First, one has to determine how they are going to sell the jewelry. Basically, there are two ways of doing this: you can either buy wholesale jewelry and sell them as retail or sell them again at wholesale. Buying jewelry in bulk and then selling it to other people as wholesale ensures that you get relatively large sums of money from each transaction, but the problem with it is that you might have to wait a while before getting the money. This is because a retailer will only buy the goods from you after they have exhausted their stock. Selling at retail involves selling the jewelry to individual people. This method of trade usually means smaller volume sometimes, but the fact that you sell the jewels at retail prices instead of wholesale prices means you are likely to get more of a profit when compared to someone who buys them in bulk from the same source and sells them in bulk.

Once you have decided what sort of business you want to run, the next important thing is to find a good wholesaler to sell you the jewels. The best kind of wholesalers are usually found online, and you might have to keep buying from them using a credit card so it’s good if you have one. The advantage of online jewelry wholesalers is that they are usually a bit cheaper compared to wholesalers who have physical shops. This is due in part to the fact that they don’t have to pay for a lot of overheads such as rental and workers. The important thing here is to get a jewelry wholesaler who has good credentials so that you don’t end up being the victim of a scam. Once this is done, you also have to identify the demographics of your clients that you will be selling to, if you intend to sell at retail prices. For example, if you live near a university then you might have to consider the fact that you will be selling the jewelry to mainly young people, so you should stock up on jewelry that young people might find attractive. When selling in wholesale, it might be a good idea to find out what kinds of jewelry are fast moving, i.e. are sold faster. This will ensure that you only buy jewelry that will earn you an income relatively quickly.

At the end of the day, the trick to being a jewelry reseller is to do your homework well before you embark on it. This involves a lot of research and it may seem tiring. However, at the end of the day, it’s really worth it as it will ensure that your jewelry business flourishes and blossoms.

Contact some fashion jewelry wholesalers before you start a business, you must know the wholesale fashion jewelry prices before you can put together a business plan.

Bad enough that this rare beast, found only on the Australian mainland, New Guinea and Tasmania is gone but that its demise was mainly caused by the incursions and depredation of European settlers.

The Tasmanian Tiger was neither a feline nor a canine although it looked very much dog-like in body style and size. It shared a small classification of the genus, Thylacinus, with its cousin the Tasmanian Devil. In length the Tasmanian Tiger averaged between three and a half and four and a half feet long with a tale about two foot long. Matching the size of mid-sized dogs, the Tiger weighted in at between forty and seventy pounds.

While the Tiger’s short fur was brown, from fawn to dark, the name was derived from the one to two dozen dark stripes that crossed its hindquarters and back. Both genders had the marsupial pouch; the female’s having four teats to carry the average three joeys per litter until they were old enough to emerge and survive on their own. The male’s pouch was used as protection for the scrotal sac as it hunted in heavy brush.

As a hunter, the Tasmanian Tiger depended more on sight and sound that smell as it did not have a well-developed olfactory sense. It had great stamina and was relentless in following its chosen prey until exhaustion brought it into reach of the large strong jaws of the Tiger. Reports vary as to whether the Tiger hunted alone or in small packs. Its usual prey included kangaroos, wallabies, small birds, and possums. It is thought they also hunted the Australian emu until its own extinction on the continent.

The demise of the Tasmanian Tiger began in earnest with the introduction of the dingo and wild dogs to Australia. The coming of Europeans sealed its fate. The preferred hunting ground of the Tasmanian Tiger included eucalyptus forests, coastal wetlands and open grasslands; mostly the same terrain prized by settlers for their farmlands. Considering the Tiger to be a potential livestock predator, a bounty was soon placed on the Tasmanian Tiger. Thousands perished under the guns of the farmers and bounty hunters. By the 1920′s, sightings of the Tasmanian Tiger were rare. The last known Tiger to be killed in the wild was gunned down in 1930. A few remained in zoos and the last known Tiger died in captivity in 1936.

According to International standards fifty years passed without a Tasmanian Tiger being discovered so it was listed as officially extinct in 1986. Despite the classification, there are still reports of sightings, tracks and scat of the occasional Tiger in a few remote parts of Tasmania. Several agencies have offered substantial rewards for proof the Tiger is still with us although they have as yet gone unclaimed. That the last old growth forest of Tasmania are where these sighting occur, the continued logging of these areas will soon guarantee the last hope of finding a live Tasmanian Tiger will perish along with this creature.

The wave-riding bovid is said to have stunned beach-goers in California after successfully jumping on the surfboard of her owner Dayna McGregor and catching a series of waves.

Dayna says he initially bought Goat-ee to eat weeds in his garden, but after she started following him around everywhere, she soon became his pet.

Because one of those places she followed him to was Grover Beach, Dayna decided he wanted to celebrate his birthday surfing with the goat. As you do.

And while some will say this video shows Goat-ee enjoyed her time at sea, we’d be surprised if others didn’t call animal cruelty and point to the way the goat runs back onto the beach as soon as possible.

Either way Dayna considers the surfing trip a success and told the Telegraph: “She did pretty well. She got up on a couple waves. Got up? We put her on a couple waves and she was pretty successful.”

If you want to see more Kelly Slaters of the animal kingdom, how about these surfing mice, dogs and this alpaca?

According to Seattle Sperm Bank’s managing director Gary Olsem, donor sperm is transported by medical technicians aboard the bike, which is the second of its kind, in liquid nitrogen cooled vacuum containers. The first Sperm Bike was adopted by Seattle Sperm Bank’s sibling company, the European Sperm Bank, in Cophenhagen.

There are still people wondering whether their business really needs a website. Or they say: we do not have a business, but a not-for-profit organization: should we have a website? Definitely! We could easily come up with 55 reasons why you need a website:

1. Promote Your Products
A website allows you to showcase your products for everyone to see. You can explain the benefits, compare it with other products, or show testimonials of happy customers that already bought the product.

2. Promote Your Services
It is hard to showcase services in a store, or office. The web allows you to introduce the service, the professionals providing the service, and how several services can complement each other.

3. Promote Your Organization
People buy from people. People support organizations and causes that they believe in. A website is a fantastic tool to promote an organization and build trust – that is, if you do it right… A well-developed website can convey trust and credibility, making people to buy from you, or support you.

4. Promote Yourself
Whether you are a professional looking for a job, or an expert in your industry: you can show that to the whole world by having a comprehensive website. The use of an associated email address also increases perceived professionalism: a letter from someone at me-the-expert.com will certainly open more doors than an email from a hotmail account.

5. Promote Your Ideas
Political campaigns are now all over the web. A website can be a powerful way to promote your ideas, and build a following of like-minded people. Or you can just write online journals (“blogs”) to ventilate some of your thoughts and concerns.

6. Promote Your Events
Have a fundraising event? Want to promote your business with seminars, workshops or a tradeshow? You will increase awareness when you create a website for the event. Show dates, programs, prices and riving directions – to name but a few features that will be greatly appreciated by your target audience.

7. Sell Your Events
Want to take it a step further? You may even want to consider selling (or pre-ordering) tickets for your events on a website. Shorter line-ups, less expenses: it sounds like a good idea to me…

8. Sell Your Organization
Whether “selling your organization” is a figure of speech (to convince people) or a true selling effort, a website can be considered a very valuable asset to your organization.

9. Sell Your Services
A website can be a great tool to not only promote, but also actually sell your services. You can automate many repetitive tasks, such as registration, billing, collecting and much more. Whether you are selling phone services or speaking engagements: you can effectively do it with a website.

10. Sell Your Products
A few years ago, after all the dot-boms, people lost faith in e-commerce. Now e-commerce is booming. Gift moments like Christmas and Valentine’s Day show record sales numbers, and money-guzzling giants like Amazon are starting to make money. Offering a great user-experience and minding usability is the key to success.

11. Save Costs
By integrating systems and automating certain tasks you may be able to actually save costs. For instance, by integrating your e-commerce website into your inventory and accounting systems. Build extranets to connect with suppliers and clients alike. You can provide downloadable documents on a website rather than mailing them out. The opportunities are endless.

12. Build A Community
Want to be perceived as a leader? Want people talking about you, or provide a platform for people to share ideas and ideologies? A website, especially with a forum or bulletinboard, can be a great help in building an online community. It may even be the cement that keeps an offline community together, because of its empowering character and 24/7 availability.

13. Share Pictures, Sound And Other Files
I just watched wedding photos, I enjoy watching funny commercials from all over the world, I like listening to music – on a website. You can use it to share Media Kits, sound bites, or PowerPoint presentations. A website is a great tool to exchange multi-media.

14. Offer Service 365/24/7
This may not be of great value to you (it may even be a burden…), but to your customers it is very empowering and important. The Internet puts the web browser in control – and if you are not there, you will be more and more passed over in favour of an online competitor.

15. Answer Frequently Asked Questions
Answering the same questions over and over again can be a great waste of money and employee morale. A carefully crafted list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), posted on a website, can reduce the stream of repetitive questions so your Customer Support department can actually start supporting customers, and your Sales Department can really devote their time to selling!

16. Improve Branding
Branding is a way to differentiate your product, service or company from its competition, and create loyalty. The content of a website, its style and tools such as newsletters allow for many ways to differentiate yourself, make the visitor feel good about you, and build loyalty. More worrisome: if you do not do this, a competitor may snatch not only your prospects sales, but also their loyalty away from you with their website! Eat, or be eaten!

17. Reach A Local Market
More and more people use locally defined keywords in the search engines, which indicates that they use the Internet do find local information. “Used cars Toronto” or “Guelph real estate” are obvious, but mentioning a website in a local ad may do wonders in terms of converting a reader into a customer.

18. Reach A Regional Market
A website is one of the easiest tools to expand your exposure into a wider geographical area. Want to move your business from just Fergus into the whole of Ontario? A website allows you to do that.

19. Reach A National Market
Political campaigns are just one example where websites are being used to service a National audience. Offering a National specific version of your product, such as Tylenol.ca, is another one. This allows you to offer information about specific national tax and delivery charges, or appeal to National pride.

20. Reach A Global Market
If your target audience is “the world” then you really need a website. But you knew that already, didn’t you ;o)

21. Reach An International Market
If you target specific International markets it may be highly effective to design dedicated websites for them. By targeting your US customers on a “,com” site while servicing your Canadian clients with a “.ca” site you are able to cater to the specific needs and expectations. It allows you to avoid confusion by separating different currencies, taxes, fees and prices onto different websites. You may even want to consider offering websites in different languages, such as a specialized “.nl” website, in Dutch, for your loyal customers in The Netherlands.

22. Reach A Specialized Market
Do you sell cat and dog helmets? Are you into custom peptide synthesis (link opens in a new window), or other biotech products? Whatever niche market you may service, a website will expand your possibilities of promoting or selling your product or service – wherever in the world your prospects may be.

23. Test New Products And Services
With a little bit of help from search engines and directories, or by linking from high-traffic websites, you can create a new website to test new products or services. You may even keep quiet about the fact that you are behind this new product or service site. A dedicated website can prove to be a very valuable test case before fully launching your new success – or quietly taking it off the market again if the market is not quite ready yet ;o)

24. Solicit Feedback From Customers
A contact form on a website can provide you with a lot of valuable information from customers, prospects and other interested people. You may even get them to take an online poll – especially if you say they can win a prize as a reward. And if the stakes are high enough, the free word-of-mouth promotion will start automatically…

25. Start A Movement
Want to support Anna Hazare in his anti corruption movement in India? Want the US Army out of Iraq? Want to preserve a local trail? A website is a most effective way to promote your viewpoint, recruit volunteers, build a community (by adding an online forum), make press releases available, and much, much more.

26. Spread Ideas
Even if you do not want to start a movement, a website allows you to share your views and ideas with like-minded people all over the globe. It also allows you to easily explain things by means of adding audio, video or animation to your website. It can be like having your own radio or TV station…

27. Educate
Online education can be very effective; more and more people are taking courses over the Internet. If you provide workshops, or complete courses, you may consider offering them online too.

28. Update Information Quickly
Catalogs have been around for a long time, and they still prove to be successful. Newspapers are still a popular way to find out what is going on in the world. They have one major disadvantage, though: you cannot update them very quickly. A website, however, allows you to make changes almost instantly.

29. A Sales Tool Outside The Office
Employees away from the office can be kept informed with a website. A new press release? A new price list? Newsworthy things happening in your industry? You can quickly post information like that on an Intranet, which is a website only available for your employees, so they can see it wherever and whenever they want. If you add features like a forum you are also able to facilitate 1-to-many communication between employees.

30. Integrate Supply Chains
By offering your clients online ordering you are able to integrate whole supply processes. You can offer them password-protected areas with their information, such as prices, year-to-date ordering information, and more. This can be considered additional customer service, but may also be forced upon you by powerful clients or suppliers.

31. Reward Clients
By offering clients access to a website just for them, you can reward them for their loyalty. This website can for instance be used to offer specials, unique tips or other benefits. You can create an online club for Loyal Customers.

32. Run Contests
If you want to run a contest, a website may be a very viable solution. With a carefully chosen domain name it can foster word-of-mouth promotion (“tell a friend!”), you are able to track all the entries in an online database (without having to enter them manually), and you are able to promote it with links from other websites, or search engines.

33. Communicate With Your Target Audiences In Their Own Language
Addressing your target audience in their native tongue will certainly improve your chances of success.

34. Inquiry Marketing: Be Found – Period!
A major advertising conference mentioned recently “advertising is dead”. Interruption marketing does not work as it used to, due to video on demand, TiVo, the Internet… The consumers are more and more difficult to reach. Instead, they are in control; they are searching – on the Internet. It is inquiry marketing. Search and be found, or fail to be found and lose the customer.

35. Improve Communication
Brochures and flyers only allow for a few lines of communication. A carefully crafted website can guide your clients, suppliers or employees through page after page of information. Another advantage is that you can add audio and video to these pages – something that paper communication tools cannot offer.

36. Change Communication From One-To-One Into One-To-Many
Conventional marketing tools allow you to promote or sell 1-on-1. A website can cater to many prospects at the same time. An effective website will also help you build a buzz: word-of-mouth promotion.

37. Share Basic Business Information
People use the Internet often trying to find quick answers to basic questions. What are your opening hours? Do you offer payment plans? What is your phone number or email address? These are the days of “Inquiry Marketing”; so get a website if you do not already have one, and make sure that people can actually find it in the search engines and directories.

38. PR Tool
A website can be a great PR tool. You can post Press Releases on it, or articles, or a complete Press Kit – with pictures, sound files, bios, and more! You can also start a forum or blog (an interactive type of online diary), which can be a great PR tool.

39. Expand Your Product OR Service Offerings – Exclusively Online
A website allows you to differentiate your product or service offerings. You may want to consider offering slightly different services online than you do offline, for instance to foster repeat visits, using it as a test market, or target different geographical areas than you do with your store or office.

40. Communicate With Audiences Worldwide
The world is your oyster – especially with a website, which allows you to communicate with audiences worldwide (as long as you both understand the same language). Geographical locations or time zones are no longer a problem with the 24/7 availability of a website.

41. Cross-Sell
When it is busy in your store, not all visitors will be able to speak to one of your sales people. Opportunities to cross sell (“did you see that we also sell …”) are lost. But on a carefully constructed website you can make sure that people are exposed to other offers that may interest you. A classic example is Amazon.com, which is very successful with an automated suggestion feature (“Customers who bought this title also bought:…”).

42. Increase Customer Loyalty By Giving Them More Control
These are the times of inquiry marketing, and anything-on-demand. The customer wants to be in control, and websites are a perfect example of that. The customer decides what they want to see, and when, and if you do that right, you will have acquired a loyal customer.

43. F U N
Websites allow you to present your target audience with something fun. Flash animations as a quirky way to make a point or explain something, can build a lot of goodwill. Skilful copywriting can be used to solicit a wink and a smile from time to time. Sales is all about emotion, and websites allow you many ways to evoke these in a favourable way. But make sure that the FUN is appropriate, or else you will be evoking powerful negative emotions.

44. Family Sites
Many families are no longer in the same geographical area; they may even be spread over several countries… A website can be a great way to keep in contact. Share pictures, movies, stories on a website for all family members to see. Added benefit: you will have an email address @ yourname.com or .ca, so you will never have to change addresses again! (Not even in case you decide to witch Internet providers – for instance from sympatico to cogeco)

45. Make Life Easier
Websites can make you customer’s lives easier – and yours! Look at online banking, or ticket ordering. Whole new industries have emerged because people want to be able to do things themselves, from their home or office – because it is easier. So: what will make your customers’ lives easier?

46. Find Employees
A highly effective way to use a website is to use it as a recruitment tool. You can obviously use it to post vacancies, but you may also consider placing a more general invitation to send resumes. This way you may already know the right person for the job before a vacancy even occurs.

47. Pre-Ordering
A well-promoted product launch on a website allows you to take fully automated pre-orders. This is a great tool to supplement your sales force. You can have an online presentation, and shop, so that enthusiastic clients and prospects can pre-order immediately.

48. Build An Appetite
Pre-launch campaigns can be highly effective. Websites can be used to build the buzz, have a few teasers, a countdown clock, press releases and news about the ongoing campaign. You may even show a picture of just a tiny part of the new product: “can you guess what it is?”

49. Email Address Forever
Let’s say that your domain name is agoodname.com. Using email address you@agoodname.com is a good way to promote your website, because people will guess your website based on the email address. And if you keep your domain name indefinitely, you will have that email address indefinitely. No more sending of emails to your friends and business, stating that “you moved to another email service provider; can you please update your address book?”

50. Play With The Big Guys
Many small companies successfully take on the big Guys. Websites can be relatively inexpensive (compared to running a brick-and-mortar store), and with proper usability and search engine optimization your website can be as good as your larger competitors, or even better!

51. Check You Out Anonymously
One of the things many people like about the Internet is that they can research anonymously. No pressure. This is why it is so important that you have a website that is easily found on the Internet – you cater to the preferences of your target audience.

52. Facilitate Knowledge Building
You can use a website to sell seminars or e-books, for people to learn from. You can create password-protected modules so people can learn online. You can build forums where people can exchange questions and answers. A website is an ideal tool to facilitate the exchange of knowledge.

53. Enhance Marketing Effectiveness
Success does not come from doing one thing right. What you need is a marketing mix, and a website can be a powerful ingredient. Mentioning a website in a radio, TV or print ad may just be the thing that wins people over – especially if the online experience feels similar to the offline communication.

54. People Expect It
By having a website you show the world that you are a viable business. Not having one makes you suspicious in the eyes of many prospects. It is silly but true: a website will enhance perceived professionalism.

55. Competition Forces You To(o)
Your competition will force you to get a website, if you do not already have one. Customers (especially the newer generations) will demand you have a website, and will pass you over if you do not have one. It is a matter of adjusting to shifting market conditions. And things will continue to shift, at an amazing speed – just look at how fast the Internet has become an integral part of our lives…

Article courtesy : Nardo Kuitert
Some amendments by : Deepak Bhakoo

Get a website today, visit www.stayonline.org

Emilie du Chatelet (1706 – 1749)

Gabrielle-Emilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, the daughter of the French court’s chief of protocol, married the marquis du Chatelet in 1725. She lived the life of a courtier and bore three children. But at age 27, she began studying mathematics seriously and then branched into physics. This interest intensified as she began an affair with the philosopher Voltaire, who also had a love of science. Their scientific collaborations—they outfitted a laboratory at du Chatelet’s home, Chateau de Cirey, and, in a bit of a competition, each entered an essay into a contest on the nature of fire (neither won)—outlasted their romance. Du Chatelet’s most lasting contribution to science was her French translation of Isaac Newton’s Principia, which is still in use today. At age 43, she fell in love with a young military officer and became pregnant; she died following complications during the birth of their child.

Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848)

Herschel was little more than the household drudge for her parents in Hanover, Germany (she would later describe herself as the “Cinderella of the family”), when her older brother, William, brought her to England in 1772 to run his household in Bath. After she mastered the art of singing—to accompany William, who was the organist for the Octagon Chapel—her brother switched careers and went into astronomy. Caroline followed. In addition to assisting her brother in his observations and in the building of telescopes, Caroline became a brilliant astronomer in her own right, discovering new nebulae and star clusters. She was the first woman to discover a comet (she discovered eight in total) and the first to have her work published by the Royal Society. She was also the first British woman to get paid for her scientific work, when William, who had been named the king’s personal astronomer after his discovery of Uranus in 1781, persuaded his patron to reward his assistant with an annual salary. After William’s death in 1822, Caroline retired to Hanover. There she continued her astronomical work, compiling a catalogue of nebulae—the Herschels’ work had increased the number of known star clusters from 100 to 2,500. She died in 1848 at age 97 after receiving many honors in her field, including a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society.

Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)

In 1811, Mary Anning’s brother spotted what he thought was a crocodile skeleton in a seaside cliff near the family’s Lyme Regis, England, home. He charged his 11-year-old sister with its recovery, and she eventually dug out a skull and 60 vertebrae, selling them to a private collector for £23. This find was no croc, though, and was eventually named Ichthyosaurus, the “fish-lizard.” Thus began Anning’s long career as a fossil hunter. In addition to ichthyosaurs, she found long-necked plesiosaurs, a pterodactyl and hundreds, possibly thousands, of other fossils that helped scientists to draw a picture of the marine world 200 million to 140 million years ago during the Jurassic. She had little formal education and so taught herself anatomy, geology, paleontology and scientific illustration. Scientists of the time traveled from as far away as New York City to Lyme Regis to consult and hunt for fossils with Anning.

Mary Somerville (1780 – 1872)

Intrigued by the x’s and y’s in the answer to a math question in a ladies’ fashion magazine, 14-year-old Mary Fairfax of Scotland delved into the study of algebra and mathematics, defying her father’s injunction against such pursuits. Her studies were sidetracked by a marriage, in 1804, to a Russian Navy captain, but after his death she returned to Edinburgh and became involved in intellectual circles, associating with people such as the writer Sir Walter Scott and the scientist John Playfair, and resumed her studies in math and science. Her next husband, William Somerville, whom she wed in 1812, supported these efforts, and after they moved to London, Mary became host to her own intellectual circle, which included the astronomer John Herschel and the inventor Charles Babbage. She began experimenting on magnetism and produced a series of writings on astronomy, chemistry, physics and mathematics. She translated astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace’s The Mechanism of the Heavens into English, and although she was unsatisfied with the result, it was used as a textbook for much of the next century. Somerville was one of the first two women, along with Caroline Herschel, to be named honorary members of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Maria Mitchell (1818 – 1889)

Young Maria Mitchell learned to observe the stars from her father, who used stellar observations to check the accuracy of chronometers for Nantucket, Massachusetts, whalers and taught his children to use a sextant and reflecting telescope. When Mitchell was 12, she helped her father record the time of an eclipse. And at 17, she had already begun her own school for girls, teaching them science and math. But Mitchell rocketed to the forefront of American astronomy in 1847 when she spotted a blurry streak—a comet—through her telescope. She was honored around the world, earning a medal from the king of Denmark, and became the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1857 Mitchell traveled to Europe, where she visited observatories and met with intellectuals, including Mary Somerville. Mitchell would write: “I could not help but admire [her] as a woman. The ascent of the steep and rugged path of science has not unfitted her for the drawing room circle; the hours of devotion to close study have not been incompatible with the duties of wife and mother.” Mitchell became the first female astronomy professor in the United States, when she was hired by Vassar College in 1865. There she continued her observations, particularly those of the Sun, traveling up to 2,000 miles to witness an eclipse.

Lise Meitner (1878 – 1968)

When Lise Meitner finished school at age 14, she was barred from higher education, as were all girls in Austria. But, inspired by the discoveries of William Röntgen and Henri Becquerel, she was determined to study radioactivity. When she turned 21, women were finally allowed into Austrian universities. Two years of tutoring preceded her enrollment at the University of Vienna; there she excelled in math and physics and earned her doctorate in 1906. She wrote to Marie Curie, but there was no room for her in the Paris lab and so Meitner made her way to Berlin. There she collaborated with Otto Hahn on the study of radioactive elements, but as an Austrian Jewish woman (all three qualities were strikes against her), she was excluded from the main labs and lectures and allowed to work only in the basement. In 1912, the pair moved to a new university and Meitner had better lab facilities. Though their partnership was split up physically when she was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1938, they continued to collaborate. Meitner continued her work in Sweden and after Hahn discovered that uranium atoms were split when bombarded with neutrons, she calculated the energy released in the reaction and named the phenomenon “nuclear fission.” The discovery—which eventually led to the atomic bomb (“You must not blame scientists for the use to which war technicians have put our discoveries,” Meitner would say in 1945)—won Hahn the Nobel Prize in 1944. Meitner, overlooked by the Nobel committee, refused to return to Germany after the war and continued her atomic research in Stockholm into her 80s.

Irène Curie-Joliot (1897 – 1956)

The elder daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie, Irène followed her parents’ footsteps into the lab. The thesis for her 1925 doctor of science was on the alpha rays of polonium, one of the two elements her mother discovered. The next year, she married Frédéric Joliot, one of her mother’s assistants at the Radium Institute in Paris. Irène and Frédéric continued their collaboration inside the laboratory, pursuing research on the structure of the atom. In 1934, they discovered artificial radioactivity by bombarding aluminum, boron and magnesium with alpha particles to produce isotopes of nitrogen, phosphorus, silicon and aluminum. They received the Nobel Prize in chemistry the next year, making Marie and Irène the first parent-child couple to have independently won Nobels. All those years working with radioactivity took a toll, however, and Irène died of leukemia in 1956.

Barbara McClintock (1902 – 1992)

While studying botany at Cornell University in the 1920s, Barbara McClintock got her first taste of genetics and was hooked. As she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees and moved into postdoctoral work, she pioneered the study of genetics of maize (corn) cells. She pursued her research at universities in California, Missouri and Germany before finding a permanent home at Cold Spring Harbor in New York. It was there that, after observing the patterns of coloration of maize kernels over generations of plants, she determined that genes could move within and between chromosomes. The finding didn’t fit in with conventional thinking on genetics, however, and was largely ignored; McClintock began studying the origins of maize in South America. But after improved molecular techniques that became available in the 1970s and early 1980s confirmed her theory and these “jumping genes” were found in microorganisms, insects and even humans, McClintock was awarded a Lasker Prize in 1981 and Nobel Prize in 1983.

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910 – 1994)

Dorothy Crowfoot (Hodgkin, after her 1937 marriage) was born in Cairo, Egypt, to a pair of British archaeologists. She was sent home to England for school, where she was one of only two girls who were allowed to study chemistry with the boys. At 18, she enrolled in one of Oxford’s women’s colleges and studied chemistry and then moved to Cambridge to study X-ray crystallography, a type of imaging that uses X-rays to determine a molecule’s three-dimensional structure. She returned to Oxford in 1934, where she would spend most of her working life, teaching chemistry and using X-ray crystallography to study interesting biological molecules. She spent years perfecting the technique, for which she was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1964, and determined the structures of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. In 2010, 16 years after her death, the British Royal Mail celebrated the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society by issuing stamps with the likenesses of 10 of the society’s most illustrious members, including Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin; Hodgkin was the only woman in the group.

Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958)

James Watson and Francis Crick get credit for determining the structure of DNA, but their discovery relied on the work of Rosalind Franklin. As a teenager in the 1930s, Franklin attended one of the few girls’ schools in London that taught physics and chemistry, but when she told her father that she wanted to be a scientist, he rejected the idea. He eventually relented and she enrolled at Cambridge University, receiving a doctorate in physical chemistry. She learned techniques for X-ray crystallography while in Paris, returning to England in 1951 to work in the laboratory of John Randall at King’s College, London. There she made X-ray images of DNA. She had nearly figured out the molecule’s structure when Maurice Wilkins, another researcher in Randall’s lab who was also studying DNA, showed one of Franklin’s X-ray images to James Watson. Watson quickly figured out the structure was a double helix and, with Francis Crick, published the finding in the journal Nature. Watson, Crick and Wilkins won a Nobel Prize in 1962 for their discovery. Franklin, however, had died of ovarian cancer in 1958.

1. I don’t have the time.
2. I can’t get the funding.
3. My boss will never go for it.
4. Were not in the kind of business likely to innovate.
5. I’ve got too much on my plate.

6. We won’t be able to get it past legal.
7. I’ll be punished if I fail.
8. I’m just not not the creative type.
9. I’m juggling way too many projects.
10. I’m too new around here.

11. I’m not good at presenting my ideas.
12. No one, besides me, really cares about innovation.
13. There’s too much bureaucracy here to get anything done.
14. Our customers aren’t asking for it.
15. We’re a risk averse culture. Always will be.

Businessman overwhelmed.jpg

16. We don’t have an innovation process.
17. We don’t have a culture of innovation.
18. They don’t pay me enough to take on this kind of project.
19. My boss will get all the credit.
20. My career path will be jeopardized if this doesn’t fly.

21. I’ve already got enough headaches.
22. I’m no good at office politics.
23. My home life will suffer.
24. I’m not disciplined enough.
25. It’s an idea too far ahead of its time.

26. I won’t be able to get enough resources.
27. I don’t have enough information.
28. Someone will steal my idea.
29. It will take too long to get results.
30. We’re in a down economy.

31. It will die in committee.
32. I’ll be laughed out of town.
33. I won’t be able to get the ear of senior leadership.
34. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
35. The concept is too disruptive.

36. I won’t be able to get enough support.
37. I don’t tolerate ambiguity all that well.
38. I’m not in a creative profession.
39. Now is not a good time to start a new project.
40. I don’t have the right personality to build a team.

41. Our company is going through too many changes right now.
42. They won’t give me any more time to work on the project.
43. If I succeed, too much will be expected of me.
44. Nothing ever changes around here.
45. Things are changing so fast, my head is spinning.

46. Whatever success I achieve will be undone by somebody else.
47. I don’t have enough clout to get things done.
48. It’s just not worth the effort.
49. I’m getting close to retirement.
50. My other projects will suffer.

51. Been there, done that.
52. I don’t want another thing to think about.
53. I won’t have any time left for my family.
54. A more nimble competitor will beat us to the punch.
55. Teamwork is a joke around here.

56. I’ve never done anything like this before.
57. I won’t be rewarded if the project succeeds.
58. We’re not measured for innovation.
59. I don’t have the right credentials.
60. We need more data.

61. It’s not my job.
62. It will hard sustaining the motivation required.
63. I’ve tried before and failed.
64. I’m not smart enough to pull this off.
65. I don’t want to go to any more meetings.

66. It will take way too long to get up to speed.
67. Our Stage Gate process will sabotage any hope of success.
68. I’m not skillful at building business cases.
69. Summer’s coming.
70. The marketplace is too volatile.

71. This is a luxury we can’t afford at this time.
72. I think we’re about to be acquired.
73. I’m trying to simplify my life, not complicate it.
74. The dog ate my homework.
75. Help! I’m a prisoner in a Chinese fortune cookie factory.

76. My company just wants to squeeze more blood from the stone.
77. My company isn’t committed to innovation.
78. I don’t have the patience.
79. I’m not sure how to begin.
80. I’m too left-brained for this sort of thing.

81. I won’t be able to get the funding required.
82. I’m getting too old for this.
83. We’re too competitive, in-house. Collaboration is a rarity.
84. Spring is coming.
85. I’m hypoglycemic.

86. That’s Senior Leadership’s job
87. I’m thinking of quitting.
88. Market conditions just aren’t right.
89. We need to focus on the short term for a while.
90. Innovation, schminnovation.

91. What we really need are some cost cutting initiatives.
92. Six Sigma will take care of everything.
93. Mercury is in retrograde.
94. IT won’t go for it.
95. Maybe next year.

96. That’s my boss’s job.
97. That’s R&D’s job.
98. I would if I could, but I can’t, so I won’t.
99. First, we need to benchmark the competition.
100.It’s against my religion.

HOW TO GO BEYOND THESE LAME EXCUSES

1. Make a list of your three most bothersome ones.

2. Turn each excuse into a question, beginning with the words “How can I?” or “How can we?” (For example, if your excuse is “That’s R&D’s job,” you might ask “How can I make innovation my job?” or “How can I help my team take more responsibility for innovating?”

3. Brainstorm each question — alone and with your team.

4. DO something about it within the next 48 hours.

Via : Idea Champions

Stan takes anything from one day to six months to make each building.

This small town (pueblo) is located 157 kilometres (98 mi) northeast of Cadiz. It has a distinctive setting along a narrow river gorge. The town extends along the course of the Rio Trejo with some houses being built into the rock walls of the gorge itself, created by enlarging natural caves or overhangs and adding an external wall.

According to the 2005 census, the city has a population of 3,016 inhabitants.

The Elbe-Havel and Mittelland canals had previously met near Magdeburg but on opposite sides of the Elbe . Ships moving between the two had to make a 12-kilometer detour, descending from the Mittelland Canal through the Rothensee boat lift into the Elbe, then sailing downstream on the river, before entering the Elbe-Havel Canal through Niegripp lock. Low water levels in the Elbe often prevented fully laden canal barges from making this crossing, requiring time-consuming off-loading of cargo.

Construction of the water link was started as early as in the 1930s but due to the World War 2 and subsequent division of Germany the work remained suspended till 1997. The aqueduct was finally completed and opened to the public in 2003.was finally completed and opened to the public in 2003.

Let’s say you want to start writing a novel. Think of a phrase that’s the perfect title for a book. That could be your starting point. And so now you are on a new threshold.

We can learn a lot from our ancestors. For instance, if you visit the Museum of London’s prehistoric galleries, you’ll find that Bronze Age people would build their roundhouses with the entrance facing the midwinter solstice. They would then consult their ancestors before making an offering to the new threshold. Now, perhaps modern builders have a comparable ritual – I don’t know. But if they don’t – perhaps they should. And so should those embarking on a long-term building project like a novel. I love the idea of “making an offering to a new threshold.” And what I have to say here is like an offering to the new threshold.

First, where do your ideas come from? From life itself, all around you, wherever you are. Ideas fly past, and you catch them. Listen to conversations in every situation. Observe people. Eavesdrop whilst sitting on the top deck of a bus. Have notebooks with you at all times – and keep notes. And if you have a notebook system, you have to build in time to review your notebooks and retrieve your ideas.

Then you have to apply the first secret of writing:

1. Avoid Not Writing – take your craft seriously; believe that what you’re doing is of sufficient value that you are going to carve out time for it. Book time for it if necessary – put it in your diary. Get in there and do it. Don’t be afraid of the blank screen or blank page.

2. Pay attention to structure – break down the book in your head into an Outline. You could do it on a piece of software like Scrivener, or you could do it through a wall of Post It Notes, or you could plot it on a storyboard; or you could write your novel as a short story first. But realise that you are unique and may have your own special way of working that is right for you. With a novel, sometimes writers find they can’t plot too far ahead (though be aware you may have to go back and impose structure later). If that is the case for you -

3. Go on the journey and see what happens. If a character develops a life of his or her own it’s a good sign. Some say the characters create the plot. Keep asking why, what, where, how, when.

4. Set yourself a goal of a thousand words per working day, if you respond well to deadlines and schedules. If not write anyway.

5. Don’t talk your novel out of existence. Write that first draft. I believe it’s not a good idea to discuss the details of your novel with anyone until you’ve written it. Then you can seek feedback, and redraft, and revise and revise and revise.

Finally, when your book is finished to the very best of your ability and beyond, send it off to literary agents. And be prepared for rejection. Remember – you write because you are compelled to, because you cannot “not write”. Take note of these wise words from popular author Adrian Plass: “If things fall apart, pick up the pieces and carry on. Don’t despair. There are strange things going on behind the scenes.”

Courtesy : S.C. Skillman

These photos were taken by a sailor who was on the USS QUAPAW ATF-11O on December 7, 1941. Isn’t it amazing how a film could last so long in a camera without disintegrating?

White
Brides wear white to symbolize innocence and purity. White reflects light and is considered a summer color. White is popular in decorating and in fashion because it is light, neutral, and goes with everything. However, white shows dirt and is therefore more difficult to keep clean than other colors. Doctors and nurses wear white to imply sterility.

Black
Black is the color of authority and power. It is popular in fashion because it makes people appear thinner. It is also stylish and timeless. Black also implies submission. Priests wear black to signify submission to God. Some fashion experts say a woman wearing black implies submission to men. Black outfits can also be overpowering, or make the wearer seem aloof or evil. Villains, such as Dracula, often wear black.

Red
The most emotionally intense color, red stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing. It is also the color of love. Red clothing gets noticed and makes the wearer appear heavier. Since it is an extreme color, red clothing might not help people in negotiations or confrontations. Red cars are popular targets for thieves. In decorating, red is usually used as an accent. Decorators say that red furniture should be perfect since it will attract attention.

Pink
The most romantic color, pink, is more tranquilizing. It has a calming or sedative effect on others. Sports teams sometimes paint the locker rooms used by opposing teams bright pink so their opponents will lose energy.

Blue
The color of the sky and the ocean, blue is one of the most popular colors. It causes the opposite reaction as red. Peaceful, tranquil blue causes the body to produce calming chemicals, so it is often used in bedrooms. Blue can also be cold and depressing. Fashion consultants recommend wearing blue to job interviews because it symbolizes loyalty. People are more productive in blue rooms. Studies show weightlifters are able to handle heavier weights in blue gyms.

Green
Currently the most popular decorating color, green symbolizes nature. It is the easiest color on the eye and can improve vision. It is a calming, refreshing color. People waiting to appear on TV sit in green-rooms to relax. Hospitals often use green because it relaxes patients. Brides in the Middle Ages wore green to symbolize fertility. Dark green is masculine, conservative, and implies wealth. However, seamstresses often refuse to use green thread on the eve of a fashion show for fear it will bring bad luck.

Yellow
Cheerful sunny yellow is an attention getter. While it is considered an optimistic color, people lose their tempers more often in yellow rooms, and babies will cry more. It is the most difficult color for the eye to take in, so it can be overpowering if overused. Yellow enhances concentration, hence its use for legal pads. It also speeds metabolism.

Brown
Solid, reliable brown is the color of earth and is abundant in nature. Light brown implies genuineness while dark brown is similar to wood or leather. Brown can also be sad and wistful. Men are more apt to say brown is one of their favorite colors.

Purple
The color of royalty, purple connotes luxury, wealth, and sophistication. It is also feminine and romantic. However, because it is rare in nature, purple can appear artificial.

‘Pencil Sets’ are a series of over 40 intricately drawn illustrations on the carved out bodies of pencils.

But what does he use to draw on these pencils, when he’s drawn on his pencils?

It seems that Nokia sent out a tweet just to keep fans abreast of what was going on, in case they missed Elop’s interview. The message was to the point, confirming Elop’s comments that yes indeed, Nokia’s Windows Phone devices will start to ship in Q4 although, as the tweet notes, local availability cannot be confirmed. The tweet also notes that it won’t be until 2012 when Nokia will be shipping the phones in volume.

As for which country might be blessed with the first shipments of the Windows Phone flavored Nokia models, it looks like Nokia Australia’s Twitter account was listed at the end of the tweet which could be a clue that the smartphones will be first shipped there. We should know a lot more at the end of next month at Nokia World.

Via PhoneArena

After receiving the Papal blessing, the Nescafe official whispers, ‘Your Eminence, I have some business to discuss. We at Nescafe have an offer for you. Nescafe is prepared to donate $100 million to the church. If you change the Lord’s Prayer from ‘give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily coffee’.”

The Pope looks outraged and thunders, “That is impossible. The Prayer is the word of the Lord, It must not be changed. ” Well,” says the Nescafe man somewhat chastened, “We anticipated your reluctance.

For this reason, and the importance of the Lord’s Prayer to all Catholics, we will increase our offer to $300 million. All we require is that you change the Lord’s Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to Give us this day our daily coffee’.”

Again, even more sternly, the Pope replies, “That, my son is impossible. For the prayer is the word of the Lord and it must not be changed.”

Finally, the Nescafe director says, “Your Holiness, we at Nescafe respect your adherence to your faith, we realise that tradition is essential to your beliefs, we fully understand the importance of the word of the Lord, but we do have one final offer. Please discuss it with your cardinals. We will donate $500 million to the great Catholic church if you would only change the Lord’s Prayer from ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ to ‘give us this day our daily coffee’. Please, please consider it.” And he leaves.

The next day the Pope convenes the College of Cardinals.

“There is some Good news,” he announces, “and some bad news…… The good news is, he continues to a hushed assembly, ‘ that the Church will get $ 500 million.”

“And what is the bad news, your Holiness?” asks a Cardinal.

“Sadly” continues the Pope…

We would have to lose the Britannia account and go on with the Nestle!

The slogan was: “Mars or Bust.”

This may sound dramatic, but as highlighted by Mars Society founder Robert Zubrin during his closing speech, human spaceflight is at a crossroads and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether U.S. manned exploration beyond low-Earth orbit will ever become more than a Cold War memory.

Zubrin blames manned spaceflight stagnation squarely on a lack of leadership in space. Many other speakers echoed this criticism.

The Politics of Space

As we all know, U.S. spaceflight is dominated by politics — political agendas wax and wane with each administration that takes office — it’s little wonder NASA is currently suffering from a serious bout of confusion. Projects are funded, cut and then canceled on a shockingly frequent cycle (e.g. The James Webb Space Telescope is still being eyed for cancellation). The economy has slumped, only adding to the political pressure to do very little in the way of investment for manned spaceflight.

But despite the pessimism at the convention, overwhelming hope shone through.

From the plenary talks to the track sessions to the panel debates, ideas were shared and concepts taught by engineers, scientists and enthusiasts. Presentations included: Massive surface-to-space “guns” to launch cargo into orbit; techniques to store rocket fuel in orbital depots; space navigation using X-ray pulsars; even how to grow tomatoes in Martian greenhouses using Martian soil. The topics were as varied as they were immersive.

Although there were a fair number of advanced concepts (our friend Richard Obousy was even there to give a talk about the awesome Project Icarus), most of the presentations applied technology we have access to today, furthering humankind’s reach into the Cosmos.

Heated debates about how a Martian society might function erupted in the corridors. Spirited discussions were held at impromptu meetings in the venue’s bar and restaurant. Everyone was buzzing with the excitement that the next few years could (could) see an injection of global interest in sending a manned mission to Mars.

Why? For starters, representatives from Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) were there discussing the private sector’s plans to develop the means to send humans to the Red Planet.

This comes hot on the heels of Musk’s grand announcement that SpaceX has its sights set on Mars. Naturally, enthusiasts have latched onto SpaceX’s dreams, and for the first time I heard serious discussions about using commercial heavy lift rockets to take habitats to the Red Planet’s surface.

Whether or not this goal is achieved in the near-term isn’t important at this stage — after all, the private sector has yet to begin sending cargo to the International Space Station, let alone begin launching astronauts — just the fact the subject is on the table is silver lining enough.

Asteroid or Mars?

Also, the end of the Shuttle Program was seen by many as overdue — perhaps NASA can now focus on pushing the human spaceflight envelope beyond low-Earth orbit?

Unfortunately, President Obama’s direction for NASA’s next big “envelope-pushing” manned mission was met with skepticism at best. At worst, the plan to send astronauts to an asteroid “by the mid-2020′s” was met with outright hostility.

One convention delegate, associated with a NASA contractor, went so far to tell me that he thought a manned mission to an asteroid was “reckless” and the very notion that astronauts docking with a near-Earth asteroid would be useful was “a complete lie” and “just a way to distract the people from wanting a lunar or Mars goal.”

Along similar lines, Zubrin remains outspoken about his criticism for the space propulsion “silver bullet” that promises Earth-Mars transits of 39 days. I am, of course, referring to the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) being developed by former astronaut Franklin Chang-Diaz. Before this year’s convention, Zubrin challenged Chang-Diaz to attend a debate on the technologies behind VASIMR. Alas, a public debate didn’t happen.

The sticking point with VASIMR is that it would require so much energy to function, it would need a space-based nuclear power source vastly bigger than anything we’ve seen in space before. The technology may be there, but this form of plasma propulsion appears to be bolted firmly to the laboratory floor. Therefore, according to Zubrin and other critics, until some as-yet to be imagined alternative power source is invented, VASIMR is a project that will suck up funds with no hope of actually making a difference in space, let alone facilitating a manned mission to Mars.

The Life Incentive

The fundamental question being asked during the convention was: “Why send humans to Mars?” After all, it would be an expensive, high-risk endeavor; why put the lives of men and women on the line to begin an extended human presence on, what appears to be, a dead planet?

First and foremost — and potentially the sole reason (in my opinion) why we might see a sudden political interest for a manned expedition to Mars — is that we don’t know if the Red Planet is dead. Even if it doesn’t host life now, did it in the past?

And this is one thing the space community (mainly) agrees on; robotic missions are not going to find definitive proof that there are, or were, basic lifeforms on Mars. Human ingenuity will be invaluable for an extended and expansive Mars biology-hunting mission.

Coincidentally, Mars was thrust into the mainstream media when, right in the middle of the convention, news about observations of suspected salty water flowing across the Martian surface was announced. Once again, the potential for Mars to spawn its own form of life (or is it a shared form of life?) became the key topic for discussion. Local media seized the opportunity and descended on the Mars Society Convention to see what the experts thought.

Despite the pessimism, criticisms, concerns and frustration focused on the current state of the space program in the U.S., there was a moment when everyone in the convention was united in excitement.

Speaking at the convention banquet, NASA’s Ashwin Vasavada, Deputy Project Scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), presented a fantastic overview of the next flagship mission to Mars. Called “Curiosity,” the MSL will be a Mars mission like no other.

The nuclear-powered car-sized rover will land inside Gale Crater to explore a landscape never before seen through robotic eyes. It is thought that Gale may answer some important questions about the life-giving qualities Mars might have offered and Curiosity will be on the lookout for life’s signature.

Vasavada also confirmed Curiosity’s time of arrival on the Red Planet: Aug. 6, 2012 — exactly a year (to the day) from his presentation.

Pinnacle of Human Experience

Can Curiosity invigorate Mars science and provide the impetus for an extended manned presence on Mars? Well, that remains to be seen.

But if you asked me “why send man to Mars?” my answer wouldn’t depend on whether or not Martian life exists (or existed). I wouldn’t even say a political motivation — like competing with China to be the first to land a man on Mars — is a good reason to do so; I’d simply say that seeing bootprints on Mars is imperative for the long-term survival of our species.

Not only is it human nature to explore strange new worlds, should the worst happen to Earth, at least our gene pool will extend beyond terrestrial shores. But the Martian goal needs to be set in stone now, and not referred to as something that we can do in the distant, undefined future — these uncertainties fracture public support and, ultimately, undermine any manned space program.

Manned space exploration can invigorate society in ways we’ll never fully appreciate. A Mars mission would be the pinnacle of human experience, inspiring generations and developing technologies we didn’t know we even needed. And the ultimate goal of actually settling a community on Mars? Well, that could ensure the survival of mankind.

As Stephen Hawking would say: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. But to get those eggs to Mars, we’d better start planning now; the endeavor might just make mankind great again.

Via : Discovery

created by Logan Hugueny-Clark

In court the old man told the Judge: “They were just comments, they were not meant to harm anyone.”

The judge, before passing sentence on the case, told the old man: “Write all the things you said about him on a piece of paper. Cut them up and on the way home; throw the pieces of paper out. Tomorrow, come back to hear the sentence.”

The next day, the judge told the old man: “Before receiving the sentence, you will have to go out and gather all the pieces of paper that you threw out yesterday.”

The old man said: “I can’t do that! The wind spread them and I won’t know where to find them.”

The judge then replied: “The same way, simple comments may destroy the honor of a man to such an extent that one is not able to fix it. If you can’t speak well of someone, rather don’t say anything.”

Moral: Let’s all be masters of our mouths, so that we won’t be slaves of our words.

Click Here

While the back pocket is utilized for carrying mouse, the knee portion has a pair of crotch rocking speakers that offers an added level of excitement. For gamers, it offers a joystick controller positioned just behind the front zipper. My first impression after peeking into this weird form of trousers is: It was hard to understand its interface with computer. Also, for a moment it seemed as if someone doesn’t want to carry loads of sundry things alongwith the laptop that he prefers bearing the burden of these trousers that can accommodate every necessary thing. Kudos to such creation and next challenege for him seems to be a shirt with an integrated LCD monitor right on the chest. Whatsay?

Picking up a bottle of bubbly before a romantic evening should be a quick errand, but once you’re faced with a selection of sparkling wines, it can suddenly become overwhelming. Brut? Demi-Sec? Prosecco? Which is which?

The most famous of the sparkling wines, true Champagne comes only from the Champagne region of France, and is by far the most expensive bubbly. Champagne-style sparkling wines are made all around the world, however, and sometimes a bottle of domestic bubbly (we like Gruet Sparkling Wines from New Mexico and Barefoot Bubbly from California) is as inexpensive as a bottle of table wine. Regardless of the type, there are a few terms you should know when buying bubbly:

Brut: The driest (or least sweet) sparkling wine — yes, drier than Extra Dry. Extra Brut has less than 1% of residual sugar. Brut is slightly sweeter, but still dry.

Extra Dry: Contains a medium residual sugar content, for a slightly sweet sparkling wine. Just remember that when it comes to bubbly, “dry” means sweeter.

Sec and Demi-Sec: Sweet sparkling wines. Sugar content varies, but is less than 5%.

Doux: Contains the most residual sugar at over 5%, so is the sweetest of the sparkling wines.

Cuvée: Means a blend of different types of grapes or wines were used. Champagne is traditionally blended, as are domestic bubblies such as sparkling Rosé. Cuvée doesn’t indicate how sweet or dry it is.

Spumante: Italian sparkling wine, lighter and less complex than Champagne-method sparkling wine. Asti Spumante is a popular sweet sparkling wine, a good choice for those who like a simple and refreshing bubbly. For a dry Spumante, look for Prosecco (or “secco”).

Unless you’re planning to spend a lot of money, don’t worry much about things like vintage — inexpensive bubblies are best served young. For an expensive Champagne, your best bet is to find a good local wine shop with a knowledgable staff that will match your budget to your perfect bottle.

Via : HolidayDash

Now there’s a spin-off — a game at the Window of the World theme park in Changsha, China, though it was apparently started without Rovio’s approval.  Stories have been popping up all over the web, showing people using slingshots to shoot plush-toy birds at their targets.

A bit of background, if you’re one of the three people in the solar system who’s not been hooked: Angry Birds is a video game, best played on a mobile device (an iPhone, iPad, Android, etc.) with a touch screen, in which you shoot flightless birds at evil green pigs — who happen to be protected in weird structures of wood, ice or stone. There’s a devilish pleasure that comes from hitting them at just the right angle and watching them come crashing down as your point total goes up.

What do you do if you’re Rovio, and you were already trying to expand into China — and someone else capitalized on your idea? The company has not, so far, replied to messages from ABC News. It has already been selling Angry Bird plush toys; now stuffed birds are turning up on China Daily.

“This serves as a method for people to purge themselves and to gain happiness,” said an unnamed park official on a Chinese gaming website.

Via : Go

This is the brightest supernova in Britain’s sky for at least 18 years, but it was shining (and may still be shining) at magnitude 10, beyond the grasp of any but the largest of binoculars, even without the bright moonlight at present. In fact, we probably need a telescope and a decent chart just to glimpse it near the galaxy’s SSW fringe. To suggest otherwise is misleading and has probably left many people frustrated.

Sometimes astronomy is misrepresented in support of silly fringe ideas. One of the strands of nonsense associated with the claims of an impending catastrophe in 2012 is that an object, sometimes called Planet X or Nibiru, will collide with the Earth, or sweep close enough to trigger a cataclysm. Astronomers know this to be fiction, but when the Russian amateur observer Leonid Elenin discovered a comet last December the catastrophists soon linked it with the Nibiru story.

Comet Elenin was beyond Jupiter when it was found, but tracking inwards towards a perihelion 72 million km from the Sun, which it passed on Saturday. It is now tracking outwards and will pass a safe 35 million km from the Earth on 16 October. Despite the claims to the contrary, there is no chance of a collision or of any of the other dire effects we read about. Indeed, the comet’s nucleus was only ever a small icy body and observations suggest that it may have disintegrated as it neared perihelion, as others have done before.

Our chart shows the lower half of our eastern sky at 05:30 BST tomorrow, but is valid also for 03:30 BST in mid-October. Mercury is just visible tomorrow, very low in the twilight at mag -1.1, but is likely to disappear by next weekend.

The diagonal lines show the paths of Mars and of Comet Elenin, with tick marks to show the positions of Mars and the comet every 10 and five days respectively. Mars is unmistakable below Castor and Pollux at present, reddish in hue and brightening from mag 1.4 tomorrow to 1.0 on 10 November when it passes 1.4° N of Regulus in Leo. On the way, it passes in front of the Praesepe star cluster on 1 October and lies near the waning Moon on 23 September and 22 October. If enough remains of the comet, it may still be visible during October and perhaps even through binoculars, though I fear we will be disappointed.

Jesse Miller created and played by-Andre Hyland
Camera -Keith Musil
Sound -Alexandra Hope

The find, which has been described as ‘one in a million’ and ‘sensational’, is one of 100 hundred such schools the Romans built to train the fighters before they were pitted against each other in brutal combat.

The Brits were among an international team of historians, geologists and archaeologists from the Ludwig Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Vienna.

Ground penetrating radar was used to identify the school at a Roman park called Carnuntum which is the site of an old settlement containing one of the finest amphitheatres ever discovered 40 miles east of Vienna.

The ruins have been mapped by radar but currently remain underground.

Officials say the find rivals the famous Ludus Magnus – the largest of the gladiatorial training schools in Rome – in its structure.

And they say the Austrian site is even more detailed than the well-known Roman ruin, down to the remains of a thick wooden post in the middle of the training area, which was used as a mock enemy for the aspiring gladiators to attack.

The complex contains about 40 tiny sleeping cells, a large bathing area, a training hall with heated floors and assorted administrative buildings.

Outside the walls, radar scans show what archeologists believe was a cemetery for those killed during training.

Lower Austrian provincial Governor Erwin Proell said: ‘This is a world sensation, in the true meaning of the word.’

The team hope to unearth a wealth of artefacts including body armour, weapons, eating utensils and money from the site where warriors trained and lived 2,000 years ago.

It is the first Gladiatorial school to be discovered outside of Italy: other famous ones include those at Capua and Ravenna.

A spokesman said that imaging equipment showed the structures still to be excavated as having the similar building hallmarks to the Collisseum and the Ludus Magnus gladiatorial ampitheatre, both in Rome.

Carnuntum was the capital of the Roman province Pannonia which stretched over parts of what is now Austria, Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Caesar Augustus was the Roman emperor at the time of the gladiatorial school some 27 years before and 14 years after the birth of Christ.

It was the site of the standing HQ of the XV Legion Apollinaris.

It is understood the cells were the gladiators lived at Carnuntum have been discovered and are typically arranged in barrack formation around a central practice arena.

Virtual video presentations of the former Carnuntum gladiator school showed images of the ruins underground that morphed into what the complex may have looked like in the third century.

A spokesman for the Roemisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, one of the institutes involved in finding and evaluating the discovery said: ‘A gladiator school was a mixture of a barracks and a prison, kind of a high-security facility.

‘The fighters were often convicted criminals, prisoners-of-war, and usually slaves.’

The main courtyard is ringed by living quarters and other buildings and contains a round, 19-square meter training area – a small stadium overlooked by wooden seats and the terrace of the chief trainer.

The institute believes the training area was where the men’s ‘market value and in end effect their fate’ was decided.

Carnuntum park head Franz Hume added: ‘If they were successful, they had a chance to  advance to ‘superstar’ status – and maybe even achieve freedom.’

Gladiators took their name from the Latin word gladius, for sword. Some were volunteers who risked their legal and social standing and their lives by appearing in the arena.

Most were slaves, schooled under harsh conditions and socially marginalised.

Irrespective of their origin, gladiators offered audiences an example of Rome’s martial ethics and, in fighting or dying well, they could inspire admiration and popular acclaim.

They were celebrated in art, and their value as entertainers was commemorated in precious and commonplace objects throughout the Roman world.

The games reached their peak between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD, and they persisted not only throughout the social and economic crises of the declining Roman state but even after Christianity became the official religion in the 4th century AD.

Christian emperors continued to sponsor such entertainments until at least the late 5th century AD, when the last known gladiator games took place.

They existed on a high-energy, vegetarian diet combining barley, boiled beans, oatmeal, ash – believed to help fortify the body- and dried fruit.

Via : DailyMail