USA

Laughter the Best Medicine …Jokes for the Weekend !!!

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A man goes to a bar and sees a fat girl dancing on a table.
He walks over to her and says, “Wow, nice legs!”
She is flattered and replies, “You really think so?”
The man says, “Oh definitely! Most tables would have collapsed by now.”

Teacher: “Kids,what does the chicken give you?”
Student: “Meat!”
Teacher: “Very good! Now what does the pig give you?”
Student: “Bacon!”
Teacher: “Great! And what does the fat cow give you?”
Student: “Homework!” ​

I just ​changed my face book name to ” No one ”
So when I see stupid posts, I click like and it way say ” no one likes this ”

Wife : If I would have been married to a monster, I am sure I would have
felt much better than with you.

Husband : But marriages are not allowed in the same blood relation !

Doctor : You are overweight
Patient : I want another opinion
Doctor : You are ugly too !

A minister, known for his lengthy sermons, noticed a man get up and
leave during the middle of his message. The man returned just before
the conclusion of the service. Afterwards the pastor asked the man
where he had gone.”I went to get a haircut,” was the reply.

“But,” said the minister, “why didn’t you do that before the service?”

“Because,” the gentleman said, “I didn’t need one then.”

 
A short Polish immigrant went to the DVLA to apply for a driver’s license.First, of course, he had to take an eye sight test.

The optician showed him a card with the letters.
On the bottom row were these letters: ‘C Z W I X N O S T A C Z.’

‘Can you read this?’ the optician asked.

‘Read it?’ the Polish guy replied – ‘I know the fellow.’

When a person assists a criminal in breaking the law BEFORE the criminal
gets arrested, we call him an accomplice.

When a person assists a criminal in breaking the law AFTER the criminal
has been arrested, we call him a defense attorney.

A doctor remarked on his patients, ruddy complexion. “I know” the patient said

“It’s high blood pressure, it’s from my family. “Your mother’s side, or father’s side?”
questioned the doctor.

” Neither, my wife’s.”

“What?” the doctor said “that can’t be, how can you get it from your wife’s family?”

“Oh yeah,” the patient responded, “You should meet them sometime!”

A law in Accomac county, USA

When two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop,
and neither shall proceed until the other has gone

 

Source::::Unknown… Input from a friend of mine

Natarajan

October 24 1946…. This Date in Science…First Ever Photo of Earth From Space !!!

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This date in science: First-ever photo of Earth from space

White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory
White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory
On October 24, 1946, a movie camera on board the V-2 rocket captured the first photo of Earth from outer space.

October 24, 1946. Were you alive at a time when we’d never seen Earth from space? Not many of us were, and it’s hard to imagine. But if you can imagine it, think how you’d have felt seeing this first-ever photograph of Earth from outer space, taken on today’s date in 1946. On this date, a group of soldiers and scientists in the New Mexico desert launched a V-2 rocket – fitted with a 35-millimeter motion picture camera – to a suborbital altitude of 105 kilometers (65 mi). The camera was destroyed after being dropped back to Earth, but the film survived.

Photo credit: White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory

First photo of Earth from space, October 24, 1946  via White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory
Air & Space magazine tells the story of this major event in space history:

Snapping a new frame every second and a half, the rocket-borne camera climbed straight up, then fell back to Earth minutes later, slamming into the ground at 500 feet per second. The camera itself was smashed, but the film, protected in a steel cassette, was unharmed.

Fred Rulli was a 19-year-old enlisted man assigned to the recovery team that drove into the desert to retrieve film from those early V-2 shots. When the scientists found the cassette in good shape, he recalls, “They were ecstatic, they were jumping up and down like kids.” Later, back at the launch site, “when they first projected [the photos] onto the screen, the scientists just went nuts.”

Before 1946, the highest pictures ever taken of the Earth’s surface were from the Explorer II balloon, which had ascended 13.7 miles in 1935, high enough to discern the curvature of the Earth. The V-2 cameras reached more than five times that altitude, where they clearly showed the planet set against the blackness of space. When the movie frames were stitched together, Clyde Holliday, the engineer who developed the camera, wrote in National Geographic in 1950, the V-2 photos showed for the first time “how our Earth would look to visitors from another planet coming in on a space ship.”

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V-2 #21, launched on March 7, 1947, took this picture from 101 miles up. The dark area at the upper left is the Gulf of California. White Sands Missile Range/Naval Research Laboratory.

V-2 #21, launched on March 7, 1947, took this picture from 101 miles up. The dark area at the upper left is the Gulf of California. White Sands Missile Range/Naval Research Laboratory.
Scientists quickly got better at taking Earth’s picture. Here’s one from about six months later, taken from V-2 #21, launched on March 7, 1947. This picture is also from 101 miles up. The dark area at the upper left is the Gulf of California. Image via White Sands Missile Range/Naval Research Laboratory.
Bottom line: On October 24, 1946, a movie camera on board the V-2 rocket captured the first photo of Earth from outer space.

 

SOURCE::::::EARTH SKY NEWS SITE

Natarajan

” Satellite Image of India During Diwali” …Real and Fake !!!

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The Hindu festival of Diwali celebrates the victory of Good over the Evil and Light over Darkness. It also marks the beginning of the Hindu New Year. This year, Diwali falls on October 23. Lighting lamps, candles, and fireworks are a big part of Diwali. It’s a celebration of light! But can you see those celebratory lights from space? The answer is no. NASA saysthe extra light produced during Diwali is so subtle that space images don’t show it. This post is about a real satellite image of India during Diwali, versus a false one that’s been circulating on the Internet for a few years, especially around the time of the Diwali festival.

First, a real image:

The image above – which has been artificially brightened – shows what India looked like from space on the night during Diwali in November, 2012. It’s what India looks like from space onany night, according to NASA.

This image is from a NASA satellite known as Suomi NPP, for National Polar-orbiting Partnership. An instrument carried on this satellite – which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared – acquired this image in a single night. The image has been brightened to make the city lights easier to distinguish.

Most of the bright areas are cities and towns in India, which is home to more than 1.2 billion people and has at least 30 cities with populations over 1 million. Cities in Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan are also visible near the edges of the image.

Now, the fake one:

In contrast, here is the false Diwali image, which has been circulating via the Internet for some years. It doesn’t show what it claims to show; that is, it doesn’t show India on a single night during the Diwali festival.

This image comes from satellite data, too, but not a single satellite on a single night. It’s based on data from U.S. Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites, and it’s a color-composite created in 2003 by NOAA scientist Chris Elvidge to highlight population growth over time. In this image, white areas show city lights that were visible prior to 1992, while blue, green, and red shades indicate city lights that became visible in 1992, 1998, and 2003 respectively.

Bottom line: This post contains a real space image of India, taken during the 2012 Diwali festival. The image is shown in contrast to another space image – a composite, put together with data taken over many years – which has circulated in recent years. The composite image does not show India during Diwali. NASA says the extra light so many enjoy during Diwali would not be visible from space.

SOURCE::::earthskynews

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Indian American DR. Subra Suresh Honoured…

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A top Indian American scientist who heads the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, will be inducted into the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in recognition of his research into cell mechanics related to malaria, blood diseases and certain types of cancer.

Subra Suresh, would be one of the only 16 living Americans to be elected to all three national academies – IOM, National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.

Suresh is the first Carnegie Mellon (CMU) faculty member to hold membership in all three academies.

Before becoming president of CMU last year, he served as director of the National Science Foundation(NSF), a USD 7-billion independent government science agency charged with advancing all fields of fundamental science, engineering research and education.

He has also been elected a fellow or honorary member of all the major materials research societies in the United States and India.

Suresh received his Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, a master’s degree from Iowa State University and Doctor of Science degree from MIT.

Following postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he joined the faculty of engineering at Brown University in December 1983.

He joined MIT in 1993 as the R P Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and served as head of MIT’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering during 2000-2006.

In 2011, Suresh was awarded the Padma Shri.

Source:::::Economic Times

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” For Many Years , It Upset Me That I was a Businessman…” Says Dilip Kapur

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I wondered what mistakes I made in my life to be a businessman. Deep down, I still have doubts about it.’

Shobha Warrier meets the amazing Dilip Kapur who built a Rs 160 crore business with just Rs 25,000.

Image: Dilip Kapur whose Hidesign has grown from its artisan roots to an international brand. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

Business was not Dilip Kapur’s first love. He actually wanted to “change the world.” But as fate would have it, what started as a hobby, is today a business worth over Rs 160 crore (Rs 1.6 billion) with 76 exclusive showrooms and a distribution network in 23 countries.

Founded in 1978 as a two man workshop, Dilip Kapur’s Hidesign has grown into a global brand recognised for quality, ecological values and personalised service.

“For many years, it upset me that I was a businessman. I wondered what mistakes I made in my life to be one. Deep down, I still have doubts about it. Business is not something I wanted to do,” says Kapur, the founder-president of Hidesign, the leather goods manufacturer based in Pondicherry/Puducherry, adding that even today he has many questions about doing business.

Kapur’s father, a rich businessman in Delhi, relinquished all his wealth and moved to Pondicherry in 1954 when Kapur was just five, and joined the Aurobindo Ashram.

After studying in the Ashram school as a free spirited boy, Kapoor studied at the Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and later at Princeton University, graduating in liberal arts. He did his PhD in international affairs at Princeton.

When he was at university, the Vietnam War broke and along with that, the hippie and ant-Vietnam movements. “I was a hippie with long hair!’ he remembers. “We all thought we would be able to change the world.”

Image: Hidesign’s leather collection includes handbags, clutches, briefcases, laptop cases, wallets, belts and garments. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

As the war ended, he got a job and that was the first time he was introduced to leather. “I loved the look of it. Unlike cloth, it was very tactile; you can touch it and feel it. There is a three dimension feel to leather; you can see through leather. It is more living unlike cloth.”

As part of his training, he made bills once a week and that was when he noticed that all the rare leather imported from England was called E I Leather. He found out that E I Leather, described as the finest vegetable tanned leather in the world, actually stood for East India Leather.

Considered to be the best for hand colouring, highly expensive shoes and bags in Italy, and the UK were made from this brand of leather. A huge surprise awaited him when he was told that E I Leather was imported from Madras (now Chennai)!

“They were importing from my homeland and I didn’t know. It was one of our heritages which we have lost. India used to be a big centre for vegetable tanned leather, the other two were Italy and Brazil. But when chemical tanning came to India, vegetable tanning slowly vanished.”

With every passing day Kapur realised he disliked the US more. “I really believed Vietnam was American imperialism. Maybe because I was an Indian, I felt connected to Vietnam. The arrogance of America upset me a lot; they thought they could do anything to any country. I admired Vietnam for the way they fought America. The Vietnam War was only one of the reasons why I decided to come back; I always knew one day I was going to come back,” he says.

“I had this pride that I was an Indian and wanted to live in India. No Indian who went to America at that time came back.”

Image: Hidesign has three design teams based in Milan, London and Pondicherry. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

Back in Pondicherry in 1978, there was nothing much for him to do except plant trees and plan the affairs of Auroville. As he helped build Auroville, he indulged in his hobby of designing leather bags, and went searching for the source of E I Leather.

To his disappointment, tanner after tanner that he visited told him that they had stopped using the E I process and shifted to the more modern chrome tanning process.

“The disastrous results were apparent all around the tanneries. Where tannery waste water had once nurtured surrounding fields, now these areas were poisoned deserts with high incidence of cancer and skin diseases. Farmers, tanners, tanneries and environment, once bound together in a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship, were now enemies.”

Thus began his search to find the last remaining skilled tanners of E I Leather to dedicate himself “to research more innovative methods of tanning, based firmly on a heritage that had once created the greatest leather in the world!”

What he did next was visit the cobbler’s colony looking for the best cobbler there. All fingers pointed towards Murugan, a cobbler who could make his own patterns.

Murugan became Kapur’s first employee and continues to be part of Hidesign’s 35-year long journey.

Image: Hidesign sees great value in natural beauty. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

Kapur was pleasantly surprised when a friend of his bought the very first handmade bag he designed for Rs 300.

“I just couldn’t believe that somebody would actually buy a bag I made. This friend knew I was making a bag and when I finished it, she found it so beautiful that she bought it. It was very unexpected.”

Kapur was now making one bag a day and gifting them to family members. It caught the attention of a German friend in Auroville. He modelled with the bags for the catalogue of the World Hunger Organisation and placed an order for 1,400 bags.

“Imagine, I had just started my business and had only one cobbler working for me. The realisation that people would place an order for what you did as a hobby, was amazing. After six months, I supplied 200 bags to him. That was all I could make.”

When such a big order landed his way, Kapur knew it was time to expand. With Rs 25,000 as capital, he expanded his hobby into a business. Most of the money was spent on buying leather, other accessories and a sewing machine.

“If I knew it would grow into a business, I would have closed it down at that time itself. I am not a Socialist or a Communist. I am not even a capitalist; I am a liberalist!” exclaims Kapur.

Image: Hidesign’s leathers are full grain and have not been corrected with paint and pigment to hide natural defects. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

The bags were packed off with the name Hide (leather) and Design with ‘de’ in shadows, but a London company made it one word, Hidesign saying two ‘de’s would not read good. That was how Hidesign was born.

Soon, another order was placed by a friend who used to stay in Auroville but had gone back to Australia.

The next big step in Kapur’s journey was the British store chain John Lewis stocked Hidesign bags.

“We only had rebels as our customers in the first few years. It took us ten years to conquer the mainstream market. By then, the whole culture of the world had changed and people became less conservative and more casual. The biggest break was John Lewis buying our products.”

Image: Hidesign’s products are individually handcrafted using the finest leather. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

Having left India at the age of 15, Kapur felt like a foreigner having no knowledge of the country. So, when he started designing bags, he was doing that for himself and people like him who liked anything that looked natural and rustic. He felt awkward when they moved from the ‘rebel camp’ to the ‘mainstream camp.’

“It was like a progression even though they (John Lewis) forced us to go mainstream. Our leather used to be handmade, but they wanted us to make it a little more even. Till then, we were catering only to the ‘alternate culture’. At John Lewis, our customers were the normal Europeans who were till then buying Italian bags. Yes, it was exciting to replace high-end Italian bags.”

Kapur felt this was the “end of innocence.”

In 1992 Hidesign’s Boxy Bag won the Accessory of the Year award from Accessory Magazine. Kapur had designed a little suitcase like a box with a long strap. The distributor collected the award from Princess Diana. She gave the award and took the bag home.

Stephen Spielberg picked a Hidesign bag and used it in a movie. Bob Hawke, Australia’s former prime minister, carried a Hidesign bag all the time.

The biggest surprise for Kapur was when India became a big market. By now, the number of people working for him had increased and the small unit became a big factory. Today, 3,000 people work for Hidesign, which has 2,000 stores.

“When we started selling in India in 2000, we sold only 6 per cent of our products here. We couldn’t even find a distributor in India who understood our products. So we opened our own stores, first in Delhi and then in Bangalore. Now, India is our biggest market, 65 per cent of our sales are in India. Our customers are from the 25 to 35 age group.”

“After liberalisation the world came to India and Indians went to the world. Suddenly you see many Indians having the same lifestyle as a person in San Fransisco and London.”

Image: The natural and ecological tanning process enhances the intrinsic characteristics and individuality of Hidesign’s leather. Photograph: Sreeram Selvaraj

Until 2005, most of Hidesign’s Indian customers were men, but post-2005, women became big fans of Hidesign. Internationally, 70 per cent of its customers are still men.

A businessman who was never ambitious, Kapur now wants Hidesign to grow and become a leader in India.

“I want to see it as an important brand internationally, but I don’t think in terms of numbers and rupees. We want to stay natural and ecological. That is very important to us. Hidesign is part of a movement that makes people conscious of the environment and never exploit any human being. We should have a reason to be there and a story to tell.”

Shobha Warrier/Rediff.com in Pondicherry

SOURCE:::::Rediff.com
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” Three Things I Have Learned From Warren Buffett “…. Bill Gates

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I’m looking forward to sharing posts from time to time about things I’ve learned in my career atMicrosoft and the Gates Foundation. (I also post frequently on my blog.)

Last month, I went to Omaha for the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. It’s always a lot of fun, and not just because of the ping-pong matches and the newspaper-throwing contest I have with Warren Buffett. It’s also fun because I get to learn from Warren and gain insight into how he thinks.

Here are three things I’ve learned from Warren over the years:

1. It’s not just about investing.

The first thing people learn from Warren, of course, is how to think about investing. That’s natural, given his amazing track record. Unfortunately, that’s where a lot of people stop, and they miss out on the fact that he has a whole framework for business thinking that is very powerful. For example, he talks about looking for a company’s moat—its competitive advantage—and whether the moat is shrinking or growing. He says a shareholder has to act as if he owns the entire business, looking at the future profit stream and deciding what it’s worth. And you have to be willing to ignore the market rather than follow it, because you want to take advantage of the market’s mistakes—the companies that have been underpriced.

I have to admit, when I first met Warren, the fact that he had this framework was a real surprise to me. I met him at a dinner my mother had put together. On my way there, I thought, “Why would I want to meet this guy who picks stocks?” I thought he just used various market-related things—like volume, or how the price had changed over time—to make his decisions. But when we started talking that day, he didn’t ask me about any of those things. Instead he started asking big questions about the fundamentals of our business. “Why can’t IBM do what Microsoft does? Why has Microsoft been so profitable?” That’s when I realized he thought about business in a much more profound way than I’d given him credit for.

2. Use your platform.

A lot of business leaders write letters to their shareholders, but Warren is justly famous for his. Partly that’s because his natural good humor shines through. Partly it’s because people think it will help them invest better (and they’re right). But it’s also because he’s been willing to speak frankly and criticize things like stock options and financial derivatives. He’s not afraid to take positions, like his stand on raising taxes on the rich, that run counter to his self-interest. Warren inspired me to start writing my own annual letter about the foundation’s work. I still have a ways to go before mine is as good as Warren’s, but it’s been helpful to sit down once a year and explain the results we’re seeing, both good and bad.

3. Know how valuable your time is.

No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time. There are only 24 hours in everyone’s day. Warren has a keen sense of this. He doesn’t let his calendar get filled up with useless meetings. On the other hand, he’s very generous with his time for the people he trusts. He gives his close advisers at Berkshire his phone number, and they can just call him up and he’ll answer the phone.

Although Warren makes a point of meeting with dozens of university classes every year, not many people get to ask him for advice on a regular basis. I feel very lucky in that regard: The dialogue has been invaluable to me, and not only at Microsoft. When Melinda and I started our foundation, I turned to him for advice. We talked a lot about the idea that philanthropy could be just as impactful in its own way as software had been. It turns out that Warren’s brilliant way of looking at the world is just as useful in attacking poverty and disease as it is in building a business. He’s one of a kind.

SOURCE:::: Bill Gates in http://www.linkedin.com

Natarajan

Meet Mr. Arvind Subramanian … Chief Economic Adviser to Govt. Of India…

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After his candidacy first emerged in August, US based economist Arvind Subramanian has finally been selected as chief economic adviser by the Indian government.

 

This announcement came at a newsconference in New Delhi where Subramanian was present. He is a development economist who worked closely with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan when both were at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to analysts, one of the prime factors that tipped scales in favour of Arvind Subramanian was his proximity to RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. Narendra Modi personally handpicked Arvind to be his chief economic adviser.

Confirming his appointment in an impromptu news conference outside the Finance Ministry, Mr Subramanian said: “It is a great honour… to serve in a government that has a mandate for reform and change.” He said macro-economic stability and creating favourable conditions for investment will be priorities.

Traditionally, the chief economic adviser is responsible for producing the annual Economic Survey – a document on the state of economy that underpins the drafting of the Budget – and a mid-year economic update that is presented to Parliament.

Recently, Mr Subramanian criticised the Indian government’s decision to derail a WTO deal struck last year to streamline trade procedures by tying it to a separate controversy over food subsidies.

He also criticised Mr Jaitley’s maiden budget in July for being too optimistic in its revenue forecasts.

Mr Subramanian was educated in India and Britain and went on to serve at the IMF and at the forerunner to the World Trade Organization, before taking senior academic posts at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities in the United States.

In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine has named him as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers. He obtained his undergraduate degree from St. Stephens College, Delhi; his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, India; and his M.Phil and D.Phil from the University of Oxford, UK.

Below is a small bio of Arvind Subramanian (Courtesy- Peterson Institute of International economics) 

Arvind Subramanian is the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. His book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance was published in September 2011, and he is coauthor of Who Needs to Open the Capital Account? (2012). Foreign Policy magazine has named him as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers in 2011.

He was assistant director in the Research Department of the International Monetary Fund. He served at the GATT (1988–92) during the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1999–2000) and at Johns Hopkins’ School for Advanced International Studies (2008–10).

He has written on growth, trade, development, institutions, aid, oil, India, Africa, and the World Trade Organization. He has published widely in academic and other journals, including the American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Economic Growth, Journal of Development Economics, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, International Monetary Fund Staff Papers, Foreign Affairs, World Economy, and Economic and Political Weekly.

He has also published or been cited in leading magazines and newspapers, including the Economist, Financial Times, Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and New York Review of Books. He contributes frequently to the Financial Times and is a columnist in India’s leading financial daily, Business Standard.

He advises the Indian government in different capacities, including as a member of the Finance Minister’s Expert Group on the G-20. His book India’s Turn: Understanding the Economic Transformation was published in 2008 by Oxford University Press.

With agency inputs  

Source::::www.dnaindia.com

Natarajan

 

World”s Most Influential Teens Named By TIME …

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Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, Obama’s daughters and Joshua Wong, the face of the Hong Kong protests against China have been named by Time magazine among its list of the 25 most influential teenagers of 2014.

Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, the joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, waves after speaking at Birmingham library in Birmingham, central England. Photographs: Darren Staples/Reuters

“Teens today might have a mixed reputation, but there’s no denying of their influence. They command millions of fans on Twitter and Vine, start companies with funds they raised on Kickstarter, steal scenes on TV’s most popular shows, lead protests with global ramifications, and even win Nobel Peace Prizes,” Time said as it analysed factors like social-media followings, cultural accolades and business acumen to compile the list.

Mid-Atlantic Region pitcher Mo’ne Davis (3) throws a pitch in the first inning against the West Region at Lamade Stadium. Photographs: Reuters

The youngest on the list is 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis of Pennsylvania, a female baseball player who appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Obama’s daughters Sasha, 13, and Malia, 16, are also on the list.

“A lot of dads get squeamish about their daughter’s first prom, but only Malia Obama’s date status could be called “classified information”, as the President joked,” on TV earlier this year.

Time said the elder Obama sibling has “emerged as a figure of national interest” and her appearance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza Music Festival caused almost as much of a stir as the musicians themselves.

U.S. President Barack Obama and his daughters, Malia (C) and Sasha (L), depart the White House for the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland. Photographs: Larry Downing/Reuters

While Malia’s name has “spiked in popularity” after her father’s election, Sasha has become an icon in her own right.

Wong, 18 has become the face of the Hong Kong protests, a civil disobedience movement demanding that China stages unfettered elections for Hong Kong’s top political position.

Joshua Wong, leader of the student movement take a pause after delivering a speech to protesters outside of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying offices in Hong Kong. Photographs: Carlos Barria/Reuters

“To some, he’s a symbol of hope — a youth rallying his peers to fight for a cause they believe in. In mainland China, however, many argue Wong is an extremist and an emblem against China’s storied national order,” Time said.

Jazz Jennings, 14, has been lauded by Time for her support towards transgender rights. Jennings started living as a girl at the age of 5.

Transgender teen Jazz Jennings arrives at the 24th Annual GLAAD Media Awards at JW Marriott Los Angeles at L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles, California. Photographs: Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

She co-wrote a children’s book, “I Am Jazz”, loosely based on her life that aims to help other kids understand what the term ‘transgender’ means.

Yousafzai, 17,  became the youngest-ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize two years after Taliban gunmen shot her in the head while she was riding to school.

“The accolade caps an impressive — albeit early — career for Yousafzai, who has used her organisation, the Malala Fund, as a platform to promote girls’ education, help Syrian refugee children and demand the return of the Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, among other things,” Time said.

In April, she received an honorary doctorate in civil law from the University of King’s College in Canada.

“Malala is a testament that women everywhere will not be intimidated into silence,” former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who also survived a shooting incident, wrote of Yousafzai in this year’s Time 100.

“We will speak, no matter how hard it is to do so.”

The list also includes 15-year-old Flynn McGarry, who has emerged as a chef in the culinary industry and 15-year-old Erik Finman, founder of a website that offers tutoring over video chat for teens.

The other names in the list include actor Will Smith’s 16-year-old-son Jaden Smith, 17-year-old Lydia Ko, who ranks third among women golfers in the world and 17-year-old Salma Kakar, the lead rider on the co-ed Afghan National Cycling Team.

Actor Jaden Smith attends a hand and footprint ceremony for actor Jackie Chan at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California. Photographs: Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

Kakar’s dream is to “wave the flag of Afghanistan at the Olympics one day, and to show the world how far Afghan women have come.”

Ciara Judge, 16, Emer Hickey, 17, and Sophie Healy-Thow, 17, from Ireland also made it to the list because they took home the grand prize at the Google Science Fair after wowing the judges with their discovery ‘Diazotroph’, a bacteria that sucks nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil, speeding up the germination of cereal crops and increasing their yield.

SOURCE::::Rediff.com

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” Suggest a Suitable Name to Space Robot and Win a Prize from NASA …” !!!

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Name a Flying Space Robot, and Win a Prize From NASA

NASA needs your help to name a new space robot, and you could win some cash doing it.

NASA officials are asking space fans around the world to help name, and design a mission patch for, a new free-flying robot expected to launch to theInternational Space Station in 2017. The first-place winner of the challenge will receive $1,000. Officials with the space agency put out the call to any interested space fans at New York Comic Con on Saturday.

“We have this new free-flying robot that we’re building,” Jason Crusan, director of NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems division, told a full house at Comic Con. “We don’t know what to call it. ‘Free-flying robot’ sounds kind of boring and not all that exciting, so we’re asking you to actually name the robot for us.”

Image: Free-flying robotNASA / TOPCODER
A sketch shows how a free-flying robot on the International Space Station could be moved by remote control to get a better video angle.

Second, third and fourth place also come with cash prizes. Second place will win $500, with third and fourth prize taking home $250 each. NASA has teamed up with Topcoder to organize the contest.

If an artist’s depiction of the new space automaton is any indication, the new robot may look like something out of “Star Wars.” In the artist’s concept, the robot could appear as a small, ball-shaped droid that will use fans to move itself around the interior of the International Space Station. It is expected to be able to fly itself, or be operated by remote control.

The new free-flying bot would join a group of other free-fliers already on the station. NASA’s SPHERES robots (the name is short for Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites) are already used on the orbiting outpost.

To participate in the NASA challenge to name the new robot, space fans need to register with Topcoder. Participants will reach a checkpoint where they will receive feedback on their initial designs on Oct. 22, and the challenge ends on Oct. 27. Officials will announce the winners of the competition on Nov. 2.

To participate in the challenge and learn more about it, go tohttp://www.topcoder.com/challenge-details/30046039/?type=design&noncache=true.

— Miriam Kramer, Space.com

This is a condensed version of a report from Space.com. Read the full report.Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter and Google+. Follow Space.com on Twitter,Facebook and Google+.

First published October 15th 2014, 5:55 am  in http://www.nbcnews.com

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Image of the Day… Earth and Moon as Seen From Mercury !!!

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MESSENGER spacecraft sees lunar eclipse from Mercury

The MESSENGER spacecraft, now orbiting Mercury, caught the images to make this movie of last Wednesday’s lunar eclipse. See Earth and moon from Mercury!

Earth and Moon from Mercury orbit, with Moon entering eclipse. Imaged on Wednesday, October 8, 2014 by MESSENGER, a spacecraft in orbit around Mercury.

The MESSENGER spacecraft – which has been orbiting the sun’s innermost planet Mercury since 2011 – made this movie of the the Hunter’s Moon passing into the Earth’s shadow on October 8, 2014. The movie consists of 31 MDIS NAC (Mercury Dual Imaging System Narrow Angle Camera) frames taken two minutes apart from 09:18 UTC to 10:18 UTC on October 8. MESSENGER made the movie from a distance of 107 million kilometers / 66 million miles.

Notice the orientation of bright side of Earth. Earth’s shadow always extends in the direction opposite this bright side – or day side – approximately 1,400,000 kilometers / 1,000,000 miles into space. On October 8, the moon passed into the shadow, causing the eclipse.

The images have been enlarged 2 times and the moon brightened 25 times. The Earth was five pixels wide and the Moon one pixel wide.

The Earth – moon pair appeared in front of the constellation Aries, near the border of the constellation Pisces, as seen from Mercury.

The Earth was very bright magnitude minus 4.38 and the Moon was magnitude minus 0.03.

Read more from Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society

Bottom line: The MESSENGER spacecraft, now orbiting Mercury, caught the images to make this movie of last Wednesday’s lunar eclipse. See Earth and moon from Mercury!

SOURCE:::: earthskynews

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