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Reference Maunde - Beyond Trivia

Reference Maunde - Beyond Trivia
Mind boggling facts, news and reviews you wish to know.
Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Articles

Tips for Choosing the Right Domain Name
2007-07-12 12:12:00
Selecting the right domain name is one of the most important business decisions you can make. When you have a business online, you are competing in a global economy with millions of other websites.The latest information from Internet World Stats counted over 1 billion Internet users in 2007. According to Rich Miller of Netcraft, an Internet monitoring company that has tracked Web growth since 1995, "There are now 100 million Web sites with domain names and content on them." Of the 100 million websites, about 47 million of them are active sites and competing for visitors.Here are some tips to follow in choosing a domain name that makes it easy to find your business on the Internet:(1) Choose an easy to spell domain name.It does no good to have a website, if no one can find you because your domain name is too difficult to spell.Last week I was talking to someone and asked her who the company was that designed her website. She told me the name of the company, and it was some very stran...
More About: Domain , Domain Name , Tips
Cows will help to reduce global warming
2007-07-11 05:45:00
Manners aside, getting cows to burp less can help reduce global warming.Using modern plant-breeding methods to find new diets for cows that make them belch less is a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scientists said on Monday.The key is developing new varieties of food that are easier for cattle to digest and also provide a proper balance of fiber, protein and sugar, said Michael Abberton, a scientist at the UK-based Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research.This could open up plant-based solutions as alternatives to reducing stock as farmers look for ways to cut methane emissions amid warming climates, he told a briefing on farming and climate change at London's Science Media Centre.He noted the average dairy cow belches out about 100 to 200 liters of methane each day, making diet changes a key potential factor in reducing this greenhouse gas."There is a common misperception about how methane gets into the atmosphere," he said. "It is actually through belching rather...
More About: Global Warming , Animals , Global , Reduce , Redu
Can mentally retarded people be brilliant?
2007-07-09 05:42:00
In the infinite variety of human minds, none is more fascinating than that of the idiot savant, or "wise idiot." These people show astonishing skill in a specific area, yet are mentally retarded, with an IQ of less than 70.Typically, idiot savants are males (outnumbering females with this condition three to one) who can grasp complex number patterns, such as being able to name the day of the week for any date in a thousand-year span. But an idiot savant's talent may also be in art, mechanics, music, or memory of odd facts.At 19, blind, suffering from cerebral palsy, and mentally retarded, Leslie Lemke sat down at a piano for the first time and played Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, start to finish, after hearing it on the radio. A five-year old retarded child named Nadia combined a mature artist's grasp of scale and spatial relationships with an unerring visual memory to create exquisite sketches of animals in motion.Scientists can only speculate on what causes the behaviour ...
More About: Science , People , Retarded , Ally , Brilliant
Crime Free Village
2007-07-07 05:36:00
At a time when spiralling crime graph is a matter of concern for the Uttar Pradesh -a province of India - Police, a small village on the Bhadohi - Varanasi Road here has set a record of sorts by not reporting even a single case of crime in the past 50 years.Residents of Chandi-Sona village leave their houses unlocked while going out or even during nights.According to Chauri police station, about two km from the village, there is little to worry about the village having a population of about 1500, as no case has been reported from there in the past over 50 years.Villa ge head (Gram Pradhan in Hindi) Chinta Devi said, "There is absolute 'Ram Rajya' in the village where people of different castes and creeds live in peace and tranquility."The only concern for us is to guard our belongings from stray animals," Chinta Devi said, adding all residents were by and large dependent on agriculture and happy with their lives.The villagers thank the Gram Devi (village goddess) installed just out...
More About: Crime , Free , Rime
Body Piercing - Getting it done safely
2007-07-05 10:10:00
Pierced earlobes have been in vogue for a long time, but these days some people are going to new extremes, with trendy followers of fashion piercing their eyebrows, navals, tongues, and more.Body piercing involves some pain and can lead to difficulties, particularly with areas other than earlobes. Piercing should be performed by a doctor or other health-care professional or by a trained body piercing professional. The procedure must be done properly to minimize risks and sterile equipment is essential to prevent infection of the site and the transmission of hepatitis or HIV. If you are undergoing piercing, you may first want to get a tetanus shot and a hepatitis vaccination.Safe piercing requires a new, sterilized, disposable needle. Don't agree to the use of a "gun," which is difficult to sterilize. Be sure that the practitioner puts on a fresh pair of latex gloves before starting. The jewellery inserted should be nonallergenic (stainless steel or gold, for example), because irrit...
More About: Health , Done
The raising of Lady Liberty
2007-07-04 12:23:00
The Statue of Liberty towers more than 305 ft (93 m) above the waters of New York Harbour, where, in the words of her creator, 'people get their first view of the New World'. It is the largest metal statue in the world, and took more than 15 years to build at a Paris workshop before being transported across the Atlantic to America.The graceful folds of Lady Liberty's robes give no clue to the huge, pylon-like supporting structure beneath. You can climb the 171 steps that spiral through her body to an observation platform concealed in the rim of her crown, for a spectacular, statue's-eye view of the vast sweep of city and sea.Each of Liberty's eyes is the length of a man's arm, her nose is 4.5 ft (1.4 m) long, and her index finger 8 ft (2.4 m). She stands an imposing 151ft (46m) tall, on a pedestal and base of about the same height again, and has a 35ft (10.5m) waist.To create a statue on such a massive scale more than 100 years ago, took the artistic vision of an inspired youn...
More About: History
Burrowers that provide lodgings and board too
2007-07-04 03:27:00
The American grey fox never digs its own den - it simply moves into another animal's home. If it is lucky, this grizzled fox - the only fox that regularly climbs trees - may find the abandoned earth of a red fox, preferably at the base of a tree. Otherwise, it will make do with a woodchuck's hole, a hollow log or a rocky crevice.Other opportunist lodgers of the animal world include dwarf mongooses, found in Africa south of the Sahara, that make their homes in abandoned termite nests, and wild dogs on the grassy plains of South Africa, that often use abandoned aardvark burrows in which to rear their pups.Some animals can lay claim to being the burrow diggers-in-chief of the animal world. On the North ASmerican prairies, horsemen must beware of holes dug by black-tailed prairie dogs - holes that are the entrances to an underground maze of burrows up to 10 ft (3 m) deep and extending over an area of about 160 acres (65 ha). These squirrel-sized diggers build whole 'towns', of narro...
More About: Animals , Board , Lodging , Ovid
Unexplained mystery of twins
2007-07-02 11:43:00
Call it a miracle or God's grace or a scientific imbalance, but a village near Allahabad, India has as many as 33 pairs of twins in a population of just 600! One in every 10 births here is of twins, some identical others not. Even two pairs in a population of 600 is normally considered high.Scientists call it a 'genetic goldmine', residents an 'upar wale ka karam' (God's grace). Name it what you may but Mohammadpur Umri a village (here 'pur as same as 'pore) has left many curious as to what is in this village that even childless couples are able to reproduce once they descend here.Entering the village, looking around for identical faces, one finds not one but one at every turn. It feels as if you've entered the sets of some Hollywood sci-fi film on cloning. From a five-year old playing out in the bright sun to a 40-year old handling a small grocery shop - almost everyone has a look-alike.What is it that makes this village generate twins on a regular basis? You ask the elder...
More About: Twins , Mystery , Twin , Wins , Laine
NATURE FIRST - Silken Contradiction
2007-06-30 04:06:00
The lightness and apparent fragility of a spider's web is famed. But in fact the material from which it is made is, weight for weight, stronger than steel, more elastic than rubber and tougher than the stuffing of bullet-proof waistcoats. Recent developments in the synthetic production of spider silk have opened new vistas in surgery, space technology, as well as in the manufacture of such things as rip-proof parachutes and tow-ropes. Even garden spiders can manufacture a repertoire of threads, each with a different purpose. They use five pairs of glands in the abdomen, each of which operates independently of the other. One pair provides the workaday dry thread on which the spider moves round its web, or unravels to shin up and down. Another makes the sticky threads that interlace the web for trapping prey and a third produces the mass of fine filaments that are wrapped about an entrapped insect to secure it until the spider is ready to eat it. Then there is the gland for making th...
More About: Nature , Animals , Contradiction , Silk , Natur
Cute Smile
2007-06-28 13:17:00
Call him the Mona Lisa of the bird kingdom.The rare recurve-billed bushbird, recently rediscovered by scientists in Colombia after a 40-year absence, sports a curving beak that gives the illusion of an enigmatic smile.This photograph, taken by a conservationist with the Colombia-based nonprofit Fundación ProAves, is the first ever taken of a live bushbird.The elusive species had not been spotted between 1965 and 2004, due to its limited range and remote habitats. It was seen recently in Venezuela and in a region of northeastern Colombia, where it was photographed.Researchers found the bird in a 250-acre (101-hectare) reserve next to the Torcoroma Holy Sanctuary near the Colombian town of Ocaña, where in 1709 locals claimed they saw the image of the Virgin Mary in a tree root. The forests of the sanctuary have been protected by Catholic Church authorities in the centuries since.The researchers also found and photographed the extremely rare Perija parakeet, of which only 30 to 50 indi...
More About: Cute , Animals , Smile
Hawk families that hunt in organised squadrons
2007-06-28 03:33:00
Birds of prey are not naturally cooperative, yet Harris's hawks, which are found in the deserts of Central and South America, hunt together in groups of from three to six birds. A breeding female may be joined by more than one male.Assembling at dawn, they split up into scouting groups and make short forays in search of prey - usually jack rabbits - but gather together again from time to time. Sometimes the hawks capture an unwary rabbit by diving on it from different directions, but they also use a flush-and-ambush technique that is well suited to the rough and scrubby terrain with its abundance of cover. In this, some of the birds surround and watch the prey, ready to pounce, while others try to flush it from its hiding place.Another method used is a relay attack in which each hawk of the team takes turns to chase and dive bomb the quarry - this demands the most energy so is the least commonly used. After the kill, the hunters divide the prey between them. A team of six birds is ...
More About: Animals , Hawk , Families , Quadro , Quad
Does the brain have its own painkillers?
2007-06-27 14:09:00
Scientists now know that the brain can produce its own natural opium-like chemicals, called endorphins. But the brain releases small amounts of these natural narcotics only in response to the stress of some sort of trauma. Their effect is evident in accident victims, who feel no initial pain after a traumatic injury, for example, or in marathon runners, who are insensible to soreness until after they finish their race. Endorphins can provide only temporary relief.
More About: Science , Brain , Kill , Painkillers , The Brain
How does alcohol affect the mind?
2007-06-27 11:24:00
It takes only minutes for the alcohol in a sip of beer, wine, or liquor to enter the bloodstream and reach the brain. There alcohol swiftly finds the neocortex, the area of the brain where, among much other activity, many of the signals that affect our social behavior are processed. Some of these signals apparently work to increase our caution and inhibit our gregariousness, raising our anxiety about interacting with people.Somehow, alcohol counteracts the inhibiting signals in the neocortex, and one result is that people who feel self-conscious at a cocktail party find themselves loosening up after a drink. This may happen, according to one theory, because alcohol blocks the action of a neurotransmitter known as GABA, which is essential for creating anxiety messages in the neocortex.After a typical drink's worth of alcohol, it takes the liver about an hour to break down the alcohol circulating in the bloodstream. Amounts in excess of roughly an ounce per hour build up in the blood...
More About: Science , Alcohol , Mind , The Mind
How to talk to someone who is hard of hearing
2007-06-26 05:05:00
If you have a friend or family member who is hard of hearing, you can work out effective ways of communicating. If talking to a hearing-impaired person is new to you, here are some tips on being a good communicator.1. Face the person you are speaking to; be sure you have his or her attention before you start talking.2. It's best not to eat, chew gum, or cover you mouth while talking: it distorts you speech.3. If you aren't being understood, don't repeat yourself. Try rephrasing what you've been saying.4. Speak clearly and at your normal voice level. Never shout.5. If you are in a noisy area, move to a quieter spot if you can.6. Try not to stand with bright light behind you; the glare makes it difficult to read your facial expressions and gestures as you talk.7. Naturalness can smooth over rough spots, so relax and be yourself.8. With practice, your communication with the hard of hearing will become easy and pleasant.
More About: Society , Talk , Hard , Hearing , Some
How do we recognize what we are seeing?
2007-06-26 04:38:00
We don't just see people and things, we recognize them for who and what they are. Most of us take this ability for granted, but it is a very complicated process - and one not yet fully understood by scientists.One theory - called the feature-detection model of vision - suggests that individual cells along the visual pathway are pre-programmed to respond to certain shapes. Cells programmed to recognize different types of curved lines, for instance, might work together to recognize a face.Feature detection led to speculation (most of it humorous) about the existence of a "grandmother cell," one single cell in your brain imprinted with the image of your grandmother. But the grandmother-cell model implied the brain would need to assign a different cell to everything seen in a lifetime, and this data-storage task would be too great even for the adept human brain. Critics of the feature-detection model have also pointed out that the process of assembling all those shapes into an image wo...
More About: Science , Recognize
Smart Jewellery
2007-06-25 13:58:00
The diamond ring of the future will radiate its unique beauty?quite literally?thanks to a minuscule radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip embedded in it. Scientists at Hitachi Research Labs in Japan have devised the smallest RFID tag ever, just 0.05 millimeter by 0.05 millimeter, tinier than a grain of sand. The so-called powder chip is thin enough that it can be mixed with paper pulp to add a layer of counterfeit protection to gift certificates, passports and currency. It's also caught the interest of the jewelry industry, which could invisibly embed the chip in rings and necklaces to track their origins, making them more difficult to sell illegally.Each chip stores a unique 38-digit ID number. When stimulated by an RFID reader, the chip emits its code, verifying its identity. The code is integrated into the chip's circuitry, making counterfeiting impossible.Hitachi unveiled the chip in February and plans to take it to market in 2009. Wal-Mart might be one of the first retai...
More About: Technology , Jewellery , Smart , Well , Weller
The private language of identical twins
2007-06-25 03:27:00
Parents of twins often notice that their children develop strange habits of speech. When one child starts a sentence, the other will finish it. Or the twins may invent private words and phrases that no one understands but themselves. Such behaviour occurs with about 40 per cent of all twins, but normally stops around the age of three. In exceptional cases, however, this secret communion between twins may last longer and go much further.Sister tongueThe most famous example in recent times was the case of Grace and Virginia Kennedy, identical twins born in Georgia, USA, in 1970. As infants they were left in the care of a German-speaking grandmother and saw little of their English-speaking parents or of other children. By the time they were two, the twins had developed the habit of chattering to one another in what appeared to be complete gobbledegook. They had special names for each other - Grace was 'Poto' and Virginia became 'Cabenga' - and produced sentences like 'Snap aduk, C...
More About: Twins , General , Language , Private , Twin
Fishy sleeping bag
2007-06-23 05:37:00
Although fish have no eyelids and cannot shut their eyes, they still rest and sleep. Some sleep buried in the sand, others seek out a crevice or tangle of seaweed safe from marauding night time predators, while the little clown fish found in tropical coral reefs is covered with a special mucus that allows it to hide among the poisonous tentacles of a sea anemone.Yet no sleeping place is stranger than that of some species of parrotfish, which spend the night in a sleeping bag. These members of the perch order of fishes are robust and blunt-headed, and measure up to 1.2 m (4 ft) long.Often coloured in bright shades of blue, green, yellow, orange and red, they are found in tropical and subtropical coral reefs worldwide. As they settle down for the night among the corals, they secrete from their bodies a transparent cocoon of sticky mucus that surrounds them. This process takes up to half an hour, and a similar amount of time is needed for the fish to free themselves in the morning.The ...
More About: Sleeping , Animals , Ping
Handy brain
2007-06-23 04:33:00
Forget the clicker: A new technology in Japan could let you control electronic devices without lifting a finger simply by reading brain activity.The "brain-machine interface" developed by Hitachi Inc. analyzes slight changes in the brain's blood flow and translates brain motion into electric signals.A cap connects by optical fibers to a mapping device, which links, in turn, to a toy train set via a control computer and motor during one recent demonstration at Hitachi's Advanced Research Laboratory in Hatoyama, just outside Tokyo."Take a deep breath and relax," said Kei Utsugi, a researcher, while demonstrating the device on Wednesday.At his prompting, a reporter did simple calculations in her head, and the train sprang forward _ apparently indicating activity in the brain's frontal cortex, which handles problem solving.Activating that region of the brain _ by doing sums or singing a song _ is what makes the train run, according to Utsugi. When one stops the calculations, the trai...
More About: Technology , Handy , Brain
Ducky - The world's tiniest dog alive
2007-06-21 05:00:00
He looks like a wingless bat, quacks like a duck, lounges in a car seat, and naps in a baby's playpen. Occasionally, over his perky ears and bulbous eyes, he wears a suede bomber jacket and crystal necklaces.At 1.4 pounds and 4.9 inches tall, the yappy short-coat Chihuahua now has something to flounce about: Duck y of Charlton was declared the world's smallest living dog, by height, by Guinness World Records , according to documents his owner presented."People say Chihuahuas are miserable and evil," said Lisa Messier , who bought the nearly 3-year-old dog for $5,000 when he was 13 months and named Macho Man. "I think they're really sweet, and if you want to go some place, you can just throw him in your pocketbook."Messier, who owns eight other Chihuahuas, said she spent about $600 for a fast-track review by Guinness World Records. "My husband is laughing at me, but I think it's cool," she said.Ducky succeeds Danka Kordak of Slovakia, a Chihuahua who measured 5.4 inches tall. The ...
More About: Animals , Alive
Speed of light
2007-06-20 05:42:00
The long rivalry between Queen Elizabeth I of England and King Philip II of Spain came to a head in 1588 when Philip sent 130 ships towards England with orders to invade. The feared Armada was on its way.The English had known since 1586 of the likelihood of a Spanish invasion and were well prepared. Yet the Spaniards could attack anywhere along the south coast, and it was clearly impossible to deploy defence forces everywhere. In the event of an attack, everything would depend on the speed with which information could be transmitted and defences mobilised.Tried and testedThe usual method of communication - messengers on horseback - was far too slow. So an older, quicker way, which had often served England well in times of threat, was pressed into service: a network of beacons, on headlands and hills, stretching all over the country.On July 29, when the Armada was spotted making its way up the English Channel, the first beacon, on the Cornish coast, leapt into flame. Immediately the ...
More About: History , Light , Speed
Living with limits
2007-06-18 08:02:00
Japan has one of the richest and most powerful economies in the world, but the density of the population means the average Japanese lives in extremely cramped conditions. In Tokyo particularly, home to one in every four of the population of Japan, the demand for housing far exceeds supply. As a result, accommodation tends to be small - 90 per cent of the houses have less than 100 sq m (1075 sq ft) floor space.Traditionally, the internal walls of Japanese houses are made of paper mounted on wooden frames. While the houses are cool in summer, they can be very cold in winter. They are not designed to last for more than about 40 years, but have one major advantage: they are quick and easy to rebuild if damaged in an earthquake.Today many Japanese houses have Western-style interiors, but in virtually all homes one or two rooms have traditional tatami mats on the floors. The mats measure 1.8 m (6 ft) by 1 m (3 ft 3 in) and are 750 mm (3 in) thick. They are made of straw and reed, edged wi...
More About: Living , General , Limits , Ving
The real Mata Hari
2007-06-17 05:25:00
In July 1917, at the height of the First World War, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, alias Mata Hari , went on trial for her life before a military tribunal in Paris. She was accused of having passed French military secrets to the German enemy - secrets so vital they had cost no less than 50,000 French lives, the prosecutor claimed. As a sensational tale of sex and espionage unfolded before the court. Margaretha's anguished declarations of innocence fell on deaf ears. The tribunal had no hesitation in pronouncing her guilty and sentencing her to death by firing squad.Dancing into dangerYet the facts of Margaretha's life suggest she was more a harmless, bewildered victim of circumstance than a dangerous secret agent. Born in the Netherlands in 1876, she married a Dutch Army officer when she was 19 and lived for a time in Java and Sumatra. In 1905, back in Europe and separated from her husband, she embarked on a career as an oriental dancer, first under the name of Lady MacLeod and then ...
More About: Crime , Real
Champions of the water
2007-06-16 11:27:00
The fastest fish in the ocean is the sailfish. By flattening its large sail-like dorsal fin to its back, and thus streamlining its body, it is capable of swimming at speeds of 100 km/h (60 mph) over 90 m (300 ft) - faster than a sprinting cheetah. By comparison, the fastest human swimmer can manage only about 8 km/h (5 mph).The fastest swimming mammal is the common dolphin, which can reach speeds of 55 km/h (35 mph). This great speed is achieved with minimal muscular effort and can, in part, be attributed to the dolphin's silky smooth skin, which is lubricated with oil. (Artificial skin similar to that of the dolphin has been produced for torpedoes to reduce turbulence and achieve greater speed.)As with swimming, the diving abilities of animals put humans to shame. The deepest possible human breath-held dive, without artificial aids, is about 100 m (330 ft). Emperor penguins can reach depths of more than 260 m (850 ft) and remain underwater for 18 minutes.But even this remarkable f...
More About: Animals , Champions , Water , Champion , Cham
Sweat Reason
2007-06-15 04:51:00
You might not expect a bird and a badger to have much in common, but in tropical Africa an unusual collaboration between the two assists both creatures to obtain one of their favourite foods: honey.The small bird known as the honey guide is remarkably adept at finding the nests of wild bees, but it cannot get into them and is wary of being stung. Its 'accomplice', the ratel, or honey badger, on the other hand, has powerful claws that easily break the nest open, and it is well protected from the bees' stings by a tough hide and a thick layer of fat.Bees are less active in the cooler parts of the day, and it is then that the honey guide sets out on its search. When the bird finds a nest, it flies off in search of a ratel, attracting its attention with a distinctive song. Then, fluttering and singing, it leads the ratel through the forest, making shorter and shorter flights as it nears the nest site.The bird waits while the ratel plunders the nest and devours the honey. Then it take...
More About: Nature , Reason
How does the brain change with age?
2007-06-14 13:24:00
By age 80, the brain will have lost, on average, 7 percent of its peak weight. As the brain ages, it loses neurons, and the speed of some types of thinking can slowdown. Uncorrected hearing loss and failing vision also impair mental alertness.However, the older brain compensates by increasing its "crystalline intelligence," or the ability to solve problems by using previously acquired knowledge and solutions. Experience proves to be the best teacher and something the aged clearly have more of than the young.
More About: Science , Change , Brain , Chang , Chan
Can you decipher these famous names?
2007-06-14 11:11:00
They made their mark on history, but their signature are almost unreadable. To try your hand, write the numbers 1 to 24 on a separate sheet of paper. Then match each number to one of the clues listed here without seeing the answers given below.1. Polish composer-pianist 2. Novelist (Oliver Twist) 3. The little corporal 4. American naval hero 5. Queen of Scots 6. Sailed the ocean blue 7. Called "the Terrible" 8. Italian conductor 9. Romantic poet ("Don Juan") 10. Der Fuhrer 11. French painter, lithographer 12. French general, statesman 13. Watergate 14. Florentine artist, engineer 15. Il Duce 16. French impressionist 17. Civil War general 18. Ceiling painter 19. Assassinated U.S. president 20. The Red Baron 21. "Guernica" 22. Austrian psychoanalyst 23. British royal favourite, explorer 24. The Bard of Avon1. Chopin 2. Charles Dickens 3. Napoleon 4. John Paul Jones 5. Mary, Queen of Scots 6. Christopher Columbus 7. Ivan the Terrible 8. Arturo Toscanini 9. Lord Byron 10. Hitler 11. Tou...
More About: Famous , Ames , These , Names , Cipher
How keen is the sense of taste?
2007-06-13 15:13:00
On your tongue are about 10,000 taste receptors. They are called taste buds, but "taste hairs" would be a more accurate name in that these receptors project like hairs from the walls of the tiny trenches that run between the bumps on your tongue. When you eat, the receptors send signals to the brain, which translates the signals into combinations of sweet, bitter, salty and sour tastes.Newborn babies have few taste buds but soon after birth more buds begin to grow, and by early childhood they cover the top and some of the bottom of the tongue, as well as areas in the cheeks and throat. Since young children have many more taste buds blooming in their mouths than adults, they frequently find foods to be too bitter or spicy. Adults, on the other hand, often seek out bitter or spicy foods because of a declining number of taste buds. In children and adults, each taste bud lives a matter of days before it is replacedBitterness can be detected in a solution as weak as one part per 2 millio...
More About: Science , Sense , Taste , Ense , Sens
Can dreams really produce great ideas and inspired solutions?
2007-06-11 05:14:00
Elias Howe (1819 - 1867) an American inventor had worked for years on a machine to mechanize sewing, but couldn't get it right. Then one night he had a dream in which he was attacked by savages. They gave him an ultimatum: made a machine that sews or die! As the dream warriors raised their spears, Howe noticed holes through the tips of the weapons. That was the answer: a needle with a hole at the point instead of the shank!Artists too have credited dreams with inspiring some of their best work. Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed the entire poem "Kubla Khan" came to him in a dream. A dream supplied Robert Louis Stevenson with a plot twist for The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.But it is questionable whether dreams alone are ever the sole source of creative solutions or expressions, and it is hardly advisable to abandon all conscious effort at problem solving in favour of letting dreams do it.As the Nobel Prize winning biochemist, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, said, "My work is not fin...
More About: Science , Ideas , Dreams , Great , Solutions
Do people really have a sixth sense?
2007-06-10 14:44:00
Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch: these are the five senses that Aristotle (Arastoo in Hindi) named more than 2000 years ago. But modern scientists recognize several others, including the perception of pain, heat, and cold, and a sense that few of us are aware we have - proprioception. The name from the Latin proprius ("one's own") and recipere ("to receive"), was coined early in the 20th century by British Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington. He called proprioception "our secret sense, our sixth sense."Also known as kinesthesis, this sense is vital to your awareness of your own body, reporting where you are in space and where your arms, legs, head, and other body parts are in relation to one another. Thanks to proprioception, you can touch your nose when blindfolded, and bring your fingers together behind your back with unerring precision.Proprioception is basic to your sense of your physical self. Yet much of the time it is unconscious. Your brain is "...
More About: Sense , People , Ense , Sens , Really
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