Sri Lanka Medical Association holds Doctors’ Concert
Stepping away from familiar ground of hospitals and operating theatres, Doctors and members of their families took the stage to showcase their skills in magic, music, song and dance when the Sri Lanka Medical Association held the Doctors’ Concert- a variety entertainment by Doctors and their families at the BMICHs’ Committee Room A on July [...]
This is about your brain: Use it or lose it
Every single action that guides us, be it reading, writing, watching, learning, planning, thinking, feeling, moving or solving problems, is performed by the “amazing and complex” brain. This is why the strong call, “Look after your brain”, went out from three top doctors on Thursday. It is also why the World Federation of Neurology has [...]
Pettah Interchange provides a taste of the German subculture
Pettah Interchange provides a taste of the German subculture On the first weekend of August in 2014, on August 2 from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., Pettah Interchange will return for its third incarnation to give Sri Lankan audiences a taste of the German subculture using unconventional public locations to celebrate music and the arts. [...]
‘Wave’ memoir wins PEN/Ackerley Prize
The PEN/Ackerley Prize was awarded on Monday, July 14 night in absentia to Sonali Deraniyagala for Wave (published by Virago), a “piercingly frank memoir of grief that begins in Sri Lanka on 26 December 2004″. Peter Parker, chair of the judges, said: “To write any kind of book about the loss of both parents, a [...]
Susan George Pulimood Memorial Oration: ‘The Veddahs- Social and health aspects’
The annual Susan George Pulimood Memorial Oration of Visakha Vidyalaya will be held this year on Wednesday, July 23 at 5.15 p.m. at the Jeremias Dias Hall of the school. The oration will be delivered by Prof. Malkanthi Chandrasekera ( nee Balasuriya), BDS, PhD ( Newcastle, UK) Senior Professor of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University [...]
Sunsilk’s 24-hour party
Hair, hair everywhere…. have you seen it yet? The girl with gorgeous flowing locks in a larger than life image nearly covering the double decker and the girls in purple attire atop the bus doing the rounds in the city…. The lady with the lovely locks is singing sensation Umaria, who’s fronting Sunsilk’s 24 hour [...]
30 moments with Our Lady of Paris
Not many years back, we were sitting one afternoon at a table in a street corner sidewalk café on what must have been the Quai de Montebello. We were facing Notre Dame de Paris and watching the rain come down. This was our first visit to France and our last day in the City of [...]
UN to unveil panel for ‘breakthrough’ Technology Bank
A “breakthrough” UN initiative for transferring technology and building scientific capacity in the least developed countries (LDCs) will move closer in “a matter of weeks” when a panel to flesh out the proposals is announced, says an official close to the process. The high-level panel will consist of around a dozen experts from various backgrounds, [...]
Bringing the forest back to villages
I would like to name this idea as “Bringing forest back into villages.” It sounds strange. But what it means is simple. As we all know we have cleared forests to set up villages. Most of the deforestation was done in this process. The British cleared much of the hill country forests to plant tea; [...]
Getting globalization right
OXFORD – Recent evidence suggests that much of the world has entered a period of low financial-market volatility. But this is no time for complacency; more turbulent times are likely to lie ahead. Over the last quarter-century, rapid technology-driven globalisation — characterized by the physical and virtual integration of the global economy, including the opening [...]
Dutch liable for over 300 Srebrenica victims
THE HAGUE (AFP) – A Dutch court ruled Wednesday that the state was liable for the deaths of over 300 Bosnian Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II. Families of the victims had sued the Dutch government over the 1995 killings, accusing Dutch UN [...]
‘Liquid gold’
Two months before her due date, Gauri Meena gave birth to a baby boy at her village home in India’s desert state of Rajasthan. At 1.2kg (2.6lb), the baby was less than half the average weight of a normal Indian newborn and Ms Meena and her husband, Devilal, feared they would lose him. Taking advice [...]
Shop while you stalk
Facebook is testing a new ‘buy’ button on its website that will let consumers purchase and pay for products without having to leave the site. The button wil appear in ads, and take users to a page to process their payment. The new service, which Facebook described as a test with a ‘few small and [...]
Apple iPhone a danger to China national security: State media
BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese state media on Friday branded Apple Inc’s iPhone a threat to national security because of the smartphone’s ability to track and time-stamp user locations. A report by broadcaster CCTV criticized the iPhone’s “Frequent Locations” function for allowing users to be tracked and information about them revealed. “This is extremely sensitive data,” [...]
Alcohol, energy drink mix tied to urge to drink: Study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Mixing alcohol and energy drinks increases the urge to drink more than drinking alcohol alone, according to a new study from Australia. The findings suggest that people who mix alcohol and energy drinks may end up drinking more alcohol than they intended, said the study’s lead author. “Obviously these findings [...]
Google’s smart contact lens is coming to an eye near you
Google has signed a deal with health giant Novartis to produce its groundbreaking smart contact lenses. The two will first produce a glucose monitoring lens for diabetics and one to treat farsightedness, it was announced. However, the firm hinted at ‘other uses’ for the technology – and has recently patented a lens with a built [...]
Friend or foe?
A mind reading helmet could allow military bosses to tell if new captured enemies are friend or foe, it has been claimed. The helmet is packed with sensors that monitor the wearer’s brain activity through EEG scans. The Friend or Foe Algorithm takes millions of these brain data points, and recognizes patterns that can distinguish [...]
Healthy living may slow early dementia: Study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A program that emphasizes healthy eating, brain and social engagement, physical activity and heart health may slow dementia among people at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, says a new preliminary report from Sweden. The findings can’t guarantee that healthy living will prevent Alzheimer’s disease but they add to growing evidence that [...]
We’ll find alien life in 20 years
One hundred million worlds in our galaxy are able to host alien life, according to a ‘conservative’ prediction by Nasa. And the space agency claims that we will be able to find that life within the next 20 years, with a high chance it will be outside our solar system. During a public talk yesterday [...]
Is Mount Fuji about to erupt?
In 2011 Japan was rocked by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the most powerful in the country’s recorded history, which together with a tsunami killed more than 15,000 people and caused upwards of £20.2 billion ($34.6 billion) in damage. But it seems the effects of the earthquake are not over yet, as the huge tremor may [...]
Russia test launches first new space rocket since Soviet era
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia launched its first new design of space rocket since the Soviet era from the northern military space port of Plesetsk on Wednesday, aiming to break its reliance on foreign suppliers as well as the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. “The first test launch of the light-class Angara-1.2PP space rocket was conducted by [...]
Smallpox vials from 1950s found in US lab storage room
CHICAGO/ATLANTA (Reuters) – Stray vials of the deadly smallpox virus from the 1950s have been discovered at a federal lab near Washington, U.S. health officials said, the second lapse discovered in a month involving a deadly pathogen at a government facility. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that workers discovered the vials [...]
Malaysia team in Kiev as anger mounts over MH17
KUALA LUMPUR, July 19 (AFP) -A Malaysian team including two air accident investigators arrived in Kiev today and the transport minister was expected to follow as the Malaysian prime minister appealed for access to the MH17 crash site. Prime Minister Najib Razak said he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone late Friday to [...]
Toll in Gaza hits 333 on day 12 of war
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories, July 19 (AFP) -Israeli air strikes and shelling killed more than 25 people across Gaza today, among them children, raising the toll in 12 days of violence to 333, medics said. The latest deaths included five members of the Zuweidi family, including two girls aged two and six, in northern Gaza’s [...]
Millions back Suu Kyi call for Myanmar charter change
YANGON, July 19 (AFP) -Myanmar’s opposition has gathered millions of signatures in support of changes to a constitution that bars its leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president, in a show of political strength ahead of elections next year. Suu Kyi has travelled the country drawing crowds of thousands with speeches urging the military [...]
Philippines typhoon toll soars as new storm threatens
MANILA, July 19 (AFP) -The disaster-weary Philippines braced for a second severe storm in five days today as the death toll from Typhoon Rammasun surged to 77, officials said. While Tropical Storm Matmo was not forecast to hit the main island of Luzon, the weather service warned it would still bring heavy rains to the [...]
Archie comic banned in Singapore as censorship row escalates
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has banned a volume of the “Archie” comic book that featured a same-sex marriage, adding fuel to a censorship row that erupted over a children’s story about two male penguins hatching an egg. “Archie: The Married Life Book Three” was taken off book shop shelves following a complaint to Singapore’s Media [...]
U.S. sues Amazon over purchases by kids using mobile apps
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government sued Amazon.com on Thursday for allowing children to collectively run up millions of dollars in purchases on the credit cards of their unsuspecting parents while playing mobile apps like “Tap Zoo” and “Ice Age Village.” The lawsuit, filed by the Federal Trade Commission, seeks to make the online retailer [...]
Gaza child: Three wars old
2014 To a child in Gaza: – “How old are you?” – “Three wars, and still growing.” – Sara Naim Khatib On November 21, 2012, during the second Israeli offensive on Gaza, I wrote an opinion piece for Al Jazeera “Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory”. [...]
Why no vetoed resolutions on Gaza killings
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – As the civil war in Syria continues into its fourth year, the Western nations sitting on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) have unsuccessfully tried to condemn the killings of civilians, impose punitive sanctions and accuse the Syrian government of war crimes – in four vetoed and failed resolutions. The United States, [...]
