Unsaid by Neil Abramson

Unsaid is an extraordinary story of animal, mortality and power of love. The story is told from the point of view of Helena Colden, who has recently died of cancer. Helena was a veterinarian and had mercifully escorted thousands of animals to the other side. Now, having died herself, she finds that it is not so easy to move on. She is terrified that her 37 years of life were meaningless, error-ridden, and forgettable. So Helena haunts -- and is haunted by -- the life she left behind. Meanwhile, David, her shattered attorney husband, struggles with grief and the demands of caring for her houseful of damaged and beloved animals. But it is her absence from her last project, Cindy -- a chimpanzee who may unlock the mystery of communication and consciousness -- that will have the greatest impact on all of them.

ABTA Reveals Numbers for the Great Festive Getaway

ABTA also know as Association of British Travel Agents, estimates that 4.25 million Britons will be heading overseas this Christmas and New Year period (16 December – 3 January), compared to just under 4 million twelve months ago, with the peak travel days predicted to be 22 and 23 December.

Christmas and New Year is traditionally one of the peak getaway periods but this year sees an increase in the number of people looking to get away to relax and have fun with loved ones. Many are looking for a traditional white Christmas experience and despite a dry start to the season, much welcome snow has begun to fall in Europe. Ski resorts in France, Austria, Switzerland and Italy have all sold well with the week around the New Year traditionally the busiest of the season.

Millions of people will be leaving the country through the major airports, which include Heathrow where 1.7 million will be leaving, Stansted 425,000, Gatwick 750,000, Luton 210,000 and Glasgow 120,000. In addition 340,000 will leave from Manchester, 165,000 from Birmingham.

Chronicle - 2012

A science fiction horror film set in the found footage format. The film is about three high school students in Portland who go into the woods one night and make an incredible discovery (after touching a mysterious object in the woods), leading to their developing uncanny powers beyond their understanding. As they learn to control their abilities and use them to their advantage, their lives start to spin out of control, and their darker sides begin to take over.

The film is written by Max Landis, directed by Josh Trank starring Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw, Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Anna Wood, Joe Vaz, Luke Tyler and Matthew Dylan Roberts. Scheduled to be released on February 3, 2012 by 20th Century Fox.

Louboutin to Open First Men's Store in US

Christian Louboutin, whose red-soled footwear is coveted by women worldwide, is to open his first US boutique for men in New York next spring, Women's Wear Daily reported Wednesday.

1,035-square-foot (96-square-meter) shop in the Meatpacking District comes after the French designer opened his first boutique dedicated to men's shoes last September in Paris. Louboutin's current line of footwear for men includes a two-tone satin "John John" derby for $895 and a black leather sneaker-like boot for $995 that features corset-like laces running all the way down to the toebox.

"The men's shoes only represent a small portion of the business at present but we think it has huge potential for the future," said Alexis Mourot, chief operating officer for the brand.

Adam Lambert Arrested, Jailed in Finland

Seem like things got quite heated when "American Idol" star Adam Lambert and his boyfriend Sauli Koskinen got into a fight. How else to explain that Lambert spent several hours locked up in a Finnish jail cell following a clash with Koskinen.

According to TMZ report, an argument between the two started inside of a bar in Helsinki and ended up on the street. Lambert allegedly was physical with the locals who tried to separate the two. When police arrived on the scene, both men were taken into custody. Talk about a public display of aggression. The arrests were made at 4 a.m. Thursday outside of DTM club. Petri Juvonen, the officer who is heading the investigation said that the couple was released after the interrogation.

The trip was to be a fun one for Lambert, who tweeted in Finnish his excitement upon arrival on Wednesday that "Helsinki is a beautiful city full of beautiful people! Thank you!"

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MERRY CHRISTMAS WORLD !

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سکون قلب وا شکیب نظر کی بات کرو

گزر گئ ھے شب غم سحر کی بات کرو

Twitter, Google, Huffington Post, Facebook, Slate ....

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless

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LHC Discovers Its First New Particle

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider report the discovery of its first new particle since its launch in 2009.


The particle called Chi_b (3P) has implications in understanding the forces that hold matter together. It is "a more excited state of Chi particles already seen in previous collision experiments" (the BBC reports).


Prof Roger Jones of Atlas detector at the LHC told  BBC News that the "new particle is made up of a 'beauty quark' and a 'beauty antiquark', which are then bound together.


"It's also interesting for what it tells us about the forces that hold the quark and the anti-quark together - the strong nuclear force. And that's the same force that holds, for instance, the atomic nucleus together with its protons and the neutrons."

"The better we understand the strong force, the more we understand a large part of the data that we see, which is quite often the background to the more exciting things we are looking for, like the Higgs.

"So, it's helping put together that basic understanding that we have and need to do the new physics."

The Rate Of Cyber Crime

According to a recent Norton cybercrime report, 431 million adults in 24 countries experienced some type of cybercrime over the past year  (14 adults per second). The top three cybercrimes, according to the study, are viruses or malware, online credit card fraud and phishing - or email scams.
The total bill for cybercrime over the past year was $388bn, more than 100 times the annual expenditure of UNICEF ($3.65 billion).

World's Oldest Yoga Teacher Is 91-Years-Old

Bernice Bates, 91, set a record for being the World's Oldest Yoga Teacher. She's been doing yoga since 1960 and teaches one class a week in St. Petersburg, FL.

Mexican Mayans Begin 'End Of Era' Countdown

Mayan communities in Mexico have started a year-long countdown to mark the 'end of era' on 21 December 2012.




The BBC reports:


"The Mayan civilization, which reached its peak between 250 and 900AD, was fascinated by astronomy, mathematics and the cycles of time.

Its Long Count calendar began in 3114BC and moves forward in 394-year periods known as Baktuns.

The winter solstice in 2012 marks the end of the 13th Baktun, a date of special significance that reflects celestial alignments recognised by modern astronomers.

The idea that it could mean the end of the world - based on a Mayan text carved into a stone 1,300 years ago - has been spread on thousands of websites.

But archaeologists and Maya experts say the prophecy predicts the return to Earth of a powerful god and the start of a new era, not a global catastrophe.

They point out that other Maya prophecies refer to events far in the future.

This has not stopped the spread of millennial fears around the world.

Tourism officials are hoping that some of those who believe the end of the world is nigh will take the opportunity to visit the Maya region before it is too late."

Mexican priests are holding special ceremonies with the tourist industry expecting around 52 million visitors in 2012.

Unexplained Mysteries of 2011 and Into 2012

"As we head inexorably toward 2012, we decided to look back at some of the strangest mysteries of this past year, and some of the mysteries that remain with us as we enter the new year."

Benjamin Radford's article in Discovery elaborates upon Mysteries in 2011 and 20122. He discusses 5 of those which were solved by the end of this year, namely The Jerusalem UFO Video, The Mysterious Magnetic Boy( a seven year old boy who claimed to be magnetic!) , The Beast of Gévaudan ("the beast who killed peasants, farmers, and shepherds with impunity), The Chupacabra( another beast even more mysterious and worrisome then the Gevaudan- a vampire) and The Russian ET.

He then discusses five more, which he categorizes as those entering the next year,2012, that is.These include:

• Mysterious Bee Deaths in colonies, a major concern for scientists
• The oil spill that poured almost 5 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico, the consequences of which, scientists still have no clue of
• Life on planets such as Kepler10b(an exoplanet about one and a half times the size of Earth) and K22b ("A planet about twice the size of Earth which has been confirmed to exist right in the middle of the 'habitable zone' around its star, which is much like our own...  known to be "a life-friendly alien planet"-a first of its kind.)
• Faster than Light Experiments that have already gained much popularity (see SDT reports)
• Finally, the possibilty of Doomsday in 2012 (Many people have suggested that the year 2012 will bring some sort of significant global change, either in the form of catastrophic disaster or perhaps a new age of enlightenment, says Radford)

Read Full article here, Its very interesting

Amazing Über Internship - Students Running A 3 Star Hotel

Launched ten years ago in the Don Milani high school in the town of Rovereto, “Mission in Polsa” is the only project of its kind in Europe, allowing kids to manage a hotel for two weeks in a completely independent way.

Professor Maurio Enea came up with the great idea of giving students real business environment. 

He said: 

"We wanted to provide the students with an opportunity to do for real the things that they study, with real responsibilities," "Too often during their internships, our students are offered only minor duties. Our goal is to give them the opportunity to choose, to make decisions, maybe to make mistakes -- but always using their own brains."

During the project students managed a 150-bed chalet in the Italian Dolomite mountains for two weeks with no grownup supervision and very demanding customers were already there, students from other schools and special guests, such as local businessmen or the ambassador of Burundi, who was paying an official visit to the region.

Scientists Engineer Mosquito Immune System To Block Malaria

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute gave the first ever  successful demonstration on how Anopheles mosquito's innate immune system could be genetically engineered so that the spread (infact transmission through mosquito) of Malaria would no longer be.

"The immune system of the Anopheles mosquito is capable of killing a large proportion but not all of the disease-causing parasites that are ingested when the mosquito feeds on an infected human," said George Dimopoulos, PhD, senior author of the study and associate professor in the W. Harry Feinstone Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "We've genetically engineered this immune system to create mosquitoes that are better at blocking the transmission of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. "

Reference: Medical News Today

A Pakistani's World Tour on a Motorbike

The 25-year-old Moin Khan,has made a record by completing his America-to-Pakistan Journey on a "motorbike".

Moin began his 25,000 kilometres ride to his motherland on Honda CBR 600 F4i sport bike from Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco on  July 9th.With an immense love for motorbikes, his determination to complete a "world tour" proved to be a successful one. Roaming through 25 countries on the same bike, Moin reached Quetta today, December 23rd. He kept uploading his pictures and videos on facebook, throughout his journey. Click here to view his facebook page, called "A Different Agenda".

Berlin's Neuroscientists Decode Important Mechanism Of Nerve Cell Communication

Neuroscientists of the NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence have found out a significant relaionship between a protein and neural communication. Using "flies" for experiments, they demonstrated that the "RIM-binding protein" is highly significant in releasing the neurotransmitter that assists in such communication process. This research shall prove vital for further research on the disease "Autism" and its treatment.People with autism (a functional development disturbances of the brain) suffer from genetic defects in this protein.

Researchers claim, "The initial functional description of the fruit fly's RBP-protein (therefore does not only )extend our comprehension of neuronal communication, it also provides a reference point to help understand brain malfunctions that occur with autism." They hence claim to contribute towards an effective treatment using these findings.

Ukraine To Build A New Tourist City in Crimea by 2014

Improving the level of offered services to tourists as well as creating new jobs – these are the aims behind a colossal project of a new city in Crimea. Ukrainian government plans to develop the region and attract more visitors.

A new ‘tourist city’ is to be built in Crimea, one of the most popular parts of Ukraine among holidaymakers. The aim is not only to attract tourists but also to provide jobs for the locals.

According to Borys Kolesnikov, the Deputy Prime Minister, the development of the new resort near the city of Yevpatoria (Eupatoria) is part of a national plan to transform the Crimean peninsula in an attractive tourist destination.

Currently, the tourism infrastructure of the region and the quality of services barely meet the existing potential. Therefore, the Ukrainian government decided to invest in Crimea and to attract more foreign investor

Girl Swept Away by Tsunami returns home 7 years later

A 15-year-old Indonesian girl who lost got swept away in Indian Ocean tsunami seven years ago, has found her family family yesterday, December 23rd. The girl could not control her tears when she succeeded tracing back her parents.

Reiterating her story, she told the media, that soon after the Tsunami she was "adopted" by a woman who actually forced her into begging. Once the little girl failed to produce any money for her foster mother, she was told "Go ahead, leave ... go find your parents then, they're in Meulaboh."

The brave girl, did not give up neither did she beg anything-money, life or a home place.  Determined to find her parents back, she set on the mission and finally succeeded after a long painful struggle of seven years.Full story can be read here.

Entertaining Facts

• Hardest tongue-twister: “Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick”
• Longest English word without a vowel twyndyllyngs which means "twins".
• The word "dreamt" is the only common word in the English language that ends in "mt".
• Albert Einstein never wore any socks.
• The average human will eat 8 spiders while asleep in their lifetime.
• In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity.
• Hummingbirds are the only creatures that can fly backwards.

Being the BEE!

By Sarah Mahmood


What makes a successful man? It is never high hopes only with feet up on the table.

Success demands diligence. Diligence comes from dedication. And that, my dear friends, is a direct product of our love for the work that we do. I see kids today, hoping to achieve a lot through one shortcut or the other. "I want to become a businessman and earn billions," says one. "Nah, that's difficult I want to be an industrialist," says another. "Mate, that's tough work. I'd much rather be a so-and-so," pipes in a third.

Be it any field, the top tiered are always the hard workers. Excellence comes not from what particular line of work you choose. Rather, it depends on the effort you are willing to put in (and of course the willingness is always proportional to your likeness for the work!) 

In short, learn from the bee!

Your Worry Can Kill You

Penny Sarchet carefully inspected placebo effect (harmful effects linked to a harmless substance -- the opposite of placebo effect) and wrote an essay on nocebo effect and became one of the winning entries in a writing contest sponsored by the Wellcome Trust in association with theGuardian and The Observer, who have been on the lookout throughout the UK for the next generation of outstanding science writers. 

Essay concludes that only if patient believe on doctor's ability to recover him, it can be more effective than medication. Read the essay below to understand how only worries of dying can kill people. 

The Nocebo Effect

Can just telling a man he has cancer kill him? In 1992 the Southern Medical Journal reported the case of a man who in 1973 had been diagnosed with cancer and given just months to live. After his death, however, his autopsy showed that the tumour in his liver had not grown. His intern Clifton Meador didn't believe he'd died of cancer: "I do not know the pathologic cause of his death," he wrote. Could it be that, instead of the cancer, it was his expectation of death that killed him?
This death could be an extreme example of the "nocebo effect" - the flip-side to the better-known placebo effect. While an inert sugar pill (placebo) can make you feel better, warnings of fictional side-effects (nocebo) can make you feel those too. This is a common problem in pharmaceutical trials and a 1980s study found that heart patients were far more likely to suffer side-effects from their blood-thinning medication if they had first been warned of the medication's side-effects. This poses an ethical quandary: should doctors warn patients about side-effects if doing so makes them more likely to arise?

The nocebo effect can also be highly infectious. In 1962, 62 workers at a US dressmaking factory were suddenly stricken with headaches, nausea and rashes, and the outbreak was blamed upon an insect arriving from England in a delivery of cloth. No insect was ever found, and "mass psychogenic illnesses" like these occur worldwide, usually affecting close communities and spreading most rapidly to female individuals who have seen someone else suffering from the condition.

Until recently, we knew very little about how the nocebo effect works. Now, however, a number of scientists are beginning to make headway. A study in February led by Oxford's Professor Irene Tracey showed that when volunteers feel nocebo pain, corresponding brain activity is detectable in an MRI scanner. This shows that, at the neurological level at least, these volunteers really are responding to actual, non-imaginary, pain. Fabrizio Benedetti, of the University of Turin, and his colleagues have managed to determine one of the neurochemicals responsible for converting the expectation of pain into this genuine pain perception. The chemical is called cholecystokinin and carries messages between nerve cells. When drugs are used to block cholecystokinin from functioning, patients feel no nocebo pain, despite being just as anxious.

The findings of Benedetti and Tracey not only offer the first glimpses into the neurology underlying the nocebo effect, but also have very real medical implications. Benedetti's work on blocking cholecystokinin could pave the way for techniques that remove nocebo outcomes from medical procedures, as well as hinting at more general treatments for both pain and anxiety. The findings of Tracey's team carry startling implications for the way we practise modern medicine. By monitoring pain levels in volunteers who had been given a strong opioid painkiller, they found that telling a volunteer the drug had now worn off was enough for a person's pain to return to the levels it was at before they were given the drug. This indicates that a patient's negative expectations have the power to undermine the effectiveness of a treatment, and suggests that doctors would do well to treat the beliefs of their patients, not just their physical symptoms.

This places a spotlight on doctor-patient relationships. Today's society is litigious and sceptical, and if doctors overemphasise side-effects to their patients to avoid being sued, or patients mistrust their doctor's chosen course of action, the nocebo effect can cause a treatment to fail before it has begun. It also introduces a paradox – we must believe in our doctors if we are to gain the full benefits of their prescribed treatments, but if we trust in them too strongly, we can die from their pronouncements.

Today, many of the fastest-growing illnesses are relatively new and characterised solely by a collection of complaints. Allergies, food intolerances and back pain could easily be real physiological illnesses in some people and nocebo-induced conditions in others. More than a century ago, doctors found they could induce a hay fever sufferer's wheezing by exposure to an artificial rose. Observations like these suggest we should think twice before overmedicalising the human experience. Our day-to-day worrying should be regarded as such, not built up into psychological syndromes with suites of symptoms, and the health warnings that accompany new products should be narrow and accurate, not vague and general in order to waive the manufacturer's liability.

As scientists begin to determine how the nocebo effect works, we would do well to use their findings to manage that most 21st-century of all diseases – anxiety.

Source: The Guardian

Which Language Is Best At Getting Straight To The Point?

Few language are sweet, others are bit complex to speak. Few need more pauses
Linguists from the University of Lyon in France looked at seven widely spoken languages to see how they rank in terms of efficiency.

Top 4 languages were:
English,
Chinese
German
Japanese

All researchers found that no matter how slow a language is, the complexity of syllables means that information is imparted as quickly as it is in faster languages. Thus, for example, a slow and very complex language like German manages to rate as slightly more efficient than fast-paced Japanese. And it comes in third after English, which garnered first place, and Chinese, which came in second.