New York, Oct 23 (ANI): Sam Lal's home has turned into a pilgrimage of sorts, as neighbours and friends are flocking his Queen's home to catch a glimpse of the strange plant that resembles Hindu Lord Ganesha.

Lal, who first noticed the purple plant, from the amaranth family, claimed that the plant relieved him of his chronic back pain.

And now, everyone on Lal's block in Jamaica wants to get a peek at the incredible flower.

"I'm amazed - I actually got goosebumps when I saw it. I feel the presence of God," The New York Daily News quoted Hansannie Singh, 41, of Bellerose, Queens, as saying.

Others like Kris Ram snapped cell phone photos of the 4-foot-tall plant that is believed to resemble the elephant-headed god revered by billions of believers.

"Miracles do happen. It just goes to show that God is everywhere," said Ram.

Lal, 60, said his chronic back pain has all but disappeared since the plant, which started growing early in the summer, took on the deity's likeness.

"God is alive in everything. It's a powerful inspiration," he said. (ANI)

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (12)

Melbourne, Oct 23 (ANI): Despite the marriage proposals she received, Maria Caterina Reitano, a 99-year-old virgin from Sydney, remained single.

Reitano, who turns 100 in January 09 and is known as Aunty Cathy to those who know her, lives at Lady of Grace nursing home in Dural.

"When I was younger I thought I may have been missing out but then a few men came along when I was older and I said no," News.com.au quoted her as saying.

"If I wanted to get married I would have in the flower of my youth," she said.

She had been on the verge of marrying her first love Giovanni, but when she turned up at the church in her best dress and he did not like it, she broke up with him. Then after a few years she met her second love, Benedict, but was not able to marry him, as her father and stepmother did not permit her to. Reason being that as the eldest child they wanted to keep her at home to look after the house and her seven siblings.

Benedict married another woman, and after she died he proposed to Reitano again just before she migrated to Australia from Reggio Calabria in Italy when she was 41.

But the elderly lady said no to the proposal, as she did not want to be compared to his first wife.

Reitano stayed on with her family and helped take care of her nieces and nephews, and even though she is a virgin, it did not stop her from discussing men with her nieces.

When an interpreter for The Daily Telegraph interviewed her, she pointed out her single status.

"Tell them I'm single," she added. (ANI)

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (8)

Washington, Oct 23 (ANI): A new research has uncovered how some people are good at generalizing from past experience, while others are not.

The study has revealed how the brain can connect discrete but overlapping experiences to provide a rich integrated history that extends far beyond individually experienced events and may help to direct future choices. Usually, decisions are guided by drawing on past experiences, perhaps by generalizing across discrete events that overlap in content.

But, how such experiences are integrated into a unified representation was unclear, until now.

The researchers believe that such mechanisms involve the hippocampus, a brain structure closely linked with learning and memory. They also speculate the involvement of the midbrain, as its projections modulate activity in the hippocampus. And activity in both regions has been shown to facilitate encoding of individual episodes.

"We hypothesized that generalization stems from integrative encoding that occurs while experiencing events that partially overlap with previously encoded events and that such integrative encoding depends on both the hippocampus and midbrain dopamine regions. Further, we anticipated that greater hippocampal-midbrain engagement during integrative encoding enables rapid behavioral generalization in the future," said Dr. Daphna Shohamy from the Department of Psychology at Columbia University.

The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study participants engaged in an associative learning and generalization task.

They found that activity in the hippocampus and midbrain during learning predicted generalization and observed a cooperative interaction between the hippocampus and the midbrain during integrative encoding.

"By forming a thread that connects otherwise separate experiences, integrative encoding permits organisms to generalize across multiple past experience to guide choices in the present," explained Dr. Shohamy.

She added: "In people who generalize successfully, the brain is constantly building links across separate events, creating an integrated memory of life's episodes. For others, although the brain may accurately remember each past event, this integration does not occur, so that when confronted with a new situation, they are unable to flexibly apply what they learned in the past."

The study was published in the latest issue of the journal Neuron. (ANI)

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (6)

Mumbai, Oct 23 (ANI/Business Wire India): In line with its objective to enrich Rediff.com services with third party applications, Rediff.com India's leading online community portal today went live with third party applications on its video and music platform Rediff iShare.

With the addition of these new applications, Rediff iShare has now become a platform that can support any app that is Compatible with the Facebook Markup Language, thereby opening the gate to tens of thousands of app developers in the world to Rediff.com large community of users.

The new apps developed by both Indian and International application developers include Dedicate a Song - an app that lets users to share the a song in audio or video format that they find on Rediff iShare platform; a quiz app based on popular Indian movies and a popular fan club app, OMG! Its SRK (Oh My God! Its Shahrukh Khan) that lets users answer questions, watch videos, listen to music, view photos of the Bollywood superstar, Shahrukh Khan.

All users can now access and enjoy these applications on Rediff iShare and add them to the common Rediff users profile page and share it with their friends. Commenting on this Initiative Rediff.coms' Chief Technology Officer, Venki Nishtala said, "Our initiative to open Rediff.com services and our content APIs to third party developers brings new opportunities for both our users and our app developer partners. I welcome app developers throughout the world to check our developer site developer.rediff.com for technical and commercial details on how to put their apps on Rediff.com."

The unique proposition of access to APIs of rich content and users of Rediff has got a lot of interest from the developers' community and more such exciting applications are soon expected go live on Rediff.com. (ANI)

Be first to comment this article | Add as favourites (6)