planet chat-"anything on the earth"

In Hong Kong, it can be hard just finding somewhere to sit down. In the fourth most densely populated place in the world, park benches are packed and strangers share tables at restaurants. But for the 40,000 people who die here every year, it turns out there's no respite from the crowds, even in the afterlife. While a land shortage forced Hong Kongers to give up on burials long ago — only 11% of bodies were buried in 2007 — the city has also run out of space for cremated ashes. By some estimates, that means roughly 50,000 families must store their relatives' remains in funeral homes and offices while they wait — often for years — to secure a 1-sq.-ft. resting place. source: By LING WOO LIU / HONG KONG

WASHINGTON -- The International Space Station module formerly known as Node 3 has a new name. After more than a million online responses, the node will be called "Tranquility." The name Tranquility was chosen from thousands of suggestions submitted by participants on NASA's Web site, www.nasa.gov. The "Help Name Node 3" poll asked people to vote for the module's name either by choosing one of four options listed by NASA or offering their own suggestion. Tranquility was one of the top ten suggestions submitted by respondents to the poll, which ended March 20. "The public did a fantastic job and surprised us with the quality and volume of the suggestions," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations. "Apollo 11 landed on the moon at the Sea of Tranquility 40 years ago this July. We selected 'Tranquility' because it ties it to exploration and the moon, and symbolizes the spirit of international cooperation embodie...

The more you work your brain, the more likely you will stave off Alzheimer’s disease Just a modest amount of mental stimulation can go a long way towards warding off Alzheimer’s disease. This is the opinion of researchers who created mice genetically modified to get a condition similar to it. Researchers at the University of California-Irvine studied hundreds of mice altered to make them develop abnormalities known as plaques and tangles in brain tissue that are considered hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease in people. Writing on Tuesday in the Journal of Neuroscience, they said periodic learning sessions-swimming in a tub of water until finding a submerged platform to stand on-slowed the development of those two abnormalities in the mice. “The remarkable thing was that just by learning infrequently, they still had a very dramatic effect on the Alzheimer’s disease pathology, “ said Kim Green, one of the researchers. “So it suggests that in humans, if you learn more and more and more, it’...

While online social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace are known hang-outs for younger adults and teenagers, older generations in recent months have been taking to the medium at a faster rate than any other age group, according to industry reports. Many of these older folks use social networks to keep tabs on younger family members and they often find fruitful connections with their peers after they've friended all of their kids and grandkids. source:http://twurl.nl/ujetmk

click here! Aspirants appearing for the Common Admission Test (CAT) can look forward to doing away with paper work as CAT, rated as one of the world's most demanding entrance examinations for any graduate institute, is all set to go online from 2009. The Common Admission Test (CAT) will finally do away with its 25-year-old history of the traditional paper-pencil test. The decision will impact thousands of students who, each year, appear for the highly competitive entrance exam at centers across the country in the ambition of making it to the hallowed corridors of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). The examination will be conducted on the pattern of similar international exams like GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test), with the only exception that the results will not be declared instantly. The news has been confirmed by an official from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) who said, "The test will definitely go online next year. However, we are not...

Indolent cows languidly chewing their cud while befuddled motorists honk and maneuver their vehicles around them are images as stereotypically Indian as saffron-clad holy men and the Taj Mahal. Now, however, India's ubiquitous cows — of which there are 283 million, more than anywhere else in the world — have assumed a more menacing role as they become part of the climate change debate.By burping, belching and excreting copious amounts of methane — a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide — India's livestock of roughly 485 million (including sheep and goats) contribute more to global warming than the vehicles they obstruct. With new research suggesting that emission of methane by Indian livestock is higher than previously estimated, scientists are furiously working at designing diets to help bovines and other ruminants eat better, stay more energetic and secrete lesser amounts of the offensive gas.Already the world's largest producer of milk, India ...

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE (15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) (IPA: /ˈwʊdhaʊs/) was a comic writer who enjoyed enormous popular success during a career of more than seventy years and continues to be widely read. Despite the political and social upheavals that occurred during his life, much of which was spent in France and the United States, Wodehouse's main canvas remained that of pre-war English upper-class society, reflecting his birth, education, and youthful writing career. http://www.pdf-search-engine.com/pg-woodhouse-pdf.html