Sunday, April 24, 2005

Battle of the sexes

In the battle of the sexes, one species whipped the male species to extinction and emerged a winner. It is the whiptail lizard. There is no male whiptail lizard found in the world anymore. Then how does this species still sustain? The females don't need the males any longer to reproduce. The females pair up(a lesbianism found in nature) and copulate to produce unfertilized eggs which result in the development of juveniles exact clones of the mother.

In humans, what u people thought of the Y chromosome? It is a smaller chromosome with only 36 genes while the X chromosome contains 1500 genes. And it is found that this number of genes in X chromosome to be decreasing which may result in wiping out of Y chromosome in another 125,000 years. So in a distant future, humans too won't need male to reproduce. Fascinating, isn't it?

Update:
Typo up there. The number of genes in Y chromosome is found to be decreasing and not the X chromosome.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?

Vittoria was watching him. “Do you believe in God, Mr. Langdon?”
The question startled him. The earnestness in Vittoria’s voice was even more disarming than the inquiry.
Do I believe in God? He had hoped for a lighter topic of conversation to pass the trip.
A spiritual conundrum, Langdon thought. That’s what my friends call me. Although he studied religion
for years, Langdon was not a religious man. He respected the power of faith, the benevolence of churches,
the strength religion gave so many people . . . and yet, for him, the intellectual suspension of disbelief that
was imperative if one were truly going to “believe” had always proved too big an obstacle for his
academic mind. “I want to believe,” he heard himself say.
Vittoria’s reply carried no judgment or challenge. “So why don’t you?”
He chuckled. “Well, it’s not that easy. Having faith requires leaps of faith, cerebral acceptance of
miracles—immaculate conceptions and divine interventions. And then there are the codes of conduct. The
Bible, the Koran, Buddhist scripture . . . they all carry similar requirements—and similar penalties. They
claim that if I don’t live by a specific code I will go to hell. I can’t imagine a God who would rule that
way.”
“I hope you don’t let your students dodge questions that shamelessly.”
The comment caught him off guard. “What?”
“Mr. Langdon, I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God.
There is a difference. Holy scripture is stories . . . legends and history of man’s quest to understand his
own need for meaning. I am not asking you to pass judgment on literature. I am asking if you believe in
God. When you lie out under the stars, do you sense the divine? Do you feel in your gut that you are
staring up at the work of God’s hand?”
Langdon took a long moment to consider it.

This excerpt is from "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. I, too, am taking a long moment to consider it.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

HTNYD

Happy Tamil New Year's Day

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

iLog: the real iPod killer

You people thought iPod is cool? Then think again after seeing iLog, the coolest Audio player ever(pshhkk.. it is supposed to kill iPod with hands down).

Source:
iLog: the real iPod killer

Monday, April 11, 2005

Hail NETSKY

Today this virus took our MD's email id and sent an infected mail to everyone. What a disaster. LOL. since it is from our MD, I am sure everyone wud have opened that mail. Thanks to the auto update feature of Norton AV most of the machines have upto date virus definitions. But who knows there are many computers like the one which sent the mail, don't have updated virus definitions. Expecting more of these mails from many more big shots!!

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Itz me people... I swear !!





More pix at:
My Skydiving Pix