire breathing Dragons were probably a windsock type of kite flown by soldiers in the middle ages which had burning tar in the mouth opening to frighten the enemy in battle.

The para-gliders that brought back the first space capsules to earth were are development of the Rogallo Kite invented by Francis Rogallo in 1948.

The Rogallo kite was the model for the first hang gliders.

More adults in the world fly kites than children.

In 1826 there used to be a stage coach service between London and Bristol using kites instead of horses.

There is at least one Kite Festival every weekend of the year in some part of the world.

There are many indoor Kite Festivals.

Kites have been used for centuries for fishing.

Kites are used for bird scaring, forecasting the weather and frightening evil spirits away.

Approximately 12 people are killed each year in kiting accidents throughout the world.

It is now thought that the first kites flown over 3000 years ago, were made from leaves.

In Indonesia leaf kites are still used for fishing.

Kite flying is one of the fastest growing sports in the world.

The Maori tribes from New Zealand made beautiful birdman kites made from bark cloth and leaves.

Kite flying is popular in most countries except for one or two for example, Iceland and Russia, but we are trying to remedy that.

You do not need wind to fly a kite.

Each year on the second Sunday of October kite flyers in nearly every country of the World unite and fly a kite to celebrate "ONE SKY ONE WORLD".

People were flying kites 1,000years before paper was invented.

Kites have been used for thousands of years to lift offerings and give thanks to the Gods for good harvests, fertility, weather and prosperity.

There are over 50 million kites sold in the USA every year.

Alexander Bell, the inventor of the telephone also developed the tetrahedral kite, which was very successfully used for man carrying.

In the Orient, kites are given to someone to bring them happiness, good luck, prosperity and cure illness.

The modern ram air parachute and para-gliders were developed from a parafoil kite invented by the American kite maker Domina Jalbert in 1963.

Baden-Powell (the brother of the founder of the scout movement) did lots of successful experiment with man lifting kites.

Samuel Franklin Cody who invented the Cody manlifting kite system was the first man to cross the English Channel towed by kites in 1903.

In 1908 Samuel Franklin Cody was the first man in England to build and fly a powered aircraft, (a large box kite fitted with a small engine).

Samuel Franklin Cody was the first man in England to be killed in a powered aircraft accident - 1913.

In 1901 Marconi used a Hexagon kite to transmit the first radio signals across the Atlantic, the kite line was used as the aeriel.

Benjamin Franklin used a kite to prove that lightning was electricity.

Lawrence Hargrave was an English man who emmigrated to Australia where he invented the box kite in 1893.

In 1847, a young boy won a competition to fly and land a kite on the other side of the Niagara River. They then used the kite line to pull larger cables over the river, enabling them to start work on building the first railway bridge between Canada and the USA.
Some Japanese kites weigh over 2 tons.

One of the longest Chinese Dragons I have seen flying was over 600 metres long.

Kites have been used in many sea rescues.

Interesting Facts About Jamaica

2009-07-28T10:24:00.002+05:30

Jamaica is the largest English-speaking island in the Caribbean and the third largest overall. The island spans 4,400 square miles.

Jamaica is populated by over 2 million people, largely descendents of the freed African slaves brought over to the island by the spanish and British. Jamaica is classified as a developing country. Tourism and mining are the two most profitable economic sectors along with agriculture and manufacturing. Jamaica has been an independent country since 1962 when it ceased to be a British colony but remains part of the British Commonwealth.

Jamaica is an independent nation and a member of the British Commonwealth. After enjoying full internal self-government for a number of years Jamaica achieved independence in August of 1962. Queen Elizabeth II however, is still Queen of Jamaica by tradition and the titular head of state is her representative on the island—the Governor General. It is similar to Canada.

Jamaica is the third largest Caribbean island, measuring 146 miles at its widest point. Primarily of volcanic origin, the lush island features a mountain ridge that peaks at Blue Mountain which is 7,402 feet high. Many white-sand beaches and clear seas ring the island.

Democracy is complete, with an elected Parliament, a Prime Minister, an elected House of Representatives and a Senate. It works on similar lines to the British parliament. The constitution embodies absolute safeguards to personal liberties and democratic rule of law.

Parliament sits at Gordon House on Kingston's Duke Street and visitors can watch proceedings from the visitors gallery.

Population standing at 2,731, 832 at the end of 2005 is made up of the following approximate ethnic groups: African 76.3%, Afro-European 15.1%, European 0.8%, Chinese and Afro-Chinese 1.2%, East Indian and Afro-East Indian 3.4% and others 3.4%.

Arawak Indians were the original inhabitants exterminated by the Spanish after Columbus discovered Jamaica in 1492. The Spanish were defeated by the British in 1655.

Snakes are extremely rare. They were killed off by the mongoose, imported to exterminate canefield rats.

Climate is year-round summer with no definite rainy season, although it usually rains most in May and October. North-easterly trade winds blow continually.

Obeahism the Jamaican form of Voodoo exists but is seldom heard of. The Obeah man is supposed to marshal evil spirits to bring good or bad fortune. The practice of Obeahism is a still considered a crime punishable by imprisonment here.

Industries in order of importance are tourism bauxite, agriculture (sugar, bananas, coffee, pimento, cocoa and tobacco). No other country in the world produces pimento, also known as Allspice.

Orchids grow wild all over Jamaica—200 species of them, 73 of which are found nowhere else. There are also 500 species of fern and 1,000 species of trees.

Blue Moons happen in Jamaica. Sapphire-coloured moons have been observed half a dozen times during the last 40 years.

The Coconut Palm is not native to Jamaica or the West Indies. Surprisingly nor are sugar cane, bananas, mangoes, breadfruit or bamboo. They were all brought to the island at various stages in its history. The original Arawak inhabitants lived mainly on corn, fish and yams.

Unexplored country still exists in the Cockpit Country, part of which is inhabited by the Maroons, slaves turned loose by the Spanish before they fled the island, and who went to this wild country to form settlements. They later harassed the British so much they were granted independence in a treaty of 1734 and still govern themselves today.

Miscellaneous Departure Tax-Most important to remember, you will be asked to pay a departure tax of US$22 unless it was already calculated into your ticket when you bought it.

Official Matter Entry Regulations- No passports are required of Canadian or U.S. Citizens/Residents entering as tourists for any period up to six months provided that they have a return ticket and identification such as a social security card or driver's license. All other visitors must carry a valid passport.

Your home country may however impose other travel requirements in order for you to leave and return. Please check with your local officials for more information and to prevent any confusion.

Visitors can obtain a special licence after a 24-hour period on the island. You must produce your passport and two witnesses. If either party has been divorced or widowed, necessary documents must be produced to vouch for their current status. Young people under 21 years of age must produce written consent from a parent, signed by a notary public.

Jamaica's currency is the Jamaican dollar, not to be confused with the U.S. dollar. The value of the Jamaican dollar fluctuates but in November 2004 it was approximately JA$61 to US$1

With a size of 4411 square miles, Jamaica is a little smaller than the state of Connecticut in U.S. Jamaica has a length of 146 miles and a width of 22-51 miles. The annual population growth is 0.46%.Hot and humid weather conditions typical of a tropical climate, with a temperate interior, prevails in Jamaica. The average annual rainfall is 78 inches. Some significant places in Jamaica are: Kingston/ Montego Bay/ Mandeville/ Port Antonio/ Ocho Rios/ Negril/

Though the locals speak Jamaican language-Patois, the official language is English. The Ethnic groups comprising Jamaica are: Black (90.9%), mixed (7.3%), East Indian (1.3%), White (0.2%), Chinese (0.2%). The dominant religion of Jamaica is Christianity. Natural resources of Jamaica include bauxite, gypsum and limestone. The major exports of the country are bauxite, sugar, coffee, citrus products, rum, cocoa etc. The GDP per capita of Jamaica is US 3350.

Interesting Facts About Peanut

2009-07-25T18:46:00.004+05:30

The peanut is not a nut, but a legume related to beans and lentils.

Peanuts are naturally cholesterol-free.

Peanuts account for two-thirds of all snack nuts consumed in the USA.

There are four types of peanuts grown in the USA — Runner, Virginia, Spanish and Valencia.

Four of the top 10 candy bars manufactured in the USA contain peanuts or peanut butter.

The average American consumes more than six pounds of peanuts and peanut butter products each year.

March is National Peanut Month.

Peanuts are planted after the last frost in April or early May.

Dr. George Washington Carver researched and developed more than 300 uses for peanuts in the early 1900s; Dr. Carver is considered "The Father of the Peanut Industry" because of his extensive research and selfless dedication to promoting peanut production and products.

Astronaut Allen B. Sheppard brought a peanut with him to the moon.

Tom Miller pushed a peanut to the top of Pike's Peak (14,100 feet) using his nose in 4 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes and 3 seconds.

Most USA peanut farms are family-owned and -operated.

The peanut plant originated in South America.

As early as 1500 B.C., the Incans of Peru used peanuts as sacrificial offerings and entombed them with their mummies to aid in the spirit life.

Peanuts contribute more than $4 billion to the USA economy each year.

The peanut growth cycle from planting to harvest is about five months.

The average peanut farm is 100 acres.

The peanut plant produces a small yellow flower.

Americans eat more than 600 million pounds of peanuts (and 700 million pounds of peanut butter) each year.

Peanuts flower above ground and then migrate underground to reach maturity.

Two peanut farmers have been elected president of the USA - Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.

Adrian Finch of Australia holds the Guinness World Record for peanut throwing, launching the lovable legume 111 feet and 10 inches in 1999 to claim the record.

A mature peanut plant produces about 40 pods that then grow into peanuts.

Peanuts are a good source of folate, which can reduce the risk of certain birth defects in the brain and spinal cord.

Ever wonder where the term "Peanut Gallery" comes from? The term became popular in the late 19th century and referred to the rear or uppermost seats in a theater, which were also the cheapest seats. People seated in such a gallery were able to throw peanuts, a common food at theaters, at those seated below them. It also applied to the first row of seats in a movie theater, for the occupants of those seats could throw peanuts at the stage, stating their displeasure with the performance.

Besides being high in protein, peanuts are naturally cholesterol-free. They are also an excellent source of folate, meaning they have the ability to reduce the risk of some birth defects in the brain and spinal cord.

March is National Peanut Month and November is National Peanut Butter Lovers Month.

When snacking, you may think to recall that peanuts or peanut butter are ingredients in four of the top ten candy bars that the United States manufactures.

Each year, the average American consumes over six pounds of peanuts and peanut butter products.

Each year, Americans consume more than 600 million pounds of peanuts and 700 million pounds of peanut butter!!

More than $4 billion of the United States' economy each year comes from peanuts.

Talk about setting records! The world's largest reported peanut was four inches long. It was grown in North Carolina by Mr. Earl Adkins.

Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter, what do they have in common? They were both peanut farmers who were elected as president of the United States.

Peanut butter is the number one use of peanuts in the United States. It takes, on average, 540 peanuts to make one 12-ounce jar of peanut butter. The average child is said to eat 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by the time they graduate from school. On one acre of a peanut crop there are enough peanuts to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches!! You do the math!

Peanuts have traveld a long way and been in many places, South America (Africa), India and China, North America (the United States), and even the moon! Astronaut Allen B. Sheppard took a peanut with him on his trip to the moon.

Peanuts have come a long way from their original use of feeding pigs to becoming acounted for as two-thirds of all snack nuts consumed in the United States.

Chocolate manufacturers use 20% of the worlds peanuts (2008).

Dr. George Washington Carver researched and developed more than 300 uses for peanuts in the early 1900s; Dr. Carver is considered "The Father of the Peanut Industry" because of his extensive research and selfless dedication to promoting peanut production and products.

The U.S. produced about 4.1 billion pounds of peanuts in 2004.

Adrian Finch of Australia holds the Guinness World Record for peanut throwing, launching a peanut 111 feet and 10 inches in 1999 to claim the record.

Tom Miller pushed a peanut to the top of Pike's Peak (14,100 feet) using his nose in 4 days, 23 hours, 47 minutes and 3 seconds.

Peanuts originated in South America, where they were cultivated by Indians for at least 2000 years. As early as 1500 B.C., the Incans of Peru used peanuts as sacrificial offerings and entombed them with their mummies to aid in the spirit life.

Spaniards and Portuguese slave traders introduced them to Africa and Europe, and slaves introduced them to the American South.

Though there are several varieties of peanut, the two most popular are the Virginia and the Spanish peanut. The Virginia peanut is larger and more oval in shape than the smaller, rounder Spanish peanut. Unshelled peanuts should have clean, unbroken shells and should not rattle when shaken.

The U.S. produces only about 6% of the world crop.

In the U.S., annual peanut production (about 1.5 million tons per year) often exceeds the production of beans and peas combined.

India & China together produce almost 2/3rds of the world crop.

Historically, the largest producer of peanuts in the world was India, but production in China overtook Indian production in the mid-1990s. For the period 1996 to 2000, China produced almost 40% of the world crop, and India almost 25%, with the U.S. in 3rd place with almost 6%

Worldwide, about 2/3rds of the peanut crop is processed for peanut oil.

20% of the world's peanut production is used in candy.

Peanut oil accounts for 8% of the worlds edible oil production.

Americans eat 3 pounds of peanut butter per person every year. That's about 700 million pounds, or enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon!

March is National Peanut Month. National Peanut Month had its beginnings as National Peanut Week in 1941. It was expanded to a month-long celebration in 1974.

One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

One acre of peanut plants yields about 2,860 pounds of peanuts.

Two peanut farmers have been elected President of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.

Peanuts are also called goobers, goober peas, pindars, ground nuts, earth nuts, monkey nuts, and grass nuts.

Peanuts contain about 28% protein, 50% oil and 18% carbohydrates.

Peanuts are members of the pea family.

The official state crop of Georgia is the peanut. Georgia produces almost 1/2 of the total U.S. peanut crop. More than 50% of the crop goes to peanut butter production (2002).
Georgia is the largest producer of peanuts in the U.S.

The first peanuts grown in the United States were grown in Virginia.

Mr. Peanut was created by 13 year-old Antonio Gentile in a logo contest held by Planters in 1916. He won the grand prize of $5.00. His drawing of a peanut person with arms and crossed legs was refined by a professional illustrator who added the top hat, monocle, white gloves and cane.

What is supposedly the World's Largest Peanut is in Turner County. A 20 foot tall peanut, it is a monument to the importance of the peanut in Georgia history.

Interesting Facts About Shawshank Redemption

2009-07-25T18:24:00.005+05:30

The Mansfield State Reformatory in Ohio was used for the exterior shots. However the prison is now derelict and improvements had to be made prior to shooting. The interior shots were done on a stage as it was cheaper to do so than to renovate the interior of Mansfield prison.

All scenes containing Brook’s crow were monitored by the American Humane Association. The American Humane Association objected to the feeding of a live maggot to the crow during a scene, as they considered it cruel to the maggot. A maggot that had died from natural causes was found to complete the scene.

In the original story Stephen King wrote Red as an Irishman. Morgan Freeman was cast as Red. Although Morgan Freeman is of African descent, and cannot be of true Irish descent, the line "Maybe it's 'cause I'm Irish" was left in the movie.

"The Count of Monte Cristo" novel, by Alexandre Dumas père, is mentioned in the movie. The book has several similarities to the story. The Dumas’ story has a man who is falsely imprisoned for a crime, and makes a daring escape. After he has escaped he finds treasure that he has learnt about whilst in jail. He also carries out a plan of revenge against those who had imprisoned him.

The Shawshank Redemption is dedicated to Frank Darabont’s former agent Allen Greene.

The prisoners watch the movie Gilda, staring Rita Hayworth.

Prison Warden Norton whistles the tune from the hymn "Eine feste Burg ist unser Gott". The English title of this is "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".

The pictures of the young looking Morgan Freeman attached to his parole papers are actually pictures of Morgan Freeman’s son Alfonso Freeman.

Morgan Freeman’s son, Alfonso Freeman appears in the Shawshank Redemption as an extra, shouting "Fresh fish! Fresh fish today! We're reeling 'em in!" when the new inmates arrive.

The Shawshank Redemption movie follows Stephen King’s story of Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption very closely. Stephen King says the story is a collection of the memories he has of prison movies as a child.

A picture of Albert Einstein hangs on Andy Dufresne’s cell wall. Tim Robbins, who plays Andy Dufresne, also starred in a movie about Einstein, called I.Q.

After Andy is found to have escaped, Warden Norton instructs the guards to question Red. The guard shouts to “Open 237!”, which is Red’s cell number. 237 is the room number used in the Shining, and the total of the change in the story Stand By Me (called The Body in the book). All of these stories were written by Stephen King.

Warden Norton opens the bible where Andy Dufresne hid his rock pick it opens to the Book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus details the escape of the Jews from Egypt.

Two Shawshank inmates have the names of Heywood and Floyd. Heywood Floyd is the name of the main character in 2010.

Although the Shawshank Redemption movie was only a reasonable hit in the theaters, it has become of the most successfully video and DVD rentals of all time.

Brad Pitt was originally intended to play the role of Tommy Williams.

Stephen King and Frank Darabont were already friends as Frank Darabont had adapted Stephen King’s short story “The Woman in the Room”. Stephen King has a policy whereby aspiring filmmakers can adapt his short stories for a dollar. Stephen King was very impressed by Frank Darabont’s adaptation of “The Woman in the Room”. They became pen friends but didn’t meet until Frank Darabont optioned the Shawshank Redemption. Frank Darabont also directed The Green Mile movie, another Stephen King story.

When Red, played by Morgan Freeman, leaves his parole meeting at the end of the film, his friends ask him how it went. He Replies with "Same shit different day". This phrase was also used by a character in the Stephen King movie Dreamcatcher, which also starred Morgan Freeman.

When on the roof the prisoners are drinking Stroh's beer.

After Frank Darabont had written the screenplay Rob Reiner offer Frank Darabont US$2.5 million for the rights to the script. Rob Reiner was so impressed that he wanted to direct the movie himself. Frank Darabont seriously considered the offer, but decided to make the movie himself, as he considered it a "chance to do something really great".

After the Shawshank Redemption had gained popularity Ted Turner sold the television right to the TNT network, which his is own network. He sold it for a much lower fee than normal. Because it is so inexpensive to show the movie is sown on the TNT network very frequently.

Once Andy has been reassigned to the prison library, from the laundry, a prison guard comes to see him, for investment help. The guards name is Deakins. The cinematographer for the Shawshank Redemption was called Roger Deakins.

When Tommy Williams (played by Gil Bellows) is on the bus, the man sat behind him is Dennis Baker. Dennis was a former warden on the Mansfield State Penitentiary, where the Shawshank Redemption was filmed.

After seeing the screenplay an agent, who perhaps is in the wrong business, requested an audition for his supermodel client for the role of Rita Hayworth, who only appears in the movie as a character in one of her own films shown in the prison theater.

Auditions were held in Mansfield for extras for the movie. The auditions proved so popular than no more people were accepted after 3pm.

Thomas ("Tommy") Williams is played by Gil Bellows. He plays William ("Billy") Thomas In "Ally McBeal" (1997).

The hands seen loading the revolver in the opening scene are those of Frank Darabont and not Tim Robbins. The scenes were shot during post production.

Interesting Facts About Sunflower

2009-07-03T15:53:00.003+05:30

The scientific name of sunflowers is Helianthus, Helia for sun and Anthus for flower.

Sunflowers are a great choice for planting to attract birds to your yard.

Sunflowers are one of the fastest growing plants. They can grow 8 to 12 feet tall in rich soil within six months.

Do you know what country grew the tallest sunflower? The Netherlands (25' 5.5" tall) grown in 1986 by M. Heijmf.

It require only 90 to 100 days from planting to maturity.

The former Soviet Union grows the most sunflowers. The sunflower is the national flower of Russia.

The sunflower is native to North America and was used by the Indians for food and oil. Some farmers use it to feed their livestock.

We use sunflower seeds to make oil, bird seed and for snacking. They have lots of calcium and 11 other important minerals. They do have 50% fat, BUT it is mostly polyunsaturated linoleic acid.

Wild sunflower is highly branched with small heads and small seeds, in contrast to the single-stem and large seed head of domesticated sunflower.

Sunflower heads consist of 1,000 to 2,000 individual flowers joined together by a receptacle base. The large petals around the edge of a sunflower head are individual ray flowers which do not develop into seed.

A well-known sunflower characteristic is that the flowering heads track the sun's movement, a phenomenon known as heliotropism.

The daily orientation of the flower to the sun is a direct result of differential growth of the stem. A plant-growth regulator, or auxin, accumulates on the shaded side of a plant when conditions of unequal light prevail. Because of this accumulation, the darker side grows faster than the sunlit side. Thus, the stem bends toward the sun.

Sunflower seeds are rich in oil, which they store as a source of energy and food. Sunflower seeds are crushed to give us oil. We can use sunflower oil for cooking.

Sunflower plants can be from 3 to 18 feet tall.

One sunflower can have up to 2000 seeds.

There are more than sixty different kinds of sunflowers in the U.S.

Sunflowers originally came from the U.S.

There are two kinds of sunflower seeds- black and stripe

Oil is made from black seeds.

Snacks are made from striped seeds

Sunflower seeds are also used to feed birds.

Sunflowers are the state flower for Kansas.

There is only one flower on each sunflower stem.

Sunflowers are very beautiful flowers and are used for decoration.Sunflower plants can be from 3 to 18 feet tall. One sunflower can have up to 2000 seeds.

Sunflowers are also an important crop. There are more than sixty different kinds of sunflowers growing in the United States, Europe, Japan and Russia. Sunflowers originally came from the United States.

There are two kinds of sunflower seeds. Oil is made from black seeds and snacks are made from striped seeds. Sunflower seeds are also used to feed birds.

Interesting Facts About Michael Jackson

2009-07-01T18:18:00.001+05:30

Michael Jackson is the third biggest selling pop act of all time, after The Beatles and Elvis Presley, with album sales of 750 million.

His 1982 album Thriller is thought to be the biggest-selling album ever, shifting 65 million copies, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

With the music industry moving from selling whole albums to marketing individual tracks online he is likely to keep his position on the list of all time greats.

Michael Jackson's earnings from record sales, tours, merchandising and other business interests are estimated to have exceeded $700m (£423m) in his 40-year recording career.

Since the early 1980s his recordings have generated more than $300 million in royalties. Despite this, in 2006 he is said to have secured a loan of around $300 million to pay off his debts.

In 2005 the jury at the trial of Michael Jackson in Santa Maria, California, sat through 66 days of evidence.

He faced 10 charges, including molesting 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, giving alcohol to a minor and conspiring to kidnap him and his family.

Had he been convicted Jackson could have faced up to 18 years in prison, but after hearing the evidence of 141 witnesses the jury cleared him on all charges.

Jackson was finishing rehearsals for a series of 50 concerts at the O2 Arena beginning on 13 July.

Originally announced as 10 concerts, further dates were added until around 800,000 people had bought tickets worth a total of £52m.

AEG Live, the organiser of the concerts has already spent $30m on the production but could be in financial difficulty since it only insured the first 10 nights, according to a report in Billboard magazine.

In 1985 Jackson paid $47.5 million for the publishing rights to a catalogue of 4,000-songs, including at least 200 Beatles tunes.

By 2005 the catalogue, now co-owned by Sony, was worth $500m.

One person said to have been irritated by Jackson's ownership of publishing rights for The Beatles is Paul McCartney, who is believed to have originally tipped him off about the financial benefits of owning music catalogues.

Fans had kept a vigil outside the Santa Maria courthouse during the whole of Jackson's trial in 2005.

When it was announced that he had been cleared of all charges, a fan released 14 white doves to celebrate his acquittal.

His acquittal was also a relief to local police who, in case of a guilty verdict, had dozens of officers on the street outside the courthouse carrying riot batons.

Michael Jackson won 13 Grammy awards.

Ten were for his work as a solo artist, three others were shared with producer Quincy Jones, his sister Janet, and various artists who contributed to his Aid for Africa track, We Are the World.

Thriller netted him Album of the Year and Best Pop vocal Performance awards.

Tracks Billie Jean and Beat It each won him another pair of Grammys. He also picked two other awards for his music video work.

Michael Jackson was 11 years old when he performed on television for the first time with The Jackson Five.

They were regulars on programmes such as 'The Ed Sullivan Show', one of the most watched shows in the US, and on which they performed their debut single I Want You Back.

He quickly became the centre of attention taking lead vocal duties as the band built up a reputation on the live circuit.

Michael Jackson released 10 solo albums containing original material: Got to be There; Music & Me; Ben; Forever Michael; Off the Wall; Thriller; Bad; Dangerous; History and Invincible.

As well as his solo albums Michael recorded another 16 albums with his brothers as both The Jackson 5 and The Jacksons.

Michael Jackson had eight siblings - all older than him, with the exception of brother Randy and sister Janet.

Jackie, Jermaine, Tito, Marlon and Randy, have all had careers as singers after the family stopped performing together. His sisters, Rebbie, La Toya and Janet, are also performers.

He is survived by his three children: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, born to Mr. Jackson's second wife, Deborah Jeanne Rowe, and Prince Michael Jackson II, the son of a surrogate mother.

In 1987, Jackson bought a 2,800 acre property north west of Santa Barbara for $14.6m and named it Neverland, after the imaginary land in JM Barrie's novel Peter Pan.

Within the grounds he built a private zoo and a fairground with a roller coaster and a ferris wheel. By 2006 it was costing $4m a year to run the Neverland ranch and its staff.

A Michael Jackson statue was floated on the River Thames in 1995.

Asked how he would like to promote the album, HIStory, Jackson told Sony record executives: "build a statue of me".

A 30-feet high glass fibre statue of the troubled popstar was placed on a boat and towed down the Thames.

Tower Bridge was raised to let it pass and it was moored near the Tower of London for a week before "touring the country."

Interesting Facts About Alaska

2009-07-01T17:43:00.003+05:30

Outsiders first discovered Alaska in 1741 when Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering sighted it on a voyage from Siberia.

Russian whalers and fur traders on Kodiak Island established the first settlement in Alaska in 1784.

In 1867 United States Secretary of State William H. Seward offered Russia $7,200,000, or two cents per acre, for Alaska.

On October 18, 1867 Alaska officially became the property of the United States. Many Americans called the purchase "Seward's Folly."

Joe Juneau's 1880 discovery of gold ushered in the gold rush era.

In 1943 Japan invaded the Aleutian Islands, which started the One Thousand Mile War, the first battle fought on American soil since the Civil War.

Alaska officially became the 49th state on January 3, 1959.

Alaska's most important revenue source is the oil and natural gas industry.

Alaska accounts for 25% of the oil produced in the United States.

The state of Rhode Island could fit into Alaska 425 times.

Prudhoe Bay, on the northern Alaskan coast, is North America's largest oil field.

The Trans-Alaska Pipeline moves up to 88,000 barrels of oil per hour on its 800 mile journey to Valdez.

The fishing and seafood industry is the state's largest private industry employer.

Most of America's salmon, crab, halibut, and herring come from Alaska.

The term Alaska native refers to Alaska's original inhabitants including Aleut, Eskimo and Indian groups.

The wild forget-me-not is the official state flower. The Territorial Legislature adopted it in 1917.

The willow ptarmigan is the official state bird. The Territorial Legislature adopted it in 1955.

The Sitka spruce is the official state tree. The Territorial Legislature adopted it in 1962.

Dog mushing is the official state sport. The Alaska Legislature adopted it in 1972.

An unnamed draftsman created the state seal in 1910. It consists of a rising sun shining on forests, lake, fishing and shipping boats, and agricultural and mining activities.

The state motto is North to the Future.

The jade is the official state gemstone.

Gold is the official state mineral. It was named the state mineral in 1968.

The four-spot skimmer dragonfly is the official state insect.

In 1926 13-year-old Bennie Benson from Cognac, Alaska designed the state flag.

Alaska has been called America's Last Frontier.

Every four years Alaskans elect a Governor and a Lieutenant Governor to four-year terms.

The Alaska State Legislature is made up of a Senate and a House of Representatives.

Twenty senators are elected to four-year terms; forty representatives serve two-year terms.

Alaska's Constitution was adopted in 1956 and became effective in 1959 making it the 49th state.

Nearly one-third of Alaska lies within the Arctic Circle.

The Alaska Highway was originally built as a military supply road during World War II. The state boasts the lowest population density in the nation.

The discovery of gold in the Yukon began a gold rush in 1898. Later gold was discovered at Nome and Fairbanks.

Alaska is a geographical marvel. When a scale map of Alaska is superimposed on a map of the 48 lower states, Alaska extends from coast to coast.

The state's coastline extends over 6,600 miles.

Alaska is the United State's largest state and is over twice the size of Texas. Measuring from north to south the state is approximately 1,400 miles long and measuring from east to west it is 2,700 miles wide.

Agattu, Attu, and Kiska are the only parts of North America occupied by Japanese troops during World War II.

Oil is the state's most valuable natural resource. The area includes what is thought to be the largest oil field in North America.

In 1986 Mount Augustine erupted near Anchorage.

Alaska's geographic center is 60 miles northwest of Mount McKinley.

The Tongass National Forest is the largest national forest in the United States.

17 of the 20 highest peaks in the United States are located in Alaska.

At 20,320 feet above sea level, Mt. McKinley, located in Alaska's interior, is the highest point in North America.

Juneau is the only capital city in the United States accessible only by boat or plane.

The state's largest city is Anchorage; the second largest is Fairbanks.

The Alaska Range is the largest mountain chain in the state. It covers from the Alaska Peninsula to the Yukon Territory.

In 1915 the record high temperature in Alaska was 100 degrees Fahrenheit at Fort Yukon; the record low temperature was -80 degrees Fahrenheit at Prospect Creek Camp in 1971.

The Alaskan malamute sled dog is strong and heavily coated. It was developed as a breed by a group of Eskimos named the Malemiuts.

Alaska's name is based on the Eskimo word Alakshak meaning great lands or peninsula.

Interesting Facts About Camel

2009-06-22T18:04:00.002+05:30

Camels have a split upper lip, which aids them in grazing.

In the desert, camels frequently serve as a source of food, clothing, transportation and shelter.

Camels eat vegetation and feed on grasses. They frequently seek out plants high in salt content.

A male camel is called a bull, and a female is called a cow.

A camel’s body temperature rises during the heat of the day and then cools down at night.

A camels can go for days or weeks with little or no water or food.

A camel baby is called a calf.

Camels lie down to rest and sleep.

There are two species of Camel: Camelus(the single humped variety) and Bactrian (the double humped variety).

A camel’s stomach has three sections, similar to a domestic cow (bovine). This makes it a ruminant.

here is a third thin eyelid that the camel can see through. Hair inside the ears helps to keep sand out.

The hump is filled with fat. The hump will shrink if the camel does not eat.

They are called Ships-of-the-Desert because they can carry heavy loads. Camels can carry as much as 1,000 pounds

"Riding camels" can travel up to 100 miles in one day. Camel droppings are burned as fuel.

A camel can drink 27 gallons of water in 10 minutes

Camels are desert animals. Very few animals live in the desert; most of them are small, like beetles and lizards. Small animals can easily find shade and enough water and food, but for big animals it is much harder.

The African dromedary camel lives with people. It helps people to survive in the desert by carrying the people and their things when they move from place to place.

People drink camel milk and use camel dung to make their fires when there is no firewood.
In return desert people, (called nomads) give camels water by digging wells and extra food that they buy from farmers.

Some camels are used by farmers for working in the fields.

The farmer trains the camel to pull a plough and carry heavy loads.

The camel is one of the oldest domesticated animals, people have been using them for more than 10,000 years.

The camel can go for some days with out drinking water. (Not more than 10 days). The camel conserves water in his body cell and his stomach. Conserving means he doesn't waste water through sweating, breathing or urinating.

He is able to live on very poor vegetation during the dry summer months.

The fat stored in the hump will provide him with enough energy to reach good grazing.

He has very long legs to keep his big body high off the hot ground.

Even when he sits down his belly will not touch the ground, he has a pillow like callus under his chest to balance him and make it comfortable for him to rest on the sand, even when it is hot.

On his knees he has very hard skin to protect him when he rests on them.

The young are born in the rainy season when there is plenty of grazing.

A female camel is pregnant for about 13 months and she will only have offspring every 2-3 years.

The camels eyes are protected by long eyelashes and have an extra thin eyelid. In a desert storm he can still keep walking and find his way.

The ears are small and very hairy, to keep flying sand from entering.

The nostrils can close completely or leave just a tiny opening for breathing.

His coat is thick to insulate against both heat and cold. The desert is very hot during the day (32C.-45C.), but gets very cold at night. (Almost freezing!).

There are two species of camels: The Dromedary, characterized by one hump and long legs, lives in the deserts of Arabia and Africa. The Bactrian camel has 2 humps and is shorter with a very thick coat. The Bactrian lives in northern Asia, China and Afghanistan, in areas called "steppe" that are mostly grasslands.

Interesting Facts About Jasmine

2009-05-31T14:57:00.004+05:30

Jasmine flower and the essential oil extracted from the flower are being used extensively in cosmetics and perfumery, and as a calmative (relaxing properties, sedative) and aphrodisiac (intensifies sexual desire).

Jasmine is a very popular flower around the world, especially in tropics because of its unique fragrance. The Jasmine is native to tropical and warm temperate regions of the old world.

Jasmine flowers are white in most species, with some species being yellow flowered. Jasmine is believed to have originated in the Himalayas in western China.

Unlike most genera in the Oleceae family, which have four corolla lobes petals, Jasmines often have five or six lobes. Jasmines are often strongly and sweetly scented. Jasmine is widely cultivated for its shining leaves and beautiful clusters of fragrant flowers.

Flowering in Jasmines takes place in summer or spring, usally six months after planting. The Jasmine flower releases its fragrance at night after the sun has set and especially when the moon is waxing towards fullness. Jasmine flower buds are more fragrant than the flowers.

There exists a true Jasmine and a false Jasmine, and the two are commonly mistaken for each other because of the fragrance the plants release. The true Jsmine belongs to the family Oleaceae, is primarily a bushy shrub or climbing vine, and is non-poisonous.

True Jasmine has oval, shiny leaves and tubular, waxy-white flowers. The false Jasmine, on the other hand, is in a completely different genus, Gelsemium, and family, Loganiaceae, is considered too poisonous for human consumption.

Jasmine shrubs reache to a height of 10-15 feet, growing approximately 12-24 inches per year.

Jasmine leaves are either evergreen or deciduous.

A Jasmine leaf is arranged in opposite in most species, leaf shape is simple, trifoliate or pinnate with 5-9 leaflets, each up to two and half inches long.

The Jasmine stems are slender, trailing, green, glaborous, angled, almost 4-sided.

Most of the Jasmine species bear white flowers, which are about 1 inch in size.

Jasmine oil, which is a very popular fragrant oil, contains benzyl acetate, terpinol, jasmone, benzyl benzoate, linalool, several alcohols, and other compounds.

The variety Jasminium sambac, is a clustered flower of a equally strong scent known in Hawaii as the Pikake.

Two types of Jasmine are used for oil production - Jasminum grandiflorum and Jasminum officinale.

The nectar of the fragrant flowers of Carolina Jasmine, Gelsemium sempervirens, is poisonous, although its dried roots are used in medicinal preparations as a sedative.

Jasmine flower oil, extracted from the two species Jasminum Officinale and Grandiflorum, is used in high-grade perfumes and cosmetics, such as creams, oils, soaps, and shampoos.

Jasmine is known in India as the "Queen of the Night" because of it's intoxicating perfume that is released at night.

In China ,Jasmine is used a symbol of feminine sweetness and beauty. Jasmine also symbolize deep affection, happiness and elegance. This is why it is used in wedding toss.

Jasmine has been used for healing the female reproductive system. In Ayurvedic medicine jasmine is used to calm the nerves, sooth emotional problems, help with PMS and tension headaches. Because Jasmine has antispasmodic properties it can help relax the uterine cramps and pain during childbirth.

In Chinese medicine Jasmine flowers are known to "cool" the blood and have a strong antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-tumor properties. Because they cool the blood they help with reducing a fever or cooling an overheated person (from the sun) .

Jasmine has astringent properties which aids in treating inflamed eyes and skin, and as a gargle to relieve sore throats and mouth ulcers. Jasmine is used in aromatherapy to calm the emotions, and as an aphrodisiac. It is a valuable remedy in cases of depression because is produces a feeling of confidence , optimism and euphoria. It revitalizes and restores the balance of energy.

Jasmine is used in teas, herbal bathes, skin creams, soaps and potpourri. It is also used as a decorative touch to special dishes.

Interesting Facts About Soap

2009-05-31T11:27:00.001+05:30

Soap has been made for at least the last 2000 years in some form or another.

The first soaps were formed by boiling animal fat (or olive oil around the Mediterranean) to dryness with ashes from a wood fire, which contain potassium hydroxide. The earliest users were either the Celts (who called it saipo), or the Phoenicians. According to Pliny the Elder, the Phoenicians were using soap as early as 600 B.C.

These early soaps were generally used for cleaning clothes and for curing animal hides. The Romans used soap on their bodies as part of bathing, and they spread their soap making skills throughout Europe.

In Europe, medieval soap production centered around Marseilles and spread to Genoa and Venice. In England, there was soap production in Bristol as early as the 12th century. In the 13th and 14th Centuries, it started in Cheapside in London. Soap was seen as a great source of revenue by the government and it was taxed. During the Napoleonic wars this tax was as much as 3d per pound, and the tax inspectors would lock up the soap boiling pans to stop illegal production at night.

This tax was not repealed until 1835, by which time the exchequer was making £1m a year from the industry.

The process remained more or less unchanged until a method of producing large quantities of sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) was discovered in the late 18th century. This opened up the manufacture of good quality soap on a large scale. By the time of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century, soap was more widely available. In fact, Pears Soap dates from 1789.

Apparently, Justus von Liebig, a German chemist, said that the amount of soap that a nation used was a measure of its wealth and civilisation. If only that were true now.What's special about our soap Droyt's Clear Glycerine Soap is an all-in, semi-boiled frame soap, cut by hand from a large block and stamped to shape in a box die.

With the addition of a few other ingredients, this method can be used to make a genuine transparent soap, i.e. a soap which is clear like glass. It is not possible to make a true transparent soap by mechanical means.

Extra vegetable derived glycerine is added to bring the glycerine content to a level of between 10 and 11%.

Fully boiled soap -- In this case the glycerine is removed by adding a brine solution (salt water) to the soap. The glycerine dissolves in the water and is drained off leaving only the soap which is then dried into little flakes or ``noodles''.

Cold process soap -- This is an all in soap, but there is no external heating as all the heat comes form the saponification reaction which is exothermic (i.e. an excess of heat is produced by the chemical changes in the components of the reaction. An example would be the dissolving of sodium hydroxide in water). These soaps are normally made with pure coconut oil.

The soaps produced are called hard or soft depending on what sort of fats and oils are used, and whether sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide is the alkaliProcessing The soaps are then processed. If the soap was made into noodles, it is milled. If it was poured into a frame while hot it is cut.

During milling the soap chips are pushed through a machine called a plodder which mixes in colour and perfume and produces a continuous extruded bar of soap. This is then cut into billets by machine.

With cut soap, the soap is cut by hand or machine from a large block down to a soap sized billet.

After the soap has been made into a billet, it is stamped. There are two kinds of die. One is a capacity die where excess soap squeezes out around the middle and cut off later. This method produces a very regular weight and size and is the way that most domestic soaps are made. The other kind is a box die (or collar die). This contains all the soap which was placed in the mould. This methods produces a less deformed (and therefore more transparent) tablet and also requires less finishing.

Opaque milled soap -- This group represents the vast majority of soap produced in the world today. These soaps are made using a fully boiled process and utilise some of the most advanced soap making techniques, usually on a very large scale. After manufacture the soaps are then milled as above.

Translucent soap -- This is a relatively modern technique which simulates the old frame method and can produce glycerine soaps which a reasonable level of glycerine (up to 4%). The benefit of this method is that it produces a glycerine soap using a large scale, automatic machine process, which is therefore more commercially attractive.

Transparent soap -- There are three ways to make transparent soaps. The first is to pour the whole making into a frame and cut up the soap from a large block. This is very labour intensive.

The second way is to pour the soap into individual tubes which produces long bars of soap which then can be processed automatically.

The third method is to pour soap into individual moulds, which are then cooled, and the individual soaps released. This can be a completely automatic process.

The best method is the first. Pouring into individual moulds requires the soap to be very liquid and thus the water content is very high. This in turn means that the soap is prone to melting, even more than normal glycerine soaps. Glycerine is attractive to water and there is a tendency for such soaps to absorb moisture unless kept dry.

Synthetic detergent bars -- There are an increasing number of these cleansing bars on the market. They are made using a different chemical process to normal soap making. They were originally developed to attempt to achieve a product which is closer to pH neutral than normal soap. The first of these was Neutrogena, but there are now others available such as Dove.

Soap is famed. It has a magazine named for it and has limericks written about it,*but until this week no one apparently had ever fully investigated world soap statistics. This week Soap, a monthly magazine, publishes what it claims is the first such survey. Among its findings:

World production: 10,000,000,000 Ib. per year (of which the U. S. makes and uses about one-third).

Per capita consumption: U. S. 25 Ib.; The Netherlands 24 Ib.; United Kingdom 20 Ib.; Japan 7 Ib.; Brazil 6.8 Ib.; world average 6.6 Ib.; Russia 5.7 Ib. (compared to less than 2 Ib. 20 years ago); British India, 4 oz.; China, 2 oz.

Uses classified: World. 92% laundry soap; U. S. 85% laundry soap, 12% toilet soap, 3% miscellaneous.

Interesting Facts About Cheese Curds

2009-05-31T11:06:00.002+05:30

Cheese is believed to be discovered by an unknown nomad. This nomad lived in the Middle East and was, as legend would say, on his way to a very long journey. He prepared for it by pouring in lots of milk in a saddlebag. Unfortunately for him (and fortunately for cheese-lovers out there), the milk curdled after several hours of riding under the sun. What was supposed to be milk turned into white curds with liquid!

The science behind this is, the saddlebag has an enzyme (rennin) that causes coagulation. The rennin enzyme can be found in the bag because it is made from the stomach of young cows. Well, the rest as we all love to say, is history.

Cheese curds, although believed to have existed much earlier, were reportedly discovered by accident by some cheese scientists (UW) in their attempt to create a pure cholesterol product that still has the squeaking sound. The lab rats who consumed the first cheese curds then became capable of beer drinking.

A New York Times article in 1911, on the other hand, referred to a very old Celtic song (about the 12th century) where cheese curds were mentioned. This song was entitled: 'Visions of MacGonlannee'. You now have a rough idea of how old cheese curds are, haven't you?

While most cheese would take about 60 days to coagulate, cheese curds can be 'harvested' way, way before they become cheeses. So, in essence, cheese curd is 'premature cheese'.

Cheese curds are fresh by products of cheddar cheese (or at least most of them are; some can be made from mozzarella, Colby or Monterey jack cheeses). While most cheese would take about 60 days to coagulate, cheese curds can be 'harvested' way, way before they become cheeses. So, in essence, cheese curd is 'premature cheese'.

And the best way to eat them is by eating them fresh. The good news? Canada and the United States have many stores that sell cheese curds in retail. There are also a lot of factories that manufacture them (so don't worry about running out of cheese curd stocks!).

The top two places that produce and sell cheese curds are: Quebec and Wisconsin. So, if you are not from one of these two places or are far from factories that produce cheese curds, then they could be foreign to you.

The best part of eating them is to hear the 'fresh' squeak. It takes only twelve hours before they become unfresh. Another twelve hours after that and they are nothing but unusable cheese.

Fresh cheese curds are about the size of peanuts and are usually orange in color. It tastes much like other dairy products and about as firm as most cheeses are. The difference is, cheese curds have rubber-like texture as compared to cheese that has the texture of clay. And unlike most junk foods that are crunchy, cheese curds are moist and cool while having the same salty taste of your regular snacks.

There are several ways of serving cheese curds. In Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, cheese curds are usually deep-fried and served in fairs and carnivals and sometimes in bars or fast food chains (Culver's and A&W restaurants are examples of this). These deep-fried treats are first covered with batter (beer-based) such as what is used in onion rings. In the absence of this type of batter, the usual breading is used. The good thing about this? It tastes much like mozzarella cheese sticks.

Another popular way of eating cheese curds is: poutine. This is a French-Canadian recipe that tops French fries with cheese curds that's also oozing with mouth-watering gravy. Yet other ways of consumption is by sprinkling powdered cheeses that are flavored: garlic, jalapeno, Cajun, chipotle, pesto, paprika, butter, pepper or lemon) then serving them like potato chips.

Cheese curds are definitely rare. As mentioned, there are just a handful of places where they are produced and enjoyed. Although cheese curds are not available for everyone to enjoy, for those who do, let us say you are the lucky ones on the planet!

Interesting Facts About Co2

2009-05-30T17:22:00.002+05:30

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a slightly toxic, odorless, colorless gas with a slightly pungent, acid taste. Carbon dioxide is a small but important constituent of air. It is a necessary raw material for most plants, which remove carbon dioxide from air using the process of photosynthesis.

Today’s atmosphere contains about 40% more carbon dioxide than at the start of the industrial era. This build-up of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases prevents heat from leaving the earth’s surface and the increase in greenhouse gases is expected to trigger a rise in temperature of 1.4 - 5.8¡C by 2100.

A typical concentration of CO2 in air is about 0.038% or 380 ppm. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide rises and falls in a seasonal pattern over a range of about 6 ppmv. The concentration of CO2 in air has also been steadily increasing from year to year for over 60 years. The current rate of increase is about 2 ppm per year.

Worldwide, seven out of ten of the warmest years since 1860 occurred in the 1990s and 1998 was the warmest year on record. By the end of the 20th century, global temperatures were 0.6°C higher than 100 years ago. In central England, 1999 was the warmest year since 1659 and 1990 was the second warmest year. Analysis of tree rings, ice cores, corals and historical records indicate that the 1990s were the warmest decade of the last millennium.

Carbon dioxide is formed by combustion and by biological processes. These include decomposition of organic material, fermentation and digestion. As an example, exhaled air contains as much as 4% carbon dioxide, or about 100 times the amount of carbon dioxide which was breathed in.

Large quantities of CO2 are produced by lime kilns, which burn limestone (primarily calcium carbonate) to produce calcium oxide ( lime, used to make cement); and in the production of magnesium from dolomite (calcium magnesium carbonate). Other industrial activities which produce large amounts of carbon dioxide are ammonia production and hydrogen production from natural gas or other hydrocarbon raw materials.

The concentration of CO2 in air and in stack gases from simple combustion sources (heaters, boilers, furnaces) is not high enough to make carbon dioxide recovery commercially feasible. Producing carbon dioxide as a commercial product requires that it be recovered and purified from a relatively high-volume, CO2-rich gas stream, generally a stream which is created as an unavoidable byproduct of a large-scale chemical production process or some form of biological process.

In almost all cases, carbon dioxide which is captured and purified for commercial applications would be vented to the atmosphere at the production point if it was not recoved for transport and beneficial use at other locations.

The most common operations from which commercially-produced carbon dioxide is recovered are industrial plants which produce hydrogen or ammonia from natural gas, coal, or other hydrocarbon feedstock, and large-volume fermentation operations in which plant products are made into ethanol for human consumption, automotive fuel or industrial use. Breweries producing beer from various grain products are a traditional source. Corn-to-ethanol plants have been the most rapidly growing source of feed gas for CO2 recovery.

CO2-rich natural gas reservoirs found in underground formations found primarily in the western United States and in Canada are another source of recoverable carbon dioxide. CO2 from both natural and industrial sources is used to enhance production of oil from older wells by injecting the carbon dioxide into appropriate underground formations. Carbon dioxide is used in selectively, primarily in wells which will benefit not only from re-pressurization, but also from a reduction in viscosity of the oil in the reservoir caused by a portion of the CO2 dissolving in the oil. (The extent to which carbon dioxide will dissolve in the oil varies with the type of petroleum present in the reservoir. If the viscosity reduction effect will be minimal, nitrogen, which is usually less expensive, may be used as the pressurant instead.)

Carbon dioxide will not burn or support combustion. Air with a carbon dioxide content of more than 10% will extinguish an open flame, and, if breathed, can be life-threatening. Such concentrations may build up in silos, digestion chambers, wells, sewers and the like. Caution must be exercised when entering these types of confined spaces.

CO2 gas is 1.5 times as heavy as air, thus if released to the air it will concentrate at low elevations. Carbon dioxide will form "dry ice" at -78.5ºC (-109.3º F). One kg of dry ice has the cooling capacity of 2 kg of ordinary ice. Gaseous or liquid carbon dioxide, stored under pressure, will form dry ice through an auto-refrigeration process if rapidly depressured.

Carbon dioxide is commercially available as high pressure cylinder gas, relatively low pressure (about 300 psig or 20 barg) refrigerated liquid, or as dry ice. Large quantities are produced and consumed at industrial sites making fertilizers, plastics and rubber.

Carbon dioxide is a versatile material, being used in many processes and applications - each of which takes advantage of one or more these characteristics: reactivity, inertness and/ or coldness.

Carbon dioxide is commonly used as a raw material for production of various chemicals; as a working material in fire extinguishing systems; for carbonation of soft drinks; for freezing of food products such as poultry, meats, vegetables and fruit; for chilling of meats prior to grinding; for refrigeration and maintenance of ideal atmospheric conditions during transportation of food products to market; for enhancement of oil recovery from oil wells; and for treatment of alkaline water.

Stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at current levels requires emissions reductions of about 70% by the end of this century at the latest. Even if the Kyoto Protocol were ratified and fully implemented it could not moderate the expected warming trend of 1.4° C by 2050 by more than 0.05°C

Carbon sink activities may well develop into future carbon bombs once climate change reduces the ability of trees to survive in their current locations: A recent study on the implications of a doubling of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere concluded that forest dieback, mostly in boreal forest, could release 70 to 130 billion tones of additional carbon into the atmosphere. Another study found that such a carbon pulse triggered by warmer temperatures in the boreal region could release as much as 225 billion tonnes of carbon – almost one third of all the carbon now in the Earth’s atmosphere.

To offset the emissions of a power plant the size of Drax (3.75GW) in the UK would require the establishment of 1 million hectares (10,000 km2) of new tropical forest. To offset the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions would require the planting of a new area of tropical forest about 1.5 times the size of the UK.

Biological diversity will be threatened by rapid climate change: Observations, models and experiments demonstrate that a sustained increase of just 1°C in the global average temperature would affect the functioning and composition of forests. The species that make up today's forests may not be able to survive in their current locations as local climate conditions change beyond their tolerance levels. This could result in a major impact on the species composition of one third of the world's forests. Entire forest ecosystems may disappear, other stresses caused by global warming include more insect outbreaks and fires. Because high latitudes are expected to warm more than equatorial ones, boreal forests will be more affected than temperate and tropical forests.

Forests are a major reservoir of carbon, containing some 80% of all carbon stored in land vegetation and about 40% of the carbon residing in soils. Large quantities of carbon may be released into the atmosphere during transition from one forest type to another as a result of global warming.

Fire suppression is in part responsible for the increase in biomass documented in many European temperate and boreal forests. While fire suppression may enhance sequestration in the short term, it can also create tinderbox conditions that increase the risk of fire and subsequent release of large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere (for details on forest fire trends in boreal forests, see The Carbon Bomb, Greenpeace International, Sept 1994, available from www.greenpeace.org).

A study in Oregon found that a 450-year-old natural forest stored 2.2 to 2.3 times more carbon than a 60-year-old douglas fir plantation on a comparable site.

Globally, vegetation contains 550+100 petagrams of carbon (PgC), soils contain a much larger amount, 1750+250 PgC. Together, soils and vegetation contain about three times as much carbon as the atmosphere. Most of the vegetation carbon is in forests, especially in the tropics, while most of the soil carbon occurs at northern high and temperate latitudes in both forests and grasslands. The ratio of soil carbon to vegetation carbon is about 5 in boreal forests, but less than 1 in most tropical forests.

Interesting Facts About Parrot

2009-05-16T15:19:00.002+05:30

While eating, parrots hold their food in one of their feet, which can be either left or right, making parrots left as well as right handed.

Parrots, when not nesting, live in groups known as flocks and are prone to squawking and screaming.

Parrots, mainly pet ones, are very good at mimicking. They can easily imitate the speech and calls of other birds and animals, even humans. African gray parrots are the best mimics.

Parrots are zygodactyls i.e. they have four toes on each foot. Two of their toes point forward and two point backward.

Most of the parrots build their nests in holes in trees, termite mounts, rock cavities or ground tunnels. Only a few build stick nests.

Wild Macaws and Cockatoos can fly up to 500 miles in a day, while searching for food.

The vocalizations of some parrots can be heard for up to 1 mile.

Larger parrots can live more than 75 years, while smaller ones live up to 15 years only.

Parrots cannot eat chocolate because it is poisonous to their body.

Parrots have a thick muscular tongue that helps them eat fruit, seeds, buds, nectar, and pollen.

Three hundred and twenty-eight different species of parrots live on the Earth. Parrots are divided into groups such as cockatoos, lories, lovebirds, macaws, and parakeets.

Parrots range in size from the pygmy of the South Pacific which is only 3½ inches long to the hyacinth macaw which is about 10 inches long. Much of its length is in its long tail. Parrots weigh from just a few ounces to 3½ pounds. Most parrots are predominantly green, especially the ones from South America. Some American parrots are mostly blue or yellow. However, parrots may have red, green, blue, purple, white, pink, brown, yellow, and even black. They have large heads and short necks. The zygodactyolus feet of the parrot have two toes that point backwards and two toes that point forward. These toes make the parrot excellent climbers.

Smaller parrots live 10 to 15 years. Larger parrots such as the macaws and cockatoos live more than 75 years. These birds reach maturity in 1 to 4 years. Wild parrots live in the forest of tropical zones including South America, Australia, and New Guinea. A few live in Africa and mainland Asia. Parrots are hole nesters. They build their nests in holes in trees, termite mounts, rock cavities, or ground tunnels. A few exceptions will build stick nests.

Most parrot fossils were excavated in Europe. The earliest dates back to the Eocene, and are 50 million years old. Most of the complete skeletons were found in Germany and England. These birds are considered the great “parrot ancestors.” However, fossils of modern parrots—with the same bone structure and appearance as the ones we see today, are about 23 million years old.

There are actually two major groups of parrots: the psittacidae, and the cacutaidae. The latter has a movable head crest while the psittacidae have brighter, more vibrant colors. There are also enormous skeletal differences. For example, the cacatuidae have a gall bladder and a different type of skull bone.

Some parrots are in danger of extinction. This includes the Spixs Macaw, of which only 7 survive in captivity. Naturalists once thought they had completely disappeared from the wild, but one was seen spotted flying in the South American rainforest. Breeding efforts have been stepped out to increase the parrots’ numbers.

Most parrot conservation efforts are actually spearheaded by pet owners who love the birds and want to make sure they thrive. Efforts include fund raisers and information campaigns. Their projects have helped fund zoo and wild life centers, and have led to brochures and other important collaterals distributed to schools nationwide.

Tony Silva, former director of Europe’s largest parrot park, was actually jailed for 82 months and fined over a hundred thousand dollars for smuggling Hyacinth macaws. Silva was a highly respected parrot expert. The case started an outcry for stricter parrot protection laws.

These colorful birds have been mentioned in ancient texts, magazines, and even Hollywood films. This includes movies like the comedy Paulie and documentaries like The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

Parrots come in almost every color of the rainbow, but the eggs are always a simple white.

Parrots don’t have vocal cords, so they actually “trumpet” the sound by pushing air out of their trachea. They can control the pitch of the sound by manipulating the shape and depth of the trachea. Experts say that when parrots talk, they are actually making variations on whistling.

Most parrots will love seed and flowers, but there are some that don’t mind a little “steak”. The Golden-winged Parakeets like to eat water snails, while the New Zealand Kees even scavenge abandoned sheep carcasses.

The thick muscular tongue helps the parrot eat fruit, seeds, buds, nectar, and pollen. Sometimes they will eat insects. Their strong beak is hooked. They feed their young by regurgitation.

Parrots have a wide range of articulations. Wild parrots do not imitate. Only pets will mimic people and noises they hear. The African gray parrots are the best mimics.

Some species of the parrot have become endangered. Thousands are brought to Europe and North America as pets. Many of these die making this journey.

Interesting Facts About Nelson Mandela

2009-04-21T19:19:00.002+05:30

Nelson Mandela’s original name was Rolihlahla Mandela. (Nelson was added later.) He was born in “Black” Transkei, Africa on July 18, 1918.

Mandela is the world's most celebrated man who has held a political office while being jailed for nearly 30 years. Despite the fact that his freedom was stripped from him, he continued to stand up for his beliefs for his South African Brothers and Sisters who are still struggling with the affects of Apartheid.

Nelson’s peaceful boyhood was spent cattle herding and other rural pursuits. When his father died, Nelson’s rich and powerful relative took custody of him. Nelson Mandela was influenced by his African heritage of ritual and taboo. His values and attitudes were shaped by traditions and his royal privileges.

He was sent to boarding school and later to Fort Hare Missionary College. He was expelled from college for helping to organize a strike against the white colonial rule of the institution. He then became involved in other protests against the white colonial rule. In doing so he set out for personal and national liberation. He ran away from home to avoid an arranged marriage. Later, he graduated from the University of South Africa with a degree in law. He joined a law firm as an apprentice.

Nelson MandelaIn 1942,Nelson joined the African National Congress (ANC), which, at the time, was polite to the government. Soon Nelson Mandela had persuaded the ANC to use boycotts and strikes against the government instead of being polite. He was arrested for civil disobedience, and was not allowed to attend gatherings.

In his spare time, Nelson Mandela studied to become a lawyer so that he could protect blacks. Work as a lawyer strengthened his feelings against apartheid (which segregated and discriminated against blacks in South Africa). Nelson was particularly active during the 1950’s.

After the Shapesville massacre in which many blacks were killed, the white rule banned the ANC. Nelson went underground. He created the MK, which was the military portion of the ANC. Nelson arranged military training in Algeria for the MK members. He launched a sabotage campaign. On his return from Algeria he was arrested for going between countries without a passport, and was tried for sabotage and Africa attempting to overthrow the government. He spent the next 28 years in prison. Before going to prison he said, “Make every home, every shack or rickety structure into a learning center.”

When he got to Robben Island where he was to be imprisoned Nelson was told to jog to the prison gate. He refused. He and the other prisoners started a hunger strike to get better living conditions. The prisoners won. They also found ways to communicate with other prisoners. A few methods were: writing messages on toilet paper, hiding messages in the bottom of food buckets, slipping notes in the dirty dishes (they made the dishes extra dirty for this) so the cook prisoners could read them, and taping notes to the inside rim of toilet seats.

While Nelson was in prison he was offered freedom if he would stop his violent actions. He refused this offer.

During Nelson Mandela’s jail time he had secret talks with South Africa’s president, P.W. Botha, and his successor, F.W. de Klerk. As a result, in 1990 he was freed.

He was appointed Deputy President of the ANC. The ANC decided to suspend its 30-year armed struggle. In July of 1991, Nelson Mandela was appointed President of the ANC. Nelson decided to join the government and other parties to negotiate South Africa’s future. Finally everyone came to agree on a majority rule constitution. This constitution states that racial discrimination it is against the law.

In 1993, Nelson Mandela shared the Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk forAfrican Flag dismantling apartheid, and in 1994 he became the first democratically elected South African president.

In June of 1999, Nelson Mandela retired from the presidency, and returned to live in the town of Qunu, Transkei, in which was born.

Restful retirement was not on the cards as Mandela shifted his energies to battling South Africa's AIDS crisis raising millions of dollars to fight the disease.

His struggle against AIDS became starkly personal in early 2005 when he lost his only surviving son to the disease.

The country also shared the pain of Mandela's humiliating divorce in 1996 from Winnie Mandela, his second wife, and watched his courtship of Graca Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.

In 2007 Mandela celebrated his 89th birthday by launching an international group of elder statesmen, including fellow Nobel peace laureates Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, to tackle world problems including climate change, HIV/AIDS and poverty.

Interesting Facts About Slumdog Millionaire

2009-04-18T15:34:00.003+05:30

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati, mentioned in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success. It later had a nationwide grand release in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009 and in the United States on 23 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009.

Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score and Best Original Song.

It also won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes, and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film. Slumdog Millionaire has stirred controversy concerning language use, its portrayals of Indians and Hinduism, and the welfare of its child actors.

Budget $15 million
Gross revenue $326,895,516

Academy Awards record
1. Best Picture
2. Best Director, Danny Boyle
3. Best Adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy
4. Best Cinematography, Anthony Dod Mantle
5. Best Original Score, A. R. Rahman
6. Best Original Song - "Jai Ho", A. R. Rahman and Gulzar
7. Best Film Editing, Chris Dickens
8. Best Sound Mixing, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pyke, and Ian Tapp

BAFTA Awards record
1. Best Film, Christian Colson
2. Best Director, Danny Boyle
3. Best Adapted Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy
4. Best Cinematography, Anthony Dod Mantle
5. Best Film Music, A. R. Rahman
6. Best Editing, Chris Dickens
7. Best Sound, Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pyke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp

Golden Globe Awards record
1. Best Picture - Drama
2. Best Director, Danny Boyle
3. Best Screenplay, Simon Beaufoy
4. Best Original Score, A. R. Rahman

Interesting Facts About Barbie

2009-03-22T17:51:00.004+05:30

Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts. She is from Willows, Wisconsin, and went to Willows High School.

Barbie was named after the daughter of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler. Their son’s name is: Ken.

The first Barbie doll sold for $3.

The first Black, and Hispanic Barbie dolls were introduced in 1980.

Barbie’s first career was as a teenage fashion model. She has since had other careers including astronaut, rock star, paleontologist, presidential candidate, and Olympic ice skater, as well as many others.

Barbie introduced a rap group in 1990 called “Barbie, and the Beats.”

More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making the fashions of Barbie, and her friends, making Mattel one of the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.

Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls, and her friends sold since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.

Every second, three Barbie dolls are sold somewhere in the world.

Barbie doll has kept up with the times and trends since her debut in 1959. In matters from career, to family and friends, to fashion, she is right there changing along with girls and the world. Some fun facts to boost your Barbie I.Q.

Barbie doll has had more than 80 careers -- everything from a rock star to a paleontologist to a presidential candidate.

Barbie doll’s first career was a teenage fashion model.

Barbie Goes to College was introduced in 1964.

Army Barbie, introduced in 1992, represented a medic Sergeant enlisted in Desert Storm.

The first Olympic athlete Barbie was introduced in 1975; she is competing again as an Olympic swimmer in 2000.

Summit Barbie dolls were introduced in the 1980s to commemorate the end of the cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

Barbie doll represented a candidate for President in 1992 and ran again in 2000 with a platform of opportunities for girls, educational excellence and animal rights.

The military series of Barbie dolls, Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps went through approvals by the Pentagon to ensure the most realistic costumes.

Barbie doll represented an astronaut in 1965, 1986 and 1994.

In 1997, Share A Smile Becky was the first Mattel, Inc. fashion doll introduced with a wheelchair.

The Barbie(TM) Sport collection, including a clothing line and sport-related dolls, was introduced by Mattel in 1998 to allow girls to play out their athletic aspirations every day. It’s a global village these days .

Barbie doll was introduced in Europe in 1961.

Italian was the first nationality Barbie doll represented in the Dolls of the World Collection.

Quinceanera Teresa doll was released in Mexico in 1994 to celebrate Girls Day.

The Barbie doll is currently marketed in more than 150 nations around the world.

Placed head to toe, Barbie dolls and family members sold since 1959 would circle the earth more than seven times.

One of the latest nationality Barbie dolls from the Doll’s of The World Collection is Princess of the Incas Barbie, released in 2001 wearing an ensemble inspired by the Inca tribe and is authentic in every detail right down to her headdress.

Barbie doll has represented 45 different nationalities.

The first black and Hispanic Barbie dolls were introduced in 1980. 2002 marks the debut of Kayla, Barbie doll’s new multi-cultural friend.

Freundshcafts (Friendship) Barbie was introduced in 1990 to commemorate the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Life of the party .

Barbie doll has had over 43 pets including 21 dogs, 14 horses, 3 ponies, 6 cats, a parrot, a chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a zebra.

The best selling Barbie doll ever was Totally Hair Barbie, with hair from the top of her head to her toes.

Barbie doll has five sisters, Skipper, introduced in 1964, Tutti, a twin introduced in 1966, Stacie in 1992, Kelly in 1995 and Krissy(TM) in 1999.

Barbie doll’s boyfriend, Ken doll made his debut two years after Barbie in 1961 and in 2001 marks his 40th anniversary.

Ken doll was named after the son of Mattel founders Ruth and Elliot Handler.

The first celebrity to join the Barbie doll family was fashion model Twiggy in 1967 and the M. C. Hammer doll, complete with a cassette of his songs, was added in 1991.

Barbie doll’s first pet was a horse named Dancer.

Barbie doll’s best friend, Midge was introduced in 1963 and then again in 1988 as California Midge.

1999 was the first year that a family member of the Barbie doll was introduced into the line as a large-scale doll, Cuddly Soft(TM) Kelly.

Doll collecting is second only to stamp collecting as the most popular collecting hobby in America -- Barbie doll is collected by women, men and children around the world.

The Barbie Polaroid I-zone is an instant camera that allows girls to create postage-size sticky pictures of all their fun activities.

Fashion police sign off -- Barbie doll’s record is sparkling

Over 1 billion fashions have been produced since 1959 for Barbie and her friends.

More than 105 million yards of fabric have gone into making Barbie doll and her friends’ fashions, making Mattel one the largest apparel manufacturers in the world.

Barbie doll has had more than a billion pair of shoes and over one hundred new additions to her wardrobe annually.

Barbie doll’s signature color is Barbie pink.

The “Barbie Fashion Designer” CD ROM was the best-selling software title of the 1996 holiday season.

Barbie doll’s collection of couture includes designs by Givenchy, Versace, Dolce & Gabana, Vera Wang and Gucci.

The Barbie clothing line for real girls includes knit tops, bootleg pants, backpacks, sleepwear and accessories. A dazzling debut . . .

Barbie doll was introduced in 1959 and first appeared in the now-famous black and white striped swimsuit and signature ponytail.

The inventor of the Barbie doll is Ruth Handler, co-founder of Mattel. She named the doll after her daughter, Barbara.

During the first year of her introduction in 1959, 351,000 Barbie dolls were sold.

An original 1959 Barbie doll in mint condition has sold for up to $10,000.

Barbie doll is currently a $2.5 billion dollar-per-year industry including licensed products under Barbie Consumer Products.

In 2001, Barbie doll stared in her first movie, Barbie in the Nutcracker; in 2002 she will return in Barbie as Rapunzel.

Barbie doll is celebrating 43 years as the world’s most popular fashion doll in 2002.

Barbie CD ROMs have been the best selling children’s software titles in 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Barbie.com is the number one girls’ site with logging over 8 million monthly users who spend an average of 42 minutes on the site per visit.

Barbie.com is an online community for girls with the mission to engage, enchant and empower girls by inspiring them to be creative and explore their individual interests. About Mattel Girls Division

Interesting Facts About Indonesia

2009-03-19T18:50:00.002+05:30

Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago consisting of many thousands of islands. Around six thousand of the islands are inhabited.

The Indonesian name for Indonesia is "Tanah Air Kita" - Our Land and Water.

Indonesia's national motto is Unity in Diversity.

The highest point in Indonesia is Puncak Jaya (5,030 m) in the highlands of Papua.

Indonesia's region of Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) shares the island of New Guinea with Papua New Guinea.

The Indonesian administrative divisions of Kalimantan share Borneo with Malaysia and Brunei.

The islands of New Guinea and Borneo are two of the largest islands in the world.

The eruption of Mount Tambora, on Sumbawa Island, in 1815 was the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded history. 1816 was known as the "Year Without Summer" because of the global climatic effects of the eruption.

In 1883 the volcanic island of Krakatoa (part of the Indonesian archipelago) was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. This caused a tidal wave that killed over thirty thousand people.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions sometimes cause a tsunami, a giant wave which can swamp islands and coastal settlements. A tsunami can travel as fast as 800 kph.

Indonesia is part of the Ring of Fire which includes about seventy-five percent of all the world's volcanoes. (The rim of the Pacific Basin is ringed with volcanoes, from Alaska through the USA, Mexico and South America, then on to New Zealand and up to Japan and Russia.).

In the early 1890s Eugene Dubois discovered a skull and thigh bone of Homo erectus in East Java. Dubois published his findings of "Java Man" in 1894, claiming that Homo erectus was an ancestor of modern humans.

The Sangiran Early Man Site, on the World Heritage List, is estimated to have been inhabited one and a half million years ago. Half of the world's hominid fossils have been found at Sangiran in Java.

Marco Polo was one of the first Europeans to visit Indonesia.

Europeans went to Indonesia in search of spices. Spices were a very valuable commodity in Europe.

Indonesia is one the world's largest producers of nutmeg.

Thousands of statues regard Java's jungles from the heights of Borobudur—the world's largest Buddhist temple. The ancient pilgrimage site was built in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D.

By the late eighteenth century "Indonesia" was part of the Dutch colonial empire and known as the Netherlands East Indies.

Indonesia's island of Bali did not come under the control of the Netherlands until 1906. During the Dutch capture of the island many thousands of Balinese were killed. Puputan Square in Denpasar is named after the suicidal battle of the Balinese aristocracy in their struggle against the Dutch.

Between 1811 and 1816 (during the Napoleonic Wars), "Indonesia" came under British rule but was returned to the Dutch.

After the War (1939-1945) Indonesia declared independence. Sukarno, the independence leader, became the country's first president.

Following independence, the Dutch remained in control of the western part of New Guinea (now Papua). This territory was eventually passed to Indonesia under a United Nations agreement (1963).

In 1975 East Timor gained independence from the Portuguese but was annexed by Indonesia in 1976. East Timor voted for independence in 1999 but did not regain independence until 2002.

In October 2002 a terrorist bomb in Bali (Kuta town) killed over 180 people. Three years later, suicide bombings in Bali killed over twenty people.

In 2003 a car bomb outside the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta killed fourteen people. A year later, another car bomb in Jakarta outside the Australian embassy killed nine people.

On 26 December 2004, a quake occurred under the sea near Aceh in north Indonesia (8.9 on the Richter scale); this produced tsunamis causing flooding and destruction in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Thailand, Seychelles, Sri Lanka and the east coast of Africa (Kenya and Somalia).

An earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, off the coast of Sumatra, killed between one and two thousand people in March 2005. Many of the victims lived on the small island of Nias.

Towards the end of May 2006 an earthquake measuring 6.2 struck the Indonesian island of Java killing over three thousand people.

A tsunami, caused by an undersea earthquake (magnitude 7.7), struck the island of Java on 17 July 2006 killing over 500 people.

In November 2008 an earthquake near the island of Sulawesi, magnitude 7.5, killed at least six people.

An earthquake with a of magnitude 7.6 occurred near the north coast of Papua in January 2009.

Indonesia is a vast equatorial archipelago of 17,000 islands extending 5,150 kilometers (3,200 miles) east to west, between the Indian and Pacific Oceans in Southeast Asia. The largest islands are Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), Sulawesi, and the Indonesian part of New Guinea (known as Papua or Irian Jaya). Islands are mountainous with dense rain forests, and some have active volcanoes. Most of the smaller islands belong to larger groups, like the Moluccas (Spice Islands).

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, is 86 percent Muslim—and the largest Islamic country, though it is a secular state. Indonesians are separated by seas and clustered on islands. The largest cluster is on Java, with some 130 million inhabitants (60 percent of the country's population) on an island the size of New York State. Sumatra, much larger than Java, has less than a third of its people. Ethnically the country is highly diverse, with over 580 languages and dialects—but only 13 have more

Interesting Facts About Oxford English Dictionary

2009-03-18T19:12:00.003+05:30

First Edition

Proposed size: 4 volumes, 6,400 pages (with provision for ‘a larger dictionary containing not fewer than 10 volumes, each containing not less than 1,600 pages’)

Actual size: 10 volumes, 15,490 pages

Proposed time to complete: 10 years

Actual time to complete: 70 years (from approval date)

Publication date: 1884-1928 in 128 fascicles. Published in 10 volumes in 1928 and reissued in 12 volumes in 1933, with addition of one-volume Supplement

Price of fascicles: 12 shillings and sixpence for large sections

Price of bound volumes (1928): from 50 to 55 guineas for the set, depending on binding

Number of pages edited by James Murray: est., 7,200

Number of entries: 252,200

Number of word forms defined and/or illustrated: 414,800

Number of contributors (readers): est. 2,000

Number of quotations submitted by contributors: est. 5 million

Number of quotations used in Dictionary: 1,861,200

Number of authors represented in quotations: 2,700

Number of works represented in quotations: 4,500

Supplement (1972-1986)

Proposed size: one volume, 1,300 pages

Actual size: 4 volumes, 5,730 pages

Proposed time to complete: 7 years

Actual time to complete: 30 years

Publication date: vol. 1, 1972; vol. 2, 1976; vol. 3, 1982; vol. 4, 1986

Number of entries: 69,300

Number of quotations: est. 527,000

Second Edition (1989)

Proposed size: 20 volumes

Actual size: 20 volumes, 21,730 pages

Publication date: 1989

Weight of text: 62.6 kilos or 137.72 lbs.

Amount of ink used to print complete run: 2,830 kilos or 6,243 lbs.

Number of words in entire text: 59 million

Number of printed characters: 350 million

Number of different typographical characters used in text: approx.: 750 (660 special plus approx. 90 on regular keyboard)

Equivalent person years used to ‘key in’ text to convert to machine-readable form: 120

Equivalent person years to proof-read text: 60

Number of megabytes of electronic storage required for text: 540

Number of entries: 291,500

Number of main entries: 231,100

Number of main entries for obsolete words: 47,100

Number of main entries for spurious words: 240

Number of main entries for non-naturalized words: 12,200

Longest entry in Dictionary: the verb ‘set’ with over 430 senses consisting of approximately 60,000 words or 326,000 characters

Number of cross-reference entries: 60,400

Number of cross-references within entries: 580,600

Number of word forms defined and/or illustrated: 615,100

Number of pronunciations: 139,900

Number of etymologies: 219,800

Number of quotations: 2,436,600

Most frequently quoted work (in various full and partial version, and translations): Bible (est. 25,000 quotations)

Most frequently quoted single author: Shakespeare (approx. 33,300 quotations)

Most frequently quoted single work of Shakespeare: Hamlet (almost 1,600 quotations)

Percentage of quotations by centuries:

20th century 20 per cent
19th century 31
18th century 11
17th century 16
16th century 10
15th century 4.5
14th century 3.5
13th century 1
1st to 12th centuries 1

Interesting Facts About Cheque

2009-03-08T17:25:00.004+05:30

There were just over 4.4 million cheques issued each day in 2007, compared to 11 million in the peak year for cheque volumes, 1990. By 2017 there will be only 2 million per day.

In 2007 each adult made 1.4 cheque payments per month, compared with 2.9 per month in 1997.

Each adult receives, on average, fewer than five cheques per year.

Only 5 million adults still use guaranteed cheques on a regular basis, compared to 14 million in 1997.

Only one in eleven regular bills is paid by cheque, compared with one in five as recently as in 2000. This is expected to drop to one in thirty-five by 2017.

By 2017 personal cheques will account for only 2.1% of all non-cash payments made by individuals.

The average value of a personal cheque payment is £226.

The average value of a cheque (personal and business combined) is £982.

Only 2.8% of retail spending by value is still paid by cheque, compared with over 65% by debit or credit card.

Business cheque use peaked in 1997 and has since then declined as businesses increasingly move to using automated payments for their trade suppliers. Over the last ten years business cheque volumes have decreased by 43%, and are expected to drop by 53% over the next ten years.

Interesting Facts About Ginger

2009-03-07T18:39:00.003+05:30

Ginger, a knobby, fibrous root, has smooth light brown skin with a sheen to it. The flesh of the root is white. Ginger root is a seasoning and flavors sweets, including cakes, cookies, breads, and beverages. It is also good in sauces, and fruit dishes, and is often used heavily in Asian cooking. When buying, look for ginger root with the least amount of knots and/or branching.

Ginger is said to stimulate gastric juices, and provide warming and soothing effects for colds and coughs.

Ginger root should be kept in a cool, dry place, usually at 40 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit. After purchasing, ginger may be refrigerated in plastic wrap for up to one week. For longer storage, peel ginger root and cover it with sherry wine before refrigeration. Freezing for up to three months is also an option.

Fresh ginger can be found in the produce section of most grocery stores. Look for smooth skin with a fresh, spicy fragrance. Tubers should be firm and feel heavy. Length is a sign of maturity, and mature rhizomes will be hotter and more fibrous. Avoid those with wrinkled flesh, as this is an indication of aged ginger past its prime.

Ginger was used in ancient times as a food preservative and to help treat digestive problems. To treat digestive problems, Greeks would eat ginger wrapped in bread. Eventually ginger was added to the bread dough creating that wonderful treat many around the globe love today gingerbread

Ginger ale eventually stemmed from a ginger beer made by the English and Colonial America as a remedy for diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

Ginger thrives in the tropics and warmer regions and is therefore currently grown in parts of West Africa, the West Indies, India and China with the best quality ginger coming from Jamaica where it is most abundant. In the United States, ginger is grown in Florida, Hawaii, and along the eastern coast of Texas.

Gingerroot is characterized by it’s strong sweet, yet woodsy smell. It is tan in color with white to creamy-yellow flesh that can be coarse yet stringy.

Ginger is an excellent natural remedy for nausea, motion sickness, morning sickness and general stomach upset due to its carminative effect that helps break up and expel intestinal gas. Ginger tea has been recommended to alleviate nausea in chemotherapy patients primarily because its natural properties do not interact in a negative way with other medications. It is a safe remedy for morning sickness, since it will not harm the fetus. Some studies show ginger may also help prevent certain forms of cancer.

To make ginger tea, slice some ginger root, put it in a tea ball and place in a teapot. Pour boiling water over the tea ball and let it sit for ten minutes. Sweeten with honey or drink it straight.

In spite of it being a natural remedy, it's important that any medicinal use of ginger be discussed with a physician, as it must be taken in moderation to avoid gastric irritation.

Ginger is available year-round. When selecting gingerroot, choose robust firm roots with a spicy fragrance and smooth skin. Gingerroot should not be cracked or withered. It can be stored tightly wrapped in a paper towel or plastic wrap (or put into a plastic bag) in the refrigerator for 2–3 weeks and like galangal, gingerroot can also be placed in a jar of sherry and refrigerated for 3–6 months.

The aromatic rhizome of this 30 – 60 cm tall tropical plant is used in food preparation and as medicine for centuries in southeastern Asia. There, pharmacists recommend it for any ailment with which people may be afflicted.

After ginger was first introduced in Europe (approximately 800 AD) it ranked second to pepper as a spice for centuries.

Ginger grows in southern China, Japan, West Africa, and many other tropical countries including the Caribbean islands. Jamaican ginger is considered to be the best of all.

Chinese cooks use ginger with beef successfully, whereas European chefs prefer to use it as an exotic flavouring for fresh fruit salads, or to give cream of carrot soup and extra kick.

English make candied ginger, ginger jam, and dry it to be ground and use as a condiment.

Chinese dry ginger and sell it as green ginger. Black ginger is first scalded and then dried.

Fresh ginger is best. Its thin skin can be scraped with the back of a spoon and then cut, grated or pounded to mix into soups, sauces and stews.

Ginger possesses an intriguing; sweet, spicy and pungent flavour rendering it suitable for use in a range of dishes from stir-fried beef to ginger tea.

Ginger ale, ginger beer and ginger wine are only vaguely flavoured with ginger.

The ginger root is not actually a root, but a rhizome.

The major producers of Ginger today are China and tropical/subtropical places in Asia, Brazil, Jamaica, Nigeria.

The health benefits of honey and ginger in treating respiratory problems are unmatched by any other concoction.

The ginger plant is approximately 30 - 60 cm tall and is extremely rare to find in the wild.

Interesting Facts About Tea

2009-03-04T19:18:00.002+05:30

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, playing second fiddle only to water. It is in almost every culture, and there are literally thousands of varieties.

Tea is often said to be traced back to a Chinese Emperor, Shen Nung who live over 4700 years ago. Although this is likely not true, the earliest record that confirms the cultivation of tea is dated to the 4th century China. Drinking tea leaves steeped in a tea pot did not become popular until the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and modern tea drinking is about the same age.

Tea contains about 50% less caffeine than coffee, making it a great alternative to those that are sensitive to caffeine intake. Tea can also be made to be decaffeinated as most of the caffeine is released in the first few minutes of the steep.

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia. Who would believe that tea blocks were used as currency!

While England is the one of the countries that is acclaimed for its tea consumption, 5 out of 6 North Americans drink tea!

White Tea has a higher anti-oxidant level than green tea, making it superior in it's ability to boost the immune system and heal the body.

There are four main types of tea which are, white, green, oolong, and black, all which are born from the same species of plant.

Tea is a beverage that is enjoyed in the morning, afternoon, or evening, whether feeling ill or good, and can be consumed hot or cold.

Camellia sinensis is the scientific classification for the tea plant.

China is the birthplace of tea and gives to us some of the finest varieties of white and green teas. Although China is the origin of tea, surprisingly, it is not the world's largest overall producer of tea.

Japanese tea like "sencha" and "gyokuro" are one of the most popular and favorite varieties. Japan has an interesting tea culture worth exploring, and tea worth trying.

Indian tea is the world's most consumed tea! It is also the world's largest tea producer, with an estimated 850,000 tons of tea being processed each year! A very common type of tea is Indian black tea, like Assam tea, and Darjeeling tea.

Tea breaks are a tradition that have been with us for approximately 200 years

By the middle of the 18th Century tea had replaced ale and gin as the drink of the masses and had become Britain's most popular beverage.

Tea is a natural source of fluoride that can help protect against tooth decay and gum disease

98% of people take their tea with milk, but only 30% take sugar in tea

96% of all cups of tea drunk daily in the UK are brewed from tea bags

The number of recommended cups of tea to drink each day is 4, this gives you optimal benefit.

Tea firstly appeared in Europe thanks to Portuguese Jesuit Father Jasper de Cruz in 1560.

The first book about tea was written by Lu Yu in 800 A.D

80% of office workers now claim they find out more about what's going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way

1.42 million pounds of tea are consumed per day in the United States.

An average of three billion cups of tea are consumed daily worldwide.

Interesting Facts About Jeans

2009-02-21T16:21:00.001+05:30

May 20th of every year is considered to be the official “birthday” of blue jeans as it was the day that Levi Strauss, Levi’s jeans inventor and the owner of the idea of riveted jeans pants Jacob Davis received patent of the rivets no.139,121 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

215 jeans can be made with only one bale of cotton.

The majority of jeans’ zippers have the word ‘YKK’ written on them. YKK technically stands for ‘Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha’ which is Japanese language, meaning “Yoshida Company Limited.” It’s a company formed in 1934 by a Japanese zipper manufacturer, Tadao Yoshida.

There are some store selling jeans online that allow you to create your own favorite style of jeans and you can choose pockets, leg style, color, fit and so on.

When purchasing a clothing garment like jeans, more than half of the money goes to the people who sell it, only 12% goes to the manufacturers.

Most of the mills that make a ‘heavy’ fabric, denim, are commonly located near to cotton crops as the fabric uses large quantities of cotton.

Nearly all jeans are stitched together in hundreds of thousands of low-wage ‘sweatshops’ and private homes around the world. The statistic came from the number of poor countries where jeans are rarely worn but large quantities of denim are imported.

Every American owns, on average, 7 pairs of wearable jeans

Jeans were called “waist overalls” or just “overalls” before 1960 and Levi Strauss changed it to its popular name of “jeans.”

The common dye found in blue jeans is called phthalocyanine and is a light activated agent with cell destroying properties.

Nearly all jeans are stitched together in hundreds of thousands of low-wage ‘sweatshops’ and private homes around the world

Denim was patented on May 20, 1873

The first pair of jeans was created by Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss

Levi’s jeans for women is first shown in Vogue magazine in 1835

American women own an average of 8.3 pairs of jeans (men own 8.2)

Women pay $35.83/pair (but with the advent of premium denim, more women are willing to pay $200/pair)

Interesting Facts About Donald Rumsfeld

2009-02-20T19:19:00.004+05:30

Donald H. Rumsfeld was sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense on January 20, 2001. Before assuming his present post, the former Navy pilot had also served as the 13th Secretary of Defense, White House Chief of Staff, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, U.S. Congressman and chief executive officer of two Fortune 500 companies.

Secretary Rumsfeld had directed the actions of the Defense Department in response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. In 1957, he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in 1989.

In 1957, he came to Washington, DC to serve as Administrative Assistant to a Congressman. After a stint with an investment banking firm, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois in 1962, at the age of 30, and was re-elected in 1964, 1966, and 1968.

Rumsfeld resigned from Congress in 1969 during his fourth term to join the President's Cabinet. From 1969 to 1970, he served as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity and Assistant to the President. From 1971 to 1972, he was Counselor to the President and Director of the Economic Stabilization Program. In 1973, he left Washington, DC, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, Belgium (1973-1974).

In August 1974, he was called back to Washington, DC, to serve as Chairman of the transition to the Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He later became Chief of Staff of the White House and a member of the President's Cabinet (1974-1975). He served as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Defense, the youngest in the country's history (1975-1977).

From 1977 to 1985 he served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G.D. Searle & Co., a worldwide pharmaceutical company. The successful turnaround there earned him awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business.

Rumsfeld served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Instrument Corporation from 1990 to 1993, a leader in broadband transmission, distribution, and access control technologies. Until being sworn in as the 21st Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld served as Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company.

Before returning for his second tour as Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, in 1998, and the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization, in 2000.

During his business career, Rumsfeld continued his public service in a variety of Federal posts, including:

Member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control (1982 - 1986)

Special Presidential Envoy on the Law of the Sea Treaty (1982 - 1983)

Senior Advisor to the President's Panel on Strategic Systems (1983 - 1984)

Member of the U.S. Joint Advisory Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1983 - 1984)

Special Presidential Envoy to the Middle East (1983 - 1984)

Member of the National Commission on Public Service (1987 - 1990)

Member of the National Economic Commission (1988 - 1989)

Member of the Board of Visitors of the National Defense University (1988 - 1992)

Member of the Commission on U.S./Japan Relations (1989 - 1991)

Member of the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission (1999 - 2000)

Interesting Facts About Skype

2009-02-19T16:23:00.003+05:30

Founded in August 2003, Skype is the leading global Internet communications company.

Skype is headquartered in Luxembourg with offices in Europe, United States and Asia.

Skype was acquired by eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) in October 2005.

In Q3 2008, Skype posted total revenue of $143 million, representing 46 percent year-over-year growth and delivered the seventh consecutive quarter of profitability.

Every day millions of people use Skype software to communicate with others through free voice and video calls, as well as instant messages. Many people also use SkypeOut or one of our global subscriptions to save money when calling landlines and mobiles across the world.

Skype is a global phenomenon - in Q3 2008, Skype added 32 million users - ending the quarter with more than 370 million users, representing an increase of 51 percent from a year ago.

In Q3 2008, Skype-to-Skype minutes reached nearly 16 billion, a 63 percent increase year over year, and SkypeOut minutes increased 54 percent versus last year to 2.2 billion.

Skype's 370 million registered users have made more than 100 billion minutes worth of free Skype-to-Skype calls.

Skype software is extremely secure, sustainable, and scalable. At peak times, there are over 14 million concurrent users and over 300,000 simultaneous calls. There are more than 100,000 information queries on the network each second.

Skype accounted for 6% of the world's international calling minutes in 2007, according to preliminary data released by TeleGeography Research.

Skype is available in over 28 languages and is used in almost every country around the world.

30% of Skype users use Skype for business purposes.

More than 25% of Skype-to-Skype calls include video.

Downloads of the Skype application surpassed 1 billion copies in 2008, making Skype one of the most popular free software applications of all time.

Skype's popularity is being fueled by an active ecosystem that includes 15,000 developers and over 50 partners. Today, there are more than 190 Skype Certified hardware products and there are over 227 software Extras for Windows, Mac and Linux users.

Skype for Windows Mobile has been downloaded more than 11 million times.

In the UK specifically, 3 has announced that over 100 million Skype minutes have been sent across its network since it launched the 3 Skypephone last year. In addition, more than 150 thousand handsets have been sold since the launch last year.

Skype adapts its bandwidth usage in order to always guarantee the best possible audio and video quality at any given time. The bandwidth Skype uses ranges from 8-50 kilobits per second for a voice call and 250-500 kilobits per second for a video call.

The worldwide communications services market opportunity is $1.7 trillion, growing at 5.5% annually (Sources: World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), Datamonitor, Credit Suisse, Informa, Ovum).

Online conferencing revenue in the U.S. in 2008, according to the Telecommunications Industry Association's (TIA) Market Review and Forecast:

o Video conferencing - $2.2 billion
o Web conferencing - $1.5 billion
o Audio conferencing - $2.7 billion
o TOTAL - $6.05 billion online conferencing revenue in the U.S. in 2008

The predicted CAGR for Web conferencing revenue in the U.S. is 14.1% from 2008-2011 (Source: Telecommunications Industry Association's (TIA) Market Review and Forecast).

The telecom spend by consumers was 100% wireline in 1991; now, it is 50% wireless and growing (Sources: Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Trends in Telephony Service (June 2005), Primetrica's U.S. VoIP Research Service (2008)).

Telecom has remained 2% of household expenditures for 40+ years - people have always and will always pay for communications services (Sources: Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) Trends in Telephony Service (June 2005), Primetrica's U.S. VoIP Research Service (2008)).

The global size of profit pools from communications services, according to Ovum, IDC and Bain:

o International calling - $70 billion
o Premium calling - $2 billion
o Conferencing services - $1.3 billion
o Mobile voice - $500 billion

IDC predicts there will be almost half a billion worldwide personal IP communications subscribers by 2012 (Source: IDC's "Worldwide Personal IP Communications Services 2008-2012 Forecast: A New Kind of Telephony Service," released in May 2008).

Personal IP communications is the future of real-time communications for the individual user. This market segment is categorized into three areas including Web-based services, portals, and mobile thin-clients. Together, IDC forecasts these categories will represent more than $5 billion in annual spending in 2012 (Source: IDC's "Worldwide Personal IP Communications Services 2008-2012 Forecast: A New Kind of Telephony Service," released in May 2008).

Interesting Facts About Diabetes

2009-02-17T15:27:00.003+05:30

November 14 - World Diabetes Day.

India has highest number of Diabetics.

One in every five diabetics in the world is Indian.

India now has 35 million Diabetics.

Dibetes has no cure.

Major cause of diabetic death is Heart Attack.

6th Leading cause of death in US: 19% of all deaths in the U.S. for people aged 25 years and older

20.8 million people in US (7% of population) have diabetes

14.6 million diagnosed

6.2 million people remain undiagnosed

1.5 million people aged 20 years or older are diagnosed each year

10.5% of men and 8.8% of women have diabetes

Recent information indicates diabetes growing at 6% per year

Diabetes is a serious disease. It can lead to serious complications such as heart attack, stroke, blindness, kidney failure, and lower limb amputations. People with diabetes can take steps to manage it and lower their risk for complications. Make healthy food choices, be physically active, and stay at a healthy weight. Good diabetes care includes managing the ABCs of diabetes--as measured by the A1C test, blood pressure, and cholesterol--to help avoid having a heart attack, stroke, or other problems.

The only way to know for sure what your levels are is to check your blood glucose. The absence of symptoms of high blood glucose is an unreliable guide for judging glucose control, since symptoms may not occur until blood glucose reaches high levels. Diabetes is often called a "silent disease" because it can cause serious complications even before you have symptoms. Set your blood glucose targets with your diabetes care team. Ask your health care team to show you how to self-monitor your blood glucose. Keep a record of your results, and share them with your team. Also, know your A1C goal and keep a record of your test results, which reflect your average blood glucose levels over the past three months. It is the best way to know how well your blood glucose is controlled overall.

Small amounts of foods that contain sugar can be part of a healthy meal plan. If you choose to eat sweet foods, just have a small amount at the end of a healthy meal, not every day, or have a piece of fruit rather than a sugary snack.

A healthy meal plan for people with diabetes is a healthy meal plan for everyone. Eat foods that are high in fiber and low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars. Healthy foods include a colorful mix of fruits and vegetables, fish, lean meats, chicken or turkey without the skin, dry peas or beans, whole grains, and low-fat or skim milk and cheese. Ask your health care team for a healthy meal plan.

Physical activity is safe--and essential--for people with diabetes. Talk to your health care team about ways to safely increase your daily physical activity. Being physically active can help people with diabetes improve their blood glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight. It also helps improve strength, flexibility, and balance. Start by setting small goals until you reach at least 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. Brisk walking is a good way to move more

Insulin, was discovered by Dr. Frederick Banting and Dr. Charles Best in 1921 at the University of Toronto.

In 1924, a 14 year old boy Leonard Thompson was the first human with diabetes to receive insulin.

Eli Lilly was the first company to make insulin available commercially.

Almost 1 in 17 people worldwide are diabetic. More than 1800 cases of diabetes are diagnosed everyday.

India has the largest number of diabetics in the world; a total of 10 million.

Vitamin D reduces the risk of diabetes.

Research on insulin inhalers is going on which will make treatment of diabetes simple and pain-free.

Interesting Facts About Caligynephobia

2009-01-24T19:40:00.006+05:30

The fear of beautiful women is known as Caligynephobia.

Not many people might know this but there are people out there who are ever scared of pretty women.

Defined as "a persistent, abnormal, and unwarranted fear of beautiful women", each year this surprisingly common phobia causes countless people needless distress. Known by a number of names - Caligynephobia (pronounced cal-e-guy-nah-foe-bee-uh), Venustraphobia, and Fear of Beautiful Women being the most common - the problem often significantly impacts the quality of life.

It can cause panic attacks and keep people apart from loved ones and business associates.

Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, rapid breathing, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea, and overall feelings of dread, although everyone experiences caligynephobia in their own way and may have different symptoms.

Like all fears and phobias, caligynephobia is created by the unconscious mind as a protective mechanism. At some point in your past, there was likely an event linking beautiful women and emotional trauma.

It comes down to redirecting your unconscious mind. On the surface, you know your caligynephobia is illogical. But it has persisted because your subconscious has attached the idea of beautiful women to all those negative emotions.

Caligynephobia should be approached as a real physical and emotional impairment.

Interesting Facts About Singapore

2009-01-11T19:42:00.005+05:30

Singapore consists only of one main island and 63 other tiny islands. Most of these islands are uninhabited.

Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometres. The USA is about 15,000 times bigger.

Apart from Monaco, Singapore is the most densely populated country in the world, with 6,430 people per square kilometre.

Singapore became the 117th member of the United Nations on 21 September 1965.

Symbolism of the National Flag: Red symbolises universal brotherhood and equality of man while white signifies purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents a young nation on the rise and the five stars signify the ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality.

The national flower of Singapore, Vanda Miss Joaquim, was first discovered in 1893 by Agnes Joaquim, an Armenian. The orchid is a natural hybrid between V. teres and V. hookeriana.

The Merlion, a half-fish, half-lion beast, is a fitting symbol of Singapore. The "Singa" or lion represents the animal that a Sumatran prince saw which resembled a lion, and the fish is a tribute to Singapore's history as "Temasek", the ancient sea town.

Singlish, a Singaporean patois mixing English with the odd phrase of Chinese, Malay and even Tamil, has two entries - lah and sinseh - in the online version of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Although English is the official working language and the most widely used language in Singapore, the national anthem 'Majulah Singapura' is actually sung in Malay.

The flying fox, the world's largest bat with a wingspan of up to 1.5 metres, can be found on Pulau Ubin, one of the islands off mainland Singapore.

Singapore is a stopover point for thousands of migratory birds travelling the East Asian Flyway.

The world's first night zoo, The Night Safari, is located in Singapore.

Despite being largely urbanised, Singapore is the largest exporter of ornamental fish (25% of the world market).

The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve in Singapore contains more species of trees than the entire North American continent.

The highest natural point in Singapore is Bukit Timah Hill, which is only 164 metres high (Singapore has a very flat terrain).

Buildings in Singapore cannot be higher than 280 metres. There are presently three buildings of that height: OUB Centre, UOB Plaza and Republic Plaza.

The world's highest man-made waterfall, standing at 30 metres, is located at the Jurong BirdPark.

The largest fountain in the world is located in Singapore at Suntec City. Made of cast bronze, it cost an estimated US$6 million to build in 1997.

The buildings of Suntec City have been built in the shape of a palm of a hand symbolising good "feng shui".

In 2003, Singapore's Changi Airport won the award for "Best Airport Worldwide" for the 16th consecutive year from the UK/Europe edition of the Business Traveller magazine.

The Guinness book record for the longest human domino chain was set in Singapore on 30th September 2000. Formed by 9,234 students, it measured 4.2km.

The world domino topple record (303,621 men) was set in Singapore on 18th August 2003 by a 24-year-old woman from China.

The record for the biggest ever game of pass-the-parcel was set in Singapore on 28 February 1998. It involved 3,918 students removing 2,200 wrappers from a 1.5 x 1.5 x 0.5 m parcel.

The record for the most number of people participating in line dancing was set in Singapore in May 2002 with 11,967 dancers.

The Great Singapore Duck Race, an annual event that raises funds for charity, set a new world record in 2002 when more than 123,000 toy ducks took to the Singapore River.

Russell Lee, a pseudonym for a team of ghost-writers, is the hottest-selling local author in Singapore. His 11 volumes of True Singapore Ghost Stories have sold more than 600,000 copies to date.

The fastest selling book of all time in Singapore is Hello Chok Tong, Goodbye Kuan Yew: The Untold Story. Written and drawn by political cartoonist George Nonis, it sold 40,000 copies in two months.

The highest grossing movie of all time in Singapore is Titanic, raking in S$6.65 million in 1997.

The highest grossing locally made movie of all time is Money No Enough, raking in S$6.02 million in 1998.

The first Singaporean film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival was director Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys in 1997.

British pop violinist Vanessa Mae Nicholson was born in Singapore and moved to England when she was four.

More Singaporeans are born in the month of October than any other month of the year.

The first population census taken in 1824 revealed that the total population was 10,683.

The 2000 census showed that the population of Singapore is 4.2 million.

Nearly 9 out of 10 Singaporeans live in public housing flats.

The most common Chinese surnames in Singapore are Tan, Lim and Lee.

Singapore has more than 3,000 kilometres of roads. Stretched end to end, they can cover the distance from Singapore to Hong Kong.

8 in 10 people in Singapore own cell phones. In fact, telecom companies issue new numbers at the rate of 30,000 to 40,000 per month.

Singapore's best showing in the Olympic Games: Silver medal won by weightlifter Tan Howe Liang in Rome (1960) followed by a Silver Medal won by the women’s table tennis team in Beijing (2008).

Swimmer Ang Peng Siong was ranked world number one in the 50m Freestyle in 1982.

The Singapore Sling was first served in 1915 at the Long Bar of the Raffles Hotel. The ingredients are gin, Cointreau, cherry brandy, Dom Benedictine, pineapple juice, Grenadine, Angoustura bitters and limes.

Interesting Facts About Strawberry

2009-01-10T17:37:00.003+05:30

Strawberries were cultivated by the Romans as early as 200 BC

Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside.

The average strawberry has 200 seeds.

The ancient Romans believed that strawberries alleviated symptoms of melancholy, fainting, all inflammations, fevers, throat infections, kidney stones, bad breath, attacks of gout, and diseases of the blood, liver and spleen.

To symbolize perfection and righteousness, medieval stone masons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in churches and cathedrals.

In parts of Bavaria, country folk still practice the annual rite each spring of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to elves. They believe that the elves, are passionately fond of strawberries, will help to produce healthy calves and an abundance of milk in return.

Madame Tallien, a prominent figure at the court of the Emperor Napoleon, was famous for bathing in the juice of fresh strawberries. She used 22 pounds per basin. Needless to say, she did not bathe daily.

Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in the spring.

There is a museum in Belgium just for strawberries.

Strawberries are a member of the rose family.

Ninety-four percent of US households consume strawberries.

Americans eat 3.4 pounds of fresh strawberries each year plus another 1.8 pounds frozen per capita.

Strawberries are low fat, low calorie; high in vitamin C, fiber, folic acid, potassium

Strawberries, as part of a 5 a day fruit & vegetable program, can help reduce the risk of cancer & heart attacks.

In medieval times, strawberries were served at important functions to bring peace & prosperity.

Folk lore states that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with the opposite sex, you’ll soon fall in love.

In France, Strawberries were thought to be an aphrodisiac. A soup made of strawberries, thinned sour cream, borage, & powered sugar was served to newlyweds.

Over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit.

In medieval times strawberries were regarded as an aphrodisiac and soup made of strawberries, borage and soured cream was traditionally served to newly-weds at their wedding breakfast

In the sixteenth century strawberries were sold in cone-shaped straw baskets thus becoming one of the earliest packaged foods.

Eight medium sized strawberries have more Vitamin C than an orange.

"Strawberry" is the second most popular natural flavor. It is second only to "chocolate".

Roughly 27,000 kilos of strawberries are eaten during the Wimbledon Championships, together with 7,000 litres of cream.

A 100g serving of strawberries will serve you for just 50 calories

The acids in the fruit help to remove stains.

Strawberries are full of a special substance called ellagic acid which can help fight cancers.

They are also full of flavonoids, which form part of the strawberry's red colour. They are known to help reduce cholesterol from clogging up the heart's arteries.

The word strawberry comes from the Old English words "streowberie" or "streawbelige". There are a few theories about how they got their name. The "straw" bit could come from the straw that was used to keep the strawberries fresh, or it could come from "strewed", which means to spread wide.

The Latin name for the famous everyday strawberry is Fragaria Ananassa. We'll just stick to plain old strawberries for now.

Strawberries can also be white or yellow and some can even taste like pineapples.

California strawberry facts show that there are 24,500 acres of strawberries planted in the state.

The American colonists created strawberry shortcake.

During strawberry production, every plant is picked every third day.

Interesting Facts About Walmart

2008-12-17T19:00:00.004+05:30

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer with $345bn in sales for the 12 months ended Jan. 31, 2007.

It operates more than 4,000 strores in the US and more than 2,700 more in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the UK.

It has nearly 61,000 US suppliers, and spent approximately $200 billion on merchandise in 2006, supporting more than 3m American jobs.

More than 176m customers visit Wal-Mart stores worldwide each week, including 127 million per week in the US.

Wal-Mart employs 1.8 m people worldwide and more than 1.3 million in the US, making it the largest private employer in the US and Mexico.

In January of 2006, 25,000 people applied for 325 available jobs at a store opening in the Chicago area.

The average full-time wage at Wal-Mart is $10.51 per hour.

More than 150,000 Hispanics, 225,000 African Americans, 36,000 Asians, 16,000 Native Americans, 235,000 associates 55 or older and 815,000 women choose to work at Wal-Mart.

An independently-certified study found that Wal-Mart saves the average household more than $2,300 per year.

Wal-Mart's new, environmentally-friendly initiatives include: doubling the fuel efficiency of its trucks, becoming 100pc supplied by renewable energy, and creating zero waste in our stores.

In 2005, it donated more than $245 million in cash and in-kind donations to help charities and organizations throughout the US, including more than $32 million in direct cash assistance to aid relief efforts and assist associates impacted by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The Chronicle of Philanthropy has named Wal-Mart the number one corporate cash contributor in America.

As Wal-mart moved into America's urban areas (as opposed to suburban, where Wal-Mart began), it racked up over 12,000 lawsuits.

In the 1970s Wal-Mart promised to keep its stores closed on Sundays, in the 80s began to keep its stores open Sudnays, and later it kept some stores open 24 hours a day.

Wal-Mart promised it would never sell alcohol, and it is now the largest retailer of spirits in the United States.

Wal-Mart now has a massive presence in Canada, Britain, Germany, and Mexico, as well as stores in Brazil, China, Korea, and Puerto Rico.

Close to 900,000 people are employed by Wal-Mart in America, and no Wal-Mart stores are unionized, except in China. (Thanks to Amy for pointing out that most Wal-Mart stores in China are unionized.)

Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer in the world, and it did over $165 billion in sales in 1999.

An article in Forbes magazine's 1991 "400 Richest" issue described Wal-Mart's basic concept as "Discount stores in small towns and rural areas, each big enough to freeze out competiton."

Wal-Mart dodges taxes. A lot.

New Wal-Mart stores study what local independent stores sell and sell it for less--often at a loss--with the aim of forcing independent businesses out of business.

a 1995 survey in Iowa revealed what had happened in that state since Wal-Mart had arrived in 1983:

50% of clothing stores had closed
30% of hardware stores had closed
25% of building materials stores had closed
42% of variety stores had closed
29% of shoe stores had closed
17% of jewellery stores had closed
26% of department stores had closed

On average, about 100 stores go out of business in the area surrounding a town with a new Wal-Mart store.

According to Residents for Responsible Growth of Lake Placid, New York, for every job created by Wal-Mart, at least 1.5 jobs are lost, and numerous other studies give similar figures.

At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.

This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer. And most can't speak English.

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are SuperCenters; this is 1,000 more than it had5 years ago.

This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)

90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart.

Let Wal-Mart bail out Wall Street

Interesting Facts About French Open Tennis

2008-12-14T17:00:00.005+05:30

It's one of the world's biggest tennis tournaments and the only one played on clay.

The French Open has been held in Paris every year since 1891, except from 1939-1945, when it was cancelled because of World War II.

Women's singles were added to the French Open in 1897. In 1925, the French Open was opened up to the best foreign players.

In 1928, the French Open was held at Roland-Garros, for the first time. The new stadium was named after a former French tennis player who was also the first pilot to fly over the Mediterranean Sea.

The French Open is the only Grand Slam tennis tournament played on clay courts. On clay, the ball bounces much higher than on other surfaces so players have to hit the ball at shoulder level. The ball also travels slower on a clay surface, so rallies tend to last longer, which means players spend more time running back and forth. Moving around on a clay surface can also be more difficult for players because the clay isn't as firm as a hard court surface.

The top seed in the men's bracket belongs to Roger Federer, followed by second seed Rafael Nadar and third seed Andy Roddick. Rafael, who is the defending French Open champion and king of clay courts, saw his 81 straight clay court victories come to an end after a recent loss to Roger. The French Open in the only Grand Slam tournament that Roger has not won. Since losing to Rafael in the French Open finals last year, Roger has won all three other Grand Slams.

The ladies bracket is led by Justine Henin of Belgium. The second seed belongs to Maria Sharapova while Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova owns the third seed. Some sleepers who could make some noise this year are eighth seed Serena Williams and fifth seed Amelie Mauresmo.

The French Open is 110 years old. It first took place in 1891 in the form of a national championship and became international in 1925.

In 1926, Suzanne Lenglen won the women's singles final in 27 minutes.

American Althea Gibson was the first black player to win a Grand Slam tournament in 1956.

In 1966, Istvan Gulyas of Hungary agreed to delay the men's singles final 24 hours to give Tony Roche of Australia time to get over an ankle injury and subsequently win the tournament.

In 1891, the first national championship was held in France and was won by H. Briggs. Françoise Masson won the first ladies competition, in 1897.

The French Championships, as the tournament was originally called, was open to only French residents and consequently suffered from not being able to have the best foreign players take on the nation's stars.

That changed in 1925 when the competition became international. Coincidentally, that was the first year that the French team lost to the United States in the Davis Cup challenge round. The French would lose to the Americans the next year as well, but in 1927, the team, led by the French Musketeers (Jacques Brugnon, Jean Borotra, Henri Cochet and René Lacoste) took the Davis Cup.

Davis Cup tradition holds that the return match is played on the winner's soil. However, there was no stadium in France sufficient to hold the event. So, a stadium was built at Porte d'Auteuil on a three-hectare site contributed by the city of Paris. It was given the name of a famous aviator and hero of World War I, Roland Garros.

Roland Garros played host to the 1928 French Championships and the Davis Cup later that year. Henri Cochet was the first male tennis player to win the tournament on Centre Court, in 1928.

The French Open is officially known as Roland Garros.

Roland Garros is named after its stadium, which is in turn named after the World War I French pilot.

The aviator, Roland Garros is known as the world's first fighter ace, the first real fighter pilot.

The French Open began as a national tournament in 1891. In 1925, the tournament opened itself to international competitors with the event held on a grass surface.

Red clay was installed when the new stadium was built.

As of 2006, the last six French Open men's singles championships were won by men who did not win any other Grand Slam tournament.

In 1968, the French Championships became the first Grand Slam tournament to go "open", allowing both amateurs and professionals to compete.

Bjorn Borg has the most singles titles at the French, with 6. Chris Evert holds the record for the women, with 7.

Michael Chang is the youngest singles champion. He was 17 years 3 months in 1989 when he beat Stefan Edberg 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. The youngest women was Monica Seles when she beat Steffi Graf 7-6, 6-4, she was 16 years 6 months.

Interesting Facts About Snails

2008-12-12T18:52:00.002+05:30

Snails' bodies produce a thick slime. Because of this slime, they can crawl across the edge of a razor and not get hurt.

Some snails have been known to live up to 15 years.

Snails are hermaphrodites which means that they have both male and female reproductive organs.

Snails usually travel in irregular paths, often traveling in a circle.

Snails reply mainly on their sense of touch and smell when finding food because they have very poor eyesight.

Snails cannot hear.

Snails can retract one or both of their tentacles at a time.

Because of the suction created by their slime, a snail can crawl upside down.

Snails are nocturnal animals which means they are more active at night.

Garden Snails mainly eat garden plants and vegetables, but they will also eat decaying plants and soil.

The fastest snails are the speckled garden snails which can move up to 55 yards per hour compared 23 inches per hour of most other land snails.

Garden snails hibernate during the winter and live on their stored fat.

Garden snails breathe with lungs.

Garden snails evolved from sea snails about 600 million years ago.

The garden snail is cooked and eaten as a delicacy called escargot

May 24th is National Escargot Day

World's largest snail is the Australian trumpet (Syrinx aruanus), a sea species from the shores of northern and western Australia which can grow up to 77.2 cm (30 inches) in shell length, while the flesh

weighs up to 18 kg (40lbs).

The longest snail is Parenteroxenos doglieli, a parasite in the body cavity of the sea cucumber.

Cymbium proboscidalis, from the shores of West Africa, grows up to 7-8 kg (15-17 pounds) and the body is so large that the shell remains like a beanie. Brought on ground, the snail's weight decreases to a quarter. Locals make from this snail a dish called tibuden, adding rice and fish. Some sea rabbits (which are sea snails lacking a shell) can be 30 cm (1 ft) long and weigh 6.5 kg (14 pounds).

The largest snail you could see in your garden is the Giant African Snail or Tiger Snail (Achatina achatina), which can be 30 cm (1 ft) long. Giant Apple Snail (Pomacea maculata) is the largest freshwater snail, with a shell 15 cm (0.5 ft) and weighing 600 g (1.5 pounds).

Garden snails have up to 14,175 teeth! They are all located on their tongue (radula).

The snails Littoraria irrorata on the eastern shores of US farm! They bite the stems of sea grass to weaken them, and then they fertilize the place with their feces. This way they favor the development of a fungus on which they feed.

French researchers discovered that the digestive secretions of the garden snail are effective against stomach ulcer. 10 mg of this powder led to a decrease by 42 % of the human stomach acidity. The product was also effective against chronic bronchitis.

The snail slime was found by American researchers to be an excellent scaring factor. Snail slime is also used in some beauty products...

Most ground snails are peaceful veggies (well, not exactly all), but the marine species can be top predators of the sea. They are armed with a harpoon like weapon (named toxoglossan radula, snails modified "tongue") injecting a deadly venom into their victims.

This way, they can catch in a fraction of a second fish "for dinner". Some of these venoms are the most potent on the planet, like in the case of the predatory marine snail Conus magus, from coral reefs. They can grow up to 23 cm in length and eat from marine worms, small fish, mollusks (clams and other marine snails, including other cone snails.

Its poison has a greater power than morphine, but it acts in an entirely different way. Some cone snails can kill a human being with their venom.

The snail venom impairs a particular type known as N-type calcium channels, crucial in determining some kinds of pain sensations. A pharmaceutical company has developed synthetic chemicals that also inhibit N-type calcium channels, decreasing pain. These new drugs could be employed to shut off persistent acute pain where other painkillers have not succeeded, or are not recommended, like in the case of patients with cancer or other very severe conditions.

In some areas, like New Guinea, the shells of sea snails were used for long as currency!

Some sea snail produce sulfuric acid which they use for dissolving the shells of the clams on which they feed... No need the mentions this is the most potent acid of all.

Because of their moist skin, common snails are most active in damp weather and at night.

Common snails have pale grey moist skin. At the front end are four tentacles, the shorter two are for feeling and the longer pair are eye stalks. The shell of these snails is light brown with darker brown bands following the spiral of the shell. The shell colouration varies in its intensity from pale yellow to almost black.

They are common and widespread in Britain and Europe.

Common snails live in varied habitats. They are often found in gardens, parks, forests and dunes.

They are herbivores and feed on decaying vegetation, algae, fungi, lichens and plant leaves. As a part of their herbivorous diet they often feed on garden plants and are considered by some to be pests. Common snails have a symbiotic bacteria in their crop that enables them to digest cellulose - they have been known to feed on damp paper and cardboard.

Because of their moist skin, common snails are most active in damp weather and at night. When conditions become too dry, the snail will retreat into its shell and seal the entrance with a parchment-like barrier known as an epiphragm. Snails can often be found in this state under rocks in gardens or on a wall in a sheltered corner. When sealed away like this the snail goes into a state of suspended animation and can survive for several months without water.

Common snails feed by scraping a ribbon-like tongue covered in horny teeth called a radula, over their food. This allows them to scrape algae and lichen from the surface of rocks and walls. You can sometimes see the trails they leave behind as they eat their way through the algae on a damp wall.

Common snails, like all land snails, are hermaphrodites. This means that they possess both male and female reproductive organs. Despite this they still need to find another snail to mate with. When two snails meet during the breeding season (late spring or early summer), mating is initiated by one snail piercing the skin of the other snail with a calcified 'love dart'. The exact purpose of the 'love dart' is not fully understood but it seems to stimulate the other snail into exchanging small packets of sperm. After mating is complete the snails will produce eggs internally, which are fertilised by the sperm that has been exchanged.

Up to about a month after mating the snail lays about a hundred small white eggs in a nest underground in damp soil. If the conditions remain suitable for the eggs, snails will begin to hatch after about 14 days. Newly hatched snails have a small fragile shell and it takes two years for them to reach maturity.

Garden snails evolved from sea snails about 600 million years ago.

The largest land snail ever found was 15 inches long and weighed 2 pounds!

Snails' bodies produce a thick slime. Because of this slime, they can crawl across the edge of a razor and not get hurt.

The largest land snail ever found was 15 inches long and weighed 2 pounds!

Interesting Facts About Jupiter

2008-12-10T20:40:00.002+05:30

If you weigh 100 pounds on Earth, you would weigh 264 pounds on Jupiter.

Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth's and a diameter that is 11 times larger.

The mass of Jupiter is 70% of the total mass of all the other planets in our Solar System.

Jupiter's volume is large enough to contain 1,300 planets the size of Earth.

Jupiter rotates faster than any planet in the Solar System.

It rotates so quickly that the days are only 10 hours long...

But it takes 12 Earth years for Jupiter to complete an orbit around the sun.

The great red spot on Jupiter is a storm that has been going on for over 300 years.

You can fit 100 Earths into Jupiter's great red spot.

Jupiter has a ring just like Saturn and Uranus.

The Planet has over 60 known satellites (moons) but most of them are extremely small and faint.

Jupiter is covered by an ocean of hydrogen with a sludge-like consistency.

Unlike other planets, Jupiter sends out a strong radio radiation that can be detected on Earth.

In 1994, pieces of a comet called shoemaker-Levy 9 broke apart and crashed into Jupiter. This left patches in Jupiter's atmosphere that lasted for many months.

Jupiter has a liquid metal ocean (metallic hydrogen) at its centre, surrounded by thousands of kilometres of hydrogen and helium gas.

Jupiter is the vacuum cleaner of the Solar System. It sucks in comets, asteroids and meteorites which could be on a collision course for Earth. The comet, Shoemaker-Levy 9, was pulled apart by Jupiter's gravity and eventually collided with the planet in 1994.

Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, is the biggest moon in the Solar System.

If we were able to see Jupiter's radiation belt from Earth, Jupiter would appear as big as the Sun.

Jupiter's gravity is used to catapult space-craft on deep space missions further away. This is how the Voyager missions of 1975 managed to succeed.

Jupiter was named for the most important Roman god because of its size.

Jupiter has been known since prehistoric times as a bright "wandering star".

Jupiter is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with traces of methane, water, and ammonia.

Jupiter is the planet with the shortest day, slightly under 10 hours.

Jupiter is big ! Its diameter is 88,846 miles across. It is big enough to fit 1000 Earths inside it.

Jupiter is radiating 1.9 times the heat it receives from the Sun. This means it is generating its own heat. This is caused by the continual contraction of Jupiter that has been going on since its formation, as well as diffusive separation of gases, radionuclides and other sources.

Jupiter is 5 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. The Earth is one “astronomical unit” from the Sun, that is, about 93,000,000 miles. Jupiter is, therefore, 5 astronomical units from the Sun, specifically, it is ~ 483,700,000 miles from the Sun. The Sun would look much smaller at Jupiter than it does to us here on Earth.

The temperature in the cloud tops of Jupiter is about -230 degrees Fahrenheit.

Jupiter has been visited 7 times by spacecraft from Earth

Jupiter's magnetic field is 14 times as strong as Earth

The Clouds on Jupiter are only 50 km thick

Jupiter is the fastest spinning planet in the Solar System

It is believed that the planet has been named after Jupiter, the king of Gods in Roman mythology

Interesting Facts About Zimbabwe

2008-12-10T18:50:00.002+05:30

Zimbabwe is in Southern Africa between the between the Zambezi and the Limpopo rivers.

The highest point in Zimbabwe is Mount Inyangani (2,592 m).

A number of natural shelters, occupied since early times, can be found in the Matobo Hills. The area also has a high concentration of rock art which provides a view of life in the Stone Age.

The name Zimbabwe was derived from the stone structures of Great Zimbabwe or Dzimbahwe, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1986.

Great Zimbabwe was built by Shona (Bantu) people between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries.

Eight birds carved in soapstone have been found during excavations in the ruins of Great Zimbabwe.

During the fourteenth and fifteen centuries Great Zimbawbe controlled much of the ivory and gold trade in the region.

Stone structures were built in other areas of Zimbabwe such as Khami and Nalatale.

Artifacts from Europe and China have been found at Khami. Khami, like Great Zimbabwe, became a World Heritage site in 1986.

The ancient kingdom of Mapungubwe spanned the borders of present-day South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Mapungubwe, added to the World Heritage List in 2003, was the largest kingdom in the sub-continent before it was abandoned in the fourteenth century.

Portuguese traders visited Zimbabwe in the sixteenth century and were the first Europeans to make contact with the region.

In 1888 the British South African Company gained mineral rights for the area.

In November 1855 Dr David Livingstone, the Scottish explorer and missionary, saw the Victoria Falls for the first time. Livingstone named the Falls after the British queen, Victoria.

The local name for the Victoria Falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders".

The Victoria Falls became a World Heritage site in 1986.

Mana Pools National Park on the banks of the Zambezi is the habitat of a large number of wild animals including the Nile crocodile.

At the end of the 1950s the Zambezi was dammed at Kariba to provide hydroelectric power to Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Lake Kariba on the River Zambezi is one of the world's largest manmade lakes.

The Gold Mining Museum, in KweKwe, in the Central Region of Zimbabwe, provides information about Zimbabwe's gold mining industry.

Between 1953 and 1963 Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and Nyasaland (Malawi) were members of the Federation of Central Africa.

African nationalist organizations that campaigned for democracy were banned in Rhodesia (ANC - banned 1959, ZAPU - banned 1962, ZANU - banned 1964).

On 18 April 1980 Zimbabwe became an independent state.

After independence Zimbabwe kept ties with Britain through the Commonwealth. Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003.

In 2002 millions of people in Southern Africa faced food shortages. Countries particularly affected included Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.

Zimbabwe has a high rate of infection of HIV and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome).

The country is facing economic ruin with inflation spiralling out of control, currently topping 100,000%.

Zimbabwe's economy is in crisis.

Poor management, combined with political violence and the impact of Mr Mugabe's land reform programme contributed to the downturn.

In recent years, the size of the national economy, or Gross Domestic Product, has fallen while inflation has soared.

Official figures for February 2008 calculate the annual inflation rate at 100,580%, up from 7,600% in July 2007.

In 1980, US$1 bought 80 Zimbabwean cents, in early March that figure is about Z$50m. A loaf of bread cost Z$7m.

By contrast, GDP in neighbouring Zambia grew by 6% in 2007 and inflation was running at 9.5% in February 2008, according to Zambian government figures.

Wages are not keeping pace with inflation and barter has become an increasingly common form of trade.

Agricultural and mineral exports have fallen and much trade is done on the black market.

The government has taken steps to try to revive the economy, like revaluing the Zimbabwean dollar and imposing strict price controls, but to no avail.

The price controls have led to shortages, as businesses say they cannot afford to sell goods for less than the cost of making them.

Badly-needed support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been suspended because the government has fallen behind with loan repayments.

Zimbabwe has a population of 12.3m - with an estimated 1.8m living with HIV/Aids. Largely as a result of this, the country has the lowest life expectancy in the world.

According to WHO figures, men can expect to live to 37 years, and women only 34.

One of President Mugabe's biggest achievements has been education. Zimbabwe has the highest literacy rate in Africa at 90% of the population.

However, unemployment is running at about 80%

In May 2005, the Zimbabwean government began a campaign of forced evictions and demolitions resulting in the internal displacement of an estimated 570,000 people, many of whom remain in transit camps and have limited access to assistance.

Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order) initially targetted high-density shanty towns and moved onto settlements on farms in rural areas and urban fringes.

The ongoing economic crisis has also contributed to the movement of people from their homes in search of a better livelihood.

Figures of the number who have fled are unreliable, but the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) estimates about 3.4m Zimbabweans have left their home country, most of them heading for South Africa.

Under colonial laws, much of the country's best land was reserved for white farmers and anger at this was a key factor in the 1970s war of independence, led by Mr Mugabe.

In 2000, some 70% of the best land was owned by 4,000 white farmers and Mr Mugabe speeded up the process of seizing it and redistributing it to blacks.

But many of the new farmers had little or no experience and no assets to buy seed or fertilizer.

Some farms were allocated to government ministers or other leading figures in Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

Since the redistribution, agricultural production has fallen.

Government figures show the amount of land planted with key crops like maize, soya and tobacco has fallen.

Drought has also contributed to what have been significant shortfalls in food production since 2001.

Many Zimbabweans survive on just one meal a day. Relief agencies say 25% of Zimbabweans require food aid.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that 4.1m people will face serious food shortages in Zimbabwe in 2008.

Interesting Facts About Google

2008-12-09T18:54:00.002+05:30

Google's name is a play on the word googol, which refers to the number 1 followed by one hundred zeroes. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

Google started as a research project at Stanford University, created by Ph.D. candidates Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were 24 years old and 23 years old respectively (a combined 47 years old).

Google's index of web pages is the largest in the world, comprising of billions of web pages. Google searches this immense collection of web pages often in less than half a second.

Google receives daily search requests from all over the world, including Antarctica.

Users can restrict their searches for content in 35 non-English languages, including Chinese, Greek, Icelandic, Hebrew, Hungarian and Estonian. To date, no requests have been received from beyond the earth's orbit, but Google has a Klingon interface just in case.

Google has a world-class staff of more than 2,668 employees known as Googlers. The company headquarters is called the Googleplex.

Google translates billions of HTML web pages into a display format for WAP and i-mode phones and wireless handheld devices, and has made it possible to enter a search using only one phone pad keystroke per letter, instead of multiple keystrokes.

Google Groups comprises more than 845 million Usenet messages, which is the world's largest collection of messages or the equivalent of more than a terabyte of human conversation.

The basis of Google's search technology is called PageRank™, and assigns an "importance" value to each page on the web and gives it a rank to determine how useful it is. However, that's not why it's called PageRank. It's actually named after Google co-founder Larry Page.

Googlers are multifaceted. One operations manager, who keeps the Google network in good health is a former neurosurgeon. One software engineer is a former rocket scientist. And the company's chef formerly prepared meals for members of The Grateful Dead and funkmeister George Clinton.

Google’s Home Page Has 63 Validation Errors. Don’t believe me?: Check Google Validation

The Google search engine receives about a billion search requests per day.

The infamous “I’m feeling lucky” button is nearly never used. However, in trials it was found that removing it would somehow reduce the Google experience. Users wanted it kept. It was a comfort button.

Due to the sparseness of the homepage, in early user tests they noted people just sitting looking at the screen. After a minute of nothingness, the tester intervened and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are waiting for the rest of it”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was inserted to act as a crude end of page marker.

Google has the largest network of translators in the world.

Employees are encouraged to use 20% of their time working on their own projects. Google News, Orkut are both examples of projects that grew from this working model.

Google consists of over 450,000 servers, racked up in clusters located in data centers around the world.

Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines ; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

For all searches they record the cookie ID, your Internet IP address, the time and date, your search terms, and your browser configuration. Increasingly, Google is customizing results based on your IP number. This is referred to in the industry as "IP delivery based on geolocation."

Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save.

Inquiries to Google about their privacy policies are ignored. When the New York Times (2002-11-28) asked Sergey Brin about whether Google ever gets subpoenaed for this information, he had no comment.

Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency. Google wants to hire more people with security clearances, so that they can peddle their corporate assets to the spooks in Washington.

With the advanced features enabled, Google's free toolbar for Explorer phones home with every page you surf, and yes, it reads your cookie too. Their privacy policy confesses this, but that's only because Alexa lost a class-action lawsuit when their toolbar did the same thing, and their privacy policy failed to explain this. Worse yet, Google's toolbar updates to new versions quietly, and without asking. This means that if you have the toolbar installed, Google essentially has complete access to your hard disk every time you connect to Google (which is many times a day). Most software vendors, and even Microsoft, ask if you'd like an updated version. But not Google. Any software that updates automatically presents a massive security risk.

Judging from Ninth Circuit precedent on the application of U.S. copyright laws to the Internet, Google's cache copy appears to be illegal. The only way a webmaster can avoid having his site cached on Google is to put a "noarchive" meta in the header of every page on his site. Surfers like the cache, but webmasters don't. Many webmasters have deleted questionable material from their sites, only to discover later that the problem pages live merrily on in Google's cache. The cache copy should be "opt-in" for webmasters, not "opt-out."

By now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

With 200 million searches per day, most from outside the U.S., Google amounts to a privacy disaster waiting to happen. Those newly-commissioned data-mining bureaucrats in Washington can only dream about the sort of slick efficiency that Google has already achieved

As the web grows, search becomes more important. It's like a library - the bigger the library, the more important the index.

20 to 25% of Google queries have never been searched before.

Google's PageRank algorithm uses more than 200 signals to determine the rank of a website.

iGoogle was our fastest growing product last year (2006). People have personalized their iGoogle homepages with over 10,000 free gadgets.

Universities in Rwanda, Kenya, Japan, Egypt, Ireland, the Ukraine, Michigan and Arizona are all using Google Apps for Education.

In 2007 Google gave free bicycles to all its employees in Europe.

Google's San Francisco shuttle bus service is the biggest of any company in the area. One shared car provides as much transportation as 20 privately owned cars.

Google has the largest corporate solar panel installation in the US.

Of the $10.6bn Google generated in revenue last year, $3bn was handed back to our publishing partners through AdSense.

In the first quarter of this year Google generated over $1bn in revenues from our partners.

Interesting Facts About Oprah Winfrey

2008-12-07T15:58:00.003+05:30

"I've always known I was born to greatness," so said Oprah Winfrey of herself. So influential is the talk show host that when she plugged an unknown author on her show, the author's book became a bestseller. When she mentioned the existence of Mad Cow Disease in other countries, cattle futures dropped overnight. She was even sued by some of the farmers, for defaming the cattle industry, although a jury of eight women and five men acquitted her.

When she renegotiated her contract for her show, she became the world's highest paid entertainer. When she established a headquarters in one Chicago neighborhood, the area experienced an economic revival.

She is the third richest woman in history, behind only Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball. Oprah is the first black billionaire.

It wasn't always so easy for Oprah as she has told sometimes on her show. Born to unwed teenage parents, she was often in and out of trouble in her youth. She lived on her grandmother's farm. When her mother threatned to send her to a home for wayward youth, Oprah was instead sent from home with her mother, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to live with her father, Vernon, in Nashville, Tennessee. Under his discipline she seemed to thrive.

She attended Tennesse State University, where she majored in speech and drama. She was also named Miss Tennessee.

At 19 she became a news anchor for a local CBS station. After graduating in 1976, she became a co-anchor for ABC news in Baltimore. She later became a co-host of the morning show, People Are Talking.

She went from there to Chicago where she turned a faltering A.M. Chicago into a success and consistently got better ratings than Phil Donahue in his own backyard. In 1986 the show went national and was renamed, "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

While other talk shows in the 1990's started to veer more and more toward sensationalism and subjects involving pornography, prostitutes and psycopaths, she always attempted to have a higher quality.

Oprah attempted to have those type of subjects even less and featured more uplifting subjects, such as poetry, pop psychology and others. One show was on overcoming drug abuse, and a tearful Oprah confessed on national television that she had used cocaine when in her twenties. Other shows have featured heroes who have risked their lives or given their lives for others, sexless marriages, shows on whether certain people should get married, advice for couples and financial advice.

Oprah Winfrey is also known for her work in helping charities. This has included her own school, Tennessee, State University and her own Family for Better Lives Foundation. A children's right's activist, a bill she lobbied for, for a national computer database listing child molesters, was passed by Congress.

On her show her Angel Network has collected more than $3.5 million for college scholarships and 200 homes for Habitat for Hummanity.

"Over 1,000 people now have a place to call home and 150 deserving students have a brighter future, thanks to the efforts and donations of our viewers," she said on her website.

She has also begun to give away $50,000 to local organizations through Angel Tree on Mondays.

"This is one of my proudest moments in television," she said of the gifts. "It involves our Angel Network giving away a lot of money."

As an actress, she played an abused wife in the movie, "The Color Purple," and was nominated for an Academy Award.

A lot of people have said Oprah and her show has changed their lives. They might agree that she was born to greatness.

Oprah's Awards and Nominations:

1971 Miss Black Tennesee

1985 Promising New Actors of 1985 in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 37

1986 Best Actress in a Supporting Role (nomination), The Color Purple

1994 National Women's Hall of Fame (inducted)

1996 Individual Achievement Award in the George Foster Peabody Awards

1996 Gold Medal Award from the International Radio & Television Society Foundation

1997 People's 50 Most Beautiful People

1997 Most Important Person in Books and Media (Newsweek)

1997 Television Performer of the Year (TV Guide)

1998 1 World's Most Powerful People in Showbiz by Entertainment Weekly

1998 Lifetime Achievement Award by National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences

1998 Daytime Emmy, The Oprah Winfrey Show

1999 6 World's Most Powerful People in Showbiz by Entertainment Weekly

1999 National Book Award "Influential contribution to reading and books"

2002 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award (Emmy Awards)

2003 1 Pop Culture Icon on VH1's "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons"

2003 AAP Honors Award by the Association of American Publishers

2006 Library Lion Award by The New York Public Library

2007 15 on Entertainment Tonight's "Hot List of 2007"

Interesting Facts About Cotton

2008-12-07T15:34:00.002+05:30

Cotton is the most universally comfortable, versatile and durable of all the fibers, natural or synthetic.

Cotton is a unique crop in that it is both food and fiber. Cottonseed is used as a supplement for dairy feed and is also processed into oil. Uses for cotton fibers range from heavy industrial to fine fabrics. California's San Joaquin Valley cotton, characterized by long, strong fibers, is among the highest quality in the world. Among U.S. grown varieties, California's Acala and Pima cottons are preferred for fine fabrics and used in high quality table linens, sheets, bath towels and dress shirts, among other fabric products.

Cotton grows best on fertile, well drained soils that have a good water holding capacity, although it can grow on a variety of soils. In California, cotton is found in the San Joaquin, the Imperial, Palo Verde and Sacramento Valleys. With their warm springs, hot summers, and dry falls, these regions give cotton the long growing season it needs.

Planted in March and April, cotton is furrow irrigated, although sometimes border-strip or sprinkler methods are used. The cotton plant requires about 180 - 200 days from planting to full maturity and ready for harvest. The irrigation water ceases in August and the plant is allowed to dry out. The crop is entirely mechanically harvested. In 1997, the 1.1 million acres of cotton harvested in California produced 2.5 million bales, or 625,000 tons, of cotton lint, valued at $875 million, making it the state's second most valuable crop and fifth most valuable agricultural commodity. California is second in U.S. production of cotton. Approximately 85% of all California cotton is exported.

Some of the fine products Californians enjoy are made with California cotton, although it is often inaccurately criticized for being a high user of water. To grow the fiber for one cotton diaper requires 105.3 gallons of water, one T-shirt needs 256.6 gallons of water, one bath towel needs 401.4 gallons of water, a man's dress shirt requires 414.5 gallons of water, and 987 gallons of water are required for one pair of jeans. Although these water figures appear high, per acre, cotton uses approximately the same amount of water as other crops in its region.

Cotton batting has been the mattress fill of choice for decades.

Commercially grown cotton is ordinarily one of the crops more heavily sprayed with pesticides.

The chemicals used on cotton are among the most toxic substances used in farming; the runoff from irrigation seeps into our drinking water and contaminates it.

Commercial cotton farming uses only about 3% of the farmland but consumes 25% of the chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

In the U.S., approx. 600,000 tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are applied to cotton fields each season. To complicate matters, insects are quickly becoming resistant to recommended rates of pesticide application and increasing amounts are needed to remain effective.

Cotton accounts for about 40 percent of total world fiber production.

While some 80 countries from around the globe produce cotton, China (24%), the United States (20%), and India (16%) together produce over half the world's cotton.

The U.S. and Africa are the world's two leading exporters of raw cotton, accounting for more than half of the $12 billion market worldwide. Other top exporters include Uzbekistan, Australia, and India.

China is, by far, the world's largest cotton importer.

Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, California, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Louisiana were the top cotton-producing states in the U.S. in 2003, accounting for 80 percent of total production.

The top 10 percent of cotton producers receive the majority—78 percent—of U.S. cotton subsidies.

The U.S. cotton industry accounts for more than $25 billion in products and services annually, generating over 400,000 jobs in industry sectors from farm to textile mill.

U.S. farmers receive a subsidy of $230 per acre of cotton farmland, which is five times what they receive for cereal crops.

Despite a 2006 drought across much of the "cotton belt," U.S. cotton farmers harvested the third-highest yield average on record for that year, in part due to genetically modified crops and other improvements in technology.

Last year, 68 per cent of U.S. cotton was exported at prices substantially below true production costs.

Loopholes in subsidy rules may allow industrial-sized farms to collect payments in excess of $1 million.

America's cotton farmers received total subsidies amounting to over $3.3 billion in 2005.

The World Trade Organization declared U.S. farm subsidies illegal in 2005, claiming that they distorted global markets, failed to save small U.S. farmers, and promoted environmental damage.

In 2002, the American government paid two times more in farm subsidies than the entire USAID budget for sub-sahara Africa's 500 million people.

Oxfam estimates that U.S. "dumping" practices caused losses of almost $400 million between 2001 and 2003 for poor African cotton-producing countries.

In Africa, more than 20 million people depend directly on cotton crops for their livelihood.

A typical small-scale West African cotton producer makes less than $400 per year on his crop.

US paper currency isn't paper at all... it's a blend of 75% cotton lint and 25% linen. A 480 pound bale of cotton can be made into 313,600 $100.00 bills!

Sheer cotton muslin, woven in ancient India, was so fine that 73 yards of it weighed one pound!

In ancient Egypt, only the High Priest was allowed to wear a cotton garment.

Cotton is a member of the Mallow family of plants. The Arabic peoples called it "Qutun," which is where we get the word "Cotton."

Eli Whitney's cotton gin wasn't a new idea. The "Churka," invented in India 3,500 years earlier, was very efficent at ginning long staple cotton but ineffective on the short staple variety. Whitney's gin was the first gin to process short staple cotton.

Mills in Lancashire, England exported 7,000,000,000 yards of cotton fabric in 1913. That's an amazing 221.97 yards per second!

Between 1920 and 1922, the Boll Weevil caused cotton production in South Carolina to drop 70 percent!

Interesting Facts About Red Color

2008-11-24T19:16:00.002+05:30

Red also means "Beautiful" in Russian.

The word "ruby" comes from the Latin word rubens, meaning "red".

The color red doesn't really make bulls angry; They are color-blind.

There are at least 23 different shades of red crayons.

The red stripes on the United States Flag stand for courage.

Chinese brides traditionally wear red wedding dresses for good luck.

Seeing the color red can make your heart beat faster.

As few as two percent of people in the United States have red hair.

The color red is most often associated with power and passion. It is a fierce and emotionally intense color. Red symbolizes speed, sexuality, and style. Fast cars are red. Beautiful women wear red clothes and red lipstick. Red is also the color of romance and love. If you want to express your love for a woman with flowers, the flowers must be red. In all cases, whether red is worn by a woman, or used in home décor, it will always attract attention.

Red often gives conflicting messages. Red means "stop" when used on a street light, but it means "go" when worn as lipstick or given as flowers. Red means danger when used on signs and fire extinguishers. Red means both romantic love and sexual lust. Red is the color of Communism, but it also symbolizes Christmas when mixed with the colors green, white, and gold.

There are many variations of red: scarlet and vermilion are the shocking and extreme reds, while pink, maroon, and crimson are subtler reds.

Fashion experts always recommend at least a splash of red when dressing for a job interview or any other important meeting, because red symbolizes power, decisiveness and leadership. In home décor, red is rarely used as a base color but often as highlights. One wall of a room may be painted red to create a feature wall that attracts attention. A sofa may be splashed with red cushions. A centerpiece of red flowers may be used for a special dinner event.

Red is so intense a color that it doesn't suit everyone. A rule of thumb: drive a red car, but wear black. Red clothing has the effect of making a person look fuller than they really are. In all instances, red is an extreme color and should be chosen with caution.

Light red represents joy, sexuality, passion, sensitivity, and love.

Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.

Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.

Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

Interesting Facts About Rabbit

2008-11-19T17:47:00.001+05:30

Rabbits are affectionate, social and interactive animals.

Rabbits need at least 4 hours exercise a day. They cannot live a healthy life shut in a cage

A rabbit has twice been recorded to have given birth to 24 offspring in one litter

Without turning their heads, rabbits can see behind them

The biggest recorded rabbit weight over 26 pounds

In contrast, the smallest rabbits are less than one pound

A male rabbit is called a buck

And a female is a doe, just like deer

Pet rabbits have been known to live up to 10 years

Myxomatosis was introduced on purpose to cut down rabbit populations

Rabbits can suffer from heat stroke

A group of rabbits is a herd

The European rabbit was found around Spain and Portugal

Young rabbits are called kittens

President Lincoln allowed his sons to keep many pets in the White House, including pet rabbits.

Rabbits eyes open after around 10 days

Rabbits are called “Oryctolagus cuniculus” in Latin

There are specialist rabbit breeders just like dogs

Healthy rabbits have soft, shiny fur

Bunnies can be taught to use a litter box

In fact, they usually will go to the toilet in the same place naturally

Rabbits require around 3-4 hours exercise a day to be healthy

Rabbits in the wild keep their burrows tidy naturally

Baby rabbits have no smell to protect them from predators

Rabbits go back over 45 million years

Rabbits become fully grown in just 4 months

A rabbits pregnancy only last 31 days

Rabbits can be house trained

Rabbits teeth never stop growing

Domestic rabbits can’t open their eyes for the first 2 weeks

Rabbits have a blind spot just in front of them

Rabbits breed throughout most of the year because of the warmer weather today

A rabbit has been recorded jumping more than 1 metre high

A rabbit has been recorded jumping over 3 metres forward

Rabbits have 18 toenails

The smallest wild rabbit breed is the Pygmy

Rabbits are not rodents

Rabbits are considered pests in many parts of the world

Rabbits were kept on ships then released on islands in the past to give stranded sailors food

Rabbits are sexually mature after 6 months

Their eyes have a near 360 degree view of the world

Rabbits have 28 teeth

They are most active at dawn and dusk

Baby rabbits are born without fur

There are over 150 different rabbit coat colors, but only 5 eye colors (brown, blue-grey, blue, marbled, and pink).

Facts About Infant Asthma

2008-11-13T15:50:00.002+05:30

Infant asthma is mainly caused when the interior walls of the tubes, which are carrying the air in and out of the baby’s lungs become inflamed.

As the lungs become swollen, additional amount of sticky mucus is produced and causes wheezing, coughing and finally breathlessness. Particularly, young children are more prone to asthma as their airways are very narrow.

Most of the children rise out of asthma and the symptoms will vanish when your children reach school age. This is due to their airways and lungs become widen and mature.

Avoid your baby exposing to smoky environments when she is in the womb or after the birth. Exposure to smoke during pregnancy can raise the risk of asthma attack by as much as 50%.

It is very common to develop chestiness among the babies and young children, so don’t worry as it does not mean that your child has asthma. If the baby is wheezing and coughing, then immediately get her checked with the doctor.

Usually, asthma cannot be diagnosed until your baby is at least two years of age, because there are other illnesses like bronchitis that leads to wheezing. Some younger children who cough or wheeze a lot can be treated by using asthma drugs, which can ease the symptoms.

If you have a family history of allergic conditions, like food allergies, hay fever and eczema, then your baby is more likely to have asthma in future.

Viral infections and cold are the most common asthma triggers, but there are various other conditions like allergies, cigarette smoke and the substances like dust mites, pollen and pets. When your child’s airways become swollen, they remain sensitive and most of the things like crying, running, breathing in cool air and car fumes make your child’s condition worse or lead to an attack.

Consuming vitamin E in high quantities during your pregnancy can reduce the risk of asthma in your child. You can increase the vitamin E intake by eating large amounts of nuts, sunflower seeds and also vegetable oils.

Over usage of antibacterial cleansing products and minimal exposure to dust means that your immune system is not becoming strong against fighting the germs. Due to this, you are very much susceptible to infections and environmental attacks.

According to the studies, most of the children suffering from asthma have very low levels of vitamin C when compared to those who have healthy lungs. So, give your child a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Wheezing is not a sign or symptom of infant asthma.

Not all the children who are wheezing will develop asthma and not all the children who are suffering with asthma will wheeze.

This wheezing is known as high pitched, whistling noise that occurs while exhaling.

There are several causes of wheezing in infants. It may be due to viral infections, climatic change, etc. But, continuous wheezing in infants may lead to infant asthma. This is because the airways in infants will be very small and any viral infection in those airways will cause infant asthma.

It is difficult to diagnose infant asthma because small child may not be as cooperative as younger one. Infant asthma will be developed easily in small one because the lungs of the infants do not serve as functional as the lungs of the older children. So, viral infection can be obtained in them easily.

The resistance power will be less in the infants, so any infection can occur easily in them. Some times, the symptoms of the asthma in infants will be severe due to infancy. This results in the difficulty of breathing in the infants.

There has been a strong belief that infant rash leads to infant asthma. But, the latest research has proved that infant rash doesn’t lead to infant asthma.

It also proved that only a minority of infants and young children with eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, go on to develop asthma. The presence of eczema may slightly increase the risk of developing asthma in infants.

The latest research on asthma in infants has revealed one fact that “some common respiratory illness in infants may lead to asthma”.

Interesting Facts About J.K.Rowling

2008-11-09T20:13:00.004+05:30

Joanne "Jo" Rowling (born 31 July 1965), who writes under the pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British author, best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived whilst on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, and sold more than 400 million copies

Joanne Kathleen (Kathleen is her favorite Grandma's name and is not actually her middle name) Rowling, brain behind the world famous "Harry Potter" lived in Chipping Sodbury from an early age and was born on July 31st 1965.

JK Rowling wrote her first story at the age of six it was about a rabbit who gets the measles.

From an early age all she ever wanted to do was write. She wrote her first book when she was 6 years old, called Rabbit but never finished anything.

At present, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her daughter Jessica, now age seven.

She moved twice while growing up. The first move was from Yate to Winterbourne, just outside Bristol. In Winterbourne she was friends with a brother and sister whose surname was Potter. She says she always liked the name, and preferred it to her own because the children always made annoying jokes about rolling pins!

The second move was when she was nine years old. Her family moved to Tutshill near Chepstow in the Forest of Dean. After attending Tutshill Primary School, she went to Wyedean Comprehensive School.. She describes herself as having been 'quite freckly, short-sighted and rubbish at sports'. Her favorite subject was English and foreign languages. At her school in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, she passed all her exams and was made head-girl. Her parents wanted her to be involved with foreign languages. She studied languages, more notably French, and Classics at Exeter university and became a French teacher. She still pursued her writing though in her spare time.

In 1990, at the age of 26, she moved to Portugal to teach English. She says that she loved teaching English. She taught in the afternoons and evenings, leaving the mornings free for writing. At this time she was starting work on her third novel (the first two were never finished because she says they were 'very bad'). The new book was about a boy who found out he was a wizard and was sent off to wizard school.

While in Portugal she met and married Portuguese journalist, Jorge Artantes. Their daughter, Jessica, was born in 1993. After her marriage ended in divorce, Rowling and her daughter moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, to be close to her younger sister, Di.

She began the first Harry Potter book in 1990, it was finished in 1995 and it was finally published in 1997. Some publishing companies would not accept it until Bloomsbury took her on. Before she tried to get the first book published she mapped out the first seven books to get an idea of the events to come. J.K Rowling has made around millions from the series and they are her only published works.

The Scottish Arts Council gave her a grant to finish the book and, after a number of rejections, she eventually sold Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone $4,000 to Bloomsbury Publishing Company.

The book was published in the UK by Bloomsbury Children's Books in June 1997 (at the time of writing 1st editions of this book are on the market for upwards of 12,000 UK pounds/ USA $20,000!). Thereafter the accolades began to pile up. Harry Potter won The British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, and the Smarties Prize.

In the USA, the title of the book was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The book was published in the USA in September 1998 by Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic Press.

In 1997 she got her big break with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which won the 1997 Smarties Gold Award. It immediately topped the British and American charts and J.K. Rowling earned enough money to quit teaching and write full-time. She then had success with the second installment of Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This won the 1998 Smarties Gold Award. The 3rd book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was also a huge success for J.K. Rowling. The 4th book was released on July 8th 2000, and has been one of the eagerly anticipated books of the year. Records have been broke for the number of books printed and sold on the first day of release.

The sequel, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK in July 1998 and in the USA in June 1999. The third book Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban was published in the UK in July 1999 and in the USA in September 1999.

By Summer 2000, the first three books had sold over 35 million copies in 45 languages and earned approximately $480 million.

In July 2000, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had a first printing of 5.3 million copies with advance orders of over 1.8 million.

This book of course is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She is to produce 2 more books in the Harry Potter series, one for each of the years Harry has remaining at Hogwarts. The fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was released on June 21st 2003 and was even more anticipated than the last. Over 200 million copies have now been sold of all the books in over 200 countries and in 55 languages. There is no release day at the moment for the sixth book.

Rowling was first writer to become billionaire.

One joy of Rowling is not the originality of her ideas -- there are plenty of other novels with boy wizards and boarding schools -- but what she does with them. This is the story of an ethnic community in which everyone knows everyone else and where enmities formed at school are still there years later. The adult characters are every bit as interesting as the young protagonists and she constantly reminds you that they, too, were once children. Apart from a few over-the-top caricatures, such as the Dursleys, most of the characters, adult and child alike, are three-dimensional. In this one, even Aunt Petunia is presented more sympathetically than usual.

Another delight is that in the midst of Wizard World War II, there is normal teen angst -- exams, friendships, the opposite sex (Harry gets his first kiss), who's on the team, who's going out with whom.

She will be 39 years old this July and married Dr Neil Murray on Boxing Day 2001 at their home in Killiechassie House, Aberfeldy. Seven-bed roomed Killiechasse House has an estimated value of £1.5 million, it's own library (understandably) and a self-contained house in it's west wing. Jo also owns a London property in trendy Kensignton. She has one younger sister, Di, who is her biggest fan along with her daughter, Jessica, aged 10. She previously lived with Jessica in Edinburgh, having first moved there in 1993. Jo and Neil celebrated an addition to their family, when on March 23rd 2003, Jo gave birth to David Gordon Rowling-Murray at an Edinburgh hospital.

JK Rowling reveals that Her favorite passage from the books is the chapter on the Mirror of Erised in Philosopher's Stone and the ending of Goblet of Fire is the part that she is most proud of. Her favorite book though is Chamber of Secrets but she thought Prisoner of Azkaban was the most fun to write.

Though the seeds of Harry had been sown as early as 1990, Rowling didn't put all of the pieces together and start writing in earnest until the mid-1990s when she was living in Edinburgh, Scotland, raising her daughter, Jessica, alone. Not able to afford even a used typewriter -- let alone a computer -- Rowling wrote the earliest drafts of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in longhand. "I knew I wanted to get published. And, in truth, writing novels is something you have to believe in to keep going. It's a fairly thankless job when no one is paying you to do it. And you don't really know if it's ever going to get into the bookshops so I really did believe in it. But I was also very realistic. I knew the odds were not on my side because, an unknown author, you know? It's tough. It's tough the first time to get published, so I persevered. I loved writing it and I felt that I just had to try."

The author has encouragement for others who would follow her path. "My feeling is, if you really want to do it, you will do it. You will find the time. And it might not be much time, but you'll make it. Obviously if you have homework or other activities, you're not going to have huge amounts of time but if you really want to, you'll do it."

About her own writing, Rowling says that, in some ways, she just writes what she sees in her mind. "I have a very visual imagination. I see a situation and then I try to describe it as vividly as I can. And I do love writing dialog. Dialog comes to me as though I'm just overhearing a conversation."

In 2007, J.K. was named 'Entertainer of the Year' by Entertainment Weekly on their 'Entertainers of the Year: 25 Top Stars of 2007' list.

In 2006, J.K. was ranked 2nd on Forbes magazine's 'Top 20 Richest Women in Entertainment' list.

J.K. was ranked #83 on the "Greatest Briton" list in a BBC poll.

Interesting Facts About Golden Gate Bridge

2008-11-07T19:44:00.002+05:30

The Golden Gate Strait is the entrance to the San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. The strait is approximately three-miles long by one-mile wide with currents ranging from 4.5 to 7.5 knots. It is generally accepted that the strait was named "Chrysopylae", or Golden Gate, by John C. Fremont, Captain, topographical Engineers of the U.S. Army circa 1846.

The Golden Gate Bridge had the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed in 1937 and has become an internationally recognized symbol of San Francisco and California. Since its completion, the span length has been surpassed by eight other bridges. It still has the second longest suspension bridge main span in the United States, after the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

One of the most interesting Golden Gate Bridge facts is that only eleven workers died during construction, a new safety record for the time. In the 1930s, bridge builders expected 1 fatality per $1 million in construction costs, and builders expected 35 people to die while building the Golden Gate Bridge. One of the bridge's safety innovations was a net suspended under the floor. This net saved the lives of 19 men during construction, and they are often called the members of the "Half Way to Hell Club."

Steels are Made in New Jersey, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and shipped through the Panama Canal.

Total weight of steel: 83,000 tons (75,293,000 kg).

Two main cables pass over the tops of the main towers and are secured in concrete anchorages at each end. Each cable is made of 27,572 strands of wire. There are 80,000 miles (129,000 km) of wire in the two main cables, and it took over six months to spin them.

The Cable diameter (including wrapping) is 36 3/8 inches (0.92 m).

The Cable length is 7,260 feet (2,332 m).

128 lights are installed on the bridge roadway. They are 250-watt high pressure sodium lamps installed in 1972.

The 24 tower sidewalk lights are 35-watt low pressure sodium lamps.

12 light illuminate each tower, 400 watts each, and an airway beacon tops each tower.

The Average crossings about 40 million per year, counting both north- and southbound crossings, compared to 33 million crossing the first year it was open.

The bridge has been closed three times for weather, for gusting winds over 70 mph. It closed briefly for visits by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and French President Charles DeGaulle. It was also closed on its fiftieth birthday.

The Golden Gate Bridge's paint color is orange vermillion, also called international orange. Architect Irving Morrow selected the color because it blends with the bridge's setting

The bridge was fully painted when it was first built and then touched up for the next 27 years. In 1965, the original paint was removed because of corrosion and replaced with a inorganic zinc silicate primer and an acrylic emulsion top coat, a project that took 30 years. Today, painters touch up the paint continuously.

38 painters work on the bridge, along with 17 iron workers who replace corroding steel and rivets.

January 5, 1933: Start of construction of the Golden Gate Bridge.

May 27, 1937: Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic.

May 28, 1938: Golden Gate Bridge opens to vehicular traffic.

The Golden Gate Bridge is the most popular place in the USA to commit suicide and one of the most popular in the world . The deck is approximately 245 feet (75 m) above the water. After a fall of approximately four seconds, jumpers hit the water at some 86 miles per hour (138 km/h), which is nearly always fatal. Most of those who survive the impact die in the cold water.

A study conducted by Dr. Richard Seiden of the University of California at Berkeley concluded that of 515 people prevented from jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, 94 percent were still alive or had died of natural causes an average of 26 years later.

The bridge has approximately 1,200,000 total rivets.

Interesting Facts About Pomegranate Juice

2008-11-03T12:00:00.003+05:30

Since pomegranate contains tannins,polyphenols and anthocyanins,it is a good source of antioxidant.So,it is beneficial for our health.

It might prevent prostate cancer or slow its growth.

It reduces the risk of breast and skin cancer.It also fights against other forms of cancer.

It delays the development of tumors.

Long-term consumption of pomegranate juice may help combat erectile dysfunction.

It is an excellent agent for promoting blood flow to the heart.

It works as a blood thinner.

It reduces the plaque in the arteries.

It balances the cholesterol level in the body.

It prevents heart disease and reduces the risk of heart attacks.

It is recommended by dieticians in diet and exercise programs.

It acts as an inhibitor on enzymes responsible for damaging cartilage.

It is a diuretic.

It reduces the systolic blood pressure in hypertensive patients.

Interesting Facts About Mosquitoes

2008-10-29T15:41:00.002+05:30

There are over 2500 different species of mosquitoes throughout the world, of which 150 species occur in the United States.

A single female can lay over 200 eggs at a time. Mosquito eggs can survive for more than five years.

All mosquitoes need water to complete their life cycle.

Not all species bite humans; some prefer birds, others prefer horses, and some will even bite frogs and turtles.

Mosquitoes can fly considerable distances.some species remain close to their larval habitats while others can fly 20 miles or more.

Mosquitoes do not develop in grass or shrubbery, although adults fequently rest in these areas during daylight hours.

Mosquitoes are responsible for more human death than any other living creature.

Only female mosquitoes bite; using proteins from a blood meal to produce eggs. Most species can produce several batches of eggs during their lifetime.

The mosquito's visual picture, produced by various parts of its body, is an infrared view produced by its prey's body temperature.

The average life span of the female mosquito is 3 to 100 days; the male's is 10 to 20 days.

Depending on species, female mosquitoes may lay 100 to 300 eggs at a time and may average 1,000 to 3,000 during their lifespan.

Adults can live for several weeks, feeding on carbohydrate sources such as nectar and fruit juices.

Worldwide, mosquito-borne diseases kill more people than any other single factor.

In the United States, mosquitoes vector (spread) several types of encephalitis, dog heartworm, and malaria.

The larval and pupil stages can be found in a variety of aquatic habitats including: discarded containers, tires, temporary woodland pools, tree and crab holes, salt marshes, and irrigation ditches.

Most mosquitoes remain within 1 mile of their breeding site. A few species may range up to 20 miles or more. There are over 170 described species of mosquitoes from North America.

Several species have been accidentally introduced from other parts of the world.

Depending on temperature, mosquitoes can develop from egg to adult in as little as 4-7 days.

Mosquitoes dislike citronella because it irritates their feet.

Mosquitoes prefer children to adults, and blondes to brunettes. A mosquito can detect a moving target at 18 ft away
The average life span of a female mosquito is 3 to 100 days. the male lives 10 to 20 days.

Mosquitoes lay up to 300 eggs at a time, fly across 150 miles in their lifetime, range from sea level to altitudes as high as 10,800 feet (3,600 meters), develop from egg to adulthood in 4 to 7 days

Only female mosquitoes—and only a few of the thousands of mosquito species in the world—feed on humans. Most mosquitoes feed on nectar or other sources of sugar.

Before the female mosquito actually draws your blood, she might probe your skin as many as 20 times, looking for a small blood vessel to nick.

Mosquitoes don't whine just to be annoying. The high-pitched sound they make, created by their rapid wing beats (of up to 500 beats per second), helps the males hone in on a mate.

The insects have adapted to almost every climate on earth. Some mosquito eggs can survive decades of drought in the Sahara until a brief rainfall permits a hatch.

A single malarial mosquito—one of the most effective disease transmitters on earth—can infect more than 100 people. By comparison, a typical human suffering from measles can infect about 13 other people; a typical person who is HIV-positive might be able to infect one other person.

In recent years, mosquito-borne diseases have been responsible for about one in every 17 deaths on the planet (they cause three million or more of the 55 million annual deaths worldwide). Malaria alone kills one-to-three million people annually, the vast majority of them African children under the age of five.

U.S. Army doctor Walter Reed, the man who conclusively proved in 1900 that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever, made his discovery by allowing the insects to snack on yellow fever patients, then releasing the bugs into a tent-full of healthy (and, as it turned out, sacrificial) volunteers—who themselves got deathly ill.

Mosquitoes are exquisitely tuned to human motion, heat, and odors. If you're fighting a swarm, waving your arms frantically can actually help more of them find you.

Electronic bug zappers don't work to kill mosquitoes. Ultrasonic devices that supposedly drive them away with sound don't work well either.

A mosquito only weighs 1/25,000 of an ounce.

Interesting Facts About Magnets

2008-10-22T16:08:00.001+05:30

A story goes that a shepherd from Crete named Magnes was the first to discover lodestone when his crook, which had an iron tip, was pulled towards a stone when he passed over it.

According to another story, Archimedes, the scientist of ancient Greece, is supposed to have pulled the nails out of enemy ships by using lodestone, which resulted in them sinking.

In the past, lodestone was used by sailors as an aid to navigation. They had discovered that when they suspended a piece of magnetite by a thread, it always pointed in a north-south direction.

All physical objects are made up of molecules, and the molecules of steel and iron have magnetic properties. According to the molecular theory of magnetism, all the molecules are aligned with their North Pole pointing in one direction and South Pole pointing in the opposite direction in a magnetized piece of steel or iron. Whereas, in a piece of steel or iron that is unmagnetized, the poles of the molecules point at various directions at random.

Magnets are of two main types: Permanent Magnets and Induced Magnets. Substances that are permanently magnetized are known as permanent magnets. Whereas, induced magnets are those that become temporarily magnetized when brought into proximity with a permanent magnet. For example, if you use a magnet to pick up a pin, the pin too will become magnetized and be able to pick up another pin. However, once the permanent magnet is removed, the pins lose their magnetic properties.

Each end of a piece of magnet is referred to as a pole, and the magnetism of each magnet is concentrated in its poles.

When the North Pole of one magnet is brought close to the South Pole of another magnet, they attract each other. Whereas if you bring a South Pole of one magnet close to the South Pole of another, or the North Pole near the North Pole of another, they repel each other.

Usually, magnets are made of steel or iron. However, special alloys of iron, nickel, copper, cobalt, and aluminum can be made into powerful magnets.

Hammering and heating a piece of steel or iron in a north to south direction can magnetize it. This is because the molecules get aligned in a north-south direction.

When an unmagnetized piece of steel or iron is rubbed with a magnet in a north to south direction, it gets magnetized. This is because the molecules get aligned in a north-south direction.

When an unmagnetized piece of steel or iron is placed beside a magnet, it becomes magnetized. This is because the molecules get aligned in a north-south direction.

Since the Earth itself acts as a huge bar magnet, having a magnetic north pole and south pole, when a piece of unmagnetized material is placed in a north to south direction, it results in magnetizing it due to the magnetic field of the Earth. This is because the molecules get aligned in a north-south direction.

Hammering a magnet can result in demagnetizing it because the molecules lose their north-south alignment and get arranged with their poles placed randomly in various directions.

When a magnet is heated in a hot flame, it will result in demagnetizing it because the molecules lose their north-south alignment and get arranged with their poles placed randomly in various directions.

An electromagnet is created when a piece of iron is coiled with a wire and electricity is passed through the coiled wire. This magnetizes the iron bar as long as the current is switched on, on switching off the electricity, it gets demagnetized.

Interesting Facts about Pumpkin

2008-10-17T16:11:00.002+05:30

The word ‘pumpkin’ comes from the Greek word, ‘pepon’, which means a ‘large melon.’

Pumpkins originated in Central America.

Pumpkins are actually a fruit.

Pumpkin is really a squash. It is in the Curcurbita family along with squash and cucumbers.

The yellow-orange flowers that bloom on the pumpkin vine are edible.

Pumpkin seeds taste great roasted and contain medicinal properties.

Native Americans grew and ate pumpkins and its seeds long before the Pilgrims reached this continent. Pilgrims learned how to grow and prepare pumpkins from the Native Americans.

Pumpkin was most likely served at the first Thanksgiving feast celebrated by the Pilgrims and the Indians in 1620.

The earliest pumpkin pie made in America was quite different than the pumpkin pie we enjoy today. Pilgrims and early settlers made pumpkin pie by hollowing out a pumpkin, filling the shell with milk, honey and spices and baking it.

Early settlers dried pumpkins shells, cut it into strips and wove it into mats.

Pumpkin has been prepared in a variety of ways from soups to stews to desserts since the immigration of the first European settlers.

The ‘Pumpkin Capital of the World’ is Morton, Illinois. Home of Libby’s pumpkin industry.

The state of Illinois grows the most pumpkins. It harvests about 12,300 acres of pumpkins annually.

Each year, growers compete for the title of growing the world’s largest pumpkin. The largest recorded pumpkin grown was on October 1, 2005 at the Pennsylvania Giant Pumpkin Growers Weighoff. It weighed in at 1,469 pounds, breaking all previous world records. It was grown by Larry Checkon of North Cambria, Penn.

Pumpkins were formerly considered a remedy for freckles and snakebites.

Natural medicine practioners have proven that consuming pumpkin seeds reduces the risk of prostrate disorders in men.

Pumpkins contain potassium and Vitamin A.

The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.

In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.

The largest pumpkin ever grown weighed 1,140 pounds.

The Connecticut field variety is the traditional American pumpkin.

Eighty percent of the pumpkin supply in the United States is available in October.

Native Americans flattened strips of pumpkins, dried them and made mats.

Native Americans called pumpkins "isqoutm squash."

Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.

Total U.S. pumpkin production in 2006 was valued at $101.3 million.

496 million pounds of pumpkins were produced in Illinois in 2005.

The top pumpkin production states are Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and California.

The top ten pumpkin producing counties in Illinois are Tazewell, Kankakee, Mason, Logan, Will, Marshall, Kane, Pike, Carroll and Woodford.

According to the University of Illinois, 90 percent of the pumpkins grown in the United States are raised within a 90-mile radius of Peoria, Illinois.

Pumpkins are grown primarily for processing with a small percentage grown for ornamental sales through you-pick farms, farmers’ market and retail sales.

Around 90 to 95% of the processed pumpkins in the United States are grown in Illinois.

Pumpkins are 90% water, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

Interesting Facts about Vitamin D

2008-10-15T15:59:00.003+05:30

Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from natural sunlight.

The healing rays of natural sunlight (that generate vitamin D in your skin) cannot penetrate glass. So you don't generate vitamin D when sitting in your car or home.

It is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your diet. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way to generate vitamin D in your own body.

A person would have to drink ten tall glasses of vitamin D fortified milk each day just to get minimum levels of vitamin D into their diet.

The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D. Canada, the UK and most U.S. states are far from the equator.

People with dark skin pigmentation may need 20 - 30 times as much exposure to sunlight as fair-skinned people to generate the same amount of vitamin D. That's why prostate cancer is epidemic among black men -- it's a simple, but widespread, sunlight deficiency.

Sufficient levels of vitamin D are crucial for calcium absorption in your intestines. Without sufficient vitamin D, your body cannot absorb calcium, rendering calcium supplements useless.

Chronic vitamin D deficiency cannot be reversed overnight: it takes months of vitamin D supplementation and sunlight exposure to rebuild the body's bones and nervous system.

Even weak sunscreens (SPF=8) block your body's ability to generate vitamin D by 95%. This is how sunscreen products actually cause disease -- by creating a critical vitamin deficiency in the body.

It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs.

If it hurts to press firmly on your sternum, you may be suffering from chronic vitamin D deficiency right now.

Vitamin D is "activated" in your body by your kidneys and liver before it can be used.

Having kidney disease or liver damage can greatly impair your body's ability to activate circulating vitamin D.

The sunscreen industry doesn't want you to know that your body actually needs sunlight exposure because that realization would mean lower sales of sunscreen products.

Even though vitamin D is one of the most powerful healing chemicals in your body, your body makes it absolutely free. No prescription required.

On the issue of sunlight exposure, by the way, it turns out that super antioxidants greatly boost your body's ability to handle sunlight without burning. Astaxanthin is one of the most powerful "internal sunscreens" and can allow you to stay under the sun twice as long without burning. Other powerful antioxidants with this ability include the superfruits like Acai, Pomegranates (POM Wonderful juice), blueberries, etc.

Osteoporosis is commonly caused by a lack of vitamin D, which greatly impairs calcium absorption.

Sufficient vitamin D prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, depression, colon cancer and schizophrenia.

"Rickets" is the name of a bone-wasting disease caused by vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin D deficiency may exacerbate type 2 diabetes and impair insulin production in the pancreas.

Obesity impairs vitamin D utilization in the body, meaning obese people need twice as much vitamin D.

Vitamin D is used around the world to treat Psoriasis.

Vitamin D deficiency causes schizophrenia.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is caused by a melatonin imbalance initiated by lack of exposure to sunlight.

Chronic vitamin D deficiency is often misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia because its symptoms are so similar: muscle weakness, aches and pains.

Your risk of developing serious diseases like diabetes and cancer is reduced 50% - 80% through simple, sensible exposure to natural sunlight 2-3 times each week.

Infants who receive vitamin D supplementation (2000 units daily) have an 80% reduced risk of developing type 1 diabetes over the next twenty years.

32% of doctors and med school students are vitamin D deficient.

40% of the U.S. population is vitamin D deficient.

42% of African American women of childbearing age are deficient in vitamin D.

48% of young girls (9-11 years old) are vitamin D deficient.

Up to 60% of all hospital patients are vitamin D deficient.

76% of pregnant mothers are severely vitamin D deficient, causing widespread vitamin D deficiencies in their unborn children, which predisposes them to type 1 diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia later in life. 81% of the children born to these mothers were deficient.

Up to 80% of nursing home patients are vitamin D deficient.

Vitamin D is important for bone health. Most calcium supplements have sufficient vitamin D. You can get enough vitamin D from going out in the sun or eating fortified dairy foods. Too much vitamin D is toxic.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, which is not significantly destroyed by cooking or even processing and refrigeration.

Vitamin D2, which is also known as ergocalciferol, can be synthesised by the exposure of yeast to light.

Vitamin D3, which is known as cholecalciferol, is found naturally in animal tissues.

This vitamin is often nick-named the “sunshine vitamin” as in humans it is formed within the skin when ultraviolet light activates the conversion of a form of cholesterol into vitamin D3.

With dietary vitamin D, it is absorbed through the intestinal walls with the help of bile salts. This vitamin is converted by the liver into a form the body can use, and then it is stored within the liver.

Vitamin D is required by the body for absorption and metabolism of calcium and phosphorus, for bone and tooth enamel.

Interesting Facts About Baseball

2008-10-10T20:41:00.002+05:30

Baseball probably originated before the American Civil War (1861-1865) as rounders, a simple game played on sandlots. Early champions of the game fine-tuned it to include the kind of skills and mental judgment that made cricket respectable in England. In particular, scoring and record-keeping gave baseball gravity. "Today," notes John Thorn in The Baseball Encyclopedia, "baseball without records is inconceivable." More Americans undoubtedly know that Roger Maris's sixty-one home runs in 1961 broke Babe Ruth's record of sixty in 1927 than that President Ronald Reagan's 525 electoral-college votes in 1984 broke President Franklin Roosevelt's record of 523 in 1936.

In 1871 the first professional baseball league was born. By the beginning of the 20th century, most of the bigger cities in the eastern United States had a professional baseball team. The teams were divided into 2 leagues, the National and American; during the regular season, a team played only against other teams within its league. The most victorious team in each league was said to have won the "pennant;" the 2 pennant winners met after the end of the regular season in the World Series. The winner of at least 4 games (out of a possible 7) was the champion for that year. This arrangement is still in place today, although the leagues are now subdivided and pennants are decided in post-season playoff series between the winners of each division.

Baseball is a fun game. It drives people crazy like anything.

It is considered to be one of the most popular games in America.

Here are some of the fun facts for you to know various activities that have happened in baseball.

In the baseball, a distance is measured to be 90 feet. Picture mound and home place are 60 feet, 8 inches apart from each other.

In 1997, it ended its oldest traditions. That was the first time Inter league began.

After that American league could play the National league at the time of regular season.First league is believed to be played on 12/06/97.

Babe Ruth used to wear a leaf that would be under the cap.The funny thing is that he used to change it after every two innings.

Cal Hubbard, umpire in Major league is the only one who was in both the games, baseball and football.

The baseball inventor is credited with firing the first shot, which was against civil war.The National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum was created in 1935. It was created for 100th anniversary celebration of baseball.

In one game of base ball fourteen players could hit only 14 runs.Philadelphia manager has the highest number of victories. The total number is 3755.

A All-Star game was played in the year 1993. the players from National league and American league participated in that.Out of 73 games played, 40 were won by the National league.

The baseball tradition of spring training came about because in 1885 the Chicago White Stockings went to Hot Springs in Arkansas to prepare for the new season.

The world's largest baseball bat is only 120 feet long weighing in at 68,000 pounds.It resembles the 34 inch wood bat that the Bambino, Babe Ruth Swung, made by Louisville Slugger.Want to see it in person it is located at : 800 West Main Street, Louisville, Kentucky at the Louisville Slugger Museum.

The average life span for a major league baseball is only 7 pitches

Interesting Facts About Windows XP

2008-10-09T21:06:00.001+05:30

Windows XP boasts of how long it can stay up. Whereas previous versions of Windows were coy about how long they went between boots, XP is positively proud of its stamina. Go to run and type systeminfo and you can see a lot of nice data about your Windows installation.

You can delete files immediately, without having them move to the Recycle Bin first. Go to the Start menu, select Run… and type gpedit.msc then select User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, Windows Explorer and find the Do not move deleted files to the Recycle Bin setting. Set it. Poking around in gpedit will reveal a great many interface and system options, but take care — some may stop your computer behaving as you wish.

You can lock your XP workstation with two clicks of the mouse. Create a new shortcut on your desktop using a right mouse click, and enter ‘rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation’ in the location field. Give the shortcut a name you like. That’s it — just double click on it and your computer will be locked. And if that’s not easy enough, Windows key + L will do the same.

Windows XP hides some system software you might want to remove, such as Windows Messenger, but you can tickle it and make it disgorge everything. Using Notepad or Edit, edit the text file /windows/inf/sysoc.inf, search for the word ‘hide’ and remove it. You can then go to the Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Windows Components and there will be your prey, exposed and vulnerable.

For those skilled in the art of DOS batch files, XP has a number of interesting new commands. These include ‘eventcreate’ and ‘eventtriggers’ for creating and watching system events, ‘typeperf’ for monitoring performance of various subsystems, and ’schtasks’ for handling scheduled tasks. As usual, typing the command name followed by /? will give a list of options — they’re all far too baroque to go into here.

XP has IP version 6 support — the next generation of IP. Unfortunately this is more than your ISP has, so you can only experiment with this on your LAN. Type ‘ipv6 install’ into Run… (it’s OK, it won’t ruin your existing network setup) and then ‘ipv6 /?’ at the command line to find out more. If you don’t know what IPv6 is, don’t worry and don’t bother.

You can at last get rid of tasks on the computer from the command line by using ‘taskkill /pid’ and the task number, or just ‘tskill’ and the process number. Find that out by typing ‘tasklist’, which will also tell you a lot about what’s going on in your system.

XP will treat Zip files like folders, which is nice if you’ve got a fast machine. On slower machines, you can make XP leave zip files well alone by typing ‘regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll’ at the command line. If you change your mind later, you can put things back as they were by typing ‘regsvr32 zipfldr.dll’.

XP has ClearType — Microsoft’s anti-aliasing font display technology — but doesn’t have it enabled by default. To enable ClearType, right click on the desktop, select Properties, Appearance, Effects, select ClearType from the second drop-down menu and enable the selection. Expect best results on laptop displays. If you want to use ClearType on the Welcome login screen as well, set the registry entry HKEY_USERS/.DEFAULT/Control Panel/Desktop/FontSmoothingType to 2.

You can use Remote Assistance to help a friend who’s using network address translation (NAT) on a home network, but not automatically. Get your pal to email you a Remote Assistance invitation and edit the file. Under the RCTICKET attribute will be a NAT IP address, like 192.168.1.10. Replace this with your chum’s real IP address — they can find this out by going to www.whatismyip.com, and get them to make sure that they’ve got port 3389 open on their firewall and forwarded to the errant computer.

You can run a program as a different user without logging out and back in again. Right click the icon, select Run As… and enter the user name and password you want to use. This only applies for that run. The trick is particularly useful if you need to have administrative permissions to install a program, which many require. Note that you can have some fun by running programs multiple times on the same system as different users, but this can have unforeseen effects.

Windows XP can be very insistent about you checking for auto updates, registering a Passport, using Windows Messenger and so on. After a while, the nagging goes away, but if you feel you might slip the bonds of sanity before that point, run Regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/Explorer/Advanced and create a DWORD value called EnableBalloonTips with a value of 0.

You can start up without needing to enter a user name or password. Select Run… from the start menu and type ‘control userpasswords2′, which will open the user accounts application. On the Users tab, clear the box for Users Must Enter A User Name And Password To Use This Computer, and click on OK. An Automatic Log On dialog box will appear; enter the user name and password for the account you want to use.

Internet Explorer 6 will automatically delete temporary files, but only if you tell it to. Start the browser, select Tools / Internet Options… and Advanced, go down to the Security area and check the box to Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed.

XP comes with a free Network Activity Light, just in case you can’t see the LEDs twinkle on your network card. Right click on My Network Places on the desktop, then select Properties. Right click on the description for your LAN or dial-up connection, select Properties, then check the Show icon in notification area when connected box. You’ll now see a tiny network icon on the right of your task bar that glimmers nicely during network traffic.

The Start Menu can be leisurely when it decides to appear, but you can speed things along by changing the registry entry HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop/MenuShowDelay from the default 400 to something a little snappier. Like 0.

You can rename loads of files at once in Windows Explorer. Highlight a set of files in a window, then right click on one and rename it. All the other files will be renamed to that name, with individual numbers in brackets to distinguish them. Also, in a folder you can arrange icons in alphabetised groups by View, Arrange Icon By… Show In Groups.

Windows Media Player will display the cover art for albums as it plays the tracks — if it found the picture on the Internet when you copied the tracks from the CD. If it didn’t, or if you have lots of pre-WMP music files, you can put your own copy of the cover art in the same directory as the tracks. Just call it folder.jpg and Windows Media Player will pick it up and display it.

Windows key + Break brings up the System Properties dialogue box; Windows key + D brings up the desktop; Windows key + Tab moves through the taskbar buttons.

Windows XP secretly KNOWS that the average user has no idea what they are doing. Therefore, it doesn’t let you do really stupid things like deleting the windows directory (at least not without spending several hours convincing it that you REALLY want to do this). Oh yeah, and internet explorer kinda sucks, get Firefox.

Interesting Facts About Lehman Brothers

2008-10-09T15:53:00.002+05:30

Lehman Brothers, an innovator in global finance, serves the financial needs of corporations, governments and municipalities, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals worldwide. Founded in 1850, Lehman Brothers maintains leadership positions in equity and fixed income sales, trading and research, investment banking, private investment management, asset management and private equity. The Firm is headquartered in New York, with regional headquarters in London and Tokyo, and operates in a network of offices around the world.

In 1840–1859 the history of Lehman Brothers parallels the growth of the United States and its energetic drive toward prosperity and international prominence. What would evolve into a global financial entity began as a general store in the American South. Henry Lehman, an immigrant from Germany, opened his small shop in the city of Montgomery, Alabama in 1844. Six years later, he was joined by brothers Emanuel and Mayer, and they named the business Lehman Brothers.

In 1858 Cotton was the cash crop of the time, and the Lehmans accepted it from the local farmers as currency to settle accounts. The brothers traded the cotton for cash or merchandise, becoming brokers for buyers and sellers of the crop. In 1858, they opened an office in New York, which was the commodity trading center of the country.

In 1929 the Lehman Corporation is created, a prominent closed-end investment company

In 1984 American Express acquires Lehman Brothers and merges the Firm with Shearson.

In 1986 Lehman Brothers acquires a seat on the London Stock Exchange.

1988 Lehman Brothers acquires a seat on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

In 2006 Lehman Brothers ranks #1 in the Barron's 500 annual survey of corporate performance for the largest companies in the U.S. and Canada.

#1 dealer on the London Stock Exchange by trading volume.

Lehman Brothers brings the first IPO, Given Imaging, to market after Sept. 11.

Lehman Brothers becomes the first firm to underwrite corporate debt on the Internet.

In 2007 Lehman Brothers ranks #1 "Most Admired Securities Firm" by Fortune.

Lehman Brothers, today revealed that the credit crunch cost it $700 million (£350 million) in lost revenues during the third quarter as the full financial fallout from the summer market rout began to emerge.

In LONDON Administrators at Lehman Brothers' British operations announced 750 job cuts at the bankrupt investment bank.

Lehman Brothers - Awards and Recognition:

The Asset
Awarded "Best Credit Derivatives House" in Asia and "Best Structured Deal"

Euromoney
Awarded "Best M&A House" in China

Global Finance
Awarded "Best M&A Deal" and "Best Debt Deal"

Greenwich Associates/Global Custodian
Received Several Top Rankings in Prime Brokerage Survey

The Banker
Received Two "Deals of the Year 2008" Awards

FinanceAsia
Awarded "Japan's Best Private Equity Deal"

The Wall Street Journal
Several Lehman Brothers Analysts Recognized by The Wall Street Journal

Global Investor
Transition Management Ranked #1 by Clients

BusinessWeek
Named to 50 Best-Performing Companies in 2008

Great Place to Work® Institute
Ranked Among the "50 Best Workplaces in the UK" and Received "Special Award for Disability Excellence"

Interesting Facts About Rats

2008-10-08T12:22:00.002+05:30

Rats have poor vision. To compensate for this, a red or pink eyed rat will often weave its head side to side to add "motion" to see better. They also don't see in color.

Rats normally prefer to have cage mates. It is possible to group female or male rats together, though care should be taken when introducing a new rat.

While it's great to have both female and male rats, be wary of letting them play together; rats can complete the courting ritual and the whole romantic relationship in about two seconds.

Generally speaking, male rats make better "lap" pets, preferring to sit and have their ears scratched by an attentive human friend. Female rats are very curious, and love to explore and play games. Both genders make great companions.

Rats can eat chocolate.

Rats can also eat smaller pets. Rats are omnivores, and have enough predatory instinct left in them to consider birds, fish and even some smaller rodents as "snacks."

Rats don't have canine teeth.

Rats don't have thumbs.

The oils in cedar and pine are toxic to rats, and should not be used in their bedding materials.

A rat's temperature is regulated though its tail (assuming it has one). A really hot rat will lay on its back so that it can "sweat" through the soles of its feet.

A group of rats is called a mischief.

Red discharge from a rat's nose or eyes is usually porphyrin, not blood. Unlike blood, porphyrin is flourescent under UV light. It is produced in glands behind the rat's eyes. Overproduction of this discharge can be caused by stress or illness.

A happy rat will chatter or grind its teeth. Often, chattering teeth results in "vibrating" eyes, caused by the lower jawbone pressing the backs of the eyes. This is a good sign, regardless of how silly it looks.

A rat's jawbone isn't fused in the middle like ours, so it can make it looks as though the lower incisors have wiggled apart a bit.

Rats can't vomit. A rat can, however, gag on something if it eats too quickly. The plus side of this is that rats can usually eat and drink before surgery.

It is unlikely you will ever catch rabies from a rat.

Soda does not make rats explode.

Rats bathe themselves, usually six times a day or more. A rat's saliva has some pink pigmentation, which can cause a light-colored rat to look discolored. A warm washcloth with baby shampoo is great for those trouble spots.

PEW stands for "Pink Eyed White" the fancy rat terminology for "albino" or any all-white rat with pink eyes. Conversely, BEW stands for "Black Eyed White" (which is not an albino).

Rats have bellybuttons.

Rats don't have gallbladders.

Rats don't have tonsils.

A rat's fur smells like grape soda.

Rats can be trained to do simple tricks.

A Rat can survive being flushed down a toilet (depending on the toilet...and the rat of course)!

Ganesha, the Hindu god of prosperity, new beginnings and luck rides around on a rat!

Rats have glands on the bottom of their feet, so they leave a wet sent trail where ever they walk!

The black plague killed more rats than people!

Because of their large numbers they can kill larger animals, like lambs pigs and poultry!

A rat can swim for three days before it drowns (read 'em and weep Mr. Pied Piper!

Male rats are called "bucks" and are more placid than the female "does", and babies are called "kittens"

Rats are nocturnal so can be most active and noisy at night time

A happy rat will chatter or grind its teeth. This is called "bruxing"

Bucks often scent mark their territory with tiny drops of urine

It's a myth that rats like cheese, in fact they are lactose intolerant or allergic to cheese

Interesting Facts About Tsunami

2008-09-28T19:14:00.002+05:30

A tsunami (pronounced soo-nah-mee) is a series of waves that is very long and occurs over a long period of time.

Tsunami are often caused by earthquakes orunder water landslides. The word ‘tsunami’ is a Japaneseword that means ‘harbour wave’.

A tsunami can travel great distances - 17,000km or more - a tsunami can be more than 100km in length. It can also travel very fast, atabout 400 km an hour in some cases.

Everything about the tsunami is big, fast andwide. Tsunami are not normal waves and are not tidalwaves either; they are giant waves that move separatelyfrom the tides. Tsunami can occur at any time, day ornight.

An earthquake began in the ocean. Two parts of the earth moved and ground against each other. This caused part of the earth to drop down and all the water dropped as well. The movement caused a big wave to start. The wave as so-o-o-o big that it traveled thousands of kilometers and got bigger and bigger and wider and wider until it began to hit countries and coastlines.

There is usually more than one wave in a tsunami. Sometimes after the first wave has hit, people think it is allover and head back to the beach; this is a dangerous thing to do. More waves will keep on a coming for a few hours.

All low lying coastal areas can be affected by tsunami.

A tsunami is recorded on average in Australia every two years but they are usually too small to be noticed by people.

Tsunamis occur frequently in Japan and over the centuries, many thousands of Japanese have been killed by them. Tsunamis are sometimes incorrectly called tidal waves but have nothing to do with tides.

A tsunami can also be generated by an enormous meteor impact with the ocean. Scientists have found traces of an asteroid-collision event that they say would have created a giant tsunami that swept around the Earth several times, inundating everything except the mountains 3.5 billion years ago. The coastline of the continents was changed drastically and almost all life on land was exterminated.

A tsunami is not a single wave but a series of waves, also known as a wave train. The first wave in a tsunami is not necessarily the most destructive.

When the ocean is deep tsunamis can travel unnoticed on the surface at speeds up to 500 miles per hour (800 kilometers per hour), crossing the entire ocean in a day or less. Scientists are able to calculate arrival times of tsunamis in different parts of the world based on their knowledge of when the event that generated them occurred, water depths, and distances.

Flooding can extend inland by a thousand feet (300 meters) or more. The enormous energy of a tsunami can lift giant boulders, flip vehicles, and demolish houses.

While a tsunami cannot be prevented; it can be anticipated by being wary about the signs. Earthquakes are the main cause of this surge, so if you are near a body of water and a strong earthquake has occurred, chances are a tsunami is already building up.

It is a common occurrence that if a tsunami does occur, a trough, or a draw back occurs first, then a dramatic receding of the water happens in the shoreline exposing even those parts not normally seen during low tides. After this event expect a dramatic surge in the form of fast climbing of the tides to maximum heights, this is the main wave and the best way to avoid it is, to get to a higher ground.

Today, tsunami warning devices are already in use and are constantly worked on, for improvement. The most common device in use now is the bottom pressure sensors. These are attached to buoys and measure the pressure of the water. This is an accurate device that conveys if a tsunami is really on the way or if the earthquake did not do any shift in the water to produce a tsunami.

A number of national and international organizations cooperate to provide tsunami information and early warnings of tsunamis, including the United Nations and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

Many communities on the Pacific Coast of the United States participate in early warning systems like the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

Interesting Facts About iphone

2008-09-28T18:47:00.002+05:30

The iPhone was announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs during the keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo on 9 January 2007. It's an an Internet-enabled mobile phone that is expected to revolutionize the mobile industry.

The iPhone's features include those of a camera phone, an MP3 and video player, mobile phone, and Internet services like e-mail, text messaging, web browsing, Visual Voicemail and wireless connectivity. The iPhone user input is accomplished via touchscreen with virtual keyboard and buttons.

The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007 and made available from the Apple Store and from AT&T Mobility, formerly Cingular Wireless, with the original price of US$499 for the 4 GB model and US$599 for the 8 GB model, based on a two-year service contract. Apple intends to make the phone available in Europe in Q4 2007 and in Asia in 2008.

Apple iPhone will retail for $499 (4 GB) or $599 (8 GB) with a two-year AT&T contract. A steep price tag for many, but compared to other ground-breaking phones in recent years, it's not that bad.

The iPhone's most important feature is a 3.5-inch, 320 x 480 pixels touch screen display, easily beating other multimedia smartphones currently on the market. Its recent surface upgrade from plastic to optical-quality glass, also makes it pretty much scratch-proof.

The iPhone's second most important feature is its Mac OS X user interface, which obviously can't be easily replicated by competitors. Apple will not open for third party developers though, which are left in the dark with Widgets only to develop. Combined with EDGE-only connectivity when being on the road, your Mac OS X themed travel application will load slowly, if it loads at all.

The iPhone features a built-in battery that is not intended to be user-replaceable (”we knew that,” you cry), similar to existing iPods. The battery is capable of providing five hours of video, web browsing, or talk time. HOWEVER - the battery life for music playing is 16 hours. It is unknown how long the batteries will last in sleep mode.

The fact that underneath all the gloss and music and video, it is a cell phone, here’s hoping that the sleep mode battery life will be at least 48 hours. Most cell phones can be left on in sleep mode for a few days.

There will be new headphones which are similar to those of current iPods, but which incorporate a microphone.

If you thought you had to hold the iPhone right up to your mouth to talk, and worry that you’ll drop it, worry no longer. Also, if it’s illegal to hold a cell phone and drive at the same time where you are, out of the box this will not be a problem for you with this corded solution.

The loudspeaker is used both for handsfree operations and media playback.

Storage: 4 or 8 GB Flash memory, storing files (music, video, contacts, photos) and operating system.

Unlike current iPods, the iPhone will use flash memory, not a hard-drive based memory storage. This is good news for a cell phone, which will more than likely get tossed around more than an mp3 player. A hard bump and you might get the sad iPod icon on an HDD based iPod, but flash memory is solid with no moving parts like the USB thumb drive sticking out the back of your computer right now.

Apple has announced that the slimmed-down version of OS X running on the iPhone will take up “considerably less” than 500MB.

The iPhone has three switches on its sides: sleep/wake, volume up/down, ringer on/off. All other multimedia and phone operations are done via the touch screen.

The iPhone will have support for IMAP, POP3, and Yahoo Push mail. It will also automatically recognize and detect phone numbers in email messages, and gives the option for a one-click access to dialing them. The iPhone does not support Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), so you will not be able to attach pictures or videos to text messages. It will not let you “chat” with friends directly via instant messaging (IM).

Videos will pause automatically when a call comes in, and then resumes when the call ends.

The iPhone does not have Global Positioning System (GPS).

There is no such thing as an iPhone SDK. Third-party applications will be allowed only as web-based applications loaded the Internet via the iPhone’s Safari web browser.

You must either setup or have an existing iTunes account in order to use the iPhone, even if you do not intend to make purchases. This is an additional requirement on top of the 2-year service agreement with AT&T.

Synchronization is automatic when the iPhone is plugged into a Mac or PC for email, contacts, calendar, and photos.

The mobile version of OS X or whatever it is the iPhone runs takes up 700MB of the device’s capacity.

There’s no way to cut, copy, or paste text! WHOA! Big, big mistake.

No A2DP support. That, friends, is such a huge bummer right there.

Music can’t be used as a ringtone — even if it’s just a raw MP3. No additional ringtones will be sold at launch

On a PC the iPhone syncs with Outlook for calendars AND addresses! Noice.

No MMS. And sorry, no voice dialing, either.

The prototype iPhone had a plastic screen similar most of its cell competitors. Earlier this month, Apple announced a last-minute shift to glass. This was probably the company’s way of avoiding the Nano fiasco of 2005, when customers sued Apple over that iPod model’s highly scratchable screen.

The iPhone is limited to AT&T’s EDGE system, which is a second generation cell-phone network. The fastest system is 3G, or third generation. It isn’t clear why Apple chose the slower system, but probably the iPhone’s sophisticated equipment was easier to implement on the older network. Jobs has promised that future iPhones will use 3G.

LG’s new Prada Phone, the iPhone’s closest rival, also uses advanced touchscreen technology, but it doesn’t have Apple’s patented two-finger touching. The iPhone is the only device that allows you to stretch, shrink, and move items with your index finger and thumb.

According to experts, the Apple touchscreen recognizes only human skin. Curious cats, slobbery dogs, or even people using a stylus won’t be detected by the iPhone. Finicky users afraid of getting the glass screen dirty are out of luck.

The iPhone surfs the Web and plays iTunes videos, but its limited Flash animation capability means that the video on most websites, including the New York Times and Billboard, isn’t watchable. But at least YouTube changed its format last month to ensure compatibility with the iPhone.

Google Maps works beautifully on the iPhone, but you still need to enter a starting address—the phone’s not equipped with G.P.S., which could pinpoint your location automatically. The next generation of iPhones is expected to correct this mistake.

For months, journalists, analysts, and evildoers were trying to figure out what would fill the blank menu square shown in early iPhone screen shots. Turns out, it’s up to you. Apple allows you to customize the menu with downloadable options that can be used to track stocks, check weather, or, likely in the future, give airport flight data.

Apple claims that the iPhone can import your current digital Rolodex from a computer, but it hasn’t mentioned whether the contacts in your iPhone can be transferred back to your machine—or to the next phone you purchase. Apple also hasn’t said if the SIM card, the little chip that retains cell-phone data, will be removable.

Interesting Facts About Coal

2008-09-23T18:46:00.003+05:30

Coal was formed about 300 million years ago.

Coal is a combustible mostly black sedimentary rock composed mostly of carbon and hydrocarbons.

Coal takes a million years to create and therefore it belongs to non-renewable energy sources.

Coal mining uses two methods: surface or underground mining where surface mining is more dominant method because it is less expensive than the underground mining.

Coal is mostly transported by train.

Coal as the other fossil fuels as well isn't ecologically acceptable because of CO2 and global warming.

Coal is classified into four main types: lignite, subbituminous, bituminous, anthracite and the coal value is determined by the amount of the carbon it contains.

Coal is mined in 27 US states.

Coal is mainly used for generating electricity (more than 90 % of US coal).

Coal usually has a negative impact on environment, mining can damage ground and surface waters and when coal burns as the fuel it releases CO2 which is the main greenhouse gas that causes global warming.

Coal is so called "dirty" energy source because of its negative effect on environment.

Coal could be the world's most attractive fuel in years to come thanks to the methods of coal purification which are resulting in more cleaner coal, removing sulfur and other dangerous elements.

Coal is used on the large scale in China and USA.

Coal can be answer for future only if technology will enable "ultra-clean" coal.

Coal must be relatively dry before it can be burned successfully.

World coal consumption is more than 5.3 billion tons annually of which three quarters are used for generating electricity.

Coal was already used in the Bronze age (Britain).

Coal's share in the total world electricity production is about 40 %.

Coal deposits could be enough to satisfy current world energy needs for the next 300 years.

Coal is getting more attention because of the increased prices of oil and natural gas.

Coal can be converted like to gasoline or diesel by couple of different processes like for instance the Fischer-Tropsch process, Bergius process and Karrick process.

Coal is the official state mineral of the Kentucky and official and the official state rock of Utah.

Coal total reserves are approximately about 1 × 1015 kg or 998 billion tons.

Coal is mined in more than 100 countries.

Coal is the main reason for China's economic boost as for China's environmental problems.

Coal is a combustible mineral formed from the remains of trees, ferns and other decayed plants that existed and died up to 400 million years ago in some cases.

Coal has been used as an energy source for hundreds of years and was part of international trade in as long ago as the Roman Empire.

Coal provided the energy which fueled the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century and also launched the electric era in the 20th Century.

37% of the electricity generated worldwide is produced from coal.

Coal is by far the cheapest source of power fuel per million Btu, averaging less than half the price of petroleum and natural gas.

The world's iron and steel industry depends on the use of coal.

The value of coal produced in the United States each year is nearly $20 billion.

Coal is directly responsible for the existence of more than 90,000 U.S. jobs and nearly one million jobs directly and indirectly.

Coal mining has a combined direct and indirect impact of $161 billion annually on the U.S. economy. This is $596 for every U.S. citizen.

The federal government receives more than $11 billion annually in taxes and fees from the coal industry.

State and local governments receive nearly $9 billion each year in revenues.

Developing countries' demand for coal will double through 2020, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Coal reserves are spread over almost 100 countries. Proven coal reserves are estimated to last over 200 years with current production rates. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 40 and 60 years.

America's coal is used primarily for the production of electricity.

There were 315,000 Megawatts (net) of coal-based electrical generating capacity in the United States.

Some 965 million tons of coal were consumed for the generation of electricity. This amounted to 86% of total U.S. coal production.

Many large countries contain significant proven reserves of coal. While data quality varies widely, the countries with the greatest estimated recoverable reserves of coal are --

United States 273 billion tons
Russia 173 billion tons
China 126 billion tons
India 93 billion tons

Australia 90 billion tons

Coal was first discovered in what is now West Virginia in 1742 by John Peter Salley in what is now Boone County.

McDowell County has produced more coal than any other county in West Virginia.

The coal industry pays approximately $70 million in property taxes annually.

The Coal Severance Tax adds approximately $214 million into West Virginia's economy.

Twenty-four million dollars of coal severance taxes collected each year goes directly into the Infrastructure Bond Fund.

All 55 counties, even the non-coal producing counties receive Coal Severance Tax funds.

The coal industry payroll is nearly $2 billion per year.

Coal is responsible for more than $3.5 billion annually in the gross state product.

The United States produces about 20%, or 1.1 billion tons, of the world's coal supply—second only to China.

The United States has about a 245-year supply of coal, if it continues using coal at the same rate at which it uses coal today.

Montana is the state with the most coal reserves (119 billion tons). But Wyoming is the top coal-producing state—it produced about 400 million tons in 2004.

Texas is the top coal-consuming state. It uses about 100 million tons each year.

Coal ash, a byproduct of coal combustion, is used as filler for tennis rackets, golf balls, and linoleum.

U.S. coal deposits contain more energy than that of all the world's oil reserves.

Each person in the United States uses 3.8 tons of coal each year.

Coal is the world's most abundant fossil fuel - more plentiful than oil and natural gas. It is second only to oil as a source of energy that we use. Coal is widely used because it's easily obtained, there's lots of it, it's well distributed throughout the world, and it has a high energy content.

Coal has many important uses, but most significantly in electricity generation, steel and cement manufacture, and industrial process heating.

Coal provides over 23% of global primary energy needs. It generates around 39% of the world's electricity. Almost 70% of total global steel production is dependent on coal.

There are four main types of coal and all are found in Canada: anthracite, bituminous, sub-bituminous, and lignite.

There is more stored energy in Canadian coal than all the country's oil, natural gas, and oil sands combined.

Canada exports about 28 million tonnes of coal annually to more than 20 countries.

Canada ranks tenth in the world in total coal reserves with 4 billion tonnes of bituminous coal. That's coal covering a football field to a height of about 4,500 kilometers!

U.S. coal deposits contain more energy than that of all the world’s oil reserves.

Coal ash is used as filler for tennis rackets, golf balls, and linoleum.