An environmentally-friendly washing machine developed in Britain that uses only one cup of water to clean clothes could be on sale next year.
The appliance, which could save billions of litres of water a year, has been developed at the University of Leeds.
It uses less than 10 per cent of the water of conventional machines and 30 per cent less energy by replacing most of the water with thousands of tiny reusable plastic beads to attract and absorb dirt under humid conditions.
Xeros, the company behind the technology, will start selling the machine to commercial customers such as hotels and dry cleaners before taking the idea to ordinary household consumers
Only a small amount of water and detergent is needed to dampen the clothes, loosen stains and create the water vapour that allows the beads to work. After the cycle is finished, the beads fall through a mesh in the machine’s drum and can be re-used up to a hundred times.
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Regardless of what operating system you run on your computer, it doesn't have to be all work and no play. Here's a list of games that you can install on Windows, Mac, and Linux (and some even on BeOS and BSD). Enjoy!
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SJK(C) Jalan Davidson is the first school in Malaysia to be closed after an 11-year-old student testing positive on Friday for the Influeza A(H1N1) was found to have transmitted the virus to two classmates.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the National Security Council agreed to close the school until June 26 and its students and staff numbering some 2,100 were home quarantined.
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Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall has devised a formula to pinpoint the day we are all most likely to feel the cheeriest.
The former NHS psychologist and Cardiff University lecturer said people should forget credit crunch worries because the secret of happiness lies with things which are free.
Dr Arnall, 44, who runs the Feelconsultancy.com happiness clinics, said feel-good sensations are enjoying time with friends and loves ones, appreciating nature in the sunshine and looking forward to the weekend and a holiday.
His complicated mathematic formula is: O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He.
Put simply, he gave values to each symbol and added being outdoors (O) to nature (N) multiplied by social interaction (S), added memories of childhood summers (Cpm) divided by the temperature (T), and added excitement about holidays (He).
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Kissing the Blareny Stone in Ireland could give you more than just the gift of the gab after it was named as the world's most unhygienic tourist attraction.
Researchers said the Stone, kissed by up to 400,000 people a year, rates as the most germ-filled of sites - although it admitted it had no scientific evidence to back its case.
Local legend has it that visitors who bend over backwards to kiss the stone built into Blarney Castle, near Cork, Ireland, are rewarded with the 'gift of the gab'.
But internet travel website TripAdvisor.com believes those who kiss the stone are likely to end up with something else other than fluent speech as it is so germ ridden.
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Queen ants dozily dream, while worker ants are forced to get by taking power naps, the first study of the sleeping habits of ants has revealed.
Queen fire ants fall into relatively long, deep sleeps and kip for an average of nine hours every day.
By contrast, workers sleep just half as much and get to rest by taking hundreds of short power naps.
This division of rest may help explain why queens live for years, while worker ants typically only live for months.
It also ensures that enough worker ants are awake at any one time to protect and serve the colony.
Deby Cassill of the University of South Florida in St Petersburg, US teamed with colleagues Skye Brown and Devon Swick of the same university, and George Yanev of the University of Texas in Arlington, US to study the sleeping patterns of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta.
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For the first time, researchers have proved the rapid changes that drinking alcohol causes in human brain cells.
Previous tests on how alcohol affects the brain have only been done on animals.
Scientists set out to test the well-known saying that just one drink can quickly go to your head.
Only six minutes after consuming an amount of alcohol equivalent to three glasses of beer or two glasses of wine, leading to a blood alcohol level of 0.05 to 0.06 percent, changes had already taken place in brain cells.
The researchers from Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany said it is known the brain reacts quickly to alcohol, but wanted to find out how rapid the effect was.
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An Australian University is warning its faculty and students about some potential adverse health effects of using Apple's notebook and other products with high gloss screens, saying prolonged use could lead to injury if precautionary measures aren't adopted.
The advisory, published a few months ago by Brisbane, Australia-based Queensland University of Technology on its Health and Safety website, specifically addresses Mac users with Apple 'glass' or high gloss monitor screens and urges them to assess the manner in which those products are positioned and used.
"Reflections and glare on high gloss monitor screens and their relation to the angle of the monitor screen, could cause the operator to adopt awkward postures when viewing the monitor screen and using related equipment," the advisory says. "These reflections on the screen can be from internal and external sources such as the overhead lighting and/or position of windows."
Queensland recommends that users of such products conduct an assessment of the area in which those products are to be used to ensure the sources of reflections and glare are eliminated or minimised to reduce the potential for injury. It advises users to close their blinds or window shades and place the glossy displays at a 90 degree angle to any overhead lighting to minimise glare and reflection.
The university even goes as far as to recommend that students and faculty consider not purchasing products with glossy displays. Those who must, however, are urged to consult with a "Facilities Management Lighting engineer to determine if overhead lighting can be modified e.g. tube removed and still provide adequate levels of light to enable reading, writing and screen based equipment work tasks to be performed."
Other recommendations for those who must use glossy displays include adjusting the contrast to a 'low brightness' setting, which the school says will increases readability for users of high gloss monitor screens with a glass surface.
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The long wait is almost over for iPhone and iPod touch owners as the much-anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 update which will available soon for download June 18.
Users can expect a number of significant improvements with the newly added Spotlight search feature that will allow them to search the entire device across mail, iPod music/videos and other applications.
Other notable changes include the long requested widescreen keyboard modes for all major applications such as Mail and Notes that will give users a larger keyboard to type messages on.
Extending beyond the keyboard, Apple has also added widescreen modes for other key applications like contacts and Stocks, which will show stock performance in greater detail.
Cut and paste, another long-awaited feature also marks its debut in iPhone OS 3.0. Users can now double tap on text to highlight text they wish to cut or copy or accurately drag across text to select specific words.
There’s also a handy clipboard where you can store all your copied text onto for later use.
Additionally, the feature also extends to selecting text and pictures on webpages to be copied and pasted on e-mails.
The new update will also bring localised language support in Bahasa Malaysia.
Other updates like the ability to send MMS messages and Internet tethering, whereby the iPhone 3G serves as a modem for a computer, are still unconfirmed. For more up-to-date information on this, visit
www.maxis.com.my/iphone.
The iPhone OS 3.0 update is free for iPhone users while iPod touch users will have to pay US$9.95 (RM35.10). The update is available via iTunes 8.2.
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Ugly Top 10
1 Bastard cobas (Cyphostemma juttae)
A slow-growing, ornamental plant that can reach 6ft, also called wild grape, tree grape and Namibian grape. Plants are found in Namibia. The large shiny leaves tend to fall during winter and grape-like bunches appear near the end of summer.
2 Birthworts (Aristolochia gigantea)
Also referred to as pipe vines, they are widespread and appear in various climates. The basis of the plant is an intertwining stem with simple leaves. The flowers have a strong scent.
3 Elephant's trunk (Pachypodium namaquanum)
Found in the North Cape of Namibia, the plant consists of a thick trunk, densely covered in spines. There is a crown at the top appearing during the growing months of winter, and velvet-textured flowers appear from August to October.
4 Corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanium)
This plant only blooms every four to six years within its 40-year life expectancy. The flower is described as the world's largest; reaching 5ft high and 4ft wide. For eight hours of the three-day bloom, the flower emits a smell that is described as rotting flesh, attracting a carrion-eating beetle, for pollination. The plant is also known as an aphrodisiac.
5 Tree tumbo (Welwitschia mirabilis)
The plant, found in south-west Africa, specifically Namibia and Angola, is considered a living fossil. Initially, the plant grows two leaves from one thick trunk and, as the plant continues to grow, the leaves may split. Some plants are estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.
6 Thorn of the cross (Colletia paradoxa)
Also known as gigs, curumamil, cross or crown of the cross. From South America, this slow-growing shrub with greyish flowers blooms in March and April. Often used as an ornamental plant for its fragrance, it is under threat of extinction, due to a loss of habitat.
7 Stinky squid (Pseudocolus fusiformis)
A mushroom first reported in Pittsburgh, North America, in 1915. Often found at the edge of woods, in parks and gardens, usually in summer and autumn. The body first resembles a puffball, but later splits to form a stalk with arms that taper.
8 Sea onion (Bowiea volubilis)
Also known as the climbing onion, this plant originates from South Africa. The bulb is a pale green, with half growing underground. New branches appear each year, making it look like an elongated asparagus, with greenish flowers.
9 Vegetable sheep (Raoulia eximia)
Named because of the way it looks from a distance, this is found in New Zealand's Southern Alps. This shrub forms grey-white mounds and can spread 5ft. Tiny leaves are covered in hairs, with flowers beneath.
10 Monkey cups (Nepenthes)
Also commonly known as tropical pitcher plants, this plant comes from a family of more than 120 species. They are vine-forming, originating from south China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The plant grows as a climbing vine.
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Couples who live together are more than twice as likely to become obese than those who live separately, new research shows.
The study to be published next month in the journal Obesity also showed that the risk of obesity rises the longer people live together.
Penny Gordon-Larsen, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, found some positive health benefits to marriage, including decreased cigarette smoking and lower mortality.
She said people living together – married or not – tended to eat meals together, possibly cooking bigger meals or eating out more often than they did when they were single.
They were more likely to watch television together instead of going to the gym or playing a sport. Her research found that couples who lived together for more than two years – especially those who were married – were most likely to display similar obesity patterns and physical behaviours.
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Korean boy singing "Tuts My Barreh", by Mariah Carey.
Don't miss audition by Bulgarian Idol, Ken Lee (Mariah Carey - Without You)
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A schoolboy has survived a direct hit by a meteorite after it fell to earth at 30,000mph.
Gerrit Blank, 14, was on his way to school when he saw "ball of light" heading straight towards him from the sky.
A red hot, pea-sized piece of rock then hit his hand before bouncing off and causing a foot wide crater in the ground.
The teenager survived the strike, the chances of which are just 1 in a million - but with a nasty three-inch long scar on his hand.
He said: "At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand.
"Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder."
"The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards.
"When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road," he explained.
Scientists are now studying the pea-sized meteorite which crashed to Earth in Essen, Germany.
"I am really keen on science and my teachers discovered that the fragment is really magnetic," said Gerrit.
Chemical tests on the rock have proved it had fallen from space.
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Malaysians can expect hotter and drier days till September as an El Nino phenomenon is forming.
While the real extent of the El Nino impact could only be gauged sometime in August, more open burning was expected to contribute to more haze, the Meterological Department said in a report.
Malaysia experiences a hot and dry season in the months of June, July and August and temperatures range between 33C to 34C.
It is understood that temperatures could soar another 3C during El Nino.
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It is the world's smallest, portable microwave and can be powered via a link to the USB port on a laptop computer.
The turquoise device -called the Beanzawave - has been created in partnership with Heinz to allow workers tied to their desks to create a warm snack, or hot drink, to see them through the day.
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Sleeping on a problem really can help solve it, claim scientists who discovered a nap can improve your powers of creativity.
Researchers found that people were able to think more laterally and quickly after a snooze and that if they dreamed the ability was even more enhanced.
The scientists believe that "incubating" a problem often leads to a solution but that the effect was increased when people entered a phase of sleep known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM).
They believe that REM which occurs most predominantly just before we awake – helps the brain make connections between unrelated subjects.
REM sleep they concluded was "important for assimilating new information into past experience" to come up with solutions to creative problems.
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Kent “Toast” French has developed his own technique for clapping. He combined his unique style with amazing agility and endurance to set the world's record for the most claps in one minute--an astonishing 721 times in 60 seconds! That's a rate of 12 claps per second.
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A software engineer from California is on a mission to visit every single Starbucks coffee shop on the planet. Winter, 37, has spent 12 years drinking coffee in 9,100 chain stores. He estimates he has 3,000 left.
In each Starbucks, Winter drinks one cup of regular brewed coffee. He takes a photo and posts it on his website, starbuckseverywhere.net.
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Concerned about the rising number of students who ride their motorcycles to school without a licence, the Road Safety Department and Safety Driving Centre has decided to offer them licences at a discounted rate from next month.
A survey conducted among secondary school students found that many of them did not possess a valid licence because the cost was beyond their reach, Road Safety Department director-general Datuk Suret Singh said.
He said parents should not allow their children to ride motorcycles without a licence as the authorities would take stern action against them in addition to confiscating the vehicle.
“Under the motorcycle licence promotion campaign, those who are applying for the B2 class of below 250cc will get a 50% discount from June 1 to Aug 31,” he told reporters after signing a memorandum of understanding between the Road Safety Department and Safety Driving Centre here Friday.
The three-month promotion is targeted at secondary school students aged between 15 and 19 and the licence package starts from RM199.
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You may already know that vitamin D can help build strong teeth and bones, but wait until you hear what else it can do for the rest of your body. D can keep you trim, boost your mood, ward off sniffles, drastically cut your risk of cancer, and more.
“We could prevent 150,000 cases of cancer annually if we could just increase vitamin D to optimal levels,” says Cedric Garland, a doctor of public health, a leading vitamin D researcher, and a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
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Tan Sri Robert Kuok, the Kuok Group patriarch, remains Malaysia's richest with a net worth of US$9 billion, down from US$10 billion a year ago, according to the 2009 Forbes Asia Malaysia Rich List. In a statement here today, Forbes said Kuok has held the top spot every year since Forbes Asia began ranking the 40 richest Malaysians in 2006.
Businessman Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan held on to his second place with a net worth of US$7 billion,just down from US$7.2 billion last year. He has also maintained the same ranking every year since 2006.
Together, Kouk and Ananda account for 44% of the top 40's wealth. They are also the two richest people in Southeast Asia.
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A husband tells his wife that she is no longer pretty in an attempt to humiliate her can be classified as an emotional violence offence if amendments are made to the Domestic Violence Act (DVA)1994.
The plan is to amend the DVA for the inclusion of a clause on emotional violence against women.
Currently, they are only protected only against physical abuse, Women's Development Department director-general Datuk Dr Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur said.
She said on Wednesday that the aim for proposing the amendment was to safeguard women both physically and emotionally.
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Every married person knows it, but a local study has confirmed it – mothers-in-law are the chief cause of divorces, especially in the Indian community.
Data in the Malaysia Community and Family Study 2004 by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) revealed that “meddlesome in-laws” is the number one reason why Indian couples get divorced.
It is also among the top three factors for divorce among the Malays and Chinese. The other two factors are incompatibility (42.3%) and infidelity (12%).
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The four-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson died at a hospital on Tuesday, a day after her neck apparently got caught in a treadmill cord at her Phoenix home, police said.
Exodus Tyson had been on life support and police have said their investigation showed her injury on Monday was a "tragic accident."
"There are no words to describe the tragic loss of our beloved Exodus," the family said in a statement.
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Singapore’s health ministry has confirmed the country’s first influenza A (H1N1) case, a 22-year-old local woman who picked up the virus after visiting New York.
The ministry said in a statement Wednesday that the woman was in New York from May 14 to 24, and reported developing a cough on her flight back to Singapore earlier this week.
The ministry says it has quarantined people with whom the woman has been in close contact and is searching for passengers who were on the same flight from New York.
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A New York toddler still in nappies has a growing reputation as a pool shark with a mean bank shot - even though he has to stand on a chair to reach the table.
Two-year-old Keith O'Dell Jr has pool shooting videos posted on YouTube, has his own website (www.poolprodigy.com) and is the youngest member of the American Pool Association.
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About a million DiGi prepaid customers suffered a nationwide service disruption yesterday morning. The mobile communications company is apologising and offering compensation for the inconvenience.
DiGi Communications said in a press release that it is offering all its prepaid service subscribers 50% off on voice calls this Thursday, from 7am to 7pm, as a small way to make up for yesterday’s disruption.
The disruption lasted from 8am to 11.45am and impacted both voice and SMS services.
“I take this extremely seriously. Our customers have an expectation to be always on and I am disappointed that they have been inconvenienced, and for that I apologise,” said DiGi chief executive officer Johan Dennelind.
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Joe writes, “My tattoo is 3 lines of equations, the top is the Born Oppenheimer Approximation, the second line is the equation in the form of a 3-Dimensional Schroedinger Equation, and the solution in the form of a Schroedinger Equation. As a biochemist and molecular biophysicist I studied a lot of this stuff and I must say, Schroedinger was my favorite and well, I had to do it. The ink was done at Red Sky Studios in Tucson, AZ by artist Lisa.”
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