Thursday, January 17, 2008

Jeans Could Reduce Fertility

Acharya Girish Jha
A study conducted by AIIMS has revealed that the sperm count of a normal adult male in India, which used to be 60 million per ml around 30 years ago, has plunged to a third of that count — to around 20 million per ml. And this relatively swift decline in sperm count is being linked to habits which expose the scrotum to higher-than-normal temperatures.

The 10-year-long study, funded by ICMR and conducted by AIIMS associate professor Dr Rima Dada, questioned 1,000 men from north India and found that lifestyle factors like tight clothing, hot tub dips and long visits to the sauna, pesticide exposure due to intensive gardening or farming as well as increased obesity rates were major causes for decreasing sperm count. [ 12 Apr, 2007 0027hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

It is startling revelation by scientists and if research is carried out further, it will further reveal that cause of stress, anxiety, anger and agitation in modern life is wearing tight, thick clothes. I was also using jeans as easy outfit, comfortable in journey and very economical in maintenance. After every meditation session, I had to go my office wearing jeans which took one hour. During one hour, I always felt discomfort, uneasiness. Until 1987, I could not understand the reasons of my stress. But when I started wearing Pajama and kurta (customized Indian dress) , I felt immediate relief from stress.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Cyber Crime

Cyber crime is a criminal activity involving the information technology infrastructure, including illegal access, damaging, deletion, alteration or suppression of computer data.

Examples of cyber crime include unauthorized access, Email bombing, data diddling denial-of-service attacks.Traditional crimes facilitated through the use of computers include Nigerian 419 frauds (e.g., hacking,phishing, identity theft, child pornography, online gambling, etc. Cyberstalking (harassment) is an example of a traditional crime that has taken a new form.

Unauthorized access to computer systems or networks is commonly referred to as hacking. This includes theft of information stored in computer hard disks.
Email bombing refers to sending a large number of emails to the victim resulting in the victim's email account or mail servers crashing.

Data diddling involves altering raw data just before it is processed by a computer and then changing it back after the processing is completed. Electricity Boards in India have been victims to data diddling programs inserted when private parties were computerizing their systems.

Denial of Service attack involves flooding a computer resource with more requests than it can handle. This causes the web server to crash thereby denying authorized users the service offered by the resource.

Virus / worm attacks are programs that attach themselves to a computer or a file and then circulate themselves to other files and to other computers on a network. They usually alter or delete the data on a computer.

The VBS_LOVELETTER virus was reportedly written by a Filipino undergraduate. In May 2000, this deadly virus struck one in every five personal computers in the world. The original VBS_LOVELETTER utilized the addresses in Microsoft Outlook and emailed itself to those addresses. The e-mail, which was sent out, had "ILOVEYOU" in its subject line. The message in the e-mail was "kindly check the attached LOVELETTER coming from me". Losses incurred during this virus attack were estimated at US $ 10 billion.
Web jacking occurs when someone forcefully takes control of a website (by cracking the password and later changing it). The actual owner of the website does not have any more control over what appears on that website.

Life is about a mix of good and evil. So is the Internet. For all the good it does us, cyberspace has its dark sides too. Awareness is important and any matter should be reported at once. Until laws become more stringent or technology more advanced users must guard against electronic information sharing on their computers.
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Monday, January 14, 2008

WORD POWER

Tennis Elbow

The classic tennis elbow is caused by repeated forceful contractions of wrist muscles located on the outer forearm. The stress, created at a common muscle origin, causes microscopic tears leading to inflammation. This is a relatively small surface area located at the outer portion of the elbow (the lateral epicondyle). Medial tennis elbow, or medial epicondylitis, is caused by forceful, repetitive contractions from muscles located on the inside of the forearm. All of the forearm muscles are involved in tennis serves, when combined motions of the elbow and wrist are employed. This overuse injury is common between ages 20 and 40.

People at risk for tennis elbow are those in occupations that require strenuous or repetitive forearm movement. Such jobs include mechanics or carpentry. Sport activities that require individuals to twist the hand, wrist, and forearm, such as tennis, throwing a ball, bowling, golfing, and skiing, can cause tennis elbow. Individuals in poor physical condition, who are exposed to repetitive wrist and forearm movements for long periods of time may be prone to tennis elbow. This condition is also called epicondylitis, lateral epicondylitis, medial epicondylitis, or golfer's elbow, where pain is present at the inside epicondyle.
— Jeffrey P. Larson

Athlete's Foot

Athlete's foot is a very common condition of itchy, peeling skin on the feet. In fact, it's so common that most people will have at least one episode at least once in their lives. It's less often found in women and children under age 12. (Symptoms that look like athlete's foot in young children most probably are caused by some other skin condition).
Because the fungi grow well in warm, damp areas, they flourish in and around swimming pools, showers, and locker rooms. Tinea pedis got its common name because the infection was common among athletes who often used these areas.
— Carol A. Turkington