Posts Tagged ‘wing’
Written by Rahul on 20 August 2009
London, Aug 19 (ANI): An eight-year-old boy is hoping to become the youngest person in the world to wing-walk.iger Brewer, from London, will be taking to the skies on the wing of his grandfather’s biplane.
His grandfather is Vic Norman, who operates the only formation wing-walking team in the world.
Tiger will be soaring through the skies in Gloucestershire at 100mph and flying high at about 1,000 feet.
His mum, Zoe, is completely unfazed by what her son is up to.
“My siblings and I have all grown up doing all sorts of weird things and I wouldn’t let him do it if I didn’t think it was perfectly safe,” Sky News quoted her as saying.
“He’s with my father and I trust him absolutely,” she added.
Tiger, meanwhile, is ‘excited, and a teeny bit nervous – and happy’.
“I’ve stood on a biplane but I’ve never flown on one,” he said.
The world record is presently held by Guy Mason, son of Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, who first wing-walked in 2001 at the age of 11.
Norman is hopeful his grandson will fly into the record books.
“It will be wonderful to fly with Tiger on my wing, he shares my passion for flying and it will be a very special experience for us both,” he said. (ANI)
Tags: age, all sorts, ANI, Aug, biplane, bit, boy, Brewer, Brit, drummer, experience, father, Floyd, fly, formation, gloucestershire, grandfather, grandson, Guy Mason, iger, London, mph, News, Nick Mason, Norman, passion, person, Pink, Pink Floyd, record, record books, shares, siblings, sky, sky news, son, Team, teeny, tiger, vic, Vic Norman, Walking Team, weird things, wing, world, world record, zoe
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Written by Rahul on 29 April 2009
London, April 24 (IANS) Pop legend Michael Jackson has found himself at the centre of hit-and-run allegations after his driver allegedly smashed into an ambulance on his way to pick up the singer from a Los Angeles hospital.
The chauffeur has been accused of sideswiping an ambulance and breaking off its wing mirror as he went to meet Jackson at Cedars Sinai Medical Center Wednesday, reported femalefirst.com.
The incident was reported to cops at the Beverly Hills Police Department, who have confirmed a hit-and-run accident occurred involving ‘a dark coloured SUV’ that was ‘being followed by a group of paparazzi at the time of the collision.’
However, authorities have yet to confirm the ‘Thriller’ hitmaker’s involvement, stating ‘the suspect is unknown at this time’.
No one was injured in the crash and police are currently investigating the incident.
The reason behind Jackson’s hospital visit was unknown, but the singer who was wearing a surgical mask during the trip, has been plagued by rumours of ill health for months.
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Written by Rahul on 21 April 2009
Mumbai, Apr 19 (ANI): Bollywood actor-director Farhan Akhtar lent a hand for a cause when he launched an innovative campaign for building a school for specially-abled children in Mumbai on Saturday.
Akhtar joined the Sadhana School’s ‘Brick-by-Brick’ campaign, for building an additional wing in the school building.
The campaign invites volunteers to purchase a brick for rupees 5,000, and help the school to raise money through the campaign for the building.
“The initiative which has been started is that the people can donate and contribute in buying a brick that can help build an additional wing in the school,” said Akhtar.
Akhtar was also treated to an exclusive performance by the school children on the song from his film ‘Rock On’.
The actor also expressed plans for making a children-based film in future.(ANI)
Tags: Abled Kids, actor, Akhtar, ANI, Apr, based film, Bollywood, brick, Brick By Brick, Brick-by, Building, campaign, cause, Farhan, film, future, hand, helping hand, initiative, Lent, money, Mumbai, performance, Raise Money, rock, rupees, Sadhana, Saturday, school, song, Volunteers, wing
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Written by Rahul on 05 April 2009
Islamabad, April 3 (IANS) Pakistani investigators claim to have unearthed plans by a group of 20 Uzbek terrorists to target vital installations in Islamabad, as also Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.
The claim, however, seems fanciful as it suggests India’s spy agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has tied up with Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud to stage the attacks.
Mehsud has owned responsibility for the March 30 terror assault on the Manawan police academy on Lahore’s outskirts when heavily armed militants held over 400 trainees hostage for over eight hours before Pakistani security forces recaptured the complex.
‘Our agencies have intercepted a RAW plan to hit Rawalpindi and Islamabad by using terrorist elements within Pakistan,’ The News Friday quoted an official as saying.
An intelligence report shared with the newspaper by an interior ministry official ‘reveals’ that Chaudhry’s life ‘is in danger as RAW wants to target him to cause anarchy in Pakistan’, it added.
According to the intelligence report, at least 20 Uzbek terrorists dispatched by Mehsud ‘have already reportedly reached Islamabad’ and ‘would play a key role in this operation’.
They are divided in groups and each group has been assigned a different attack plan, the report said.
‘The terrorists may try to capture important buildings like the Pakistan Secretariat blocks, TV stations, police training centres and foreign chains of schools,’ the intelligence report said.
‘This time, the attacks could be conducted at four or five places simultaneously in various areas of the twin-cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Vigilance is required to counter and curb attacks or terrorist acts planned by the extremists,’ the report added.
Islamabad’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Syed Kalb-e-Abbas confirmed the threats and said that rigorous security measures had been taken to secure the diplomatic enclave, military installations and other sensitive buildings.
Nasir Khan Durrani, the additional IGP of the adjacent garrison town of Rawalpindi, said the police had begun interrogating people who had been associated with terrorist outfits in the past.
‘We are concentrating especially on spontaneous checking in different localities of the city and its outskirts,’ Durrani added.
According to Moeen Masood, the additional IGP of the Special Branch: ‘We take every specific and non-specific threat seriously and maintain high state of alertness.’
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Written by Rahul on 05 April 2009
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -Malaysia’s new Prime Minister Najib Razak, 55, faces an immediate challenge of steering Malaysia through its first likely recession since the
1998 Asian economic downturn.
The British-trained economist, who takes over from Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, also faces the tough task of trying to reinvigorate an ailing ruling coalition.
The following are some facts about Najib:
- He is the eldest son of Abdul Razak Hussein, Malaysia’s second prime minister. Abdul Razak is credited with rescuing the country from the brink of disaster following racial riots in 1969, and laying the foundations for modern Malaysia.
Abdul Razak expanded the ruling alliance and created what is now known as the National Front. He also introduced the New Economic Policy which gives ethnic Malays preference in jobs, education and business, to narrow the wealth gap between poor Malays and the richer Chinese minority.
- Najib, one of the youngest to be elected into Malaysia’s parliament, won his father’s constituency of Pekan in 1976 at the age of 22 after Abdul Razak died of leukemia. Najib retained the seat in six subsequent general elections, and also served for a term as chief minister in his home state of Pahang.
- Najib was groomed for political leadership. He served for 22 years under the administration of former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who has said he owes a debt of gratitude to Najib’s father for his ascent to the top post.
But Mahathir, in an interview with Reuters last month, said Najib’s entry into politics was accidental.
- Najib was a firebrand in the 1980s, heading the youth wing of the main United Malays National Organisation party at meetings where people called for Chinese blood on the Malays’ keris (traditional knives). But he has now pledged to unite all races and urged Malaysians to close ranks.
- An avid golfer, he has a network of friends and confidantes from the country’s elite business circle, whom he often taps for input. His brother, Nazir Razak, heads CIMB, Malaysia’s second-largest bank.
- After being appointed deputy prime minister in 2004, Najib was given a broad portfolio of responsibilities including oversight of FELDA, a state-run cooperative of oil palm smallholders developed by his father. FELDA is one of the world’s largest plantation owners and managers, owning over 800,000 hectares of rubber and oil palm estates.
Najib provided infrastructure and benefits for the 115,000 mostly Malay landless families under the scheme and developed a strong network of grassroots support among the rural poor.
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Written by Rahul on 05 April 2009
Malian President Amadou Toumani Toure said on Thursday, adding he was optimistic and should be able to give concrete information soon.
The six include four tourists from Britain, Germany and Switzerland, kidnapped in Mali in January, and two Canadian diplomats including a U.N. special representative, seized in Niger in December.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb had said it was holding all the hostages.
“I heard before leaving Bamako yesterday that the hostages are all doing well. We are working on the ground to free these men and women so that they can return to their families,” Toumani Toure told a news conference in Brussels.
The president of the West African nation said he could not go into detail for reasons of confidentiality, but hoped the situation would be resolved soon.
“I am not at all pessimistic, I like to remain optimistic. All is well at the moment and in the days and weeks to come, and I hope it is days, I will be much more explicit and concrete,” he said.
Last week, it was reported that the group had demanded the release of 20 of its members held in Mali and other countries in the region as a condition for releasing the hostages.
The president of Mali, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest gold producers, said he was preoccupied and embarrassed by the growing insecurity of the Sahel band stretching from Mauritania to Darfur.
The region is home to many armed groups, including nomadic Tuareg and Toubou rebels in northern Niger and Mali, members of al Qaeda’s North African wing believed to be using the region for training, and cigarette, drugs and people traffickers.
“The situation of the Sahel region is becoming very delicate,” he said. “It started with contraband, now it includes human trafficking, arms trade and today taking of hostages and drugs,” he added.
Toumani Toure said he hoped a peace and security summit of leaders from the region in coming weeks would tackle the problem.
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Written by Rahul on 02 April 2009
IT solutions company MindTree has announced an organisation-wide restructure as part of its growth plans and objective of becoming a $1-billion enterprise.
The restructuring, which will include entering new market segments, setting up of new business units and new roles for the senior management, will be effective April 1 onwards.
As per the restructuring plan, MindTree has drawn up five business areas that will be its focus.
The five areas, in which MindTree aims to establish leadership positions, include IT services, product engineering services, infrastructure management and technical support, independent testing, and a newly formed analytics services wing of the company titled knowledge services.
Ashok Soota, chairman and managing director, MindTree, said in a statement to the BSE, “Being focused on five business units will not only enable faster growth in our chosen areas, but will also help MindTree build greater capacity. This is a significant milestone in MindTree’s journey towards becoming a $1-bilion organisation.”
Soota, who will assume the role of the company’s executive chairman as part of the restructure, will focus on strategic initiatives and long-term development, alongside chairing the board of directors.
Krishnakumar Natarajan, chief executive officer of the company, will assume the additional designation of managing director and handle the company’s day-to-day operations.
Tags: April, ashok, bilion, Board, BSE, Business, business areas, business units, capacity, chairman, chief executive officer, company, designation, development, director, engineering, engineering services, Enterprise, executive, executive chairman, focus, growth, Infrastructure, Infrastructure Management, journey, knowledge, Knowledge Services, Krishnakumar, leadership, Leadership Positions, Management, market, Market Segments, milestone, Mindtree, Natarajan, objective, Officer, organisation, Organisation Structure, part, plan, product, Product Engineering, rejig, restructure, restructuring, role, services infrastructure, solutions company, Soota, statement, Strategic Initiatives, structure, support, testing, tree, wing
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Written by Rahul on 26 March 2009
New Delhi, March 26 (ANI): Twenty years after being accidentally swallowed by a kung fu master during a training session, a chopstick has finally been removed.
The 21-cm stick was ingested by Wing Ma during an exercise.
Ma has revealed that he was conditioning his body to take pain when the accident occurred, Metro reports.
According to the China Daily, the 40-year-old was rid of the chopstick at a hospital in eastern Wuhan, China.
“It never came out the other end. I forgot about it until the other day when I started to get pains in my stomach,” he said. (ANI)
Tags: accident, Accidentally, ANI, body, china, china daily, chopstick, conditioning, Daily, day, eastern Wuhan, end, exercise, hospital, kung, Kung Fu Master, March, master, metro, New Delhi, pain, session, stick, stomach, training, training session, Twenty Years, wing, Wuhan China
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Written by Rahul on 13 March 2009
Hyderabad, Mar 13 (ANI): The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) in Hyderabad has developed a Tsunami Early Warning System to provide special kind of data for the safety of people living in the Indian coastal areas.
The Early Warning System will mitigate Oceanogenic disasters that cause severe threat to nearly 400 million people that live in the coastal belt leading to huge devastation of life and property.
“Tsunami Early Warning System comprises seismic stations. They are actually there to identify whether any Tsunami generic earthquake has happened. So, we are capable of detecting earthquakes of more than six magnitudes because more than six magnitudes are the ones, which are capable of generating a Tsunami. To detect such events, we need a network of seismic stations. So, we have actually access to more than 300 international and national seismic stations, which are sending data to INCOIS,” said T. Srinivas Kumar, Incharge, Tsunami Early Warning System.
The centre has a special wing, the National Early Warning System for tsunami and storm surges linked to17 broadband seismic stations for real time earthquake detection and 320 international stations, which enable it to locate its occurrence within five to ten minutes.
“We have used earthquake sensors. So we try to monitor if there is any earthquake happening in the ocean. Once if it has happened, then we see if it is a large one or not because then the displacement of water will be large. Then we monitor water level changes using bottom pressure recorder. If we see any changes in the level of the seawater, we confirm whether Tsunami is likely to come or not,” said M.Ravichandran, Head, Modeling and Ocean Observation Group, INCOIS.
The giant tsunami waves that occurred on December 26, 2004 triggered by a powerful earthquake that killed over 150,000 people across Asia and Africa, swept across India’s southeastern and southern coast killing 12,405 people and left millions homeless.
India was among the most grievously hit by the tsunami, with a death toll of more than 7,400 in Tamil Nadu alone.
The coastal districts of Tamil Nadu suffered massive destructions and damage to life and property.
The tsunami swept through Chennai, Cuddalore, Nagapattinam and other coastal belts and thousands of people were washed away. (ANI)
Tags: access, Africa, ANI, asia, belt, broadband, centre, Chennai, coast, coastal areas, Coastal Belt, Cuddalore, damage, death, December, december 26, detection, devastation, displacement, early warning system, earthquake, Earthquake Detection, Earthquake Sensors, Giant Tsunami, group, head, hyderabad, incharge, INCOIS, india, INDIAN, information, kind, level, life, M.Ravichandran, Magnitudes, mar, modeling, Nadu, nagapattinam, national, Network, observation, Observation Group, occurrence, ocean, Ocean Observation, Oceanogenic, pressure, Pressure Recorder, property, ravichandran, Real Time Earthquake, recorder, safety, seawater, Seismic Stations, Srinivas, storm, system, T. Srinivas Kumar, tamil, threat, time, toll, tsunami, Tsunami Early Warning System, Tsunami Waves, warning, Water, Water Level Changes, wing
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Written by Rahul on 05 March 2009
New Delhi, Mar.4 (ANI): The Pakistan Government was warned about a possible attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team by the Crime Investigation Department (CID), Punjab, recently.
The Punjab CID had also tabled a ’secret’ report saying that the Indian intelligence agency-RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) was chalking out plans to attack the Lankan to malign Pakistan’s image on the international stage.
The report tagged “SECRET/IMMEDIATE” with subject “SOURCE REPORT” said : “It has reliably been learnt that RAW (Indian intelligence agency) has assigned its agents the task to target Sri Lankan cricket team during its current visit to Lahore, especially while travelling between the hotel and stadium or at hotel during their stay.
This ’secret’ report has now surfaced in Pakistani media.
But the million dollar question here is that if Islamabad had so specific knowledge about the threat to the visiting Lankans, then why it didn’t act.
Moreover, the Pakistani authorities had promised unprecedented security arrangements for the visitors during the series.
So, the sudden appearance of the Pak CID report charging the Indian intelligence agency, RAW for plotting the Lahore attack, has some stinking factor behind it.
It seems that Pakistan, in a deliberate effort to divert the international attention from its own failure, has put forward the propaganda of attacking India and trickled the CID report to the media.
Putting India to blame had started even before the dust of the Lahore terror attack had settled with a PPP leader, within minutes of the attack, saying: “This is clearly the work of a foreign hand.”
No surprise that the recent ‘leaking’ of the ‘top secret’ intelligence report is just another ploy to drag India into the issue. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 02 March 2009
Bangalore, Feb 28 (ANI): Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L. K. Advani on Saturday condemned the attack on young women at Mangalore pub by Sri Ram Sena, terming it a violation of Indian ethos.
“I strongly condemn the attack on girls in Mangalore. There can be no compromise on this. It is wrong and against Indian culture and ethos,” Advani said.
People were entitled to have different perspectives on whether young men and women should visit pubs, but attacking them was wrong, he added.
Last month, members of a right wing Hindu group allegedly assaulted girls in a Mangalore pub accusing them of behaving in an obscene manner.
After the attack, 27 members of the outfit were arrested including its chief Pramod Muthalik.
Union Minister Renuka Chowdhury had criticized the state government on its failure to prevent attempts to ‘Talibanise’ the country and sent a three-member team, led by NCW member Vanktesh, to probe the case.
Chowdhury, however, sacked Vanktesh, saying her conduct was detrimental to public interest. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 22 February 2009
Margao, Feb 22 (ANI): Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday lashed out at Congress and called its workers fish in an aquarium.
“The Congress workers are like fish in an aquarium. While, the leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are the fish of ocean, who have the strength to fight the oceanic waves,” Modi said.
He asserted that the youths in Congress were not capable to take on challenges while BJP’s youth wing was capable of taking rough weather head on.
Making an indirect reference at the Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, Modi said that the leaders in the Congress party were in politics by the virtue of their family links.
“There is no Chief Minister of any State from BJP whose father was a Prime Minister or whose mother was a lawmaker. I call upon the Congress leaders to compete against us,” the Chief Minister said.
General elections in India will be held sometime in May and the main contest this year is likely to be between the Congress party and the opposition BJP. (ANI)
Tags: ANI, aquarium, Bharatiya, bjp, Chief Minister, congress, contest, family, father, Feb, fish, general, Gujarat, head, india, Janata, lawmaker, Margao, May, modi, mother, Narendra, ocean, opposition, party, Prime, rahul gandhi, reference, Secretary, state, strength, Sunday, virtue, weather, wing, year, youth
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Written by Rahul on 20 February 2009
Jabalpur, Feb 20 (ANI): Girls affiliated to the National Students Union of India, the students wing of the Congress party, were arrested in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, for staging a violent protest.
Female students of Jabalpur’s Home Science College claimed that the holding of semester examinations instead of annual ones would mar their future prospects. They also demanded the college principal’s resignation.
“To register our protest against semester system, we approached the Chief Minister and many senior officers. But in spite of that, nobody paid heed to our demand,” said Vandana Bel, the state secretary of the union.he principal said the girls vandalised college property.
“Not only did they cause damage to government property, but also disrupted an examination. They were not listening to anybody. Some 10-15 girls were shouting and vandalizing college property,” said Chitralekha, the principal of the college.
The protesting girls claimed that the police baton charged them. (ANI)
Tags: ANI, anybody, Baton, Bel, Chief Minister, Chitralekha, College, congress, damage, demand, examination, Feb, female, girls, government, holding, home, india, Jabalpur, Madhya, mar, national, nobody, party, police, Pradesh, Principal, property, protest, Resignation, Science, Secretary, semester, spite, state, system, union, Vandana, wing
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Written by Rahul on 19 February 2009
Raipur, Feb 19 (ANI): At least three CRPF personnel were killed and nine policemen injured in a naxal attack in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker District last night.
The injured have been admitted to a government hospital in Raipur.
Over 70 districts in the country are affected by Left wing extremism, which has been described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as a “virus” and the biggest internal security threat.
In continuing naxal violence in around a dozen states, over 400 people, including over 150 security men, have been killed so far this year.
The Government recently approved formation of a 10,000-strong special anti-Naxal force “COBRA” – Combat Battalion for Resolute Action – to tackle the menace.
In another decision, the Union Cabinet approved creation of 48 new posts of Special Directors General, Additional Directors General and Inspectors General in various central police organisations keeping in view functional necessity.
These posts will strengthen the supervisory structure of these organisations for better command and control. (ANI)
Tags: action, ANI, anti, attack, Battalion, Cabinet, Chhattisgarh, cobra, Combat, command, Control, country, creation, crpf, decision, dozen, extremism, Feb, Force, formation, general, government, hospital, Inspectors, Kanker District, Left, menace, Naxal, necessity, Night, police, policemen, prime minister manmohan, Raipur, Resolute, Security, Singh, structure, threat, union, view, violence, virus, wing, year
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Written by Rahul on 19 February 2009
Kathmandu, Feb 19 (ANI): The Unified CPN (Maoist) today intensified its preparations for a by-election, which is scheduled to hold on April 10.
During the secretariat meeting of the Maoists held this morning at party Headquarters in Buddhanagar, they handed over the responsibility to elect the party’s candidates for the by-election to the in-charge of the state affairs committee.
Maoist spokesperson Dinanath Sharma said that the party directed the in-charge to submit the name list by electing the candidates within two days.
“The discussion on the name list following the election of the candidates will be done at the next secretariat meeting to be held on Saturday,” he added.
The Maoists is conducting consciousness programme as the Election Commission is scheduled to have electric voting for the by-election.
The meeting also decided not to change the name of its youth wing Young Communist League (YCL) for a time being as differences rose in changing its name, Kantipur reported. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 18 February 2009
New Delhi, Feb 18 (ANI): Colonel Sudhir Sawant, former Member of Parliament, has been promoted to the rank of Brigadier.
The rank of Brigadier was piped on him by Major General KVS Lalotra, Additional Director General, Territorial Army.
On promotion to the rank of Brigadier, Sawant has been appointed as Deputy Director General Territorial Army (Inf TA).
Major General Narendra Singh, Colonel of the Maratha LI and other officers of the Territorial Army were present on the ocassion.
Brigadier Sudhir Sawant was commissioned in the Maratha Light Infantry on June 13, 1976. In the Army, he held important appointments as an instructor for the commando Wing of Infantry School and served in the Military Intelligence Directorate and in the sixth and eighth Bns of Maratha LI Regiment.
He also served in Jammu and Kashmir. The officer took premature retirement in April 1991 and was elected to the Lok Sabha from the Rajapur Parliamentary constituency.
Brigadier Sudhir Sawant was again commissioned into the Territorial Army on June 1, 1993. During his service with the Territorial Army, he served as Company Commander and Deputy Commander of Territorial Army Gp HQ, Southern Command.
During ‘Operation Vijay’, he served in Jammu and Kashmir. After the attack on the Parliament, he served in the Southern theater during ‘Operation Parakram’.
He was also a Member of the Legislative Council and served in many important government assignments. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 18 February 2009
Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): British actress Kate Winslet credits her toned physique to “a wing and a prayer”, insisting she’s “too busy” to even think about exercising.
The Oscar nominee, who has struggled with weight since she was a teenager, insists she hasn’t been slimming down for the big ceremony.
When asked if she was dieting, Winslet said, “N.O. (I) absolutely do not. I’m very sort of relaxed and vocal about these things. I have not done a stitch of exercise since October. I literally have not had the time.”
“I’m just going to eat normally, I’m not going to make cuts.
“If I’m keeping it together it’s by a wing and a prayer. I just want to enjoy this,” she added.
The 33-year-old actress is winning accolades for her role in The Reader, and is tipped to win the Best actress at the Oscars.
She has already scooped two awards in Golden Globes and walked away with Best actress gong at the Baftas. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 18 February 2009
Washington, Feb 18 (ANI): A new study has determined that balloon-like air sacs in prehistoric dinosaurs helped reduced the density of their bodies, thus helping them take first flight.
In the Mesozoic Era, 70 million years before birds first conquered the skies, pterosaurs dominated the air with sparrow- to Cessna-sized wingspans.
Researchers suspected that these extinct reptiles sustained flight through flapping, based on fossil evidence from the wings, but had little understanding of how pterosaurs met the energetic demands of active flight.
Now, a new study by researchers from Ohio University, College of the Holy Cross and the University of Leicester explains how balloon-like air sacs, which extended from the lungs to inside the skeleton of pterosaurs, provided an efficient breathing system for the ancient beasts.
The system reduced the density of the body in pterosaurs, which in turn allowed for the evolution of the largest flying vertebrates.
“We offer a reconstruction of the breathing system in pterosaurs, one that proposes the existence of a mechanism with the same essential structure to that of modern birds – except 70 million years earlier,” said study co-author Leon Claessens, an assistant professor of biology at the College of the Holy Cross.
The system would have facilitated the necessary gas exchange to enable sustained activity, added co-author Patrick O’Connor, an assistant professor of biomedical sciences at the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine.
By using X-ray movies and CT scans, the group characterized how the skeleton works to move air through the lungs in living animals, and also how to identify the signature traces left on bones that have been invaded by air sacs.
Not only do the extinct pterosaurs show evidence that their bones that were invaded by air sacs, but patterns of pneumaticity throughout the entire skeleton of different pterosaur species parallel trends identified in many living bird groups.
For example, there is a direct relationship between the proportion of the skeleton invaded by air sacs and the absolute body size of an animal.
“Whereas small-bodied pterosaurs and birds typically pneumatize only a restricted part of the backbone, larger-bodied species routinely pneumatize most bones of the body, including the wing skeleton out to the ends of the fingers,” O’Connor said.
Such modifications of the skeleton would have reduced bone density and resolved a major problem with sustaining flight in large-bodied pterosaurs: the energetic cost of keeping a heavy body up in the air.
Density reduction of the skeleton in pterosaurs may have been beneficial, particularly so in the aerial giants-just as it appears to be in the largest flying birds today. (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 12 February 2009
Bangalore, Feb 12 (ANI): Mantis, an autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed by BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest defense company, made its international debut at the ongoing Aero India 2009 in Bangalore.
According to BAE, Mantis can be commanded and controlled by the person on ground through computer who can decide its route and even can decide its height.
“Special features are that it is very light weight, compact, flexible in operation and can be easily be carried on the back pack by two people,” said Rajiv Kumar Sharma, a retired wing commander.
The Mantis UAV advanced concept technology demonstrator programme brings together technologies, capabilities and systems demonstrating the potential of a large unmanned autonomous aircraft.
The unmanned next generation UAV that automatically detects and manages all information at the target area or the specific site was displayed on the first day of the five-day Aero India 2009 inaugurated by Defence Minister A K Antony.
The UAV is designed in a manner that it can gather information over a span of 20 metres.
The design also provides flexible surveillance and reconnaissance capability with external payload, including weapons capability.
The 5.5 kilogram UAV has an in-built color camera; it is also well equipped with a data link and video link.
According to reports, India has projected a large requirement for UAVs.
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) are working together to convert the HAL-built Chetak Helicopter into an UAV.
India plans to spend 30 billion dollars on imports over the next four years to modernise its largely Soviet-era arms as India asserts its military power in South Asia.
In its last budget, India had raised its defence spending by ten per cent to 26.5 billion dollars for 2008/09 fiscal. By Praful Kumar Singh (ANI)
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Written by Rahul on 11 February 2009
London, Feb 11 (ANI): If NASA has its way, the sonic booms coming out of jets might be reduced to distant rumbles.
According to a report in New Scientist, quieter supersonic aircraft might soon become a reality, with NASA completing a delicate set of flight tests to measure how modifications to an F-15 jet can affect the way shock waves form.
The results could help turn sonic booms into distant rumbles.
The measurements will be used to calibrate a computer model of shock wave propagation which will be a crucial aid for engineers designing a new generation of quieter supersonic aircraft.
“We’re pretty close to being able to control sonic booms,” said Peter Coen of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, principal investigator for the agency’s supersonic research programme.
Shock waves form at the front and back of supersonic aircraft as they shove air out of the way. When these shock waves hit the ground, observers hear them as a single boom.
Public opposition to booms has led to a ban on civilian supersonic flight over US land, and this key factor has discouraged further development of supersonic planes.
Attempts to quieten the sound have focused on a technique called boom shaping, which has it that booms would be weaker if they spread out over a larger area.
The idea is to redesign the shock-forming zones around the nose and tail so that waves from them don’t hit the ground together, but instead arrive over a longer period, like distant thunder.
Five years ago, NASA, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and several aerospace companies studied how a spiked nose-cone fitted to an F-5 fighter jet affected shock waves generated at the nose.
Now, NASA has finished a similar set of measurements of the boom generated at the rear of an aircraft. This depends on the shape of the wings and air flow around the engine.
The “Lift and Nozzle Change Effects Tail Shock” project (LANCETS) measured the shock waves produced by a modified F-15 jet in different wing and engine configurations.
The measurements were taken by a second F-15 flying close behind and will be used to calibrate NASA’s computer models of how shock waves form.
If the results live up to expectations, the next step would be to modify a jet so that it produces a low rumble rather than a boom in supersonic flight.
“We think we could do it in the next four to five years,” Coen told New Scientist. (ANI)
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