All posts in World News

Stem-Cell treatment being testing in the US

by Chris M on October 18, 2010 in World News with 2 Comments

I once got into a very long discussion around stem-cell research with a good friend of mine, it was possibly one of the most interesting conversations I’ve ever had, one that even resulted in a laptop being taken out and some research being done. I’m not going to go into what we were talking about or our views, but today I read an article about a person who had spinal cord injury and researchers had injected the patient with stem cells to test its effects.

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Image: Gizmodo

In the animal trials, rats with spinal cord damage that had lost control of their hind limbs regained at least the partial ability to walk and run after treatments with the stem cells. However, this is a trial with a human being, so the results will be very different and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

Dr Robert Watkins IV said, “We know a lot about rehabilitation … but right now we have no treatment,” Watkins said. “It’s one of the most frustrating aspects of being a doctor.” He went on to say, “waiting with bated breath every day” of the trial, watching for side effects, such as signs of tumor growth or pain.

Incredibly interesting to see where medicine is moving, we all knew it was coming and we’ve all read about it, but have you actually really thought about the possibilities? Probably not.

I’m somewhat undecided as to how I really feel about this though.

10.10.10

by Chris M on October 10, 2010 in World News with 7 Comments

Today is the 10th of October 2010, or 10/10/10!

Looking at this from a mathematical point of view, would show the following:

101010 in binary converted to decimal (base ten) would yeild 42. This number is evenly divisible by 7, the number of days in the week – 7 is lucky number 7, ironically, the number 42 is also evenly divisible by the number 6, which is an unlucky number. I’ve read that this basically poses a good and bad mix, which means the day will be normal – ying and yang, black and white, odd and even.

The binary attributes of 101010 lends itself to use by the sciences of fractals (recursive geometric shapes) and chaos theory (the butterfly effect).

Does this day mean anything special to you?

Youngest billionaires in the US

by Chris M on October 7, 2010 in Jobs & Money, World News with 9 Comments

I always find it interesting when it comes to the richest folks around the world, not so much about who they are, but about what they do. It’s interesting to note that most of the youngest and richest people are all in the IT industry. Here’s a look at 7 of the youngest and richest people in America:

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You guessed it, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, is worth $15 billion at the age of 37. Like Mark Zuckerberg and his partner in crime, Larry Page, he’s another colledge drop out – wasn’t the worst decision was it ;)

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Co-founder of Google, 37 years old and worth $15 billion!

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Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg is just 26 years old and is already worth a whopping $6.8 billion! He’s a harvard dropout, Facebook CEO and anything but stupid!

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John Arnold has made billions through hedge funds, and at the age of 36 he’s worth $3.3 billion.

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Scott Duncan took over part of a family business known as Enterprise Products, which owns 49,000 miles of pipelines. He is just 27 years old and is worth $3.1 billion.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s former roommate at Harvard, Dustin Moskovitz. Dustin worked at Facebook as the chief technology officer, but left in 2008 to start a software company called Asana. His entire fortune comes from his 6% stake in Facebook. He is worth $1.4 billion and is only 26 years old.

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Another Facebook-driven billionaire is Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook. Eduardo and Mark Zuckerberg split when Mark dropped out, but Eduardo wanted to complete his degree. Facebook sued Eduardo, he countersued and things settled with him gaining a 5% stake, which has given him a net worth of $1.15 billion by just the age of 28.

Inspired by Forbes, see more billionaires..

Mooncake Festival

by Chris M on September 22, 2010 in World News with 2 Comments

A celebration which dates back over 3000 by the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese people is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month on the Chinese calendar, which basically interprets to late September or Early October. The Mooncake Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival is a harvest festival and is the date when the moon is aparently it’s fullest.

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This festival consists of a number of traditions, such as:

  • Carrying and floating lanterms
  • Burning incense
  • Planing mid-autumn trees
  • Fire dragon dances

And more!

mooncakes

Mooncake – round or rectangular pastries, measuring about 10 cm in diameter and 4-5 cm thick. A thick filling usually made from lotus seed paste is surrounded by a relatively thin (2-3 mm) crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs ~ Wiki

Happy Mooncake Festival!

First iPad owner in China

by Chris M on September 20, 2010 in Equipment, World News with No comments

I was given an iPad to test drive a few months ago and did find it really enjoyable – I don’t think I’d rush out and buy one, but I would definitely use one if I was given one.

Anyway, I was sent an email with a photograph of a guy called Han, who basically became a celebrity in China as the first person in China to own an iPad:

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Take a look at his t-shirt, “I buy iPad No1″ – haha, gota love that! :D

Spring…

by on September 1, 2010 in Women, World News with 5 Comments

Spring has sprung! September 1st marks the beginning of many things for different people. The first day of detox, diets, and exercise programmes in preparation for summer. A time to get going in the garden, spring clean the house or learn a new skill. Spring is a time for fresh starts and new adventures. For me, September is the anniversary of adventuring into my dream of pursuing a career in writing. A future of freelance freedom.

Credit: http://www.thehealthword.com/

A couple of years ago I found myself unemployed in the middle of a retrenchment-inducing economic downturn. Jobs were scarce, my nearest and dearest were severely affected and I went from being a well-fed, middle-upperclass LSM 10-er to yet another person without a job or an income. I tried a number of things to make ends meet, but there was little interest in professional PowerPoint design or graphic work at the time. Things started to get a little dire.

I’d always loved to write and eventually decided to give it a bash. God alone knows how I landed my first client! I had no formal training or experience-just a fortunate ability to string together a sentence, the willingness to do the best I could with what I had, the initiative to educate myself with the resources available to me, and perseverance, perseverance, and more perseverance! I now write regularly for blogs and websites based all over the country and absolutely love what I do. The flexibility, freedom, and nature of my work make my career (for the most part!) a joy. And I’m finally doing professional PowerPoints again too. Bonus!

This Spring season and this month mark the happy anniversary of my foray into freelance writing freedom. I don’t know how long it will last and the “road” has been more of a 4×4 track, but I am so abundantly grateful to all the amazing people who’ve made it possible for me to achieve even this small goal. (You’re awesome)!

What do September and the Spring season mean to you?

Languages of the world

by on August 30, 2010 in Travel, World News with 5 Comments

Someone asked me during a recent get-together in a Russian pub – did I know where Russian itself as a language fits into the worldly scheme of things. I sipped my Baltika and replied that it changes all the time, and then took a guess, since I knew that Russian is one of the six official UN languages and that there are over 150 million people in the country. My guess was that it ranked 10th on the amount of people who speak it, mainly because I know how hard it is to learn.

It turned out to be 8th, which still meant that I owed Sergei a beer. However, most interesting where some other results of the research we both did later that evening… Ok, fine, the truth is we did the research the next day.

Russian is spoken by about 150 to 200 million people, but when one goes up the list, until the second most spoken language, one gets to around 350 million, depending on where you check. After that, the number one language is Mandarin, with almost 3 times that: estimated at anywhere between 850 million and 1 billion!

Another strange thing, is that with all the attention given to French, it is way down on the list by any interpretation, and yet still quite widely spoken. German, too, is not much of a contender for the top 5 by a long shot. Yet Portuguese, with mainly Brazil helping it along, is quoted in some places as having over 200 million speakers.

Why do these statistics and numbers mean anything? Well, for one, why are we not teaching any of these top languages in our schools? Other than English, I haven’t heard of any young people getting Spanish or Arabic, Hindi or Mandarin lessons. Are we setting ourselves up for Europe with our German, French and Italian classes?

What one also has to remember, is that to actually get to these numbers, there is a lot of speculation, and also many assumptions are made. Suffice to say though, that if you speak even three of the top five languages, you have doors opening up to you almost anywhere. Are languages the main ingredient to living a global life?

True Blood in Rolling Stone

by on August 20, 2010 in Music, Video, World News with 9 Comments

If you are a fan of the hit TV show, True Blood (I am), then you probably already know about THIS latest Rolling Stone magazine cover (yup, the one with the 3 main character naked and covered in blood).

While alot of people either hate or love the cover, I think most people will like these cool (less shocking) photos from inside the September issue of Rolling Stone

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true blood inside shot

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Are you a fan of True Blood?
What did you think of the bloody Rolling Stone cover?

Rio de Janeiro – 2016 Olympic Tower

by on August 18, 2010 in World News with No comments

This vertical structure will be placed in Cotonduba Island.

It will be both a observation Tower, and a welcome sign for the visitors arriving by air and by sea at Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympic Games 2016 will take place.

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The project is from Zurique, and utilizes solar energy during the day with its solo power panels, to pump the sea water as seen in the model.

The movement of the water will be also utilized to turn the turbines and produce the power to work the system at night time.

In the Solo City Tower is the Cafe anfiteatre, auditórium, shops etc. e lifts will take the visitors to the top, where the view will be fantastic, and bungee jumping will have a special platform.

Superstitious?

by on August 13, 2010 in World News with No comments

friday 13th

Do you avoid black cats? Do you believe that if you break a mirror you get 7 years bad luck? Are you afraid to open an umbrella in a house or walk under a ladder? Does the number 13 make you feel very uneasy?

If your answer is yes to the above questions then you must really be freaking out thats its Friday the 13th today *grins*.

I did a little google search for facts, myths and origins about the number 13. As expected, plenty of info came up, like……

Did you know that:

  • For centuries people have had a fear of the number 13? (Random fact alert: the fear of the number 13 is called Triskaidekaphobia.)
  • Apparently millions of people stay off work on friday the 13th
  • In many hotels/skyscrapers there is no 13th floor and most airplanes have no seat No. 13 (weird, huh?)

Personally, I’m not superstitious at all (I don’t really undertsand how some people are?) and the only “Friday the 13th” that scares me a bit is the movie.

Are you superstitious?

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