Unmanned aerial vehicle Bangalore

It was a dream come true for five Bangalore students when their 'baby' took off on the tarmac, which is generally used by sophisticated US naval aircraft. Not just that, by flying their unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), these students also stood first in Asia and third in the world displaying their technological prowess.
For the last one year, it has been the dream of students to build aero models. "We would take these aero models made out of thermocol out of Bangalore to fly it manually. But, we never took it seriously as to whether we can build an UAV ourselves. Then, we were doing research in IISc when we met Dr Prashanth, who heads the micro nutrient department in St John's hospital. Prashanth, who has a hobby of building UAVs, encouraged us to do UAVs and this was when we took it as a challenge and completed in three months flat. Our UAV is made of balsa wood while its wings are manufactured using thermocol. The engine is electrically powered for which we have coded to take instructions. The instructions are sent from a laptop to the autopilot device installed in the UAV. This auto pilot, we fondly call as paparazzi," explained Prasanna R, a team member.

Then with the UAV in their arms, these mechanical engineering students of M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology headed to Maryland, USA to participate in the ninth Annual Student Unmanned Air Systems (SUAS) event from June 15-19. The competition was about building an UAV capable of autonomous flight (auto piloted) and live imagery while airborne and identifying some ground targets and determining their GPS coordinates, explained Prateek Khanna, another student.

Participant Rajharsee Rahul said, "Our mission was to fly autonomously (without human intervention) using an autopilot controlled by ground station laptop and survey the given area. The competition was very tough. Students from 34 universities from across the world were participating."
In the first round, these students were shortlisted from a preliminary test while the second round was based on safety measures and the third was the actual flight session. The final round had four phases; presenting the journal paper, followed by an autonomous flight, oral presentation and image processing, added Srikanth Singh, another student.


The competition was sponsored by companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, IBM, Northrop Grumman, Compass Systems etc, said Prasanna.
The team was awarded the 3rd place for autonomous flight and 4th place in the journal paper out of 36 international teams present there. They received a cash prize of $2700 (about Rs 1,35,000).
Now, the students are planning to have an UAV club in college and share their experience with other students to ensure better performance in next year's competition. "Now, we can build an UAV in two weeks," said Vishnu B N, a team member.

Male models to develop dangerous eating disorders

The pressure to look like a male model is driving more men to develop dangerous eating disorders, experts warned today.

GPs have been warned to be on the lookout for the potentially fatal conditions, which include anorexia and bulimia, after a rise in the number of those affected.

Men may be reluctant to admit they have a problem as the issue has until now been seen as something affecting mainly teenage girls.
Medical experts blame the surge on an obsession with looking good by having bulging biceps and a six-pack stomach.
NHS figures have shown a 66 per cent increase in hospital admissions in England for male eating disorders over the last decade.

A spokesman for the charity beat said the rise could be attributed to the struggle to attain a 'perfect' body shape.
She said: 'Sufferers can become obsessed with their weight or they can obsess over exercise and with how many calories they are eating.

'Exercise is a major factor with eating disorders in men in particular. They become obsessed with exercising every single day, if not more, and it can take over their life without them realising there may be a more deep-seated reason behind it.

'That is when it becomes an eating disorder.

'The pressure these days on guys to have the perfect figure is very similar to that which has and continues to affect women.

'It's all about losing body fat and getting a six pack, and it comes from the way the male shape is portrayed.

'That perfect figure can be a healthy body image for a man to aspire to; it is when it gets taken to an extreme that we see problems.'
Bulimia affects three times as many people as anorexia, but it can be more difficult to spot as the sufferer may not lose weight in the same way.
Diagnosing the condition is made difficult by men's reluctance to talk about their health, she said.

'We need GPs to be much more aware of the fact that males also these days are experiencing problems with eating disorders. They are not as good at recognising the symptoms in men as they should be.

'It can be because men are much more reluctant to talk about these issues or to admit there is a problem.

'There is a stigma about it - it is seen as a teenage girls' disease. But eating disorders are serious psychological conditions which can kill.'
The charity estimates that 1.6 million people in the UK have an eating disorder. It is thought that one in five sufferers is male.
A GP seeing a man who is thin is more likely to think that he is depressed, a spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners said.


The Department of Health does not keep records which show how many sufferers there are in the England. It only keeps records of hospital admissions, so it can be hard to judge the scale of the problem.

Ben Porter, 20, from Kent, has suffered with anorexia and bulimia since the age of 14.

He became seriously ill when his weight dropped to seven stone.
He told the BBC: 'I didn't realise what I was doing to myself and was abusive to my body at the time. The point was to look good and pursue a perfect image but I was doing the opposite.

'I fell into a cycle that continued until it became unbearable for everybody.
'I just felt very inadequate about the way that I looked and felt I wasn't fitting in at school.'

the virus entering the blood stream by tattoo

 
Sporting a tattoo might be the latest fad amongst youngsters, but doctors warn against the potential hazards that it can cause. Even though tattoo artists replace the needles, the paint is the same, and doctors warn that infectious blood can be transferred through these paints.

The infections spread most commonly through tattooing are Hepatitis B and C. The latter is 100 times more infectious than HIV and no vaccines are available for the disease.

The paints used to make tattoos are expensive and often imported. Hence artists use the same bottle for multiple clients. However, since the process of making a tattoo involves penetration of the needle deep into the dermis (layer under the skin surface), some blood always gets transferred into the paint bottle, said Dr Ajay K Sachdev, head, surgical gastroenterology and GI, oncology at Artemis Institute of Healthcare.


Dr Sachdev added: The chances of the virus entering the blood stream of a person are more if he gets the tattoo done immediately after an infected person at the tattoo parlour. Also, since Hepatitis C might go undetected for years, a carrier does not usually know the extent of damage caused to his body.According to Dr Mandeep Singh, consultant, plastic and cosmetic surgery at Columbia Asia, paints used in the process can also cause other infections like bacterial, fungal, allegoric reactions, ulcers and rashes.

Whenever we admit a patient with a tattoo, we make sure to test him for certain diseases like HIV and Hepatitis. Since the paint used is a usually made from a heavy metal, a pregnant woman getting a tattoo done in the first trimester of her pregnancy can pass the infections even to the fetus, said Dr Singh.


According to doctors, the only way to avoid such infections is by insisting that the artist replace the used ink with a fresh bottle of paint. The charges will definitely be higher. However, compared to HIV, the Hepatitis B and C viruses survive longer even outside the human body and hence it is important to be careful, said Dr Nandini Hazarika, consultant, oncology and haematology, Max Hospital.

Bangladeshi woman ,he tried to rape

 
A 40-year-old Bangladeshi woman cut off a man's penis during an alleged attempted rape and took it to a police station as evidence, police in a remote part of Bangladesh said on Monday.

The woman, a married mother of three, was attacked while she was sleeping in her shanty in Jhalakathi district, some 200 kilometres (120 miles) south of Dhaka, on Saturday night, officers said.

"As he tried to rape her, the lady cut his penis off with a knife. She then wrapped up the penis in a piece of polythene and brought it to the Jhalakathi police station as evidence of the crime," police chief Abul Khaer told AFP.

The woman has filed a case accusing the man -- who is also 40 and a married father of five -- of attempted rape, saying that he had been harassing her for six months.

The severed penis has been kept at the police station and the rape suspect was undergoing treatment in hospital.

"We shall arrest him once his condition gets better," Khaer added.

Gurkha soldier who single-handedly defeated Taliban fighters

 
A Gurkha soldier who single-handedly defeated more than 30 Taliban fighters has been awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross by the Queen.
Corporal Dipprasad Pun, 31, described how he was spurred on by the belief that he was going to die and so had nothing to lose in taking on the attackers who overran his checkpoint in Afghanistan.
His gallantry award is second only to the Victoria Cross - the highest honour for bravery in the face of the enemy.
Cpl Pun, from the 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles, was presented with the CGC during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace, during which a number of other soldiers were recognised for their bravery.
Speaking after receiving the honour from the Queen, the Gurkha said: 'I'm very excited and happy to here in the Palace to receive the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. This will be a great memory for the future.'
The soldier fired more than 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and detonated a mine to thwart the Taliban assault on his checkpoint near Babaji in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, last September.
At one point, after exhausting all his ammunition, he had to use the tripod of his machine gun to beat away a militant who was climbing the walls of the compound.
After the ceremony, Cpl Pun was congratulated by investiture guests who queued up to shake his hand.
Speaking about the actions which earned him the CGC, he said: 'At that time I wasn't worried, there wasn't any choice but to fight. The Taliban were all around the checkpoint, I was alone.

'I had so many of them around me that I thought I was definitely going to die so I thought I'd kill as many of them as I could before they killed me.
'That incident happened in the middle of my tour and after that I thought nobody can kill us now - when we met the enemy I wasn't scared.
'I thought the Taliban did not have the capacity to fight with us.'
Cpl Pun, an acting sergeant during his Afghan deployment, was on sentry duty at the time of the attack when he heard a clinking noise outside the small base.
At first he thought it might be a donkey or a cow, but when he went to investigate he found two insurgents digging a trench to lay an improvised explosive device (IED) at the checkpoint's front gate.
He realised that he was completely surrounded and that the Taliban were about to launch a well-planned attempt to overrun the compound.
The enemy opened fire from all sides, destroying the sentry position where the soldier had been on duty minutes before.
Defending the base from the roof, the Gurkha remained under continuous attack from rocket-propelled grenades and AK47s for more than a quarter of an hour.
Most of the militants were about 50ft away from him, but at one point he turned around to see a 'huge' Taliban fighter looming over him.
The soldier picked up his machine gun and fired a long burst at the man until he fell off the roof.
When another insurgent tried to climb up to his position, the Gurkha attempted to shoot him with his SA80 rifle. But it did not work, either because it had jammed or because the magazine was empty.
He first grabbed a sandbag but it had not been tied up and the contents fell to the floor.
Then he seized the metal tripod of his machine gun and threw it at the approaching Taliban militant, shouting in Nepali 'Marchu talai' ('I will kill you') and knocking him down.
'I thought the Taliban did not have the
Two insurgents were still attacking by the time the heroic Gurkha had used up all his ammunition, but he set off a Claymore mine to repel them.
At this point his company commander, Major Shaun Chandler, arrived at the checkpoint, slapped him on the back and asked if he was OK.
In total he fired off 250 general purpose machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, six phosphorous grenades, six normal grenades, five underslung grenade launcher rounds and one Claymore mine.
The only weapon he did not use was the traditional Kukri knife carried by Gurkhas because he did not have his with him at the time.
The married soldier, whose father and grandfather were also Gurkhas, is originally from the village of Bima in western Nepal but now lives in Ashford, Kent.
His medal citation said he saved the lives of three comrades at the checkpoint at that time and prevented the position being overrun.
It read: 'Pun could never know how many enemies were attempting to overcome his position, but he sought them out from all angles despite the danger, consistently moving towards them to reach the best position of attack.'
Major General Nicholas Carter, who was commander of combined forces, including British troops, in southern Afghanistan during Cpl Pun's deployment, praised the soldier and those from the Mercian Regiment receiving gallantry awards today.
The senior officer, who received the Distinguished Service Order from the Queen for his leadership in the Middle East country, said: 'Their efforts have been tremendous. It was a privilege to have members of the 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles and the Mercian Regiment under my command.
'The Conspicuous Gallantry Cross does not get handed out lightly, it was a most remarkable achievement by that particular young Gurkha.'

sun, boosts the quality of sperm

Would-be fathers should make the most of the next sunny day by taking off their shirt and topping up their tan.
A study of 340 men found that vitamin D,  produced by the body when exposed to the sun, boosts the quality of sperm.
They become better at swimming towards the egg, have greater speed and are more penetrative.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen tested the quality of sperm from 300 men chosen at random and carried out a detailed analysis of samples from a further 40 in the laboratory.
At the same time the level of vitamin D in their blood was measured. Almost half had an insufficient amount – linked to lack of exposure to natural sunlight or time in a solarium.
Sunlight is the major source of vitamin D, which helps regulate levels of calcium and phosphorus to generate healthy bones.

In addition, the number of healthy sperm in men with insufficient vitamin D was considerably lower than in those with normal levels. The ability to absorb calcium was also inhibited.
The findings, published in the journal Human Reproduction, back up previous research linking vitamin D to sperm production, and might explain why many couples seem to conceive on holiday.
Researchers discovered that almost half of the participants had an insufficient amount of vitamin D, below 50 nmol/l. The optimum level recommended by most experts is a minimum of 75 nmol/l.
The ability chemical process needed to fertilise the egg known as the acrosome reaction was also hindered. Tests conducted in the laboratory resulted in similar findings.
Dr Martin Blomberg Jensen said: 'Vitamin D levels were positively associated with sperm motility, suggesting a role for vitamin D in human sperm function.'

skin care advice / healthy skin care

 
 The skin was supposed to to clean itself, but lacking suitable treatment, it’s possible for toxins in the environment to build up and stop up pores, leading to an array of unattractive and embarrassing skin difficulties.  Many people mistakenly believe that if they use excessive amounts of conventional beauty products they will be rewarded with perfect skin.  There are a number of reasons why it’s a good idea to go natural with virgin skin care.


1. Skin can breathe more easily with virgin skin care.With a layer of chemicals on the face, skin pores can easily become clogged, this can often lead to pimples
2. By choosing natural skin care products, free of artificial colorings and additives, one can avoid many adverse skin reactions, including eczema.
3. It’s easier to moisturize the skin thoroughly with natural products. Using coconut oil as moisturizer is an effective way to achieve beautiful skin naturally.
4. Because most people can absorb up to 60% of any product that is put on the skin, using natural skin care products like tamanu oil will help prevent your skin from taking harmful toxins
5. Natural skin care products look and smell more pleasant than synthetic materials. Nature has already given us such wonderful smelling products such as vanilla skin care, so there is no need to try and replicate this in a lab for great smelling skin.
 
6. Natural skin care products are not tested on animals, and are cruelty-free in most cases. Always check with the producers to be sure.
7. If you are concerned about your environmental impact, then it makes sense to use products that are free from anything that could clog the environment. Natural products are usually packaged in recyclable materials.
  8. Natural products contain many vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that skin needs, and can even potentially defend against cancer with the addition of antioxidants.
9. Because virgin skin care and natural aging skin care products help to fight against cancer-causing free radicals, they also manage to put the brakes on the aging process much more efficiently than competing synthetic products might do. As part of your natural aging skin care routine these products may smooth wrinkles and aid in nourishing the skin from the inside out
10. When looking at beauty and skin care products, the choice with fewer ingredients is usually the healthier product. Unlike synthetic products, natural skin care will have less filler and more quality for your money.

addicted to pornography / feminist pornography

Among the city's teenagers, particularly boys, watching a 'blue film'—a euphemism for pornography— seems to have become a habit. Over the past few years, this furtive doing has taken over other extra-curricular activities.

On an investigative visit to different cybercafes in the city, this correspondent came across a revelation which may take parents aback.

A check of the web browsing history at a cyber café in Boring Road revealed that of the 100 web pages, 80 page titles referred to pornographic materials and porn video downloads.

Cybercafes in the city are mostly frequented by school and college-going boys and girls. Visitors, constituting boys and girls in a virtually equal number, download porn movies in their mobile phones and also store them in data cards.


Cybercafé owners have not limited themselves to allowing porn surfing to the visitors. Many have jumped on the flesh trade bandwagon as well. They provide beds, girls and also condoms to those looking for them.

During a raid on around 12-13 cybercafes in Gandhi Maidan, Kadamkuan, Kotwali and Buddha Colony police station areas on March 8, SP (City) Shivdeep Lande had found condoms and beds in a cybercafé.

Not only that, the cops had also caught 40 and odd couples in compromising position. Most of the couples were students in the age group of 16 to 18 years, belonging to well-off families.

Igniting the trend is easy accessibility of porn materials to these students. X-rated CDs and DVDs are flooding the city markets. It is alarming that children are the ones who are buying and selling them. Patna, of late, has become a major centre for the production and illegal sale of pornographic materials. Dozens of music shops are engaged in this business. "The children always want new products. And come looking for them," said a CD seller on busy Fraser Road, near Buddha Smriti Park.


About a dozen such stalls are situated around the railway station. Bakerganj, considered the city's largest electronic market, is believed to be the principal supplier of the CDs.

So high is the demand that a grocery shop near Kurji was found hoarding some of these DVDs. These shop owners display some popular CDs and then put the X-rated stuff beneath. Asked how they manage to escape the police net, he said, "The cops themselves come looking for DVDs as bribe. We gift them when they come."

In proof that flesh trade has caught up in upmarket apartments, hotels, guesthouses and in beauty parlours, Patna police had caught bar girls dancing semi-naked at a restaurant situated on Fraser Road in the night of May 8. The police had caught four girls, three bikes, one SUV and a huge cache of liquor. Earlier, such raids had also been conducted in upmarket apartments and beauty parlours, among other places.

The Patna police are up against such elements. "The police are actively working to check such elements. We will conduct raids whenever we get any tip," said Shivdeep Lande.

Barcelona bikini /bikini barcelona

Barceloneta Beach
There are plenty of things to do on the beach besides swim. Windsurfing and kite surfing are popular. You can also enjoy a refreshing drink from one of the many beach huts.
Or, if you're in need of a rest, just lie down and soak up the warmth of the Spanish sun with a good book. The quickest way to get to Barceloneta beach is to catch the yellow line metro and get off at the Barceloneta stop.Alternatively you can walk to Barceloneta from the city centre. It will take you about 20 mins from the end of La Rambla.


  Icaria Beach
Closest to the Olympic marina, and therefore always crowded, this wide swathe of rough golden sand is great for food goers. There are three spotless beach bars, two immensely popular restaurants on the promenade behind (Mango and Chiringuito de Moncho) and countless bars and restaurants off the Port Olímpic just a short stroll away.


Tourists in Barcelona who wander off the beach onto the streets in just their swimming costumes — or even less — will now face stiff fines.
    The city hall voted to ban "nudity or virtual nudity in public places" and limit swimming costumes to swimming pools, beaches, adjacent roads and beach walks. Nudists who stray off their designated areas of the beach will be subject to fines of 300 to 500 euros.
    Those who wander into the streets in bikinis, swimming trunks or swimsuits face fines of 120 to 300 euros.

   
  Authorities in the city, where the port and the beach areas are adjacent to the historic old town, earlier this year put up posters discouraging such behaviour. They showed a couple in swimming costumes with a red line across it next to another couple dressed normally but without the red line.
    With the new regulations, city authorities hope to "ensure coexistence between citizens in public areas," but denied that they are "telling people how they should dress".

human sexual desires / increase female desire

Scientists have finally got a grip on our deepest sexual desires - by looking at what people type into Google.
They have examined one billion online sex-related searches from around the world to find out what users click on when no one else is looking.

The findings have been published in a book called A Billion Wicked Thoughts, co-authored by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. The pair hope it will prove there is no such thing as sexual deviance as almost nothing is seen as out of bounds.

The survey is so vast it is viewed by many experts as the most complete analysis of human sexual desires.

Among the findings are the fact straight men prefer heavier women to thinner ones and find feet erotic.
They also enjoy a wide variety of erotic images, including bizarrely both elderly women and transsexuals.
Meanwhile straight women enjoy reading about and watching romances between two men, but only when the focus is on emotion and not sex.
Gay men and straight men were found to have the same favourite body parts, which in order are chests, buttocks then feet.

Surprisingly, search engine results from Dogpile, which provided the search data from Google, Yahoo! and Bing, said almost 80 per cent of internet searches were made up of 20 interests, ranging from youth, to cheerleaders.

Mr Ogas told the New York Post: 'Sex therapists haven't known which interests are common and which are rare,'
'We probably now know more than ever before.'
Doctors said the findings may now help reassure patients who think what they are interested in is perverse or disturbed, when it may actually be quite common.
Information from the search also found men fantasise about group sex more than women, and picture more men than women in the action.
Straight men prefer to watch amateur porn online and domination and submission is popular among straight women and gay men. Gay men also enjoy watching straight porn.

Experts think because porn is so readily available on the internet it may be helping human desire evolve as billions of men and women log-on more and more.


Prior to the internet boom there were less than 90 porn magazines but now an estimated 2.5million porn sites have been blocked.

However, Donald Symons, a pre-eminent evolutionary psychologist in America, thinks the survey does not necessarily prove people find the images arousing and they may just be searching out of curiosity.

Others point out that there is no way of knowing what motivated any of the searches.


Dr Symons told the New York Post: 'Ogi is convinced that when people are searching for things, it's primarily for sexual arousal. I'm not so sure about that. If there was a porn star with three breasts - I bet there would be a zillion hits. Would that be a sign men were suddenly aroused by that? I think not.'
The book's authors however, argue that the study does prove a sexual desire as they noticed people were spending money on subscriptions and visiting the sites over and over again, proving they are not just curious.

Beautiful saudi women / Saudi women

Saudi women, who are prohibited by society from living or working independently without written permission from a male guardian, will now be part of a first-of-its-kind "women-only" call centre in the country.


Kanoo Travel, one of the leading travel management companies in the Middle East, said 20 female employees have undergone telephone operation training as the company started a "ladies-only" call centre, Xinhua quoted Arab News as saying.

"Kanoo Travel is also one of the first travel companies in the country to introduce exclusive ladies centres," said Ali Abdullah Kanoo, the company's director.


The call centre has earned praise from the company's clients.

Saudi females - who make up to nine million of the kingdom's 18.5 million people - are subject to a guardian system which prohibits any woman from driving, travelling or living independently without written permission from a male guardian who could be either her husband, father or brother.

Over the years, working as a teacher in girls-only schools was the only job sanctioned for Saudi women, but recently there has been a growing number of Saudi professional women and female doctors.

" Saudi Arabia is a very important market. Over the past few years, our business has grown tremendously in the country," said another company official, Othman Al-Ghamdi.

online profiling / personal online profile

Waltzing around in a bikini or showing yourself up as a stumbling drunk are not recommended when it comes to internet profiles.

However, it also isn't necessary to present yourself as a go-getter or someone who is as quiet as a mouse.

Instead, the objective should be 'to emphasise your individuality,' Birgit Kimmel of Klicksafe.de explained to the German Press Agency dpa.

Of course, images can be cheeky or brash but they shouldn't be revealing, and it helps to ask friends when wondering which photos to put in your Facebook or Bebo profile.

Another idea is to have a photo session with friends so that everyone has fresh images to choose from.

Kimmel also believes that one way to ensure you don't regret how you present yourself to the virtual world is to ask what you would think if you saw them again two years from now.

'It doesn't have to be the classic CV photo,' says Kimmel, although she does admit that a potential new boss could cast an eye over your profile.
On the other hand, if you are a person who happily wears sports jackets and a side parting, then a skater-look profile isn't exactly necessary in order to look cool, unless you count it among your hobbies.

Favourite pastime details also don't need to be altered in order to create an improved image.
If you aren't the type of person who gets a thrill from the World of Warcraft computer game then you are probably better off admitting it from the start, says Kimmel.

Someone can happily write that they love to play World of Warcraft 'because I am interested in adventure and fantasy stories' as when filling out an internet profile Kimmel points out that it's important to remember that it is all about 'identity management.'

'Who am I and what sort of image am I looking to present to world?' is the question a person has to ask themselves.

cheating husband froze to death

A secret love tryst in a snowstorm ended in tragedy when a cheating husband froze to death as he and his mistress cuddled together in a car, an inquest heard today.

The 29-year-old died from hypothermia as temperatures plunged to minus 10 degrees Celsius as the couple sheltered in a garage in Luton, Bedfordshire.
Syed Hussain was secretly dating a girlfriend after being unhappy in a forced marriage arranged by his family.

A coroner heard that Syed died during the big freeze in December when he and his mistress, Shabana Akhtar, had a secret rendezvous just before Christmas.

 He and his lover spent the freezing cold evening in his garage, away from the prying eyes of his family who objected to the relationship.

However the couple, who had been seeing each other for three years behind the back of his wife in Pakistan, fell asleep in his Vauxhall Astra car whilst temperatures plummeted to below minus 10 degrees during the night of December 19.
Coroner David Morris was told Mr Hussain tragically did not go to work that evening because of concerns for his car in the heavy snow.
Miss Akhtar told the inquest in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, how she awoke at around 3am to find Mr Hussain, who she nicknamed Shak, slumped next to the car in an 'ice cold' condition.
'I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts. It was cold, the car's heater was off. I turned the key but the car wouldn't start.
'It struck me as odd that he (Syed) had left me there alone. I rang his mobile phone but it vibrated in the driver's seat of the car.
'The car was parked very close to the wall on the passenger side, so I shuffled across to the driver's seat and opened the door.

'I put my left foot out and immediately knew my foot was on something which was not the floor. I used my mobile phone light to look out of the car.
'He was lying on his stomach and it looked like he was asleep. I stooped over him and called his name.
'He was as cold as ice and had no pulse.'  She rang the emergency services who had to break through the garage's doors to gain entry.
Mr Hussain, who worked as a CCTV operator at a Peugeot dealership in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, was pronounced dead at 5am by paramedics.
Miss Akhtar said: 'I had been in a relationship with Shak for three years. He got married about a year ago and his family were not happy about our relationship.
'We conducted the relationship in secret. His wife is in Pakistan but he was never happy with the marriage, it was a forced marriage.
'I saw him every other day. It was a sexual relationship but it wasn't frequent.
'We didn't go to the garage to have sex and we had never had sex in his car.

'On the night he said he wasn't going to work that night as planned because he was concerned about his car in the heavy snow.
'So we arranged to meet at about 7.30pm. I waited in a subway to meet Shak. We had not planned to spend the night with each other that night.
'It was normally 30 minutes as and when we could meet, due to the nature of our relationship.
'We had been in the car with the heater on. We were both in a good mood and got on really well and we were flirting with each other.
'I fell asleep at about midnight.'  A post mortem examination found Mr Hussain, of Luton, Bedfordshire, had collapsed due to hypothermia.

In recording a verdict of death by misadventure, Mr Morris said: 'The only verdict I can record is a natural event from excessive cold and the circumstances would probably merit a verdict of misadventure.
'He certainly didn't set out to cause himself any harm and it was tragically the weather conditions and the place he chose to spend the evening which resulted in the disastrous conclusion.'

Relationship between breast size and size of tips

While conducting some research for my forthcoming trade book tentatively titled The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books, 2011), I came across a study authored by Nicolas Guéguen on the likelihood of a female hitchhiker being picked up, by either a male or female driver, as a function of her breast size. On a related note, some of you might recall my recent post on the positive correlation between waitresses' tips and their breast size.

 
In visiting Nicolas Guéguen's website, I could not help but notice that he possesses a talent for conducting naturalistic experiments about issues that many people have wondered about and yet few (if any) have tested. Recall my earlier post on the likelihood of a woman being approached at a bar as a function of whether she is wearing cosmetics (one of Guéguen's other papers).
 
Returning to the current paper, Guéguen created one of three naturalistic experimental conditions (corresponding to three breast sizes) using an average looking female confederate: (1) her actual breast size, which was an A cup (i.e., smaller than the French average); (2) a B cup (the average size in France); (3) a C cup (greater than the average). The breast "augmentations" were performed via the addition of a latex implant.


 
The female confederate then stood at the side of a road and actually hitch hiked (i.e., put out her thumb as cars whizzed by). Two observers coded the number of male and female drivers that drove by along with the number of times that a given driver stopped to pick up the confederate. For obvious security reasons, once a driver stopped, this was counted as an instance of having picked up the hitchhiker. In other words, the confederate did not actually get into any cars. A male observer also hid close by to ensure against any possible threats to the confederate's security.
                                      Cup Size A          Cup Size B          Cup Size C

Male drivers (n = 774)       40/268                 46/256                  60/250 

                                        (14.92%)              (17.79%)               (24.00%)

Female drivers (n = 426)  12/132                 11/144                   14/150 


                                         (9.09%)                (7.64%)                 (9.33%)

Statistically speaking, only men's behaviors were affected by the hitchhiker's breast size (p < .03). The frequency of stopping in the cup C condition was marginally greater than that of cup B (p = 0.09) and significantly greater than that of cup A (p < .01). The difference between cups A and B was not significant.
 

The bottom line: If a woman has large breasts, men are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior (in this case offering her a ride). I suppose that we could have all predicted this fact albeit it is fun to see it tested in a scientific manner. Finally, I am only the messenger so direct your accusations of patriarchal oppression to Dr. Guéguen!


My fellow PT blogger Christopher Ryan recently put up a post explaining the allure of breasts. As he correctly explained, there are several evolutionary explanations for men's visual intoxication with breasts. In today's post, I'd like to discuss a consequence of this attraction within the service industry.
 
Michael Lynn is a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, and perhaps the most eminent researcher on tipping behavior. He has explored numerous variables that affect the size of tips left by patrons. 

In a recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Professor Lynn found a positive correlation between the breast size of waitresses (n = 432) and the size of their tips (both were self-reported measures). He did not split the tipping data by sex of the patrons. One might expect that the "breast effect" might enhance tips for male patrons whereas female patrons might "punish" shapely waitresses (intra-sexual rivalry). 
 
The existing data did not allow for a more refined set of analyses to test such possibilities. Also, Lynn notes that he might have expected a quadratic relationship between breast size and size of tips, namely, breasts that are too small or too big would result in lower tips than medium sized breasts. However, his data suggests that bigger is always better...at least when it comes to tipping behavior!

china - serious gender imbalance

 
Chinese men may soon find it difficult to get a life partner amid a serious gender imbalance as marriageable males will outnumber marriageable females by 24 million in 2020.

There is currently a serious gender imbalance among the population below the age of 19 in China, and the country's marriageable men will outnumber marriageable women by 24 million in 2020, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

 
According to the "2010 Social Blue Book" released by Academy, it is estimated that up to 10 million marriageable men will find it difficult to find a life partner.

"China's highly imbalanced sex ratio at birth has lasted for more than 20 years and the cumulative effects have already emerged," said Yuan Xin, a professor from the Institute of Population and Development under Nankai University.

 
The balanced sex ratio is the law of natural evolution, but the imbalanced sex ratio in China has already become a major "obstinate disease" of society.

"During a period as short as 20 years, the regions with highly imbalanced sex ratios have rapidly expanded from eastern to western China, and from the countryside to cities, and cover almost the entire country," Yuan was quoted as saying by the People's Daily Online.

In 1982, the highly imbalanced sex ratio was seen in only 18 provinces, but by 2005 it has spread to all of the provincial-level regions except for Tibet.

 
The direct impact of a long-term imbalanced sex ratio at birth is the emergence of "gradient marriage squeeze," it said.

Tian Xueyuan, deputy president of China Population Research Institute, said that it is estimated males outnumber females by more than 23.8 million at and below the age of 19.

Over the next 20 years, males at the threshold of the marriage will outnumber females by 1.2 million per year on average. Given the shortage of marriageable females at the same age, males will find wives among the females at the lower age, the report said.