Student outfit starts hunger strike at MSU for mass promotions

VADODARA: Demanding mass promotions, a group of student leaders at M S University's Faculty of Science has launched an indefinite hunger strike at the faculty from Friday.


Student leaders associated with All India Students Association (AISA) said despite several representations, the university has not corrected anomalies in the results of first and second year Bachelor of Science (BSc) declared by the faculty.

"Before a fortnight, we had made a representation to the dean of the faculty in which we had highlighted the plea of the students. Results of many students have been shown as reserved or they have been declared absent when they had appeared for the examinations. But since our pleas have gone unheard, we took this ultimate step of hunger strike," said Nisarg Jani, who sat on the hunger strike on Friday. "We are demanding that since the faculty has not been able to correct the results of the students, it should promote first year students to second year and second year students to third year as the classes and laboratory tests have already started," said another student Mitesh Bariya. Professor A C Sharma, dean of Faculty of Science, however argued that he has no powers to relax any norms. "I have time and again explained to them that any decision regarding upper movement has to be taken by the university officials or the syndicate. But they are unnecessarily pressurizing us to declare mass promotions," Sharma told TOI.

Headline July 20, 2014

''' THE VIRUS HIGHWAYS -

TRAGEDIES - AND FEVER CHARTS '''

The hardwood trees in southern Cameroon are some of the most valuable in Central Africa, their branches towering above 15 m, but Junior's eyes are on the jungle floor.

He's a hunter, and his target is bush meat : wild forest animals like porcupines, the cat-size antelopes called  dik-diks , perhaps even monkeys. One would be enough to feed his family for a couple of days-

Or he could sell it to truckers passing along the new, Chinese-made logging roads that cut through this once untouched part of the forest. When Junior arrives at one of his traps after hours of walking, though-

He kneels to find that the wire snare has snapped but is empty. Something living has already come and gone.

Nathan Wolfe leans over Junior and examines the spent trap. A 41-year old with close-cropped black hair and sleepy Buddha eyes, Wolfe is a hunter in this forest as well, though one of a different sort.

He stalks viruses  -new ones- and the Cameroonian forest is one of the best places in the world.

As the founder and head of Global Viral Forecasting  (GVF), Wolfe has set up projects in Africa, South-east Asia and Southern China-  all but spots where human and wild animals  intermingle  and new viruses can leap from one species to another.

Wolf's big idea is a simple as it is ambitious. Pandemics and outbreaks of new infectious diseases usually begin when a novel microbe in an animal mutates and passes to human being who lacks immunity to it.

HIV, SARS, swine flu   -they all begin in animals. But instead of waiting for viruses to appear in humans,  Wolfe is going on the offensive, using humans like Junior to gather blood from animals that Wolfe and his colleagues can screen for unknown pathogens.

''This is the sort of place where people can have contact with animals and their viruses and spark a real pandemic," he says. "It all comes together here."

This is a revolution in epidemiology  -working to predict and prevent rather than simply respond to pandemics.

The world is more vulnerable to infectious new pathogens than ever. For one thing,  there are simply more of us   -7 billion, to be exact,  often packed into dense cities, where an aggressive disease could spread fast.

We're also more connected; thanks to air travel, there's barely spot on this planet, including the deep forests of Cameroon, that isn't within 24 hours of major city.

A new disease that could have burned out in a rural village years ago now stands a better chance of finding fresh victims.

Meanwhile, as we clear cut-forests and expand into what was once wilderness, we expose ourselves to a new animals microbes.

The panic, chaos and death in the recent film  Contagion for which he  -served as a technical adviser   -aren't exaggerations. "We are at a greater risk because of our interconnectedness," says Dr Donald Burke, dean of the graduate school of public health at the University of Pittsburgh and one of Wolfe's mentors.

''That's why we need to get better at figuring out where these things start.'' "If we fail,  Hollywood's take on the problem could turn out to be a potent of what we'll all experience."

Wolf is not alone in trying to prevent that from happening. The experience of SARS   -which in 2003 moved from bats to civets before infecting humans  -and the threat of avian flu sent jolts though the public health field.

The World Health Organization and the  U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)  have upped surveillance for new diseases, while the U.S. Agency for International Development, which disburses foreign assistance, has launched an innovative program to help beef up infectious disease-surveillance.

And groups like Wolfe's GVF are bringing the concepts of intelligence gathering to epidemiology, sifting through viral charter to detect what new biothreat might be brewing.

"Virus hunters like Nathan are our first line of protection," says Dr Larry Brilliant, the president of the  Skoll Global Threats Fund and an infectious disease veteran, "He can make a huge difference."

You think you know the story of  HIV. Aids first appeared in the U.S. in 1981, and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was identified in 1983. In just a few decades, HIV has become a global killer, on par with smallpox and bubonic plague, with millions infected each year. Though antiviral drugs have reduced the toll, there is no vaccine.

Wolfe tells a different tale: HIV was active amongst people in Central Africa for decades before it spread to the rest of the world, aided by air travel, changing sexual mores and the mass distribution of cheap syringes.

The best guess is that the virus jumped from primates to humans more than a century ago, when some unlucky hunters killed and butchered a chimp infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the primates version of HIV.

But it goes back even farther. SIV has long been common in many African monkeys, in which appears to do little harm. When viruses remain in one population for along time, they can attenuate and lose their virulence  -but viruses that jump to new species are often extremely deadly because the new host's immune system has no means of defence.

Wolfe imagines a possible Patient Zero Chimpanzee millions of years ago that might have acquired different SIV strains while hunting monkeys in Central Africa. "If you look at the chimp virus that led to HIV, it's a mix of two monkey viruses," says Wolfe.   

There are two lessons for Wolfe's work. One is that while human beings to think our species is special,  to microbes there's not much difference between a  Pan troglodytes, or common chimp, and a Homo sapiens.

To viruses, we all look the same  -which is one reason nearly  20%  of all major infectious diseases in human began in primates, even though primates make up just  0.5%  of all vertebrate species. Another point is that viruses make that leap between species when:

Bodily fluids are shared  -as tends to happen when one animal hunts, kills and eats another. Hunting and butchering, writes Wolfe in his new book. The Viral Storm,  "provide superhighways connecting a hunting species directly with the microbes in every tissue of their prey".

In the most basic and ambitious sense, Wolfe's goal is to prevent the next HIV.

In 1998, Wolfe, who has a  Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University, published a paper that raised the possible links between the hunting of wild animals and the spread of emerging infectious diseases.

The Honour and Serving of the Post continues. Thank you for reading and see you on the next one.

With respectful dedication to the memory of all Scientists and Researchers who died in the most tragic manner in the MH 17 crash.

With respectful dedication to all the readers of Sam Daily Times. See Ya all on  !WOW!  -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

"' Unknown Things "'

Good night and God bless!

SAM Daily Times - The Voice of the Voiceless

Yaya Touré pledges to stay at Manchester City for sake of the fans

• Touré insists he ‘never wanted to talk about money’
• PSG and Manchester United speculation was ‘disappointing’


Yaya Touré has vowed to remain at Manchester City as he asked for an end to a summer of speculation largely begun by his own agent.


Touré and his representative Dimitri Seluk spoke to Sky Sports News on Friday to confirm the Ivory Coast international’s intention to honour his contract – which runs until 2017 – at the Etihad Stadium.


“The fans have always been good to me, they’ve always been good to my family,” Touré said. “I want to stay. I will always honour my contract. I don’t think about all this speculation. It’s a big pleasure to stay and enjoy the next season.”


Seluk sparked speculation about Touré’s future just days after City lifted the Premier League title by claiming the midfielder was hurt by the club’s failure to mark his birthday, despite a video on City’s website showing Touré being presented with a birthday cake.


Further stories followed as Seluk claimed his client had been shown a lack of respect by City, and he was strongly linked with Paris Saint-Germain before Manchester United emerged as another possible destination.


Touré described the speculation as “disappointing” and said he owed a debt to City fans. “Everything is fine now,” he said. “There was a lot of speculation, you know. I think sometimes it’s quite disappointing. I need to do something for the fans, it’s important to let them know. They’ve done a lot for me. The team is preparing well and we will try to win again next season.”


Seluk, who spoke before Touré, had said: “I would like to say Yaya will stay at City. He won’t go to any club. Everybody can stop speculation about this. Yaya will stay at Manchester City 100%. He has a contract, he will work very hard and I hope this season he will be the best player in England.”


Although Seluk is seen as the source of so much of the speculation, the player backed his agent. “He’s quite strong sometimes but he’s a very good guy,” the 31-year-old said.


“To be honest, we never wanted to talk about money. There are more important things than money. To be happy, healthy. Respect as well is very important.”


Seluk was even able to laugh at some of the more surreal stories that have come out in recent weeks. “I hope now everybody will have a very friendly relationship,” he said. “I hope his next birthday they will celebrate together.”

Will Drip law make UK citizens' data more attractive to hackers?

Cybercrime experts disagree over whether new surveillance law will create new 'soft targets' for cyber-criminals.


The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers (Drip) bill that yesterdaycleared the House of Lords will make companies holding UK citizens’ communications data far more attractive to criminal hackers, a security expert has warned.


This will likely be a long-term consequence of the law as it will spread the UK’s data across the world, said Dr Adrian Davis, cybercrime expert and European director of (ISC)2, an association of information security professionals.


Davis raised concerns about clause 4 of the bill, which extends the territorial reach of UK surveillance powers by making it clear foreign firms holding UK citizen data can be served with a warrant to hand over information.


The government chose to add the clause as the current law only has an “implicit extraterritorial effect” and “some of the largest communications providers” based outside of the UK have questioned whether the legislation applies to them.


But this will lead to storage of data in more locations around the world, thereby increasing the chance hackers will be able to access it, Davis said, adding that companies storing the information may not have the same quality of security as those within the UK.


“Because of the extraterritorial reach in the Drip bill, it requires foreign internet service providers, who may be providing webmail services to British citizens (think of the expats living in Spain or Florida and using national ISPs for example), to store data about those British citizens in data or storage centres outside the jurisdiction of the UK Data Protection and other relevant Acts,” Davis told the Guardian.


“As a result, we don’t know how that data is stored, processed, accessed or protected … Hackers may view foreign ISPs storing British citizens’ data as a ‘soft target’ – the levels of protection may be different and the penalties for stealing or compromising data could be lower.”


Davis also claimed that organisations within the UK will also become more attractive to criminal hackers thanks to the proposed update of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which currently governs how surveillance by UK agencies can be carried out.


A House of Commons' standard note about Drip indicated any company that provides "webmail" services will have to retain data, thus increasing the volume of data they have to store and thereby increasing the number of enticing targets for criminal hackers hoping to get their hands on troves of data, he said.


Some security experts disagree, however. Prof Alan Woodware from the department of computing at the University of Surrey said the data that companies are being forced to retain may not actually be that attractive to malicious hackers.


He said that the metadata that the government wants to have stored includes who spoke to whom, when and from where – not the actual content of the communications. “User IDs I suppose could be of interest but without passwords is that really going to tempt hackers? I’d expect hackers to be more interested in fuller data sets,” said Woodward.


“But, I suppose also there will be someone who tries to do this to make a point. The point however is that they could do it before Drip, and the fact that Drip is now in place simply means they continue to have the same opportunity, if indeed it exists.”


Richard Clayton, security expert from the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, agreed it was unlikely hackers would put more effort into breaching ISPs as a result of Drip. But it may lead to more journalist attempts to illegally acquire interesting communications data, he added.


“What does seem plausible is that journalists will bribe insiders for the data. A list of mobile phone calls performed by Mr Cameron over the past week or so might be very interesting," said Clayton. "But lots of this data is held for a short period anyway - so the increased risk comes from being able to look back 12 months for this information."


Despite claims Drip would simply reaffirm the status quo, lawyers and human rights activists have pointed out that clauses 4-5 of the bill extend the government’s reach to US and foreign companies and increasing the kind of web services for which intercept warrants can be issued.


“In our view these clauses should be deleted entirely,” said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group. There is also a heated debate over whether the bill has been rushed through without proper debate about its implications.

With 1 million comments, U.S. net neutrality debate nears first marker

U.S. companies, consumer advocates and citizens submitted more than 1 million comments to the Federal Communications Commission, drawing contentious divisions on the issue of net neutrality as the first deadline to comment approached Friday.


The FCC will continue collecting comments, made in response to these first submissions, until Sept. 10 as it weighs how best to regulate the way Internet service providers (ISPs) manage web traffic crossing their networks. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed new rules in April after a federal court struck down the FCC's previous version of such rules in January.


The FCC's draft rules propose banning ISPs from blocking users' access to websites or applications but allowing some "commercially reasonable" deals between content providers and ISPs to prioritize delivery of some web traffic.


Though Wheeler has insisted the FCC would carefully guard against abuse of the rules to hurt competition or consumers, the proposal drew ire from public interest groups and large web companies that say it would result in faster download speeds for some content at the expense of other content, which would inevitably be relegated to "slow lanes."


As the push against paid-prioritization spread across the web, thousands wrote to the FCC and the proposal has now attracted one of the biggest responses in the FCC's history, nearing the record 1.4 million comments the regulators received after the 2004 Super Bowl broadcast that exposed viewers to a glimpse of singer Janet Jackson's breast.


"Dear FCC," read numerous comments filed using a template created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation group.


"Net neutrality, the principle that (ISPs) treat all data that travels over their networks equally, is important to me because without it ISPs could have too much power to determine my Internet experience by providing better access to some services but not others."


Consumer advocates and some web companies, including online video services Netflix Inc and Vimeo, want to reclassify ISPs as telecommunications services and regulate them more like public utilities - an idea rejected by the ISPs and by Republicans both in Congress and at the FCC.


Experts disagree on whether or how reclassification would effectively prevent pay-for-priority deals. Wheeler has not proposed reclassification as the solution, but has not taken it off the table as a potential route.


The National Cable and Telecommunications Association, AT&T Inc, Verizon Communications Inc and Comcast Corp wrote to the FCC in opposition of reclassification, saying the "radical" move would impose arcane rules on the quickly changing marketplace and may raise costs for supporting already expensive network infrastructure. They say they have no plans to create any "slow lanes."


AT&T, though, said the FCC could ban paid prioritization without reclassifying ISPs. It is unclear how the approach would stand up in court. Verizon and Comcast supported the "commercially reasonable" standard.


Cable trade group came out in support of setting the same net neutrality rules for wireless and fixed broadband, something long urged by consumer advocates and recently also backed by large web companies.

Reader scammed by fake Guardian webpage

It looks virtually identical to a conventional online page of the Guardian – the same layout, typography, links to other sections, and comments below the line. The story, with Money reporter Miles Brignall's byline, gives a glowing account of a company called Business Grants & Loans. But the page is entirely fake, hosted on a copycat website and apparently designed by fraudsters to give the impression that the company has won independent endorsement from the Guardian – and to lure victims into handing over hundreds of pounds each.


Until now, fake websites have tended to be clones of bank websites or institutions such as HM Revenue & Customs. Conmen send out "phishing" emails which convince people to click through to the bank, but, in reality, they are taken through to the copycat website designed to illegally capture log-ins and password details.


But the fake Guardian pages are, thankfully, a rare example of an attempt to give the impression that a trusted news organisation has endorsed a company. The fake website page uses the address "theguardian.com.uk" – rather than our real web address, which is theguardian.com. The Guardian immediately asked the internet service provider that hosts the page to take it down.


We were alerted to the scam by a victim who paid £175 to Business Grants & Loans by bank transfer, but then failed to receive the loan of £15,000 that she had been promised. She had been sent an email from the company (see composite above) which read: "To back things up, in 2013 we were mentioned in the Guardian.


"We would strongly suggest you read the article below, this should give you the confidence you need in our company …"


In the fake article, readers are told that Business Grants & Loans is an "expanding company" which is "helping 76% of applicants achieve the funding they desire". It tells readers to head to the company's website, and goes to extraordinary lengths to make the article appear genuine – even creating fake below-the-line comments from regular readers of Guardian Money, such as "Halo572" and "oommph".


One fake entry reads: "I myself have dealt with them and they found me a loan option that was very suitable within just a few days." To add greater authenticity, it includes our reporter's email address – with a small change, so anyone trying to email him is directed away from his regular address. At this stage we should make clear to readers that the Guardian's website has not, in any way, been hacked or hijacked, with genuine pages replaced with fake ones.


The idea is that pages are created that appear to be from the Guardian, then are put up on a URL (uniform resource locator) that is similar to the Guardian (ie, ".com.uk" rather than just ".com"). They are then embedded in web links that are sent via emails to the company's clients. We are keen to hear from anybody else who has been duped.


Another example we found of fraudsters imitating a trusted news organisation was last June, when a faked BBC website news page appeared to be endorsing some dodgy diet pills.


Entitled "Special Report: We expose how to lose 23lbs of Belly Fat", and posted on fake BBC Health pages, it was a crude reconstruction of a BBC web story, but it may have been enough to give it credence in some readers' minds – which was the obvious intention. The URL was "World-BBC.co.uk" rather than the conventional "bbc.co.uk".


We asked the Guardian's IT department to find out as much as possible about the fake web page. Very quickly, we learned that it appeared to have been produced, relatively recently, by a "Kieren Daniel Farrer-Thornton".


After an extensive investigation, we were able to trace Thornton to Thailand. He had previously run a web design business, called KK Web Design, which promised to "offer a very unique concept to web design" but which has been inactive in recent years. In January 2012 he began a Facebook page from Thailand, claiming to be in Bangkok.


By November 2012 he is boasting that he is "a money-making machine" and a few days later posts "guna have a fukin expensive weekend after our best week at work yet … just over £13k hitting the bank, were guna be rich fukers after xmas" – which links to an Ashton Saunders. He also boasts of "rooftop parties, champagne and enough hot girls that ill need to rent the whole hotel".


He even shares a link to a BBC story about two men fined £440,000 for sending millions of spam text messages, and writes next to it: "AND WE THOUGHT WE WERE BAD.... GARY U NAUGHTY BOY!!!!" The Facebook postings stop at the beginning of 2013, just after Thornton says he has had a meeting with a software company.


But what about the company itself, Business Grants & Loans? In the UK, calls are met with an automated message which says it is so busy handling "thousands of applications" that correspondence must be done entirely via email, although all our emails went unanswered. Its website is ukgrants.org.uk, and claims to be based in Amersham, Bucks.


At Companies House, Business Grants & Loans is a trading name of Business Grant Finder Ltd, whose company director is listed as 27-year-old Ashton Saunders – who also pops up regularly on Kieren Thornton's Facebook postings. We located Saunders in Pattaya, Thailand – where he claimed to have no knowledge of the fake Guardian pages. He said he had sold the company a year ago to his cousin – who he named as Kieren Thornton. At Companies House there is no indication that the Business Grant Finder Ltd has been sold or dissolved.


We asked Saunders about fraud. Did he have any knowledge of fees taken when there was no chance of the person obtaining a loan? He said that, when he ran the company, it was a legitimate business that took fees but did arrange loans. Just before Money went to press, the plot thickened. In a statement attributed to Kieren Thornton, but sent by Saunders, Thornton confirmed he had bought the company – but claimed he was the victim of a scam.


He said that eight months ago he was contacted by a customer, who provided a link to an article about his company. "I just saved the link but also got my web designer to store it for myself on a hosting account that I owned, in case it disappeared from your site.


"Clearly, for some reason, they have made this, and now I understand it is a false document. I do not understand the intentions behind this customer and the reasons they would do this.


"However, this has now been removed as you have gladly brought it to my attention."


Thornton was also quoted as saying the company "unfortunately has been slandered online as being a scam". He added: "I have always cooperated with any customer who has complained … I will not be charging any customers a fee until I, myself, source grants that are available for our clients."


Meanwhile, the person who alerted us to the fake page says: "You don't take out a loan if you don't need the money. We had a call from someone and it all sounded very convincing – helped by the Guardian article, or so we thought.


"We paid the admin fee by transfer, but now, every time we call, we are told the offices are closed for training purposes. We have been scammed, and it doesn't feel very nice." The money was paid into a NatWest account. She has since taken up the matter with her bank, and has been told investigations are ongoing.


Meanwhile, the Guardian has passed details of its investigation to Action Fraud, the fraud and internet crime reporting centre run by the City of London Police.


Spot the clues


It is not always easy to spot a copycat website, but here are some clues that all is not as it seems, writes Hilary Osborne.


Search for the real thing Put the name of the website you think you have been looking at into a search engine and see what comes up. In many cases the genuine article will appear at or near the top. Do not assume that is the case unless it's a site you know well – and certainly be careful if appears at the top and is marked up as an advert (look out for "Ad" next to it) - but if something does appear that looks different to the site you were looking at, that should ring alarm bells.


Look at the URL Really closely. Now look again. The copycat site will probably have a URL that looks very similar to the real thing, but there will be subtle differences. In the case of the fake Guardian page, the URL is theguardian.com.uk – visit the Guardian site from the UK and the real address is theguardian.com/uk. That dot gives the game away. For government sites it's worth remembering that.


Chop the URL down If you find yourself on what looks to be a sub-page of a website cut back the URL to see if the homepage actually exists. The fake Guardian page has an address starting "http://theguardian.com.uk-news-article-database-business-grants-loans-review-listed ..." – cut it back to end after ".uk" and you end up on a page telling you the server has not been found.

Barbie, you've had your day

It's no surprise sales of Barbie are continuing to fall - she's out of step with the modern world


She may have dated Ken since 1961 but Barbie is now experiencing what it’s like to be left on the shelf. Sales of the doll and related merchandise fell 15% in the three months to June following a 14% drop in the previous quarter.


I’m glad she’s falling out of fashion. I know her warped aesthetic is not responsible alone for women’s body issues but it doesn’t help. She feels out of step with the modern world: not that shrinking world where newspaper executives think it’s still OK to write sexist headlines about the appearance of the women MPs promoted to cabinet this week but the one we want our daughters to inhabit.


Campaigns such as Pink Stinks and Let Toys Be Toys have alerted parents to the genderisation of toys and the negative messages this sends. Other franchises such as Corolle or Lottie dolls, which have a childlike body shape and no makeup or high heels, feel less “girly”.


Barbie’s done her best to keep up with the times. Last month Barbie Entrepreneur was launched, complete with an impressive network of real-life mentors. Toy company Mattel signed up 10 successful businesswomen to be her “Chief Inspirational Officers”. These include Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code, a non-profit organisation that aims to teach girls advanced computer skills.


Saujani said: “You can’t be what you can’t see. When you ask a girl what a computer scientist is, she usually pictures a geeky guy typing away. And then we wonder why girls don’t pursue careers in tech! We have to change popular culture and start showing more women, more cool, dynamic, creative women, in these roles.”


Hang on, Entrepreneur Barbie doesn’t look like a woman any seven year old will grow up into either. Unless you’re counting Ukrainian Valeria Lukyanova who became a human Barbie thanks to plastic surgery and a liquid diet (which would leave you far too weak to push all those geeks out of the elevator going up to the boardroom anyway).


According to the sales blurb, Barbie Entrepreneur wears a “sophisticated dress in signature pink... Her ‘smartphone’, tablet and briefcase are always by her side. And luxe details, like a glam necklace, cool clutch and elegant hairstyle, are awesome extras for a smart, stylish career woman”.


Granted, all this is an advancement on the Slumber Party Barbie of the 1960s which along with hair rollers and a sleeping bag came with bathroom scales set at 110lbs, and a small book titled How To Lose Weight whose only words inside were: “DON’T EAT!”


But Barbie Entrepreneur’s shape has not been updated. While the average woman’s figure today is several inches bigger than it was in the 1950s, hers has stayed resolutely tiny. Is she sending a subliminal message to young girls that to have a successful career you have to have a 32” bust, 16” waist and 29” hips? Can you still be a Silicon Valley player measuring a more generous 36-28-38?


And does any of this matter? She’s just a doll, people say, a vehicle for firing a child’s imagination and storytelling skills.


Maybe, but research by Oregon State University (OSU) found that playing with Barbies could limit girls' career choices. Girls aged four to seven were given one of three dolls: a fashion Barbie wearing a dress and high heels; a career Barbie with a doctor’s coat and stethoscope; or a Mrs Potato Head with accessories such as purses and shoes. After a few minutes of play, the girls were asked if they could do any of 10 occupations when they grew up. They were also asked if boys could do those jobs. Half of the careers were traditionally male-dominated and half female-dominated.


Girls who played with Barbie thought they could do fewer jobs than boys could do. But girls who played with Mrs Potato Head cited nearly the same number of possible careers for themselves and for boys. Interestingly, there was no difference in the results between girls who played with a fashion Barbie or a career version of the doll.


“Playing with Barbie has an effect on girls’ ideas about their place in the world,” said Aurora M. Sherman, an OSU psychology professor. “While it’s not a massive effect, it is a measurable and statistically significant effect.”


As Sherman notes, childhood development is complex and having a Barbie among a variety of toys is unlikely to change a girl's career aspirations, even if it may have some influence on her ideas of what that career might be.


But when there are so many other action figures and dolls on sale, why choose Barbie?


Two American businesswomen are planning to manufactureIAmElemental, a collection of strong female characters with names such as Bravery and Persistence. When IAmElemental - which should be on sale at the end of the year - launched on crowdfunding site Kickstarter last month, the project was fully funded within two days – more than 2,500 people have pledged about £100,000 between them, almost five times the original target total.


Sorry Barbie, but you’ve had your day.

Apprehension associated with Malaysian Airliners before it was downed

A passenger believed to be on the Malaysian airliner that was shot down over Ukraine posted this chilling photo before take off. MH 17  carrying 298 passengers was flying from Amsterdam to Kaula Lumpur.

The caption of photo posted by Facebook user Cor Pan says:

"if [it] disappears, this is what it looks like."

The authenticity of photo of Cor Pan, who's surname was listed as "Schilder" can not be confirmed. His friends had posted condolences in the comments below the photo. Pan and his partner Neeltje Tol had set off for their vacation.

Photos posted by Jonathan Rugman of Britain’s Channel 4 News, showed that the couple owned a flower shop in Holland. After news of their deaths broke, floral tributes were left outside the shop along with photos of the couple.

A Scottish couple missed their Malaysian Airlines flight. The woman holding her baby was in a total shock when she spoke to the media - "I have been given a second chance". She hoped that the next airline wouldn't be flying over Ukranian airspace. 

The contact with the flight was lost at an altitude of 33,000 ft, travelling in an airspace deemed to be unsafe. There were no survivors from Thursday's crash which left only wreckage and gases.

A giant mysterious hole opens up in Siberia

A massive hole that appeared in Siberia has baffled everyone. There's currently no clue what caused it. But a team of scientists has been sent to scrutinize the site. Spanning about 262 feet in diameter, the hole was spotted on the Yamal Peninsula in Russia, commonly known as the "end of the world," The Siberian Times reported. The depth of the hole is not yet known.

Given the crater's proximity to a natural gas field, one theory is that the hole formed following an explosion, caused by a mixture of gas, salt and water igniting underground.

So far, local officials have ruled out a space rock as the culprit behind the hole.

"We can definitely say that it is not a meteorite," a spokesman for the Yamal branch of the country's Emergencies Ministry told The Siberian Times, adding that there are no further details yet.

Dr. Chris Fogwill, a polar scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said the hole may be what's left of a pingo, a heap of Earth-covered ice that is found in the Arctic and subarctic. If the pingo was large enough, and melted, it potentially could have created a giant hole.

"Certainly from the images I've seen it looks like a periglacial feature, perhaps a collapsed pingo," Fogwill told The Sydney Morning Herald. "This is obviously a very extreme version of that, and if there’s been any interaction with the gas in the area, that is a question that could only be answered by going there."

Philipp Lahm: Germany captain retires from internationals

Germany captain Philipp Lahm has retired from international football after leading his side to victory at the World Cup in Brazil.

The 30-year-old Bayern Munich defender, who can also play in midfield, played 113 times for Germany.

Lahm will continue playing for his club side, where he renewed his contract until 2018 shortly before the World Cup.

- www.bbc.com