B.C.-Canada Place officially closes doors

Monday, March 20, 2006 marks the official close of British Columbia-Canada Place, one of the most successful attractions of the 2006 Torino Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Over the course of the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, British Columbia-Canada Place drew more than 100,000 visitors and journalists. These visitors were able to experience first hand the province’s culture, heritage, natural beauty and bustling cities. Also, more than 80 British Columbia businesses were able to connect with an international audience and showcase some of B.C.’s best products and services.

B.C.-Canada Place will be a legacy to the people of Torino. The official transfer took place in a ceremony yesterday, with Torino Mayor Sergio Chiamparino accepting a ceremonial key to the building.

“This generous gift from British Columbia will be a constant reminder of our friends in Canada and the celebrations that took place in our city during the 2006 Winter Games,” says Mayor Chiamparino. “We are honored to have this permanent B.C. presence in our city.”

Kent Kickin' Mini-Scooters

Kent is recalling about 90,000 scooters. The scooter handles can unexpectedly come out of the steering column if the clamp holding them in is not tight, causing the rider to lose control, fall and possibly suffer injuries.
Kent has received four reports of the handles coming out, resulting in four children suffering injuries, including broken arms, a broken wrist, bruises, abrasions and a cracked tooth.
These are Kickin' Mini-Scooters made of chrome-plated steel. A vertical decal on the steering column reads "KICKIN' MINI SCOOTER." The scooter's black plastic platform measures about 15 inches long, and it has 4-inch translucent in-line style wheels. "KENT" and "MADE IN CHINA" are written on the lower part of the steering column. The scooters were sold with black backpacks embroidered in white with the word "Kickin."
Toys R us stores nationwide sold the Kent scooters from May 2000 through September 2000 for about $60.
Consumers should stop riding these Kent scooters immediately, and call Kent International to receive a free replacement handlebar with pins to secure the handlebars. For more information, call Kent International at (800) 451-KENT (5368) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.
Kent has sold other models to Toys R Us such as the Street Craze, the Street Racer and Scoot that are NOT part of this recall. Scooters that Kent sold to Wal Mart, Meijer's, Target and AAFES are also NOT part of this recall.

Trampoline Safety Alert

The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) wants you and your family to be safe when using trampolines. The CPSC estimates that in 2001 there were 91,870 hospital emergency room-treated injuries associated with trampolines. About 93 percent of the victims were under 15 years of age, and 11 percent were under 5 years of age. Since 1990, CPSC has received reports of 6 deaths of children under age 15 involving trampolines. Injuries and deaths were caused by:

* Colliding with another person on the trampoline.
* Landing improperly while jumping or doing stunts on the trampoline.
* Falling or jumping off the trampoline.
* Falling on the trampoline springs or frame.
Most of the trampolines associated with injuries were at private homes.
Here are the steps you can take to help prevent serious trampoline injuries, especially paralysis, fractures, sprains, and bruises:

* Allow only one person on the trampoline at a time.
* Do not attempt or allow somersaults because landing on the head or neck can cause paralysis.
* Do not use the trampoline without shock-absorbing pads that completely cover its springs, hooks, and frame.
* Place the trampoline away from structures, trees, and other play areas.
* No child under 6 years of age should use a full-size trampoline. Do not use a ladder with the trampoline because it provides unsupervised access by small children.
* Always supervise children who use a trampoline.
* Trampoline enclosures can help prevent injuries from falls off trampolines.

Accumulator

In a computer CPU, an accumulator is a register in which intermediary arithmetic and logic results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation (addition, multiplication, shift, etc.) to main memory, possibly only to be read right back again for use in the next operation. Access to main memory is slower than access to a register like the accumulator because the technology used for the huge main memory is slower (but cheaper) than that used for a register.

The canonical example for accumulator use is adding a list of numbers. The accumulator is initially set to zero, then each number in spin is added to the value in the accumulator. Only when all numbers have been added is the result seized in the accumulator written to main memory or to another, non-accumulator, CPU register.

Roll-to-roll processing,

Roll-to-roll processing, also known as 'web' processing, is the process of creating electronic devices on a roll of flexible plastic or metal foil. Large circuits made with thin-film transistors and other devices can be easily patterned onto these large substrates, which can be up to a few metres wide and 50 km long. Some of the devices can be patterned directly, much like an inkjet printer deposits ink. For most semiconductors, however, the devices must be patterened using photolithography techniques.

Tissue engineering

One of the goals of tissue engineering is to create artificial organs for patients that need organ transplants. Biomedical engineers are currently researching methods of creating such organs. In one case bladders have been grown in lab and transplanted successfully into patients. Bioartificial organs, which utilize both synthetic and biological components, are also a focus area in research, such as with hepatic assist devices that utilize liver cells within an artificial bioreactor construct.

A general view on Computer

A computer is a machine capable of processing data according to a program — a list of instructions. The data to be processed may possibly represent many types of information counting numbers, text, pictures, or sound. The short definition for COMPUTER is “common oriented machine particularly used for technical and educational research”.

Computers can be very versatile. In actual fact, they are universal information processing machines. As said by the Church-Turing thesis, a computer with a certain minimum threshold capability is in principle competent of performing the tasks of any other computer, from those of a personal digital supporter to a supercomputer. So, the same computer designs have been modified for tasks from processing company payrolls to controlling industrial robots. Modern electronic computers also have great speed and capability for information processing compared to earlier designs, and they have become exponentially very powerful over the years (it is a phenomenon known as Moore's Law).

Computers are obtainable in many physical forms. The original computers were the size of a large room, and such great computing facilities still exist for specialized scientific computation - supercomputers - and for the business deal processing requirements of large companies, in general called mainframes. Smaller computers for personage use, called personal computers, and their handy equivalent, the notebook computer, are ubiquitous information-processing and communication tools and are perhaps what most non-experts imagine of as "a computer". However, the most ordinary form of computer in use today is the embedded computer, small computers used to manage another device. The Embedded computers control machines from the fighter planes to digital cameras.

Box

This article is about the container or vessel called a box. For other uses, see Box (disambiguation).

An elaborate wooden box Boxes are extremely variable receptacles. When no shape is described, a typical rectangular box may be expected. Nevertheless, a box may have a horizontal cross section that is square, elongated, round or oval; sloped or domed top surfaces, or non-vertical sides. A box normally may be opened by raising, sliding or removing the lid, which may be hinged and/or secure by a catch, clasp, or lock. Whatever its shape or purpose or the material of which it is formed, it is the direct descendant of the chest, one of the most ancient articles of marital furniture. Its uses are innumerable, and the name, preceded by a qualifying adjective, has been given to many objects of imaginative or antiquarian interest. Objects are often placed inside boxes, for a multiplicity of reasons - see storage.

The real facts about Neptune

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the fourth largest (by diameter) of the planet. Neptune is smaller in diameter but bigger in mass than Uranus. Neptune's composition is almost certainly alike to Uranus': various "ices" and rock with about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it can not have a distinct internal layering but rather to be more or less uniform in composition. But there is most expected a small core (about the mass of the Earth) of rock-strewn material. Its atmosphere is generally hydrogen and helium with a minute amount of methane.

Neptune's blue color is mainly the result of absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere but there is a number of additional as-yet-unidentified chromophore which gives the clouds their rich blue tint. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune has an inner heat source -- it radiates more than, twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun.

Neptune also has rings. Earth-based observations showed just faint arcs rather than complete rings, but Voyager 2's images showed them to be entire rings with bright clumps. One of the rings looks to have a curious twisted structure (right). Like Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune's rings are extremely dark but their composition is unknown.

Neptune's rings have been noted names: the outermost is Adams (which contains three important arcs now named Liberty, Equality and Fraternity), next is an unnamed ring co-orbital with Galatea, then Leverrier (whose outer extensions are called Lassell and Arago), and lastly the faint but broad Galle. Neptune's magnetic field is, like Uranus', oddly oriented and most likely generated by motions of conductive material (probably water) in its middle layers.

The real facts about Pluto

Pluto orbits away from the orbit of Neptune (usually). It is greatly smaller than any of the official planets and currently classified as a "dwarf planet". Pluto is lesser than seven of the solar system's moons (the Moon, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan and Triton). Pluto has been given number 134340 in the minor planet catalog. Pluto's orbit is extremely eccentric. At times it is nearer to the Sun than Neptune (as it was from January 1979 thru February 11 1999). Pluto rotates in the conflicting direction from most of the other planets.

Pluto is safe in a 3:2 resonance with Neptune; i.e. Pluto's orbital period is just 1.5 times longer than Neptune's. Its orbital inclination is as well much higher than the other planets'. Thus though it looks that Pluto's orbit crosses Neptune's, it actually doesn't and they will never collide. Pluto's composition is unidentified, but its density (about 2 gm/cm3) indicates that it is almost certainly a mixture of 70% rock and 30% water ice much like Triton. The bright areas of the surface appear to be covered with ices of nitrogen with lesser amounts of (solid) methane, ethane and carbon monoxide. The composition of the darker areas of Pluto's surface is unidentified but may be due to primordial organic material or photochemical reactions driven by cosmic rays.

Little is recognized about Pluto's atmosphere, but it perhaps consists primarily of nitrogen with some carbon monoxide and methane. It is very tenuous, the surface pressure being only some microbars. Pluto's atmosphere can exist as a gas only when Pluto is near its perihelion; for the greater part of Pluto's long year, the atmospheric gases are frozen into ice. Close to perihelion, it is likely that some of the atmosphere escapes to space possibly even interacting with Charon. NASA mission planners want to appear at Pluto while the atmosphere is still unfrozen.

Butter chicken

Butter chicken or murgh makhani is an Indian dish accepted in countries all over the world that have a tradition of Indian restaurants. While the dish's general recipe is well known, the actual flavour can differ from restaurant to restaurant even within Delhi. Butter chicken is usually served with naan, roti, parathas or steamed rice.

It is a dish prepared by marinating a chicken overnight in a yoghurt and spice mixture usually together with garam masala, ginger, lemon or lime, pepper, coriander, cumin, turmeric, chilli, methi and garlic. It is in various ways like to chicken tikka masala. The chicken is then roasted or dry as a bone.

Fresh skin-care tips

Select fresh, organically grown fruit and vegetables for the highest benefits. Avoid making more than you require for a single application.Clean and sanitize all countertops and mixing utensils ahead of making any of the recipes. Clean all fruit and vegetables before using as ingredients. Leave all ingredients out of the fridge for up to an hour before integration. Don't let fruit acquire any warmer than room temperature.

Fresh fruit and vegetables are especially high in acids. If you apply anything to your skin and encounter a burning sensation, take out immediately and apply cool water.If you are in the care of a dermatologist and on acne medications, please consult with your physician first.

Traffic Claming

Traffic calming is a set of strategies used by urban planners and traffic engineers which aims to slow down traffic and get better safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, although some of these features can also be hazardous to cyclists. It is now comparatively common in Europe, especially Northern Europe; less so in North America.Traffic calming has conventionally been justified on the grounds of pedestrian safety and reduction of noise and local air pollution which are side effects of the traffic. However, it has become more and more apparent that streets have many social and recreational functions which are severely impaired by fast car traffic. For much of the twentieth century, streets were designed by engineers who were charged only with ensuring traffic flow and not with development other functions of streets. The rationale for traffic reassuring is now broadening to include designing for these functions.

Asian Paradise Flycatcher

The Asian Paradise Flycatcher, also known as the Common Paradise Flycatcher, is a medium-sized passerine bird. It was in the past classified with the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae, but the paradise flycatchers, monarch flycatchers and Australasian fantails are now usually grouped with the drongos in the family Dicruridae, which has the majority of its members in Australasia and tropical southern Asia.

The Asian glory Flycatcher breeds from Turkestan to Manchuria. It is wandering, wintering in tropical Asia. There are resident populations further south, for example in southern India and Sri Lanka, so both visiting migrants and the in the vicinity reproduction subspecies take place in these areas in winter.

This species is typically originated in thick forests and other well-wooded habitats. Three or four eggs are laid in a cup shell in a tree.

The adult male Asian Paradise Flycatcher is about 20 cm long, but the long tail streamers double this. It has a black crested head, stale joke upperparts and pale grey underparts.

By their second year, the males of the wandering Indian race T. p. paradisi begin to obtain white feathers. By the third year, the male plumage is totally white, other than the black head. Males of the sedentary Sri Lankan race T. p. ceylonensis are forever stale joke.

The female of all races resembles the stale joke male, but has a grey throat, minor peak and lacks the tail streamers.

Salad

Salad is a light meal — or, as part of a larger meal, much more of an taster — consisting of mixed vegetables (usually including at least one leaf vegetable) or fruit, frequently with a dressing or sauce, occasionally nuts and sometimes with the addition of meat, fish or cheese. It is generally seen as a healthy dish, although not always low in calories, salt, sugar, or fat because of the dressing that is often added.The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, which in twist is from the Latin salata, "salty", from sal, "salt".

Mainframes

Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as big iron) are huge and expensive computers used mainly by government institutions and large companies for mission critical applications, usually bulk data processing such as censuses, industry/consumer statistics, ERP, and financial transaction processing.
The term originated during the early 1970s with the introduction of smaller, fewer complex computers such as the DEC PDP-8 and PDP-11 series, which became known as minicomputers or just minis. The industry/users then coined the term "mainframe" to describe bigger, earlier types (previously known simply as "computers").

Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Pharos of Alexandria was a big tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to give out as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.

With a height variously estimated at between 115 and 150 meters (383 - 450 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon. It was the third tallest building after the two Great Pyramids (of Khufu and Khafra) for its whole life. Some scientists approximate a much taller height exceeding 180 metres that would make the tower the tallest building up to the 14th century.

Traffic light

A traffic light or traffic signal is a signalling device positioned at a road junction or pedestrian crossing to indicate when it is safe to drive, ride or walk, using a universal color code.Traffic lights for usual vehicles or pedestrians always have two main lights, a red one that means stop and a green one that means go. Generally, the red light contains some orange in its hue, and the green light contains some blue, to provide some support for people with red-green color blindness. In most countries there is also a yellow (or amber) light, which when on and not flashing means stop if able to do so securely. In some systems, a flashing amber means that a motorist may go in advance with care if the road is clear, giving way to pedestrians and to other road vehicles that may have precedence. A flashing red effectively means the same as a regular stop sign. There may be additional lights (usually a green arrow or "filter") to allow turns (called a lead light in the U.S., because it is usually leading the main green light).

Vegetable

Vegetable is a culinary term which usually refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat capricious and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, entire or in part, are normally considered vegetables. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological realm fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables. In general, vegetables are thought of as being savory, and not sweet, even though there are many exceptions. Nuts, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits (see below) are usually not considered vegetables.

Asia

Asia is the world's biggest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area (or 29.4% of its land area) and, with almost 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's present human population.

Chiefly in the eastern and northern hemispheres, Asia is conventionally defined as part of the landmass of Africa-Eurasia – with the western portion of the latter occupied by Europe – lying east of the Suez Canal, east of the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is surrounded to the east by the Pacific Ocean, to the south by the Indian Ocean, and to the north by the Arctic Ocean.

Given its size and diversity, Asia – a toponym dating back to classical antiquity – is more a cultural concept incorporating a number of regions and peoples than a homogeneous, physical entity.