Month: April 2008

India Puts 10 Satellites Into Orbit

India has successfully launched a rocket carrying a cluster of 10 satellites into space.

India has successfully launched a rocket carrying a cluster of 10 satellites into space. This is considered as a rare feat for India’s space programme.

All 10 satellites were deployed in orbit within moments of each other and the entire operation lasted 20 minutes only.

From the official press release:

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C9, successfully launched the 690 kg Indian remote sensing satellite CARTOSAT-2A, the 83 kg Indian Mini Satellite (IMS-1) and eight nanosatellites for international customers into a 637 km polar Sun Synchronous Orbit (SSO). PSLV-C9 in its ‘core alone’ configuration launched ten satellites with a total weight of about 820 kg.

According to PTI, Last year, Russia launched a rocket carrying 16 satellites – but with a smaller payload.

G Madhavan Nair, chairman (Isro) said:

It is a historic moment for us because it is the first time that we have launched 10 satellites in a single mission. The mission was perfect

In its twelve consecutively successful flights so far, PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) has repeatedly proved itself as a reliable and versatile workhorse launch vehicle. It has demonstrated multiple satellite launch capability having launched a total of sixteen satellites for international customers besides thirteen Indian payloads which are for remote sensing, amateur radio communications and Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1). The same vehicle will be used to launch Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, India’s first mission to Moon during this year.

India’s space programme is more than 45 years old and real aim is to enter into satellite-launching market and reduce its dependence on foreign space agencies.

Tips for Getting Your Dream Job

Job advice and career research – 6 Killer tips for landing your dream job. As unattainable as a dream job might sound, with the right amount of forethought and preparation, you can make the move as well. Following are six tips to get you started.

dream-job - tips for getting dream job

Hotjobs has published some good job advice in their career articles section about landing your dream job:

Do you have a job that’s just like everyone else’s? Are you looking for a 9-to-5, but wish you weren’t? Do you wish there was another option, one that would lead to an exciting, unique, and fulfilling line of work?
I recently interviewed more than 100 people who currently hold their dream jobs as research for a new book called “How’d You Score That Gig?” These individuals, who are travel journalists, event planners, fashion designers, forensic scientists, interior decorators, Internet business owners and more, have one thing in common — persistence.

As unattainable as a dream job might sound, with the right amount of forethought and preparation, you can make the move as well. Following are six tips to get you started.

6 Tips for Landing Your Dream Job (image credit: Whiffleboy)

How to Secure Apple Mac OS X Computer

This article explains several other OS X security features that aren’t enabled by default that can do a lot to enhance your Mac’s security.


A nice tutorial about Mac OS x and security issues.

Apple’s approach to security can be a little bewildering at times. It’s a well-trumpeted aspect of the OS, marketed in detail on the website. Mac OS X has integrated smartcard support and Apple has certified the OS under the Common Criteria guidelines; a section of Apple’s developer site is devoted to the subject of security.

Vitamins Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good?

Vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to premature death, according to research carried out at Copenhagen University.

Research (carried out at Copenhagen University) has suggested certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death. A review of 67 studies found “no convincing evidence” that antioxidant supplements cut the risk of dying.

Although I eat a healthy and good diet, I was suggested to take Vitamin B12. Vitamin B-12 is a vitamin which is important for the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system. Fruits and vegetables are often a good source of vitamins. I guess eating more fruits could help to solve many problems. In large doses, some vitamins have documented side effects that tend to be more severe with a larger dosage. Overdosing from vitamin supplementation does occur. At high enough dosages some vitamins cause side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting etc.

Make Your Kids Perform Better in School by Feeding Healthy Diet

Kids who eat better perform better in school, a new study of Nova Scotia fifth-graders confirms.

Fresh vegetables are common in a healthy diet.
A healthy diet or balanced diet is a diet (what you eat) that contains the right amounts of all the food substances. It includes fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and protein. It does not include too much or too little of any kind of food.

According to a new study kids who eat better perform better in school. Fresh vegetables are common in a healthy diet.

Students who ate an adequate amount of fruit, vegetables, protein, fiber and other components of a healthy diet were significantly less likely to fail a literacy test, Dr. Paul J. Veugelers of the University of Alberta in Edmonton and colleagues found.

(Image credit: Victor Keech

Our Brain Ahead Of Us By 10 Seconds

A new fMRI study finds that the outcome of freely made decisions is encoded in prefrontal and parietal cortices up to ten seconds before conscious awareness. Thus, these brain regions begin to prepare an upcoming choice before subjects are aware of it.

The brain is a part of the body that allows us to make sense of the world around us and to change our behavior to respond to it. In most animals, the brain is inside the head. The brain is kept safe by the skull and by layers of tissue under it called the meninges.

The human brain controls the central nervous system (CNS), by way of the cranial nerves and spinal cord, the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and regulates virtually all human activity.

A study has revealed that the brain makes decisions about 10 seconds prior to a person realizes it. Experts involved in the study said that looking at brain activity while making a decision, they could predict the choices the subjects would make, before they realized that they had made a decision.

=> Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain

Airtel Apple iPhone in India

Airtel had signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to India, later this year

Bharti Airtel, announced that they have signed a deal with Apple to bring the Apple iPhone to India, later this year. Vodafone is all set to offer Apple’s iPhone in India and other Asian countries.

Chekout press release for more information.

RIP: Physicist John Wheeler dies at age 96

Eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler has died from pneumonia at the age of 96. The coiner of the terms ‘black hole’ and ‘wormhole,’ Wheeler popularized the study of general relativity.


Theoretical physicist John Archibald Wheeler died of pneumonia at his residence in Hightstown, New Jersey yesterday. Wheeler is most known in the popular culture for popularizing the term “black hole” to describe stars which had become so dense that nothing, not even light, could escape their gravitational pull. Although Wheeler initially objected to the idea, he later accepted the idea and coined the term “black hole” to describe such objects.

RIP and condolences to the family.

=> John A. Wheeler, Physicist Who Coined the Term ‘Black Hole,’ Is Dead at 96 (photo credit: The New York Times)

New Lithium-ion Battery Safer For Mobile / Cell Phones

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Wurzburg, Germany, have developed a novel lithium-ion battery that would prove to be more safer for cell phones and other electronic devices

A rechargeable lithium polymer battery is common feature of mobile phone such as Nokia mobile phone battery. A rechargeable batteries which have technologically evolved from lithium-ion batteries. Ultimately, the lithium-salt electrolyte is not held in an organic solvent as in the lithium-ion design, but in a solid polymer composite such as polyethylene oxide or polyacrylonitrile. The advantages of Li-poly over the lithium-ion design include lower cost manufacturing and being more robust to physical damage.

Now, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Wurzburg, Germany, have developed a novel lithium-ion battery that would prove to be more safer for cell phones and other electronic devices.

Lithium-ion batteries supply the power for cell phones and PDAs, and larger devices such as laptops, cordless screwdrivers and lawnmowers are becoming increasingly dependent on this power source.

The advantage of these power storage devices lies in their high energy density and voltage (up to four volts).

=> New lithium-ion battery would be safer for cell phones