Worlds Highest Paid Atheletes | 2009

According to the list of worlds highest paid atheletes Tiger Woods is still the number one, according to the Forbes this top golfer made around $110 millions in last 12 months.  Following Tiger Woods are Kobe Bryant , Michael Jordan,  Kimi Raikkonen and they all are tied at second spot with earnings close to $45 million. Following them at fifth spot is David Beckham with earnings of $42million earnings in last 12 months.  The new entrant with highest ranking in the list is  Manny Pacquiao who had earned convincing victory   over Oscar De La Hoya in December and Ricky Hatton in May.

Manny Pacquiao’s earnings were close to $40 million in last 12 months.  The overall list of Top earners is dominated by NBA players, golfers, Formula One Racers.  This list has also got representations from car racing, motorcycle racing, boxing, tennis and baseball.

The list of players and their earnings and sports they play is given below

Player	Earnings  ($ million)	Sports
Tiger Woods	110	Golf
Michael Jordan (Tied at second spot)	45	Basketball (NBA), Retired
Kobe Bryant   (Tied at second spot)	45	Basketball (NBA)
Kimi Raikkonen (Tied at second spot)	45	Formula One
David Beckham	42	Football or Soccer
LeBron James  (Tied at sixth spot)	40	Basketball (NBA)
Phil Mickelson (Tied at sixth spot)	40	Golf
Manny Pacquiao (Tied at sixth spot)	40	Boxing
Valentino Rossi	35	Motorcycle Racer
Dale Earnhardt Jr.	34	Race Car Driver
Roger Federer ( Tied at 11th spot)	33	Tennis
Shaquille O’Neal ( Tied at 11th spot)	33	Basketball (NBA)
Oscar De La Hoya (Tied at 13th spot)	32	Boxing
Lewis Hamilton   (Tied at 13th spot)	32	Formula One
Alex Rodriguez (Tied at 13th spot)	32	Baseball
Vijay Singh	31	Golf
Kevin Garnett  (Tied at 17th spot)	30	NBA (Basketball)
Jeff Gordon  (Tied at 17th spot)	30	Race Car Driver
Derek Jeter  (Tied at 17th spot)	30	Baseball
Ronaldinho (Tied at 17th spot)	30	Football or Soccer

Vitamin D gene could treat Multiple Sclerosis

Scientists have discovered two new genes involved in multiple sclerosis, a breakthrough they claim could pave the way for treating the debilitating disease using vitamin D.
An international team has pinpointed the two genetic variants which increase the risk of multiple sclerosis as well as reveal links to other autoimmune disease, the latest issue of the ‘Nature Genetics’ journal reported.

Lead scientist Prof Matthew Brown of the University of Queensland said: “One of the two genes is most likely a gene which controls metabolism of vitamin D. Previous research has already shown that levels of vitamin D influence the risk of people contracting MS.

“For example, people have a higher risk the further they live from the Equator. This instantly suggests that a possible preventative treatment for MS is vitamin D. This may lead to new types of therapeutics down the track.” Their three-year study involved scanning the DNA of 1,618 people with MS and 3,413 people without MS.

The team looked at genetic landmarks in the genome called SNPs and then progressively narrowed down their search to individual genes. After comparing over 300,000 SNPs, two genetic regions on chromosome 12 and 20 showed significant differences.

Antonio Castro, Son of Fiedel Castro duped by fake e lover

   Love turned rather shameful for former Cuban ruler Fidel Castro’s son Antonio, who was fooled by a man presenting himself as a sexy Colombian woman on the internet.
   Known for his reputation with women, Antonio fell to the charms of his internet ladylove Claudia, who said she was smitten by his wealth and power and was keen to travel to Cuba to meet the man of her dreams.
   After eight months of exchanging passionate and sexually charged messages via chats and email, it turned out that Claudia Valencia was actually a prankster in Miami named Luis Dominguez. And now, the public humiliation of the communist dictator’s son has enthralled South Florida’s sizeable Cuban-American community.
   Dominguez, who was born in Cuba, has said that he planned the sting to expose the hypocrisy of a country that lavishes luxuries on its leaders while repressing its own public.
   “While everyday Cubans were banned from using the internet cafes in Havana hotels, this guy had a Black-Berry and unlimited access to the web,” the Telegraph quoted Dominguez as telling the Miami Herald newspaper.
   The newspaper ran transcripts of ‘Claudia’ and Castro’s chat room conversations, in which Antonio, 40, boasts of spending weekends in the upmarket Cuban resort of Varadero, of shopping trips for expensive designer clothes and of his travels across the world in his role as physician to the Cuban baseball team.
   Castro even sent ‘Claudia’ photographs of himself at the Beijing Olympics. And despite being engaged to a 26-year-old TV producer in Havana, he told her that he looked forward to being with her.
, Dominguez revealed that he invented the virtual persona of Claudia, a 26-year-old sports journalist with dark hair and blonde highlights, after studying photographs of Castro’s former girlfriends. ANI

 

Jessica Terry, girl who diagnosed herself for Crohn's Disease

Now what? Another teen wizard only difference is this time it is a girl. Most of the time boys have dominated the world of highly inteligent teens.
Jessica Terry, of Washington State USA who might pass out as just another teen successfully brought slides of her own intestinal tissue into her AP science class and correctly diagnosed herself with Crohn’s disease.

Jessica Terry finds it weird that she dianosed herself with a diesease which was pestering her for long time. For years she went from doctor to doctor complaining of vomiting, diarrhea, weight loss and stomach pains. They said she had irritable bowel syndrome.Doctors always told her that she was suffering from colitis and nothing was wrong with her intestine. But ultimately instead of having blind faith on doctors she decided to take the matters in her own hand.

“Not knowing much about a disease you’re growing up with is not only nerve-wracking, but it’s confusing,” Terry told the Sammamish Reporter.

So when local pathologists stopped in to teach students in her Biomedical Problems class how to analyze slides, the high school senior decided to give her own intestines a look.

What she found?  granuloma–a sure sign of the intestinal disease, which is a large dark area showing inflammation.

To confirm her suspicion, she checked in with her teacher.

Mary Margaret Welch, who has spent 17 years teaching science at Eastside Catholic School, had a feeling Terry was on to something.

 “I snapped a picture of it on the microscope and e-mailed it to the pathologist,” Welch said. “Within 24 hours, he sent back an e-mail saying yes, this is a granuloma.”

The finding impressed doctors.

“Granulomas are oftentimes very hard to find and not always even present at all,” said Dr. Corey Siegel, a bowel disease specialist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. “I commend Jessica for her meticulous work.”

While Terry’s glad to finally have answers, she now knows she’ll have a tough road ahead.
Crohn’s disease is an incurable, though treatable condition caused by inflammation in the intestines. It can cause malnutrition, ulcers, pain and discomfort.

Terry is looking forward to write a book on Crohn’s disease.

Crohn’s  disease is one of the toughest diagnosis for any speacialist. The most common disease that mimics the symptoms of Crohn’s disease is ulcerative colitis, as both are inflammatory bowel diseases that can affect the colon with similar symptoms. It is important to differentiate these diseases, since the course of the diseases and treatments may be different. In some cases, however, it may not be possible to tell the difference, in which case the disease is classified as indeterminate colitis

Rate of evolution, It can take place in 10 years

Washington, Jun 15 (PTI) Guess how fast can evolution take place? In less than 10 years, at least in fish, according to a new study. In their study, researchers at California University introduced guppies (small fresh-water fish) from Yarra River, Trinidad, into the nearby Damier River, in a section above a barrier waterfall that excluded all predators. Eight years later, they found that the guppies in the low-predation environment above the barrier waterfall had adapted to their new environment by producing larger and fewer offspring with each reproductive cycle. However, no such adaptation was seen in the guppies which colonised the high-predation environment below barrier waterfall. “High-predation females invest more resources into current reproduction because a high rate of mortality, driven by predators, means these females may not get another chance to reproduce. “Low-predation females, on the other hand, produce larger embryos because the larger babies are more competitive in the resource-limited environments typical of low-predation sites. “Moreover, low-predation females produce fewer embryos not only because they have larger embryos but also because they invest fewer resources in current reproduction,” lead researcher Swanne Gordon said. PTI

Bug revived after 120000 years resembles extra terrestial life

London, Jun 15 (PTI) Scientists have claimed that a ultrasmall bacterium which has been brought back to life after being recovered from the Greenland ice sheet, could resemble extraterrestrial life.
An international team coaxed the Herminiimonas glaciei bug back to life after it spent 120,000 years buried three kms deep in the Greenland ice sheet, a major finding it claims can resemble microbes that have evolved in ice on other planets.

The bug consists of rods just 0.9 micrometres long and 0.4 micrometres in diameter, about 10 to 50 times smaller than the wellknown bacterium, Escherichia coli.

“What’s unique is that it’s so small, and seems to survive on so few nutrients,” the ‘New Scientist’ quoted Jennifer Loveland-Curtze of Pennsylvania State University, who led the team, as saying.

According to the scientists, because of its tiny dimensions, the bug can survive in minute veins in the ice, scavenging sparse nutrients that were buried along with the ice. It also has extensive tail-like flagella to help it manoeuvre through the veins to find food.

“Along with the snow, you get dust, bacterial cells, fungal spores, plant spores, minerals and other organic debris. So we postulate that it lives in these microniches in the ice,” Loveland-Curtze said. PTI

Complete List of World Heritage Sites of India

 

 

WORLD HERITAGE SITES OF INDIA ,  Year 2009  Click on the Thumbnail to see the full size image

Cultural Sites (22)

Ajanta  Caves                             Agra Fort                          Ellora Caves

Taj Mahal                       Sun Temple (Konark)            Mahabalipuram

Churches of Goa                    Khajuraho                             Hampi

Fathehpur Sikri                    Pattadakal                     Elephanta Caves

Chola Temple                           Sanchi                         Humayun’s Tomb

Qutub Minar                       Bodh Gaya                          Bhimbetka

Red Fort

NATURAL WORLD HERITAGE SITES OF INDIA

Kaziranga                            Manas                                Keoladeo

Sunderban                         Nanda Devi

250 set of Twins in Kerala in India

Its amazing and unbelievable that a village in the remote village of Kodinhi, in Kerala in India is having 250 sets of twins born to just 2,000 families. In 2008 alone 15 pairs of twins were born in the village out of 300 healthy deliveries and this year is expected to top that number. In the last five years alone up to 60 pairs of twins have been born, with the rate of twins increasing year-on-year.

 

  Twin buff Dr Krishnan Sribiju,a local doctor, has been studying the medical marvel of Kodinhi for the past two years. Although 250 sets of twins have been officially registered in the village Dr Sribiju believes the real number to be far higher. “In my medical opinion there are around 300 to 350 twins within the village boundaries of Kodinhi,” he said

 

“Without access to detailed biochemical analysis equipment I cannot say for certain what the reason for the twinning is, but I feel that it is something to do with what the villagers eat and drink”