General Knowledge

The new Seven Wonders of the World have been selected after a global poll. The winners were announced Saturday.

About 100 million votes were cast by the Internet and cell-phone text messages to choose the new Seven Wonders of the World. Academy Award-winning British actor Ben Kingsley announced the winners at a glitzy international show at Portugal’s largest venue, the Estadio da Luz in Lisbon.
The only site in Europe selected was the Colosseum. The others were: The Great Wall of China, India’s Taj Mahal, Jordan’s ancient city of Petra, the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, Brazil’s Statue of Christ Redeemer, and Mexico’s Chichen Itza pyramid. The seven winners beat out 14 other nominated landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Easter Island in the Pacific, the Statue of Liberty in New York City, the Acropolis in Athens, Russia’s Kremlin and Australia’s Sydney Opera House.

Thousands enjoyed the show in Lisbon, which included break-dancing and singing by tenor Jose Carreras and pop star Jennifer Lopez. Others celebrated in the countries home to the sites chosen.

The campaign to name the new wonders was launched in 1999 with almost 200 nominations coming in from around the world. The list of candidates was narrowed to 21 by the start of 2006. Organizers also went on a world tour, visiting each site. The original list of wonders were concentrated in the Mediterranean and Middle East. The only surviving structures from the original seven wonders of the ancient world are The Great Pyramids of Giza.
The New 7 Wonders organization was established by Swiss-Canadian adventurer Bernard Weber. It aims to promote cultural diversity by supporting, preserving and restoring monuments. It relies on private donations and revenue from selling broadcasting rights.

The Taj Mahal (1630 A.D.) Agra, India
Symbol of Love & Passion!

This immense mausoleum was built on the orders of Shah Jahan, the fifth Muslim Mogul emperor, to honor the memory of his beloved late wife. Built out of white marble and standing in formally laid-out walled gardens, the Taj Mahal is regarded as the most perfect jewel of Muslim art in India. The emperor was consequently jailed and, it is said, could then only see the Taj Mahal out of his small cell window.

The Pyramid at (before 800 A.D.) Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
Symbol of Worship & Knowledge!

Chichén Itzá, the most famous Mayan temple city, served as the political and economic center of the Mayan civilization. Its various structures - the pyramid of Kukulkan, the Temple of Chac Mool, the Hall of the Thousand Pillars, and the Playing Field of the Prisoners – can still be seen today and are demonstrative of an extraordinary commitment to architectural space and composition. The pyramid itself was the last, and arguably the greatest, of all Mayan temples.

Christ Redeemer (1931) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Symbol of Welcoming & Openness!

This statue of Jesus stands some 38 meters tall, atop the Corcovado mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro. Designed by Brazilian Heitor da Silva Costa and created by French sculptor Paul Landowski, it is one of the world’s best-known monuments. The statue took five years to construct and was inaugurated on October 12, 1931. It has become a symbol of the city and of the warmth of the Brazilian people, who receive visitors with open arms.

The Great Wall of China (220 B.C and 1368 - 1644 A.D.) China
Symbol of Perseverance & Persistence!

The Great Wall of China was built to link existing fortifications into a united defense system and better keep invading Mongol tribes out of China. It is the largest man-made monument ever to have been built and it is disputed that it is the only one visible from space. Many thousands of people must have given their lives to build this colossal construction.

Machu Picchu (1460-1470), Peru
Symbol of Community & Dedication!

In the 15th century, the Incan Emperor Pachacútec built a city in the clouds on the mountain known as Machu Picchu (”old mountain”). This extraordinary settlement lies halfway up the Andes Plateau, deep in the Amazon jungle and above the Urubamba River. It was probably abandoned by the Incas because of a smallpox outbreak and, after the Spanish defeated the Incan Empire, the city remained ‘lost’ for over three centuries. It was rediscovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911.

Petra (9 B.C. - 40 A.D.), Jordan
Symbol of Engineering & Protection!

On the edge of the Arabian Desert, Petra was the glittering capital of the Nabataean empire of King Aretas IV (9 B.C. to 40 A.D.). Masters of water technology, the Nabataeans provided their city with great tunnel constructions and water chambers. A theater, modelled on Greek-Roman prototypes, had space for an audience of 4,000. Today, the Palace Tombs of Petra, with the 42-meter-high Hellenistic temple facade on the El-Deir Monastery, are impressive examples of Middle Eastern culture.

The Roman Colosseum (70 - 82 A.D.) Rome, Italy
Symbol of Joy & Suffering!

This great amphitheater in the centre of Rome was built to give favors to successful legionnaires and to celebrate the glory of the Roman Empire. Its design concept still stands to this very day, and virtually every modern sports stadium some 2,000 years later still bears the irresistible imprint of the Colosseum’s original design. Today, through films and history books, we are even more aware of the cruel fights and games that took place in this arena, all for the joy of the spectators.

Disclaimer: The above mentioned 7 wonders of the world are declared by www.new7wonders.com on 07/07/2007. The order of the above list may not be similar to the original series declared.

Researchers in London on Tuesday announced plastic blood, their latest breakthrough, may turn out to be a life saver.

It’s not the kind of plastic that you usually think. It’s not like a plastic bowl or something. It’s a polymer, which means it’s a large molecule.While engineers are currently using plastics for everything from light transport vehicles to solar panels, it’s the idea of plastic blood that has particularly set researchers’ hearts racing.

Especially in situations of emergency, this could be a breakthrough, as it can be administered to anyone irrespective of blood type. But this will take another decade to fructify.
“It’s the Holy Grail in science and medicine to mimic blood. We’re at the very beginning of this. So, each step of the way we should get better at it,” said Lance Twyman of University of Sheffield.

For now, it remains on display at the Science Museum in London alongside other breakthroughs in plastic, which cover the last 100 years of the man-made material.

A teenage girl from Saransk, Russia, claims to have X-ray-like vision, which lets her see inside of human bodies, to make diagnoses that often are more accurate than those of doctors. First widely hailed in Russia as “the girl with X-ray eyes,” 19 years old Natasha Demkina has a growing following of patients, doctors, journalists, and others who are convinced her powers are real.

One hundred and twelve years ago, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen announced his discovery of an invisible form of radiation that could make photographs of bones and organs inside a living human body. At first, many scientists called the discovery of “X-rays” a hoax, but when the skeptics put Roentgen’s claims to the test, they quickly were convinced about one of the greatest discoveries in science and medicine. Indeed, just six years after his discovery, Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics.

In March 2004, the producer of a Discovery Channel documentary on Natasha asked the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) and the affiliated Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH) to scientifically test the young woman’s claims. In response, CSICOP research fellows Ray Hyman, Ph.D. and Richard Wiseman, Ph.D., and I designed a preliminary test for judging whether her abilities warranted further, study. After Natasha, her mother, her agent, and the producer agreed to the test rules, we all flew to New York for filming the test on the City College of New York campus.

Dr. Hyman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, and Dr. Wiseman, professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom, have extensive experience in testing people who claim paranormal powers. I served more than nine years as an associate editor and investigative reporter for the Journal of the American Medical Association. Based on our preliminary research, we suspected Natasha may be using a remarkably simple but convincing technique called “cold reading,” which is commonly used by psychics, astrologers, and other fortune tellers. It works especially well with people who are eager to believe the reader and therefore inclined to interpret misses as hits. Typically, the psychic offers a smorgasboard of statements while looking for any that are confirmed or get a reaction. In most cases, the client willingly twists what was said to fit his or her experiences — “a male relative with a name like James or John” is interpreted as meaning “Aunt Jane who passed away last year.”

Similarly, Natasha scans her patients from head to toe and describes a long list of abnormalities she says she sees. When she gave me a reading, preciously few organs passed the inspection. My neck vertebrae were too tight, too close. The bronchial tubes of my lungs had phlegm. The muscle on the left side of my heart is a bit weak and the valve closes late. The mucosa of my stomach is abnormal. A segment of my liver was enlarged and I was suffering poor bile circulation. The head of my pancreas is increased and abnormally dark (although not seriously). My duodenum has a little scar. My prostate gland has a nodule and is inflamed. My right kidney has “sand,” while my left kidney’s urethra is enlarged. In other words, I should forget about ever again signing an organ donor card.

Neither my physician nor I are aware of any of these problems. Nevertheless, Natasha and her supporters claim she sees what doctors and their tests often miss. The only way I could prove her wrong would be to submit to an autopsy — which I’m not quite ready to do.

So we designed a simple test that would eliminate the possibility of using cold reading to fish for correct information and to prevent Natasha from making diagnoses that could not be disproved without an autopsy. We recruited six volunteers, who each had a different medical condition visible on X-rays, plus a “normal” subject who had none of the six target conditions. Natasha was handed six test cards, each with a description of a target medical condition, in English and Russian. We also provided her with anatomical drawings to make sure she understood exactly what to look for and where to look.

The target conditions were: a removed appendix, a removed lower section of the esophagus, metal staples left in the chest after surgery; an artificial hip joint; a surgically removed upper section of the left lung; and a metal plate covering a removed section of the skull.

Natasha claims she can see abnormalities down to the cellular level and her mother says her readings are 100 percent accurate. So the test which required her to match at least five of the target medical conditions to the correct subjects should have been a breeze. She didn’t have to scan their entire bodies for unknown conditions. She was told exactly what to look for and exactly where to look. Yet, it took her more than fours to complete the test and she only matched four of the conditions correctly a score that everyone prior to the test had agreed upon would not justify further testing.

Natasha’s most dramatic misdiagno
sis was her failure to see a large metal plate covering a missing section of skull in a man who had a large brain tumor removed. Instead, she indicated that she “saw” a metal plate and missing skull section in a man who had a removed appendix but normal skull.