Saturday, January 31, 2009

Sachin




Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar(born April 24, 1973) is an Indian cricketer, widely considered to be one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He currently holds the records for the most cumulative runs in One-Day Internationals, and the most number of centuries scored in both One-day Internationals and Test cricket. He made his international debut against Pakistan in 1989 at the age of sixteen, becoming India's youngest Test player. Although primarily a top-order batsman, Tendulkar has often proved to be a useful and effective slow bowler. He received India's highest sporting honour, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in the year 1997-1998 and the civilian award Padma Shri in 1999. His cricketing and batting abilities are widely regarded as genius by many stalwarts of the game. For instance, Sir Donald Bradman, the Australian great said of Sachin, "He reminds me of myself". He is affectionately known as The Little Master by his adoring fans.

Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar has become the world record Test runs scorer, surpassing Brian Lara's previous best mark of 11,953.
Tendulkar, 35, needed 15 runs to overtake West Indies legend Lara in the standings on the first day of the second Test against Australia in Mohali. And despite being forced to go to tea on 13 not out, the 'Little Master' came out after the interval to hit Australian debutant Peter Siddle's first ball of the session for three runs to spark wild celebrations in the ground.
The crowd gave Tendulkar a standing ovation to celebrate his achievement, while a pre-prepared fireworks display was also set off outside. The entire Australian team also stood to applaud the batsman, who received warm handshakes from each member of the opposition lineup.
Tendulkar already held the record for Test centuries with 39 in 152 Test matches for India and he is regarded as a living legend in many parts of his homeland - particularly in his native city, Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The batsman's achievement - and brilliance on the big occasion - was almost underlined with a 40th Test century, but it was not to be as he was dismissed on 88 after a catch at slip by Matthew Hayden off the bowling of Sidde.
The innings takes Tendulkar's career total to 12,041 – making him the first batsman ever to surpass 12,000 Test runs.


Sachin Tendulkar Memorabilia

As a tribute to this outstanding feat, we are proud to release a magnificent, full colour print, titled "Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar 35". ". This collage style print contains the details of all of Sachin's 35 Test Centuries, various images taken during his career and also his Record Breaking innings. Unlimited in volume, this piece has been especially created to enable Sachin fans all around the World to be able to own a little piece of this historic achievement. Unsigned and unframed, this print is a very affordable piece of cricket memorabilia.
"While every Cricketer dreams of being the best in his time, this boy dreamt a little more - of being the best there ever was. Even as a little boy playing in the park, he was introspective, quiet, critical of every century he scored, every shot he played. At 16, he debuted for India, and is today the only batsman ever to have been compared with Sir Donald Bradman universally, including by Bradman himself."


Signed and Framed print

During the 1st Test, Pakistan v India at Karachi in November 1989, a quiet 16 year-old named Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar made his Test debut for his beloved India.
Then, during the 2nd Test, England v India at Manchester in 1990, Sachin showed the cricket world what he was capable of, scoring his first ever Test century, he finished 119 not out after facing 189 balls.
On December 10th 2005, during the 2nd Test, India v Sri Lanka at Delhi, Sachin Tendulkar scored an amazing 109. This Test century, being the 35th of his career, saw Sachin surpass the World Test Record of 34, previously held by Indian great Sunil Gavaskar since his retirement in 1987. Facing 196 balls, Sachin displayed his true brilliance at the crease, hitting 14 fours and 1 six, until being trapped LBW by a spectacular delivery from Muralitharan.

This outstanding achievement is destined to stand for many years to come.
As a tribute to this outstanding feat, we are proud to release a limited edition of 1000 prints, titled "Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar 35". This collage style print contains the details of all of Sachin's 35 Test Centuries, various images taken during his career and also his Record Breaking innings. These prints have been elegantly framed in a quality timber and frame and Perspex glazed.
This strictly limited piece of Test Cricket history has been personally signed by Sachin and will be the only signed print released World wide to officially commemorate his World Test Record.
This product is supported by A-Tag Authentication Technology and includes an official a-Tag Certificate of Authenticity.
"While every Cricketer dreams of being the best in his time, this boy dreamt a little more - of being the best there ever was. Even as a little boy playing in the park, he was introspective, quiet, critical of every century he scored, every shot he played. At 16, he debuted for India, and is today the only batsman ever to have been compared with Sir Donald Bradman universally, including by Bradman himself."


Framed bat


As a tribute to this outstanding feat, we are proud to release a limited edition of 1000 of this special piece, titled "Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar 35". This "SRT 35" cricket bat has been elegantly framed in a quality timber box frame and Perspex glazed alongside four photos of Sachin taken during his World Record innings. This quality collectable also contains the details of all of Sachin's 35 Test Centuries printed onto the mat board in gold text.
This strictly limited piece of Test Cricket history has been personally signed by Sachin and will be the only signed bat released World wide to officially commemorate his World Test Record.
This product is supported by A-Tag Authentication Technology and includes an official a-Tag Certificate of Authenticity.
"While every Cricketer dreams of being the best in his time, this boy dreamt a little more - of being the best there ever was. Even as a little boy playing in the park, he was introspective, quiet, critical of every century he scored, every shot he played. At 16, he debuted for India, and is today the only batsman ever to have been compared with Sir Donald Bradman universally, including by Bradman himself."

Friday, January 30, 2009

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a set of symptoms and infections resulting from the damage to the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen,vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk.

This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion,contaminated,hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding, or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids.

AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and it killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000

children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, retarding economic growth and destroying human capital.

Symptoms

Most of these conditions are infections caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites that are normally controlled by the elements of the immune system that HIV damages.

Opportunistic infections are common in people with AIDS. HIV affects nearly every organ system.

People with AIDS also have an increased risk of developing various cancers such as Kaposi's sarcoma, cervical cancer and cancers of the immune system known as lymphomas.

Additionally, people with AIDS often have systemic symptoms of infection like fever,sweats (particularly at night), swollen glands, chills, weakness, and weightloss. The specific opportunistic infections that AIDS patients develop depend in part on the prevalence of these infections in the geographic area in which the patient lives.

Cause

HIV is a retrovirus that primarily infects vital organs of the human immune system such as CD4+ T cells (a subset of T-cells ), macrophages and dendritic cells. It directly and indirectly destroys CD4+ T cells.

Many factors affect the rate of progression.

They are:

Sexual transmission

Sexual transmission occurs with the contact between sexual secretions of one person with the rectal, genital or oral mucous membranes of another. Unprotected receptive sexual acts are riskier than unprotected insertive sexual acts, and the risk for transmitting HIV through unprotected anal intercourse is greater than the risk from vaginal intercourse or oral sex.

Transmission of HIV depends on the infectiousness of the index case and the susceptibility of the uninfected partner. Infectivity seems to vary during the course of illness and is not constant between individuals. An undetectable plasma viral load does not necessarily indicate a low viral load in the seminal liquid or genital secretions.

Exposure to blood-borne pathogens

This transmission route is particularly relevant to intravenous drug users, hemophiliacs and recipients of blood transfusions and blood products. Sharing and reusing syringes contaminated with HIV-infected blood represents a major risk for infection with HIV.

Perinatal transmission

The transmission of the virus from the mother to the child can occur during the last weeks of pregnancy and at childbirth. In the absence of treatment, the transmission rate between a mother and her child during pregnancy.

HIV TEST

Many people are unaware that they are infected with HIV. Less than 1% of the sexually active urban population in Africa has been tested, and this proportion is even lower in rural populations. Furthermore, only 0.5% of pregnant women attending urban health facilities are counseled, tested or receive their test results. Again, this proportion is even lower in rural health facilities. Therefore,donar blood and blood products used in medicine and medical research are screened for HIV. HIV tests are usually performed on venous blood.


Prevention

The three main transmission routes of HIV are sexual contact, exposure to infected body fluids or tissues, and from mother to fetus or child during perinatal period. It is possible to find HIV in the saliva, tears, and urine of infected individuals, but there are no recorded cases of infection by these secretions, and the risk of infection is negligible.

Mother-to-child transmission

Current recommendations state that when replacement feeding is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe, HIV-infected mothers should avoid breast-feeding their infant. However, if this is not the case, exclusive breast-feeding is recommended during the first months of life and discontinued as soon as possible.

So we will realise the effects of AIDS and we should make others to be aware!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Heart Attack





Heart Attack

A heart attack is injury or death of a part of the heart muscle. It is also called a ‘myocardial infarction’. There are 2 major ways in which a heart attack can occur: Blockages get worse: As the blockages get larger there is less blood flow to the heart muscle. At one point the heart muscle no longer can get the blood and oxygen it needs. When the blood supply is cut off for more than about 30 minutes, the heart muscle cells begin to die, and a heart attack occurs.
when an area of heart muscle is completely deprived of blood, and the heart muscle cells die. A heart attack may result when plaque inside the heart arteries breaks open or ruptures, forming a clot that significantly blocks blood flow through the artery.



HOW TO SURVIVE A HEART ATTACK WHEN ALONE
Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help,the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can.



10 WAYS TO REDUCE CHOLESTEROL AND PREVENT HEART ATTACK

The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.
Qn: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his heart ?

Check the cholesterol level TOTAL CHOLESTEROL (mg/dl) Below 200 Safe 200-239 Little bit over Above 240 Dangerous LDL (mg/dl) Below 100 Safe 100-129 Not over 130-159 Little bit over 160-189 Over Above 190 Dangerous HDL (mg/dl)

1. Diet - Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil .
2. Exercise - Half an hour's walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime.
3. Quit smoking.
4. Control weight .
5. Control blood pressure and sugar.
5. Avoid oil fried foods.
6. Eat fiber rich foods.
7. Reduce tensions.
8. Eat vitamins.
9. Regulate lifestyles.
10. Take treatments.

FOR MORE DETAILS

Qn: Is eating non-veg food (fish) good for the heart?
Ans: No


Qn: It's still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?
Ans: This is called silent attack; that is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.


Qn: Are heart diseases hereditary?
Ans: Yes


Qn: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?
Ans: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Qn: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?
Ans: Walking is better than jogging since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints .

Qn: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?
Ans: Extremely rare

Qn: Does cholesterol accumulates right from an early age (I'm currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?
Ans: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Qn: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?
Ans: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body's enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Qn: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?
Ans: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Qn: Can yoga prevent heart ailments?
Ans: Yoga helps.

Qn: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?
Ans: Fruits and vegetables are the best and the worst is oil.

Qn: Which oil is better - groundnut, sunflower, olive?
Ans: All oils are bad .

Qn: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?
Ans: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Qn: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?
Ans: Help the person into a sleeping position , place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him to a coronary care unit since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Qn: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?
Ans: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Qn: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 yrs of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.
Ans: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, edentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Qn: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?
Ans: Yes.

Qn: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?
Ans : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may not have a software engineer as a child

Qn: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart ? What precautions would you recommend?
Ans : When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Qn: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short / long term)?
Ans : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Qn: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?
Ans : No.

Qn:Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?
Ans : No.

Qn: How would you define junk food?
Ans : Fried food like Kentucky , McDonalds , samosas, and even masala dosas.

Qn: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?
Ans: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Qn: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?
Ans : No.

Qn: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded emails on this)?
Ans : Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Qn: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?
Ans : No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Qn: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?
Ans : Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Qn: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?
Ans: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Qn: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?
Ans : Diet, exercise, drugs on time , Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Qn: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?
Ans : No.

Qn: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?
Ans : There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.
Qn: Does dispirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?
Ans : No.

Qn: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?
Ans : Nature protects women till the age of 45.

Qn: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?
Ans : Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkup s if you are past the age of 30 ( once in six months recommended) ...

Monday, January 26, 2009

J.K.Rowling



J.K.Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (née Volant) on 31 July 1965 in yake, Gloucestershire, England .Her sister Dianne (Di) was born at their home on 28 June 1967. when Rowling was four.She attended, St Michael's Primary School a school founded almost 200 years ago by famed abolitionist William Wilberforceand education reformer Hannah More. Her elderly headmaster at St. Michael's, Alfred Dunn, was claimed as the inspiration for the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore.

As a child, Rowling enjoyed writing fantasy stories, which she often read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it," she recalls, "Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to the Gloucestershire village of tutshil, close to Chepstow, Wales.

When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind", gave her a very old copy of Mitford Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione is loosely based on me.

She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish." Of her musical tastes of the time, she said "My favourite group in the world is The Smiths. And when I was going through a punky phase, it was The Clash." Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter, which she says was a "bit of a shock" as she "was expecting to be amongst lots of similar people– thinking radical thoughts". Once she made friends with "some like-minded people" she says she began to enjoy herself. With a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International. In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. "I really don't know where the idea came from", she told the Boston Globe, "It started with Harry, then all these characters and situations came flooding into my head.

" When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. However, in December of that year, Rowling’s mother died, after her ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis. Rowling commented, "I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died. I had never told her about Harry Potter."

Rowling said this death heavily affected her writing and that she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt. She married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes. Their one child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born on 27 July 1993 in Portugal. They separated in November 1993. In December 1994, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, and contemplated suicide. It was the feeling of her illness which brought her the idea of Dementors, soulless creatures featured in Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.

The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

DIANA

Diana,was born at Park House, Sandringham in Norfolk, England on 1 July 1961. She was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church by the Rt. Rev. Percy Herbert her godparents included John Floyd (the chairman of Christie's).



She was the third child to the couple, her four siblings being The Lady Sarah Spencer (born 19 Marth 1955), The Lady Jane Spencer (born 11 February 1957), The Honourable John Spencer (born and died 12 January 1960), and Charles Spencer (born 20 May 1964). Following her parents' acrimonious divorce in 1969 (over Lady Althorp's affair with wallpaper heir Peter Shand Kydd), Diana's mother took her and her younger brother to live in an apartment in London's Knightsbridge, where Diana attended a local day school. That Christmas the Spencer children went to celebrate with their father and he subsequently refused to allow them to return to London with their mother. Lady Althorp sued for custody of her children, but Lady Althorp's mother's testimony against her daughter during the trial contributed to the court's decision to award custody of Diana and her brother to their father.



In 1976 Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, after he was named as the "other party" in the Dartmouths' divorce. During this time Diana travelled up and down the country, living between her parents' homes—with her father at the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire, and with her mother, who had moved to the Island of Seil off the west coast of Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not get along with her stepmother.



The Queen wise and full of wisdom as ever went as far as to suggest that Camilla should find herself fortuitously unwell on that day!