A dinosaur fossil in a Bern museum

The eastern Chinese province of Shandong is home to the world’s largest mass dinosaur grave, as proven by the unbelievable number of fossils that have thus far been unearthed in more than 30 locations around the site. According to local authorities, more than 7,600 remains have been recovered from their rocky tomb and cataloged. The official Xinhua news agency made the announcement on Tuesday.

A 300-meter (980-ft) long trench near the city of Zhucheng, locally known as Dinosaur City, yielded the impressive archaeological findings. Scientists have thus far dug up numerous bones belonging to full skeletons, and have already discovered a species of hadrosaurus that is some 20-meter long, which is a world record for the species. Until now, paleontologists believed that these duck-billed dinosaurs had no potential of reaching this impressive size.

At this point in time all the dig sites are closed because of the harsh winter, but representatives in Beijing say that the digs will resume as soon as the snow melts and the weather allows for excavations. Despite the impressive number of fossils thus far unveiled, experts say that they have barely scratched the surface of the burial site’s massive fossil reserve. There are yet no theories as to why such a large number of dinosaurs died there, or the reasons behind their bodies being so well preserved.

For years on end, China has been largely ignored by the archaeological community, for no apparent reason. However, there were digs throughout the country, done either by amateurs or by state professionals. With the graveyard at Zhucheng, this perception of the nation is bound to change, at least in the scientific circles.

Previous excavations that were done illegally also yielded valuable artifacts, which were smuggled out of the country and sent to private collectors around the world, who paid massive sums for them. Australia confiscated numerous such objects over the years, including dinosaur eggs hundreds of millions of years old. Australian authorities recently returned hundreds of kilograms of fossils to the Chinese government. These were recovered from various ports on the continent-island, in police sting operations.

Source:  Softpedia News

In my opinion, Adobe Acrobat Reader is annoying as it’s kind of heavy and sucks up too much of the free memory, especially the newer verisions. For now, among many alternatives available, Foxit PDF Suite stands out as the winner. It’s a complete package with a PDF Reader, Editor, PDF Page Organiser and a PDF Creater! Though the suite is not free, it’s definitely worth paying for. If you just need an Acrobat reader alternative, a Freeware version of Foxit PDF Reader is also available. The reader is very simple, light weighted, executes very quickly and well featured with an option of using multiple TABs. Visit the Official Page here http://www.foxitsoftware.com/

Truely, Windows XP is the most flexible, fast and very easy to operate. I think Ubuntu, being a freeware and a community developed OS, can give a good competition to Windows XP in future only if it is consistently worked on for improvement. I won’t call Windows OS’s or any of the Linux Os’s “secure”, as one thing ive understood that no matter how capable human can be, everything will be vulnerable to something, as being “imperfect” is the stubborn rule of the system we live in, thanks to the Martix triology.

Below are the  useful topics related to boosting, securing and again speeding the operations in Windows XP.  So, in this one, im clubbing all of them into one to make a complete user guide to ‘Unmasking the hidden potential of Windows XP’ :

• Using the Auto Shutdown Feature In Windows X

• Optimizing The RAM Speed Windows XP Style

• Turning Off the Useless Services In Windows XP

• Kicking Out The Autorun Viruses Manually

• How To Achieve Better Security

Giardia parasites can change the proteins on their surface, which helps them to evade the immune system, but only one protein is on the surface at any one time. This Giardia parasite has been engineered to exhibit two proteins on its surface, shown in green and red.

Dr Hugo D. Luján of Catholic University of Córdoba in Argentina and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has shown how the Giardia lamblia parasite changes its shape when meeting the human immune system. The parasite is known to cause about 200 million cases of diarrhea each year, and the research into its function is helping to develop a genetically modified strain that can serve as a possible vaccine for the disease.

The Giardia genome contains nearly 200 genes that code for surface antigens. Despite the large number of genes, each parasite displays only a single antigen—derived from a single gene—on its surface at any given time. Normally, the RNA instructions for each gene are copied from the parasite’s DNA then run through the cell’s internal machinery to create proteins, including surface antigens. As Luján and his group delved into this mystery, he discovered that the molecular machinery in the parasite actually reads and transcribes most of the 200 surface antigen genes, but only one antigenic protein makes it to the outer coat on the parasite’s surface. That observation suggested to Luján that the RNA instructions—called messenger RNA—had been created and were inside the organism, but something was stopping the RNA from being translated into proteins and expressed on the cell’s surface. “That was a surprise,” Luján said. “Because it takes a lot of energy for the organism to transcribe all of those genes into messenger RNA.”

So Luján sought to find out why most of the parasite’s RNA never gets translated into a working surface antigen. Something must be interfering with that process for Giardia’s surface antigens. He suspected that a powerful cellular mechanism called RNA interference, or RNAi, might be the cause of the holdup. Discovered a decade ago, RNAi identifies short segments of RNA and then destroys all RNA that matches the segments. The result: None of the protein that would have been created by that RNA is released into the cell. Researchers originally found that RNAi is a protective mechanism that helps cells fight off invading viruses. But as the new work by Luján shows, the process can also control which genes are switched on and off in Giardia.

In a series of experiments, Luján found that the cellular machinery involved in RNAi squelches most of the RNA in Giardia that codes for surface antigens. At any given time, in fact, only the RNA for a single type of antigen is left untouched. The rest is destroyed. “At that point, we realized RNAi was strongly linked to antigenic variation,” Luján said.

Next, Luján inhibited the enzymes involved in RNAi in Giardia. Again, he made a surprising discovery: The cells with defective RNAi machinery displayed many surface antigens simultaneously—a kind of parasitic Technicolor dream coat. “That was the direct link between enzymes involved in the RNAi pathway and antigenic variation in Giardia that we had been looking for,” Luján said.

Source:  MedGadget

The FTP errors suck. Not knowing the meaning of the error code can avoid a user from troubleshooting the issue. Here is a useful reference list that i found dumped inside the deepest region of my HD:

Code Description

100 Codes The requested action is being taken. Expect a reply before proceeding with a new command.
110 Restart marker reply.
120 Service ready in (n) minutes.
125 Data connection already open, transfer starting.
150 File status okay, about to open data connection.

200 Codes The requested action has been successfully completed.
200 Command okay.
202 Command not implemented
211 System status, or system help reply.
212 Directory status.
213 File status.
214 Help message.
215 NAME system type. (NAME is an official system name from the list in the Assigned Numbers document.)
220 Service ready for new user.
221 Service closing control connection. (Logged out if appropriate.)
225 Data connection open, no transfer in progress.
226 Closing data connection. Requested file action successful (file transfer, abort, etc.).
227 Entering Passive Mode
230 User logged in, proceed.
250 Requested file action okay, completed.
257 “PATHNAME” created.

300 Codes The command has been accepted, but the requested action is being held pending receipt of further information.
331 User name okay, need password.
332 Need account for login.
350 Requested file action pending further information.

400 Codes The command was not accepted and the requested action did not take place.
421 Service not available, closing control connection. (May be a reply to any command if the service knows it must shut down.)`
425 Can’t open data connection.
426 Connection closed, transfer aborted.
450 Requested file action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file busy).
451 Requested action aborted, local error in processing.
452 Requested action not taken. Insufficient storage space in system.

500 Codes The command was not accepted and the requested action did not take place.
500 Syntax error, command unrecognized. This may include errors such as command line too long.
501 Syntax error in parameters or arguments.
502 Command not implemented.
503 Bad sequence of commands.
504 Command not implemented for that parameter.
530 User not logged in.
532 Need account for storing files.
550 Requested action not taken. File unavailable (e.g., file not found, no access).
552 Requested file action aborted, storage allocation exceeded
553 Requested action not taken. Illegal file name.

Product Reviews : Get a clear picture of the latest and hottest Gadgets in the market for Laptops & PCs, Mobiles & PDAs, MP3 Players, Digital Cameras, Audio Devices, TVs, CPUs & Motherboards & more!

Forum: The discussion forum is running on vBulletin which among the most user friendly forum scripts available. You can discuss, ask and troubleshoot any Techy thing. And like any tech forum, the QnA forum section is the hottest one here

Blog Watch: This one is my favourite. Hop into the hundreds of tech blogs from around the globe and guess what, you can submit your blog too and gain more readers! You can take the advantage of the classifieds introductory offer for low cost advertising.

Downloads: Any computer related download is available in this section. It can be improved by adding a preview option or a screenshot would enhance it’s simplicity.

Classifieds: Users can sell their stuff easily as free classified ads. Other interested users can trust the selling user’s credibility for buying their stuff. Just submit your thing and watch it move!

Videos: The most obvious, yu can watch the latest videos of the coolest Gadgets.

Q&A Tech: Ask, search, solve and get things troubleshooted in this section.

iPOLL: This is a nice new feature at thinkdigiht.com. Polls are a must for market study, aren’t they?

Subscribe: Subscribe and receive the Digit Magazine at your door step!

A matter of fact:

Digit is the largest selling English technology magazine in India. Digit is an intelligent navigator that helps readers understand, select, use and remain at the forefront of digital technology. Digit is a clear number 1 in the space with a monthly circulation of 120,000 including 25,000 subscribers and 95,000 newsstand sales.

BAM - or boron-aluminum-magnesium alloy combined with titanium boride is super hard and slicker than Teflon. This “ceramic alloy” is the hardest material after diamond and cubic boron nitride. It’s “greener” because it could save hundreds of millions of dollars in energy wasted every year in overcoming friction.

“If you consider a pump, like a water pump or a hydraulic pump, it has a turbine that moves the fluid,” said Bruce Cook, an Ames Laboratory scientist and co-principal investigator on the four-year, $3 million project. “When the rotor spins, there’s friction generated at the contacting surface between the vanes and the housing, or stator. This friction translates into additional torque needed to operate the pump, particularly at start-up. In addition, the friction results in a degradation of the surfaces, which reduces efficiency and the life of the pump. It takes extra energy to get the pump started, and you can’t run it at its optimum (higher speed) efficiency because it would wear out more quickly.”

BAM is being touted as a lubricant coating that never needs to be replanished; it has a coefficient of friction of just 0.02 (Teflon is 0.05). Lubricated steel’s coefficient of friction is 0.16.

Experts believe that coating rotor blades in pumps in common use in households and industry could save $180 million per year (9 billion kilowatt hours of energy).

(Ceramic alloy coating made of boron, aluminum and magnesium)

The substrate is the mottled structure on the left-hand side of the photo and the coating is the thin, darker strip running along the edge of the steel.

The piece of steel in the picture shown above has a coating of BAM just 2-3 micrometers thick. See if it sounds like the frictionless coating provided by aliens in Clifford Simak’s 1965 novel Way Station:

It was as if the knob was covered with some hard, slick coating, like a coat of brittle ice, on which the fingers slipped wihout exerting any pressure on the knob…

There was something covering this house which made it slick and smooth - so smooth that dust could not cling upon its surface nor could weather stain it.

(Read more about Simak’s frictionless coating)

Sounds like a pretty close match to me.

From Tough Nanocoatings Boost Industrial Energy Efficiency via Material slicker than Teflon discovered by accident.

Source: Technovelgy

1st Way:

Create a new shortcut, Right Click Menu >> New >> shortcuts

In the “Type the location of the shortcut” type, shutdown -s -t 3600

Note: 3600 are the amount of seconds before your computer shuts down. So , 60secs*60mins=3600secs

Click next,

Name the new shortcut anything you prefer,

And you are done with the shortcut.

To abort the shutdown timer

Create another shortcut,

In the “Type the location of the shortcut” type  shutdown -a

And you are done.

2nd Way:

Here is another way to Auto shutdown. For example you wish to shutdown at 01:22am. Type this in

Start Menu >> Run

Type>> at 01:22 shutdown -s

To abort,

start >> Run

Type >> shutdown -a

Note: The time format is 24hr,if you want to Auto Shutdown at 7:30pm, you should type

“at 19:30 shutdown -s” in the run command box, without the quotes.

3rd Way: (Creating a batch file)

Open Notepad,

Type in the following code as it is:

@echo off

title Scheduled Shutdown Batch Example at www.upcomingtechs.com

color A

echo Enter Time To Shutdown (example 19:30)

set /p stime=

cls

at %stime% “”shutdown -s -t 00″” >nul

echo Your PC Will Auto Shutdown At %stime%

echo Press Any Key To Exit

pause >nul

exit

Save it,

Rename the new file from *.txt to *.bat,

And you are done with the Auto Shutdown Batch file.

Note: Task Schedular Service must be running in the background in order for the batch method to work.

I’ve experimented with and buried many RAM optimizng applications and all of them were sick enough to not-optimize-the-RAM. I don’t know if it’s my 1GB DDR2 RAM that sucks or should i blame it on the code. Whatever the case may be, i am happy with using the RAM freeing option available in the Windows XP itself. I have tested this option on many computers and work like a charm on all. The best part is that it’s stable!

Q. Why do you need to free up the RAM?

A. To optimize the performance of your PC RAM that has been reduced by fragmentation of the applications and games you’ve been using. It also helps you decide whether you actually need to upgrade you RAM or not.

Note: If you restart your computer,obviously, the RAM is automatically freed.

Most of the users are not aware that instead of depending and downloading the RAM freeing apps, they can use the feature straight away from their computer without downloading anything.

Here is the way:

1. Make a new shortcut from the right click menu,
   
2. Type the location of the item as: ” %windir%\system32\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks ” (without the quotes),
3. Type the name of the shortcut (any name so that you can easily recognize it),
4. Test it by double clicking on the new shortcut,
5. And there you go, your quick RAM optimizer is at your service!

To this!

Leta face it. Windows XP is far the only best thing that Microsoft could do till now. Windows Vista is pure BS. Only the Future Man(an imaginary character created by me who often travels in time) is aware of how well will Windows 7 do.

A good thing is that a lot tweaking tips for Win XP are available on the web which has made easy for all to squeeze out the every bit of the performance from this MS product. A very old, safe and effective tweak is to turn of the useless services which helps improving the boot/shutdown time and it also improves the overall browsing speed. Here is the list of services that can be safely ditched from running in the background. TheElderGeek has shared this wonderful list to sort out the crappy services:

AdobeLM Service: Not all computers have this service, still it is useless, just disable it if you have it.

Alerter: Disable this one if you are not on a network because you will not receive alerts.

Application Management: Set this to manual.

Automatic Updates: Disable it if you don’t require auto updating and patching of Windows. It is pretty useless if you use auto-patcher by NeoWin to update your Windows OS. Thus, you will save bandwidth.

ClipBook: Disable this if you are not on a network, since you don’t need to share anything.

Computer Browser: Disable this too if you are not on a network, as you don’t need to browse and monitor connected computers.

Cryptographic Services: Set this to manual if you are not sure you need it.

Distributed Transaction Service: Set this to manual.

DNS Client: Set this to manual if you are not on a network.

Error Reporting Service: Disable this useless service for reporting errors to Microsoft, because they will hardly even reply to you for any error you get. Also saves lots of bandwidth.

Fast User Switching Compatibility: Disable it if you have only a single user on your computer, or if you do not use fast user switching feature much. That is, if you completely log-off and then allow other users to use your computer, then you do not need this. Note that this service is completely useless for low memory computers.

FTP Publishing: Disable this if you do not use FTP.

Help and Support: Set it to manual or turn it off if you do not use the help feature often. You can turn it on again when you want help.

HTTP SSL: Set it to manual.

Human Interface Device Access: Turn it off if you do not use hot-keys or remote systems on your computer; if you use them sometimes, it is better turn it to manual.

IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service: Set this to manual to save memory and time. Do not turn it off if you have a CD writer or a DVD writer attached to your computer.

Indexing Service: Turn it off, it uses lots of CPU. If you are an avid searcher, like a maniac, on your computer, leave it on since it will help you. If you know where your files are and do not use search that often, then disable it for your good.

InstallDriver Table Manager: Disable it, it does no harm in doing so.

IPSEC Services: Set this to manual.

Windows Messenger: Disable this if you are not on a network, it uses too much memory and it is a hog. Also, it does no good and sometimes it is likely to become a security threat.

MS Software Shadow Copy Provider: Set this to manual.

Net Logon: Disable if you are not on a network.

NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing: Disable this if you do not use Remote Desktop feature; in my opinion, it is a pretty useless feature.

Network Provisioning Service: Disable this, iti s useless if you are not on a network.

NT LM Security Support Provider: Disable this, its useless too.

NVIDIA Display Driver Service: If you do not use the features of nVidia Desktop, this service must be disabled; it is a big hog of memory.

Office Source Engine: Disable it if you have a MS Office CD handy always, its helpful if your installation goes corrupt.

Portable Media Serial Number Service: Set it to manual if you connect portable media to your computer, otherwise disable it.

Print Spooler: Disable it if you don’t have a printer.

Protected Storage: Disable it if you don’t allow strangers to sit on your encrypted storage computer.

Remote Desktop Help Session Manager: Disable it if you don’t use Remote Desktop feature for help and support from Microsoft which most probably is a “Yes”.

Remote Procedure Call Locator: Set it to manual.

Remote Registry: Serious security threat if turned on, disable it no matter what.

Removable Storage: Disable it if you don’t use removable storage drives, else turn it manual.

Routing and Remote Access: Set it to manual.

Secondary Logon: Useless feature for most, disable it or turn it manual.

Security Accounts Manager: Disable it, it’s pretty useless, unless you use NTFS Encryption.

Security Center: Damn useless and irritating feature. Disable it.

Server: Set it to manual or disable it if you are not on network.

Smart Card: Disable it if you don’t use smart cards on your computer.

SSDP Discovery Service: Disable it of not on network or don’t have UPnP devices on home networks.

Task Scheduler: Disable it if you don’t schedule tasks like defragmentation, error scans etc… and plan to do it your self instead.

TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper: Set it to manual if on network, otherwise disable it.

Telnet: Set it to manual if you use this feature, otherwise disable it, especially if you are home users.

Terminal Services: Since you aren’t using Remote Desktop etc… disable it for good.

Uninterrupted Power Supply: Disable it if you don’t have an UPS attached to the serial port of your computer.

Universal Plug and Play Device Host: Set it to manual.

User Privilege Service: Set it to manual.

Volume Shadow Copy: Disable it if you don’t backup using System Restore or Windows Backup.

Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS): Disable this if you have another firewall such as Norton or Zone Alarm installed, otherwise let it remain ON for better security.

Windows Image Acquisition (WIA) : If you don’t connect/use a camera/scanner with your computer, disable this service, else set it to manual.

Windows Media Connect: Disable this if you don’t use things such as an iPod etc… for your Windows Media Player.

Windows Media Connect (WMC) Helper: Disable this if you disabled the one above or if you don’t need help.

Windows Time: Disable if not on a synchronized network.

Wireless Zero Configuration: Disable if not on a wireless network.

WMI Performance Adapters: Disable it, useless service for basic usage.

Workstation: Disable if you aren’t on a network. Or simply, if you are a gamer, just shut this one.

Thats it! I guarantee you that your PC will perform a lot better if you’ve optmized the services correctly!