View Full Version : TRIVIA
For those of you who just thought you knew everything, here's a re-fresher course...............
Now you know everything
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as a substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than seven (7) times.
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty (50) years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one (1) olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
So did the first "Marlboro Man."
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least six (6) feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush. (I keep my toothbrush in the living room now!)
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first U.S. president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second ?
William Jefferson Clinton
(Please don't tell me you're SURPRISED!?!!)
And the best for last.....
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
(I know some people like that; don't YOU?)
Now you know everything there is to know.
Have You Ever Wondered...
Why does the sun lighten our hair,
but darken our skin?
Why can't women put on mascara
with their mouths closed?
Why don't you ever see the headline
"Psychic Wins Lottery"?
Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor,
and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money
called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic
called rush hour?
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
When dog food is new and improved tasting,
who tests it?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
You know that indestructible black box
that is used on airplanes?????
Why don't they make the whole plane
out of that stuff?!
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments
when they are all stuck together?
If con is the opposite of pro,
is Congress the opposite of progress?
Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
In the 1400's a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.
Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
Coca-Cola was originally green.
It is impossible to lick your elbow.
The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...)
The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%
The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:
Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander, the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and CharlesThomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?
A. Their birthplace
Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
A. Obsession
Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?
A. One thousand
Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?
A. All invented by women.
Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?
A. Honey
Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?
A. Father's Day
In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."
It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month . which we know today as the honeymoon.
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."
It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired
by this practice.
~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~
At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow
How Organizations were named
Yahoo!
The word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.
Xerox
The Greek root "xer" means dry. The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product Xerox as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying.
Sun Microsystems
Founded by four Stanford University buddies, Sun is the acronym for Stanford University Network.
Sony
From the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.
SAP
"Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by four ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.
Red Hat
Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone!
Oracle
Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consulting project for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The code name for the project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or something such).
Motorola
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radio company at the time was called Victrola.
Microsoft
It was coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.
Lotus
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from the lotus position or 'padmasana.' Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Intel
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their new company 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.
Hewlett-Packard
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.
Hotmail
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing email via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casings.
Google
The name started as a jockey boast about the amount of information the search-engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. After founders - Stanford graduate students Sergey Brin and Larry Page presented their project to an angel investor, they received a cheque made out to 'Google
Cisco
The name is not an acronym but an abbreviation of San Francisco. The company's logo reflects its San Francisco name heritage. It represents a stylized Golden Gate Bridge.
Apple Computers
Favourite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 o'clock.
Apache
It got its name because its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'A PAtCHy' server - thus, the name Apache.
Adobe
The name came from the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of founder John Warnock.
FULLY DESI
Pretty amusing...but mostly true and interesting. Guess at least some of them are common globally also though... Read this it's really cool, don’t be surprised. If you can picture some friends and relations when you read these. You are Indian if...
1. Everything you eat is savoured in garlic, onion and tomatoes.
2. You try and reuse gift wrappers, gift boxes, and have course aluminium foil.
3. You try to eject food particles from between your teeth by pressing your tongue against them and making a peculiar noise like, tshick, tshick, tschick, tschick.
4. You are standing next to the two largest size suitcases at the Airport.
5. You arrive one or two hours late to a party and think it’s normal.
6. You peel the stamps off letters that the Postal Service missed to mark up.
7. You recycle Wedding Gifts.
8. You name your children in rhythms (example, Honey & Money, Sita & Gita, Ram & Shyam.
9. All your children have pet names, which sound nowhere close to their real names.
10. You take Indian snacks anywhere it says "No Food Allowed"
11. You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
12. You load up the family car with as many people as possible.
13. You use plastic to cover anything new in your house whether it's the remote control, VCR, carpet or new couch.
14. Your parents tell you to not care what your friends think but they won't let you do certain things because of what the other "Uncles And Aunties" will think.
15. You buy and display crockery, which is for special occasions, which never happen.
16. You have a vinyl tablecloth on your kitchen table.
17. You use grocery bags to hold garbage.
18. You keep leftover food in your fridge in as many numbers of bowls as possible.
19. Your kitchen shelf is full of jam jars, varieties of bowls and plastic utensils (got free with some house hold items).
20. You carry a stash of your own food whenever you travel (and travel means any car ride longer than 15 minutes).
21. You own a rice cooker or a pressure cooker.
22. You fight over who pays the dinner bill.
23. You majored in engineering, medicine or law and now........are after Software and only Software no matter which field you belong to.
24. You live with your parents and you are 4 0 years old. (And they prefer it that way).
25. You don't use measuring cups when cooking.
26. You feel like you've gotten a good deal if you didn't pay tax.
27. You never learnt how to stand in a queue.
28. You can only travel if there are 5 persons at least to see you off or receive you whether you are travelling by bus, train or plane.
29. If she is NOT your daughter, you always take interest in knowing whose daughter has run with whose son and feel proud to spread it at the velocity of more than the speed of light.
30. You only make long distance calls after 11p.m.
31. If you don't live at home, when your parents call, they ask if you've eaten, even if it's midnight.
32. You call an older person you never met before "uncle."
33. When your parents meet strangers and talk for a few minutes, you discover you're talking to a distant cousin.
34. Your parents don't realise phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making foreign calls.
35. You have bed sheets on your sofas so as to keep them away from getting dirty.
36. When dining out, you think Rs 10 is enough of a tip.
37. It's embarrassing if your wedding has less than 600 people.
38. You list your daughter as "fair and slim" in the matrimonial no matter what she looks like.
39. You treat the NRI persons (especially from America) as if they are the only persons living in this world (including YOU).
40. You've seen the ground while inside the lavatory of a train.(This one really got me!! You too huh??)
41. All your tupperware is stained with food colour.
42. You have drinking glasses made of steel.
43. You have mastered the art of bargaining in shopping.
44. You have really enjoyed reading this mail.
45. You will now forward this mail to your friends.
Ages
=====
There are three ages.
Youth
Middle Age
and
“Gee, you look good for your age!”
Fascinating facts and one mythbuster to impress your friends, start conversations and save the world from itself
In 1933, Mickey Mouse, an animated cartoon character, received 8,00,000 fan letters.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice. Some consolation: he found them ‘sympathetic’.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
Some turtles can breathe through their butts. Sea cucumbers can too. The latter can also disembowel themselves when disturbed: they eject the digestive tract and respiratory tract from the anus.
The innards crawl around by themselves for a while outside the animal, and as they are sticky they can also entangle an attacker. The sea cucumber then blithely crawls off to regenerate its digestive tract.
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. And the para****e. And the first bicycle 300 years before it appeared on the roads.
The Jelly Belly company manufactures 'Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans', a favourite of Harry Potter The assortment contains more conventional flavours such as cherry, blueberry and green apple, you'd best choose carefully or you end up with one of the less appealing flavours — including black pepper, rotten egg, earthworm, soap, earwax, booger and vomit.
Mythbuster: If you swallow chewing gum, it takes seven years to get digested and pass out of your system
It's true that chewing gum is mostly indigestible. But it will still make its way through your digestive system at the same rate as anything else you consume.
Pointless trivia
==========
The ancient Romans dyed their hair with bird droppings.
A rat can go without water longer than a camel can.
During his life time, the average male eats 50 tons of food.
The lens of the eye continues to grow throughout a person’s life.
The two lines that connect the bottom of your nose to your lip are called the philtrum. The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula.
It takes around 2,00,000 frowns to create a permanent brow line.
Only pharaohs were allowed to eat mushrooms in ancient Egypt.
In ancient China, doctors received their fees only if their patient were kept healthy. If the patient’s health failed, the doctor sometimes paid the patient.
Cows can be identified by nose prints.
70 per cent dust consists of human skin.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have only been 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
A single drop of liquid contains as many as 50 million bacteria.
You share a birthday with at least nine other million people in the world.
In your lifetime, you will produce enough saliva to fill an average sized swimming pool, up to 8000 gallons.
Koala bears make really fussy eaters, they eat only eucalyptus leaves and only 6 of the 50 species of eucalyptus that exist.
The parasitic male anglerfish stays with his partner for life — literally. Once the tiny male attaches to the much larger female, his tissues fuse with hers, he loses his sight and smell and gets nourishment from her bloodstream.
Vikings used the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels.
Chewing gum while peeling onions keeps you from crying.
If you are right-handed, you sweat more under your left arm. If you are left-handed, you sweat more under your right arm.
Tomatoes were once referred to as “love apples.†This is because there was a superstition that people would fall in love by eating them.
The word Spain means “the land of rabbitsâ€.
If your body’s natural defences failed, the bacteria in your gut would consume you within 48 hours, literally eating you from the inside out.
Parasites count for 0.01 per cent of your body weight.
In Alabama, it is against the law to wear a fake moustache that could cause laughter in the church.
Babies are born without kneecaps. They don’t appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years
Pointless trivia
By: A Sunday Mid Day Correspondent
June 11, 2006
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If you have a tapeworm in your stomach it will come up when you are asleep to lick the salt off your lips!
Woodpeckers have tongues so long they can wrap them around their brain to cushion it when they are pecking.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark!
The Grammy Awards were introduced to counter the threat of rock music. In the late 1950s, a group of record executives were alarmed by the explosive success of rock ’n roll, considering it a threat to “quality†music.
***The fear of ageing is called gerascophobia.
In ancient Greece, women counted their age from the date they were married.
The typical laboratory mouse runs 2.5 miles per night on its treadmill.
A cheetah does not roar like a lion — it purrs like a cat (meow).
No two zebras have stripes that are exactly alike.
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
Penguins are the only other animals that openly allow and participate in prostitution. While the males look after the eggs the females go off and sleep with other males who have more impressive nests. As payment they receive a stone from the males nest!
Graphics by Gynelle Alves
Some thing for advanced vocabulary.....
1. Cigarette : A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end & a fool at the other.
2. Love affairs : Something like cricket where one-day internationals are more popular than a five day test.
3. Marriage : It's an agreement in which a man loses his bachelor degree and a woman gains her master
4. Divorce : Future tense of marriage
5. Lecture : An art of transferring information from the notes of the lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either".
6. Conference : The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.
7. Compromise : The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.
8. Tears : The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water-power ..
9. Dictionary : A place where divorce comes before marriage.
10. Conference Room : A place where everybody talks, nobody listens & everybody disagrees later on.
11. Ecstasy : A feeling when you feel you are going to feel a feeling you have never felt before.
12. Classic : A book which people praise, but do not read.
13. Smile : A curve that can set a lot of things straight.
14. Office : A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.
15. Yawn : The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.
16. e.t.c. : A sign to make others believe that you know more than you actually do.
17. Committee: Individuals who can do nothing individually and sit to decide that nothing can be done together.
18. Experience : The name men give to their mistakes.
19. Atom Bomb: An invention to end all inventions.
20. Philosopher : A fool who torments himself during life, to be spoken of when dead.
21. Diplomat : A person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
22. Opportunist : A person who starts taking bath if he accidentally falls into a river.
23. Optimist : A person who while falling from Eiffel Tower says in midway "See I am not injured yet."
24. Pessimist : A person who says that O is the last letter in ZERO, Instead of the first letter in word OPPORTUNITY
25. Miser : A person who lives poor so that he can die rich.
26. Father : A banker provided by nature.
27. Criminal : A guy no different from the rest... except that he got caught.
28. Boss : Someone who is early when you are late and late when you are early.
29. Politician : One who shakes your hand before elections and your Confidence after.
30. Doctor : A person who kills your ills by pills, and kills you with his bills.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The average person will spend over two weeks of their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.
The tip of a 1/3 inch long hour-hand on a wristwatch travels at 0.00000275 mph.
The term Cop comes from Constable on Patrol. Its from England.
The saying once in a blue moon refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month.
The E Coli bacterium propels itself with a motor only one-millionth of an inch in diameter, a thousand times smaller than the tiniest motors built to date by man. The rotation of the bacterial motor comes from a current of protons. The efficiency of the motor approaches 100 per cent.
One in every 2000 babies is born with a tooth.
On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.
Astronauts cannot burp - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.
The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.
Koalas sleep an average of 22 hours a day, two hours more than the sloth.
In the 1400s a law was set forth that a man was not allowed to beat his wife with a stick thicker than his thumb. Hence we have the rule of thumb.
Weird, Amazing, Useless Facts
If you are right handed, you will tend to chew your food
on your right side. If you are left handed, you will tend to
chew your food on your left side.
-
If you stop getting thirsty, you need to drink more water.
For when a human body is dehydrated,
its thirst mechanism shuts off.
-
Your tongue is germ free only if it is pink.
If it is white there is a thin film of bacteria on it.
-
The Mercedes-Benz motto is 'Das Beste oder Nichts',
meaning 'the best or nothing.
-
The Titanic was the first ship to use the SOS signal.
-
The pupil of the eye expands as much as 45 percent
when a person looks at something pleasing.
-
The average person who stops smoking
requires one hour less sleep a night.
-
Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens
the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of
300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.
-
The roar that we hear when we place a seashell
next to our ear is not the ocean, but rather
the sound of blood surging through the veins in the ear.
-
Dalmatians are born without spots.
-
The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink.
All other birds raise their lower eyelids.
-
Roosters cannot crow if they cannot extend their necks.
-
Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die.
-
When you blush, the lining of your stomach also turns red.
-
When hippos are upset, their sweat turns red.
-
The lion that roars in the MGM logo is named Volney.
-
Google is actually the common name for a number
with a million zeros.
-
Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example,
saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan.
-
It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic
and 200 million to make a film about it.
-
The attachment of the human skin to muscles
is what causes dimples.
-
The sound you hear when you crack your knuckles
is actually the sound of nitrogen gas bubbles bursting
-
It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood cell
to circle the whole body.
-
Most soccer players run 7 miles in a game.
-
The only part of the body that has no blood supply
is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air.
-
In most watch advertisements the time displayed
on the watch is 10:10 because then the arms frame
the brand of the watch and make it look like it is smiling.
-
Colgate faced big obstacle marketing toothpaste
in Spanish speaking countries. Colgate translates
into the command "go hang yourself."
-
The only 2 animals that can see behind itself
without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.
-
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
-
Do you know the names of the three wise monkeys? They are:
Mizaru (See no evil),
Mikazaru(Hear no evil), and
Mazaru (Speak no evil).
-
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
-
German Shepherds bite humans more than any other breed of dog.
-
Large kangaroos cover more than 30 feet with each jump.
-
A whip makes a cracking sound because
its tip moves faster than the speed of sound.
Tokyo has had 24 recorded instances of people either killed or receiving serious skull fractures while bowing to each other with the traditional Japanese greeting.
The number of cars on the planet is increasing three times faster than the population growth.
Earth is the only planet not named after a pagan God.
Its impossible to smoke oneself to death with weed. You wont be able to retain enough motor control and consciousness to do so after such a large amount.
About three people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second.
The result is about a 2 and 2/3rds net increase of people every second. Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.
The number of people alive on earth right now is higher than the number of all the people that have died. Ever.
The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon, it measures three and a half miles in diameter.
Jaws is the most common name for a goldfish.
There are more than 40,000 characters in Chinese script. Literacy for the working citizen is defined as knowledge of 2,000 characters.
Japan is the largest exporter of frogs legs.
Endever(Ndvr)
14-09-06, 12:07 AM
TO TELL THE TRUTH, I REALLY DINT KNOW MORE THAN 20 % OF WHAT WAS DESCRIBED IN THE PREVIOUS PAGES.
RATING OF THIS POST :::::::::: 15 OUT OF 5 (15/5) (REALLY, ITS UNBELIEVABLE AND MARVELLOUS)
THANKS >>>> FOR ALL THAT !!
ENDEVER --- [RAHUL]
Rahul good to see you are becoming all-rounder !
==================================
A large cumulonimbus cloud can hold enough water for 500,000 baths.
A baby 'gray whale' drinks enough milk to fill more than 2,000 bottles a day.
If you are afraid that you might die laughing you are suffering from cherophobia.
In Budapest, they control the pigeon population by mixing birth control chemicals with the birdseed.
Animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike!
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
Biologists have discovered that cockroaches can change course as many as 25 times in one second, making them the most nimble beings known.
According to the U.S. government, people have tried more than 28,000 different ways to lose weight.
Hens don't crush the eggs they sit on because the main safety precaution is the hen is squatting, not sitting. Her full weight is not on the egg. Also, her body is contoured to fit just right over the egg, surrounding it with warmth without crushing it.
In the movie Psycho, during the shower stabbing, the sound that the knife makes penetrating the flesh is actually the sound of a knife stabbing a melon.
http://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/drive/epaperimages/13072007/dc5083632.jpgPLAYINGHIDE & SEEK? Xia Shujun chats with her husband Bao Xishun (56), who, at 7 ft and 8 inches, is the worlds tallest man, after their wedding yesterday PIC/AFP EOF8
What happens when the tallest man weds?
http://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/drive/epaperimages//13072007//dc5083633.jpgTHEINTRODUCTION: Bao and his bride Xia (extreme right) get introduced during their wedding ceremony at Genghis Khans mausoleum in north Chinas Inner Mongolia region PIC/AFP EOF8http://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/drive/epaperimages//13072007//dc5083634.jpgTHEHAPPYCOUPLE: Bao married the 5 ft and 6 inches tall Xia, who is half his age at 28, after conducting a worldwide search. Xia is from Bao's hometown of Chifeng in northern China PIC/AP EOF8
The car that won't start if you're drunk
Nissan's alcohol-detection sensors check odour, sweat and issue alert from navigation system
http://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/scripts/epaper/images/photo-gallery-icon.gifhttp://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/scripts/epaper/images/enlarge-image-icon.gifhttp://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/drive/epaperimages//08082007//dc5090490.jpgdrink carefully: A reporter has his sobriety checked by a gearshift as part of Nissans alcohol detection system in Yokosuka, Japan, on Monday pic/ap EOF8
Tokyo: Beer-breaths beware. A new concept car with breathalyzer-like detection systems may provide even greater traction for Japanese efforts to keep impaired drivers off the road.
Nissan Motor Co Ltd's alcohol-detection sensors check odour, sweat and driver awareness, issuing an alert from the navigation system and locking up the ignition if necessary.
Odour sensors on the driver and passenger seats read alcohol levels, while a detector in the gear-shift knob measures the perspiration of the driver's palm when starting the car.
Other car makers with detection systems include Volvo, which has technology in which drivers blow into a measuring unit before an engine can start. But Nissan's car includes a camera that monitors alertness by eye scans, ringing bells and a voice message that tells the driver to pull over and rest.
The technology is still in development, but Nissan spokesman Kazuhiro Doi says the detection systems will ultimately keep an eye on the driver.
"We've placed odour detectors and a sweat sensor on the gear shift, but, for example, if the gear-shift sensor was bypassed by a passenger using it instead of the driver, the facial recognition system would be used," said Doi.
Seat belts tighten if drowsiness is detected, and a monitor checks if the car stays in its lane.
Doi says they still have to distil exactly what impairment means, "If you drink one beer, it's going to register, so we need to study what's the appropriate level for the system to activate."
Largest known planet discovered
http://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/scripts/epaper/images/photo-gallery-icon.gifhttp://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/scripts/epaper/images/enlarge-image-icon.gifhttp://epapers2.mid-day.com/midday/drive/epaperimages/08082007/dc5090488.jpggas giant: The new planet TrES-4 is 70 per cent larger than Jupiter (left)
Cape Canaveral (Florida): An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest known planet orbiting another star.
The "transiting" planet meaning one that passes in front of its parent star as seen from Earth is about 70 per cent larger than Jupiter.
But the presumed "gas giant" has a much lower mass than Jupiter the biggest planet in our Solar System making it of extremely low density.
The new exoplanet, called TrES-4, is located in the constellation of Hercules and was discovered by a team working on the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES).
TrES-4 circles the star GSC02620-00648, which lies about 1,435 light-years away from Earth. Being only about 7 million km from its parent star, the planet is also very hot, about 1,327C.
Because of the relatively weak pull exerted by TrES-4 on its upper atmosphere, some of the atmosphere probably escapes in a curved comet-like tail.
"TrES-4 is the largest known exoplanet," said lead author Georgi Mandushev, from the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, US.
Surprising size
It is so big, in fact, that its size is difficult to explain using current theories about superheated giant planets.
"We continue to be surprised by how relatively large these giant planets can be," says Francis O'Donovan, a graduate student in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology which operates one of the TrES telescopes. Agencies
sizb786
10-01-09, 12:29 AM
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moonwalker786
12-07-09, 06:01 PM
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