Dravid to guide India in England

Legendary Indian batsman, Rahul Dravid will be mentoring the Indian team during the tour of England. One of the greats of Indian cricket, Dravid, who retired from international cricket after the tour of Australia in 2011-12 will have the task of guiding a skilled but inexperienced set of batsmen in a series which is expected to be a tough test of endurance and temperament.

Dravid will be working with the Indian team for a short period of time ahead of the Test series that starts on July 9th at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. It is reliably learnt that Dravid will not be in a full-time role as yet as he has also signed up for commentary stints with host broadcaster Sky Sports as well as BBC's TMS (Test Match Special).

Sanjay Patel, Honorary Secretary of the BCCI said Dravid's services was specifically requested by the team management. "Let me clarify at the outset that Rahul Dravid has not been appointed batting consultant or in any other capacity. Since he is a legend and has enjoyed stupendous success in England, the team management wanted the boys to interact with him before the first Test," Patel told PTI on Sunday.

Dravid has been part of four tours of England and has been the most successful Indian batsman in England. In 13 Tests, Dravid racked up an impressive 1376 runs at a stunning average of 68.80. He also led India to a historic series victory in 2007, the first time India had won in England since 1986.

India will play five Tests on the tour with the first one scheduled to start on July 9th at Trent Bridge, Nottingham.

Everything Google announced at Google I/O 2014 in one handy list.

For those who didn’t get the chance to tune in to Google I/O 2014 today, here’s a quick recap of everything the company announced.

Google began the announcement the same way it does every year – by talking about Android’s growth over the past year. Senior Vice President at Google Sundar Pichai said Android now has more than 1 billion active users per month.

Android One

Google kicked things off with the announcement of the Android One program to provide guidelines for a unified Android experience for those creating smartphones for the developing market. This allows Google to dictate the minimum hardware requirements for manufacturers around the world.

The first devices will arrive in India brands like Micromax and Karbonn, starting at less than $100.

L Developer Preview

Android’s upcoming L release features a new cross platform UI called Material Design, which offers app developers more precise tools to make customized typography, grid and color changes. Material Design also allows designers to add smooth animations at 60 fps using Polymer, a prototyping tool.

Additionally, Google has added a guideline to help designers build consistent look and feel.

L’s preview also teases lockscreen notifications and context-based authentication features (for example, if you’re wearing a paired Bluetooth watch while using your phone, it won’t prompt you for a pattern lock pass). Google touts L’s enhanced Art performance, 64-bit compatibility, and a new Android Extension Pack to support 3D graphics.

To help developers learn more about battery life, Google also showed off Project Volta to help identify battery discharge patterns to improve overall power consumption.

Lastly, L will come with more security, such as new patches for Google Play services and factory reset protection.

Android Wear

Google demonstrated its Android Wear SDK to show off select Android wearable functionalities. The touchscreen UI lets users swipe across Google Now cards and supported apps from the paired smartphone, and users can use the “Ok Google” prompt to create notes, reminders, alarms, calls and more. Material Design is also present in this wearable platform.

When a user installs an app from the Play store on their phone, a wearable counterpart is also installed on the smartwatch so the features are immediately synced.

Some of the Android Wear-equipped products include:

• LG G Watch, available today in the Play Store.
• Samsung Gear Live, also available today in the Play Store.
• The Moto360 will follow later this summer.

Android Auto

The completely voice-enabled Android Auto is designed to help developers create a safe and seamless solution for using connected devices while driving. By connecting the driver’s smartphone to a compatible car, the Android Auto UI will cast on the car’s screen with quick shortcuts to location searches, suggestions and navigation.

Drivers can also send and receive text messages using solely voice command features to keep their hands and eyes on the steering wheel.

To cap it all, Google announced the Android Auto SDK that supports streaming radio and messaging services. The Android Auto release will be available later this year, with 40 partners including Hyundai, Porsche, Acura and more.

Android TV

Google combines all things entertainment into one with Android TV, which lets users watch live TV or stream content while adding a fluid search experience which provide information like cast information and related YouTube clips. Users can employ the remote control, D-pad or their smartwatch as control options.

Android TV also adds a gaming experience, enabling users to bring Play store games to the big screen. Users can cast content from their Android device to the Android TV just like a Chromecast.

Chromecast update

You no longer need to be on the same Wi-Fi network to cast content to Chromecast! Users can search for nearby devices and connect via the cloud. If Chromecast does not recognize you in the area, it will ask for a pin. This feature is opt-in, and will roll out later this year.

Android apps come to Chromebook

Just like the new L update that allows users to unlock their phone if using context and location, Chromebooks can also be unlocked if you have your phone with you. In addition, Android will be able to send notifications straight to the Chromebook for a continuous experience.

Select Android apps are now compatible on the Chromebook as well, including Evernote, Vine and Flipboard.

Bridging work and play

To connect a person’s work and personal life into one device, Google announced an Android for Work program to help applications live in one place. This allows native Microsoft Office editing in Google Docs as well.

Additionally, Google announced a premium Google Drive offering for enterprise customers which allows unlimited storage for $10 per user per month.

Google Cloud

Google demoed improvements to Google Cloud engine and touted the many apps that launched using the infrastructure, such as Snapchat and Secret. With the platform, developers can debug a live application running on hundreds of servers, and set alerts for various events to monitor performance.

This suite of tools includes Cloud Save, Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Trace and Cloud Debugger.

Google Fit

Google previewed the Google Fit platform, an open, multi-OS API for fitness apps and devices. Much like Apple’s recently announced HealthKit, Google Fit aggregates all of the user’s fitness data into one place. Partners include Nike, Adidas and Withings.

Google Play

Google Play shows off the Games profile feature, “Saved Games” section that shows a screencap of your game progress, leaderboards and “Quests” so gamers can set goals.

Google also announced that users can set up direct carrier billing for tablets so they can charge everything in one place.

Bonus

In the first hour of the Google I/O keynote, a protestor interrupted the presentation, calling attention to an eviction complaint related to Google’s head of eDiscovery, Jack Halprin. She was promptly escorted out, but not without making things rather awkward.

An hour later, a second protestor crashed Google’s party, shouting, “You’re all involved with a company that builds robots to kill people.” The complaint is thought to be related to the company’s recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics, which makes military-grade robots.

The giant described as squid and a length of 160 feet.

On March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami damage in the latest nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. As a result, some of the leaked radioactive substances harmful to the station, which led to contamination of the surrounding area.

a giant described as squid and a length of 160 feet. Genetic mutation that sustained this squid make such magnitude. A number of scientists have confirmed the possibility of the occurrence of such.

Beas search massive and first-of-its-kind: Senior official

Mandi: The search for a group of Hyderabad engineering students washed away in the Beas river near here is not only massive in scale involving some 550 rescuers, but first of its kind in a treacherous terrain, strong current, and low visibility in churned up silt, a senior official said. 

Divers from the National Disaster Response Force and the army scouring the river bed full of jagged rocks and boulders just rely on the sense of touch to locate and pull out the bodies, the official said. 

It is a tough task. 

Now an unmanned aerial vehicle is also to be deployed to speed up the search. 
While seven bodies have been fished out of the river, the operation continued Thursday for the fourth day to locate the remaining 17 of the 24 students and a tour operator. They vanished in the flash flood-like surge in the Beas river after water from a nearby hydropower project was released without a warning, officials said. 

"Our divers are basically facing the problem of poor visibility. The river bed is full of mud and silt. There are also big boulders and rocks. It's only through feeling they are recognizing the objects lying beneath," National Disaster Management Authority vice-chairman M Shashidhar Reddy, who reached the accident spot Thursday, told IANS. 

A special underwater camera to locate the bodies was deployed Wednesday.

"The underwater camera has not made much success (due to muddy water). Now, we are going to deploy a UAE (unmanned aerial vehicle) Friday that will continuously recce the total area of operation," Reddy said in an interview.

More than 550 rescue workers from various agencies, including National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the army, the Sashastra Seema Bal, the ITBP and the state police, continued with the dawn-to-dusk operation in over 15-km long downstream stretch of the river from the Larji hydropower project dam to the Pandoh dam. 

Reddy said: "Fifteen more NDRF divers will soon join the search operation. This will increase their total number to 39. We are reviewing their requirement from time to time. If need be, more will join soon." 

Reddy said this was the first-of-its-kind search operation. 

"Earlier, we did boat capsize operations. In this case, the terrain is difficult and, moreover, there is a constant flow of water. At some points the river is narrow and steep. With the melting of glaciers, especially during the daytime, the flow suddenly rises. So our focus of the operation is more concentrated in early hours when the flow is almost constant." 

He said most of the seven bodies recovered so far were close to the accident site and they were either trapped under the rocks or sunk in the silt. 

The body of T Upendra, recovered Thursday morning, was entangled in rocks near the accident spot, said the rescuers. 

"From today (Thursday) onwards, we are expecting that the bodies, after they get bloated, would automatically start surfacing in the water. But it can take one or two days more here as the water is cold," Reddy said. 

Experts say the rate of body's decay slows in cold. 

More than 60 students and faculty members of the VNR Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering and Technology in Hyderabad were on an excursion to Manali. 

Some of them were getting themselves photographed on the bank of the river Sunday evening when a wall of water washed them away. 

"The river level suddenly increased due to release of water from the Larji hydropower project dam, located near the accident spot, without warning," witnesses said. 

The police have registered a case against the hydropower project authorities for causing death by negligence and endangering life of others. 

The case has been registered on the basis of eyewitness's' accounts that the hooter was not blown by the project officials before releasing the water into the river. 

Game of Thrones exposed: the science of skull crushing

Could the Mountain actually explode a human skull using just his hands?

SPOILER ALERT!

I didn’t watch the whole trial by combat in the latest Game of Thrones episode. I couldn’t. I was fine up to the point where Gregor Clegane (the Mountain) started gauging Oberyn Martell’s eyes out with his fingers. But I had to stuff my face in a pillow when Cersei’s champion buried both hands into his opponent’s skull, exploded his brain out the top and flattened his cranium.  

Fans who watched the whole way though may feel the need, as we do, to settle the science of skull crushing. Could the Mountain actually explode a human skull using just his hands? 

There are two factors that need to be considered here; the strength of the Mountain and the force required to smash a human skull. 

According to a NASA report an average male can exert around 90 kg (200 pounds) or 1000 Newtons of force in a static push. A boxer can deliver 5,000 newtons of force with a single punch but their hand travels really fast (and, if you recall, The Mountain was pressing down not punching). 

Neither the Icelandic strongman, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, who plays the Mountain, nor George R.R. Martin’s fictional character are anything like the average white male.  Björnsson is thesecond strongest man in the world. He is nearly 7 feet tall, weighs 190 kg (419 pounds) and can lift 419 kg (925 pounds).  I haven’t read the books but Lily Rothman from TIME who clearly has reported that the Mountain is 8 feet tall, 190 kg (420 pounds) “with massive shoulders and arms thick as the trucks of small trees.” We have to assume that The Mountain is going to have a much better chance at popping a skull than your average male. 

So onto the second question: how much force required to crush a human skull? 

Human bone is incredibly sturdy. It is stronger than steel and concrete of the same mass. The human skull encases the most important organ of the human body, the brain, and has evolved to be as strong as possible to withstand trauma.  

Lenny Bernstein from the Washington Post spoke to neurosurgeon Tobias Mattei and reported that a skull fracture requires 500 kg of force. It would be possible for a man who weighed 500 kg (remember The Mountain only weighs 190 kg) to fracture a skull by stepping on it but, according to Mattei, it would be “impossible [for a man] to break [a skull] with his hands even if 90 percent of the 235 kg were biceps muscles.” Moreover, “It would be almost impossible … to ‘blow up’ the head’s top from inside… No explosion would be seen. The eyes of the victim would be pushed backward some few inches. That’s it.”

Cynthia Bir, a biomedical engineer at the University of Southern California, confirmed this assessment writing that “ there is no way to get the head to ‘explode’ by applying pressure from the eyes.  You would need to create pressure inside the cranium.  Even if you could generate pressure by squeezing the outside of the head, once the cranium is breached at the orifice where the eye nerves enter, this pressure would be greatly diminished."

Kyle Hill at the Slate asked the question about a similar stunt in the Star Trek movie. Quoting a bike-helmet study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics, he wrote that 235 kg (520 pounds) or 2,300 newtons of force would be needed to crush a human skull, almost twice as much force as human hands could possibly muster. 

You may recall from high school physics that Force = Mass x Acceleration, so something quite heavy has to be travelling very fast to generate enough force to crack a human skull. The Mountain might be able to lift 235 kg (520 pounds) but he probably couldn't channel that strength into his fingertips and exert enough force to crush a human head. 

I’m calling it. In real life the Mountain could not break skulls like he did on TV. I’ll give HBO points for making it look believable. 

But could a chimpanzee do any better? Chimpanzees are about 4 times stronger than humans and have been known to tear people’s faces off. Recent research even suggests that the evolution of large brains in humans was a trade-off for muscle strength.

And to wrap up, here's a little something to distract you from the painful knowledge of Tyrion’s imminent death:

Brain Teaser

Cricket Brain Teaser

Two batsman each on 94 runs. Seven runs needed to win in last 3 balls. Both make 100 Notout How?

Ans. First bats man shoud hit four in first ball. Next ball he should make 3 runs with one shot run by not reaching the first run so it consider as 2 run. Then the next bats man shoud hit 6. Now both are 100 not out

Newly discovered planet has the longest year in the known Universe

One year on GU Psc b lasts almost 163,000 Earth years.

The newly discovered exoplanet sits 2,000 times farther from its star than Earth sits from the Sun, making it the longest planetary orbit of any planet discovered.

The young, hot planet sits in the Pisces constellation, which is around 156 light-years from Earth, and its discovery has been described in Astrophysical Journal.

As Christopher Crockett explains in Science News, astronomers first spotted the planet as a speck of infrared light following its sun. 

"The planet glows in infrared because it’s young — just 100 million years old — and still cooling,"Crockett writes.

It's estimated the planet would be around 800ºC and is nine to 13 times as massive as Jupiter.  

In fact, there's even a chance that the "planet" may in fact turn out to be a very dim, lightweight star.

Red wine is good for your teeth

Antimicrobial elements in red wine kill the bacteria that produce cavities.

A few months ago researchers in Spain discovered that grape seed extract can slow down the growth of bacteria, and decided to do a bit more research to see if wine actually had the same properties.  

According to the Daily Mail 60 to 90 percent of the world’s population suffers from cavities and gum diseases. The problems, which if untreated lead to tooth loss, start when bacteria clutch together and form communities (biofilms) that are extremely hard to get off.

The scientists grew several cultures of mouth bacteria and then dipped the biofilms in red wine, red wine sans alcohol, red wine with grape seed extract, water and 12 percent ethanol. The three forms of red wine, reports NY Daily News, were the most effective at killing bacteria.

The results of the study, which was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could help researchers develop mouthwashes and toothpaste that incorporate the antibacterial properties of red wine. 

Before you pour that glass of Shiraz to confirm the results of this study, remember that red wine is famous for staining teeth too. 

This deadly volcano burns blue…and it’s beautiful

No it’s not Photoshop, sulphuric gases have turned this volcano’s lava blue.

Located in Ethiopia’s low-lying Danakil Depression, the volcano’s lava is a normal orange-red colour, but it looks blue at night because of escaping sulphuric gases burning.

Photographed by Olivier Grunewald without filters or digital enhancement, the electric blue flames aren’t visible until dusk - and because the gases can be deadly, he could only get close enough to photograph the lava when the wind was blowing away from him, New Scientistreports.

Grunewald does wear a gas mask while working, but the fumes from a similar blue volcano in Indonesia still left him with peeling skin and clothes that smelt of rotten egg for weeks.

But the result is worth it. As Grunewald tells New Scientist: “The phenomenon is so uncommon – we really feel like we are on another planet."