No pay raise for the British queen: report

London: A financial crisis is a great leveller. Proposed spending cuts by the British government are to affect the queen's annual bursary too, according to a media report.

The government may announce a one-year freeze in the Civil List, a settlement under which the queen receives money from parliament every year to perform her public duties.

Currently, the annual payment stands at 7.9 million pounds. The settlement is increased every decade, but this amount has remained frozen since 1990.

No pay raise for the British queen: report

iPods, MP3 players 'can damage hearing'

Scientists in Europe have shown that listening to music on headphones for an hour can have a temporary impact on people's hearing because of the damage caused to the hair cells in the outer ear.

Participants in the study had their hearing tested and were then asked to listen to pop or rock music for six one hour long sessions using two different types of headphones and at varying, preset volumes, The Daily Telegraph reported. After each session, the scientists measured the responses of the 21 men and women aged between 19 and 28 to a very short sound and then two sounds of different frequencies to see how clearly participants could hear the tones.

iPods, MP3 players 'can damage hearing'

Britain Suffers 300 Afghan War Deaths

The coffin of Andrew Breeze, a British lance corporal killed in Afghanistan, arrived June 17 at Royal Air Force base Lyneham. | Rob Leyland/Ministry of Defense, via Reuters

Britain marked its 300th military death in the Afghanistan war on Monday, a milestone that Prime Minister David Cameron described as “desperately bad news” and a reminder that Britain was “paying a high price for keeping our country safe.”

The milestone, gloomily awaited in Britain in recent weeks, was reached with the death on Sunday of a Royal Marine in a hospital in Birmingham. He was flown there after being wounded by a roadside bomb in the southwestern Afghan province of Helmand on June 12. He has not yet been identified.

Among the foreign powers involved in the war, Britain has suffered casualties second only to the 1,126 of the United States. But the British losses are higher proportionally when set against the two nations’ populations, overall military manpower and Afghanistan deployments. Britain, with about 60 million people, has nearly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. The United States, with five times the population and its commitment still building from the 30,000-troop surge ordered by President Obama last year, has about 94,000 troops there.

Britain Suffers 300 Afghan War Deaths

Paid-content system for publishers by Google may be coming by year-end

Google which had hinted for nearly a year now that it was working on building some sort of paid content system for publishers, is reportedly set to launch such a system by year-end. According to a report in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Google is now reaching out to publishers to get them to sign up for the system, which it is calling Newspass.

Google wouldn't confirm the La Repubblica report, saying "we don't pre-announce products and don't have anything to announce at this time." But the Newspass system - at least from the translation of the La Repubblica article - appears to have many elements of a paid content proposal Google made to the Newspaper Association of America last fall. Back then, Google said it was "uniquely positioned to help publishers create a scalable e-commerce system via our Checkout product and also enable users to find this content via search - even if it's behind a paywall."

Paid-content system for publishers by Google may be coming by year-end

This Man Will Do Anything You Tweet Him.

David Perez must be one trusting guy. Because for the next six days, he's agreed to do anything you want him to do, as long as you tell him to do it over Twitter.

Breaking the law is out, he said. And maybe nothing that will make his mom wince too hard. But everything else sent to his Twitter account, @DavidOnDemand, the 29-year-old Chicagoan said, is fair game.

"There will definitely be antics involved in this," Perez said.

And as he embarks on his bold and potentially bizarre adventure, his Internet-enabled masters will be able to follow along with a stealth cam attached to his glasses that will stream live video over the Web.

"You'll be able to see and hear everything I do," he said.

This Man Will Do Anything You Tweet Him.

Kids Think Food Tastes Better From Cartooned Packages.

Researchers from Yale University announced the results of a small study which confirmed that, to children at least, food that's marketed with cartoons tastes better.

Forty children from the New Haven, Conn., area were asked to do a taste test of gummy fruit snacks, graham crackers and baby carrots. One bite came from food in a plain package with a simple label, and one bite came from a similar package that also had a Dora the Explorer, Shrek or a Scooby Doo sticker on the front.

Both packages had the same brand of snack, but the children consistently said that the food from packages with cartoons tasted better, according to a study published today in the journal Pediatrics.

Kids Think Food Tastes Better From Cartooned Packages.

Researchers Find Language Helps People Solve Spatial Problems

Pyers tested two groups of deaf people who use the sign language.

"Nicaraguan Sign Language is only about 35 years old, and as a young language it is undergoing rapid change," Pyers explained. "The language is becoming more complex in the hands of the children of the community, and most older members of the community do not learn the new complexities introduced by the following generation. As a result, the language of the younger adults in the community is more complex than the language of the older adults."

The sign language allowed Pyers to compare younger and older adult signers who share a cultural environment (Managua, Nicaragua), but who have different levels of language ability, to see how they compared in their knowledge about spatial environments.

Researchers Find Language Helps People Solve Spatial Problems

Virgin America Offers Free Flights to Twitter Influencers.

Virgin America has partnered with Klout, an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and number of followers and retweets), to extend free flights (plus tax) to influencers in Toronto.

The offer includes free round-trip airfare (Wi-Fi included) between Toronto and San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) between June 23 and August 23. Those who received invitations for the offer — whether or not they decide to accept the flight that comes with it — were also invited to Virgin America’s Toronto Launch Event on June 29.

Klout measures data through user-created content, indicating influence through interaction and size of networks. It then tabulates a score as its influence metric through 25 variables broken into three categories: True Reach, Amplification and Network Scores.

Virgin America Offers Free Flights to Twitter Influencers.

Facebook Location Features similar to Twitter Confirmed and will be out Soon.

Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to press in London today that Facebook will indeed be launching location-based features in the near future.

According to reports, the young CEO told attendees at a local Facebook Developer Garage event, “We are finishing designing our application soon and hope to offer it soon.”

In March, The New York Times reported that location features would be launching in April. In May, Advertising Age said location would come to Facebook in June.

Facebook Location Features similar to Twitter Confirmed and will be out Soon.

Blue-green bacteria may help generate ‘green’ electricity.

As Humans are in search of Alternative Energy, micro organism might be help our way to produce electricity in the coming future.

The study illustrates that the electrogenic workings of cyanobacteria is an important conduit of solar energy into the biosphere, said associate professor, Ms Ilia Baskakov, PhD. Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore(UMB). Ms Baskakov, who led the study, said that such findings could lead to ways to generate energy in a self-sustainable manner using renewable resources.

“Climate change related to global warming and the demand for energy are two of society’s most pressing problems and both can be solved if new technologies are developed,” said Ms Baskakov.

Blue-green bacteria may help generate ‘green’ electricity.

List of Most Failed States of the World.

Just three places below Afghanistan, Pakistan has been ranked the 10th most failed state in the 2010 Failed State Index released by the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine on Monday.

The list is topped by Somalia, followed by Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Chad.

India is ranked 87 in a list of 177 countries.

In India's immediate neighbourhood, Burma has been placed at 13, Sri Lanka (22) and Nepal 25. China is ranked at 57th place. Norway is ranked at the bottom of the list.

List of Most Failed States of the World.

Lets know the History of FIFA World Cup Balls.

Fifa World Cup was held in the following years 1970, 1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010. One thing is sure Adidas still holds the monopoly for making Official FIFA World Cup Ball. Upto now all the balls were manufactured by Adidas.

Telstar

Telstar was a design of association football made by Adidas. It was the official match ball of the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.

It was painted with black and white panels so it was more visible on black-and-white television. The name Telstar one of the first communications satellites, which was roughly spherical and dotted with solar panels, somewhat similar in appearance to the football.

Lets know the History of FIFA World Cup Balls.

Drink beer, stay healthy!

According to the study, commissioned by The Beer Academy, the drink is a rich source of vitamins, fibre, minerals and antioxidants and has relatively low calorific value as compared to other alcoholic beverages.

"Beer contains vitamins which can help you to maintain a well-balanced healthy diet, fibre to keep you regular, readily absorbed antioxidants and minerals such as silicon which may help to lower your risk of osteoporosis," a spokeswoman was quoted by the 'Daily Mail' as saying.

A survey found that while 68 per cent of people consider beer to be Britain's national drink, some 10 per cent wrongly believe that it contains fat, and 13 per cent believe the beverage is made from chemicals and not barley and hops.

Drink beer, stay healthy!

Mapping of Earth in 3D, but not by Google but German TanDEM-X Satellite.

The TanDEM-X satellite has blasted into orbit on a mission to acquire the most precise 3D map of the Earth's surface.

The German radar spacecraft will fly in formation with an identical platform called TerraSAR-X launched in 2007.

Together, the pair will measure the variation in height across the globe to an accuracy of better than two metres.

Mapping of Earth in 3D, but not by Google but German TanDEM-X Satellite.

Boys are boys and Girls are girls :)

London (IANS) Teenaged boys often prefer the anti-social route to popularity while teenaged girls are more keen on their education and academics, says a new study on teen behaviour and goals conducted in Spain.

The objective was to study how teenagers' goals were structured and the relationship between these goals and antisocial behaviour.

'Girls placed more importance on goals related to education and family aspects, while boys set targets that were more anti-social,' explains Laura Lopez Romero, who co-authored the study with Estrella Romero.

'Anti-social goals are to deceive, steal or bypass rules and laws. It allows them to achieve social recognition, establish an identity and antisocial reputation, which gives them a certain level of popularity,' says Romero, University of Santiago de Compostela (USC).

Boys are boys and Girls are girls :)

Girls Gangsta on rise worldwide.

Girls are getting more into the crime with the number of woman gangsters worldwide swelling up to between 132,000 to 660,000.

The girls in crime made up almost 25 to 50 per cent of organised crime groups in UK and US, according to a latest international study.

Though they may have chosen to go into the frontline of crime, girl gangsters, unlike their male counterparts, still are less trigger happy.

Instead of going for the guns, when confronted, the girl gangsters still opt for knives, stones and other tools as their weapon of choice, says an independent study carried out by the Geneva-based Institute of International Studies.

Girls Gangsta on rise worldwide.

Now Charge your batteries while doing Exercise Via Jumping [VIDEO].

The Scientist are creating many ways for producing alternate source of energy. Here is one the Blizzard concept of recharging your batteries.

This new jump rope concept called the E-rope has turned up at Yanko Design.

Now Charge your batteries while doing Exercise Via Jumping [VIDEO].

Potatoes powering our Energy Needs.

Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has just introduced what they're calling "solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes." In short, it's a potato powered battery, and it's as real as you're hoping it is.

The simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure, but we're hoping that it can work a similar amount of magic for developed nations as well.

Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in the developing world. This cheap, easy to use green power source could substantially improve the quality of life of 1.6 billion people, comprising 32% of the developing non-OECD populations, currently lacking access to electrical infrastructure. Such a source can provide important needs, such as lighting, telecommunication, and information transfer.

Potatoes powering our Energy Needs.

At Last iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Started Shipping[PIC].

Those who were lucky for not getting their Pre-Order cancelled, here is the good news. According to macrumors, some of the persons who booked for their iPhone 4 have started receiving shipment notifications and FedEx tracking numbers for their iPhone 4. Several of the shipment notifications indicate a "Delivers By" date of June 23rd - a day before the official launch day.

At Last iPhone 4 Pre-Orders Started Shipping[PIC].

Toy Story toying with all the Box Office Records.

The G-rated movie starring everyone's favorite Pixar characters Buzz Lightyear and Cowboy Woody grossed an estimated $109 million, earning the status of Pixar's highest-grossing opening weekend ever.

It helped that "Toy Story 3" bowed in more than 2,000 3-D locations, a number that accounted more than 50 percent of its gross. Its IMAX numbers were also solid: The film earned 8 percent of its total from the 180 large-screen theaters. The movie generated a 99 percent positive rating from review collector site Rotten Tomatoes and an A from exit pollster CinemaScore.

The animated flick also helped boost the box office more than 30 percent over this weekend last year, when "The Proposal" debuted to $33 million.

Toy Story toying with all the Box Office Records.