News around the world

Unlucky 13

Due to the unlucky superstition surrounding the number 13, it has become more common for it to be missed out in certain situations.Many hotels do not have a 13th floor in their building, skipping from level 12 to level 14 to miss out any chance of bad luck. Some aeroplanes also miss out the 13th row of seats.

Many people avoid taking any risks on Friday 13th including flying, getting married or participating in anything which requires good luck.So why is 13 believed to be so unlucky? Check out some of the reasons below: 1. Apollo 13 is the only unsuccessful moon mission 2. 13 is believed to be the end of childhood, where people become teenagers 3. 13 is believed to be a 'messy' number, one too far after the 'perfect' 12 which is the number of months in a year, hours on a clock, signs of the zodiac and also the number of days in the Christmas celebration (the 12 days of Christmas.)There is so much fear and superstition around the number that there is actually a phobia of 13 known as triskaidekaphobia!Do you believe 13 is unlucky?

-Internet




 

Huge toxic orange cloud in Spain

Tens of thousands of people have been forced to stay indoors after a huge, poisonous orange cloud appeared over the Spanish town Igualada.The cloud was caused by an accident at a chemical factory when two chemicals were accidentally mixed causing an explosion.Six people were injured from the blast but only one has had to stay in hospital.

More than 60,000 people living in nearby towns were told to stay indoors with the windows shut.As the cloud later blew away, authorities later lifted the order to stay indoors.Scientists believe the cloud is bright orange because of the type of chemicals that were mixed in the accident.

-Internet







 

New keyboard can tell if you're its owner

A new keyboard can tell if you're its owner. It locks out anyone else, even if that person knows your password. What's more, this device needs no batteries. It harvests all the energy it needs from the action of your typing.

All in all, "This will hugely improve the security of a computer," predicts Zhong Lin Wang. He's a materials scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and a co-designer of the new keyboard. "Our fingertips have electrostatic charges," explains Wang. That means there's an imbalance of electrons. Your fingertips generally have a slight positive charge. So they have somewhat fewer electrons than the area around them. And that principle makes it possible for typing to induce an electric current in the keyboard, Wang points out.

Just as the closely spaced bumps on a lotus leaf (shown here) repel water, the nanowires on the new keyboard's keys repel dirt, oils and liquids.

To understand how this works, consider a magnet. At one end is a positive charge. At the other is a negative charge. Opposite poles attract. So if you put the positive end of one magnet next to the negative one of another, they will latch onto each other. A similar idea applies to electrostatic charges. Positive charges attract negative ones.

Wang's group put two layers of metal electrodes under the keyboard's plastic surface. When a finger approaches a key, it attracts free electrons to the top electrode. The bottom electrode supplies them. As soon as the finger lifts off the key, the electrons flow back to the lower electrode. Any flow of electrons creates an electric current.

And this induced electric current can power the keyboard - but only if the current is strong enough.

To achieve that, the Georgia Tech team focused on 'nanotechnology'. ("Nano-" refers to things measured on the scale of 100 billionths of a metre or less.)

The keys of the new keyboard are made of the same inexpensive plastic that might be found on any other standard keyboard. But instead of being smooth, the keys have millions of tiny plastic "nanowires" on their surface.

Those nanowires make the new keys special. They add more surface area to every key, increasing the effective contact area between the plastic and the fingers, Wang explains. This ensures that there's enough power to run the keyboard as someone types.

Because fingers touch the keys and then back off, that current isn't constant. It also varies with the force and speed at which a typist strikes different keys. And that rate, force and pattern of typing will differ from one person to the next.

- Internet