Merry fish-mas!

Fancy something a bit different this year? Why not try scallops with pancetta, a platter of poached salmon or spicy prawn cocktails

Serves 4

Place the salad into each of the glasses and spoon over the prawn and sauce mix

INGREDIENTS

• 300g (10½oz) uncooked king prawns, peeled5tbsp mayonnaise1tbsp tomato ketchup1tsp brandyPinch of dried chilli flakesSqueeze of lemon juiceSalt and freshly ground black pepper8 Little Gem lettuce leaves4 red chicory leaves150g (5¼oz) king prawn tails, cooked
• METHOD

Put a little oil in a small pan, heat gently and add the prawns. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side or until pink and cooked through.
Set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, ketchup, brandy, chilli flakes and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in the king prawns.
Shred 2 of the lettuce leaves and divide between four serving glasses. Place one chicory leaf and one lettuce leaf into each of the glasses and spoon over the prawn and sauce mix. Top with the prawn tails and serve.



 

Have a very veggie Christmas!

Don’t despair if you don’t eat meat. A vegetarian Christmas dinner can still be a feast full of flavour – and a lot less hassle than a turkey...Serves 4-6

Crowd pleaser: Pour over the onions and arrange the figs around the edge

INGREDIENTS


1 pack (approx 275g) ready-rolled puff pastry
1tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, finely sliced
1 plump garlic clove, finely chopped
1 fennel bulb, finely sliced
1tsp fennel seeds
1 large egg, and 1 yolk, whisked
225ml (7fl oz) double cream
175g (6oz) Gorgonzola cheese
2 figs, quartered

METHOD
Preheat oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/ gas 6. Line a 23cm (8½in) tart tin with pastry, leaving a 3cm (1¼in) overhang. Lay baking paper over the pastry, fill with baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes.

Remove the paper, prick the base with a fork and return to the oven for 5 minutes until golden. Cool slightly then trim the edges of the pastry. Heat the oil and gently sweat the onion for 8-10 minutes until very soft.

Add the garlic, fennel and seeds, and cook for a few minutes until lightly golden. Tip into the tin. Mix the egg and cream and season. Pour over the onions, dot the cheese on top and arrange the figs around the edge. Bake for 30-40 minutes until puffed and golden.

TV that can be rolled up and put in your pocket

TV that can be rolled up and put in your pocket



Tiny dots 100,000 times thinner than human hair

'Quantum dots' are printed on plastic sheets
Far thinner even than hi-tech OLED screens
Plastic sheet can be rolled up without damage


Flat screen TVs that can be rolled up and put in a jacket pocket could soon be a reality - thanks to an entirely new screen technology called QD.

Thetechnology, which was developed by a team of British scientists, is known as 'quantum dot' and can be used to make ultra-thin televisions.
Companies such as Samsung are already working on bendable OLED screens - but QD screens will be thinner, and bendier.

Flat screen TVs that can be rolled up and put in a jacket pocket could soon be a reality - thanks to an entirely new screen technology called QD.

Thetechnology, which was developed by a team of British scientists, is known as 'quantum dot' and can be used to make ultra-thin televisions.
Companies such as Samsung are already working on bendable OLED screens - but QD screens will be thinner, and bendier.

The flexible screens are expected to take slightly longer and could be in the shops over the next three years.



The company will not reveal exactly who they are working with but it is believed that Sony, Sharp, Samsung and LG are all working on quantum dot technology.


Most televisions produced have a liquid crystal display (LCD) which are lit by light-emitting diodes (LED) with a screen that is a few millimetres thick.


Using the quantum dot technology would mean televisions are lighter and thinner than ever before.


Chief executive of Nanoco, a company set up by scientists at Manchester University, told the Sunday Telegraph: 'The real advantage provided by quantum dots, however, is that they can be printed on to a plastic sheet that can be rolled up.
'It is likely these will be small personal devices to begin with. Something else we are looking at is reels of wallpaper or curtains made out of a material that has quantum dots printed on it.

'You can imagine displaying scenes of the sun rising over a beach as you wake up in the morning.'










 

Cambridge University today published Newton's most important works on a new library website

Cambridge University today published more than 4,000 pages of Newton's most important works on a new library website. They include his own annotated copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. First published in July 1687, 'Principia' not only contains the laws of motion, but also Newton's law of universal gravitation. It is widely regarded as one of the most significant works in the history of science. ...read

click to read further >>>
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2072992/Original-manuscript-Sir-Isaac-Newtons-famous-laws-motion-available-online.html

Kepler discovers planets <>"habitable zone,"

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed its first planet in the "habitable zone," the region around a star where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Kepler also has discovered more than 1,000 new planet candidates, nearly doubling its previously known count. Ten of these candidates are near-Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of their host star. Candidates require follow-up observations to verify they are actual planets.

The newly confirmed planet, Kepler-22b, is the smallest yet found to orbit in the middle of the habitable zone of a star similar to our sun. The planet is about 2.4 times the radius of Earth. Scientists don't yet know if Kepler-22b has a predominantly rocky, gaseous or liquid composition, but its discovery is a step closer to finding Earth-like planets.

Previous research hinted at the existence of near-Earth-size planets in habitable zones, but clear confirmation proved elusive. Two other small planets orbiting stars smaller and cooler than our sun recently were confirmed on the very edges of the habitable zone, with orbits more closely resembling those of Venus and Mars.

"This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth's twin," said Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Kepler's results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA's science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe."

Kepler discovers planets and planet candidates by measuring dips in the brightness of more than 150,000 stars to search for planets that cross in front, or "transit," the stars. Kepler requires at least three transits to verify a signal as a planet.

"Fortune smiled upon us with the detection of this planet," said William Borucki, Kepler principal investigator at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., who led the team that discovered Kepler-22b. "The first transit was captured just three days after we declared the spacecraft operationally ready. We witnessed the defining third transit over the 2010 holiday season."

The Kepler science team uses ground-based telescopes and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to review observations on planet candidates the spacecraft finds. The star field that Kepler observes in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra can only be seen from ground-based observatories in spring through early fall. The data from these other observations help determine which candidates can be validated as planets.


Kepler-22b is located 600 light-years away. While the planet is larger than Earth, its orbit of 290 days around a sun-like star resembles that of our world. The planet's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, called G-type, although it is slightly smaller and cooler.
Of the 54 habitable zone planet candidates reported in February 2011, Kepler-22b is the first to be confirmed. This milestone will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.

The Kepler team is hosting its inaugural science conference at Ames Dec. 5-9, announcing 1,094 new planet candidate discoveries. Since the last catalog was released in February, the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler has increased by 89 percent and now totals 2,326. Of these, 207 are approximately Earth-size, 680 are super Earth-size, 1,181 are Neptune-size, 203 are Jupiter-size and 55 are larger than Jupiter.

The findings, based on observations conducted May 2009 to September 2010, show a dramatic increase in the numbers of smaller-size planet candidates.

Kepler observed many large planets in small orbits early in its mission, which were reflected in the February data release. Having had more time to observe three transits of planets with longer orbital periods, the new data suggest that planets one to four times the size of Earth may be abundant in the galaxy.

The number of Earth-size, and super Earth-size candidates, has increased by more than 200 and 140 percent since February, respectively.

There are 48 planet candidates in their star's habitable zone. While this is a decrease from the 54 reported in February, the Kepler team has applied a stricter definition of what constitutes a habitable zone in the new catalog, to account for the warming effect of atmospheres, which would move the zone away from the star, out to longer orbital periods.

"The tremendous growth in the number of Earth-size candidates tells us that we're honing in on the planets Kepler was designed to detect: those that are not only Earth-size, but also are potentially habitable," said Natalie Batalha, Kepler deputy science team lead at San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif. "The more data we collect, the keener our eye for finding the smallest planets out at longer orbital periods."

NASA's Ames Research Center manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes the Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters.


For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler .

மருத்துவ குணமுள்ள செம்பருத்தி பூ

மருத்துவ குணமுள்ள செம்பருத்தி பூவின் நிறம் மற்றும் அழகில் மயங்காதவர்களே இருக்க முடியாது. ஏராளமான நிறங்கள்இ ஒற்றை மற்றும் அடுக்கு செம்பருத்தி என பல வகைகள் உள்ளன.

கண்ணை கவரும் இதன் சிவப்பு நிறத்தால் தோட்டத்தில் மற்ற செடிகளுக்கு இடையில் பளீரென அழகாக தோற்றமளிக்கும்.

வீட்டில் அழகுக்காக வளர்க்கப்படும் இதில் பல்வேறு மருத்துவ குணங்களும் இருப்பது பலருக்கு தெரிவதில்லை. செம்பருத்தி பூக்கள் மற்றும் இலைகள்இ தலைமுடி வளர்ச்சிக்கும் தலையில் பொடுகு உள்ளிட்ட பிரச்னைகளுக்கும் தீர்வாகும்.

தேங்காய் எண்ணையில் இதன் காய்ந்த மொட்டுக்களை போட்டு ஊற வைத்து தொடர்ந்து தடவி வந்தால் கூந்தலின் கருமை நிறம் பாதுகாக்கப்படும்.

இங்கிலாந்தை சேர்ந்த தாவரவியல் ஆராய்ச்சியாளர்கள் சமீபத்தில் மேற்கொண்ட ஆய்வில் தெரியவந்த தகவல்கள் இவை. இதை நேரடியாகவோ மறைமுகமாகவோ உட்கொண்டால் கிடைக்கும் பலன் மற்றும் பயன்களை பட்டியலிட்டுள்ளனர்.

அதன் விபரம்: உணவில் செம்பருத்தி பூவை சேர்த்துக் கொள்வதால் சோர்வு நீங்கும். இதன் இலைகளை சேர்த்து கொதிக்க வைத்து தேநீராக அருந்தினால் ரத்த அழுத்தம் சீராக இருக்கும். உயர் ரத்த அழுத்தத்தை கட்டுப்படுத்தும்.

தொடர்ந்து இதை பயன்படுத்தும் போது ரத்தத்தில் உள்ள கொழுப்பு கரையும். அதிகப்படியான கொழுப்பு சேர்வதை தடுக்கும். உடலுக்கு குளிர்ச்சி அளிக்க வல்லது.

சருமத்தை பளபளப்பாக்கி நோய் எதிர்ப்பு சக்தியை அதிகரிக்கும். இந்த தாவரத்தின் அனைத்து பாகங்களும் மருத்துவ பயன்கள் கொண்டது.

இயற்கையின் கொடை என்பது மட்டுமின்றி பக்க விளைவுகளும் பாதிப்புகளும் அற்றது என்று இங்கிலாந்து ஆராய்ச்சியாளர்கள் கூறியுள்ளனர்