Intel Unveils New Motherboard Roadmap.......

Intel sees a healthy desktop market in the days ahead, and is readying its channels to address new opportunities in this market. The chip major has affirmed that it will keep working with the system builder channel for the motherboard business and will drive innovation in the space.

“Our biggest message is that 2013 will be an exciting year for the desktop business, and you will see bigger innovations happening. The desktop market is not dead, it’s simply evolving,” said Taha Mughir, Worldwide Customer Marketing Manager, Intel Client Board Division.

Mughir said that Intel will unveil a new form factor called Next Unit of Computing in the country. The 4-inch x 4-inch motherboard features an integrated Core i3 with 7-series chipset, mini-PCIe slot, mSATA slot, two SO-DIMM slots and three USB ports. Power is supplied by an external AC/DC adapter, but there is also a small 2-pin header for optional internal power supply.

“We have already launched the product in other markets and are excited about introducing it in India. In the US, a full-fledged system without monitor and OS, but having a 80/120 GB SSD drive, is retailing at $399. We expect similar pricing from our system builder partners here,” he said.

According to Mughir, Intel sees four other form factors existing simultaneously. “The ATX form factor will be around as the enthusiast/gaming segment needs a larger form factor, Micro ATX will remain for the mainstream desktop market, the mini ITX for the Atom and PC-like embedded market, and the thin mini ITX for the AIO.”

He forecast that AIOs will gain a dominant marketshare to the extent of 30 percent by 2014. “We now have 7-8 strong suppliers of building blocks (such as chassis) for this market, and building block costs are coming down.”

He added that channels must look beyond the value PC market to stay ahead of the competition. Mughir identified markets such as high-end gaming and workstations, PC-like embedded, and AIOs as the three market segments where system builders are likely to dominate. “We have introduced new models for the PC-like embedded market, and now have embedded form factors supporting up to Core i7. Though we have partners building solutions for nearly 200 niche segments, we have identified PoS, digital signage and surveillance as the three key markets for our channels.”

Meanwhile, Intel has released solution recipes (popularly known as cookbooks) which allow resellers to build solutions for these target markets.

Mughir said that in 2013 Intel will launch Haswell, the next generation of the Core series of processors. He also said that next year the mainstream motherboard chipset market is likely to see a transition from the H61 to H67/77.

Flying on Sunshine........

Once futuristic visions, solar sails now take off............

When it comes to futuristic space travel, few concepts are more romantic than sailing on sunlight. Soar above Earth, unfurl a jib and tack your way through the solar system all the way to interstellar space.
Solar sails have been a mainstay of dreamers since Johannes Kepler, who speculated four centuries ago that ships would one day be powered by “heavenly air.” But sun sailing is no longer fanciful fodder for visionaries. Recent technological advances have moved solar sailing from science fiction to science fact.

After keeping scientists in suspense, NASA’s NanoSail-D (illustration shown) fanned out in space earlier this year. Solar sails like this one may be the future of space travel.

Last year, Japan’s space agency launched the world’s first solar sail into interplanetary space; its metal-coated membrane unfurled and caught the light to begin sunjamming. And with help from tiny “nanosatellites” that allow scientists to pack folded-up sails in spacecraft no bigger than a loaf of bread, NASA this year sent its first sail skipping through Earth orbit.
Look overhead at the right time of night, and you can spot the gleaming streak of NASA’s NanoSail-D as it tumbles closer to Earth, mission accomplished. Within the next few months it will incinerate in the atmosphere in a bright flash.
In addition to the Japanese and U.S. efforts, the privately funded Planetary Society expects to launch its own sail next year, as does a satellite design team based at the University of Surrey in England.

Solar sail enthusiasts have waited decades to see such flights. And one day, they hope, solar sails will perform tasks other spacecraft cannot: hover above Earth’s poles to monitor climate change, flit near the sun to watch for solar storms, drag space junk out of orbit like a cosmic maid or even journey to a nearby star.
“As far as solar sails go, we are on the cusp of history,” says Dean Alhorn, an engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., who leads the NanoSail-D mission. “We are ready now with the technology to make these happen.”

Your social brain

Nerve cells notice mistakes and learn from others’ desires................

Some nerve cells snicker at mistakes. Others compel a person to want someone else’s stuff. By studying these phenomena, scientists are learning more than just where schadenfreude and jealousy lie in the brain; they’re gaining an unprecedented view of how social influences can worm into a person’s head.
Such new results carry researchers beyond studying the brain in isolation to studying it as a social actor. Ultimately, this work could help forge a deeper understanding of how the brain learns by using the behavior of others as a guide.
Earlier this year, Japanese researchers uncovered a small group of nerve cells that fire when a macaque witnesses another monkey making a mistake. These cells, located in the front of the brain, remained silent when a monkey made an error itself, but howled when the monkey saw a partner screw up (SN: 9/8/12, p. 12). Humans probably have similar cells, says study coauthor Masaki Isoda, now at Kansai Medical University in Osaka, Japan.
Finding cells that respond to another animal’s error but not to the monkey’s own mistakes was a surprise, showing that the cells behave distinctly from those in the brain’s mirror neuron system. A collection of nerve cells that are active while a subject is both doing and observing another doing, the mirror neuron system has been proposed as a way for the brain to make sense of the actions of others. But these new results, and others like them, paint a more complex picture.
Other research reveals more about how the mirror neuron system helps the brain learn from others. In a different social setting, mirror neurons team up with another system in the brain — the bean-counting system — to make an object in someone else’s possession automatically more desirable (SN: 6/30/12, p. 12). French researchers found that candy, tools and clothes in someone else’s hands held more allure than an untouched object, a copycat phenomenon called “mimetic desire” by the philosopher René Girard.
This automatic upgrade happens in two steps, the researchers found: Initially, the mirror neuron system detects that someone else has something of interest. Then, that information gets sent to the brain’s value-assigning system, which adjusts the value of the object upward.
Although these traits — coveting possessions and nitpicking mistakes — are things parents teach their children not to do, they may serve an important function, researchers say. Watching what other people do wrong and what they acquire can yield valuable information about how to get along in this world.

For New Lamps, An Unlikely Energy Source: Gravity

As long as you reset a weight every 30 minutes, you can have a continuous, battery-free light source.

Kerosene lamps used in off-grid, rural areas are a major problem. They're bad for people's health and the environment's. One startup's solution is to tap another, greener resource, something we all have in abundance: gravity.
The invention, GravityLight, does exactly what the name suggests: It keeps a light going through the power of gravity. As an attached weight falls, it pulls a cord through the center of the light, powering a dynamo. That dynamo converts the energy from the falling weight into power for the light. (It's the same idea as a hand-cranked device, just more vertical.) The weight can be set in a few seconds, and as it slowly reaches Earth, enough energy is generated to keep a light working for 30 minutes. As long as it's set every 30 minutes, it makes for a green, battery-free, continuous stream of light. Other, similar devices like battery chargers could be used through the same process, too.
The inventors say the gadgets can be sold now for less than $10, which would make a return on investment for owners three months after dumping kerosene lighting. And speaking of investments, the group has already shattered the goal for its Indiegogo campaign, meaning we'll hopefully see these in action soon.

http://vimeo.com/53588182

Flying Robots by Professor Vijay Kumar at TED 2012

Professor Vijay Kumar is the Deputy Dean for Education in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, where he is doing  his work in robotics, blending computer science and mechanical engineering to create the next generation of robotic wonders.

Vijay Kumar and his team members Daniel Melligner and Alex Kushleyev from GRASP (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception) Labs presented these flying robots (AKA Robot Quadrotors) during his speech at TED 2012.

Professor Vijay Kumar and its team’s Flying robot quadrotors performed the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame. The quadrotors play this “couch guitar” by flying over guitar strings stretched across a couch frame; plucking the strings with a stiff wire attached to the base of the quadrotor. A special microphone attached to the frame records the notes made by the “couch guitar”.

These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous. It means the humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer, infra-red lights and cameras which are programmed with instructions to play the instruments. the flying robots are designed to mimick the swarming behaviors of birds, fish and insects. Figuring out how to move in unison without crashing into obstacles, or one another, is a critical skill for robot teams to develop, especially since they may one day be used to survey landscapes, build structures, provide support, or even play music.

Each quadrotor weighs just barely over a pound and can deliver a thrust of a little over 2.5 pounds. Team members of Professor Vijay Kumar, Alex Kushleyev and Daniel Mellinger has formed a company called KMel Robotics that will design and market these quadrotors.

3 Effective Leadership Lessons That I Learned As A Child..

When I was growing up, the kids in my neighborhood would play in a nearby park every evening. Our undisputed leader was a boy who was barely a year older than I was.
He was a take charge type of person who introduced the new kids to everyone, taught them the rules of games we played, and made sure no one felt left out. We also trusted him blindly because he always had our backs whenever we messed up.


None of the leadership lessons I have learned, unlearned or relearned since then have had as profound an impact as the ones I learned as a child. Three, in particular, stand out:

Vineet Nayar, CEO HCL Technologies

 

 

 1. Trust: Do your co-workers trust you? Do they accept that you will consistently and without hesitation, stand up for them whatever the situation? Only that kind of trust makes people feel empowered, gives them the courage to innovate, take risks, and push themselves beyond their comfort zones to find success.
David Maister, Charles Green, and Robert Galford, who wrote The Trusted Advisor, outlined four attributes for assessing your trust quotient. They focus on the key traits of credibility, reliability, intimacy, and self-orientation. Take this online assessment to evaluate your trust quotient..

2. Empathy: Did you notice that look of anxiety as your teammate walked into the office this morning? Or did you completely miss it because you were locked in your own thoughts, more concerned with pending deadlines and deliverables? Do you treat your team members as human beings, and not just as co-workers?
Here’s the issue: Emotional intelligence is widely recognized as a leadership quality, but being transparent about your emotions isn't. I'm puzzled by the fact that organizational and company leaders are expected to maintain a “stiff upper lip”.. Why can't we rejoice in and celebrate our successes or conversely, show concern with setbacks, rather than taking them in stride? Why don't we laugh and cry with the highs and lows in the lives of our colleagues? We are human beings, and knowing that our bosses care about us is a fundamental human need.

3. Mentorship: No matter how talented we may be as individuals, we all crave the guidance and direction from a mentor who will teach us the rules of the game. Pat Riley, the widely respected former NBA coach, once said that there was no great player who didn't want to be coached. The same holds true in the workplace. Would you be where you are today if your first manager hadn't nudged you in the right direction? When people are unsure or uneasy about what the future holds for their organizations and for themselves, mentorship and coaching are critical.
I certainly didn’t realize when I was playing with my friends in the park that I was learning important leadership principles and life lessons that would never go out of fashion. At a time when people everywhere are questioning their leaders' values, these characteristics seem to resonate even more.

Robots Will Quickly Recognize and Respond to Human Gestures, With New AlgorithmsNew intelligent algorithms could help robots to quickly recognize and respond to human gestures. Researchers at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have created a computer program which recognizes human gestures quickly and accurately, and requires very little training.

New intelligent algorithms could help robots to quickly recognize and respond to human gestures. Researchers at A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have created a computer program which recognizes human gestures quickly and accurately, and requires very little training.

New intelligent algorithms could help robots to quickly recognize and respond to human gestures. 

 

 

 

 

Many works of science fiction have imagined robots that could interact directly with people to provide entertainment, services or even health care. Robotics is now at a stage where some of these ideas can be realized, but it remains difficult to make robots easy to operate.
One option is to train robots to recognize and respond to human gestures. In practice, however, this is difficult because a simple gesture such as waving a hand may appear very different between different people. Designers must develop intelligent computer algorithms that can be 'trained' to identify general patterns of motion and relate them correctly to individual commands.
Now, Rui Yan and co-workers at the A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore have adapted a cognitive memory model called a localist attractor network (LAN) to develop a new system that recognize gestures quickly and accurately, and requires very little training.
"Since many social robots will be operated by non-expert users, it is essential for them to be equipped with natural interfaces for interaction with humans," says Yan. "Gestures are an obvious, natural means of human communication. Our LAN gesture recognition system only requires a small amount of training data, and avoids tedious training processes."
Yan and co-workers tested their software by integrating it with ShapeTape, a special jacket that uses fibre optics and inertial sensors to monitor the bending and twisting of hands and arms. They programmed the ShapeTape to provide data 80 times per second on the three-dimensional orientation of shoulders, elbows and wrists, and applied velocity thresholds to detect when gestures were starting.
In tests, five different users wore the ShapeTape jacket and used it to control a virtual robot through simple arm motions that represented commands such as forward, backwards, faster or slower. The researchers found that 99.15% of gestures were correctly translated by their system. It is also easy to add new commands, by demonstrating a new control gesture just a few times.
The next step in improving the gesture recognition system is to allow humans to control robots without the need to wear any special devices. Yan and co-workers are tackling this problem by replacing the ShapeTape jacket with motion-sensitive cameras.
"Currently we are building a new gesture recognition system by incorporating our method with a Microsoft Kinect camera," says Yan. "We will implement the proposed system on an autonomous robot to test its usability in the context of a realistic service task, such as cleaning!"

Dark Chocolate Could Prevent Heart Problems in High-Risk People

Daily consumption of dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes), finds a study published in the British Medical Journal.

Daily consumption of dark chocolate can reduce cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks and strokes, in people with metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of developing heart disease and diabetes), finds a new study.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Dark chocolate (containing at least 60% cocoa solids) is rich in flavonoids -- known to have heart protecting effects -- but this has only been examined in short term studies.
So a team of researchers from Melbourne, Australia used a mathematical model to predict the long-term health effects and cost effectiveness of daily dark chocolate consumption in 2,013 people already at high risk of heart disease.
All participants had high blood pressure and met the criteria for metabolic syndrome, but had no history of heart disease or diabetes and were not on blood pressure lowering therapy.
With 100% compliance (best case scenario), the researchers show that daily dark chocolate consumption could potentially avert 70 non-fatal and 15 fatal cardiovascular events per 10,000 people treated over 10 years.
Even when compliance levels were reduced to 80%, the number of non-fatal and fatal events potentially averted was 55 and 10 per 10,000 people treated over 10 years, and could still be considered an effective intervention strategy.
The model also suggested that $A40 (£25; €31; $42) could be cost effectively spent per person per year on dark chocolate prevention strategies and could be used for advertising, educational campaigns, or subsidizing dark chocolate in this high risk population, they add.
The authors stress that only non-fatal stroke and non-fatal heart attack were assessed in their analysis, and that the potential effects on other cardiovascular events, such as heart failure, are yet to be tested.
Also important, they say, is that these protective effects have only been shown for dark chocolate (at least 60-70% cocoa), rather than for milk or white chocolate, probably due to the higher levels of flavonoids found in dark chocolate.
Nevertheless, they conclude that the blood pressure and cholesterol lowering effects of plain dark chocolate "could represent an effective and cost effective strategy for people with metabolic syndrome (and no diabetes)."

Ion-Based Electronic Chip to Control Muscles: Entirely New Circuit Technology Based On Ions and Molecules

Klas Tybrandt, doctoral student in organic electronics at Linkoping University, Sweden, has developed an integrated chemical chip.

The chemical chip can control the delivery of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. This enables chemical control of muscles, which are activated when they come into contact with acetylcholine. (Credit: LiU/Ingemar Franzén)

The Organic Electronics research group at Linköping University previously developed ion transistors for transport of both positive and negative ions, as well as biomolecules. Tybrandt has now succeeded in combining both transistor types into complementary circuits, in a similar way to traditional silicon-based electronics.
An advantage of chemical circuits is that the charge carrier consists of chemical substances with various functions. This means that we now have new opportunities to control and regulate the signal paths of cells in the human body.
"We can, for example, send out signals to muscle synapses where the signalling system may not work for some reason. We know our chip works with common signalling substances, for example acetylcholine," says Magnus Berggren, Professor of Organic Electronics and leader of the research group.
The development of ion transistors, which can control and transport ions and charged biomolecules, was begun three years ago by Tybrandt and Berggren, respectively a doctoral student and professor in Organic Electronics at the Department of Science and Technology at Linköping University. The transistors were then used by researchers at Karolinska Institutet to control the delivery of the signalling substance acetylcholine to individual cells. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In conjunction with Robert Forchheimer, Professor of Information Coding at LiU, Tybrandt has now taken the next step by developing chemical chips that also contain logic gates, such as NAND gates that allow for the construction of all logical functions.
His breakthrough creates the basis for an entirely new circuit technology based on ions and molecules instead of electrons and holes.

Gestures Fulfill a Big Role in Language

People of all ages and cultures gesture while speaking, some much more noticeably than others. But is gesturing uniquely tied to speech, or is it, rather, processed by the brain like any other manual action?

Scientists have discovered that actual actions on objects, such as physically stirring a spoon in a cup, have less of an impact on the brain’s understanding of speech than simply gesturing as if stirring a spoon in a cup. (Credit: Image courtesy of Acoustical Society of America (ASA))

A U.S.-Netherlands research collaboration delving into this tie discovered that actual actions on objects, such as physically stirring a spoon in a cup, have less of an impact on the brain's understanding of speech than simply gesturing as if stirring a spoon in a cup. This is surprising because there is less visual information contained in gestures than in actual actions on objects. In short: Less may actually be more when it comes to gestures and actions in terms of understanding language.
Spencer Kelly, associate professor of Psychology, director of the Neuroscience program, and co-director of the Center for Language and Brain at Colgate University, and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics will present their research at the Acoustics 2012 meeting in Hong Kong, May 13-18, a joint meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), Acoustical Society of China, Western Pacific Acoustics Conference, and the Hong Kong Institute of Acoustics.
Among their key findings is that gestures -- more than actions -- appear to make people pay attention to the acoustics of speech. When we see a gesture, our auditory system expects to also hear speech. But this is not what the researchers found in the case of manual actions on objects.
Just think of all the actions you've seen today that occurred in the absence of speech. "This special relationship is interesting because many scientists have argued that spoken language evolved from a gestural communication system -- using the entire body -- in our evolutionary past," points out Kelly. "Our results provide a glimpse into this past relationship by showing that gestures still have a tight and perhaps special coupling with speech in present-day communication. In this way, gestures are not merely add-ons to language -- they may actually be a fundamental part of it."
A better understanding of the role hand gestures play in how people understand language could lead to new audio and visual instruction techniques to help people overcome major challenges with language delays and disorders or learning a second language.
What's next for the researchers? "We're interested in how other types of visual inputs, such as eye gaze, mouth movements, and facial expressions, combine with hand gestures to impact speech processing. This will allow us to develop even more natural and effective ways to help people understand and learn language," says Kelly.

It's in the Genes: Research Pinpoints How Plants Know When to Flower

Determining the proper time to flower, important if a plant is to reproduce successfully, involves a sequence of molecular events, a plant's circadian clock and sunlight.

Understanding how flowering works in the simple plant used in this study -- Arabidopsis -- should lead to a better understanding of how the same genes work in more complex plants grown as crops such as rice, wheat and barley, according to Takato Imaizumi, a University of Washington assistant professor of biology and corresponding author of a paper in the May 25 issue of the journal Science.
"If we can regulate the timing of flowering, we might be able to increase crop yield by accelerating or delaying this. Knowing the mechanism gives us the tools to manipulate this," Imaizumi said. Along with food crops, the work might also lead to higher yields of plants grown for biofuels.
At specific times of year, flowering plants produce a protein known as FLOWERING LOCUS T in their leaves that induces flowering. Once this protein is made, it travels from the leaves to the shoot apex, a part of the plant where cells are undifferentiated, meaning they can either become leaves or flowers. At the shoot apex, this protein starts the molecular changes that send cells on the path to becoming flowers.
Changes in day length tell many organisms that the seasons are changing. It has long been known that plants use an internal time-keeping mechanism known as the circadian clock to measure changes in day length. Circadian clocks synchronize biological processes during 24-hour periods in people, animals, insects, plants and other organisms.
Imaizumi and the paper's co-authors investigated what's called the FKF1 protein, which they suspected was a key player in the mechanism by which plants recognize seasonal change and know when to flower. FKF1 protein is a photoreceptor, meaning it is activated by sunlight.
"The FKF1 photoreceptor protein we've been working on is expressed in the late afternoon every day, and is very tightly regulated by the plant's circadian clock," Imaizumi said. "When this protein is expressed during days that are short, this protein cannot be activated, as there is no daylight in the late afternoon. When this protein is expressed during a longer day, this photoreceptor makes use of the light and activates the flowering mechanisms involving FLOWERING LOCUS T. The circadian clock regulates the timing of the specific photoreceptor for flowering. That is how plants sense differences in day length."
This system keeps plants from flowering when it's a poor time to reproduce, such as the dead of winter when days are short and nights are long.
The new findings come from work with the plant Arabidopsis, a small plant in the mustard family that's often used in genetic research. They validate predictions from a mathematical model of the mechanism that causes Arabidopsis to flower that was developed by Andrew Millar, a University of Edinburgh professor of biology and co-author of the paper.
"Our mathematical model helped us to understand the operating principles of the plants' day-length sensor," Millar said. "Those principles will hold true in other plants, like rice, where the crop's day-length response is one of the factors that limits where farmers can obtain good harvests. It's that same day-length response that needs controlled lighting for laying chickens and fish farms, so it's just as important to understand this response in animals.
"The proteins involved in animals are not yet so well understood as they are in plants but we expect the same principles that we've learned from these studies to apply."
First author on the paper is Young Hun Song, a postdoctoral researcher in Imaizumi's UW lab. The other co-authors are Benjamin To, who was a UW undergraduate student when this work was being conducted, and Robert Smith, a University of Edinburgh graduate student. The work was funded by the National Institutes of Health, and the United Kingdom's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Bacterial trick keeps robots in sync

You don’t have to watch Dancing with the Stars to know that keeping in sync is tough — and it’s even tougher for a robot. A new approach keeps several robots in step, and even enables a dancing robot that loses its footing to seamlessly rejoin its synchronized peers.
One way to synchronize a group of robots is for each to communicate with one another about their positions, but distance between the robots can lead to time delays. And when many robots are involved, the complexity of this communication network grows. To skirt such problems, researchers from MIT have taken inspiration from bacteria that synchronize their behavior not by checking in with each other, but by checking in with their environment.

Synchronizing robots this way might work well in rescue operations where robots are damaged and need to be replaced, says Paola Flocchini, a distributed computing expert at the University of Ottawa in Canada.
Many bacteria coordinate via a process called quorum sensing, releasing a steady stream of signaling molecules into the environment and also sensing the signaling molecules. When enough bacteria are around that the local concentration of these molecules soars, it’s time for group action: Genes get turned on, molecular switches are flipped and the bacteria all change their behavior in sync.
Similarly, MIT’s Jean-Jacques Slotine and Patrick Bechon coordinated the behavior of eight dancing humanoid robots by having the bots send information to — and get information from — an external computer server. The work was posted May 14 on arXiv.org.
The robots go through cycles of prescribed actions, such as bobbing their heads, and send the  server information about where they are in these cycles. The server then sends the average of this information back to all the robots. So a robot joining its dancing peers will check in with the server about what the other robots are doing. It can then calculate what the next movement is in the synchronized cycle and rejoin the group. Information about the music — in the test case, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — is also embedded in the information sent back to the robots.
Incorporating math that describes the oscillating movements of body parts, such as arm and heads, is quite clever, says Mehran Mesbahi of the University of Washington in Seattle, whose research includes spacecraft navigation and control. It’s much harder to incorporate information on position, angles and music, he says, than to have a simple command such as “March.”

Why emotions are attention-getters

Nerve cells from the brain’s emotion hub talk directly to a region that doles out attention, a study of monkeys shows. The connection, described in the April 11 Journal of Neuroscience, may help explain how people automatically focus on emotional events.
“I’m really excited to see this in press,” says neurologist Helen Mayberg of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “This provides an anatomical explanation for why an emotionally salient event always bumps the board.”
A clearer description of how emotions influence attention is important for understanding and treating psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression, both of which may involve perturbed attention systems.
Although scientists knew that emotionally significant events quickly capture attention, it wasn’t clear how the process works. To find out, Basilis Zikopoulos and Helen Barbas, both of Boston University, started with a likely suspect — the amygdala.

In humans, the amygdala is made up of two structures the shape and size of almonds, one on each side of the brain. Best known for its role in processing fear, the amygdala helps process other emotions, too, including pleasurable ones.
The researchers injected dyes deep into the brains of 10 rhesus monkeys. The dyes traced individual neurons and their long, information-carrying tendrils called axons. This technique captured details that even the best human imaging techniques miss. “In humans, we just look at the major highways, so we don’t see the side streets,” Zikopoulos says.
Axons from the amygdala converge on an attention hub in the brain called the thalamic reticular nucleus, the scientists found. These axons form a straight shot to attention’s command central, directing the mind’s focus where it needs to go.
The axons from the amygdala to the reticular nucleus appeared to be unusually strong, the team found. “When they talk, they shout,” Zikopoulos says. “They have veto power. They can override signals.”
It makes sense for this connection to be strong, the scientists say. If something in the external environment, such as a giant snake, elicits a strong emotion, the brain should stop what it’s doing and pay attention to the threat. “You need a system that interrupts you because it might save your life,” Mayberg says.
In some psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and depression, attention to emotions may be out of balance. Anxiety disorders are often marked by hypervigilance to potential threats — real or, more often, perceived — in the outside world. In contrast, people with severe depression can often have trouble paying attention to anything outside of their head, Mayberg says. “They say, ‘I can’t get outside of myself to pay attention to you.’”

Emotional Abuse In the Name of Academic Success in Indian Schools

Child abuse is a very serious matter in western schools and any teacher, parent and school involved in child abuse have to face the law. In spite of serious steps we still see some cases of child abuse here and there, but majority of children are safe from abuse. This is not the case when it comes to developing and under developed countries.

Many countries didn’t address child abuse because of their culture and lack of awareness about the issue.  Some countries officially announced child abuse as illegal, but they are not serious in enforcing the law. India is one of those countries that made child abuse illegal, especially in schools but doesn’t enforce the law strictly. This is causing an enormous physical and emotional damage to the younger children. 

In recent years there is no more canning of students in schools, especially in private schools. Parents are not at all tolerating their children being canned or spanked by teachers. This is a very good sign of change, but abuse is still predominant at homes. However, there is a different form of abuse that is happening in every private school in the name of academic requirements and student success. I call it as “emotional abuse” What is so sad is educated parents are also supporting the idea without even noticing that the excessive workload on students is causing an enormous ‘emotional damage’ to the younger minds.

Private schools are very attractive to parents because they offer quality education to students, and they provide special coaching to students to prepare them for professional courses like Engineering, Medicine, and IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), highly reputed engineering and technology institute.  While it is a good concept to prepare students to do well in school exams and also in entrance tests, it is sad that children are excessively burdened with school work and preparation. 

For example, none of the private schools allow their students leave the school before 6 hours. They are at school almost 9 hours, instead of recommended 5 ½ hours. In addition to this many students attend before and after school tuition's, and still have to finish their 2-3 hour homework after all these sessions, irrespective their grade levels.

When I look at school children in India my heart bleeds. Parents want the best education for their children, which is fair enough, but they are not noticing that with an excessive workload children are at abuse. This abuse of children must be stopped for the welfare of their physical and psychological well being. Since schools want to offer what parents demand, parents must take initiative in stopping this kind of abuse. On the other hand, teachers and educational experts must also make an effort to educate parents about this type of bad practice in schools. This I call a step toward a positive change, and perhaps an indicator of developing nation.

After Graduation: What Next? Keep your Momentum Going

Record numbers of college students will be graduating by the end of the month.  With all these  new job candidates entering the employment pool, what should these new graduates consider when moving into the next phase of their lives?
In this economy, finding a job right out of college is challenging but there are a few things students can do to start the job search on the right foot.
Now is the time to be aggressive, and go into commando mode. Don’t put too much time into your resume, they are overrated.  Resumes should be one page and easy to read. Are you spending days writing a cover letter?  People like me almost never read them.  When you get 100’s of resumes daily, yours must stand out.  Use new tools and technology to help with your job search.  Join LinkedIn, start a Facebook page that focuses on your professional persona.
Here are more tips you can adopt.

• Consider moving back in with your parents. Less stress, less financial demands and more time to look for a job.  Plus a daily dose of advice might be a good source of motivation.  Sorry parents..It is a sign of the times.
• If you can’t find a job, try volunteering or an unpaid internship.  This is a great opportunity to hone your skills and make connections in your field of study.
• Network, network, network.  Don't just rely on the Internet...you must meet people in person. As the old adage goes, ‘sometimes it’s more about WHO you know than WHAT you know.’
• Practice your interview skills! – join a group like Toastmasters and fine-tune your presentation skills.
• Research companies you are interested in.  Don't just send out gobs of resumes to every Tom, Dick & Harry.  Refine your search and make sure you are polished when given the opportunity to make a connection.
• Research the person you are meeting with.  Did you go to the same school or have the same hobbies?  This is a great way to start the conversation and make the interviewer like you.  Remember…people hire people they like, and that person may not be the best person on paper.
• Focus on entry level jobs even if they are not in your field.  You need to add business experience to your resume.  You may also have to get your hands dirty.

Fatty diet leads to fat-loving brain cells

Cheeseburgers pack on the pounds, but in mice a high-fat diet also packs on new nerve cells in the brain. More brain cells may seem like a good thing, but these newly sprouted cells appear to trigger weight gain in the animals, a new study finds.
The results offer insight into how the brain controls weight. If the same thing happens in humans, these nerve cells may be a target for anti-obesity treatments.
“This kind of work will definitely inform how we think about the underlying factors that relate to obesity,” says endocrinologist Jeffrey Flier of Harvard Medical School in Boston. There’s increasing interest, he says, in how long-term changes in brain circuitry — like new nerve cell production — affect eating and hunger. “That is going to be a very interesting frontier.”

 A special brain cell called a tanycyte (green) was caught in the process of giving birth to a new neuron (red, marked with a white arrow) in a brain region called the median eminence. A high-fat diet spurs tanycytes to make new nerve cells in the brain, a new study finds.

With some key exceptions, most regions in the adult brain don’t make new nerve cells. But in a small sliver of brain tissue called the median eminence, new nerve cells are born throughout life, neuroscientist Seth Blackshaw of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and colleagues report online March 25 in Nature Neuroscience. The median eminence is part of the brain’s metabolism hub known as the hypothalamus.
And one signal to step up production in the median eminence, the team found, is a diet high in fat.
In the study, mice that ate the rodent version of a steady stream of Big Macs gained weight. This unhealthy diet also kicked nerve cell production into high gear, the scientists found. After eating a fatty diet for several weeks, adult mice pumped out about four times as many new nerve cells in the median eminence as mice that ate regular chow.
To see whether these newborn nerve cells were up to no good, Blackshaw and his team shut down production with a carefully targeted laser. Even while continuing to gorge on a high-fat diet, these mice started moving around more and didn’t gain as much weight as mice on a high-fat diet that could still make the new nerve cells. Take away the steady stream of new nerve cells, and the pounds didn’t pile on as fast.
The newborn cells’ parents turn out to be a mysterious kind of brain cell that resides in the median eminence. Both mice and people have these cells, called tanycytes, but no one knew what their role was. “There’s been a lot of speculation about what their function may be,” says Blackshaw.
The scientists don’t yet know how these newborn nerve cells can influence metabolism. Other studies, including those by Flier, have found that a high-fat diet actually reduces nerve cell turnover in other parts of the hypothalamus.
Blackshaw cautions that it’s too soon to say whether a similar thing could be going on in people. “This is the very first step in trying to understand this process,” he says. “We’re a long way from realizing whether this is relevant to human obesity.”

Why the Man in the Moon is Always 'Looking' at Earth

"The man in the moon came down too soon,
and asked his way to Norwich,
They sent him south and he burnt his mouth
By eating cold pease-porridge."

It's human nature to see shapes and patterns all around us, and ascribe a meaning to what is actually just a random coincidence. The phenomenon is called pareidolia, and includes things like seeing the Virgin Mary in a piece of burnt toast, for example.
But some examples are more persistent than others -- like the Man in the Moon. It's not a real face, of course, just a quirk of how the dark areas (the lunar maria, or "seas") and lighter highlands of the lunar surface are arranged. Yet the illusion is powerful enough to have a Western mythology dating back thousands of years, inspiring all manner of nursery rhymes and literary references.

       
 And there's some interesting physics at work here as well, at least according to a new paper in the journal Icarus. See, the Man in Moon is always staring at us here on Earth -- or, if you want to be all science-y about it, those particular features of the lunar surface always face Earth.
It happens because the moon is locked in what's known as a "synchronous orbit": for every orbit it completes around the Earth, the moon also rotates exactly one time. So we always see that face.
But it didn't necessarily have to be that way; why is this side of the moon, and not the other, the one that faces Earth? There had to be a 50/50 chance of it being one way or the other. Or so astronomers have thought -- until now.

Two Caltech astronomers, along with an Israeli colleague, think that there's a perfectly good explanation why the Man in the Moon always faces us -- and it's not due to the proverbial coin toss. Rather, Oded Aharanson, Peter Goldreich, and Re'em Sari propose that it's due to the fact that the Moon spun around its axis much faster in the past than it does today. And the rate at which it gradually slowed its pace could explain why it eventually became locked in the current orientation.

 ANALYSIS: It's Alive! There's Magma on the Moon
When the moon formed some four billion years ago, it was a blob of hot molten stuff. The Earth's gravitational pull stretched it a bit, elongating it like a football, and that shape stuck when the Moon cooled off. The Man in the Moon is at one of those oblong ends.

Back then -- about a couple billion years ago -- any inhabitants of Earth would have seen varying sides of the moon, not just the fixed face. But that relentless gravitational pull from Earth eventually slowed down the Moon's rate of spin on its axis, and tidal forces created yet another bulge, one that moved around in such a way that it always pointed toward Earth.
And this is where the physics starts to get interesting. So far, so good, but it still seems like a bit of a coin toss when it comes to which side of the moon faces Earth. The Caltech team ran a series of computer simulations, plugging in many different rates of slowing, and found they could "load" the coin however they wanted, so that either side of the moon would always face the Earth when it hit that locking point -- depending on that rotational energy dissipation rate.

ANALYSIS: Today in History: Shepherd Golfs on the Moon
For instance, there really would be a 50/50 chance of the current orientation if the rate of dissipation had been, say, 100 times faster. Instead, that rate was much slower, so there would be two-to-one odds that the Man in the Moon would find himself always facing Earth. This assumes, of course, that the properties of the present-day moon were similar to those in its distant past.
Not every culture sees a Man in the Moon. There are myths and legends based on perceiving a woman, a rabbit, a frog, a moose, a buffalo, or even a dragon in the full moon. But since those illusion arise from the same patterns of light and dark shadows, one assumes the same analysis would apply.

The bulge continued to point toward Earth as the moon rotated through it, causing the moon's interior to squish and flex as the bulge changed position. The internal friction from this flexing acted as a brake that slowed the moon's spinning until its rotation rate matched its revolution rate, when it settled into a synchronous orbit.

In this way, as a result of Earth's gravity, the moon became locked into an orientation with its long axis pointing toward our planet.

How Do You Start a Fire With Ice?

Winter is full of opportunities for outdoor fun in many forms: Skiing, sledding, skijoring, ice climbing, winter camping, and more. But conditions can grow dangerous quickly when you’re exposed to plummeting temperatures and gusting winds.

So, why not take the opportunity to sharpen your winter survival skills before your next outdoor adventure?
To that end, the video above offers instructions for starting a fire with ice. What you’ll need is a frozen lake, a sharp knife, warm hands and some dry leaves or wood. A sunny day is also necessary.
Find the clearest ice you can find. Carve out a big chunk of it. Then, shape the ice into a disk, and use the warmth of your hands to melt it into a smooth, round lens. Finally, just like you used to use a magnifying glass to set ants on fire, adjust the angle of the ice disk until rays of sunlight shine through it. Focus the sunbeam onto a spot on the ground where you’ve placed some tinder. And voila – fire!

Hummer Cars

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The Hummer- the Supreme Suv

The Hummer's conceptualization began in 1979. It was basically being designed for the US army and was to be built as a High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV). At that time many companies were asked to put forth their best designs for the same. Out of the many that presented their ideas, the three that were chosen were those of General Dynamics, Teledyne and AM (American Motors) General. But this was just the beginning for the companies to prove their worth. The army was very demanding in wanting a vehicle not only of high quality but also that could withstand any kind of pressures, glide through any kind of terrain, and that would be light and easy to maintain! And voila AM General was able to give the most supreme prototype and in the least possible time! Their model called the Hummvee, proved to be just what the army had commanded. It came out with flying colors in the various tests to gauge its superiority. Then the first Hummvees, that was around 55,000 of them, were given for production over a period of 5 years in 1983 to AM General. AM General won this race too and within just 6 months the Hummvee was ready for use. With time the general public too could not resist the desire to drive these Humvees. Thus AM General decided to come out with a civilian version of the Humvee called the Hummer. In December 1999 the Hummer brand and the authority to market and distribute it were sold off to General Motors by AM General. AM General however still manufactures the Hummer. 

The Hummer is an SUV-a sports utility vehicle and is the rage with those who are fond of sturdy, long and rough and tough cars. The Hummer seems to have no competitor in this area. The first and original Hummer is now called the H1. It is said that the Hummer was made as a result of Arnold Schwarzenegger's persuasion as he had seen the Humvees and was very impressed. The popularity of the Hummer is such that the US boasts of several groups and clubs of Hummer owners who come together and drive them either for recreation or for some good causes. Well why good causes, read on to find out. As the Hummer is well known for its great strength and durability, it is often employed in disaster hit areas. Such Hummer owners provide their vehicle for these purposes and thus put them to use for a noble cause. In fact a group has been formed of Hummer owners who have been trained in first aid and CPR. Thus the Hummer has spread its wings to touch all of humanity.

The most recent and a very well known Hummer model is the H3. The H1 and H2 Hummer models are known to be quite large. Unlike them, the five seater H3 has been made to cater to the sensibilities of the common who wishes to own an SUV but still wants it to not look too bulky. The H3 also has good fuel economy and is quite luxurious for the small cost it demands! It has good soundproof materials used in its windows and enough sealing to allow you to hear and speak comfortably enough. This is significant considering that the H3, like its predecessors, is prone to making noise. The H3 also has side curtain airbags as well as the normal driver and passenger ones, which provide added protection. Some of its other features include large knobs for HVAC, sunvisors that have pull out extensions, and large and very readable gauges. The other common features include a tilt-adjustable steering column, power windows and locks, remote keyless entry, an audio system with a CD player, cruise control, air conditioning, an electronic rearview mirror with temperature and compass readings, antilock brakes (ABS), traction control, a tire-pressure monitoring system, and stylish leather seats. It has an OnStar system with one-year Safe and Sound service plan. This system informs the concerned people in case of an emergency and helps them to locate you and get you immediate help and relief. It even helps to keep thieves at bay, because the system can track your Hummer in case of theft.

With so much to offer, you must drive the Hummer!

Weight Loss Secrets. Get Slim Without the Gym

                                          Here are 7 suggestions.

1. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER AND AVOID SOFT DRINKS.
A recent research study published in the Journal of The American Medical Association found a direct correlation between drinking soft drinks and obesity. Refined sugar with its high glycemic index is the enemy of weight loss.   

An article published in the Los Angeles Times,September 15 2005, titled: "Liquid Candy. The Rise of Soft Drinks in America." stated: "Soft drinks are currently the primary source of added sugar and studies connect them to obesity and nutrient deficits".
Dr Joseph Mercola, author of "The Total Health Program" warns:"To be truly healthy, you will need to seriously consider reducing or eliminating all sugars from your diet. Consider the fact that your risk of obesity increases by a whopping 60% for each can of soda you drink a day." Some popular soft drinks contain as much as 9 teaspoons of sugar!

Beware also low calorie or diet drinks. Check the labels to see if they contain Aspartame, a substance that can be toxic.

2. FORGET STARVATION DIETS.
If you go on a crash or starvation diet, you may have a speedy but transient weight loss. You will lose predominantly lean muscle and that's what you don't want!

Your body senses famine and goes into starvation mode. It slows down the fat burning or metabolic rate and begins to store fat.
This is the opposite to what you want to achieve.

3. EXERCISE DAILY.

Your body was designed to be active and a sedentary lifestyle slows down its metabolism. You don't have to take part in high intensity exercises. 

 Simple fitness activities such as gardening, walking and climbing stairs are beneficial. Weight bearing or resistance exercises are particularly beneficial as they build lean muscle mass and help burn fat.

These exercises are an important part of any weight loss program.

4. EAT BALANCED MEALS.
Try to include a balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates in your diet. Your best carbohydrates are complex carbohydrates such as brown rice, high fiber bread, fruit and vegetables. These have a low glycemic index and are released to the body slowly with increased feelings of fullness.

They are also high in fiber, an essential part of any weight loss diet. Psillium husks and ground flaxseed are excellent sources of fiber.

5. HAVE A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP.
In a study reported in a recent issue of Archives of Internal Medicine,researchers found that overweight and obese subjects slept less than those with a normal body mass index.

The message is clear. Try to get at least 7 hours sleep each night and if possible avoid late night meals.
Stress is a major factor in sleep loss and supplementing your diet with B group vitamins, valerian root extract or valerian tea may help.
A magnesium supplement prior to going to bed may also help.
Generally they work just as well as prescription, or over the counter drugs without the side effects. You should first consult your doctor if you are having sleeping problems. 

6. EAT REGULAR SMALL MEALS. 

Most people in their healthy weight range tend to stop eating once they feel the edge has been taken off their hunger. They know they can always have more later, when they're hungry. Try eating when you're hungry and stop when the edge has been taken off your hunger. Binge eating places strains on your digestive system and won't help your weight loss and fitness program.

The important message is to eat smaller portions and enjoy a variety of low GI foods to meet your daily nutritional requirements.  

7. FINALLY, FOOD AND YOUR EMOTIONS.
It's not normal to think about food morning, noon and night. Yet this what most people with a weight loss problem do. 

You need to become comfortable with food again. Try only to think about your next meal when you get hungry,eat it,then forget it.

Food is often used by those with weight loss and fitness problems to help them deal with emotional issues. If you think you might be an emotional overeater,you need to uncover the emotions that are the cause. Are you angry, stressed or frustrated? 

Once you know why you overeat, you can then focus on constructive ways to resolve it. You may need to discuss this in greater detail with your family doctor.

7 Ways To Improve Your Relationship

Good relationships don’t just happen. I’ve heard many of my clients state that, “If I have to work at it, then it’s not the right relationship." This is not a true statement, any more than it’s true that you don’t have to work at good physical health through exercise, eating well, and stress reduction.
I’ve discovered, in the 35 years that I’ve been counseling couples, 7 choices you can make that will not only improve your relationship, but can turn a failing relationship into a successful one.

1. TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOURSELF
This is the most important choice you can make to improve your relationship. This means that you learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings and needs. This means that instead of trying to get your partner to make you feel happy and secure, you learn how to do this for yourself through your own thoughts and actions. This means learning to treat yourself with kindness, caring, compassion, and acceptance instead of self-judgment. Self-judgment will always make you feel unhappy and insecure, no matter how wonderfully your partner is treating you.
For example, instead of getting angry at your partner for your feelings of abandonment when he or she is late, preoccupied and not listening to you, not turned on sexually, and so on, you would explore your own feelings of abandonment and discover how you might be abandoning yourself.
When you learn how to take full, 100% responsibility for yourself, then you stop blaming your partner for your upsets. Since blaming one’s partner for one’s own unhappiness is the number one cause of relationship problems, learning how to take loving care of yourself is vital to a good relationship.

2. KINDNESS, COMPASSION, ACCEPTANCE
Treat others the way you want to be treated. This is the essence of a truly spiritual life. We all yearn to be treated lovingly – with kindness, compassion, understanding, and acceptance. We need to treat ourselves this way, and we need to treat our partner and others this way. Relationships flourish when both people treat each other with kindness. While there are no guarantees, often treating another with kindness brings kindness in return. If your partner is consistently angry, judgmental, uncaring and unkind, then you need to focus on what would be loving to yourself rather than reverting to anger, blame, judgment, withdrawal, resistance, or compliance. Kindness to others does not mean sacrificing yourself. Always remember that taking responsibility for yourself rather than blaming others is the most important thing you can do. If you are consistently kind to yourself and your partner, and your partner is consistently angry, blaming, withdrawn and unavailable, then you either have to accept a distant relationship, or you need to leave the relationship. You cannot make your partner change – you can only change yourself.

3. LEARNING INSTEAD OF CONTROLLING
When conflict occurs, you always have two choices regarding how to handle the conflict: you can open to learning about yourself and your partner and discover the deeper issues of the conflict, or you can try to win, or at least not lose, through some form of controlling behavior. We’ve all learning many overt and subtle ways of trying to control others into behaving the way we want: anger, blame, judgment, niceness, compliance, caretaking, resistance, withdrawal of love, explaining, teaching, defending, lying, denying, and so on. All the ways we try to control create even more conflict. Remembering to learn instead of control is a vital part of improving your relationship.
For example, most people have two major fears that become activated in relationships: the fear of abandonment – of losing the other - and the fear of engulfment – of losing oneself. When these fears get activated, most people immediately protect themselves against these fears with their controlling behavior. But if you chose to learn about your fears instead of attempt to control your partner, your fear would eventually heal. This is how we grow emotionally and spiritually – by learning instead of controlling.

4. CREATE DATE TIMES
When people first fall in love, they make time for each other. Then, especially after getting married, they get busy. Relationships need time to thrive. It is vitally important to set aside specific times to be together – to talk, play, make love. Intimacy cannot be maintained without time together.

5. GRATITUDE INSTEAD OF COMPLAINTS
Positive energy flows between two people when there is an “attitude of gratitude." Constant complaints creates a heavy, negative energy, which is not fun to be around. Practice being grateful for what you have rather than focusing on what you don’t have. Complaints create stress, while gratitude creates inner peace, so gratitude creates not only emotional and relationship health, but physical health as well.

6. FUN AND PLAY
We all know that “work without play makes Jack a dull boy." Work without play makes for dull relationships as well. Relationships flourish when people laugh together, play together, and when humor is a part of everyday life. Stop taking everything so seriously and learn to see the funny side of life. Intimacy flourishes when there is lightness of being, not when everything is heavy.

7. SERVICE
A wonderful way of creating intimacy is to do service projects together. Giving to others fills the heart and creates deep satisfaction in the soul. Doing service moves you out of yourself and your own problems and supports a broader, more spiritual view of life.

If you and your partner agree to these 7 choices, you will be amazed at the improvement in your relationship!