November 1st -Kerala Piravi

 

 
Kerala Piravi marks the birth of the state of Kerala. The state of Kerala was created on November 1, 1956. November 1 is therefore known as Kerala Piravi Dinam (day) in the state. Malayalees around the world celebrate November 1 as Kerala Piravi, which in Malayalam means the day Kerala was formed in the earth. Kerala, the southernmost state of India, was formed long after Indian independence on 15 August 1947. Prior to that date it was three independent provinces named Malabar, Cochin and Travancore. Kerala originally got its name after the first ruler, Keralian Thamboran, who ruled one of these independent provinces earlier in the millennia.
Mythologically Kerala stretches along the Arabian Sea from Gokarnam (Gokarna, in Karnataka) to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, though its official territory is only from Kasagode to Parassala. The western Ghats flank the eastern edge of Kerala with its diverse flora and fauna.
According to the Hindu myth Parashurama, the sixth incarnation of Mahavishnu (The God-Lord), created Kerala. Parasurama flung his "Mazhu" (axe) from Gokarnam (Gokarna) to the sea and the sea receded to form the land Keralam.
Kerala is a 560 km long narrow stretch of land. At the widest, Kerala is 120 km from the sea to the mountains. On one side of Kerala are the lofty mountains ranging high to reach the sky. And on the other side the land is washed by the blue Arabian Sea waters. The land is covered with thick dense tropical forest, fertile plains, beautiful beaches, cliffs, rocky coasts, an intricate maze of backwaters, still bays and 44 rivers. Kerala's exotic spices have lured foreigners to her coast from time immemorial.
Earlier, Kerala was made up of three distinct areas. 'Malabar' as far up the coast as Thallashery, Cannanore and Kasargode with a tiny pocket-handkerchief French possession of Mahe nearby which was returned to India in the early 1950s and is now administratively part of Pondicherry. This area belonged to what was once called the Madras Presidency under the British. The middle section is formed by the princely State of 'Cochin'; the third comprises 'Travancore', another princely state.
The modern Kerala is divided into fourteen districts with Trivandrum as the state capital. Kerala is the first place in the world where a Communist Ministry came into power by general election in 1957. Kerala was formed by Parashurama the sixth incarnation of lord Mahavishnu. 2012 marks the 56th anniversary of Kerala Piravy.

Posted By

Ashir C Edakkarayil

 

The Most Dangerous Computer Viruses in History

Computer viruses have a relatively short history, but the damages caused by some of them pushed cyber-experts to opening a new chapter on computer viruses. Some viruses led to serious damages and affected a large number of companies, universities and even governments. Here are some of the most dangerous computer virusesin history: 

Jerusalem - 1987
This is one of the first MS-DOS viruses in history that caused enormous destructions, affecting many countries, universities and companies worldwide. On Friday 13, 1988 the computer virus managed to infect a number of institutions in Europe, America and the Middle East. The name was given to the virus after one of the first places that got "acquainted" with it - the Jerusalem University.

Along with a number of other computer viruses, including  "Cascade", "Stoned" and "Vienna" the Jerusalem virus managed to infect thousands of computers and still remain unnoticed. Back then the anti-virus programs were not as advanced as they are today and a lot of users had little knowledge of the existence of computer viruses.

Morris (a.k.a. Internet Worm) - November 1988
This computer virus infected over 6,000 computer systems in the United States, including the famousNASA research Institute, which for some time remained completely paralyzed. Due to erratic code, the worm managed to send millions of copies of itself to different network computers, being able to entirely paralyze all network resources. The damages caused by the Morris computer virus were estimated at $96 millions.
To be able to spread, the computer virus used errors in such operating systems as Unix for VAX and Sun Microsystems. The virus could also pick user passwords.

Solar Sunrise - 1998
A decade later the situation didn't change, in fact it even got worse. Using a computer virus, hackers, in 1998, penetrated and took control of over 500 computer systems that belonged to the army, government and private sector of the United States. The whole situation was dubbed Solar Sunrise after the popular vulnerabilities in computers that run on the operating system called Sun Solaris. Initially it was believed that the attacks were planed by the operatives in Iraq. It was later revealed that the incidents represented the work of two American teenagers from California. After the attacks, the Defense Department took drastic actions to prevent future incidents of this kind.

Melissa - 1999
For the first time computers got acknowledged with Melissa computer virus on March 26, 1999, when the virus shut down the Internet mail system, which got blocked with e-mails infected by the worm. It is worth mentioning that at first Melissa was not meant to cause any harm, but after overloading the servers, it led to serious problems. For the first time it spread in the Usenet discussion group alt.sex. Melissa was hidden within a file called "List.DiC", which featured passwords that served as keys to unlocking 80 pornographic websites. The original form of the virus was sent through e-mail to different users.
Melissa computer virus was developed by David L. Smith in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey. Its name comes from a lap dancer that the programmer got acknowledged with while in Florida. After being caught, the creator of the virus was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000. The arrest was made by a team of representatives from FBI, New Jersey State Police and Monmouth Internet.
Melissa had the ability to multiply on Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000, as well as on Microsoft Excel 97, 2000 and 2003. In addition, the virus had the ability to mass-mail itself from Microsoft Outlook 97 and Outlook 98.
I Love You - May 2000
Using a similar method as the Melissa, the computer virus dubbed "I Love You" managed to infect millions of computers around the world overnight. Just like Melissa this computer virus sent passwords and usernames, which were stored on the attacked computers, back to the developer of the virus. After authorities traced the virus they found that a young Filipino student was behind the attack. The young man was released due to the fact that the Philippines did not have any law that would prevent hacking and spreading malware. This situation served as one of the premises for creating the European Union's global Cybercrime Treaty.

The Code Red worm - July 2001
This 21st century computer virus managed to penetrate tens of thousands of systems that ran Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000 server software. The damages caused by the Code Red computer virus were estimated at $2 billion. Core Red was developed to use the power of all computers it infected against the official website of the White House at a predetermined date. In collaboration with different virus hunters and tech firms, the White House managed to decipher the code of the Code Red virus and stop traffic as the malware started its attacks.

Nimda - 2001
Shortly after the September 11 tragedy this computer virus infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. Nimda was considered to be one of the most complicated viruses, having 5 different methods of infecting computers systems and being able to duplicate itself.

Downadup - 2009
The latest and most dangerous virus is the "downadup" worm, which was also called "Conficker". The computer security company F-Secure stated that the computer virus has infected 3.5 million computers worldwide. This malicious program was able to spread using a patched Windows flaw. Downadup was so "successful" in spreading across the Web, because it used a flaw that Microsoft patched in October in order to distantly compromise computers that ran unpatched versions of Microsoft's operating system. But the greatest power of the worm is believed to be the ability of computers, infected with the worm, to download destructive code from a random drop point. F-Secure stated that three of the most affected countries were China, Brazil and Russia
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Cell Phone with Portable Microscope for Spotting and Tracking Diseases

A team of scientists from the United States developed a portable microscope that is connected to a camera phone. Their latest invention thus can be used to diagnose dangerous diseases in blood and sputum samples, the latter are obtained by coughing deeply, which allows expelling the substance from the lungs into a sterile cup.

It is worth mentioning that light microscopy is a very important tool that can be used to diagnose malaria, tuberculosis and other dangerous diseases. The digital images of cell samples, taken by camera-equipped lab microscopes can be transmitted via Internet to specialists at different health centers for additional studies.

Together with his colleagues from the University of California in San Francisco, Daniel Fletcher at the University of California in Berkeley, though about exploiting the already existing technologies, widely used by people in everyday lives, such as cell phones, for medical reasons.

In this image you can see malaria-infected blood. According to one of the latest UN reports, about 60 percent of people around the globe use cell phones. The team realized that cell phone networks represent an inexpensive and fast way to convey medical information wirelessly. For their latest invention scientists used off-the-shelf parts to create an inexpensive and portable microscope attachment which connects to a Nokia N73 phone camera.

Using microscope, researchers can identify objects that are only 1.2 micrometers across. Red blood cells are usually from 6 to 8 micrometers across. In order to take clear picture of medical sample natural light is quite enough. Still, scientists decided to add a battery-powered LED lamp and several filters so their gadget could also work as a fluorescent microscope, reports New Scientist.

Researchers tested their latest invention against several widespread diseases and conditions. They found the results promising, saying that pictures of malaria-infected blood were good enough to be able to diagnose the disease. Besides, the system could also help diagnose sickle-cell anaemia from blood samples, thus researchers will be able to spot the presence of tuberculosis.

"Cell counting is the main thing we have done. Additional things could include annotating an image to point out a problem or a question to be answered by a doctor at a central hospital," says Fletcher. Using the device combined with detailed information about the patient and location, could help track the spread of dangerous diseases.

Latest Invention: Synthetic Tree to Collect Huge Amounts of CO2

The latest invention of researchers from Columbia University is an artificial tree that is able to capture carbon dioxide a thousand times faster that a real tree. The lead researcher and a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, Klaus Lackner, has been developing the project for over 10 years and holds hope that the artificial tree will be a very important tool for tackling climate change.

Scientists will use their latest invention to trap greenhouse gas emitted by vehicles or airplanes. The synthetic tree, which resembles a cylinder, will not require direct sunlight, water of branches to work properly. According to Lackner, the tree is flexible in size and can be placed almost anywhere.

Here's how it works: the synthetic tree gathers the greenhouse gas on a sorbent, cleans and pressures the carbon dioxide and then releases it. The technique of gas absorption resembles that of a sponge that collects water.

During a whole day one artificial tree will be able to collect one ton of CO2, which equals to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by 20 cars. The technology is currently in the development stage at Global Research Technologies, a company based in Tucson, Arizona, co-founded by Lackner, who at the moment is its chairman. Such invention might serve well for the environment by it is quite costly - each synthetic tree requires $30,000 to make, reports CNN.

Data presented by the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that currently in the United States there are about 135,932,930 vehicles, which means that in order to absorb the amount of carbon emitted by these cars, the country would need to "plant" 6.8 million synthetic trees (that's $204 billion). With the current global economic crisis the project will probably remain in the development stage for some time. Still, Lackner and his team look forward to push their latest invention full-force. The researcher managed to arrange a meeting with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu to talk about the concept.

COLLEGE PARLIAMENT

Hai friends..........

                 Our  respresentatives to  COLLEGE PARLIAMENT are

KALESH MONICHAN

CHINCHU JOSEPH

 

 Kalesh is selected as the COLLEGE MAGAZINE EDITOR and Chinchu selected as SECRETARY FOR ASSOCIATIONS.

Hearty congrats to both Kalesh and Chinchu from whole B.C.A 2012-2015 BATCH....

let me remind them a famous words "Leaders  should be a Ladder to others" likeways they should try their best for the goodness of BCA class...........

Washing machine that does not need water

 

British company Xeros looks forward to conquer the American market with its latest invention, a new washing system able to save a lot of water using nylon beads. The beads tumble wash clothes using 90 percent less water than traditional washers.

In addition, the company's latest invention, which is currently in the development stage, requires less detergent. Xeros claims that there would be no need for tumble drying and if the homes in the United States would switch to the new system, the emissions of carbon dioxide would be considerably reduced. The result would be as though 5 million vehicles have been removed from the road. The company also says that the new washing machine will save 1.2 billion tons of water each year, which equals 17 million swimming pools.

The washing machine does its job using small nylon beads that eliminate stains off clothes and lock them into the molecular structure of the nylon. The beads can be used for hundreds of washes and afterwards they can be easily recycled. The technology behind the new washing machine is the result of a research carried out at the University of Leeds. It has been used in a concept washing machine by the Cambridge Consultants.

Birth Month Flower of October - The Calendula

The calendula, pretty and practical, is the Birth Month Flower of October. Calendulas grew their name from blooming at the beginning of each month, hence the Latin "calends" and the English "calendar." The calendula means "throughout the months." This flower is used by many gardeners as an insect repellent and by cooks as a spicy seasoning or coloring for food.
Dried, the calendula can spice up and brighten up a salad. In fact, this flower is referred to as the "pot marigold" because of cooking pots, not flowerpots. As if these weren't enough uses for the calendula, this flower can be used as many herbal medicinal remedies for headaches, toothaches, stomachaches, fever reducers and menstrual cramps. It can reduce swelling in insect bites, sprains, jaundice, sore eyes, wounds and other skin irritations when the calendula is made into an ointment. Lip balms can be made to soothe chapped lips as well. The calendula's bright colors ranging from gold to bright orange have also been boiled to make brilliant dyes for fabrics, cosmetics and food.
The calendula, or marigold (referred to as "Mary's Gold" by early Christians), was considered a sacred flower. Garlands of marigolds were crafted and strung around the necks of the holy saint statues. These brilliant flowers decorated the statue of the Virgin Mary as if they were the sun and stars surrounding her. Its floral meaning is associated with "winning grace." In ancient times, garlands of marigolds protected homes from evil by being strung at doorsteps. It was once thought that placing these garlands under a bed would cause the sleeping person to have prophetic dreams.

Flowers of the month-October

 

The "Flowers of the month " programme for October 2012 is planned to conduct on 11th October 2012 @ 3.00 pm , BCA Class 

Hearty wishes to All Calendulas

Welcome to Extreme Rocking by BCA 2012-15 of MC Varghese College of Arts & Science

All are invited to join Extreme Rocking  created by
BCA 2012-15
of
 MC Varghese College of Arts & Science
Neelimanagalam