'Mermaid' baby to begin 15 years of surgery.

Peru's "little mermaid," a baby born with legs fused from her thighs to her ankles, will undergo delicate surgery Tuesday night to begin repairing her rare birth defect, her doctors said Monday in a statement.
Doctors say it could take 15 years of operations to correct the child's birth defects.
Milagros Cerron, who celebrated her first birthday on April 27, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births.
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$3,000 in garage-sale chair...

Linda Stafford has been going to garage sales for 30 years, and taking good-natured ribbing from her family all the while.
Stafford has found more than $3,000 in bills dating from 1928 to 1953 in the bottom of a high-backed chair she bought at a garage sale -- for two bucks.
When we found the money, they could probably hear us screaming all over the neighborhood," said Stafford, 57.
But, Stafford was not sure how she would spend the money.
"Who knows?" she said. "I might spend it all at garage sales."

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Screeners that see through clothes!!!!

This report is shamelessly being copied from Animesh's blog :). Thanks Animesh....

Now we have airport screeners would soon be seeing though clothes!!
Interesting... the deptt of homeland security did this after their passengers complained on being patted down.So, what do you think? Given that terrorists are using means of concealing weapons that cannot be discovered from a distance.. would you like to be "touched" or "seen" ??

The Slashdot comments are here

So, are we going to see a rise in the applications for airport scanning personnel??

I love you, but I can't work with you!

Love conquers all, they say. For Sampriti Patra, love has not been able to get the better of her professional zeal. Apart from sharing an apartment with T Madhav, the copy writer also shares office space with her boyfriend of two years. And although 'the arrangement' happened by accident, she insists that there has been no repercussions.
There are many young professionals who feel that matters of the heart are best dealt with outside the office space. Reason? It is difficult to fall in love with someone with whom you are competing in the boardroom.

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The last interview of Sunil Datt!

Actor-politician Sunil Dutt touched many people's lives in his 74 years (he would have been 75 on June 6). And journalist Lata Khubchandani is one of those who remembers Mr Dutt very fondly.
She recalls her last interview with Mr Dutt, just a few weeks before his death. He was in a very reminiscent mood:
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Copying BRAIN from Human to Computer.... 10 seconds remaining.

By the middle of the 21st century it will be possible to download your brain to a supercomputer, according to a leading thinker on the future.
Pearson said the launch last week of Sony's PlayStation 3, a machine 35 times more powerful than the model it replaced, was a sign of things to come.
"The new PlayStation is one percent as powerful as the human brain," Pearson told the Observer. "It is into supercomputer status compared to 10 years ago. PlayStation 5 will probably be as powerful as the human brain."
"If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine," he said.
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The new terrorism - e-Hostage!!!

Computer users already anxious about viruses and identity theft have new reason to worry: Hackers have found a way to lock up the electronic documents on your computer and then demand $200 over the Internet to get them back.
"This is equivalent to someone coming into your home, putting your valuables in a safe and not telling you the combination," said Oliver Friedrichs, a security manager for Symantec Corp.
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World's Costliest Ad!!

This is one of the many forwards which I recieved today. But, for a change this was wonderful ;).
This one is winner of this years best Ad of the world .
Everything is real with no graphics used costing some 6.2 billion US Dollars and thosands of take and retake.
Team members were fecilitated with lots of rewards.
Enjoy this... it is very creative

- Nishant

Hey Google, Map This!

Inventive web developers are taking Google's online map service to a new level, layering in house sales and apartment rentals, real-time traffic stats and Flickr photo tags.
When David Yang recently looked for a new apartment in Chicago, he took an aerial tour of the city.
As a 22-year-old on a limited budget, Yang couldn't afford to hire a helicopter for his visual inspection of Chicago. Instead, he turned to HousingMaps, a hack that combines craigslist real estate listings with city maps from Google Maps. It lets users pinpoint locations, along with one-click access to photos and descriptions, of dozens of available apartments in more than 20 North American cities.
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Interesting!!!

Blogshares has ranked my blog 12th among list of the most valuable incoming links at the time OTHER blogs are indexed. Thanks a lot!!!
The page also displays statistics about my blog and even some virtual share prices!!!!

Thanks a lot man! I am flattered... :)
- Nishant

Now the latest... e-Prasad!!!! huh!!!

The Badrinath Temple is preparing for the annual pilgrimage. For many it's usually an arduous trek to the sanctum sanctorum in the heart of the Himalayas. However, devotees from India as well as those from abroad will now be able to receive Prasad from the sacred Badrinath Temple without making the tough journey to the shrine.For just Rs 501, a devotee can get 50 grams of prasad in a specially designed box containing 'tulsi', 'chandan', a silver coin, copper jar with gangajal and a CD containing details of the four holy shrines or char dhaams.

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I really cannot digest this fact that even GOD is being commercialized. I am firm believer that the importance of any thing only comes to mind when one has to strive and work for it. For me the e-prasad is just a very costly peice of sweet... nothing else. What do you say?

8 year girl 'abused for being witch!!

An 8-year-old schoolgirl was starved, cut with a knife, beaten with a high-heeled shoe and had chili pepper rubbed in her eyes by a woman who accused her of being a witch, a British court heard on Wednesday.
Prosecuting lawyer Patricia May told the jury: "You would think that in Britain in 2005 such a notion would be incredible and no adult would believe it."
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Dog cared for abandoned baby

A newborn baby abandoned in a Kenyan forest was saved by a stray dog who apparently carried her across a busy road and through a barbed wire fence to a shed where the infant was discovered nestled with a litter of puppies, witnesses said Monday.
CNN has this report...

Your Identity, Open to All!!!

ZabaSearch is a new search engine for finding the unlisted numbers of celebrities, as well as their addresses and satellite pictures of their homes. Trouble is, you're in there too. Is ZabaSearch an invasion of privacy? Xeni Jardin quizzes the site's founders.
A search for personal data on ZabaSearch.com -- one of the most comprehensive personal-data search engines on the net -- tends to elicit one of two reactions from first-timers: terror or curiosity. Which reaction often depends on whether you are searching for someone else's data, or your own. ZabaSearch queries return a wealth of info sometimes dating back more than 10 years: residential addresses, phone numbers both listed and unlisted, birth year, even satellite photos of people's homes.

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Augmenting the Animal Kingdom

Natural evolution has produced the eye, butterfly wings and other wonders that would put any inventor to shame. But who's to say evolution couldn't be improved with the help of a little technology?
So argues James Auger in his controversial and sometimes unsettling book, Augmented Animals. A designer and former research associate with MIT Media Lab Europe, Auger envisions animals, birds, reptiles and even fish becoming appreciative techno-geeks, using specially engineered gadgets to help them overcome their evolutionary shortcomings, promote their chances of survival or just simply lead easier and more comfortable lives.
Lakshmi Sandhana has this report on wired news.

CNN on the Spam Attack?

The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors about a strange viral marketing campaign concerning CNN, that may be promoting the cable channel or squelching criticism of it -- or perhaps both at the same time.
Earlier this month, blogger Nick Lewis noticed a strange post about CNN on his blog. The comment was critical of some new shows on CNN, but also included detail about the shows, their show times and the anchors hosting them. The same terms were repeated over and over, making it appear like spam. Something was not right
Suspicious, Lewis checked other blogs and soon noticed a pattern: He found a lot of similar comments about CNN on sites like DesperateHousewives, CrankyGreg and BradBlog. All the comments were posted by someone called Joseph or Thoth, and used the same language. Lewis came across roughly three new spam comments a day.
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IIT MBA, competition for IIMs?

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) may soon give the IIMs a run for their money in the management education space. Last week, IIT Kharagpur announced the launch of its five-year dual degree programme leading to a BTech (honours) in any branch of engineering and an MBA.
So, what does this mean for the IIMs , which draw at least 40-50% of their MBA batch from the IITs. Not much, says Prof Chakravarti, who feels that there is a dearth of quality institutions and enough students to go around. In contrast to the IIMs, just four students out of a batch of over 80 students at VGSoM were ex-IITians this year.
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