Pakistan is a country founded in 1933 and is located west of India and China. It formed from the unification of some of the upper regions of India, where the ruling power of Britain had weakened from Gandhi’s independence movements (in fact, Pakistan was still under British rule until 1947 when it gained independence). The people in this area were mostly Muslim and Pakistan was formed amid fears that the Muslim would be neglected in politics by Hindus.
The etymology of the country’s name is quite peculiar. Pakistan is an acronym of the five regions that formed it: Punjab (P), Afghan (A), Kashmir (K), Sind (S), and Baluchistan (TAN), combined with I for Islam. Also, the word “Pakistan” is a portmanteau of Pak, which means “clean/pure” in Hindustani, and –stan, which stands for a country in Turkish.
Interestingly, the word Pakistan was devised by British students at Cambridge University.
There is an extremely entertaining experiment that can be done with two simple ingredients found in the local supermarket: Mentos mints and Diet Coke (it is more effective than original Coke). The experiment procedure is as following:
After opening the bottle, quickly drop the Mentos in to the Diet Coke. Run.
As soon as the Mentos falls in, the Coke spurts foam explosively, which shoots up to great heights. Depending on the temperature of the Coke (the warmer the better) and the number of Mentos mints (it is more effective to thread them and drop them all at once), the pillar of foam can rise to a few metres.
This fascinating phenomenon is not caused purely by a chemical reaction, but has more to do with physics. Mentos mints are coated with menthol, which has numerous microscopic dents. When it enters the Coke, the dissolved carbon dioxide forms bubbles that collect in these pits. As they collect, the bubbles expand until the pressure builds past a certain level, causing an explosion.
The most important point is that if this experiment is not performed outside, one could end up cleaning a sticky room for days.
In the late 1880s, a war raged on in the United States – one that is not commonly known by the public. It was a war between two wizards: Nikola “The Wizard of the West” Tesla and Thomas “The Wizard of Menlo Park” Edison.
This war involved no guns or explosives, but centred on something so commonplace that people take it for granted nowadays – electricity. The two scientists/wizards fought to determine whose form of electricity transmission was better.
There are two types of electric currents used for transmission. Direct current (DC) was used by Thomas Edison, a pioneer of electricity distribution. Before him, electricity was more of a scientific curiosity and was not widely available to the public. DC is a unidirectional flow of electric charge. Alternating current (AC) was later developed by Nikola Tesla, also a pioneer in the field of electricity. AC is the alternating movement of electric charge as it periodically reverses direction from + to -.
When electricity first became public, the industry standard was DC, as Edison started his company, General Electric. This was incredibly profitable for Edison, whose inventions relied on the usage of DC. For example, his incandescent light bulb was the principal electrical device during the time. Edison further advanced DC technology and heavily advocated it.
Tesla claimed that AC was a much more efficient mode of electricity transmission and tried to convince Edison while working for him. However, Edison ignored him and stated that it was an insane, useless idea. Edison was more an inventor than a mathematician, so he did not understand the theoretical benefits of AC over DC.
AC has the advantage of being able to use a transformer to gain much higher voltage than DC, while losing less power when transmitted. It also allowed easy conversion from low-voltage use, such as lamps, to high-voltage use, such as motors.
Despite this, Edison refused to accept the system and continued to lobby against it. The most famous case is his drastic attempt to defame AC by showing the public how “dangerous” it is.
In 1890, Edison and his company developed the electric chair, which used AC to demonstrate the safety hazards of Tesla’s invention. He did this by arranging the first capital punishment by electrocution. Unfortunately, due to calculation errors, the first shock was insufficient to kill the convict, William Kemmler. The procedure was repeated for 8 minutes, during which the convict was screaming in agony, seizing due to electrocution, and at one point, caught fire. This horrible image is portrayed quite accurately in the film The Green Mile.
Despite this unpleasant event, AC became the standard over time and DC is now only used in labs on certain special applications. Also, the electric chair was adopted as an official method of execution.
The Get Psyched Mix is a list of 24 English rock & roll songs carefully handpicked by Barney Stinson. His intention was to create a mixed CD that steps up from the traditional rule that a mix CD must “rise and fall”; instead, it is all rise. This means that the mix allows for maximum psychitude with no time wasted, giving you that amped feeling to clear away all the worries and troubles of your life.
After listening through the entire mix, you will indubitably feel the need to high five or fist bump your bro and appreciate the beauty of life. Whenever you are down, the Get Psyched Mix will cheer you up without failure.
Spring. The warm sunshine and the soft breeze form a balance to breathe new life into everything – flowers, trees, hibernating animals, babies. The baby grows on the nutrition that is love. The baby spends the most peaceful, free stage of childhood and experiences new things every day. He learns life slowly as he grows like a fresh sprout. Unfortunately, at this stage the sprout is also vulnerable to harm, and these scars will be a burden for the rest of the baby’s life.
Summer. The hot, burning sun, the boundless, clear ocean. The hot, burning love and desires, the boundless, clear possibilities life brings. The boy spends the happiest moments in his life, and discovers what he wants and who he is. Through this he also develops obsessions; his main obsession is love – so hot that it may even burn up into ashes or cause scalding wounds. He enjoys the present, without knowing the weight of the world and true pain. To him, the future is a land of infinite dreams and hope. His boyhood times burn like a roaring flame, and happiness reaches a climax.
Autumn. The leaves, bleached yellow, fall gently. The endless and cloudless sky. The cold wind. The boy, now a young adult, laments why life and love are so painful, and why he must suffer so much. The future that was once full of dreams has now become a hopeless reality. As the leaves die away, so do the boy’s hopes, romance and his identity. Can he pull through this bitter adolescence? What does he wonder while staring at the dead leaves? No one truly understands his thoughts and pain, and he trudges along a road strewn with leaves. The passion and heat of summer have completely disappeared.
Winter. There is no life. Only white snow covers the world, turning it into a blank page. The man feels that there is no meaning to life, and looks back on his life. The dream-like spring, the passionate summer, the despairing autumn, the end of the four seasons – winter. But then, he finally realises. The naive spring, the foolish summer, the pain he overcame through autumn. The man looks back at how he has grown and developed, and turns his attention to his inner self for the meaning of life and peace. After overcoming his mid-life crisis, he clears his mind and reaches nirvana.
Spring. A spring comes again, new life arises once more. The old man calmly smiles and thinks. He now understands the true meaning of life and is satisfied with his. He sees a baby facing another set of four seasons and thinks: “That child will walk a similar journey as I did.” He now knows that life cycles, and that spring will indubitably return always.
Cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, corneal disease, diabetes, trauma, optic nerve disease; myopia, hypermetropia, astigmatism, colour blindness… There are many causes and types of blindness, but by far the most powerful, debilitating and dangerous blindness is prejudice – the blindness to what is deep to the surface.
This disease affects 100% of the adult population and causes a severe impairment in judgement, leading the patient to make wrong assumptions. Much like colour blindness, prejudice robs the world of colour, transforming it into black-or-white. The patient’s visual acuity falls dramatically, not being able to see the beautiful scenery of the human soul, and instead seeing a distorted, superficial image.
Despite the devastating effects of the disease and extreme prevalence, the treatment is simple. Just as you would treat someone who claims that “the room is too dark” – take off your sunglasses and see the world for what it truly is.
When a person dies, they leave a body. How does the body change after death? There are four main post-mortem events: algor mortis, livor mortis, rigor mortis and putrefaction. Forensic pathologists use these phenomena and an autopsy to determine the time of death, hearing out the final words of the deceased.
With death, all physiological functions cease. Therefore, the body produces no more heat and begins to cool (algor mortis), evident when touching the corpse. The rectal temperature is measured for an accurate reading. As blood is no longer flowing, red blood cells sink due to gravity. They sink to capillaries in the lowest point of the body, causing a purple-red rash on the skin of the area. This is known as livor mortis, or lividity. It appears first about 1~2 hours after death, and worsens with time. On the other hand, the other areas of skin become pale due to the lack of blood. 2~3 hours post-mortem, one can observe the jaw stiffening. This is called rigor mortis. It is caused as ATP is needed for muscle relaxation, and ATP production stops with death. This leads to the muscle becoming rigid, fixating on the position at the time of death. About 6~7 hours later, rigor mortis spreads to the entire body and completely fixes the body 10~12 hours later. After about 72 hours, rigor mortis dissipates and the corpse is limp again.
Putrefaction is the process of microbes decomposing the body – more commonly called rotting. After death, cells die from the lack of energy and are broken down by enzymes. As the immune system also ceases function, microbes easily infiltrate the body and begin converting organic material into inorganic material. Microbes release gases as it digests the corpse, which collects and causes bloating. The main gases are carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen sulphide, producing the rotting smell, attracting insects to the corpse. The key insects studied by pathologists are arthropods and flies. They can estimate the time of death from observing what species are present on the body, and at what stage of the life cycle they are at. For example, 0.5~1 hour post-mortem, flies arrive and lay eggs, which hatch into maggots at 10~24 hours, which becomes cocoons after 8~12 days, which hatch into adult flies at 12~14 days post-mortem.
There is no dignity in death. The rich, the powerful, the kind, the happy – everyone rots away by nature after they die.
This disease, also known as Pest or the bubonic plague, was a vicious infectious disease that decimated medieval Europe. It is caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, usually transmitted by fleas. The symptoms vary from high fever, malaise, nausea and vomiting, headaches, muscle cramps, seizures, red rashes, coughing and swollen lymph nodes, and causes death within four or five days without treatment. People did not know about the existence of bacteria back then (it would be 200 more years until Louis Pasteur would suggest germs as the cause of infections). Back then, they considered diseases to transmit through miasma, or bad air. Also, they believed that to prevent transmission, they required a stronger smell to counter it.
Plague doctors, who treated according to the miasma theory of disease, wore a special set of equipments that were known as beak doctor costumes. They wore an overcoat, hat, gloves and boots made from waxed leather, carried a cane to assess the patient and point things out, and a peculiar mask. The mask had a long beak like a bird’s, giving the doctors the nickname beak doctors. The masks had round, glass windows to see through, and two small nostrils at the end of the beak.
Why did they wear this strange mask? The beak was hollow and doctors filled it with flowers, herbs, vinegar and incense that produce a strong smell, so as to “purify” the air coming through the nostrils. Although the miasma theory has been falsified by germ theory, this gear was the first hazmat suit in history.
There is another fascinating fact regarding the Plague, miasma theory and beak doctors. It regards the nursery rhyme, Ring a Ring o’ Roses:
Ring-a-ring-a-roses, A pocket full of posies; Atishoo! Atishoo! We all fall down.
This nursery rhyme actually describes the Plague. The ring of roses refers to the red rashes and swelling of lymph nodes – a symptom of the Plague; the posies were herbs used to counter the miasma; coughing and sneezing were end-stage symptoms before death, which is shown in the final line.
90% of human communication is non-verbal. This shows how facial expressions and body language have a powerful effect on our subconscious. Even the position of the hand can send a clear signal.
An open hand suggests peace, love and openness. Because of this, if the other person has his or her palm showing, you will feel more comfortable talking with them and view them in a more positive light. Jesus is often pictured in a pose with his arms stretched and palms showing, sending the message: “I would like to embrace you”. The same signal is used to initiate a hug.
On the other hand, a closed hand sends a cold message of strictness and professionalism. Therefore, people who are debating or negotiating often have their hands flat on a table or their lap to symbolise their resolution and defiance.
From this analysis, we can tell that an open hand is a good way to gain the affection of another person. Furthermore, this body language can manipulate the other person’s subconscious.
From my experiments, I found that when given the choice between a closed fist facing up and another fist facing down, the subject would choose the fist with the palms facing up about 90% of the time. Although it is a crude test, it definitely beat the 50:50 statistics that is expected. This experiment was probably affected by other factors. Especially because people will usually choose the unusual choice due to curiosity (as when told to pick a hand, the person will usually have both fists facing down) and due to the psychology of “the unusual fist will probably contain something more interesting”. Also, most people who chose the downward-facing fist later said that they “deliberately chose the other fist because they felt they were supposed to choose the upwards-facing fist”. Thus, they too were first attracted to the unusual fist.
This test must be done suddenly to bypass the logical conscious mind and have an effect on the subconscious mind. If you take too long to explain the test, the results become skewed. Bypassing the conscious mind to suggest an acceptable choice to the subconscious mind – this test shows the basic principles of hypnosis.
