Special trains for Deepavali

Southern Railway will run the following special trains to clear extra rush of passengers during Deepavali festival season. Reservation for the trains opens on Wednesday.

Train No. 0601 Chennai Central-Tirunelveli-Chennai Central Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 6.15 p.m. on November 4 and arrive at Tirunelveli at 7.45 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0602 Tirunelveli – Chennai Central Superfast Special will leave Tirunelveli at 2 p.m. on November 5 and arrive here at 3.40 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0613 Chennai Central – Tuticorin Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 8.35 p.m. on November 6 and reach Tuticorin at 10 a.m. the next day.

Train No. 0614 Tuticorin – Chennai Central Special will leave Tuticorin at 3.45 p.m. on November 7 and arrive here at 8.20 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0603 Chennai Central – Nagercoil Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 11.30 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Nagercoil at 2 p.m. the next day.

Train No.0604 Nagercoil – Chennai Central Special will leave Nagercoil at 4.15 p.m. on November 4 and arrive here at 8.20 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0629 Chennai Central – Tirunelveli Special will leave Chennai Central at 7.30 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Tirunelveli at 9.35 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0630 Tirunelveli – Chennai Central Special will leave Tirunelveli at 2.55 p.m. on November 4 and arrive here at 5 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0622 Coimbatore – Chennai Central Superfast Special will leave Coimbatore at 11.55 p.m. on November 2 and arrive here at 8.20 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0621 Chennai Central – Coimbatore Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 10.30 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Coimbatore at 6.50 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0642 Nagercoil – Chennai Egmore Superfast Special will leave Nagercoil at 5 p.m. on November 7 and arrive at Chennai Egmore at 6.05 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0641 Chennai Egmore – Nagercoil Special will leave Chennai Egmore at 2.40 p.m. on November 8 and arrive at Nagercoil at 5.35 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0619 Chennai Central – Tuticorin Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 8.35 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Tuticorin at 10 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0620 Tuticorin – Chennai Central Superfast Special will leave Tuticorin at 2.05 p.m. on November 4 and arrive here at 3.45 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0646 Tiruchchirappalli – Chennai Egmore Special will leave Tiruchchirappalli at 9 p.m. on November 1 and arrive at Chennai Egmore at 4.30 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0645 Chennai Egmore – Tiruchchirappalli Superfast Special will leave Chennai Egmore at 10.45 p.m. on November 4 and arrive at Tiruchchirappalli at 6 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0635 Chennai Egmore – Nagercoil Superfast Special will leave Chennai Egmore at 6.50 p.m. on November 2 and arrive at Nagercoil at 8.05 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0636 Nagercoil – Chennai Egmore Special will leave Nagercoil at 1.30 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Chennai Egmore at 4.25 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0661 Chennai Egmore – Sengottai Special will leave Chennai Egmore at 10.45 p.m. on November 3 and arrive at Sengottai at 12.30 p.m. the next day.

Train No.0662 Sengottai – Chennai Egmore Special will leave Sengottai at 4.45 p.m. on November 4 and arrive at Chennai Egmore at 6.05 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0652 Ernakulam Jn. – Chennai Central Special will leave Ernakulam Jn. at 6.55 p.m. on November 4 and arrive at Chennai Central at 7.45 a.m. the next day.

Train No.0651 Chennai Central – Ernakulam Jn. Superfast Special will leave Chennai Central at 8.35 p.m. on November 5 and arrive at Ernakulam Jn. at 8.05 a.m. the next day.

Five reasons to use Google Chrome (and not IE9 beta)

It's faster
Preston says IE9 is faster than previous versions -- but that's not exactly saying much. As he points out, Chrome was the fastest browser in his tests: 25% faster than IE9.

It maximizes available screen real estate
As Preston rightly points out, IE9's new clean look is inherited from Chrome. Firefox 4 does a similar thing, but both FF4 and IE9 waste space above the tabs when maximized. That may seem like a small thing, but as more of us move to 16:10 or 16:9 wide screens, vertical space is at a premium, relatively speaking.

IE9 compensates by putting the 'One Box' location bar and the tabs on the same 'row', but this just has the effect of limiting the amount of space that tabs can use. Chrome's solution of eliminating the title bar makes perfect sense.

It actually has useful add-ons
Preston was impressed by IE9's add-on performance monitor, but that would be more useful if there was a decently-sized community of add-on writers for the browser.

Firefox has had this for some time, of course. Chrome has gone from a standing start to a rich choice of add-ons in what seems like the blink of an eye.

It, too, integrates with Windows 7
While there isn't an easy way to pin a site to the taskbar, Chrome does support jumplists for most-visited sites and recently-closed windows.

In other words, right-click on the Chrome icon on the taskbar, and you're presented with two pop-up lists that Chrome automatically generates for you. One contains the sites that you often visit -- the same list that you get in a new tab. The other contains tabs that you closed most recently, in case you want to re-open them.

The address bar supports Google Instant
Almost everyone is raving about Google Instant. What's the betting that the next stable beta build of Chrome supports that functionality direct from the address bar?

 
What's your favorite browser?

Courtesy: Google Alerts

 

 

Honey! It's sweet, yet comes with a sting

Antibiotics fed to bees for commercial purposes are dangerous to consumers, says a new study.

Branded honey sold in India is likely to be contaminated with harmful antibiotics, according to a new study

That spoonful of “guaranteed pure” sweetness may be hiding a bitter secret. Branded honey sold in India is likely to be contaminated with harmful antibiotics, according to a new study by the Centre for Science and Environment.

CSE's Pollution Monitoring Laboratory tested 12 leading brands of honey sold in Delhi, including those made by Indian companies such as Dabur, Himalaya, Patanjali, Baidyanath and Khadi as well as by two foreign companies based in Switzerland and Australia. Scientists found high levels of six harmful antibiotics in 11 samples, with only the Indian Hitkari brand coming out clean.

The contamination is the end result of a murky chain, which begins when antibiotics are fed to bees to prevent disease, promote growth and increase honey production to meet commercial targets. When they make their way into your daily spoonful of honey, these substances could damage the blood, kidneys, liver, bones and teeth. More importantly, they create resistance in the body to prescribed antibiotics when you really do fall ill, says the CSE report.

Most developed countries have banned or strictly regulated antibiotics in honey, and Indian companies must meet those standards when they export their products. However, in a stinging example of double standards, most Indian companies are dumping their contaminated honey on the domestic market, since there are no regulations here, says CSE.

Dabur Honey — which has captured 75 per cent of the Indian market — had the antibiotic Oxytetracycline at nine times the level that is permitted for exported honey. It also had significant amounts of two other drugs completely banned for use in honey. If the sample was placed for export to the United States or the European Union, it would have been rejected.

Interestingly, Dabur was recently involved in a controversy in Nepal, where leading newspapers claimed that the Dabur honey was substandard and used harmful chemicals. The company dismissed it as part of a Nepali “smear campaign” against Indian products, but the sticky claim has now come from an Indian source.

Nectaflor Natural Blossom Honey, made by Narimpex of Switzerland, had the largest number — five — of the six antibiotics that it was tested for, including the highest levels of ampicillin and erythromycin, both of which are not permitted for beekeeping in any country. It would be illegal to sell it even in Switzerlanditself. Similarly, the Australian brand, Capilano Pure & Natural Honey, which is sold in 40 countries, violated standards set in its home country.

“It is clear that foreign companies are taking advantage of the lack of regulations in India. After all, if our government does not care about the health of its people, why should these companies care?” said CSE director Sunita Narain, at the release of the study on Wednesday.

“We have standards for antibiotic contamination in the honey we export. The government even tests and certifies that exported honey meets health and safety regulations. But we do not have any standards for domestic honey. This is clearly unacceptable,” she said.

Courtesy: TheHindu

google 25th Anniversary of the Buckyball

Google is celebrating buckyball's 25th anniversary by commemorating it in an interactive Google Doodle on Google's homepage.

Today’ google released its home page with interactive animated buckyball logo. It looks amazing, It mouse driven animated buckyball.  You can check out the logo in google search home page.

Have any one know how to design that type of animation? They have designed using CSS & javascript. Can any one help me to find out how to do that type of animation using CSS & javascript. It’s really amazing.

 

Insomnia Increases Risk of Early Death for Men?

It's not all in your head: Insomnia has "significant physical consequences."

Suffering from insomnia? A new finding could make you lose even more sleep.

Men with chronic insomnia who also sleep less than six hours a night have a higher risk of early death than "normal" male sleepers who get more than six hours of shut-eye, a new study suggests. (Take National Geographic magazine's sleep quiz.)

Insomnia—difficulty falling or staying asleep—is the most common sleep disorder, affecting about 30 percent of people in the U.S., according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Chronic insomniacs are those who have had the disorder consistently for at least a year.

After decades of mixed findings, the new report shows that insomnia is a "serious disease with significant physical consequences, including mortality," said study leader Alexandros N. Vgontzas, director of Penn State University's Sleep Research & Treatment Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Though the researchers didn't specifically study people who reported lack of sleep due to their lifestyle, Vgontzas emphasized that "losing sleep for whatever reason is bad for your health." For instance, he has published previous results showing that curtailing sleep in young adults by two hours a night for just one week is linked to inflammation that may cause cardiovascular problems.

The new study changes "how we view insomnia," said Vipin Garg, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Trinitas Regional Medical Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

"It definitely is pointing attention to insomnia as more than a psychological disorder," said Garg, who was not involved in the research.

Insomnia Tracked Over Time

Study leader Vgontzas and colleagues randomly selected 741 Pennsylvania men between 20 and 100, with an average age of 50, to participate in the initial phase of the study, between 1990 and 1995.

First, the volunteers identified themselves as either insomniacs or non-insomniacs. Then they spent a night in a sleep lab, where scientists confirmed how long the subjects slept.

By combining the subjects' self reports and the lab data, the team determined that 6 percent of the men had chronic insomnia.

Between 1994 and 1997, the sleep researchers studied a thousand women with a similar age range to the men. The team found that 9 percent of the women had chronic insomnia.

By the time the scientists checked in on the subjects in 2007—14 years later for the men, 10 for the women—51.1 percent of the male chronic insomniacs who slept fewer than six hours a night had died, versus 9.1 percent of the normal male sleepers.

The findings suggest that chronic male insomniacs are four times more likely to die early—even after taking into account risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and sleep apnea, Vgontzas said.

(Read secrets of why we sleep in National Geographic magazine).

There was no such link between insomnia and premature death in women—insomniacs and healthy sleepers both had a mortality rate of just over 2 percent during the study period.

There could be two reasons for the gender discrepancy, Vgontzas said: Since the women's study was started later, there was not as much time for follow-up as for the men. It's also possible there's a "gender effect"—though insomnia is less common in men, it's generally more severe, he said.

Flaws in Insomnia Study?

There were a few weaknesses in the insomnia study's design, said Garg, of the Sleep Disorders Center.

For instance, the number of subjects in the study was small: "To give that kind of bold statement [about mortality], you want to see a bigger sample," he said.

It's also possible that during their one night in the sleep lab, some subjects experienced something called a "first-night effect." In other words, the unfamiliarity of the surroundings may have influenced their sleep patterns.

Insomnia Not a Direct Killer

The researchers did not include cause of death in their study, but study leader Vgontzas said that "no one dies directly from insomnia."

Instead, the chronic disease probably just wears on people gradually, making them more likely to succumb to other ailments.

For instance, male insomniacs in the study who were also diabetic or had high blood pressure were even more likely to die during the test period than their relatively healthy counterparts.

There's also evidence that hyperarousal—a condition that causes some people to stay awake for long periods of time—can stress the cardiovascular system, the sleep center's Garg noted.

(Related: "Secrets of Sleeping Soundly Uncovered.")

Insomniacs Born Not Made?

Causes of insomnia are still poorly understood—it may be that some people are just "born poor sleepers," Vgontzas said. But even more mysterious is how to treat the condition.

For instance, insomnia medications are mostly geared toward combating occasional sleeplessness, and psychological interventions such as cognitive behavioral therapy don't seem to work for severe insomniacs, he said.

That's why federal agencies and companies need to support the search for better treatments, and doctors need to take insomnia diagnosis more seriously, Vgontzas said.

Doctors "are used to thinking insomnia is a nuisance," he said. "They have to change their attitude about that."

The insomnia-risk study appears September 1 in the journal SLEEP.

Courtesy: National Geographic