A Thought for Today-65: August 30, 2007

"Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm." - Earl Nightingale

A Thought for Today-64: August 29, 2007

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist." — Louis Nizer, American lawyer (1902-1994)

A Thought for Today-63: August 28, 2007

"He who sees Me everywhere and all Me, I am not lost to him, nor he is lost to Me." - Bhagavad Gita

A Thought for Today-62: August 27, 2007

"When you have found your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall." - C.S. Lewis

A Thought for Today-61: August 26, 2007

Following your dream is like learning a foreign language; you will make mistakes but you will get there in the end - Paulo Coelho in The Alchemist

A Thought for Today-60: August 25, 2007

"Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just moneyor things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not justa lack of money or things." - Eric Butterworth

A Thought for Today-59: August 24, 2007

"Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary." -- Sarah Ban Breathnach

A Thought for Today-58: August 23, 2007

"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven." - William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English Poet, Playwright, Actor

A Thought for Today-57: August 22, 2007

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." - Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961) American Writer

Eyecatchers-25 : 'India in Numbers' - India Today

Excerpt from the Editorial of India Today, Aug.21, 2006 (Mr.Aroon Purie, Editor-in-Chief):

It is now 59 years since we made that historic tryst with destiny. Today, most Indians can take pride in the enormous strides we have made. There is, of course, the downside. Nothing illustrates the dual face of 59 years of Independence, the gains and losses, as forcefully as numbers. Our Independence Day special is a statistical snapshot of India. When our research team started compiling the statistical bedrock for the stories in this issue, we unearthed some startling facts. To make the exercise more meaningful, we collected data to show where we stand compared to the rest of the world.

Some of our findings are troubling. We are, for example, a young nation: our median age is 24.9 compared to 32.7 years for China. Yet, their life expectancy is 72.58 years compared to 64.71 years for India. Some of the data is fun: 23 million people watch Indian movies every day, compared to 20 million in the US but Indians are far less addicted to TV than the Americans. Some numbers demolish myths: It takes a business 264 hours to file taxes in India, much less than 325 for the US. India is a scientific superpower but the gross expenditure on R&D for every Indian is $ 19.8 compared to $56.2 for China and $ 1005.9 for the US. We are an IT superpower but have only 32 Internet subscribers per 1,000 people, compared to 73 in China.

From other pages inside the same issue:

There are 17,189 colleges and universities in India, while the US has 4,182.

India has held 14 general and 283 state assembly elections so far.

Indians watch 2 hours of TV every day, while it is 6 hours in the US.

86% Indians have access to clean water, in comparison to 77% in China.

The Indian Railways covered 576 billion passenger-kilometres in 2004-05, compared to 571 billion by the Chinese Railways.

125 Fortune-500 companies have research bases in India, while 400 are in China.

1050 movies are produced annually in India, compared to 250 in the US in 2005.

Rs.13,200 crore is the advertising revenue in India which is 0.34% of the GDP, while the global average is 0.98%.

64.9% men read English newspapers, which is less than the percentage of men who read English magazines (67.3%).

The percentage of women who read English newspapers is 35.1, while those who read magazines is 32.7.

4 billion tickets of Indian movies sold annually compared to 3 billion in the US. In 2004, the box office collection was $ 1.3 billion in Bollywood while it was a whopping $ 51 billion in Hollywood.

108 million homes with television sets in India. It is the same as in the US. But while India has only 51% TV penetration, the US has 100% TV coverage.

86% is India's success rate in treating tuberculosis, which is better than US record of 70%.

94.1% is the literacy level among Jains, the highest for all communities in India. The Muslim literacy rate is lowest at 59.1%.

5,00,000 soldiers guard the borders of north and north-eastern India. That is equal to the number of soldiers in the US Army.

47% children are malnourished in India, compared to 25.2 in China.

2.73 million international tourists visited India in 2004, compared to 5.3 million in Indonesia.

India's rank on the Happiness Index based on a study of 178 countries is 125. Denmark is the happiest country and China, at 82, is happier than India.

5.7 million people have HIV/AIDS in India, the highest in the world, according to WHO.

The number of Indian students in the US in 2005 is 80,466, compared to 62,523 Chinese.

51.6% Indian Americans have high skill jobs, compared to 21.4% white Americans.

33,608 murders in India as against 16,137 in the US in 2004. There were 18,233 rapes in India in the same year and 94,635 in the US.

1.88 million Indian-Americans reside in the US, the largest Asian community after the Chinese.

28.3% of India's total labour force is female. 36.1% of them are in the age group 15-64.

133 million is the number of Muslims in India, more than the number in Pakistan, which stands at 125.4 million.

308 million people live in urban India which is 29% of the total population. The US has 80% of its population in urban areas.

10,500 students studied at the world's first university at Takshila in 700 BC.

2,00,00 science degrees are awarded every year. It is 6,00,000 in China.

13 million children do not attend school in India according to an SRI-IMRB survey.

93,000 elementary schools with computers in India, compared to 1,10,000 in the US.

8,00,000 complete MBA every year, compared to 2,00,000 in the US.

5.7 million school teachers in India as against 2.2 million in China.

400 medical colleges in India. The US has 125 colleges.

3,50,000 engineers are produced annually, compared to the highest in China, 6,00,000.

9070 doctoral degrees were awarded in 2005, less than 42,700 in the US but more than 6,000 for China.

334 number of Airports in India compared to 14,883 in the US. AAI handles 59 million passengers annually, Atlanta airport alone serves 80 million.

5,58,000 sq km was the total land under irrigation in India in 2003, compared to 5,45,960 sq km in China.

260 million Indians live on less than Rs.50 a day.

100 million mobile phone users in India in 2006, compared to 194.5 million in the US in 2005.

Rs.7,85,000 crore is the value of India's forex and gold reserves. It is Rs.43,00,000 crores for China.

93 amendments in the Indian Constitution, compared to 27 in the US Constitution in 217 years.

Grateful thanks to Mr.Aroon Purie and India Today.

Eyecatchers-24 : 'Bored Student Invents New Language' - LATWP

Booming Tongues: Bored Student invents new language

Toronto, Aug.29: In any language, Sonja Elen Kisa was depressed. The world was overwhelming, and the thoughts that swirled through her mind in French, English, German or Esperanto echoed that.

So Kisa, 28, a student and translator in Toronto, decided to create her own language, something simple that would help clarify her thinking. She called it Toki Pona - 'good language' - and gave it just 120 words.

"

Ale li pona," she told herself, "Everything will be OK."

Kisa eventually sorted through her thoughts and, to her great surprise, her language took off, with more than 100 speakers today, singing Toki Pona songs, writing Toki Pona poems and chatting with Toki Pona words.

It is all part of a weirdly Babel-esque boom of new languages. Once the private arena practice of J.R.R.Tolkien, Esperanto speakers and grunting Klingon fanatics, invented languages have flourished on the Internet and begun creeping into the public domain.

The Website Langmaker.com now lists more than 1,000 language inventors and 1,902 made-up languages, from Ayvarith to Zyem.

The language inventors have, of course, created a word to describe what they do - conlang,' short for constructed languages.

In this realm of art, Toki Pona is white canvas with scattered brush strokes of primary colors.

Kisa created Toki Pona as an exercise in minimalism, looking for the core vocabulary necessary to communicate. With only 120 words, a Toki Pona speaker must combine words to express more complicated ideas. For example, the Toki Pona phrase for 'friend' is jan pona (the 'j' sounds like a 'y'), literally 'good person'.

Kisa, who is studying speech language therapy, tried to focus Toki Pona's vocabulary on basic, positive concepts. "It has sort of a Zen or Taoist nature to it," Kisa said.

Tolkien liked to call invented language his 'secret vice.' He spent hours at this hobby, designing grammars and modifying words from Latin, Finnish, Welsh and others for his languages. Eventually, his languages needed tongues to speak them, and they needed a place to live. Thus Middle-Earth was born - LATWP

(Courtesy: The New Indian Express, Madurai, Aug.30, 2007)

Eyecatchers-23 : 'Life on Mars' - Reuters

ANCIENT BACTERIA COULD POINT TO LIFE ON MARS

London, Aug.28: Ancient bacteria are able to survive nearly half a million years in harsh, frozen conditions, researchers said on Monday in a study that adds to arguments that permafrost environments on Mars could harbour life.

The findings also represent the oldest independently authenticated DNA to date obtained from living cells and could offer clues to better understand ageing, said Eske Willerslev, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen who led the study.

"When it can live half a million years on Earth, it makes it very promising it could survive on Mars for a very long time," Willerslev said. "Permafrost would be an excellent place to look for life on Mars."

The international team, which also included researchers from US, Canada, Russia and Sweden, tested the microbes living up to 10 metres deep in permafrost collected from Northern Canada, the Yukon, Siberia and Antartica.

When a cell dies, its DNA fragments into pieces but the samples the researchers studied were all very long strands - evidence the cells were able to continuously repair genetic material and remain alive, said Willerslev, whose findings were published in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences.

"These cells are active cells repairing DNA to deal with continuous degradation of the genomes, which is the genetic material that is key to life," he said in a telephone interview. "It is the same thing with humans."

The scientists do not yet know the mechanism driving the continuous repair but Willerslav said the cells survived by eating nutrients like nitrogen and phosphate lodged in the permafrost.

This is interesting because the temperature in Mars is much colder with more stable temperatures, representing an even better environment to sustain this kind of life, he added.

While most scientists think our neighbour in the solar system is lifeless, the discovery of microbes on Earth that can exist in environments previously thought too hostile has fuelled debate over extraterrestrial life.

Researchers had known these microbes could survive for a long time without food but until now there was little agreement on how long they could live, Willerslev said. Knowing this, and eventually pinpointing the key to the longevity, may also help scientists better understand the ageing process, he added.

"It is interesting to see why some cells can survive for a very long time," he said. "That can be a key for understanding ageing." - Reuters

(Courtesy: The New Indian Express, Madurai, Aug.29, 2007)

Eyecatchers-22 : 'First Ecological Prison' - The New Indian Express

Norway put on show on Monday what it calls 'the world's first ecological prison,' where inmates play important roles in daily operations and learn to do their bit to protect the environment.

The Bastoey Island low-security prison uses solar panels for energy, produces most of its own food, recycles everything it can and tries to reduce its carbon footprint. (Agencies)

(Courtesy: The New Indian Express, Madurai, Aug.29, 2007)

Eyecatchers-21 : 'Sugar Batteries to Power Walkman!' - The Hindu

Tokyo: Bread and potatoes are staple sources of human energy, and now a carbohydrate diet is set also to power the Walkman portable music device.

Japanese technology company Sony, seeking to project an eco-friendly image, said it has developed a prototype battery cell that generates electricity from carbohydrates and sugar.

The test cells have achieved an output of 50 milliwatts, enough to play a Walkman, Sony said.

In a demonstration here on Thursday, a Sony employee poured a sugary sports drink to power a music player and its speakers.

The company said it came up with the battery essentially by studying how living creatures generate energy.

Sugar batteries would be biodegradable and the source material can be found in plants grown around the world.

Plants regenerate through photosynthesis, "underlining the potential for sugar-based bio batteries as an ecologically friendly energy device of the future," a Sony statement said.

The company said it would continue to develop the prototype and study ways to put it into practical use.

Sony, which changed the way the world listened to music with the Walkman, has vowed to rededicate itself to innovation after suffering a troubled patch with the success of Apple's iPod.

Sony was hit last year by the recall of millions of laptop computer batteries over fears that they could catch fire - AFP

(Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, Saturday, Aug.25, 2007)

A Thought for Today-56: August 21, 2007

"Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water" - Miguel de Cervantes

A Thought for Today-55: August 20, 2007

"For every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour" - Mary Kay Ash

A Thought for Today-54: August 19, 2007

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive" - Gil Bailie

A Thought for Today-53: August 18, 2007

"Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you" -Wayne Dyer, American Psychotherapist & Author

A Thought for Today-52: August 17, 2007

"A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life." - Joseph Campbell

A Thought for Today-51: August 16, 2007

"Peace without justice is tyranny" — William Allen White, American writer and newspaper editor (1868-1944)