Will the world end in 2012? Well let’s break down 5 possible reasons why 2012 will not be the end of the World as we know it. Hold on to your seats as you’re taken through a scientific journey into 2012.

Remember the Y2K scare? Everyone and their momma’s were bracing for a worldwide computer crash that could’ve set off nuclear missiles, ending life on earth, but nothing happened. Why? Because of adequate planning and analysis of the situation?

NASA scientists have studied Earth long enough to know this. The world will not end on Dec. 21, 2012 despite what the Mayan calendar shows us.

Here’s 5 reasons why:

1. Just like Y2K, 2012 has been analyzed as well and the science of the end of the Earth has been studied thoroughly. So when asked if the Mayan calendar is true, here’s what scientists at NASA have to say:

“Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period but then, just as your calendar begins again on January 1, another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.”

2. When asked could some kind of phenomena occur where planets align in a way that could impact Earth, Nasa says no, not in the next few decades anyway.

“There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.”

3. Will Planet X or Eris approach the Earth and threaten our planet with destruction?

“Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.”

4. When asked if the Earth is in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012? It is unlikely.

“The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.”

5. Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012? Uhh uhh.

“Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

Convinced yet?

NASA says, “Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.”

There you have it. Five reasons why the world will not end in 2012!

hiphoprx.com

Mukesh Ambani is at the top of the growing list of billionaires in India, where some are proud of his ostentatious house while others see it as shameful in a nation where many children go hungry.

The $1-billion home, seven years in the making, is 400,000 square feet on 27 floors, all for a family of six.



Don't worry about parking. The building, which looms over the city's skyline like a Lego set gone awry, boasts a 168-space lot. Or avoid Mumbai's nightmarish traffic altogether by landing on one of three helipads.

Need to cool off after the stressful drive? Of course there's a swimming pool and yoga studio. Or, by some accounts, an ice room to escape the Mumbai heat, infused with man-made snow flurries. Then there's the mini-theater, three balconies with terrace gardens, the health club, spectacular views of the Arabian Sea (and the Mumbai slums).

Mumbai, formerly Bombay, is also home to some of Asia's worst slums. In a nation with 42% of the world's underweight children younger than 5, according to Washington's International Food Policy Research Institute, such wealth can be inconceivable, said Dipankar Gupta, a sociologist at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"There are many billionaires here, but they don't reflect the economic health of our country," Gupta said. "I don't necessarily think most people see them as folk heroes, although some would."

Reaction to Ambani's new house has ranged from the gushing — "The new India! Well done," wrote one Twitter user — to the aghast. "Knowing that there are millions of people starving, w/o clean water, and adequate shelter, makes this hard to read," wrote another.

read the entire article here.

latimes.com

Kisses have a right to take an honorable position on the list of functions of the human brain. Every human being living on planet Earth enables this function throughout their lives: women kiss men, men kiss women, Fidel Castro kisses Kim Jong-Il, etc. It is generally believed that one does not have to be smart to learn how to kiss. However, the issue is worth being analyzed from the scientific point of view.

A lot of scientists dedicated their numerous works to the matter of people's desire to kiss each other. Below you can find ten facts about the art of kissing.

1.About 30 muscles work very actively during the renowned French kiss: twelve of them control the movements of lips and eleven muscles are responsible for the tongue. The "French experience" accelerates the pulse from 70 to 150 beats per minute.

2. Young people start kissing two or three years before they launch their sex lives. Fifty percent of males experience the excitement of the first kiss at 13 or 14 years of age.

3. The longest kiss ever lasted for 17 days, 10 hours and 30 minutes. The record can be found in the Guinness Book of World Records, although the kissing couple had to be hospitalized with severe exhaustion. When they recovered, they never met each other again.

4. Kissing on the lips is the most popular way of kissing among men – over 67 percent of men expressed their approval. Fifty-six percent of men said they had nothing against kissing on the cheeks and 26 percent highly appreciated intimate kisses of the genitals (don't tell anyone). Toe kissing enjoys the smallest popularity – only one percent of male respondents approved it.

5. Fifteen percent of women said they would be ready to break apart with their boyfriend just because of his bad kissing capabilities. Women hate it, when the man's tongue is weak at kissing.

6. There are 278 types of germs living in the mouth of a human being. Those germs are harmless: when two people kiss, thousands of germs flow from one mouth to another. In such cases they produce enzymes and natural antibiotics for self-defense. As a result, the bodies of the two kissing individuals develop resistibility against all other pathogenic bacteria.

7. Lipstick commercials deliberately falsify the truth. Sixty-three percent of male respondents said that they prefer to kiss women's lips without lipstick on. They said that it was more natural and did not leave any traces all over the face. Forty-nine percent of men said that they liked to kiss slightly moisturized and soft lips. Only 35 percent said that they adored full, erotic lips aka Pamela Anderson. Monica Belucci, Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone are most popular celebrities, whose lips are considered very attractive for kisses.

8. Fifty-five percent of respondents said that the kiss of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable was the most outstanding in "Gone with the Wind." Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas rank second with their "Basic Instinct" kiss. Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell finish the top three of best cinema kisses with their romantic kiss in heavy rainfall in "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

9. Scientists say that humans started kissing each other in the Age of Reptiles. However, the fact was acknowledged only in the XVI century. Earlier documentation and literature do not contain any description of kisses between man and woman. On the other hand, the characters of antiquity and ancient East greeted each other with kisses, even if they were kisses between two men - it was considered absolutely normal.

10. Forty-four percent of male and 48 percent of female respondents said they could not stand bites in the exquisite process of kissing. Women (39 percent) do not like to kiss slobbery men, although only 23 percent of men said that they were against the wet kissing. The most important kind of kiss, as 54 percent of men said, is to kiss a woman that you do not like.


funreports.com

Dreaming is one of the most mysterious experiences in our lives but what do we actually know about dreams? Here are some interesting facts that you probably didn't know.

You Forget 90% of Your Dreams
Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream if forgotten. Within 10 minutes, 90% is gone. The famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, woke one morning having had a fantastic dream, he put pen to paper and began to describe his “vision in a dream” in what has become one of English's most famous poems: Kubla Khan.

Blind People also Dream
People who become blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion. It is hard for a seeing person to imagine, but the body's need for sleep is so strong that it is able to handle virtually all physical situations to make it happen.

Men and Women Dream Differently
Every human being dreams but men and women have different dreams and different physical reactions. Men tend to dream more about other men, while women tend to dream equally about men and women. In addition, both men and women experience sexually related physical reactions to their dreams regardless of whether the dream is sexual in nature; males experience erections and females experience increased vaginal blood flow.

You Can Experience an 0rgasm in Your Dream
You can not only have s e x as pleasurable as in your real life while dreaming, but also experience an o r g a s m as strong as a real one without any wet results. The sensations felt while lucid dreaming can be as pleasurable and strong as the sensations experienced in the real world.

We Only Dream of What We Know
Our dreams are frequently full of strangers who play out certain parts – did you know that your mind is not inventing those faces – they are real faces of real people that you have seen during your life but may not know or remember? We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces through our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during our dreams.

Not Everybody Dreams in Color
Full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. Studies from 1915 through to the 1950s maintained that the majority of dreams were in black and white, but these results began to change in the 1960s. Today only 4.4% of the dreams of under-25 year-olds are in black and white. Recent research has suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switch from black-and-white film and TV to color media.

Dreams Prevent Psychosis
In a recent sleep study, students who were awakened at the beginning of each dream, but still allowed their 8 hours of sleep, all experienced difficulty in concentration, irritability, hallucinations, and signs of psychosis after only 3 days. When finally allowed their REM sleep the student's brains made up for lost time by greatly increasing the percentage of sleep spent in the REM stage.

Animals Dream Too
Studies have been done on many different animals, and they all show the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans. Watch a dog sleeping sometime. The paws move like they are running and they make yipping sounds as if they are chasing something in a dream.

Body Paralysis
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed by a mechanism in the brain in order to prevent the movements which occur in the dream from causing the physical body to move. However, it is possible for this mechanism to be triggered before, during, or after normal sleep while the brain awakens.

Dream Incorporation
Our mind interprets the external stimuli that our senses are bombarded with when we are asleep and make them a part of our dreams. This means that sometimes in our dreams we hear a sound from reality and incorporate it in a way. For example you may be dreaming that you are in a concert while your brother is playing a guitar during your sleep.

Precognitive Dreams
Results of several surveys across large population sets indicate that between 18% and 38% of people have experienced at least one precognitive dream and 70% have experienced déjà vu. The percentage of persons that believe precognitive dreaming is possible is even higher – ranging from 63% to 98%.

If You Are Snoring, Then You Can Not be Dreaming
This fact is repeated all over the Internet, but I'm a bit suspicious whether it's really true as I haven't found any scientific evidence to support it.

Note: Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep in adult humans typically occupies 20-25% of total sleep, about 90-120 minutes of a night's sleep)

mediadump.com
When you're shopping for a toilet brush holder, don't settle for anything less than the Rock Star Toilet Bush Holder.

Our Rock Star toilet brush holder is the ultimate in quality, design and pure luxury. Plated in 24-carat gold and oven varnished, this unique toilet brush holder is guaranteed not to corrode, pit or tarnish.


Made in Spain. $575.















I'm not sure if the brush is included. Probably not.

j-walkblog.com



At 90 decibels the alarm clock is louder than most lawnmowers and matches the volume pumped out by a speeding lorry on a motorway.

Sleepers that are hard of hearing, who find this is not loud enough to wake them up, the clock also comes with a vibrating pad. This can be slipped under the pillow and when the alarm goes off the clock sends a wireless signal to the pad, which starts to vibrate.

The amplicom TLC 200 is available on specialist websites for those with hearing difficulties, including bootshearingcare.com, m2cshop.com and hearingdirect.com. It costs about £40.

Harry Moss, chairman of Amplicom, admitted that the clock might not make people popular with their neighbours. "If the person living next door doesn't have hearing problems – they may be waking up with you."

The company said it was confident it was louder than anything else on the market, either in Britain or America.

The clock needs to be powered by the adaptor, but it comes with built-in rechargeable batteries to keep the alarm and clock going for a limited time in circumstances of a power cut. Customers can also hook it up to a telephone to amplify the ring sound.

The market for mobile phones, door bells and televisions designed especially for those who are hard of hearing has been increasing in recent years.

telegraph.co.uk

Funny cartoon of the day

Funny cartoon of the day