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Coffee isn't that bad after all...

Anindita — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:10:33 +0000

Studies and researches have proven the fact that coffee does have certain health benefits. Several studies have shown that drinking coffee drastically reduces diabetes risk, as it contains certain antioxidants and minerals which help in maintaining a lower blood sugar. Coffee has also been found to have anti-cancer properties. It is believed that coffee drinkers were 25% less likely to get colon cancer and 50% less likely to get liver cancer than non-drinkers. It also helps in fighting against the ill-effects of smoking and heavy alcohol consumption. It is also quite beneficial to asthma patients as it widens the bronchial tubes. Thanks to its high caffeine content, regular consumption of coffee reduces the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Due to the presence of a compound called trigonelline, coffee prevents dental cavities as it has antibacterial properties. Coffee drinkers also enjoy a reduced risk of gallstones and kidney stones.
But when it comes to cholesterol levels and blood pressure, coffee means trouble. It does raise cholesterol levels, which might lead to artery clogging, but as long as one sticks to filter coffee, one is quite safe. Coffee is believed to raise blood pressure as it increases the level of certain stress hormones, which are responsible for the rise in blood pressure. Coffee might also pose as a threat to people suffering from heart diseases, even though it contains certain anti-oxidants which are beneficial to the heart. Clearly, coffee isn’t meant for everyone. Along with the heart patients, pregnant women might also want to steer clear of coffee as it might increase the risk of miscarriage. Migraine patients and those at risk from osteoporosis are also included in the list.
Less is more is definitely the case with coffee, since the more one drinks coffee, the less one benefits. It was found that coffee was beneficial when restricted to 1-3 cups per day. One might even stretch it to six. But more than 6 cups per day was definitely not that beneficial after all.

Image credit: chinese-culture

Via: WebMD

From sending messages to writing novels

Anindita — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 12:01:15 +0000

Japan has come out with an alternative to the regular novel. Known as ‘keitai shosetsu’ or the mobile phone novel, this trend of writing short novels using the cell phone as their medium is becoming increasingly popular. Obviously the novels aren’t as voluminous as ‘War and Peace’, nevertheless they consist of about 200-500 pages, each page containing around 500 Japanese characters. It costs around $10 to download each of these novels. This trend was started six years ago by a fiction writer Yoshi, but it gained immense popularity within a short span of time, especially with high-school girls and women in their 20s who happen to be the readers as well as the writers of this form of the novel. Due to this reason, the novels are amateurish in nature with the content mostly limited to romance and the style of writing is casual avoiding complicated expressions. Questions have been raised whether this trend can significantly impact Japanese literature, as these novels don’t exactly follow the conventional norms of novel writing and lack in many aspects such as characterization, setting, etc.
But this doesn’t impact the popularity of this genre. Many of these mobile-phone novels have been turned into real books, few selling around 400,000 copies after publishing. A few of these have even made it to the top 10 bestselling fiction works. What further helps this mobile phone novel boom, are the prizes which are being given out to the best mobile phone novel with the Japan Keitai Novels Prize offering �2 million prize money. Also, certain mobile phone websites such as the Magic iLand helps in popularizing this genre by offering a wide selection of mobile phone novels in their free novel library where readers can download from. It also includes reviews and instructions on how to write a mobile phone novel. It also has plans to create software which would enable the novelist to add visuals and integrate sounds, thereby further enhancing this particular genre.

Via: Wired

UFO sightings

Anindita — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:51:51 +0000

UFO sightings can be dated as far back as 1909, when two police officers saw a strange object hovering over a cathedral in Peterborough. That same year, an organist from St. Michael’s Church in Lambourn claimed to have seen a shape from East which let out loud explosions.
In the summer of 1968, a Newbury man while drawing his curtains, spotted a huge circular object traveling abnormally fast. Two policemen in Kent spotted a similar object that same evening. That same Newbury man spotted a large cigar-shaped object moving through the sky, fifteen years back.
A colossal saucer-shaped craft was spotted by Lee Jones of Anfield from the back garden of his home. He estimated its size as over a mile in diameter and it emerged from the clouds and hung in the sky for about 15 minutes after which it literally vanished into thin air without any noise. Mr. Fraser of Childwall noticed several lights in the sky while taking a stroll at night. He soon realized that these lights were on some enormous sized circular object. It moved slowly from the direction of Halewood and headed towards Netherley. This gigantic UFO has been spotted by many people in Dingle, Aigburth, Grassendale, and Hunt’s Cross. A retired policeman named Colin and an aviation expert named Greg have made some investigations and ascertained the size to be almost a mile in length and that it hovers at an altitude of around 7000 feet.
There have numerous claims of spotting glowing orbs, flashing and pulsating lights, fireballs, etc over the years. On the night of November 6, around 11 pm, a local resident in Carvoeiro spotted and photographed six unidentified flying objects. Robert Wilkinson, who owns a bar in Carvoeiro, claims to have seen six orange glowing orbs moving horizontally across the sky, when one changed directions and others followed, disappearing somewhere above the sea.