PRISM :Top 5 nations

1. Iran
2. Pakistan
3. Jordan
4. Egypt
5. India

India has secured a place in top 5 nations, which are under surveillance by the US authorities in the notorious PRISM project. But how and why did India sneak into this top 5 positions. Whether Americans really perceive a threat from extremists or is it the sheer volume of population that drags it into top. The later is difficult to explain as China is not seen in the list, despite being the destination for launch pads for digital warfare against USA.

The new highest prime number.

The new number is two multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times, minus 1. It has around 17,425,170 digits.Curtis Cooper, a computer science professor at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg discovered the new number which breaks his own record.
Can it be anywhere useful ?
The method used to find out these numbers are very complex. It requires a sophisticated network among various computers to carry out such a large and tedious search. This network infrastructure can be applied in other field sometime in the future.

World Geography in 90 seconds

When the freak phenomenon gets a freaking name ...

Kallakkadal
The name given to the swelling of the sea in the southern coast of India.
In local language it means the sea that arrives like a thief unannounced.
Recent studies attribute this phenomenon to Remote forcing(see below).

Remote Forcing

• Storms in Antarctica causes swells which travel northwards in Indian Ocean
• Meets a southward moving current in the Indian Ocean
• Increasing the wave setup in the southern coast of India.

Enter the dragon : China

The most unprecedented growth, the infrastructure at it's best, an Olympic event that had stunned millions worldwide, and the portrayal as a superpower alternative to west. This had been the China in the previous decade or so.. In the years to come, China might be flexing others muscle by promoting trades in it's own currency, a tight fight over control of pivotal South China sea, a bigger role in every matter. But the only contrast here is it all depends only on a single man and his decisions. The present premier will be retiring in the coming days, the whole world will be watching the China as it transits to another leader. Rather they will be watching keenly the moves of it's new leader.  China will be celebrating the Lunar New Year or Spring festival  from tomorrow. The Chinese tradition allots a single animal for every 12 years. And this year the assigned animal is the "Dragon" - a composite of nine animals ; the snake, camel,elk,deer, muscle,carp,eagle tiger and ox. A fictitious animal portrayed like a snake with claws.  The next 12 years would definitely be crucial for China. Though it enters this new year with a bang, there are several issues that has to be addressed. An intellectually growing middle class is more aware now and might questions it's own government policies in the coming days. Whether this top-down process of high growth still work without much involvement of masses? Ultimately will the authoritarian style of working of Chinese politics survive.  As the Chinese takes on the powerful west, the west will certainly be hitting China at these weak areas. Will China be able to fire with it's dragon on others in the coming years or just crawl like a snake dealing with it's own problems ?

SOPA and PIPA is not all about piracy ...

The US Congress is mulling over the draconian SOPA and PIPA act. Is it just the piracy of copyrighted materials their primary concern? There are serious doubts that they are concerned more about the piracy. The freedom, the internet gives to the citizens are immense. The internet gives an identity to a citizen. A person can access everything in the social media which is not available in other forms of media due to restrictions by the government. The power of the social media was seen in the Arab uprising which finally led to the toppling of three dictators who held their foot strong for decades. But there seems to be an emergency to put hold on these type of open media as any government with wrong polices are vulnerable. The recent Occupy Wall street is one of the instance where USA faced the fire from its own idea of freedom of expression. The social media unites the people for a cause but the ruling elite never favors such regrouping as it exposes them to the bottom. Whether it is democratic or communist country, the rulers want their position to be above law. The power corrupts the people, whether you are in a communist state or a democratic one. So are these draconian laws in disguise of piracy prevention.

December 2012 Doomsday is actually not coming ...

There was lot of talks about impending doomsday in December 2012. The Hollywood and many of the the media rallied around the point and aired the Doomsday often pointing to the Mayan Calender which according to them has ended on December indicating the end of the world. But the scientific community has nevertheless rebuffed the doomsday allegation and has logically explained the reasons.

• The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012. Then these two fables were linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 -- hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.
• 
  The Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period and another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
• 
  There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate centre of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
• 
  Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye.
• 
  A reversal in the rotation of Earth is impossible. There are slow movements of the continents (for example Antarctica was near the equator hundreds of millions of years ago), but that is irrelevant to claims of reversal of the rotational poles. However, many of the disaster websites pull a bait-and-shift to fool people. They claim a relationship between the rotation and the magnetic polarity of Earth, which does change irregularly, with a magnetic reversal taking place every 400,000 years on average. As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth. A magnetic reversal is very unlikely to happen in the next few millennia, anyway.

Nobel Prize : The history

Nobel prize was introduced by wealthy Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel -- the inventor of dynamite, except for the economics award, which was created by Sweden's central bank in 1968 in Nobel's memory.
The prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace were first awarded in 1901.
The economics Nobel prize was awarded in 1969.
Alfred Nobel is known for his inventions in the field of armaments. One of the most notable invention is the dynamite.In 1888, Alfred was astonished to read his own obituary, titled ‘The merchant of death is dead’, in a French newspaper. After 8 years in 1896 when Alfred Nobel passed away, to everyone's astonishment the last will specified that his fortune be used to create a series of prizes for those who confer the "greatest benefit on mankind" in physics, chemistry, peace, physiology or medicine, and literature.  

Blog, Twitter, Facebook is mightier than bombers, tankers & F-16s

"Pen is mightier than a sword" Now these words has become an old concept. The swords have been replaced by various modern weapons. The refined words will go like this-
"Blog, Twitter, Facebook is mightier than bombers, tankers & F-16s"
Is these twitter, facebook and many other micro blogging sites really such powerful? Infact it is true. The arab uprising, frequently termed as Jasmine revolution was fueled by the anger of people. This anger was propagated and organized into a full blown revolution through the help of these sites. Arab countries like Egypt, Libya has already seen its autocratic leaders going back to home after this revolution. Now autocratic rulers and communist leaders fears that the same fate might be waiting for them. The great dragon that is the China, fears a micro blogging site because it can convert the citizens anger against government turn into a revolution.
Indians has also recently tasted the success of anti-corruption movement, which was spearheaded by Anna Hazare combined with the power of micro blogging. This was even termed as India's own Arab uprising by many foreign media.

Remembering 9/11 - News Archive

The complete archive of news of 9/11 collected in a systemic manner.

http://www.archive.org/details/911/day .

Longest bridge in the world - Chini be kum nahi !!!

China has officially announced the opening of the The Jiaozhou Bay bridge which is 26 miles (42 kilometers) long, which can be considered as an architectural marvel.
It links China's eastern port city of Qingdao to the island of Huangdao.
This is presumably the longest cross sea bridge in the world and is 4 kms longer than the earlier one located in Loisiana in USA.
This shows that the China is all set to give the USA a tough competition for the Superpower race in the coming decades.

The farthest location from the coastline : Gurbantunggut desert

Gurbantunggut desert located in the extreme northwest of China is the farthest location from the coastline. The nearest coastline is about 2370kms away from this location.

Given name, surname, Middle name for GRE, USMLE

There has been a lot of confusion while applying for GRE, USMLE regarding the Given name, surname, Middle name.
I have these two links of blogs which makes the things clear. Hope it helps you people.

http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/lastname-passport-transcripts-gre-application/

http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/given-name-vs-surname-passport-india/

Largest Carnivores

Largest Carnivores is the southern elephant seal -Mirounga leonina
Weighing around 3000 to 4000 kgs (males) with a length around 7 metres

Heaviest terrestrial mammal

African Elephant-Loxodonto africana is the heaviest terrestrial mammal
Wt
7500kg
16534lb

When the Wikileaks becomes the breaking news

The release of classified things by Wiki leaks has been a boon to the print media for the quantity of breaking news it provides nevertheless its quality.....
But it seems a bit awkward when US announces that the whistleblower wikileaks will leak; oops will whistleblow the classifields and also warns its allies about it....
The leaks of the classified to the media, that too the government getting a prior info on the leak and both the concerned downplaying the leaks may all lead to some people concluding it a mere farce...!!!

Walking Man 1

Signifying the anxiety and hope of Cold war.
By Alberto Giacometti's...

Rio de Janeiro the 2016 Olympics host

The Old capital of Brazil- Rio de Janeiro has done it to the Olympics 2016
IOC President Jacques Rogge made the announcement that The city of Rio de Janeiro has been elected as the Host City of the Games of the XXXI Olympiad at the 2016the IOC’s 121st Session in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Competitors : Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo

Europe had the most voting members with 46 (including Rogge), followed by Asia with 23 , Africa with 15, North America with 13, South America with five and Oceania with four.

The competition venues in Rio de Janeiro will be clustered in four zones--Barra, Copacabana, Deodoro and Maracanã.







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Climate and weather difference

Climate is a general term used to indicate the atmospheric condition of a place over a large period of time. Temperate and tropical climate have their distinct characteristics.
Where as weather is a term used to indicate the prevailing condition over an area for that period of time or for a limited period of duration. Weather may be cold, hot, humid etc.
Climate can be considered as the average of changing weather conditions over a large area.

Continents of hope

Continents of hope by Kentaro Nagai - Japan for his project "Piece together for Peace"