NASA Envisions Alien Worlds

For decades, NASA has delighted stargazers with pictures taken by astronauts, telescopes, and rovers across the galaxy -- photographic glimpses of real planets, moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies. When illustrators, meanwhile, stretch their imaginations -- giving shape and color to what, say, a sunrise on another world -- their work offers brilliant notions of what vistas beyond our tiny corner of space might look like. Captured by a camera or, as in this gallery, envisioned by artists, the far reaches of space continue to humble and amaze.  

Out of the Dust, a Planet is Born

In this artist's conception, a possible newfound planet spins through a clearing, detected around the star CoKu Tau 4 by the Spitzer Space Telescope, in a nearby star's dusty, planet-forming disc. The possible planet is theorized to be at least as massive as Jupiter, and may have a similar appearance to what the giant planets in our own solar system looked like billions of years ago. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)

Hindi: छिपोड़ा (Garhwali: छिप्व्डू) A Reptile found in Uttarakhand

12 Indian foods that cut fat

You don't have to acquire a taste for olive oil, seaweed or soya to maintain a low-fat, healthy diet. Indian cuisine can be healthy too, if it's cooked with oil and ingredients that take care of your heart and health. Ayurveda suggests you include all tastes - sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent - in at least one meal each day, to help balance unnatural cravings. Here are 12 foods that can help you lose weight and gain health:  

Turmeric : Curcumin, the active component of turmeric, is an object of research owing to its properties that suggest they may help to turn off certain genes that cause

scarring and enlargement of the heart. Regular intake may help reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol and high blood pressure, increase blood circulation and prevent blood clotting, helping to prevent heart attack. 

 

Cardamom : This is a thermogenic herb that increases metabolism and helps burn body fat. Cardamom is considered one of the best digestive aids and is believed to soothe the digestive system and help the body process other foods more efficiently.  

Chillies : Foods containing chillies are said to be as foods that burn fat. Chillies contain capsaicin that helps in increasing the metabolism. Capsaicin is a thermogenic food, so it causes the body to burn calories for 20 minutes after you eat the chillies.  

Curry leaves : Incorporating curry leaves into your daily diet can help you lose weight. These leaves flush out fat and toxins, reducing fat deposits that are stored in the body, as well as reducing bad cholesterol levels. If you are overweight, incorporate eight to 10 curry leaves into your diet daily. Chop them finely and mix them into a drink, or sprinkle them over a meal. Garlic : An effective fat-burning food, garlic contains the sulphur compound allicin which has anti-bacterial effects and helps reduce cholesterol and unhealthy fats.  

Mustard oil : This has low saturated fat compared to other cooking oils. It has fatty acid, oleic acid, erucic acid and linoleic acid. It contains antioxidants, essential vitamins and reduces cholesterol, which is good for the heart.  

Cabbage : Raw or cooked cabbage inhibits the conversion of sugar and other carbohydrates into fat. Hence, it is of great value in weight reduction.  

Moong dal : The bean sprouts are rich in Vitamin A, B, C and E and many minerals, such as calcium, iron and potassium. It is recommended as a food replacement in many slimming programmes, as it has a very low fat content. It is a rich source of protein and fibre, which helps lower blood cholesterol level. The high fibre content yields complex carbohydrates, which aid digestion, are effective in stabilising blood sugar and prevent its rapid rise after meal consumption.  

Honey : It is a home remedy for obesity. It mobilises the extra fat deposits in the body allowing it to be utilised as energy for normal functions. One should start with about 10 grams or a tablespoon, taken with hot water early in the morning.  

Buttermilk : It is the somewhat sour, residual fluid that is left after butter is churned. The probiotic food contains just 2.2 grams of fat and about 99 calories, as compared to whole milk that contains 8.9 grams fat and 157 calories. Regular intake provides the body with all essential nutrients and does not add fats and calories to the body. It is thus helpful in weight loss.  

Millets : Fibre-rich foods such as millets - jowar, bajra, ragi, etc - absorb cholesterol and help increase the secretion of the bile that emulsifies fats. Cinnamon and cloves: Used extensively in Indian cooking, the spices have been found to improve the function of insulin and to lower glucose, total cholesterol, LDL and triglycerides in people with type 2 diabetes.

Kepler 22b, new planet or super Earth

scientists have discovered Kepler 22b, a new planet or super earth. But do we have means to ascertain or make a definite claim about it asks M Sundaram?

NASA’s new finding, Kepler 22b has made people sit up and take notice. This is a planet that NASA says may support the life and vegetation. Though it may take decades or centuries in making things more clear about Kepler 22b as many analysts have said that saying something definite about

some planet as far away as 600 light years away is well nigh impossible, people are overjoyed with the finding.

For many of us, the distance of 600 light years may be very difficult to comprehend. One light year away if measured in our kilometer term is at least 10 trillion kilometers away from our earth. So you can ‘easily’ calculate as to how many years it may take to actually take you to that super planet that NASA scientists are talking about.

A reader has sent this sarcastic response, “Interesting discovery! What did it cost the American taxpayer for NASA to make this discovery? What do they really expect to learn from their telescopic observations? Think about this: The planet is 600 light years away (folks, that is 3,526,800,000,000,000 miles); it is reported that it would take 20 million years to reach the planet, which would indicate a required sustained average of 22,315 mph to get there. Sorry, but the whole space exploration operation begs the question: What have we really learned that will benefit us, and ad what cost?

But most of the people seem very happy to know that the planet looks like earth and may be the first planet to support vegetation.

With the new finding, NASA may silence many a voices that were seeking further slashing of its funding. Kepler mission has reportedly discovered as many as more than 1200 planets, but this is the first one that it claims may support vegetation. Kepler Mission or NASA Discovery mission number 10, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets.

Kepler has been very intricately designed to detect stars millions of kilometers away. When a planet crosses in front of its star as viewed by an observer, the event is called a transit. Transits by terrestrial planets produce a small change in a star’s brightness of about 1/10,000 (100 parts per million, ppm), lasting for 2 to 16 hours. This change must be absolutely periodic if it is caused by a planet. In addition, all transits produced by the same planet must be of the same change in brightness and last the same amount of time, thus providing a highly repeatable signal and robust detection method.

A NASA report says, “Once detected, the planet’s orbital size can be calculated from the period (how long it takes the planet to orbit once around the star) and the mass of the star using Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion. The size of the planet is found from the depth of the transit (how much the brightness of the star drops) and the size of the star”.

But it is clear that most of the findings of such missions are speculative and there is a whole lot of assumptions playing into it. So don’t be very ecstatic. It is just an assumption that there is some planet that may support human life. We are sooooooooo far away from having right technology to find anything worthwhile about it.

Baby girl for Abhi-Ash

A girl was born to star couple Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan at a private hospital here Wednesday morning.

The baby, their first child, was born at the Seven Hills Hospital. Mother and daughter were both doing fine.

'IT'S A GIRL!!,' Abhishek, 35, posted on micro-blogging site Twitter.com. He had recently said he wanted a daughter who looked

like Aishwarya.

Proud grandfather Amitabh Bachchan too couldn't control his happiness and tweeted: 'I AM DADA to the cutest baby girl, A dada ji ... Ecstatic.'

Hospital sources said the delivery was normal and came a few minutes before 10 a.m. The Bachchan and Rai families were present for the momentous occasion.

Aishwarya, 38, developed labour pains around 4 a.m. and was taken to the labour room where the delivery took place after nearly six hours.

The actress is on the fifth floor of the luxury private hospital in Andheri east.

The hospital had booked three rooms on the floor -- one for Aishwarya, the other for the Bachchan family and the third for the Rai family. The entire floor was kept out of bounds for all except the two families.

The hospital has been under tight security for the past three days in expectation of the youngest member of the Bachchan family.

Aishwarya was admitted to the hospital Monday night, according to her spokesperson.

The Bachchan family had been waiting for the baby's arrival for a few days and preparing for the child's welcome.

The girl is Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan's third grandchild, after Agastya and Navya Naveli -- children of his daughter Shweta and son-in-law Nikhil Nanda.

Aishwarya tied the knot with Abhishek in April 2007 and rumours about her pregnancy had been doing the rounds ever since.

In June this year, when Amitabh announced her pregnancy through Twitter, it grabbed the headlines.

A 10-point advisory by the Broadcast Editor's Association (BEA) reportedly asked TV channel heads to curtail media coverage regarding the high-profile delivery.