Voice sounds different when recorded and played back

Sound can reach the inner ear by way of two separate paths, and those paths in turn affect what we perceive. Air-conducted sound is transmitted from the surrounding environment through the external auditory canal, eardrum and middle ear to the cochlea, the fluid-filled spiral in the inner ear. Bone-conducted sound reaches the cochlea directly through the tissues of the head.

When you speak, sound energy spreads in the air around you and reaches your cochlea through your external ear by air conduction. Sound also travels from your vocal cords and other structures directly to the cochlea, but the mechanical properties of your head enhance its deeper, lower-frequency vibrations. The voice you hear when you speak is the combination of sound carried along both paths. When you listen to a recording of yourself speaking, the bone-conducted pathway that you consider part of your “normal” voice is eliminated, and you hear only the air-conducted component in unfamiliar isolation. You can experience the reverse effect by putting in earplugs so you hear only bone-conducted vibrations.

Some people have abnormalities of the inner ear that enhance their sensitivity to this component so much that the sound of their own breathing becomes overwhelming, and they may even hear their eyeballs moving in their sockets.

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Website Designing Tips

Web Design and Usability Tips

1. Response or load time for a website is fairly important. If your site is slow, visitors are likely to go away and it will also be difficult for them to learn new or foreign concepts.
2. Remove the ‘homepage‘ link on the homepage because it can increase navigational confusion. This will make the user doubt that the homepage is indeed the actual homepage.
3. Follow conventions for web design (”blue for hypertext links“) This will allow site visitors to mainly focus on your content instead of using their mental power to learn how to use your website.
4. Fluffy flash designs that do not support real user needs are not recommended because they weaken usability.
5. Splash screens are not useful because it gives the first impression that a website is more concerned with its own image than other user’s problems. Websites need to communicate respect for the user’s time.
6. Website usability tests can be easily performed by getting users to interact with your design while they think out loud. Record their comments and filter it into your quality improvements.
7. Simplicity is Rule #1 for usability. The less features there are available in a design, the less there will be to compete for the user’s attention.
8. Try to mainly rely on typography instead of bloated designs and graphics. The goal is to enhance appearance without delaying the response time. The blandest sites can get the most page views and users.
9. Serve senior web users by making making your website more readable and clickable. Use large text for hypertext links and minimize usage of pull-down menus and moving interface elements.
10. Change the color of visited links. This will allow users to decide where to go next on your website. Links that don’t change color can cause navigational disorientation in users.

Copywriting and Usability Tips

1. Large amounts of text on one webpage do not work well because it makes it difficult for users to extract useful information. “The more you say, the more people tune out your message.”
2. Good copywriting style should be to the point and should not be dominated by internal niche jargon and ‘marketese‘ or marketing sales speak.
3. Write so that lower-literacy users can understand and appreciate your content. Sites which target broad audiences must make lower literacy users a priority.
4. State the most important information in the first two paragraphs because most users will read this material and scan the rest of the article.
5. Split your content into subheadings and use bullet points. Also highlight keywords or important phrases by making them bold.
6. Use brief headlines with strong information-conveying words. People scan headlines and content blurbs in feed readers faster than email newsletters.
7. Do not use tiny font sizes or small text because of it will not work for a large part of the web audience (Teenagers and People in their 40s onwards).
8. A website’s tagline must explain what the company does and what makes it unique among competitors. Your tagline should communicate your site purpose within the crucial first 10 seconds.
9. Use old and familiar words when writing to be found by search engines. Supplement unique words or madeup phrases with known or legacy words because they are used the most by customers and visitors to your website.
10. The headline must make sense when it is detached from the rest of the content. This is important because online headlines are often used in a list of articles or email programs, which sets it out of context.
11. Make the first word of the headline an information carrying word that will help with scanning. Examples to be used include the name of the concept or company discussed.
12. Do not start your page titles with the same word all the time because it will cause difficulty when scanning a list. Move common terms to the end of the list and place it in brackets.
13. Show numbers as numerals. Numerals will catch the attention of users better because numerals represent facts. “It’s better to use “23″ than “twenty-three” to catch users’ eyes when they scan Web pages for facts, according to eyetracking data.”
14. Blog links should say where they go. This information can be provided in the anchor text or surrounding words. “Life is too short to click on an unknown. Tell people where they’re going and what they’ll find at the other end of the link.”

Content Infrastructure and Usability

1. Do not have a list of links on your sidebar without providing explanations on why each of them are recommended.
2. Navigation and user-interface elements need to be simple so as to allow users to find their way around the website.
3. Online content should be short and includes the use of bulleted lists and highlighted keywords. Write for scannability because users scan, rather than read.
4. Include a editorial focus and direct your visitors to specific material, i.e. Top stories on CNN or Top posts on a blog.
5. Information architectures should not mirror the organization chart and do not use bloated graphics or jargon.
6. Discover the reasons why users visit your website and build your site as a fast and obvious response to these reasons or queries.
7. Local navigation (”see these related products”) should be given more importance than global navigation. A minimalist navigation system should be used to match the user’s model of the information space.
8. Don’t make webpages stand-alone units. They need to connect to related information.
9. Provide interactive content features which allow visitors to do instead or just read. This includes online voting, games, message boards, forums, user submitted content and feedback forms etc. This especially appeals to teenagers.
10. Do not use PDF files because they break reader flow and attention. Only use PDF files for distributing manuals and large documents or reserve it for printing purposes.
11. Optimize your Page titles by using different Page Titles for each page. Page titles are used in taskbars and when users bookmark a site. “Don’t start with words like “The” or “Welcome to” unless you want to be alphabetized under “T” or “W.”
12. Indicate link destination when using within-page links or mailto links. “For example, add a short statement that says something like: “Clicking a link will scroll the page to the relevant section.”
13. Use Breadcrumb navigation. Breadcrumbs offer one-click access to higher site levels, take up very little space and show users their current location as well.
14. Author Biographies should be included for blogs. Users want to know who they are reading and biographies are a simple way to build trust.
15. Highlight Popular Posts. Integrate them in your navigational system or link to your previous articles in newer postings. This is important because you need to provide them with some useful background on the topic or your opinion.
16. Keep your content focused. The more focused your content, the more loyal your readers will be. Building a specialized website allows you to be an authority in your niche.
17. Provide new or follow-up information at the same location of the original information or transaction. For example, if you have a cornerstone and heavily linked article on social voting platforms, you should return to this article to update it with new links to current and future articles on the same topic.

Usability, Monetization and Online Businesses

1. Websites can differentiate themselves from competitors by focusing on visitor needs and figuring out how they access or use data. Differentiation is about being valuable and useful to site visitors.
2. Do not run pop-ups, such as in-content ads or pop-up or pop-in squares because they can often feel intrusive and overwhelming.
3. Good usability will positively translate into profit and will even lead to a very high ROI or Returns on Investment. Nielsen estimates ROI to be around 1000%.
4. Building visitor trust is a big problem that all websites face. Important to affirm the credibility of a website and its respect for user’s rights.
5. Corporate policies which promote usability and user-centered design standards should be essential to all businesses.
6. Have a decent error message that ensures that you don’t lose your user due to programming or server malfunctions.
7. When replying to visitor emails, edit and use subject lines which relate specifically to their query. A good subject line is vital for building stronger relationships with customers or site users.
8. Use confirmation emails and automated messages to close the loop in E-Commerce and other transactions. Tell customers what they need to know. This builds trust by customers for online businesses.
9. To achieve high survey response rates, keep them short and clear. Ensure that the process is quick and painless for users or customers by asking fewer questions and using different surveys for different users.

With due apologies and full credits to dosh dosh dot com
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Merry Christmas !

Here wishing you (yes you who is taking pains to read this blog) a Merry Christmas ! We hope you do have a wonderful time and pray that you have a wonderful year ahead too !

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Hindus not at fault

The Hindu Rate Of Wrath

(An article by Francois Gautier written for OutlookIndia dot com on November 10, 2008)

Is there such a thing as 'Hindu terrorism', as the arrest of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur for the recent Malegaon blasts may tend to prove? Well, I guess I was asked to write this column because I am one of that rare breed of foreign correspondents—a lover of Hindus! A born Frenchman, Catholic-educated and non-Hindu, I do hope I'll be given some credit for my opinions, which are not the product of my parents' ideas, my education or my atavism, but garnered from 25 years of reporting in South Asia (for Le Journal de Geneve and Le Figaro).

In the early 1980s, when I started freelancing in south India, doing photo features on kalaripayattu, the Ayyappa festival, or the Ayyanars, I slowly realised that the genius of this country lies in its Hindu ethos, in the true spirituality behind Hinduism. The average Hindu you meet in a million villages possesses this simple, innate spirituality and accepts your diversity, whether you are Christian or Muslim, Jain or Arab, French or Chinese. It is this Hinduness that makes the Indian Christian different from, say, a French Christian, or the Indian Muslim unlike a Saudi Muslim. I also learnt that Hindus not only believed that the divine could manifest itself at different times, under different names, using different scriptures (not to mention the wonderful avatar concept, the perfect answer to 21st century religious strife) but that they had also given refuge to persecuted minorities from across the world—Syrian Christians, Parsis, Jews, Armenians, and today, Tibetans. In 3,500 years of existence, Hindus have never militarily invaded another country, never tried to impose their religion on others by force or induced conversions.

You cannot find anybody less fundamentalist than a Hindu in the world and it saddens me when I see the Indian and western press equating terrorist groups like SIMI, which blow up innocent civilians, with ordinary, angry Hindus who burn churches without killing anybody. We know also that most of these communal incidents often involve persons from the same groups—often Dalits and tribals—some of who have converted to Christianity and others not.

However reprehensible the destruction of Babri Masjid, no Muslim was killed in the process; compare this to the 'vengeance' bombings of 1993 in Bombay, which wiped out hundreds of innocents, mostly Hindus. Yet the Babri Masjid destruction is often described by journalists as the more horrible act of the two. We also remember how Sharad Pawar, when he was chief minister of Maharashtra in 1993, lied about a bomb that was supposed to have gone off in a Muslim locality of Bombay.

I have never been politically correct, but have always written what I have discovered while reporting. Let me then be straightforward about this so-called Hindu terror. Hindus, since the first Arab invasions, have been at the receiving end of terrorism, whether it was by Timur, who killed 1,00,000 Hindus in a single day in 1399, or by the Portuguese Inquisition which crucified Brahmins in Goa. Today, Hindus are still being targeted: there were one million Hindus in the Kashmir valley in 1900; only a few hundred remain, the rest having fled in terror. Blasts after blasts have killed hundreds of innocent Hindus all over India in the last four years. Hindus, the overwhelming majority community of this country, are being made fun of, are despised, are deprived of the most basic facilities for one of their most sacred pilgrimages in Amarnath while their government heavily sponsors the Haj. They see their brothers and sisters converted to Christianity through inducements and financial traps, see a harmless 84-year-old swami and a sadhvi brutally murdered. Their gods are blasphemed.

So sometimes, enough is enough.At some point, after years or even centuries of submitting like sheep to slaughter, Hindus—whom the Mahatma once gently called cowards—erupt in uncontrolled fury. And it hurts badly. It happened in Gujarat. It happened in Jammu, then in Kandhamal, Mangalore, and Malegaon. It may happen again elsewhere. What should be understood is that this is a spontaneous revolution on the ground, by ordinary Hindus, without any planning from the political leadership. Therefore, the BJP, instead of acting embarrassed, should not disown those who choose other means to let their anguished voices be heard.

There are about a billion Hindus, one in every six persons on this planet. They form one of the most successful, law-abiding and integrated communities in the world today. Can you call them terrorists?

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Bad Show by Media in Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

Mumbai, India was a terrorist target on the 26th of November 2008 where multiple locations were hit and which resulted in around 200 people dead and twice as many injured due to bullets, grenades and bombs. This may have been as an action hollywood thriller except for the fact that this happened in real. But perhaps in trying to cover the events live, the media did outdo what it was supposed to do. Showing what action to save the situation was being taken is what everyone was interested in knowing across the country and the world. But showing commandoes going in from on entrace or showing commandoes landing on top of the building from a helicopter and the like in fact resulted in directly on indirectly helping the terrorists to shift their locations or get alerted with the type of rescue was a spoilsport. In fact such activities should have been barred to help the armed forces, commandoes and police do a better job. The terrorists were somehow informed of what was happening by some persons watching the television live broadcasts. Let the media learn when to censor and when not. This was a situation like broadcasting live a RAPE taking place. Was it not RAPE ? Rape of the security of the country and its innocent people and innocent tourists ? Better watch your step dear Media Men. You did a good job but overdid it. Each of the channels. Hope we never have a situations like this again.

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Phishing

AVOID FALLING FOR PHISH

Never click on a link in a suspicious e-mail or instant message, particularly one asking for personal information. If you do business with the purported sender, open your browser and type the company’s usual Web address yourself.

Look carefully at Web addresses for subtle errors, such as “Annazon.com.” Learn to parse Web addresses for other clues to the site’s legitimacy.

If unsure of a Web site, perform a Google search for the company. The address of the suspicious site is unlikely to appear in the top results, whereas the real company Web site will.

See consumer tips and resources from the Anti-Phishing Working Group at:

http://apwg.org/advice

Play Anti-Phishing Phil at:

http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil

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Meditation Technique

Learn a Simple Meditation Technique

Make yourself comfortable, sitting upright, with a straight spine. With your eyes closed, look at the point midway between the eyebrows on your forehead.

Inhale slowly, counting to eight. Hold the breath for the same eight counts while concentrating your attention at the point between the eyebrows. Now exhale slowly to the same count of eight. Repeat three to six times.

After inhaling and exhaling completely, as the next breath comes in, mentally say Hong (rhymes with song). Then, as you exhale, mentally say Sau (rhymes with saw). Hong-Sau means "I am He" or "I am Spirit". Make no attempt to control your breathing, just let its flow be completely natural. Try to feel that your breath itself is silently making the sounds of Hong and Sau. Initially try to feel the breath at the point where it enters the nostrils.

Be as attentive as possible. If you have difficulty feeling the breath, you can concentrate for awhile on the breathing process itself, feeling your diaphragm and chest expanding and contracting.

Gradually as you become more calm, try to feel the breath higher and higher in the nose. Be sure that your gaze is kept steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.

As you become calmer, be more aware of the breath itself, higher and higher in the nose. Be sure to keep your gaze steady at the point between the eyebrows throughout your practice. Don't allow your eyes to follow the movement of the breath. If you find that your mind has wandered, simply bring it back to an awareness of the breath and the mantra.

By concentration on the breath, the breath actually diminishes; its gradual refinement leads naturally to an interiorized meditative state.

Practice this technique as long as you feel to. As a boy, Paramhansa Yogananda used to practice it for hours at a time, withdrawing ever more deeply into the spine until he found himself without breath altogether. He had ascended into soul-consciousness . . . and a higher reality took over…

Some Tips to Help Your Meditation

Controlling Your Breath. At no time during the practice of this technique should you make any effort to control the breath. Let it flow naturally. Gradually, you may notice that the pauses between the inhalation and exhalation are becoming longer. Enjoy these pauses, for they are a glimpse of the deep peace state of advanced meditation. As you grow very calm you may notice that the breath is becoming so shallow (or the pauses so prolonged) that it hardly seems necessary to breathe at all.

How Long to Practice. The amount of time you practice is entirely up to you, but end your practice of the technique by taking a deep breath, and exhaling 3 times. Then, keeping your mind focused and your energy completely internalized, try to feel peace, love and joy within your self. Sit for at least 5 minutes enjoying the deeply relaxed state you are in.

Where to Meditate. If possible, set aside an area that is used only to meditate. This will create a meditative mood. A small room or closet is ideal as long as it can be well ventilated. Your area can be kept very simple-all you really need is a chair or small cushion to sit on.

Posture for Meditation. There are many ways of sitting that are equally good. You can sit either in a straight-backed chair or on the floor in any of several poses. Two things, however, are essential: Your spine must be straight, and you must be able to relax completely.

Eye Position. Focus your attention at the point between the eyebrows. This area, called "the spiritual eye", is a center of great spiritual energy. Your eyes should be closed and held steady, and looking slightly upwards, as if looking at a point about an arm's length away and level with the top of your head.

----- With due apologies and full credits to Ananda! And HIM !

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Most Popular Categories on the Internet

Following data is presented by sharethis dot com. As you can see, sites about "Entertainment" and “Science and Technology” are very popular on that network. Their sharing platform is even popular internationally - 11% of sites using ShareThis publish their content in foreign languages.

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Optical Illusion

Motion Magic

The Brain Looks Forward

Optical illusions may fool the brain because it is trying to predict the future.

The brain takes nearly one tenth of a second to consciously register a scene. But the scenery changes far more quickly than that when we move. How does our brain cope? By constantly predicting the future, posits Mark Changizi, now at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. This ability explains many visual illusions—look here, for example, as you move this page toward and away from you. The extra motion results from your brain estimating where the ellipses will be in several milliseconds, Changizi says. He and his colleagues explain this illusion and 50 others in April’s Cognitive Science.

—Lucas Laursen
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Cell Phones effect Sleep

Using a mobile phone just before bed may cause insomnia

Many of us enjoy an occasional bedtime chat with a loved one who is far away. But as more and more people trade in their landlines for mobile phones, they may find that these latenight conversations are no longer a good idea. According to recent studies, cell phone signals can alter brain waves—and the consequences will keep you up at night.

Neuroscientist Rodney Croft and his colleagues at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia strapped a Nokia 6110 cell phone to the heads of 120 men and women and then monitored their brain waves. When the research ers switched on the phone without the subjects’ knowledge, they saw a sudden power boost in the volunteers’ alpha brain waves. Alpha waves normally surge as the mind shuts out the external world and spins internal thoughts. Croft believes the heightened alpha waves reflect the mind concentrating to overcome the electrical interference in brain circuits caused by the pulsed microwave radiation from cell phones.

In a different study, sleep researchers at Loughborough University in England found that after a 30-minute exposure to cell phone signals in talk mode, people took nearly twice as long to fall asleep as they did when the phone had been off or in standby mode. The scientists think the effect probably reflects the time it takes the brain to relax after being agitated by the phone’s electrical field.

James Horne, one of the study’s authors, cautions that the effects are harmless and less disruptive to sleep than half a cup of coffee. Still, he wonders, “With different doses, durations or other devices, would there be greater effects?”

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Swiss Bank Account - 7 myths

1. Swiss bank accounts are only for millionaires

This is not true. The majority of our clients are not major manufacturers or movie stars, but everyday people (business people, computer engineers, civil servants, etc.). Swiss banks are no longer only for stars.

You can open a Swiss bank account with a deposit of only 5,000 Swiss francs. We even offer accounts with no minimum balance.

2. Money invested in Switzerland yields no interest

Nothing could be more untrue. You can invest your money worldwide from your account in Switzerland through investment funds, bonds, the stock market, the purchase of metal values, raw materials, derivatives and many other types of investments. Swiss bankers are among the best finance managers in the world, so it comes as no surprise that they manage over 35% of offshore holdings.

3. It's impossible to open an account in Switzerland by correspondence

This is not true. Most of the accounts that we offer can be opened by correspondence as long as you comply with our opening procedures and provide us with the necessary documents. What is more, your banking relations can be conducted by correspondence, using the telephone, Internet banking, bank transfer and credit cards. That said, we encourage our customers to meet with their banker at least once in order to get acquainted and see where their money is held.

4. Swiss bank accounts are very expensive to maintain

This is not true. Most of the accounts we open don't charge a cent in annual fees. Even if you would like additional services such as retained correspondence or numbered banking relations, the annual fees are very reasonable.

5. It is difficult to close a Swiss bank account

On the contrary. You can close your account in Switzerland whenever you wish and without any restriction. You will pay no financial penalty. If need be, you will just have to realize your investments. Contrary to many onshore banking practices, your money is not held hostage by Swiss banks.

6. Swiss bank accounts attract only criminals and dictators

Not true! The vast majority of Swiss bank account holders are honest people who want to keep their savings in a country renowned for its stability. Swiss banks are extremely cautious regarding politicians who wish to open an account and they systematically refuse to accept any money that is of dubious origin or poorly founded.

7. Numbered accounts are anonymous

There are no anonymous accounts in Switzerland. A numbered account is an account that is identified solely by a number, rather than a name, in order to preserve the strictest confidentiality possible during teller transactions or bank transfers. Only the bank manager and a few select people know the identity of numbered account holders.

----- swiss bank accounts dot com

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Magnetic Poles of Earth

The Earth's magnetic field changes orientation at regular intervals, and although we can't predict when it will happen, we are certain that the poles move. Measurements of the magnetic field over the past 400 years reveal that the North Magnetic Pole has moved around the Arctic north of Canada by as much as six miles per year. In the past 10 years, it picked up speed and began to move north at 25 miles per year.

The historical position of the magnetic poles, going back millions of years, can be read from various magnetic minerals found in lava and other rocks. The minerals show that the magnetic field has reversed direction about every 300,000 years and that more than 780,000 years have passed since the poles last shifted. This makes us long overdue for another magnetic-pole reversal from north to south.

It's not just the magnetic field's orientation that changes over time but also its strength. Analysis of minerals found at the bottom of the ocean shows that the magnetic field has weakened 10 percent since the 19th century.

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Does Blogging Pay ?

You bet ? Everything in life pays. Some in the form of money, some for goods, some merely for satisfaction and you can image what ever out of it. Blogging is a small art which lots and lots of us are doing round the clock. Most of us do not look at the earning potential it has. Then you may ask ..... how does it pay ? Working on a free site and free server and free free .. why would we get paid ?

Think again. For it pays. Do not expect a blog to pay you like a stock in the share market jumping 10-20 per cent the next day. This is a place where it requires sincere dedication of writing out articles on topics that you love. It takes time and efforts to get to a level where you can get paid.

Who pays ? There are lot may who do ! Google adsense for one pays. It has been over an year now and we have been able to generate some revenue slowly out of the blog. Not worth mentioning compared to the time it took to reach that figure but yes, slowly with time you can start earning.

And just in case you need some tips, feel free to get in touch. Lastly we would sincerely thank you, the reader of this blog, for your efforts are what got us that payment. Cheers !

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A hilarious Video - Life Computerized !

Some video that we had accidently located on the internet. We would not claim it to be ours. We are not concerned as to what it is trying to advertise but look at the hilarious content. What it ..... what if we spend 24 hours out of 24 hours on the computer? We certainly need to mend our ways to go towards our nature and not nurture the key board and mouse of the computer. A very small video worth watching.

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Latest Mobiles

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The Top 25 - Sports Related Personalities

S.No.	Name	Information
1	Joseph Blatter	President, FIFA
2	Jacques Rogge	President, International Olympic Committee
3	Bernie Ecclestone	CEO and President, Formula One
4	Herbert Hainer	CEO, Adidas
5	David Beckham	Soccer midfielder, Los Angeles Galaxy
6	Roman Abramovich	Owner, Chelsea Football Club
7	Cristiano Ronaldo	Soccer right/left winger, Manchester United
8	Michel Platini	President, Union of European Football Associations
9	Roger Federer	Tennis champ
10	Haruyuki Takahashi	Senior Managing Director, Dentsu
11	Silvio Berlusconi	President, A.C. Milan
12	Lewis Hamilton	Formula One racer
13	Luca DiMontezemolo	President, Ferrari
14	Ramon Calderon	President, Real Madrid
15	Michael Schumacher	Retired Formula One racer
16	Yao Ming	Center, Houston Rockets
17	Gilbert Felli	Executive Director, Olympic Games
18	Dietrich Mateschitz	Co-owner, Red Bull racing teams
19	Lalit Modi	Chairman and Commissioner, Indian Premier League
20	Richard Scudamore	CEO, F.A. Premier League
21	Ron Dennis	Principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
22	Timo Lumme	Director, TV and marketing services, International Olympic Committee
23	Sachin Tendulkar	Indian cricketer, Captain of Mumbai Indians team
24	Jose Mourinho	Manager, Inter Milan
25	Maria Sharapova	Tennis star

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Dubai planning a Taller Tower

With its world's tallest building nearing completion, Dubai said Sunday it is embarking on an even more ambitious skyscraper: one that will soar more than 10 American football fields.

That's about two-thirds of a mile or the height of more than three of New York's Chrysler Buildings stacked end-to-end.

Babel had nothing on this place.

"This is unbelievably groundbreaking design," Chief Executive Chris O'Donnell said during a briefing at the company's sales center, not far from the proposed site. "This still takes my breath away."

The tower, which will take more than a decade to complete, will be the centerpiece of a sprawling development state-owned builder Nakheel plans to create in the rapidly growing "New Dubai" section of the city. Foundation work has already begun, O'Donnell said.

The area is located between two of the city's artificial palm-shaped islands, which Nakheel also built. The project will include a manmade inland harbor and 40 additional towers up to 90 floors high.

About 150 elevators will carry employees and workers to the Nakheel Tower's more than 200 floors, the company said. The building will be composed of four separate towers joined at various levels and centered on an open atrium.

"It does show a lot of confidence in this environment" of worldwide credit problems and a souring global economy, said Marios Maratheftis, Standard Chartered Bank's Dubai-based regional head of research.

As part of government-run conglomerate Dubai World, Nakheel has played a major role in creating modern-day Dubai, a city that has blossomed from a tiny Persian Gulf fishing and pearling village into a major business and tourism hub in a matter of decades.

Besides the growing archipelago of man-made islands for which it is best known, Nakheel is responsible for a number of the city's malls, hotels and hundreds of apartment buildings.

The company said the new project is inspired by Islamic design and draws inspiration from sites such as the Alhambra in Spain and the harbor of Alexandria in Egypt.

"This is nothing like it in Dubai," said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Nakheel's chairman.

Perhaps not quite. But Dubai is already home to the world's tallest building, even if it remains unfinished.

That skyscraper, the Burj Dubai, or Dubai Tower in Arabic, is being built by Nakheel's chief competitor, Emaar Properties.

Emaar has kept the final height of the silvery steel-and-glass tower a closely guarded secret, saying only that it stood at a "new record height" of 2,257 feet at the start of last month. It's due to be finished next September.

The final height of Nakheel's proposed tower is likewise a secret, as is the price tag. The company would only say it will be more than a kilometer (3,281 feet) tall.

O'Donnell said he was confident that Nakheel could pay for the project despite the financial troubles roiling the world's economy.

He also brushed aside concerns by some analysts that Dubai's property market is becoming overheated and due for a potentially sharp correction.

"In Dubai, demand outstrips supply," he said. "There might be a slowdown, but there definitely won't be a crash."

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Naughty Britishers abroad

With the cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) reaching new heights in the UK, health experts have blamed randy Brits abroad for bringing back unwanted 'holiday souvenirs'.

Experts have warned that risky sex among Brit's youth has driven the numbers of STIs to new highs in the UK.

The overall total of STIs last year was six per cent higher than in 2006, according to the Health Protection Agency.

Of 380,000 newly diagnosed cases, 200,000 related to people aged 16 to 24.

This age group accounted for two-thirds of all chlamydia cases, 55 per cent of all genital warts and half of all gonorrhoea sufferers.

A study found that 40 per cent of young women do not carry or use condoms when they go abroad.

"If someone looks well groomed and desirable, it's assumed they're OK," The Sun quoted GP Dr Carol Cooper, as saying.

"But the danger is that many STIs are symptomless. Many young people also don't seem to be aware that they can get STIs without full sex.

"Drunken fumbles that result in genital contact can lead to infection too," she added.

Professor Peter Borriello, director of the HPA's centre for infections, said casual sex is now seen as "part of life" for young people.

And he added: "SHAG now stands for Syphilis, Herpes, Anal warts and Gonorrhoea.

"A casual shag is part of the territory, but if you're going to go diving into the pool, make sure you know how to swim - i.e. use a condom."

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Ig Nobel Awards

Studies that suggested sodas such as Coke and Pepsi kill sperms and exotic lap dancers make more money when they are at peak fertility have been awarded the 2008 Ig Nobel prize.

In 1980s, when researcher Deborah Anderson of Harvard Medical School's birth- control laboratory discovered that "Coca Cola douches" were being used as a type of contraception at the all-girl Catholic boarding school she had attended in Puerto Rico, she decided to test it.

For the study, Anderson, medical student Sharee Umpierre and gynaecologist, Joe Hill mixed four different types of Coke with sperm in test tubes.

A minute later, they found that all sperm were dead in the Diet Coke, however, 41pct were still swimming in the just-introduced New Coke.

"Coca-Cola douches had become a part of contraceptive folklore during the 1950s and 1960s, when other birth-control methods were hard to come by," New Scientist quoted Anderson, as saying.

"It was believed that the carbonic acid in Coke killed sperm, and the method came with its own 'shake and shoot applicator'" - the classic Coke bottle," she added.

Another study, led by University of New Mexico psychologists proposing that lap dancers earn more money when they are at peak fertility also won the award.

During the research, psychologists Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan asked women working as lap dancers to report their nightly tips, and whether they were on hormonal contraceptives or menstruating naturally.

The two groups of women received similar tips when they were in non-fertile parts of their cycle, but when the naturally menstruating women reached their fertile days, the researchers found, they earned significantly more.

A Brazilian study led by Astolfo Araujo of the University of Sao Paulo and Jose Marcelino of Sao Paolo's Department of Historical Heritage on armadillos, the burrowing animals, which showed that the pesky creatures can move the artifacts in archaeological dig sites up, down and even laterally by several meters as they dig also won the prestigious alternative prize.

Another experiment with huge implications for health policy won the Ig Nobel medicine prize for Dan Ariely of Duke University in North Carolina.

He gave two groups of volunteers identical placebos masquerading as painkillers, telling one group the pills cost 2.50 dollars each and the other that the pills had been discounted to 10 cents each.

The volunteers didn't pay for the pills, but those who took the "more costly" fake medicine felt less pain from electric shocks than those who took the cheap fakes

This showed that price affects people's expectations and thus their response to medicine, Ariely says - the more expensive the pill, the more relief they expect.

These awards, presented at Harvard University, are organised by the humorous scientific journal the Annals of Improbable Research for research achievements "that make people laugh - then think".

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Tackling Hot Laptops

Faster and greater processing speeds are producing hotter and hotter miniaturised computer models like the laptop. 

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science are working to overcome the excess heat generating problem using nanoelectronics, expected to power the next generation of computers. 

"Laptops are very hot now, so hot that they are not 'lap' tops anymore," said Avik Ghosh, assistant professor at the University. "The prediction is that if we continue at our current pace of miniaturisation, these devices will be as hot as the sun in 10 to 20 years." 

Ghosh and Mircea Stan, also a professor in the department, are re-examining nothing less than the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law states that, left to itself, heat will transfer from a hotter unit to a cooler one - in this case between electrical computer components - until both have roughly the same temperature, a state called "thermal equilibrium." 

The possibility of breaking the law will require Ghosh and Stan to solve a scientifically controversial - and theoretical - conundrum known as "Maxwell's Demon." 

Introduced by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1871, the concept theorises that the energy flow from hot to cold could be disrupted if there were a way to control the transfer of energy between two units. Maxwell's Demon would allow one component to take the heat while the other worked at a lower temperature. 

This could be accomplished only if the degree of natural disorder, or entropy, were reduced. And that's the "demon" in Maxwell's Demon. "Device engineering is typically based on operating near thermal equilibrium," Ghosh said. But, he added, nature has examples of biological cells that operate outside thermal equilibrium. 

"Chlorophyll, for example, can convert photons into energy in highly efficient ways that seem to violate traditional thermodynamic expectations," he said, according to a University of Virginia report filed by Zak Richards. 

A closely related concept, Brownian "ratchets," will also be explored. This concept proposes that devices could be engineered to convert non-equilibrium electrical activity into directed motion, allowing energy to be harvested from a heat source. 

If computers could be made with components that operate outside thermal equilibrium, it could mean better computer performance. Basically, your laptop wouldn't burst into flames as it processes larger amounts of information at faster speeds. 

Combining Ghosh's command of physics with Stan's expertise in electrical engineering, the two hope to bridge the concept of tackling Maxwell's Demon and Brownian ratchets from theoretical physics to engineered technologies. 

"These theories have been looked at from a physics perspective for years, but not from the perspective of electrical engineering," Stan said. "So that's where we are trying to break some ground."

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USA Bailout Package - Just a joke

"Good morning, sir. Welcome to Bank Till of America. How can I help you?"

"I need some money."

"OK, for what purposes?"

"My family has gotten behind in our bills -- no mismanagement, you understand, but just some hard times. You see, my wife just got laid off, two of our three children had unexpected illnesses that weren't fully covered by our health insurance. Gas and food prices are escalating, and it's getting harder for us to make our mortgage payments. We're not extravagant, mind you, but we do need some help."

"So are you asking for a loan, sir?"

"We need a bailout, ma'am."

"I'm sorry, eh, as I look at your information, Mr. Cue -- Jonathan Cue, is it? -- but based on your resources, we're not able to give you a loan."

"Ma'am, I don't want a loan, I want a bailout."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I don't understand."

"A bailout. I want the same deal you gave to those people in the news, that

Fannie Mae woman, that Freddie Mac fellow, the Bear Stearns dude and the Notorious AIG."

"Sir, those are mortgage lending giants, banks and insurance companies, and the bailout given to them was essential to the American economy."

"I understand. And the bailout I want you to give me is essential to my family's economy."

"Sir, but without the assistance we give to them, the ramifications would be disastrous for Wall Street and the Fortune 500 companies."

"Ma'am, without the assistance I need you to give me, the ramifications would be disastrous to Main Street, Elm Street, Guadalupe Street as well as to the unfortunate millions I keep company with."

"I'm sorry, sir, we can't help you."

"But you helped them."

"That's different."

"Why?"

"Because you weren't irresponsible with billions of dollars and they were irresponsible with billions of dollars; therefore, we must give them billions of dollars more."

"Huh?"

"I know it makes no sense, but that's high finance for you."

"OK, ma'am, I was trying to be reasonable but since that won't work, I'm through asking for a bailout."

"Good."

"Just give me my money, no questions asked."

"Sir?"

"My money. The cash you're using to help Fannie, Freddie and all the other Capitalism Is Great When I'm Making Billions But Socialist Is Greater When I'm Losing Billions folk. That's my money, right?"

"Yes, but ..."

"I read where this $700 billion bailout is going to cost every American about $2,300. Is that right?"

"Yes, but ..."

"And about $6,000 per household, right?"

"Yes, but ..."

"And the national debt costs each American about $30,000 and each taxpayer about $67,000 right."

"Yes, but ..."

"Me and my wife are due $134,000 on the national debt, $6,000 on the bailout. Just give us $140,000 right now and we'll call it even."

"Sir, I'm sorry. That's just not possible."

"So you're not going to do for me what you did for Fannie Mae?"

"No, sir."

""What if my mother's name is Annie Mae?"

"No, sir."

"What if I sing the Bee Gees' 'Fanny Be Tender (With My Love)?' "

"No, sir."

"And you're not going to give me the same deal you gave Freddie Mac?"

"No, sir."

"What if I did a Bernie Mac impersonation? God bless his soul."

"No, sir."

"What if I hummed the theme song from Fred MacMurray's 'My Three Sons?' "

"No, sir."

"Well, will you do me one favor?"

"What's that sir?"

"Next time you use my money for a bailout or to raise the debt, money that I never saw and didn't know I had, could you at least let me hold it for a couple of hours?"

----- Cary Clack, columnist, San Antonio Express-News
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Top Fifty Employers

----- With due apologies and full credits to Business Week
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Awesome Ways to Photograph the Moon

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Achievement

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Lord Ganesha

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Wi-Fi Security

Wi-Fi household users the world over including those in the USA, Europe and Asia-Pacific are falling victim to hackers who piggyback on their network by misusing their internet account for crime and other illegal/unethical activities without the actual Wi-Fi owners knowledge or consent.

Are you using Wi-Fi for internet access from home or office? If so then surely you must be adequately secured by having proper password protection for your wireless network.

If you as a Wi-Fi user fail to use the password for accessing the internet then you are causing yourself to be vulnerable to all kinds of criminal activities by some unscrupulous person amongst those who are in your immediate vicinity by piggybacking on your wireless network without your knowledge.

It has been found from a survey that there are many amongst us who either do not wish to use a password each time they access the internet using their Wi-Fi system or do not have one that adequately secure them from attacks by hackers who love to piggy back on others.

A good number of Wi-Fi users are there who use others wireless network by piggybacking on them to download large files or adult content without the actual owners being aware of them.

By not using a proper password for your wireless network at home or while travelling could allow criminals with malafide intention to use your wireless network for some nefarious activities such as terrorism which could land you in serious trouble.

So to avoid swimming in the hot soup its better you remain well protected and do not take things for granted with the illusion of being in the confines of a closed room with not a soul to accompany you.

You might not know that your neighbor some 200 meters from where you are is actually snooping on you and could even steal your credit card password or that of your bank account during transaction.

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Tribute to 9/11 victims

9/11. The day simply rents shivers down the spine. What if we were there either of the locations. Seven years ago it was at New York and Pentagon, USA. A band of murderous hijackers took around 3000 innocent lives in a series of coordinated attacks. The days that followed those terrorist attacks saw Americans everywhere come together on a scale we hadn't seen since the days of World War II.

Yes, there was anger — real, legitimate, understandable anger at the scenes we had all seen play out on our TV screens. But there was also a sense of resolve that this nation — and its people — would not be beaten down by terrorism or by anything else. There was a true spirit of camaraderie, a sense that we were all in this together, all on the same side, from our own neighborhoods, throughout our local communities, and across the country.

We won't forget, either, the terrible images of dozens of people jumping to their deaths from the towers, to escape fire, explosions and collapsing walls. Neither will the courage of fire fighters on that day be forgotten. Today, remembering, we pray for all of the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, one of America's most tragic days. And, as American service men and women remain deployed around the world, we pray that U.S. defenses are better able now to deal with the threat of terrorism on the American soil.

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The Big Bang Theory testing machine starts

The world’s largest particle collider successfully completed its first major test by firing a beam of protons all the way around a 27-kilometer tunnel on Wednesday in what scientists hope is the next great step to understanding the makeup of the universe.

After a series of trial runs, two white dots flashed on a computer screen at 10:36 am indicating that the protons had traveled the full length of the $3.8 billion Large Hadron Collider.

“There it is,” project leader Lyn Evans said when the beam completed its lap.

Champagne corks popped in labs as far away as Chicago, where contributing scientists watched the proceedings by satellite. Physicists around the world now have much greater power than ever before to smash the components of atoms together in attempts to see how they are made.

“Well done everybody,” said Robert Aymar, director-general of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, to cheers from the assembled scientists in the collider’s control room at the Swiss-French border.

The organization, known by its French acronym CERN, began firing the protons a type of subatomic particle around the tunnel in stages less than an hour earlier.

Now that the beam has been successfully tested in clockwise direction, CERN plans to send it counterclockwise. Eventually two beams will be fired in opposite directions with the aim of recreating conditions a split second after the big bang, which scientists theorize was the massive explosion that created the universe.

The start of the collider described as the biggest physics experiment in history comes over the objections of some skeptics who fear the collision of protons could eventually imperil the earth.

The skeptics theorized that a byproduct of the collisions could be micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars.

“It’s nonsense,” said James Gillies, chief spokesman for CERN, before Wednesday’s start.

CERN is backed by leading scientists like Britain’s Stephen Hawking in dismissing the fears and declaring the experiments to be absolutely safe.

Gillies said that the most dangerous thing that could happen would be if a beam at full power were to go out of control, and that would only damage the accelerator itself and burrow into the rock around the tunnel.

Nothing of the sort occurred Wednesday, though accelerator is still probably a year away from full power.

“On Wednesday we start small,” said Gillies. “A really good result would be to have the other beam going around, too, because once you’ve got a beam around once in both directions you know that there is no show-stopper.”

The project organized by the 20 European member nations of CERN has attracted researchers from 80 nations. Some 1,200 are from the United States, an observer country which contributed $531 million. Japan, another observer, also is a major contributor.

The collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel.

Smaller colliders have been used for decades to study the makeup of the atom. Less than 100 years ago scientists thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of an atom’s nucleus, but in stages since then experiments have shown they were made of still smaller quarks and gluons and that there were other forces and particles.

The CERN experiments could reveal more about “dark matter,” antimatter and possibly hidden dimensions of space and time. It could also find evidence of the hypothetical particle the Higgs boson believed to give mass to all other particles, and thus to matter that makes up the universe.

Some scientists have been waiting for 20 years to use the LHC.

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John McCain noses ahead of Barack Obama ?

John McCain has surged ahead of Barack Obama in opinion polls after a powerful boost from the Republican convention and his surprise choice of Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, as vice-presidential running mate.

Pollsters, however are divided over whether this is a decisive shift in the White House race or just a temporary boost provided by last week's successful Republican convention.

A USA Today/Gallup conducted on Friday, the last day of the convention, and over the weekend gave Mr McCain, who until very recently had been trailing narrowly in all polls, a staggering 10-point lead among likely voters.

Gallup's daily tracking poll put the Republican up by three, Rasmussen tracking had him up one while three other polls recorded a tie. Tracking polls, which take a new sample of voters each day and compile a picture of the three most recent days, are notoriously volatile.

"The burden is on Obama right now to show if he can be a credible agent for change," said John Zogby, whose Zogby International poll on Saturday gave Mr McCain a three-point advantage. "At this point, it looks as if Obama's more on the ropes than McCain."

But Mr Zogby cautioned that the McCain lead might turn out to be based on the enthusiasm generated by last week's Republican convention and therefore temporary. Most of the Monday polls reflected samples taken on Friday, the best possible day for Mr McCain because of televised coverage of his Thursday night speech, which was watched by nearly 40 million people.

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What a coincidence !

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LHC - Large Hadron Collider

Tunnelling to the beginning of time

The Large Hadron Collider

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is an international project, in which the UK has a leading role. This site includes the latest news from the project, accessible explanations of how the LHC works, how it is funded, who works there and what benefits it brings us. You can access a wide range of resources for the public, journalists and teachers and students, there are also many links to other sources of information.

The LHC is asking some Big Questions about the universe we live in

How did our universe come to be the way it is?

The Universe started with a Big Bang – but we don’t fully understand how or why it developed the way it did. The LHC will let us see how matter behaved a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Researchers have some ideas of what to expect – but also expect the unexpected!

About the LHC

The LHC is an international research project based at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, where scientists, engineers and support staff from 111 nations are combining state-of-the-art science and engineering in one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted.

The LHC is the latest and most powerful in a series of particle accelerators that, over the last 70 years, have allowed us to penetrate deeper and deeper into the heart of matter and further and further back in time. The next steps in the journey will bring new knowledge about the beginning of our Universe and how it works, as the LHC recreates, on a microscale, conditions that existed billionths of a second after the birth of our Universe.

What is the LHC?

The LHC is exactly what its name suggests - a large collider of hadrons. Strictly, LHC refers to the collider; a machine that deserves to be labelled ‘large’, it not only weighs more than 38,000 tonnes, but runs for 27km (16.5m) in a circular tunnel 100 metres beneath the Swiss/French border at Geneva.

However, the collider is only one of three essential parts of the LHC project. The other two are:

• the detectors, which sit in 4 huge chambers at points around the LHC tunnel and
• the GRID, which is a global network of computers and software essential to processing the data recorded by LHC’s detectors.

The LHC’s 27km loop in a sense encircles the globe, because the LHC project is supported by an enormous international community of scientists and engineers. Working in multinational teams, at CERN and around the world, they are building and testing LHC equipment and software, participating in experiments and analysing data. The UK has a major role in leading the project and has scientists and engineers working on all the main experiments.

What will the LHC do?

The LHC will allow scientists to probe deeper into the heart of matter and further back in time than has been possible using previous colliders.

Researchers think that the Universe originated in the Big Bang (an unimaginably violent explosion) and since then the Universe has been cooling down and becoming less energetic. Very early in the cooling process the matter and forces that make up our world ‘condensed’ out of this ball of energy.

The LHC will produce tiny patches of very high energy by colliding together atomic particles that are travelling at very high speed. The more energy produced in the collisions the further back we can look towards the very high energies that existed early in the evolution of the Universe. Collisions in the LHC will have up to 7x the energy of those produced in previous machines; recreating energies and conditions that existed billionths of a second after the start of the Big Bang.

The results from the LHC are not completely predictable as the experiments are testing ideas that are at the frontiers of our knowledge and understanding. Researchers expect to confirm predictions made on the basis of what we know from previous experiments and theories. However, part of the excitement of the LHC project is that it may uncover new facts about matter and the origins of the Universe.

One of the most interesting theories the LHC will test was put forward by the UK physicist Professor Peter Higgs and others. The different types of fundamental particle that make up matter have very different masses, while the particles that make up light (photons) have no mass at all. Peter’s theory is one explanation of why this is so and the LHC will allow us to test the theory. More of the Big Questions about the universe that the LHC may help us answer can be found here.

Latest News from the LHC

The 10th September 2008 is LHCstart up date .

Everything is now ready for the first injection of proton beams into the LHC on the 10th September 2008.

This major milestone in the LHC project will be covered live by international broadcasters. UK media organisations will be at CERN and at a simultaneous media event in London.

CERN will webcast the startup (the link is on the CERN "first beam" page).

BBC Radio 4 will devote a day of programming to the LHC, including covering first injection of beams live on the Today programme. See the BBC website for programming, background etc.

In the weeks preceeding the start up, this web page and the CERN and STFCwebsites will carry information on the plans for coverage of the event.

Press Release announcing start up date.

Dr Tara Shears talks about some of the scientific questions that the LHC project will help us answer, on the www.labreporter.com website.

You can try your hand at running the LHC and interpreting collisions on oursimulator at www.particledetectives.net.

Proton beams have already been injected into the first metres of the LHC, to test the injection process, but the first attempt to circulate beams all the way around the LHC will be on the official start up day. If everything proceeds according to plan the beam will circulate all the way around the 27 km long LHC. Over the following months the LHC scientists and engineers will commission the LHC, running beams at higher energy with the intention of beginning collisions, using relatively low energy (5TeV) beams, towards the end of 2008.

The extensive preparations for the start of LHC experiments have included exhaustive safety assessments, including the potential risk of creating new particles, black holes etc. The latest risk assessment is available here.

FAQs

I have heard that the LHC will recreate the Big Bang, does that mean it might create another Universe and if so what will happen to our Universe?

People sometimes refer to recreating the Big Bang, but this is misleading. What they actually mean is:

• recreating the conditions and energies that existed shortly after the start of the Big Bang, not the moment at which the Big Bang started,
• recreating conditions on a microscale, not on the same scale as the original Big Bang and,
• recreating energies that are continually being produced naturally (by high energy cosmic rays hitting the earth’s atmosphere) but at will and inside sophisticated detectors that track what is happening.

No Big Bang – so no possibility of creating a new Universe.

How much does the LHC cost and who pays?

The direct total LHC project cost is £2.6bn, made up of:

• the collider (£2.1bn),
• the detectors (£575m).

The total cost is shared mainly by CERN's 20 Member States, with significant contributions from the six observer nations.

UK’s direct contribution to the LHC is £34m per year, or less than the cost of a pint of beer per adult in the UK per year:

The UK pays £70m per year as our annual subscription to CERN.

The LHC project involves 111 nations in designing, building and testing equipment and software, participating in experiments and analysing data. The degree of involvement varies between countries, with some able to contribute more financial and human resource than others.

CERN stands for 'Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire' (or European Council for Nuclear Research); does that mean that CERN is studying nuclear power and nuclear weapons?

At the time that CERN was established (1952 – 1954) physics research was exploring the inside of the atom, hence the word ‘nuclear’ in its title. CERN has never been involved in research on nuclear power or nuclear weapons, but has done much to increase our understanding of the fundamental structure of the atom.

The title CERN is actually an historical remnant. It comes from the name of the council that was founded to establish a European organisation for world-class physics research. The Council was dissolved once the new organisation (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) was formed, but the name CERN remained.

Why is the LHC underground? Is it because it is doing secret experiments that scientists want to hide away?

The LHC has been built in a tunnel originally constructed for a previous collider (LEP – the Large Electron Positron collider). This was the most economic solution to building both LEP and the LHC. It was cheaper to build an underground tunnel than acquire the equivalent land above ground. Putting the machine underground also greatly reduces the environmental impact of the LHC and associated activities.

The rock surrounding the LHC is a natural shield that reduces the amount of natural radiation that reaches the LHC and this reduces interference with the detectors. Vice versa, radiation produced when the LHC is running is safely shielded by 50 – 100 metres of rock.

Can the work at CERN be used to build more deadly weapons?

Unlikely for two main reasons. Firstly, CERN and the scientists and engineers working there have no interest in weapons research. They are trying to understand how the world works, not how to destroy it.

Secondly, the high energy particle beams produced at the LHC require a huge machine (27km long, weighing more than 38,000 tonnes – half the weight of an aircraft carrier), consuming 120MW of power and needing 91 tonnes of supercold liquid helium). The beams themselves have a lot of energy (the equivalent of a Eurostar train travelling at top speed) but they can only be maintained in a vacuum, if released into the atmosphere they would immediately interact with atoms in the air and dissipate their energy in a very short distance.

Are the high energies produced by the LHC dangerous and what happens if something goes wrong?

The LHC does produce very high energies, but these energy levels are restricted to tiny volumes inside the detectors. Many high energy particles, from collisions, are produced every second, but the detectors are designed to track and stop all particles (except neutrinos) as capturing all the energy from collisions is essential to identifying what particles have been produced. Very little of the energy from collisions is able to escape from the detectors.

The main danger from these energy levels is to the LHC machine itself. The beam of particles has the energy of a Eurostar train travelling at full speed and should something happen to destabilise the particle beam there is a real danger that all of that energy will be deflected into the wall of the beam pipe and the magnets of the LHC, causing a great deal of damage. The LHC has several automatic safety systems in place that monitor all the critical parts of the LHC. Should anything unexpected happen (power or magnet failure for example) the beam is automatically ‘dumped’ by being squirted into a blind tunnel where its energy is safely dissipated. This all happens in milliseconds – the beam, which is travelling at 11,000 circuits of the LHC per second, will complete less than 3 circuits before the dump is complete.

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