Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
A famous 1935 book called Rats, Lice and History, by bacteriologist Hans Zinsser, expounds on the “intimate role” that lice played in the social life of the human race until well into the 19th century. “It was not so long ago, indeed, that its prevalence extended to the highest orders of society, and was accepted as an inevitable part of existence like baptism, or the smallpox,” he writes.
Some cultures even incorporated the parasite into their traditions, according to Zinsser. The Aztec people collected lice from their bodies in small bags and laid them at the feet of their king. Native people of Northern Siberia threw lice on a visitor in a traditional declaration of love. Zinsser explains this as “a sort of ‘My louse is thy louse’ ceremony.” A Swedish town in the Middle Ages elected a mayor by placing a louse in the middle of a table of eligible candidates, and “The one into whose beard the louse first adventured was the mayor for the ensuing year.”
Later, some Europeans took to shaving their heads and wearing a wig in an effort to deter lice, but the wigs themselves were often full of nits. Nitpicking was a way of life; educated children, however, were taught that it was “improper to take lice or fleas or other vermin by the neck to kill them in company, except in the most intimate circles,” according to Zinsser.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Afforestation mistake in Andaman....first cut six to seven plants and then take four bamboos and make this fence , plant a tree..never revisit or take care of it.In total kill eleven to twelve plants...AND TRY TO GROW ONE!
I agree that iron fences cannot withstand the saline winds near seashores but this is not the best alternative.HUMOSAPIEN ONLY CAN EXPERIMENT LIKE THIS!
Monday, February 11, 2008
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Monday, October 1, 2007
"Wake up, Jimmy!" she shouts from downstairs, "it's six-thirty,
time to get up and go to school!"
"Aw, Mom," Jimmy shouts back, "I don't wanna go to school!"
"Come on, Jimmy!" she says as she walks into his room, "you gotta go!"
"No, Mom," protests Jimmy, in tears, "I hate school! The kids hate me,
the teachers hate me, even the janitor hates me!"
"Jimmy, come on, get up, you gotta go!" says Mrs. Smith, pulling him out
of the bed, "you are forty years old, and you are the headmaster!"
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Gol Maal could be translated as "Risky/Crooked Business" or "Hanky Panky". It is the story of a fun loving and happy-go-lucky guy Ramprasad Dashrathprasad Sharma (Amol Palekar), who is a chartered accountant and is looking out for a job. His uncle advises him to seek employment at his friend Bhavani Shankar's (Utpal Dutt) firm who is a very strict person and has a fascination for Indian values and the "moustache". He believes that a moustache represents one's conscience. Mr Shankar is ready to pay a few hundred rupees as salary to a young, inexperienced man as long as he fits his values. On his uncle's advice Ramprasad gets a job by exaggerating his Indian values (by wearing an excessively short kurta pajama instead of his usual flashy shirts, using his full name without abbreviations, simulating ignorance of music and sports and demonstrating professionalism.)
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Ajit ki 2crore ki lottery nikali
Robert: Lottery wala apko tax kat kar 1cr 75 lakh dega boss.
Ajit: yeh galat hai, mujhe pure 2cr do, nahin to mera 10 Rs. wapas karo.
A crow shits on Ajit, Mona gives him a tissue paper
Ajit: koi fayda nahin Mona, kauwa to udd gaya!
Ajit: Rabert meri aur meri girlfriend ki shaadi hone wali hai
Robert: Kab boss?
Ajit: meri 14 Jan ko aur uski 20 Feb ko.
Ajit: main cooler ke samne baith jata hu
Robert: Phir bhi garmi lage to?
Ajit: to cooler chala leta hun.
Ajit: “Robert, dayna (Diana) ko kuch khatta pila do.”
Robert: “Kyu boss?”
Ajit: “Bewkoof, woh dayna se daynasour ho jayegi, phir extinct kar dena.”
Ajit: “Robert, is bull ka stool test karo. Aakhir pataa to chale ki ye bullshit kya cheez hai.”
Ajit: “Robert, isey peacock poison pila do, yeh more sey no-more ho jayegaa...”
Rawbert: Boss, China se Mr.Hu aayee hain.
Ajit: Goli maar do. Hu mar jaane par humor ban ke sab ko hasayenge.
Ajit: Maikal, ise liquid helium mein daal ke 440 V pass kar do. Phir yeh superconductor ban jaayega, aur zindagi bhar ticket kaat-ta reh jaayega!
Maikal: Baaas, yeh aadmi to kuch bol hi nahin raha hai. Kya karen?
Ajit: Ise revaalving chair mein daal do. Pata chal jaayega chakkar kya hai.
Ajit: Raaberrt, Mona ke dono hathon ko kaat do.
Rawbert: Magar kyoon baas?
Ajit: Typing to nahi atee, kamsekam shaarthand to seekh legi.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Earlier I posted a cartoon in this blog depicting the creativity of the crow.Now read this....
New Caledonian crows, famed for their tool-making skills, can also use tools to manipulate other tools. Such “metatool” use shows that the crows have the brainpower to apply their skills to a completely new situation and plan ahead to solve a task, researchers believe.
Working with captured wild crows, Russell Gray and his team from the University of Auckland in New Zealand hid a treat in a box so that a crow could only extract it with the help of a long stick. This kind of task is easy for the tool-using crows.
But then the researchers added a twist by placing the long stick in a cage, out of the crows' reach. No problem: the birds used a second, shorter stick, to get the first one, then took it back to the box to get the food.
“Six out of seven crows tried straight away to use the short stick to get to the long tool. There was no trial and error,” says Gray.
Metatool use is normally only seen in humans and apes. Even monkeys struggle in similar experiments. This is thought to be due to the cognitive complexity of the task, which requires using a tool on an intermediate object in a novel context before tackling the real goal, which is to extract the food.
Gray believes that the best explanation for such flexible, hierarchical behaviour is that the crows are using "analogical reasoning", applying previous experience – tool gets food - to solve a novel, but structurally similar problem – tool gets tool gets food.
But Sabine Tebbich from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who wasn't involved in the study, thinks that while the crows' behaviour in this experiment is “truly remarkable”, it is too early to make claims about analogical reasoning, because wild crows tend to use tools to explore their environment.
“We can't rule out that they have done similar tasks before in the wild,” she says. More experiments are needed to show how the crows are reasoning, she says.
Nathan Emery from the University of Cambridge, UK, however, who recently found evidence for analogical reasoning in the food-hiding behaviour of closely related birds, says the crows probably use similar cognitive skills. “This study shows their ability to plan a few steps ahead and demonstrates another striking convergence between crow and ape intellectual abilities,” he says.
- 16 August 2007
- NewScientist.com news service
- Nora Schultz