Amazing facts-Youngest Surgeon-Akrit Jaswa

Youngest Surgeon-Akrit Jaswal.

A year ago a footage emerged from a remote village in India. The video showed a young girl receiving surgery to separate her fingers, which were badly burned and fused together. Why did this operation make headlines around the world? The surgery was performed by a 7-year-old boy named

Now 13 years old, Akrit has an IQ of 146 and is considered the smartest person his age in India a country of more than a billion people. Before Akrit could even speak, his parents say they knew he was special.

'He learned very fast,' says Raksha, Akrit's mother. 'After learning the alphabet, we started to teach him joining of words, and he started writing as well. He was two.'

At an age when most children are learning their ABCs, Akrit was reading Shakespeare and assembling a library of medical textbooks. When he was 5 years old, he enrolled in school. One year later, Akrit was teaching English and math classes.

Akrit developed a passion for science and anatomy at an early age. Doctors at local hospitals took notice and started allowing him to observe surgeries when he was 6 years old. Inspired by what he saw, Akrit read everything he could on the topic. When an impoverished family heard about his amazing abilities, they asked if he would operate on their daughter for free. Her surgery was a success.

After the surgery, Akrit was hailed as a medical genius in India . Neighbors and strangers flocked to him for advice and treatment. At age 11, Akrit was admitted to Punjab University . He's the youngest student ever to attend an Indian university. That same year, he was also invited to London's famed Imperial College to exchange ideas with scientists on the cutting edge of medical research.

GIANT CAVE PICTURES: World's Biggest Found in Vietnam

GIANT CAVE PICTURES: World's Biggest Found in Vietnam- 

Son Doong Cave

A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows.

At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.

A British caver wades through an underground river in Vietnam's Son Doong cave, the largest single cave passage yet found, a survey team reported in July 2009.

First explored in April, the cave has since been measured using high-tech lasers that give "dead accurate" sizes, according to an expert with the International Union of Speleology.

Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long.

By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even longer.

In addition, for a couple of miles Son Doong reaches more than 460-by-460 feet (140-by-140 meters), said Adam Spillane, a member of the British Cave Research Association expedition that explored the massive cavern.

Spillane was in the first of two groups to enter the cave. His team followed the passage as far as a 46-foot-high (14-meter-high) wall.

"The second team that went in got flooded out," he said. "We're going back next year to climb that wall and explore the cave further."

(See photographs of the Son Doong cave.) 

Son Doong cave (in Vietnamese: Hang Sơn Đoòng, meaning Mountain River Cave) is a cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, Bo Trach District, Quang Binh Province, Vietnam. The cave is located near the Laos-Vietnam border. It has a large fast-flowing underground river inside.
The cave was found by a local man named Hồ-Khanh in 1991. The local jungle men were afraid of the cave for the whistling sound it makes from the underground river. However, not until 2009 was it made known to the public when a group of British scientists from the British Cave Research Association, led by Howard Limbert, conducted a survey in Phong Nha-Ke Bang from April 10-14, 2009. According to Limbert, this cave is five times larger than the Phong Nha cave, previously considered the biggest cave in Vietnam. The biggest chamber of Son Doong is over five kilometers in length, 200 meters high and 150 meters wide. With these dimensions, Son Doong overtakes Deer Cave in Malaysia to take the title of the world's largest cave

International Space Station Imagery-Impact of an asteroid

ISS012-E-09639 (29 Nov. 2005) --- The impact of an asteroid or comet several hundred million years ago, according to scientists, left scars in the landscape that are still visible in this International Space Station/Expedition 12 picture of an area in the Sahara Desert of northern Chad. The concentric ring structure is the Aorounga impact crater, with a diameter of about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles). The original crater was buried by sediments, which were then partially eroded to reveal the current ring-like appearance. Scientists note a number of valleys cut by thousands of years of wind erosion. The area shown is centered at approximately 19.1 degrees north latitude and 19.3 degrees east longitude.

Source

Leaning Tower of Pisa Facts

Leaning Tower of Pisa is the one of the most intriguing historic architectural marvels of the world, situated in Italy. Known as ‘Le Torre Pisa’ in Italian, it is a freestanding bell tower of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. Situated behind the cathedral, it is the third monument in the Piazza del Duomo. Though the Tower was intended to be vertical initially, it soon gave in during the early stages of construction, tilting towards southwest. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is considered to be a work of art, which took nearly two centuries to be completed. For some interesting and fun facts about the Leaning Tower of Pisa, read on.

Interesting & Fun Facts about Leaning Tower of Pisa

• The height of the Tower is 58.36 meters from the foundation and 55 meters from the ground.
• The Tower is an 8 storied building.
• There are seven bells located in the bell Tower, all tuned to musical scales.
• The weight of the Tower is measured to be 14,453 tons.
• The area of the annular foundation is 285 sq m and the average pressure on the ground is 497 kPa.
• The present inclination of the Tower is measured to be about 10%. Moreover, the value corresponding to the eccentricity on the loads on the foundation is 2.3 meters.
• The Tower has a cylindrical body, encircled by arcades with arches and columns resting upon the base, surmounted by a belfry.
• The central body is basically a hollow cylinder, which comprises of an external wall facing of shaped ashlars, in white and grey San Giuliano limestone and an inner wall facing of worked limestone. Between these two wall facings, an annular masonry area is provided.
• The masonry area within the two walls comprises of a spiral staircase with 293 steps, leading to the sixth arcade.
  

Some traditions regarding the old Anatomy Theatre of Padua University

M. Rippa Bonati, Some traditions regarding the old Anatomy Theatre of Padua University

Just over four hundred years ago, on the 16th of January 1594, the Anatomy Theatre of the University of Padua was inaugurated. Still today, it arouses both curiosity and admiration among the numerous visitors to the Palazzo Bo. It is easy to understand this reaction both now and in the past: the chronicler of the Nazio Germanica (one of the `nations', or groups, students were organised into), who was usually not given to effusions, proudly wrote that "almost everyone in the city" had hastened to take part in the celebrations 1. We do know though, that the impressive wooden structure can only accommodate about two hundred people, thus, can reasonably assume that in reality, on that auspicious day, very few `ordinary' Paduans had the rare chance of entering the hallowed, exclusive, academic precincts of this unique Anatomy Theatre itself. Probably, however, few people outside the academic world were really able to understand the aims and the significance of the various phases of this disquieting, perhaps threatening, "operation". 

Portal, when discussing the more obscure and controversial aspects of anatomical research, observed that "the public exaggerates everything and it considers anything it doesn't understand to be a marvel" 2. If this is true then it is not difficult to suppose that any event which excited interest will have fed popular myths rumours and credences, many of which still survive. Indeed, today there are many traditions and tales told, regarding the construction and use of the Anatomy Theatre 3, whose origins are difficult to trace, even though they are much less exaggerated than they might have been seeing that the Anatomy Theatre was in use for almost three centuries 4, and that the dissection of human bodies, autopsy, is always surrounded by an air of understandable secrecy and superstition. The rumours and traditions, the "metropolitan legends", described here offer a balanced mixture of reality and imagination, a cocktail, that explains people's continuing interest in the vicissitudes of the Anatomy Theatre which today, after long and careful restoration work, is once again open to visitors 5. 

Tradition, says: the Anatomy Theatre of Padua University is the oldest in the world. It was built, and paid for, by Girolamus Fabricius ab Acquapendente who, at the time, was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. The structure was designed by Fra' Paolo Sarpi. Dissection was carried out in secret as it contravened both the civil and religious Laws of the period.

The first commonly accepted `fact', that the Anatomy Theatre `is the oldest in the world', is neither right nor wrong, but should be qualified: it is the oldest permanent Anatomy Theatre, still in existence today. `Permanent' and `still in existence' must be specified. On the one hand because we know that temporary anatomy theatres were in use in Padua from the mid-15th century on and, on the other, because Padua is not the only University that claims to have been the first to construct a permanent classroom-laboratory. In the first case, however, the `Theatre' was a simple, frame structure which was only assembled when a practical lesson was given and then dismantled immediately after use. These temporary structures are known today thanks to both Alessandro Benedetti (c. 1455 - 1525) 6, who, in his work De Anatomia, published in the early 16th century, describes the uses and usefulness of such a theatre for autopsies and to Andrea Vesalio (1514 - 1564), who chose a frontispiece for his work De humani corporis fabrica which offers a lively representation of just such a structure 7. This image , which has been elaborated so as to eliminate the one hundred-odd onlookers, is, currently, the only existing pictorial evidence of early anatomy theatres.

Anatomical Theatre

An anatomical theatre was an institution used in teaching anatomy at early modern universities.

The theatre was usually a room of roughly amphitheatrical shape, in the centre of which would stand the table on which the dissections of human or animal bodies took place. Around this table were several circular, elliptic or octagonal tiers with railings, where students or other observers could stand and get a good view of the dissection almost from above and unencumbered by the spectators in the rows in front. It was common to display skeletons at some place in the theatre; in Leiden, 17th century depictions show that the living observers were actually accompanied in the rows by a large number of animal and human skeletons, some of which held banners with inscriptions such as Memento mori, or, freely translated, "Remember, you will die".
The first anatomical theatre was built at the University of Padua in 1594 and is still preserved. Other early examples include the Theatrum Anatomicum of Leiden University, built in 1596 and reconstructed in 1988, and the Anatomical Theatre of the Archiginnasio in Bologna (whose building dates from 1563 and the anatomical theatre from 1637).

Detail of Gustavianum in Uppsala, showing the cupola housing the anatomical theatre from 1663

The anatomical theatre completed in 1663 by medical professor and amateur architect Olaus Rudbeck for the University of Uppsala is located in the idiosyncratic cupola which Rudbeck placed on top of the Gustavianum building, at the time the main building of the university. Rudbeck had spent time in Leiden, and both the anatomical theatre and the botanical garden he founded in Uppsala in 1655 were influenced by his experiences there.
Thomas Jefferson built an anatomical theatre for the University of Virginia. It was completed in 1827 but demolished in 1938 to leave place for a new library building.

The room was built in 1594 and was used to teach anatomy by way of human dissections. these would take place on the table in the centre of the room as students looked on from the many circular balconies which were arranged steeply to avoid the kind of headblock annoyance regularly experienced by cinema-goers. it's a uniquely beautiful and faintly creepy room.

The anatomical theatre at Leiden University in the early 17th century

Treptow Crematorium

A rather photo-heavy post, but excused by the fact that Axel Schultes’ crematorium is such a very photogenic building, particularly the interior.
Schultes is best known for his masterplan of Berlin’s government district around the Reichstag, and his practice’s designs for the Chancellory (Angela Merkel’s formal residence).  Pictures of the Chancelllory are at the end – nothing wrong with the design, which uses some of the same themes and detailing, but somehow the whole building seems vastly overscaled;  the Treptow crematorium is by far the more impressive piece of work.
Anyway, more images of the crematorium…

The columns are arranged apparently randomly around a large central space, off which are four chapels.  In fact, the columns are carefully placed around a small circular fountain/pool in the centre, and subtly aligned with the features of the walls.  The light from the head of each column is daylight – a clever structural arrangement allows for the column to be attached into the side of a circular hole.  I could have spent the whole day just wandering around the place.

Ceilings never fails to amaze

I'm a big fan of ceilings and it never fails to amaze me how drastically they can change the appearance and atmosphere of a space yet at the same time be completely ignored by most of the room's occupants. it's incredible how some people live their lives looking either straight ahead or down at the ground, the only ceiling they ever notice being the one above the bed.

luckily it hasn't stopped people designing stunning ceilings. here are 10 of my favourites, new and old, in no particular order.

the Senedd, Cardiff

source

source

the undulating ceiling of the senedd (the welsh assembly) was designed by richard rogers, the architect chosen to develop tower 3 of the world trade center reconstruction.

Impact craters on Earth

Impact craters on Earth

on earth there are close to 100 impact craters with a diameter of 0.1km or more, many of them either so eroded or large that they can only be recognised on satellite images. for the uninitiated, impact craters are formed by the hypervelocity impact of a meteoroid, asteroid or comet on the earth’s surface (or the surface of any large object in space). i’ve chosen 5 of these incredible craters and used my computer’s keyboard and mouse to present the results below.
any photos i found on flickr are linked to the account.

1. barringer crater, arizona, united states (google maps)

age - 49′000 yrs
diameter - 1.2 km




it’s hard to believe that the photo above is actually of our planet.
probably the most famous crater on earth and also the first on the planet to be recognized as an impact crater, barringer crater in arizona is actually one of the smaller examples with a piddly diameter of 1.2km and depth of 570ft. the impact occured 49′000 years ago.



here’s a flyby of the crater…

Vredefort Crater-The largest verified impact crater on Earth

Vredefort Dome*
UNESCO World Heritage Site
State Party	South Africa
Type	Natural
Criteria	viii
Reference	1162
Region**	Africa
Inscription history
Inscription	2005  (29th Session)
* Name as inscribed on World Heritage List. ** Region as classified by UNESCO.

Vredefort crater is the largest verified impact crater on Earth. It is located in the Free State Province of South Africa and named after the town of Vredefort, which is situated near its centre. The site is also known as the Vredefort dome or Vredefort impact structure. In 2005, the Vredefort Dome was added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites for its geologic interest.

The crater is occasionally known as the Vredefort Dome and the Vredefort Impact Structure. It is estimated that the asteroid that formed the crater was 10 km in diameter. The crater itself has a diameter of nearly 300 km. The crater is over 2 billion years old. Because of erosion it is hard to estimate the original depth and diameter of the crater.

The force of the impact that created the Vredefort crater was much higher than that of the Chicxulub crater. Imagine taking every nuclear bomb in the world and exploding them all at the same time. Now imagine an explosion at least ten times more powerful and you would have an idea of the force that created Vredefort crater. The projectile and much of the immediate target rock would have been vaporized and rocks that were further away would have been melted together. Remnants of this melt still occur in the form of large deposits of a special rock, known as Vredefort granophyre. It is very fortunate for evolution that there was nothing more than microscopic plant life at the time. If an impact event one third the size of this one (Chicxulub) killed off 75% of life on the planet, imagine what the Vredefort impactor would have done.

The Vredefort crater has provided shelter for man for at least 150,000 years. There is ample evidence of that. In Iron Age times, from about the 1300s to 1850, maybe as many as tens of thousands of Tswana people lived in the mountains and hills of the dome, likely because the varied landscape provided shelter and excellent grazing alike. In even more recent times, the area has seen a little gold rush.

Monochrome satellite view of the crater

The Vredefort crater is the largest verified impact event on Earth, but do not forget about Wilkes Land in Antarctica. It is thought to be much larger, but can not be verified at this time because it is buried under 2 km of ice. Vredefort will continue to play an important role in science for the remainder of this century and beyond as students visit the area to study it. As a method of insuring that, the site has been declared a World Heritage site.

There are many interesting articles on the internet about the Vredefort crater. There are a few more related articles here on Universe Today. and Astronomy Cast.

Sheyla Hershey: The Worlds Biggest Boob Job

New world record! Sheyla Hershey’s new breast enhancement declared the worlds biggest boob job.

 

What can you say, Sheyla Hershey is a 28 year old American model of Brazilian origin who has gone through the trauma of 9 surgeries to produce these massive puppies.

Doctors even say she is in serious danger of them EXPLODING if she isn’t careful. She doesn’t seem to care. In a recent article in the daily star in the UK she is quoted saying:

To me, big is beautiful. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.” – Daily Star

What else more is there to say, other than OMFG!!

Tiger Woods and wife Elin Nordegren `clashing over children`

Elin Nordegren aka Elin Woods picks up daughter Sam at school. Elin has stayed in Orlando, Florida as her husband Tiger Woods starts his golf comeback at the Masters Golf Tournament at Augusta National, Georgia. - Splash News

By Matheus Sanchez Apr 17, 2010, 20:05 GMT 

Tiger Woods

and wife Elin Nordegren are clashing over their children as relations between the pair continue to deteriorate, according to US reports.
As the couple spend more and more time apart, each wants to have their two children with them.
But now Nordegren is reportedly looking to spend more time in her native Sweden - and have Charlie and Sam with her.
Last week the former model is said to have met with a divorce lawyer.
“There’s conflict between Tiger and Elin,” a source reportedly told RadarOnline.com. “And Elin doesn’t just give in and do what Tiger wants. She’s become very independent.”
Woods and Nordegren have effectively already begun sharing custody.

Volcano Grounds 16,000 More Flights

Beware of Eyjafjallajokull: Airports across Europe canceled all flights on Saturday as the cloud of ash from the Icelandic volcano wreaks havoc with air traffic. From Russia to Britain, about 16,000 flights are expected to be grounded Saturday and nothing will fly in or out of cities like London, Paris, and Berlin until Sunday. Though the cloud does not actually pose any problems to visibility, the danger comes from the tiny particles of rock, glass, and sand that make up the ash—experts say they can lead to electrical and engine failure. "I cannot say whether it's an overreaction or underreaction," one air travel official told CNN. "I think everybody is working in the interest of safety." With the cloud drifting east, there is no telling how long the disruption could continue.

Read it at CNN

 by Steve Ragan - Apr 16 2010, 13:25

 
Ring around the rosey…a pocket full of posies…Image: UPPA/ZUMApress.com

Image: Caters News/ZUMA Press

In Pictures: The volcanic ash cloud forcing countless delays

Ring around the rosey…a pocket full of posies…Image: UPPA/ZUMApress.com

 
Ring around the rosey…a pocket full of posies…Image: UPPA/ZUMApress.com

NASA's Terra satellite has captured another image of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull  volcano ash cloud, now moving into Germany. Eyjafjallajökull continues to spew ash into the air and the ash clouds are still impacting air travel in Northern Europe.
NASA's Terra satellite flew over the volcano on April 16'2010 at 10:45 UTC (6:45 a.m. EDT) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS instrument aboard Terra captured a visible image of Eyjafjallajökull's ash plume over the England and the Netherlands, stretching into Germany.
Air travel into and out of northern Europe has either been grounded or diverted because volcanic ash particles pose a risk of damage to airplane engines. NASA works with other agencies on using satellite observations to aid in the detection and monitoring of aviation hazards caused by volcanic ash.

For more on this NASA program, visit: http://science.larc.nasa.gov/asap/research-ash.html.

The MODIS Rapid Response System was developed to provide daily satellite images of the Earth's landmasses in near real time. True-color, photo-like imagery and false-color imagery are available within a few hours of being collected, making the system a valuable resource. The MODIS Rapid Response Team that generates the images is located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
For more information and a real-time MODIS image gallery, visit: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Link: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Image: Vilhelm Gunnarsson/Caters News/ZUMA Press

Volcanic ash affects flights to Fez

Volcanic ash affects flights to Fez

On one of the busiest weekends this year in Fez, guesthouses are reporting cancellations as flights from northern Europe are grounded.

Eyjafjallajokull eruption, 27 March

Lonely Planet reports that airports in the UK and on mainland Europe are closed due to concerns over volcanic ash drifting from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull glacier. London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam are all affected.

Volcanic ash is a major hazard to aircraft. The presence and location of the plume depend upon the state of the eruption and the winds.

The estimated ash cloud over Europe at 18:00 GMT on 15 April (UK Met Office)

There has been extensive air travel disruption following the second eruption. The eruption occurred beneath glacial ice and the cold water from melting ice chilled the lava quickly causing it to fragment into glass, creating small glass particles that get carried into the eruption plume. This, together with the magnitude of the eruption, created a glass-rich plume in the upper atmosphere, very hazardous to aircraft.

So what does a pilot do when up against a volcanic cloud? The first trick is to know it's there, which is tougher than it might seem. Volcanic plumes generally are not picked up on weather radar, so pilots have to rely on other tools to spot them, like a color-coded tracking system that assigns every known volcano a colour based on its level of activity. Green is normal, yellow raises the threat, and red signifies an imminent eruption. From there, pilots check the wind direction to gauge where the plume will blow and make a call—either over or around—based on their altitude. "You definitely want a good 10,000 feet between you and the cloud, and even then you'd want to be cautious," says veteran international airline pilot, Robert Schapiro. Planes generally fly at about 35,000 feet, so small eruptions don't pose a significant problem. Major eruptions, which can reach up to 60,000 feet, are more troublesome. The ash cloud from the Iceland eruption is hovering between 20,000 and 30,000 feet.