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Monday, October 30, 2006

Scary Movies

Remember the scene from Poltergeist, where the main female character is chilled with fear when she sees the chairs stacked up on the table after she turned around for a few seconds? Click on the picture to remember 99 more such scenes from the scariest flicks.

Happy Halloween!

How big is the Earth?



Click the picture to compare the size of Earth with other planets and stars in our Universe. Makes me feel humble... very humble!

"Color of the Cross" portrayes Jesus as black

The movie Color of the Cross (October 27, 2006), which deals with last 48 hours in the life of Jesus, is the first movie that diverts from the popular image of Jesus and depicts Jesus as a black person.
Is it at all possible, that despite the popular belief, despite the fact that he is always shown as a white man with blond hair and blue eyes, Jesus was actually black? The answer comes from a branch of science, called forensic anthropology. Click here to find out what scientists think Jesus might have looked like.

Friday, October 27, 2006

The elephant who fell in to a Black Hole

Stephen Hawking admitted he was wrong in his belief on black hole radiation. It was due to the ground breaking work of a young theorist named Juan Maldacena.
Do black holes really consume the information?
Is the entire universe an enormous cosmic hologram projected from its boundary? Is the location and fate of the elephant different based on where is the observer? This short article written in a lucid and comprehensive manner aims to answer all these questions.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Hover Ball

We all know the most addictive games are the simplest ones. This is one such, where the objective is to keep the ball hovering in between the floor and the ceiling as long as you can. And hey, the game is accompanied with some loud jazzy music too! So start clicking, and keep the ball in the air!

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

The New Periodic Tables!

After 140 years since the periodic table was first laid down, new formats are being proposed. Among the newer proposals, there are spiral and even 3D models. Click the picture to see a snapshot of some of the newer models and judge if they can compete with the periodic table yourself.

Hebrew University devices cure for Malignant Brain Tumor

A group of researchers in Hebrew University of Jerusalem develop a way to cure the most lethal Brain Tumor - mode of application being through an injection. They have effectively developed a vaccine containing double stranded RNA, which will be absorbed by the tumor and finally cause the tumorous cells to "commit suicide". They have observed 100% success rate on mice on which human tumors were grown. The therapy also has potential for applying to cancer patients.

Click here to read the entire story.

Clockz

Lots of nice innovative, amazing, futuristic, and cool clocks here in this site. All of them can be viewed online, or downlaoded for personal use. My personal favourite is the Micky Mouse watch. Nice work :)

Face on Earth

Remember the Face on Mars? It made news when Viking 1 took a photograph of a place in Mars, which had surprising amount of resemblance to human face. It was explained that human eyes are trained to find patterns whenever they look at something. Among hundreds and thousands of natural formation, some will resemble elements that are familiar. So the face on Mars was dismissed as nothing more than a random rock formation. Later inspections proved that the lighting in that region at the point of time when the photograph was taken was critically responsible for the resemblance.Thanks to Google Earth now we can make similar discoveries on Earth. The picture shows a rock formation which can be seen in a region in Canada. Doesn't it remind you of ancient cave sculptures?! Click to view it directly in Google Map.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Carl Sagan on Evolution


An amazing 8 minute animated video where Carl Sagan (late American astronomer, astrobiologist, author of numerous popular science books) summarizes our evolution, spanning 4 billion years.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Sand Arts


Be a part of the audience as this artist mesmerizes you with a handful of sand. The accompanying music score works very well to create the mood!

Bet your life

Remember the scenes in the movies where the hero bets his life with another person? Both of them sweating... and the suspense is unbearable! This is the same game replicated here in the form of flash. A really addictive flash game, although not recommended for the light hearted! The background music adds to the environment.

Juggle with 3 balls


A very nice video by Jason Garfield, one of the professional jugglers in the world, who teaches you step by step, how to juggle with three balls. Watch and learn the art on Google Video.

Variations of Wikipedia

Who doesn't know about the Wikipedia?
Yes, it's the web based encyclopedia that is free for everyone to use, and contribute. Given the fact that anyone can change almost any article in it, it is truly amazing that the quality of the information in it well rivals commercial encyclopedias. Kudos to Wikipedia!

Here are the other interesting Wikis that I have encountered.
  • Encyclopedia Dramatica - Another parody of Wikipedia, apparently the Wikipedia admins got so irritated with it that they "took it personally", and subsequently deleted the Encyclopedia Dramatica entry from their site!
  • Uncyclopedia - "Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is a satirical parody of Wikipedia, though Uncyclopedia claims the reverse." - Wikipedia
  • Simple Wikipedia - This a simpler version of the Wikipedia designed for slower (mentally challenged) people.
  • Memory Alpha - And finally here it comes, the Star Trek Wikipedia.

Pong 2.0

Here's another addictive web game... what's different about it is that two players on the same computer can play it. Play for a while and then you will also get the hang of spinning the ball... then the fun level doubles! Bewarned... it can kill lots of time.
One player controls the pad with 'W' and 'S' , the other controls it with Up key and Down key.
And also, for the single player mode, the high scores are stored online.
Have fun!

Teacher sets young minds on fire

This chemistry teacher shows that sometimes the safety limits should be broken to ignite the minds of the young people. I only wish I had a teacher like him!
Click on the picture to read the full story.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

What is the most weird grammatically correct sentence that you know? Brace yourself because it may put you in a spin for a while. The following is a proper English sentence...
"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

Here Buffalo is used with three different meanings.
a) Buffalo, New York the city
b) The animal buffalo, in plural - equivalent to buffaloes
c) To deceive

So what it means is Buffaloes in buffalo who are buffaloed by buffaloes in Buffalo,buffalo buffaloes in Buffalo.

It is a grammatically correct sentence used as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated constructs. It has been known to exist since 1972 when the sentence was used by William J. Rapaport, currently an associate professor at the University at Buffalo. It was posted to Linguist List by Rapaport in 1992. It was also featured in Steven Pinker's 1994 book The Language Instinct.

Sentences of this type, although not in such a refined form, have been known for a long time. A classical example is a proverb "Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you".

Visit Wikipedia for more information on this sentence, including the detailed grammatical construct and other similar examples.