Very old Photos காலத்தை வென்ற தொன்மை

Artificial legs built in 1890.

Cappadocia, Turkey.

Cappadocia, Turkey is the historic area of central Anatolia bounded by the towns of Hacıbektaş, Aksaray,Niğde and Kayseri (map). It was known asCappadocia in ancient times, and is still calledKapadokya informally today.
Cappadocia is Turkey's most visually striking region, especially the "moonscape" area around the towns ofÜrgüp, Göreme, Uçhisar, Avanos and Mustafapaşa (Sinasos), where erosion has formed caves, clefts, pinnacles, "fairy chimneys" and sensuous folds in the soft volcanic rock.
Although the volcanic landscape can appear inhospitable, the mineral-rich soil is excellent for growing vegetables and fruits, making Cappadocia a rich agricultural region. It has always been one ofAnatolia's prime grape-growing areas, and still boasts many productive vineyards and wineries.
The Bible's New Testament tells of Cappadocia, but in fact this part of central Anatolia has been important since Hittite times, long before the time of Jesus.

Tungnath the highest Shiva temple in the world State-Uttarakhand

Tungnath is the highest Shiva temple in the world and is one of the five and the highest Panch Kedar temples located in the mountain range of Tunganath in Rudraprayag district, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Tungnath is the highest Shiva temple in the world and is one of the five and the highest Panch Kedar temples located in the mountain range of Tunganath in Rudraprayag district, in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. The Tunganath (literal meaning: Lord of the peaks) mountains forms the Valleys of Mandakini and Alaknanda rivers. Located at an altitude of 3,680 m (12,073 ft), and just below the peak of Chandrashila, Tungnath temple is the highest Hindu shrine dedicated to Lord Shiva. The temple is believed to be 1000 years old and is the second in the pecking order of the Panch Kedars.

It is an ancient temple built in the North Indian style of temple architecture. It is small in size and can barely accommodate ten people in the sanctum. Surrounding this temple, there are a number of small shrines (about a dozen) of several gods. The sanctum part of the temple abuts the hills where the sacred standing black rock (swayambu or self manifest linga) with tilt to the left, of 1 ft (0.3 m) height, denoting the form of arms of Lord Shiva is worshipped. The construction of this temple is credited to Arjuna, the third of the Pandava brothers, who also worshiped here.

The temples inside the enclosure are made of stones with decorations painted on the outside and they depict tall towers. The highest dome has a wooden stage at the top. The dome has sixteen openings (pictured). The temple roofs are also made of stone slabs. At the entrance to the temple there is a Nandi stone image facing towards the sanctum where Shiva’s idol is deified. The Nandi’s flank is normally sanctified for worship with flowers and with three lines (tripundra) in yellow clay, with a mark denoting Shiva’s third eye, which is symbolic to Shiva’s devotees. At the right of the temple entrance there is the mandatory image of Ganesha. In the main sanctum, ashtadhatu (made of eight metals) idols of sage Vyas and Kala Bhairav (demi-god), disciples of Shiva, are also installed in the sanctum sanctorum. The temple also houses the images of the Pandavas and silver plaques of other four Kedar shrines.

Badami Cave Temples

The cave temples date back to 600 and 700 CE. Their architecture is a blend of North Indian Nagara Style and South Indian Dravidian style. As described above each cave has a sanctum sanctorum , a mandapa , a verandah and pillars . The cave temples also bear exquisite carvings , sculptures and beautiful murals.
An inscription found here records the creation of the shrine by Mangalesha in 578. There are some paintings on the ceiling and the style indicates maturity but has lost its original dazzling colour. The bracket figures on thepiers here are some of the finest.

Psychology of crying. Does a good cry really help?

A good cry can often make us feel better and help us put things in perspective. Now, a new study has revealed that the benefits of crying depend entirely on the what, where and when of a particular ‘crying episode’. The University of South Florida psychologists Jonathan Rottenberg and Lauren M Bylsma, along with their colleague Ad JJM Vingerhoets of Tilburg University analyzed the detailed accounts of more than 3000 recent crying experiences (which occurred outside of the laboratory).

The researchers found that the majority of respondents reported improvements in their mood following a bout of crying. However, one third of the survey participants reported no improvement in mood and a tenth felt worse after crying. The survey also revealed that criers who received social support during their crying episode were the most likely to report improvements in mood.
Studies till date have not always produced a clear picture of the benefits of crying, in part because the results often seem to depend on how crying is studied. The researchers note several challenges in accurately studying crying behavior in a laboratory setting.
Volunteers who cry in a laboratory setting often do not describe their experiences as being cathartic or making them feel better. Rather, crying in a laboratory setting often results in the study participants feeling worse; this may be due to the stressful conditions of the study itself, such as being videotaped or watched by research assistants. This may produce negative emotions (such as embarrassment), which neutralize the positive benefits usually associated with crying.

However, these laboratory studies have provided interesting findings about the physical effects of crying. Criers do show calming effects such as slower breathing, but they also experience a lot of unpleasant stress and arousal, including increased heart rate and sweating.
What is interesting is that bodily calming usually lasts longer than the unpleasant arousal. The calming effects may occur later and overcome the stress reaction, which would account for why people tend to remember mostly the pleasant side of crying.

Research has shown that the effects of crying also depend on who is shedding the tears. For example, individuals with anxiety or mood disorders are least likely to experience the positive effects of crying. Also, the researchers found that people who lack insight into their emotional lives (a condition known as alexithymia) actually feel worse after crying. The authors suggest that for these individuals, their lack of emotional insight may prevent the kind of cognitive change required for a sad experience to be transformed into something positive.

http://1stholistic.com/…/pro…/A2007/psychology-of-crying.htm

Dark matter might be made of super-heavy particles almost as big as human cells

Usually, when a new particle is discovered or its existence hypothesised, it's on such a tiny scale that it's hard for us to imagine. But that might not be the case with dark matter, because researchers have found evidence to suggest that these mysterious, invisible particles could be about one-third the size of a human cell, and dense enough to almost create a mini black hole.

Though they reportedly make up five-sixths of all of the matter in the Universe, no one truly knows what dark matter is, how it works, or even what it could look like. Despite its mysterious nature, scientists hypothesise that dark matter has to exist in some form to account for the amount of mass needed for the Universe to exist and act in the way it does.

Knowing this, researchers from the University of Southern Denmark decided to investigate the size of these hypothetical hidden particles. According to the team, dark matter could weigh more than 10 billion billion (10^9) times more than a proton.

If this is true, a single dark matter particle could weigh about 1 microgram, which is about one-third the mass of a human cell (a typical human cell weighs about 3.5 micrograms), and right under the threshold for a particle to become a black hole.

The researchers came up with this number by creating a new model for a super-heavy particle they call the PIDM particle (Planckian Interacting Dark Matter). These supermassive particles belong to a class of particles known as 'weakly interacting massive particles', or WIMPS.

Before now, researchers have suggested that WIMPs were about 100 times the mass of a proton, Charles Q. Choi reports for LiveScience, but while the existence of WIMPS has been hypothesied for years, evidence of them is, well, extremely lacking, like everything else about dark matter. This leaves open the possibility that dark matter particles could be made of something significantly different, says Choi.

If the team from Denmark is right about the size of dark matter particles, it means dark matter is too large for researchers to recreate with particle accelerators. Instead, evidence of dark matter might exist in the Universe’s cosmic microwave background radiation, which is basically the light left around from the Big Bang.
In short, when the Big Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe grew rapidly, a time period researchers call 'inflation'. The next stage on the Universe’s development chart is called reheating, which, among many things, created particles. It's here, during reheating, that supermassive dark matter particles might have first formed.

"However, for this model to work, the heat during reheating would have

had to be significantly higher than what is typically assumed in Universal models," says Choi. "A hotter reheating would in turn leave a signature in the cosmic microwave background radiation that the next generation of cosmic microwave background experiments could detect."

Obviously, if we do eventually observe direct evidence of dark matter, it would solidify many hypotheses about how the Universe works and initially formed.

However, before that happens, we need better tools, which University of Southern Denmark cosmologist, McCullen Sandora, says we should have within the next decade.

Until then, we can only speculate how dark matter works and how it fits into longstanding hypotheses and models.

http://journals.aps.org/…/ab…/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.101302

http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.03278

http://www.sciencealert.com/dark-matter-might-actually-be-s…

All three are blind. Experience their sweet voice

மதுரையில் ஒரு மளிகைக்கடை நூறு ஆண்டுகளுக்கு முன்.

Watch the real story about Christopher Columbus (what your teachers never told you).

Tips for Writing Your Research Proposal

1. Know yourself: Know your area of expertise, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses. Play to your strengths, not to your weaknesses. If you want to get into a new area of research, learn something about the area before you write a proposal. Research previous work. Be a scholar.
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2. Know the program from which you seek support: You are responsible for finding the appropriate program for support of your research.
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3. Read the program announcement: Programs and special activities have specific goals and specific requirements. If you don’t meet those goals and requirements, you have thrown out your chance of success. Read the announcement for what it says, not for what you want it to say. If your research does not fit easily within the scope of the topic areas outlined, your chance of success is nil.
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4. Formulate an appropriate research objective: A research proposal is a proposal to conduct research, not to conduct development or design or some other activity. Research is a methodical process of building upon previous knowledge to derive or discover new knowledge, that is, something that isn’t known before the research is conducted.
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5. Develop a viable research plan: A viable research plan is a plan to accomplish your research objective that has a non-zero probability of success. The focus of the plan must be to accomplish the research objective.
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6. State your research objective clearly in your proposal: A good research proposal includes a clear statement of the research objective. Early in the proposal is better than later in the proposal. The first sentence of the proposal is a good place. A good first sentence might be, “The research objective of this proposal is...” Do not use the word “develop” in the statement of your research objective.
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7. Frame your project around the work of others: Remember that research builds on the extant knowledge base, that is, upon the work of others. Be sure to frame your project appropriately, acknowledging the current limits of knowledge and making clear your contribution to the extension of these limits. Be sure that you include references to the extant work of others.
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8. Grammar and spelling count: Proposals are not graded on grammar. But if the grammar is not perfect, the result is ambiguities left to the reviewer to resolve. Ambiguities make the proposal difficult to read and often impossible to understand, and often result in low ratings. Be sure your grammar is perfect.
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9. Format and brevity are important: Do not feel that your proposal is rated based on its weight. Use 12-point fonts, use easily legible fonts, and use generous margins. Take pity on the reviewers. Make your proposal a pleasant reading experience that puts important concepts up front and makes them clear. Use figures appropriately to make and clarify points, but not as filler.
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10. Know the review process: Know how your proposal will be reviewed before you write it. Proposals that are reviewed by panels must be written to a broader audience than proposals that will be reviewed by mail. Mail review can seek out reviewers with very specific expertise in very narrow disciplines.
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11. Proof read your proposal before it is sent: Many proposals are sent out with idiotic mistakes, omissions, and errors of all sorts. Proposals have been submitted with the list of references omitted and with the references not referred to. Proposals have been submitted to the wrong program. Proposals have been submitted with misspellings in the title. These proposals were not successful. Stupid things like this kill a proposal. It is easy to catch them with a simple, but careful, proof reading. Don’t spend six or eight weeks writing a proposal just to kill it with stupid mistakes that are easily prevented.
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12. Submit your proposal on time: Duh? Why work for two months on a proposal just to have it disqualified for being late? Remember, fairness dictates that proposal submission rules must apply to everyone. It is not up to the discretion of the program officer to grant you dispensation on deadlines. Get your proposal in two or three days before the deadline.

Microbes can play games with the mind

The bacteria in our guts may help decide who gets anxiety and depression

The 22 men took the same pill for four weeks. When interviewed, they said they felt less daily stress and their memories were sharper. The brain benefits were subtle, but the results, reported at last year’s annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, got attention. That’s because the pills were not a precise chemical formula synthesized by the pharmaceutical industry.

The capsules were brimming with bacteria.

In the ultimate PR turnaround, once-dreaded bacteria are being welcomed as health heroes. People gobble them up in probiotic yogurts, swallow pills packed with billions of bugs and recoil from hand sanitizers. Helping us nurture the microbial gardens in and on our bodies has become big business, judging by grocery store shelves.

These bacteria are possibly working at more than just keeping our bodies healthy: They may be changing our minds. Recent studies have begun turning up tantalizing hints about how the bacteria living in the gut can alter the way the brain works. These findings raise a question with profound implications for mental health: Can we soothe our brains by cultivating our bacteria?

By tinkering with the gut’s bacterial residents, scientists have changed the behavior of lab animals and small numbers of people. Microbial meddling has turned anxious mice bold and shy mice social. Rats inoculated with bacteria from depressed people develop signs of depression themselves. And small studies of people suggest that eating specific kinds of bacteria may change brain activity and ease anxiety. Because gut bacteria can make the very chemicals that brain cells use to communicate, the idea makes a certain amount of sense.

Though preliminary, such results suggest that the right bacteria in your gut could brighten mood and perhaps even combat pernicious mental disorders including anxiety and depression. The wrong microbes, however, might lead in a darker direction.

Open channels

Although the communication lines aren’t fully understood, bacteria in the gut and cells in the brain may stay in touch in several ways. Signals can move along the vagus nerve or be carried by chemical messengers, such as serotonin, and by molecules that travel via the immune system. 

Studying germ-free mice
Bacteria in the gut may help brains develop, based on studies from mice born and raised without bacteria. These mice are different from normal mice in several key brain areas.

Striatum: In mice without bacteria, the flux of the neural messengers dopamine and serotonin is altered in the striatum, a brain area involved in movement and emotional responses. New connections may form more readily in the striatum too. These changes may cause bacteria-free animals to move and explore abnormally.

Hippocampus: Involved in memory and navigation, the hippocampi of germ-free mice have reduced levels of molecules that sense serotonin and the growth factor BDNF. These mice display memory problems.

Amygdala: Germ-free mice have changes in the levels of serotonin, BDNF and other signaling molecules in the amygdala, a brain structure involved in emotions. These alterations might contribute to an increase in risk-taking behavior.

Hypothalamus: The brain’s stress responder, the hypothalamus, shows boosts in corticotropin-releasing factor and adrenocorticotropic hormone in germ-free mice. The changes might be related to the animals’ heightened stress responses.

SOURCE: S.M. COLLINS, M. SURETTE AND P. BERCIK/NAT. REV. MICROBIOL. 2012

Cecile G. Tamura

Gender Gap in Industries in pay

Some industries have less of a gender gap and some industries have more. Healthcare is the worst, Glassdoor found. The tech industry is No. 10 on the

list.

Rabindranath Tagore with his children

Rabindranath Tagore with his children-(from left)daughter Mira, son Rathindranath, daughter-in-law Pratima, daughter Bela!

Awesome clicks

தெரு மூடி மடம்

இன்று இலங்கையில் எஞ்சியுள்ள ஒரேயொரு தெருமூடி மடம் பருத்தித்துறையில் காணப்படுகிறது. இந்த மடம் 1898-1901ம் ஆண்டு காலப்பகுதியில் வாழ்ந்த பிராமணரான வைத்தீஸ்வரக்குருக்களின் தகப்பனார் பஞ்சாட்சரக்குருக்கள் அவர்களால் அமைக்கப்பட்டது. தெருவின் இருபக்கமும் பொழிகல்லுத்திண்ணைகள் காணப்படுகின்றன, இத்தூண்களில் தெருமூடி மடம் கட்டுமானத்துடன் தொடர்பான இப்பிராமண குடும்பத்தினரின் பெயர்கள் பொறிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன, மேற்புறம் தெருவை மூடி ஓரோடுகளால் வேயப்பட்ட கூரை காணப்பட்டது. தற்போது தட்டை ஓடுகள் போடப்பட்டுள்ளன.

அந்தக்காலத்தில் தெருவில் நடைசாரியாகவும்,மாட்டு வண்டிகளிலும் பயணம் செய்வோர் இளைப்பாறிச்செல்ல இந்த் மடம் உதவியாக இருந்தது. இந்த தெருமூடி மடத்தின் தெற்குப்பக்கச் சுவரில் வாசலிடப்பட்டு கதவும் இருக்கிறது. இவ்வாசல் தெற்குப்புறமாக இருந்த பிராமணரின் வீட்டுடன் தொடர்புடையதாக இருந்துள்ளது. இராக்காலத்தில் இம்மடத்து திண்ணையில் தங்கிச்செல்லும் வழிப்போக்கர்களுக்கு சாப்பாட்டு வசதிகளை செய்து கொடுக்க பிராமணர் இந்த வாசலைப்பயன்படுத்தினார். இந்த வீட்டில் பிராமணரால் சமஸ்கிருத வகுப்புகளும் நடத்தப்பட்டுள்ளன.

இந்த தெருமூடிமடத்தின் அருகில் இருக்கும் சிவன் கோவில் வீதிக்கிணறு, தண்ணீர்த்தொட்டி, ஆவுரோஞ்சிக்கல் என்பன மனிதர் குறிக்கவும், குடிக்கவும் தொட்டிகளில் வண்டில் மாடுகள் தண்ணீர் குடிக்கவும், ஆவுரோஞ்சிக்கல்லில் மாடுகள் உரசி நமைச்சலைப்போக்கவும் மிகவும் கருணையோடு அமைக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது

- பருத்தித்துறையூராம்
- பா.இரகுவரன்

The Crystal Palace.

The Crystal Palace Within refers to the Pineal Gland because part of its structure is Crystalline in nature. These small calcite crystals have piezoelectric properties that can respond to the higher realms of Light. By activating these crystalline potentials within your Pineal Gland you open a portal to your Higher Mind, which can bring to you, and humanity, an influx of creativity, insight and solutions to personal and collective problems.

Diagram above shows the inner brain with its Pineal and Pituitary Ports to the 4D/5D Crystal Palace of Light, and the dimensional transfer downwards produced an inversion of “Inwards/Outwards”. The true Creation is Within, where all the cosmological bodies and beings are- The central notion is to learn and master how to “Align” more from the Outside-In than from the Inside-Out, a Psionic and Synergic process called “Fractal Centering”.

Taoists call the center of the brain between the Pineal and the Pituitary “the Crystal Palace.” It’s said that when the Pineal Gland is activated it becomes illuminated like a ‘thousand suns’. The sense of white Light flowing within and without may be when the Pineal Gland is highly activated producing DMT-type chemistry during the height of the peak. Some believe that every human being’s Pineal Gland can be activated to Spiritual World frequencies and enables you to have the sense of all knowing, godlike euphoria and oneness all around you. In this belief, a Pineal Gland once tuned into to proper frequencies with help of meditation, yoga or various esoteric, occult methods, enables a person to travel into other dimensions, popularly known as Astral Projection or Remote Viewing.

http://biologyofkundalini.com/article.php…

http://tomkenyon.com/the-crystal-palace

The Golden One

The Golden One is the name given to a massive citrine quartz crystal unearthed in Zambia, equatorial Africa, remarkable because of its size, internal clarity, majestic golden color, and presence. (900 kilograms) photo: Lawrence Stoller