Minus for food supplements and a Minus 2 for IQ

John Starr, a consultant and researcher at the Royal Victoria hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland says that smoking through one's life may typically reduce his/her IQ by 2. Also this might explain why memory lapses and slower thinking found in many people beyond the age of 60.

A separate finding in connection with a study by the Scottish Educational Research Centre reveals that most vitamins and minerals said to be present in food supplements have almost no effect on mental abilities. However, these supplements containing folic acid and vitamin B12 can help reduce levels of homecysteine, an amino acid that in high levels is associated with increased risk of vascular disease and dementia.

Source: Gulf News, Monday, March 26, 2007.

No Child's Play - Literally!

Next time when you buy your children soft toys think twice! According to a report published by ToxicsLink.Org, soft toys made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) could pose serious threat to children's health as they may contain neurotoxins and nephrotoxins like Lead and Cadmium.

Out of 111 toy samples collected from Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai, 77 were found to be made of PVC materials. Further tests on 88 samples revealed them to be containing of varying concentrations of Lead and Cadmium.

A full report can be downloaded from http://toxicslink.org/pub-view.php?pubnum=161

Celebrating the beauty of Nature...

Whenever I see a Tamil song what strikes me most is the way they are picturised. If you would ask me who makes the most beautiful song sequences in Indian Movies now, without a second thought i would say, Tamil movie people (I don't want to say Kollywood, because i dislike imitative mentality. Tollywood, Mollywood, Bollywood... And secondly, Tamil movie people do make beautiful contributions whichever film industry they work with). Take any number of Tamil songs released in the past few years and you would find most of them, quite beautiful ones celebrating the vivid and vibrant hues of nature and that too quite 'naturally'. I think that, this beautiful trend was to a great extent made chic (if i may say so) by Manirathnam's Roja which contained some beautiful picturisations of Nature in all its natural glory...

Spammers! What do they get?

These days I get a lot of spam mails eventhough i never have opened such ones in the past. With Spammer behaviour, the general assumption is that, the more you read (read Open) such mails, the more will be the probability of you receiving spams. This general assumption is premised on the fact that if you open a spam mail (forget about you ever reading them) you are sending signals to the spammer and other prospective ones that such a mail id is in use. And Presto! your inbox would be Spambox in a few days. So Lesson 1. If you receive a spam mail either mark it as spam or just select and hit on the mighty Delete.

But what do these Spammers get? I don't think anyone would ever be as stupid as to open and read mails that come with stupid subject lines for example: ' And canyon do republic'. Would you be that inquisitive to read a mail with a subject line which obviously hints of spam flavour? You aren't such a fool, are you? Still they spam in a more or less similar fashion. They think you can be fooled. But who is the real fool?

Superstar Junior in Amrita TV

Three contestants vying for three top honours. And on the basis of viewer poll, Alsabith from Thrissur emerged the winner, leaving Pradeesh from Kannur as the first runner-up and Lincy from Kottayam, the second runner-up.

In my opinion, the winner should have been Pradeesh, because he had been steadily progressing since the event started off. Alsabith was, to a great extent consistent with the quality of his on-stage performance and in the style of singing. His smile was indeed of a crowd-winning kind and his resourcefulness very much appreciative. But Pradeesh was my favourite because his tonal range was indeed great and he gave all himself for every song he sung. Moreover, he had been little adventurous and courageous too because he tried to sing some songs which, for a boy of his age, would have dared not to sing in such a contest. And it would not be incorrect if i say that, in these "little adventures" he had been successful to a great extent.

One doubt, remains nonetheless: Did the counting was strictly on the basis of one-vote-from-one-mobile-number or was it based on the total number of sms votes received for each contestant. If there had been no double or multiple counting of votes then i should say that the contestant poll was indeed a fair and equitable one.

Fr. Dr. Paul Poovathinkal C.M.I.

With a Doctorate in Music from the prestigious Madras University, Fr. Dr. Paul Poovanthinkal has reportedly become the first Christian priest in the world to get a Doctorate in Carnatic Music. He is one of the distinguished few who has attempted in creating a different kind of church singing based on the Carnatic Musical Ragas instead of following the Roman style of singing. He also conducts a musical academy, Chetana, in Thrissur (Trichur). Hoping to bring more info on him in the future...

(Courtesy: V.K Sreeramente Veritta Kazhchakal broadcast on Kairali TV, a Malayalam channel)

Wishing you all a very happy new year!

Bye Bye 2006, Welcome 2007...

With another new year round the corner, its preparations and resolutions all the way. And you know whats our resolution is; be at-least-a-post-in-a-week blogger than once-in-a blue-moon-one.

So lets hope you will be reading a lot (and interesting too) of our posts in the coming year. By the way, we wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year...