HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Well as 2011 fades away, Id like to wish you all a Happy New year 2012. Hope you have a great year ahead!

World's Smallest Woman

 

Ten essential facts about the new Guinness World Records™
record-breaker from India.

1.    Born on 16 December, 1993, in Nagpur ,Jyoti measures 61.95 cm (2 ft) tall, making her shorter than the average two-year-old child.

2.    She weighs just 11lb (5 kg).

3.    Jyoti is 6.2 cm shorter than the former world's Shortest woman, 22-year old American Bridgette Jordan who stands at 69cm (2 ft 3 in).

4.    Joyti has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia and will not grow any taller than her current height.

5.    Due to her size, all of Jyoti's clothes and jewelry are custom made. Even plates and utensils are specially made, as normal-sized silverware is too big.

6.    Jyoti has attended regular school since she was 4 and, other than a small desk and chair, she is treated like any other pupil.

7.    Just like most other teenage girls, Jyoti loves fashion, make-up and talking on the phone.

8.    Her dream of becoming a Bollywood actress is set to come true next year as she is due to star in two movies in 2012.

9.    She is set to release an album with her favorite Bhangra/rap star Mika Singh next year.

10.    Despite her tiny stature, Jyoti Amge is not the Shortest woman in history. This title continues to be held by Pauline Musters (Netherlands, 1876-1895)(pictured below)  who measured just 61cm (24in).

AWESOME facts about the Human Body-3

The length of your hand is about equal to the height of your face!

AWESOME facts about the Human Body-2

The length of your foot is about equal to the length of Your forearm. Or vice versa. The measurement of the forearm is taken from the wrist to the crook of the elbow (the length of the radius).

( Dont believe this? Well, try it out then!)

AWESOME facts about the Human Body-1

The length of a man's arm span, measured from the tips of the middle fingers, is about equal to his height.







Try measuring your arm span and see... it really equals your height (or close to it)

Cell phones do not affect Communication systems on Airplanes.

Airplanes are specially insulated against foreign radio signals, and their communication and navigation instruments operate on different frequencies from cell phones. The Federal Communications Commission (USA) is actually the agency responsible for the ban, since the signals could potentially block telecommunication systems on the ground.


If someone makes a phone call from a plane, the signal would bounce across multiple cell towers at once, which could prevent other calls from going through. Yet some airlines in Europe, the Middle East and Asia have started allowing cell phone usage on flights.

Chocolate kills dogs!!

You may have heard people say that chocolate will kill dogs? Does that make sense? If I can eat chocolate, why can't my dog?

Dogs and people are different in lots of ways. For example, dogs can run around in the snow all day in their bare feet and it doesn't cause them any problems. People can run around barefooted in the snow for 30 seconds or so before it hurts. There are lots of differences like that between dogs and people.

It turns out that, for dogs, a chemical in chocolate called theobromine is the source of the problem. Theobromine is similar to caffeine. Theobromine is toxic to a dog when it ingests between 100 and 150 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.


Different types of chocolate contain different amounts of theobromine: It would take 20 ounces of milk chocolate to kill a 20-pound dog, but only 2 ounces of baker's chocolate or 6 ounces of semisweet chocolate.

Did you know?

You can recover data from a failing hard drive by putting it in the freezer for a few hours and then reinstalling it in the computer. 


While this method won't magically fix whatever is wrong with your computer, it can get your hard drive working long enough for you to recover important data before it gives up the ghost for good. This generally works best when the drive is making a tell-tale clicking sound caused by overheated metal parts that have expanded. Freezing the hard drive cools and shrinks the metal so the drive will mount properly and run long enough (hopefully) for you to copy your files to another source. :D

You Cannot Tickle Yourself...

You cannot tickle yourself. The cerebellum, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain already knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation, hence you can’t tickle yourself.


  

DOES THE COLOR RED REALLY MAKE BULLS ANGRY?

LOL... NO!! Spanish matadors began using a small red cape, or muleta, in bullfighting around the 1700s. Ever since, it seems, people have perpetuated the color-charged myth that red makes bulls go wild.







The color red isn't what causes bulls to attack. In fact, bulls don't seem to have any color
 preference at all. They charge at whichever object is moving the most!

Fat Flu

There’s been a lot of research findings about obesity , but this seems to be the weirdest yet. As reported in the August 2005 ASM News (from the American Society of Microbiology) and the January 2005 International Journal of Obesity, some think that you can get fat by catching the fat flu.
Well, not flu exactly, but a human adenovirus called Ad-36. Most adenoviruses cause cold-like symptoms, but this one seems to also trigger weight gain. Richard Atkinson (president of the American Obesity Association) and others at the University of Wisconson tested obese and non-obese individuals for antibodies against Ad-36. Antibodies serve as evidence of current or past exposure to the virus.

Among the heavier group, roughly one-third had been exposed to the virus, whereas only one-tenth of the skinny folk had. Those who had the antibodies were an average of 50 pounds heavier than those that did not. Coincidence? Three related viruses were found not to differ, on average, between the husky and not.
According to Atkinson , Ad-36 changes fat metabolism so that humans and other animals pack on more pounds while eating the same amount of food. This gain appears to be slow and steady, so if one gets the heads up, he or she could ward off the weight by lifestyle changes. Still, doesn’t seem fair, does it!

Dove Chocolates

Did you know that Dove chocolates are called Galaxy in UK, Middle East and Africa?

    

Yahoo!

Yahoo.com was started by two electrical engineering graduates from Stanford university. Initially started as "David and Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web" , they renamed it to Yahoo in April 1994.

Iter Avto - The world's first automobile navigation system

Behold the Iter Avto, the world's first automobile navigator, created in 1930.





Of course, it didn't have voice prompts and GPS, but we all need to start somewhere.

The principle is quite simple. The screen manually scrolls paper maps that are attached to a cable thats similar to a modern mechanical speedometer. Thus, the scroll rate of the map is proportional to vehicle's speed.







Ten years earlier, way back in 1920, you could find the Plus Fours Routefinder. This manual "navigator" resembled a clock and consisted of paper maps and two wooden handles that needed to be scrolled manually.

Michael Jackson: 100 facts about the king of pop

1. Michael Jackson's favourite animated character was Pinocchio

2. When he was a child his favourite books included Rip Van Winkle and The Old Man and the Sea

3. Michael Jackson was very ticklish

4. Saint Vincent, an island in the Caribbean, once issued Michael Jackson stamps

5. The singer once owned a boa constrictor called “Muscles”

6. As a youngster he used to put spiders in sister La Toyah’s bed

7. He played a scarecrow in The Wiz, a movie version of the Wizard of Oz

8. He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for himself and one as part of the Jackson Five)

9. Quincy Jones nicknamed him “smelly” – a slang term similar to “funky”

10. Jackson described his own voice on early Jackson 5 records as “like Minnie Mouse”

11. He was a big fan of The Three Stooges

12. He is an Exeter City fan

13. He had two llamas called Louis and Lola

14. Thriller spent 37 weeks at number one in the US Billboard chart.

15. In 1984 he won eight Grammy’s – the joint highest amount ever won by one person in a single year

16. He gave his first public performance at the age of 5 singing Climb Every Mountain

17. He had eight brothers and sisters

18. His marriage to Lisa-Marie Presley lasted only 19 months

19. Jackson paid $47 million for the publishing rights to the Beatles back catalogue in 1985 and sold a share of to Sony in 1995 for $95 million

20. His middle name was Joseph

21. He was born on Aug 29, 1958

22. At the Brit Awards in 1996 Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker took exception to his bombastic performance of Earth Song and ran on to the stage

23. Jackson was very fond of Mexican food

24. In 1993 Jackson’s dermatologist said he had a rare skin disease called vitiligo, which causes sufferers to lose pigmentation in their skin

25. Thriller is the world’s best-selling record of all time with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide

26. Two of his other albums – Bad and Dangerous – are also among the world’s best-selling records

27. He popularised dance moves including the robot and the moonwalk

28. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice

29. He won 13 Grammy Awards

30. Billie Jean was the first video by a black artist to air on MTV.

31. Jackson owns the rights to the South Carolina State Anthem, South Carolina on My Mind.

32. He has waxworks in five Madame Tussauds museums across the world. Only Elvis Presley and Madonna have more.

33. He has sold more than 300 million records worldwide

34. His favourite superhero is Morph from X-Men

35. He had a pet ram called Mr Tibbs

36. His total lifetime earnings from music are estimated at $500 million

37. Jackson regularly wore a black armband to remind people of children suffering around the world.

38. The moonwalk was picked up from street dancers

39. Little Richard wanted to be played by Jackson in a biopic

40. Jackson had a pet python called Crusher

41. In 1984 a French fan committed suicide because he couldn’t have surgery to look like Jackson

42. The video for Scream was the most expensive ever at £3.8 million.

43. A library once accused the singer of owing $1 million in overdue book fines

44. Jackson was a vegetarian

45. He won an MTV award for Best Movie Song in 1994. It was for Will You Be There from the movie Free Willy

46. HIStory was the biggest selling double album ever released in the United States

47. Jackson was given a royal title in the Ivory Coast in 1992

48. Before concerts he would drink Ricola candy dissolved in hot water

49. His birthplace Gary, Indiana, is planning a museum in his honour

50. The singer patented a shoe device that allowed dancers to lean forward at gravity defying angles

51. He was a best man at Liza Minnelli’s wedding to David Gest

52. The largest television audience in US history watched him perform at half time during the 1993 Super Bowl

53. Martin Scorcese once directed a Jackson video

54. A survey in 1997 declared him the Most Famous Person in the World

55. He paid $1.5 million in 1999 to buy for the 1939 Oscar for best film won by Gone With The Wind

56. Jackson once described Elizabeth Taylor as “a warm cuddly blanket that I love to snuggle up to”

57. He recorded a voice-over on The Simpsons

58. Macauley Culkin is godfather to two of Jackson’s children

59. Jackson co-wrote We Are The World with Lionel Richie

60. He is godfather to Nicole Richie

61. He is also godfather to Bee Gees singer Barry Gibb’s son Michael

62. Jackson shares a birthday with Sir Richard Attenborough and actress Rebecca DeMornay

63. At the time of his death Jackson was rehearsing for his greatest comeback, with 50 shows scheduled in London

64. He was four years old when he began singing with his brothers Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito in the Jackson 5

65. The Jackson 5’s number one hits included “I Want You Back,” “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”

66. In 2002 Jackson caused controversy when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin in front of fans

67. MC Hammer once challenged Jackson to a dance off

68. In a TV documentary he acknowledged sharing his bed with children but described the practice as sweet, and not sexual

69. During production of a 1984 Pepsi advertisement Jackson sustained burns when an explosion set his hair on fire

70. Jackson’s 13 number one hits on the US Billboard charts put him behind only Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Mariah Carey

71. Jackson’s father Joseph worked in a steel mill

72. Joseph Jackson and his brother Luther were in an R&B band called The Falcons

73. Michael was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness by his mother

74. In a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey the singer spoke of a traumatic childhood including suffering from loneliness

75. Jackson showed his singing talent at the age of five when he performed at a Christmas recital

76. The family band was originally called the Jackson Brothers

77. Michael was promoted to joint lead vocals at the age of eight and the band became the Jackson 5

78. They toured extensively in the US Midwest from 1966 to 1968

79. He initially used his eccentricities to promote his music but strongly disliked the “Wacko Jacko” nickname

80. Wild stories about him included that he slept in an oxygen chamber and that he bought the bones of The Elephant Man.

81. During the world tour for Bad he performed to 4.4 million people

82. His first autobiography, Moon Walk, took four years to complete

83. The book reached the top of The New York Times best sellers’ list

84. Jackson admitted to having had two nose jobs

85. He suggested weight loss and a strict vegetarian diet had contributed to the change in his appearance

86. He paid $17 million in 1988 for the land in California that became the Neverland Ranch

87. The 2,700-acre property had a theme park, a menagerie, and a movie theatre.

88. Its grounds were protected by a security staff of 40

89. Neverland was valued at $100 million in 2003

90. The profits from his single “Man in the Mirror” went to charity

91. In 1991 he signed a contract with Sony worth $65 million

92. In 1992 he founded the Heal the World Foundation which brought underprivileged children to Neverland and made donations worldwide

93. When he visited the African country of Gabon 100,000 people turned out to see him

94. Jackson’s most famous pet was Bubbles the chimpanzee

95. Bubbles was adopted at the age of three from a cancer research clinic in Texas.

96. Bubbles sat in on recording sessions for the Bad album and accompanied Jackson to Tokyo

97. The artist Jeff Koons made a series of sculptures of Jackson and Bubbles

98. Jackson fathered two children with Deborah Jeanne Rowe – Michael Joseph Jackson Junior (also known as “Prince”) and a daughter, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson

99. The couple divorced in 1999 and Rowe gave full custody rights to Jackson

100. Vitiligo, the skin disease from which he suffered, affects 1 to 2 per cent to 2 per cent of the population

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (also called Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij N.V) is the World's Oldest Airline. It started Operations on 17 May 1920 and they even fly today!

First flight on 17 May 1920

The British East India Company

The British East India Company was an english company formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India. It was incorporated by royal charter on Dec. 31, 1600. Starting as a monopolistic trading body, the company became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century. In addition, the activities of the company in China in the 19th century served as a catalyst for the expansion of British influence there.

The company's HQ in London

Soldiers of the East India Company

But, did you know in 2004, it was bought over by an indian businessman, Sanjiv Mehta? In 2004, Mehta proceeded to buy all the company’s shares, mostly owned by British businessmen. He then spent the six years travelling and talking to museum curators and historians in an attempt to gain a proper understanding of the heritage of the company.


             


Today, the company sells "fine foods" like Tea, Chocolate, Coffee, Wines, Jams, Mustard and Biscuits. and has a store in London.

The Volkswagen Beetle

Probably the most popular car in the world,the Volkswagen Beetle had a fascinating past. It was proposed by Adolf Hitler, to make a "peoples car" that can fit 5 people and deliver speed of 100km/h (62mph). It was later known as "Volks-Wagen" ("People's Car"). Beetle was designed by Ferdinand Porsche founder of automotive design company, Porsche Buro (Now known as Porsche automobiles). 

The Mobile Phone

The mobile phone was invented by a team of people at Motorola. The team was led by Dr Martin Cooper.


The DynaTAC 8000x was the First mobile phone produced (and is pictured below).

The Hydraulophone

The Hydraulophone is an instrument that uses the flow of water to make the sound of music!


Developed by Steve Mann, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto and his colleague Ryan Janzen, hydraulophone is a water based instrument. This fish shaped instrument involves the use of 12 water jets (that sout water out of twelve holes), each standing for one of the twelve notes. In to these water jets the users dip their fingers, producing soothing music.

The Computer Mouse

The first computer mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

The Incandescent Light Bulb

Joseph Swan, a British physicist and chemist,  Invented the Incandescent Light Bulb (and not Thomas Edison).


His house was the first in the world to be lit by a light bulb. Below is a a picture of the bulb Swan invented.

              

Fact of the Day (17/06/11)

The smiley face was created by Harvey Ball.

The Smiley Face

     

His design of the Smiley came about in 1963. The State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts purchased Guarantee Mutual Company of Ohio. The merger resulted in low employee morale. In an attempt to solve this, Ball was employed in 1963 as a freelance artist to create a smiley face to be used on buttons, desk cards, and posters. 


The use of the smiley face was part of the company's friendship campaign whereby State Mutual handed out 100 smiley pins to employees. The aim was to get employees to smile while using the phone and doing other tasks. . More than 50 million smiley face buttons were sold by 1971, and the smiley has been described as an international icon.

Fact of the Day (16/06/11)

The CD  (Compact Disk) was invented by Phillips.

Fact of the Day (15/06/11)

The Samsung Group was founded by Lee Byung-chull , who started it all as a small company that traded in groceries that was called  Samsung Sanghoe. 

Fact of the Day (13/6/11)

Apple seeds do contain a small amount of cyanide, which is a lethal poison, but you are protected from the toxin by the hard seed coating. If you eat whole apple seeds, they pass through your digestive system relatively untouched. If you chew the seeds thoroughly, you will be exposed to the chemicals inside the seeds, but the dose of toxins in an apple is small enough that your body can easily detoxify it.

    

Fact of the Day (12/6/11)

Coca Cola was first invented by a pharmacist name John Pemberton as a medicine to cure headaches.


               

Fact of the Day (11/6/11)

 Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t know too much about HTML. That’s why the first homepage had a very bare bones design. The simple design caused people to just sit there looking at the screen during initial tests. Test users were actually waiting for the “rest of the page to load”. To solve that particular problem the Google Copyright message was added as a line as an end of page marker.