Showing posts with label ft1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ft1. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Selena Gomez: I'm still young
The American singer-and-actress began her career at the age of seven on Barney & Friends. She has since ventured into feature films and the music industry.
Selena, 19, insists there is a lot of pressure on young people in showbusiness, including friend and fellow star Demi Lovato ' who was recently hospitalised for exhaustion.
'Other 18-year-olds are dealing with college and getting into school and figuring out who they are and that's really stressful. But we have a different kind of pressure. A lot of pressure,' she admitted in an interview with the British edition of OK! magazine.
'People say things that hurt our feelings and affect us ' they don't realise what they say, and ultimately at the end of the day we are kids.'
Selena is conflicted about whether she is still a child or entering adulthood. The star insists she'll always remain young at heart.
'I feel like even when I am 40, I'm going to want to feel like a little kid at heart, but I do feel at the same time I am growing up,' she confessed.
Away from the pressures of fame, Selena is enjoying a romance with Canadian superstar Justin Bieber.
The brunette beauty values the 18-year-old's sense of humour and generosity.
'When you laugh so hard your stomach hurts!' she replied with asked what the best thing about being in love is.
'I'm very simple. Just kindness. That sounds cheesy, but it's true. As long as someone is really kind and kind to other people, that's all that matters.'
© Cover Media /Music-News
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Cave painters were realists, DNA study finds
It's not just a matter of aesthetics: Paintings based on real life can give first-hand glimpses into the environment of tens of thousands of years ago. But scientists have wondered how much imagination went into animal drawings etched in caves around Europe.
The latest analysis published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences focused on horses since they appeared most frequently on rock walls. The famed Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwest France and the Chauvet Cave in southeast France feature numerous scenes of brown and black horses. Other caves like the Pech Merle in southern France are adorned with paintings of white horses with black spots.
Past studies of ancient DNA have only turned up evidence of brown and black horses during that time. That led scientists to question whether the spotted horses were real or fantasy.
To get at the genetics of equine coat color, an international team led by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Germany analyzed DNA from fossilized bones and teeth from 31 prehistoric horses. The samples were recovered from more than a dozen archaeological sites in Siberia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the Iberian peninsula.
It turned out six of the horses had a genetic mutation that gives rise to a spotted coat, suggesting that ancient artists were drawing what they were seeing. Brown was the most common coat color, found in 18 horses.
Researchers who were not part of the study praised the use of genetics, saying it supports their observations.
Paleoanthropologist John Shea of Stony Brook University in New York said he was not surprised that cave artists were in tune with their surroundings since they needed to know all they could about their prey to hunt them.
"These artists were better observers of their natural environment than many humans are today," Shea said in an email.
Just because cave art was rooted in reality doesn't mean Ice Age painters lacked creativity.
Archaeologist Paul Pettitt of the University of Sheffield in England said ancient artists were "immensely creative," using techniques such as charcoal shading that are still found in modern art. (AP)
Taylor Swift reigns at CMAs
Taylor Swift was the big winner at the 45th Annual Country Music Association (CMA) Awards.The popular musician scooped the ceremony's top honour last night ' the Entertainer of the Year award.
She beat off stiff competition from Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Jason Aldean and Brad Paisley.
Taylor jumped up from her seat in excitement when her name was announced, before hugging her mother and friend Tim McGraw.
View Taylor Swift CMA Photos
The 21-year-old star also won the award in 2009, joining Barbara Mandrell as the second woman to win the honour twice.
Married couple Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton also enjoyed success at the awards bash. The pair were named Best Female Vocalist and Best Male Vocalist respectively.
Both were thrilled at triumphing in the categories for the second time in a row.
'I didn't prepare anything to say at all. I didn't think y'all would let me get away with this two times. . Thank you!' Blake gushed.
Minutes later, Miranda accepted her award. She gave a short thank-you speech.
'Seriously?' she asked. 'I'm very, very humbled.'
The CMAs were not short of controversy.Read more at Music-News
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Quandary of the kilo triggers a weighty reflexion
To the bafflement of scientists, a cylinder of metal sitting in a closely-guarded strongbox that is the global benchmark for the kilogram is changing mass.
The enigma doesn't affect anyone who wants to buy 500-milligramme tablets of aspirin, half a kilo of carrots or a 50,000-tonne cruise ship.
But it poses a hefty theoretical challenge to physicists, and complicates the work of labs which need ultra-precise, always-standard measurement.
Since 1889, the kilogram has been internationally defined in accordance with a piece of metal kept at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (known by its French acronym of BIPM), in the Paris suburb of Sevres.
Ninety-percent platinum and 10-percent iridium, the British-made cylinder was proudly deemed at its founding to be as inalienable as the stars in the sky.
It is kept under three glass cases in a safe in a protected building, the Pavillon de Breteuil.
In 1992 came a shock: the famous kilo was no longer what it should be.
Measurements made over a century showed that the prototype had changed by around 50 microgrammes -- the equivalent of a tiny grain of sand 0.4 millimetres (0.015 inches) in diameter -- compared to six other kilos also stored in Sevres.
"Actually, we're not sure whether it lost mass or gained it," Alain Picard, director of the BIPM's Mass Department, told AFP.
"The change may be to due to surface effects, loss of gas from the metal or a buildup of contaminant."
The skinnier (or fatter) kilo became more than a scientific curiosity.
-- Kilo will still be a kilo --
It is a bedrock of the International System of Units (SI), the world's most widely-used system of measurement units for daily life, precision engineering, science and trade.
The SI has seven "base units" -- the kilo, metre, second, ampere, kelvin, mole and candela -- from which all other units are derived.
But unlike its counterparts, the kilo is the last unit that is still defined by a material object.
There used to be a platinum ruler that was the world's standard metre until its role was replaced by a fundamental constant, the time that light takes to travel 100 centimetres. The metal metre still resides in Sevres, but as a museum piece.
Moving at a pace best described as ponderous, the masters of the SI have now decided to phase out the kilo cylinder.
If all goes well, it will be replaced by a fixed value based on the Planck Constant, named after Max Planck, the granddaddy of quantum physics, who
discovered it in 1899.
The Planck Constant, which uses the letter "h" in equations, corresponds to the smallest packet of energy, or quanta, that two particles can exchange.
On October 21, the General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) agreed to use the constant to calculate the value of the kilo.
But adopting this "will not be before 2014," after experiments to assess the accuracy of measurement techniques to ensure accuracy to within 20 parts per billion.
If the Planck Constant is adopted, nothing in everyday life will change. The kilo will still be a kilo.
"However, the changes will have immediate impact in the excruciatingly accurate measurements carried out by highly specialised laboratories," the conference said in a press release. (AFP)
Taylor Swift in Mini Dress at BMI Country Awards
Taylor Swift attends the 59th Annual BMI Country Awards on November 8, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Images: celebuzz.com View More Images at Celebuzz
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Mars crew "lands" after 520 days in isolation
The $15 million Mars500 experiment aims to answer one of the big unknowns of deep-space travel: can people stay healthy and sane during six months rocketing to the Red Planet?
The six male volunteers were allowed to briefly embrace family and friends before being ushered into a three-day quarantine period at the end of an experiment to recreate the psychological strain of a real Mars mission as closely as possible.
Clothed in blue jumpsuits, the would-be astronauts from Europe, Russia and China grinned and waved as the heavy metal door was shut on their home of the last 17 months in a mock spaceship at a Moscow research institute.
"It's really, really great to see you all again, rather heartwarming," said Diego Urbina, an Italian-Colombian participant, who was shaky and red-eyed.
"On this mission we've achieved the longest isolation ever so that humankind can go to a distant but reachable planet."
Psychologists fear a return to the noise and activity of ordinary life will come as a shock to the men.
"Time seems to have flown by since we closed the hatch last year. But how time really felt to the crew we'll soon know. Probably we'll have a very big difference of opinion," said Igor Ushakov, head of the Russian Institute for Biomedical Problems, which runs the "spaceship."
The crew were firmly anchored by gravity, despite the pretence of long months shuttling through space. But that did not stop them from feeling thousands of miles from home.
"I really felt a physical distance between our crew and the people in Mission Control. My reason knows that they're just 20 m (65 ft) away from us but my mind can't accept it," Frenchman Romain Charles wrote to Reuters on the eve of his return.
The men have fed on rations like those of real astronauts, rarely showered, taken daily urine and blood samples all while under 24-hour surveillance everywhere but in the toilets, earning the study comparisons to a reality TV show. (Reuters)
Miss Venezuela wins Miss World crown
Miss Philippines, Gwendoline Gaelle Sandrine Ruais, was named the runner-up, while Miss Puerto Rico, Amanda Victoria Vilanova Perez, came third.
Sarcos Colimenares, 22, who works for a broadcasting company and has a degree in human resources, gasped and threw her hands to her face as she was announced the winner.
Some 113 beauty queens from Albania to Zimbabwe took their place on the stage, with the show being broadcast live to an estimated audience of more than one billion viewers in 150 countries. (AFP)
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Ryanair's Sexy New Cabin Crew Calendar
 |
Ryanair'sRyanair, ever the bastion of reason in modern airline travel, issued its annual Cabin Crew Charity Calendar on Wednesday.Read more |
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Loneliness may cause fitful sleep: study
Reporting in the journal Sleep, Lianne Kurina of the University of Chicago and colleagues studied loneliness and sleep patterns among a group of older residents living in two colonies of Hutterites in South Dakota.
People in this religious sect live communally, sharing possessions and meals. They are rarely socially isolated.
She said the findings were similar to those from a 2002 study of college students that compared feelings of loneliness to sleep quality. It found that the lonelier the students felt, the more fitfully they slept.
The researchers collected information on feelings of loneliness, blood pressure and sleep from 95 residents of the Hutterite communities.
To measure sleep, study volunteers wore wrist bands that measured their activity and level of restlessness during sleep.
Among the residents, roughly half said they were not lonely. But among the remaining half, the researchers noted a trend between increasing feelings of loneliness and social isolation and more fitful sleep.
"Basically, the lonelier individuals had sleep that was more broken up. There was more movement during the night, more periods of short sleep duration, more tossing and turning," Kurina said by phone.
Kurina said her study does not prove that loneliness causes sleepless nights. Instead, it may help to explain why loneliness has been associated with poor health.
"It's evidence of one way in which feelings of loneliness might get into the body" and affect health, she said. (REUTERS)
Selena Gomez denies Justin Bieber split over baby claims
The Wizards Of Waverly Place singer was reported to have separated from the 'Never Say Never' singer after Mariah Yeater filed a paternity lawsuit claiming that he is the father of her 3-month-old son Tristyn. Read more
Fergie: BEP obsessed with pregnancy
Fergie says her The Black Eyed Peas bandmates are 'expecting [her] to be expecting' very soon.
The American band are set to take a planned break starting in December amidst reports that Fergie is keen to start a family with husband Josh Duhamel.
The stunning songstress insists that she isn't ready to be a mother just yet, but her band mate Taboo isn't convinced.
"I'm not pregnant!' the star declared to US Weekly "There's no specific plans for babies, but we do want to have them in the future.
"[Taboo] is expecting me to be expecting any day now."
Fergie has been with hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas since 2003, and married Josh in 2009.
The 36-year-old singer is looking forward to taking a break and concentrating on spending time with her loved ones.
"There are a lot of things that I haven't had time to do because I've been so focused on work," she explained.
''m excited to go back to Minot, North Dakota, for Josh's family and to see that part of my new family, to see my little niece and nephew. I'm also excited to go to Christmas at my mom's. It's always a nice time to reconnect with family."
© Cover Media
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Little Boots presents 'Shake Until Your Heart Breaks' mixtape
Also announced is an exclusive international DJ tour throughout November concluding with a party in London on the 3rd December. Read more
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
'Glee', 'New Girl' ratings lower after hiatus
Glee and New Girl returned from hiatus with less impressive ratings, preliminary figures indicate.Glee Project winner Damian McGinty's debut in 'Pot O'Gold' (8pm) was seen by 7.4m and fell to a 2.9 share with 18-49 adults on Fox, down 900k on its last airing four weeks ago.Read more
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)