Friday, February 17, 2012

Geeta Dutt - Aye Dil Mujhe Bata De - Bhai Bhai [1956]

"Bhai Bhai" [1956] is an Indian Hindi film directed by Nitai Palit. Starring Kishore Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Nimmi, Nirupa Roy, Om Prakash and Beena.
Music is by Madan Mohan and Lyrics by Rajendra Krishan.........

Geetā Dutt (Born Geetā Ghosh Roy Chowdhuri) [November 23, 1930 July 20, 1972] was a prominent Indian playback singer in Hindi movies in the 1950s and 60s, and also a singer of modern Bengali songs.

Initially, Geeta was a singer known for singing bhajans and sad songs, but her renderings of composer S. D. Burman's jazzy musical scores in Bāzi in 1951 demonstrated a new facet of Geeta's singing. The sexiness in her voice and her easy adaptation to "western" tunes. From then on in the 1950s, Geeta was people's first choice for singing seductive songs and providing song accompaniments in dance clubs.

S.D. Burman recognized the magic in Geeta's voice through her songs in "Do Bhāi". He effectively used the Bengali lilt in her voice in movies like Devdās (1955) and Pyāsā (1957). The song "Aaj Saajan Mohe Ang Lagaa Lo" in "Pyasa" is a prime example of a Bengali keertan being presented in its Hindi version.

During Geeta's recording of songs for the movie Baazi, she met the movie's young and upcoming director, Guru Dutt. Their romance culminated in marriage on May 26, 1953....

In 1964, Guru Dutt died from a combination of alcohol and an overdose of sleeping pills. (His death was widely perceived as a suicide following two earlier attempts) Geeta then suffered a serious nervous breakdown, and also ran into financial problems. She tried to resume her singing career, cutting discs at Durgā Pujā, and giving stage shows. ...........

Geeta died of cirrhosis of the liver on July 20, 1972.
[Wikipedia & IMDb]

To Download Legends Geeta Dutt Songs,

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Cinnamon Could Replace Harsh Chemicals To Produce Gold Nanoparticles, Researchers Say

By Rebecca Boyle

Cinnamon Nanotubes? Cinnamon can be used as a replacement for toxic chemicals in the production of gold nanoparticles, scientists say. aziatische-ingredienten.nl

A humble spice found in nearly every kitchen could yield a safer, simpler way to produce gold nanoparticles, according to a new study. Researchers say the cinnamon-infused particles can even be used to fight cancer.

Gold nanoparticles are heralded for their potential to detect tumors, search for oil, light the streets and cure diseases, but their production requires dangerous toxic chemicals. There are several ways to produce gold particles, but most involve dissolving chloroauric acid, also called gold salts, in liquid and adding chemicals to precipitate gold atoms. Common mixtures include sodium citrates, sodium borohydride (also used to bleach wood pulp) and ammonium compounds, all of which can be toxic to humans and the environment.

Hoping to promote green nanotechnology, researchers at the University of Missouri mixed gold salts with cinnamon instead and stirred the mixture in water. The combination produced gold nanoparticles and phytochemicals, an active chemical in cinnamon. When combined with the nanoparticles, the phytochemicals can enter cancer cells and destroy them or help image them for more accurate medical procedures.

“Our gold nanoparticles are not only ecologically and biologically benign, they also are biologically active against cancer cells,” said Kattesh Katti, a professor of radiology and physics at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

The process uses no electricity and no chemicals, other than the initial gold salts. The researchers reported their work in the journal Pharmaceutical Research.

Katti said cinnamon and other seeds, leaves and herbs could be used to convert metals into nanoparticles without using harsh chemicals.

“Our approach to ‘green’ nanotechnology creates a renaissance symbolizing the indispensable role of Mother Nature in all future nanotechnological developments,” he said.

[Eurekalert]

Dust Causes Explosions, And Apparently Nanodust Causes Mega-Explosions

By Rebecca Boyle

Dust Explosion FMGlobal via YouTube

Along with annoyingly adhering to your TV screen and tabletops, dust can be a deadly material, exploding with enormously destructive force in places like coal mines, sugar refineries and grain silos. The explosive properties of everyday dust are well known, but what about non-traditional dust? Not all dusts are created equal — and dust derived from the materials of the future could present a very different type of danger.

Led by S. Morgan Worsfold of Dalhousie University in Halifax, a team of researchers from Canada and Norway set out to determine these properties. They surveyed the small body of published research on blowing up nanoparticles, flocculent materials — fluffy synthetic stuff — and hybrid dust mixtures, which they define as any dust with an added liquid or gas.

Dust is defined as a teeny solid less than 420 microns in diameter, but that does not cover the nanoscale world. Nanodust and its potential explosive properties are relatively under-studied. A general rule of thumb in the world of dust research holds that the smaller the particle size and the greater its surface area, the more explosive it is. Nanoparticles are tiny but have a large relative surface area because of how atoms are arranged. They also tend to want to clump together, and this is one of the properties that makes items like carbon nanotubes and graphene so interesting to study. But these large agglomerations of nanoparticles, called nanopowders, are also pretty explosive, igniting with just 1 millijoule of energy. According to Worsfold and colleagues, they could ignite with a spark, a collision or mere friction. And because they’re so small, nanoparticles can remain suspended in the air for days or weeks, and you would never know it.

Then there’s flocculent dust, which is made of fibres and has a non-spherical shape and is derived from all the synthetic materials in our homes, like polyesters, acrylics and nylons. These materials don’t fall under the standard definition of dust. Still, the researchers say they are dangerous — flocculent materials are often manufactured using electrostatics, so they could ignite if something goes wrong. Hybrid mixtures could be any type of dust particle with a liquid or gas, so those are more variable.

The researchers say much more study is needed to understand the explosivity of these dusts, especially nanodust, as nanotechnology grows more prevalent. Their paper appears in the journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Waterless Washing Machine Levitates Laundry and Cleans It With Dry Ice

By Rebecca Boyle

Waterless Washing Machine The spherical drum floats through magnetic levitation. Elie Ahovi

It makes my day when new technology promises to make life’s most tedious tasks more interesting. Take laundry, for example. I would loathe it so much less if I had a friendly robot to help me fold my socks. Or perhaps if I had this waterless washing machine, which would levitate my clothes and scrub them clean with dry ice in a matter of minutes.

The Orbit uses a battery-filled ring to levitate a supercooled superconductive metal laundry basket. The basket is coated in two layers of shatterproof glass and chilled using liquid nitrogen. The batteries inside the ring produce a magnetic field, and the basket levitates inside this field as its electrical resistivity drops.

The laundry orb, which is opened and controlled using a ceramic-based touchscreen interface, blasts sublimated dry ice at supersonic speeds toward your clothes. The carbon dioxide interacts with the organic materials in your laundry and breaks them down. Then the dirt and grime is filtered out through a tube that you can rinse, and the CO₂ is removed and re-frozen (though it’s not clear how, because this would require lots of energy). Voila, clean and dry clothes.

At this point it’s just a concept by designer Elie Ahovi, but it’s not hard to imagine these types of cleanerballs in apartments of the future. Anything that will cut down on time spent doing laundry.

[via Treehugger]

Psychiatric diagnoses: Why no one is satisfied

As the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is revised for the first time since 1994, controversy about psychiatric diagnosis is reaching a fever pitch.

Suggested changes to the definitions of autism spectrum disorders and depression, among others, are eliciting great concerns. However, there are larger concerns about the DSM as a whole.

"Almost no one likes the DSM, but no one knows what to do about it," said University of Michigan psychiatrist Randolph Nesse.

The current round of revisions is the fifth since the DSM was originally published by the American Psychiatric Association in 1952.

"A huge debate over when depression is abnormal seems likely to be resolved by removing the so-called 'grief exclusion,'" Nesse said. "At the moment, depression is not diagnosed in the two months after loss of a loved one.

"The result of this proposed change would be that people experiencing normal grief will receive a diagnosis of major depression. Doing this would increase consistency in diagnosing depression, but at the cost of common sense. It's clear that bereavement is not a mental disorder."

Nesse is the co-author with University of Cape Town psychiatrist Dan Stein of an article in the current issue of BMC Medicine titled "Towards a genuinely medical model for psychiatric nosology."

The article provides a diagnosis of the difficulty of categorizing mental disorders that the authors expect will displease many of their colleagues.

"The problem is not the DSM criteria," Nesse said. "The problem is that the untidy nature of mental disorders is at odds with our wish for a neat, clean classification system."

The proposed abolition of the grief exclusion in diagnosing major depression is just one example of a push to define psychiatric disorders according to their causes and brain pathology.

But Nesse and Stein point out that the rest of medicine recognizes many disorders that do not have specific causes.

"Conditions such as congestive heart failure can have many causes," Nesse said. "This doesn't bother physicians because they understand what the heart is for, and how it works to circulate blood."

Furthermore, he said, physicians recognize symptoms such as fever and pain as useful responses, not diseases.

"These symptoms can be pathological when they're expressed for no good reason, but before considering that possibility, physicians look carefully for some abnormality arousing such symptoms," Nesse said. "Likewise, the utility of anxiety is recognized, but its disorders are defined by the number and intensity of symptoms, irrespective of the cause.

"It's vital to recognize that emotions serve functions in the same way that pain, cough and fever do, and that strong negative emotions can be normal responses to challenging or anxiety-provoking situations."

So, as the DSM is revised once again, Nesse urges his colleagues and concerned members of the public to adopt realistic expectations.

"Instead of specific diseases with specific causes, many mental problems are somewhat heterogeneous overlapping syndromes that can have multiple causes," he said. "Most are not distinct species like birds or flowers. They are more like different plant communities, each with a typical collection of species. Distinguishing tundra from alpine meadow, arboreal forest and Sonoran desert is useful, even though the categories are not entirely homogenous and distinct."

More information: http://ww.biomedce … 0/5/abstract

Provided by University of Michigan

"Psychiatric diagnoses: Why no one is satisfied." February 15th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-psychiatric.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

A robot that sketches portraits

by Biomechanism

An industrial robot as artist? From March 6-10, 2012, researchers will be presenting what may at first seem to be a contradiction at CeBIT in Hanover, Germany (Hall 9, Stand E08). There, interested visitors can view the metal painter in action and can even have it sketch their own faces.

The industrial robot sketches a portrait. © Robotlab/Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation

Artists are often colorful personalities. This one, though, comes across as cool, precise and metallic – and is anything but extravagant. No wonder – after all, it’s an industrial robot, one that will convert the Fraunhofer stand at CeBIT into an art studio. Its artistic genius only emerges if someone takes a seat on the model’s stool positioned in front of the robot: first, its camera records an image of its model; then it whips out its pencil and traces a portrait of the individual on its easel. After around ten minutes have passed, it grabs the work and proudly presents it to its public.

This robot installation was developed by artists in the robotlab group, at the Center for Art and Media ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, some of whom are now employed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB in Karlsruhe.

But how does this technical production aid manage to provide an authentic rendering of a person’s facial expressions? “We have used an image-evaluation process that essentially equips the robot with the sense of sight,” explains Martina Richter, a scientist at IOSB. “There is a camera mounted on the robot’s arm that it uses first to take the person’s picture.” Edge-processing software seeks out the contrasts in the image and translates these to robot coordinates: to movements of the robot’s arm.

For the researchers and artists, the main difficulty was to adjust the algorithm for image processing so that the sketched image would leave the impression of a portrait – and so that the high-tech artist would overlook the tiny wrinkles but would still render the eyes. “We attach great importance to the artistic look of the drawings that results, but on the other hand, we have also equipped the robot with an automatic system that enables it to carry out all of the steps itself. With this installation, we have created an interface between art, science and technology,” Richter is convinced.

The robot’s everyday routine is less artistic, however: ordinarily, researchers at IOSB use it to analyze the optical reflection properties of various materials. They shine light on an object – a reflector of the kind mounted on children’s school bags or jackets, for instance – from various directions. The robot’s arm circles the material sample in a hemispheric pattern, measuring how the object reflects light.

Experts refer to this as a material’s spatial reflection characteristics. This helps design objects such as reflectors so that they return light in the most bundled way possible to the direction from which it comes – to a car driver, for instance. Then the reflector emits a bright flash that draws the driver’s attention to the child. The objective is different when it comes to paint effects on a car’s own surface: The aim there is to display different hues to the observer depending on the direction of view.

___________

Courtesy:

Martina Richter

Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB

New way to determine ‘natives’

THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

"Native status is a big deal. It affects people's reaction to the species and where conservation dollars are spent."

Image: nimu1956/iStockphoto

A radically new way to determine whether an introduced species has become a native species - by observing the reactions of other local species - is outlined in research by the University of Sydney, using the dingo as a case study.

The findings are published in the journal PLoS One, published by the Public Library of Science in America, on 16 February.

Researchers Alex Carthey, a PhD student in the School of Biological Sciences at the University, and her supervisor Associate Professor Peter Banks, explain that introduced species cannot remain eternally 'new' in an ecosystem, and therefore at some point must become 'locals' themselves.

"Determining whether species are native or not is a worldwide conundrum. Scientists, governmentsand legislators have struggled with the question of how long it is before you can consider a 'new' species to be native," said Associate Professor Banks.

It had been thought impossible to answer this question, but the authors propose a solution - the best way to determine whether or not a species is native is to 'ask' the local wildlife it interacts with.

"Native status is a big deal. It affects people's reaction to the species and where conservation dollars are spent," said Associate Professor Banks.

"Our study puts forward an objective criterion to determine the native status of a species - to 'ask' the local fauna it interacts with. If local fauna recognise and respond effectively to the new species, it has become very well integrated into that community."

To investigate this process, the team used the dingo Canis lupus dingo as a case study, as its native status in Australia remains disputed.

"Dingoes were introduced to Australia around 4000 years ago, but there is debate around whether they should be classified as a native species or not," said Alex. "The status of dingoes has implications for wild dog management and conservation."

"We wanted to see how a vulnerable native species, the bandicoot, Perameles nasuta, reacts to domestic dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, which are the same species as the dingo. So domestic dogs are in that sense standing in as a proxy for the dingo in this study."

"We compared how bandicoots forage in urban backyards in households that have dogs, compared to those that have cats, which were more recently introduced," explained Alex.

"We found that bandicoots recognise the danger and avoid foraging in backyards with dogs, but continue to visit yards of cat owners and petless households," said Alex.

"Our study suggests that bandicoots have come to fear dogs as predators after thousands of years of interaction with dingoes, and so avoid areas with dogs, while they are yet to recognise the threat cats pose as predators, as bandicoots haven't been in contact with cats for as long."

While dingoes have been present in Australia for around 4000 years, cats were introduced in Australia only about 150 years ago.

If bandicoots are responding to the danger that dogs pose as predators, it suggests that at least this local species reacts to dogs as they would to a native predator.

"This supports the argument for dingoes to be considered a native species. The lack of response to cats by bandicoots in our study suggests that hundreds of years of coexistence has not been enough time for bandicoots to start regarding cats as anything other than an introduced species and not yet native," said Alex Carthey.

"The best way we can determine whether a species that was introduced a long time ago has essentially become native really is to just ask the locals."

Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.