15-year-old performs surgery in India

NEW DELHI - The 15-year-old son of two doctors performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent bid to gain a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest surgeon.

Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges, officials said Thursday.

Dr. K. Murugesan showed a recording of his son performing a Caesarean section to an Indian Medical Association chapter in the southern state of Tamil Nadu last month, said Dr. Venkatesh Prasad, secretary of the association. The video showed Murugesan anesthetizing the patient.

"We were shocked to see the recording," Prasad told The Associated Press, adding that the IMA told Murugesan that his act was an ethical and legal violation.

Murugesan owns and runs a maternity hospital in the city of Manaparai, Prasad said in a telephone interview from Manaparai. The family could not be immediately reached for comment.

Murugesan, who could possibly be prevented from practicing and face criminal charges for allowing his son to perform the operation, expressed no regret and accused the Manaparai medical association of being "jealous" of his son's achievements, Prasad added.

"He said this was not the first surgery performed by his son and that he had been training him for the last three years," said Prasad.

Murugesan told the medical association that he wanted to see his son's name in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Prasad said that his team had reported the surgery to the state's top medical association in state capital, Chennai.

State health secretary V.K. Subburaj told reporters Thursday that the government would investigate.

"We'll get the report and then we'll see whether there are any violations ... prima facie it looks like there is a big violation," he said.

"We will definitely take action against the concerned medical officers."

Useless organs?

According to Brandon Miller of LiveScience.com, Charles Darwin mentioned in his On the Origin of Species (1859) and his next publication, The Descent of Man (1871), about several "vestiges" in human anatomy that were left over from the course of evolution. These vestigial organs, Darwin argued, are evidence of evolution and represent a function that was once necessary for survival, but over time that function became either diminished or nonexistent.

The presence of an organ in one organism that resembles one found in another has led biologists to conclude that these two might have shared a common ancestor. Vestigial organs have demonstrated remarkably how species are related to one another, and has given solid ground for the idea of common descent to stand on. From common descent, it is predicted that organisms should retain these vestigial organs as structural remnants of lost functions. It is only because of macro-evolutionary theory, or evolution that takes place over very long periods of time, that these vestiges appear.

The term "vestigial organ" is often poorly defined, most commonly because someone has chosen a poor source to define the term. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines vestigial organs as organs or structures remaining or surviving in a degenerate, atrophied, or imperfect condition or form. This is the accepted biological definition used in the theory of evolution.

In the never-ending search for scientific truth, hypotheses are proposed, evidence is found, and theories are formulated to describe and explain what is being observed in the world around us. The following are ten observations of vestigial organs whose presence have helped to flesh out the structure of the family tree that includes every living creature on our planet.

1. The human appendix
2. Male breast tissue and nipples
3. Fake sex in virgin whiptail lizards (vestigial behavior)
4. Sexual organs of dandelions
5. Wisdom teeth in humans
6. The blind fish Astyanax Mexicanus
7. The human tailbone (coccyx)
8. Erector pili and body hair
9. Hind leg bones in whales
10. The wings on flightless birds

For complete details, go to http://www.livescience.com/animals/top10_vestigial_organs.html

Harry Potter vs. The Hacker

BOSTON (Reuters) - The mystery surrounding the end to fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter's saga deepened on Wednesday with a computer hacker posting what he said were key plot details and a publisher warned the details could be fake.

The hacker, who goes by the name "Gabriel," claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

For months now, leading up to the book's July 21 release, legions of "Harry Potter" fans have debated whether Rowling killed Harry or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in the final book.

Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that, if true, would answer that question.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel said in the posting.

"Harry Potter" publishers have taken great pains to keep the conclusion a secret and preserve the multibillion-dollar entertainment enterprise surrounding the boy wizard.

A Bloomsbury spokesman declined comment on the hacker's claims.

Kyle Good, a spokesman for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be skeptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book's plot.

"There is a whole lot of junk flying around," she said. "Consider this one more theory."

David Perry, a spokesman for computer security company Trend Micro, said there was a good chance Gabriel's claim could be a hoax.

"We've had hypes like this on the last couple of Harry Potter books," he said. "There is a very high level of spurious information in the hacker world."

But if true, it could be a problem for Bloomsbury. The "Harry Potter" books have been global best-sellers with fans buying some 320 million versions worldwide, and anticipation for "Deathly Hallows" is high.

In April, U.S. retailer Barnes & Noble said advance orders for the book had already topped 500,000 copies, setting a chain record. Scholastic plans to release a record 12 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" to meet demand.

A stolen copy of the sixth Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" surfaced in Britain about a month before its official release in July 2005. Two people were charged after reportedly trying to sell a copy to the London tabloid the Sun.

Four "Potter" movies made by Warner Bros. film studio, a division of Time Warner Inc., have brought in $3.5 billion in global ticket sales, and a fifth film is due in theaters in early July.

Video games as cancer therapy?

Parents struggle, strain and stress out trying to get sick children to take their medicine. Typically, this involves insidious tactics like crushing pills into pudding and playing endless hours of "Aspirin Airplane," but judging by the piles of strained peas covering kitchen floors, it's clear the kids usually win.

When it comes to fighting cancer, however, coercion takes a back seat to innovation. Instead of tricking patients into taking their pills, a joint effort by Cigna Healthcare and HopeLab is helping afflicted youth better understand their illness through an action-packed computer game.

Re-Mission is a third-person shooter that lets users fight cancer as a perky nanobot named Roxxi. Each of the game's 20 missions drops the player into the body of a patient afflicted with a specific form of cancer, ranging from common diseases like Hodgkins to rarities like Ewing's sarcoma. Featuring weapons like the Chemo Blaster, the Radiation Gun, and the Antibiotic Rocket, the game encourages users to zap malignant cells while enlisting the aid of helpful characters like Dendritic cells, T-cells and Platelets.

Unlike most educational gaming efforts, Re-Mission was designed from the start to be a viable, challenging action game. High-end 3D graphics, multiple weapon upgrades, and a variety of meters to manage have helped stave off the dreaded "edutainment" label that many gamers equate with a distinct lack of fun. By way of its visceral punch and frantic action, the product has even earned a "Teen" rating.

Most importantly, the game seems to be working on a medical level. The results of a 2006 Re-Mission study indicate that most of the respondents showed an increase in cancer knowledge and an improvement in their ability to manage treatment.

Re-Mission is being distributed to cancer patients for free at http://www.cigna.com/Re-mission. Further information can be found at http://www.re-mission.net, which also houses the product's community site.

How to deal with an office jerk

from Robert M. Detman, for Yahoo! HotJobs

Office life can have its ups and downs, but having to endure a jerk can make it miserable. Office jerks take on many forms, and thus require creative strategies for dealing with them.

Here's the six common types of office jerks and how to deal with them:

1. The Loud Phone-Talker. "Obviously the first step is to pull them aside quietly and ask them to lower their voice when using the phone," says Julie Jansen, a career coach, consultant, and trainer. "If this doesn't stop them, you could dish out the same treatment and stand near their cube on your cell phone and talk loudly. Or you can hold up a sign that says, 'Please turn volume down.'"

2. The Hang-Arounder. When confronting the co-worker who chronically lingers to chat when you are trying to make a deadline -- a subtle jerk, but a jerk nonetheless -- try standing up when they enter your office or cube. "The unspoken message of your body language will clearly tell him or her to keep it brief and head for the door," says Ken Lloyd, author of "Jerks at Work: How to Deal With People Problems and Problem People."

3. The Idea Stealer. There is a strong possibility that this jerk can't distinguish between a good idea and a bad one. "Somewhere along the way, slip in a really bad idea and let the jerk steal that," Lloyd says. However, beware that this might only encourage the jerk to become worse.

4. The Meeting Monopolizer. Get creative. "Try eliminating the chairs and making it a standup meeting," Lloyd suggests. The monopolizer will likely get thrown off and won't have time to settle into the usual routine of unproductive dominance.

5. The Bully. Remember, you're not in high school anymore. "Hold your ground and refuse to be bullied," says Steve Piazzale, a career and life coach who runs BayAreaCareerCoach.com. "They'll usually back off over time."

6. The Boss. Sometimes dealing with a jerk should not be your problem, particularly if you have a manager who is a jerk. In this case you might take a look around the company and notice several jerks. "This may be part of the company culture," Piazzale says. "In which case get out!"

More general coping strategies:

1. Passive. Avoidance is the most obvious solution if you don't want a confrontation with any type of office jerk. "You can go to your boss and ask him to intervene," says Jansen. Or, if things are really unbearable, you could ask to be relocated to another part of the office.

2. Active. Avoidance can backfire if the jerk continues the annoying behavior. Try talking to the person. "Difficult people don't always know they're being difficult," Jansen says. "People generally don't have a very high level of self-awareness, so specific and constructive feedback is important."

If you must confront a jerk, it is wise to take the high road. Career coach Piazzale says, "Try to understand where the behavior is coming from, and tailor your response to that."

How to find the love of your life

1. Know what you want. Your looks change and fade, character does not. While a certain amount of "chemistry" is nice, don't rely solely on lust. Determine what qualities you are looking for in a mate.
2. Get clear about what you don't want. Knowing what you really can't tolerate in a partner is important. Make a list of your "don't wants" and then cut it down to the 10 most important. Any more than that and you'll be too picky.
3. Live your life. Once you know clearly what you want (and don't want) in a relationship, shift your focus to living your life. You'll find that you start noticing those who might fit, and passing by those who don't.
4. See the big picture. Don't try so hard that you miss the obvious. If you are great at focusing, step back now and then and look at the big picture. Work on having a playful, whimsical attitude towards life.
5. Get out of the house. Cultivate opportunities to expand your social circle and meet new people. Vary your routine. Entertain - throw parties - to enlarge your social circle.
6. Open your eyes and your attitude. Lucky people notice, create and maximize chance opportunities. Chat with other shoppers while you are waiting in line. Be ready with a "calling card" - a personal business-type card with basic contact information.
7. Get curious. Don't content yourself with the obvious. Ask questions. Wonder why. Find answers.
8. Try something new. The best way to have things stay the same is to never do anything different. Vary your daily routine, just to keep yourself awake. Shake yourself up and notice what happens. Keep yourself open to chance opportunities, and then take advantage of them.
9. Expect good luck. Monitor your self-talk for negative messages that interfere with luck. Replace the negative thoughts with positives. Surround yourself with examples of lucky people.
10. Learn from bad luck. Take steps to prevent more bad luck from what you have learned, then let the "bad" go. Don't dwell on or rehash the bad experience. Look for the positive elements.

- from Kathryn Lord, romance coach and author of "Find A Sweetheart Soon! Your Love Trip Planner for Women".

Gun battle at the church

LONDON (Reuters) - The Church of England has expressed outrage at Sony's PlayStation game "Resistance: Fall of Man," which depicts a shootout in the nave of Manchester Cathedral. Anglican church leaders have accused the Japanese entertainment giant of "virtual desecration" and demanded that it apologize and withdraw the gun-filled computer game.

It also urged Sony to contribute funds to help Manchester Cathedral fight gun crime that has gripped the northern England city.

"The video footage of the cathedral battle on YouTube has shocked and dismayed us beyond words. They can only be described as virtual desecration," Rogers Govender, Dean of Manchester Cathedral, told reporters.

"We are shocked to see a place of worship, prayer, learning and heritage being presented to the youth of today as a location where guns can be fired," he added.

Manchester Cathedral said Sony had not asked permission, but the company released a statement claiming that it has sought and received all permissions necessary for the creation of the game.

"Sony Computer Entertainment Europe stressed that the game "is a fantasy science fiction game and is not based on reality."

Asked what Sony's next move would be, a spokesman said on Monday: "We are now in contact with the Cathedral authorities and will be dealing with them directly."

Cathedral Dean Govender, clearly dismayed by the game's content, said: "We were sickened to discover that the millions of people who play the game have a choice of weaponry to use within the cathedral."

Govender said it was well known that Manchester had a serious problem with gun crime, noting that three youths had recently been shot.

"Every year we invite hundreds of teenagers to come and see the cathedral so they might appreciate an alternative to the violence they experience in their daily lives," he said.

Laying out the cathedral's conditions, he said Sony should apologize unreservedly and withdraw the game.

He said the church authorities would also ask Sony to make a substantial donation to its education department for work in trying to combat Manchester's gun culture.

"For the global manufacturer Sony to recreate the interior of any religious building such as a mosque, a synagogue or in this case a cathedral with photo realistic quality and then encourage people to have gun battles in the building is beyond belief."

16 Things My Dad Taught Me

1. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight-savings time.

2. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

3. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

4. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above-average drivers.

5. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age 11.

6. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

7. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

8. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

9. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

10. If there really is a God who created the entire universe with all of its glories, and He decides to deliver a message to humanity, He will not use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

11. You should not confuse your career with your life.

12. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person.

13. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

14. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

15. Your friends love you, anyway.

16. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

- from AskMen.com

Don't get mad...

Feeling like you want to choke your fellow employee, or worse, your boss?

According to Yahoo! HotJobs, recent research shows a welcome decline in workplace stress, but, like an unhealthy condition that never really goes away, the reality of workplace stress can still lead to uncomfortable situations at the office.

A study done by career coach Rachelle J. Canter and Opinion Research Group revealed that there was a 15-point drop from 2000 to 2007 in the percentage of people who reported workplace stress is a problem for them at least occasionally. She also found that 16 percent of workers said this year that stress caused them to yell at a co-worker (down from 29 percent in 2000).

The overall atmosphere may have improved, but for workers stuck in an office with a co-worker who yells at them, damages property, or shows signs of "office rage," life is difficult. Canter defines office rage as "verbal or physical abuse that is out of proportion and inappropriate in a workplace setting."

Some tips:
1. Don't Take It Personally

If you're faced with a coworker who overacts or lashes out in an inappropriate manner, don't take it personally, said anger management expert Leonard Ingram, who created angermgmt.com. "Other people are going to get angry at you whether the anger is just or not."

The next step is to "not make yourself angrier than you need to be," Ingram said, noting that you shouldn't stew, or form an inner dialogue that makes you angry.

2. Allow Some Room to Vent

From there, give the angry colleague the "opportunity to diffuse, calm down, and make their own case -- people tend to appreciate that."

The key is empathy, Ingram said, which does not mean that if you are the victim of office rage, you're legitimizing their bad behavior. After the most tense moments have passed, Ingram suggests you "ask them what happened to make them so upset. That gives them an option to get rational for a moment."

3. It Can Happen to You, Too

If you find yourself overreacting at the office, chances are the cause goes far beyond your inbox, said Liz Bywater, president of Bywater Consulting Group. "People will often arrive at the office primed to lose it," Bywater said, noting that traffic, family issues or a bad night's sleep can set you up for office rage.

The simplest step is to just remove yourself from the situation if you think you can't control your anger.

"It's perfectly appropriate to say 'You know what, I'm a little hot under the collar, and I don't think it is just about this.' Walk away from it if you can."

4. Take a Breather

It also helps to make some sort of physical change, Bywater said.

"Try deep breathing, go out and get some fresh air, maybe your blood sugar has dropped."

The larger issue is to figure out why you slipped into office rage, especially if it is a pattern.

"Maybe you're in a work environment you can't tolerate" she said, "but more often than not you have to look at what else is wrong."

Man outruns horse

Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson got a head start without having to jump offside, and beat his coverage to the goal line again.

Johnson was waiting at the finish line when Restore the Roar arrived at the end of his one-eighth-mile gallop. Yes, Johnson raced a horse Saturday and easily won.

Johnson was spotted a 100-meter lead -- roughly about half the distance the horse had to cover in the race for charity. And when it was over, Johnson, as usual, was anything but humble. He sounded ready to take on boxing, basketball and NASCAR.

"Floyd Mayweather, you're next," Johnson said. "I want to fight you. I'd like to take Kobe and LeBron one-on-one. Jeff Gordon, we can take a couple laps. ... Now it's my time to take over the race world."

The 4-year-old colt's jockey, P.J. Cooksey, rode a horse that beat former Bengals receiver Cris Collinsworth in 1993. She sounded more impressed with Johnson's speed.

"He's quick," Cooksey said. "He's a fast man. That was phenomenal. When I looked over at him, all I could see were his legs; they looked like a windmill. He was a blur. I was beat bad."

The latest on deja vu

Déjà vu (French for "already seen"); an uncanny feeling or illusion of having already seen or experienced something that is being experienced for the first time.

If we assume that the experience is actually of a remembered event, then déjà vu probably occurs because an original experience was neither fully attended to nor elaborately encoded in memory. If so, then it would seem most likely that the present situation triggers the recollection of a fragment from one's past. The experience may seem uncanny if the memory is so fragmented that no strong connections can be made between the fragment and other memories.

Thus, the feeling that one has been there before is often due to the fact that one has been there before. One has simply forgotten most of the original experience because one was not paying close attention the first time. The original experience may even have occurred only seconds or minutes earlier.

The brain cranks out memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But an article from LiveScience.com reports on a new study suggesting that only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for “episodic” memories—information that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart.

The finding helps explain where déjà vu originates in the brain, and why it happens more frequently with increasing age and with brain-disease patients, said MIT neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa. The study is detailed today in the online version of the journal Science.

Like a computer logging its programs’ activities, the dentate gyrus notes a situation’s pattern—it’s visual, audio, smell, time and other cues for the body’s future reference. So what happens when its abilities are jammed?

When Tonegawa and his team bred mice without a fully-functional dentate gyrus, the rodents struggled to tell the difference between two similar but different situations.

“These animals normally have a distinct ability to distinguish between situations,” Tonegawa said, like humans. “But without the dentate gyrus they were very mixed up.”

Déjà vu is a memory problem, Tonegawa explained, occurring when our brains struggle to tell the difference between two extremely similar situations. As people age, Tonegawa said déjà-vu-like confusion happens more often—and it also happens in people suffering from brain diseases like Alzheimer’s. “It’s not surprising,” he said, “when you consider the fact that there’s a loss of or damage to cells in the dentate gyrus.”

As an aging neuroscientist, Tonegawa admitted it’s a typical phenomenon with him. “I do a lot of traveling so I show up in brand new airports, and my brain tells me it’s been here before,” he said. “But the rest of my brain knows better.”

Top 15 signs of a drunk

1. You lose arguments with inanimate objects.
2. You have to hold on to the lawn to keep from falling off the Earth.
3. Your job starts to interfere with your drinking.
4. Your doctor finds traces of blood in your alcohol stream.
5. The back of your head keeps getting hit by the toilet seat.
6. You sincerely believe alcohol is the elusive 5th food group.
7. Every woman you see has an identical twin.
8. You fall off the floor.
9. Your idea of cutting back is less salt.
10. Every night you're beginning to find your neighbor's cat more and more attractive.
11. Your moral is: I'm not drunk, you're just sober!!!
12. You don't recognize your wife unless she's seen from the bottom of a glass.
13. That dammned pink elephant followed you home again.
14. You have a reserved parking space at the liquor store.
15. The shrubbery's drunk too, from frequent watering.

- From Askmen.com

So young and so...robotic

A group of scientists in Japan have developed a humanoid that acts like a toddler to better understand child development.

The Child-Robot with Biomimetic Body, or CB2, was developed by a team of researchers at Osaka University in western Japan and is designed to move just like a real child aged between one and three years old.

CB2, 4.3 feet tall and weighing 73 pounds, changes facial expressions and crawls on the floor.

The robot's movements are smooth fitted with 56 actuators in lieu of muscle. It has 197 sensors for touch, small cameras working as eyes, and an audio sensor.

CB2 can also speak using an artificial vocal cord.

When it stands on its feet, the robot wobbles like a child who is learning how to walk.

Minoru Asada, a professor at Osaka University who leads the project, said the robot was developed to learn more about child development. The goal is to study human recognition development such as how the child learns a language, recognizes objects and learns to communicate with his father and mother.

Now showing: Ocean's Thirteen

In Ocean's Eleven, Danny (George Clooney) and Rusty (Brad Pitt) assembled a team of specialists to rob three Las Vegas casinos run by Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) and not coincidentally get back Danny's wife from Benedict, too. Ocean's Twelve was the sequel about Benedict's revenge, a romance for Rusty with an Interpol agent, and a complicated European heist. Now, Danny Ocean and his gang is back in Ocean's Thirteen, where they try to pull off their most ambitious and riskiest casino heist in order to defend one of their own. But they’re going to need more than luck on their side to break The Bank. Ruthless casino owner Willy Bank never imagined that the odds were against him when he double-crossed Danny Ocean’s friend and mentor Reuben Tishkoff, putting the distraught Reuben in a hospital bed in critical condition. But Bank miscalculated - badly. He may have taken down one of the original Ocean’s eleven, but he left the others standing and, worse for him, gave them a shared purpose: to take Bank down on the night of what should be his greatest triumph - the grand opening of his new casino, appropriately named The Bank. Their strategy is twofold. First they will ruin him financially by turning the tables on the precept that the house always wins. But that’s just money. The knockout punch will be to Bank’s personal pride and joy: his reputation as the only hotelier who has earned the Royal Review Board’s Five Diamond Award on every single one of his hotels. The plan is elaborate, dangerous and damn near impossible - but there are no limits when it comes to one of their own.

Starring: George Clooney, Ellen Barkin, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

A frog that glows in the dark

Scientists have announced the discovery of two dozen new species in the remote plateaus of eastern Suriname, including a frog with fluorescent purple markings and 12 kinds of dung beetles. Suriname is a South American country which borders Brazil, Guyana and French Guiana.

The species were discovered during a 2005 expedition led by the US-based nonprofit Conservation International in rainforests and swamps about 80 miles southeast of Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. The expedition was sponsored by two mining companies hoping to excavate the area for bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum, and it was unknown how the findings would affect their plans.

Aside from the fluorescent frog (known as the atelopus frog) and dung beetles, other species found were six types of fish, 12 dung beetles, and one ant species.

The scientists called for better conservation management in the unprotected, state-owned areas, where hunting and small-scale illegal mining is rampant.

The study was financed by Suriname Aluminum Company LLC and BHP Billiton Maatschappij Suriname. Suriname Aluminum, which has a government concession to explore gold in the area, will include the data in its environmental assessment study.

About 80 percent of Suriname is covered with dense rainforest. Thousands of Brazilians and Surinamese are believed to work in illegal gold mining, creating mercury pollution that has threatened the health of Amerindians and Maroons in Suriname's interior.

Today in history

June 5, 1883: John Maynard Keynes, British economist, was born

John Maynard Keynes is one the most important figures in the entire history of economics. He revolutionized economics with his classic book, "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936), generally regarded as probably the most influential social science treatise of the 20th century. The book quickly and permanently changed the way the world looked at the economy and the role of government in society. No other single book, before or since, has had quite such an impact.

Keynes was the son of John Neville Keynes, an economics lecturer at Cambridge University, and Florence Ada Brown, a successful author and a social reformist. His younger brother Geoffrey Keynes (1887–1982) was a surgeon and bibliophile and his younger sister Margaret (1890–1974) married the Nobel-prize-winning physiologist Archibald Hill.

Keynes was very tall at 6 ft 6 in.

In 1918, Keynes met Lydia Lopokova, a well-known Russian ballerina, and they married in 1925. By most accounts, the marriage was a happy one. Before meeting Lopokova, Keynes's love interests had been men, including a relationship with the artist Duncan Grant and with the writer Lytton Strachey. For medical reasons, Keynes and Lopokova were unable to have children, though both his siblings had children of note.

Keynes was ultimately a successful investor, building up a substantial private fortune. He was nearly wiped out following the Stock Market Crash of 1929, but he soon recouped his fortune. He enjoyed collecting books: for example, he collected and protected many of Isaac Newton's papers. He was interested in literature in general and drama in particular and supported the Cambridge Arts Theatre financially, which allowed the institution to become, at least for a while, a major British stage outside of London.

Bertrand Russell named Keynes as the most intelligent person he had ever known, commenting, "Every time I argued with Keynes, I felt that I took my life in my hands, and I seldom emerged without feeling something of a fool."'

Keynes' ideas, called Keynesian economics, had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on many governments' fiscal policies. He advocated interventionist government policy, by which the government would use fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions, depressions and booms. Economists consider him one of the main founders of modern theoretical macroeconomics. His expression "In the long run, we are all dead" is much quoted.

He died in 1946, soon after arranging the guarantee of an American loan to Great Britain.

Today in history

June 4, 1989: Ayatalloh Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran dies at 86 of internal bleeding.

Little is known of Khomeini's early life. There are various dates given for his birth, the most common being May 17, 1900, and September 24, 1902. He was the grandson and son of mullahs, or Shi'ite religious leaders. When he was five months old, his father was killed on the orders of a local landlord. The young Khomeini was raised by his mother and aunt and then by his older brother. He was educated in various Islamic schools, and he settled in the city of Qom about 1922. About 1930 he adopted the name of his home town, Khomayn (also spelled Khomeyn or Khomen), as his surname. As a Shi'ite scholar and teacher, Khomeini produced numerous writings on Islamic philosophy, law, and ethics, but it was his outspoken opposition to Iran's ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, his denunciations of Western influences, and his uncompromising advocacy of Islamic purity that won him his initial following in Iran. In the 1950s he was acclaimed as an ayatollah, or major religious leader, and by the early 1960s he had received the title of grand ayatollah, thereby making him one of the supreme religious leaders of the Shi'ite community in Iran.

In 1962–63 Khomeini spoke out against the shah's reduction of religious estates in a land-reform program and against the emancipation of women. His ensuing arrest sparked antigovernment riots, and, after a year's imprisonment, Khomeini was forcibly exiled from Iran on November 4, 1964. He eventually settled in the Shi'ite holy city of Al-Najaf, Iraq, from where he continued to call for the shah's overthrow and the establishment of an Islamic republic in Iran. Khomeini arrived in Tehran in triumph on February 1, 1979, and was acclaimed as the religious leader of Iran's revolution. He appointed a government four days later and on March 1 again took up residence in Qom. In December a referendum on a new constitution created an Islamic republic in Iran, with Khomeini named Iran's political and religious leader for life. The main thrust of Khomeini's foreign policy was the complete abandonment of the shah's pro-Western orientation and the adoption of an attitude of unrelenting hostility toward both superpowers. In addition, Iran tried to export its brand of Islamic revivalism to neighbouring Muslim countries. Khomeini sanctioned Iranian militants' seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran (November 4, 1979) and their holding of American diplomatic personnel as hostages for more than a year. He also refused to countenance a peaceful solution to the Iran-Iraq War, which had begun in 1980 and which he insisted on prolonging in the hope of overthrowing Saddam. Khomeini finally approved a cease-fire in 1988 that effectively ended the war. Ideologically, he is best remembered for having developed the concept of vilayat-e faqih (“guardianship of the jurist”) in a series of lectures and tracts first promulgated during exile in Iraq in the late 1960s and '70s. Khomeini argued therein for the establishment of a theocratic government administered by Islamic jurists in place of corrupt secular regimes. The Iranian constitution of 1979 embodies articles upholding this concept of juristic authority.

More Shakespeare quotes

"I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you."

- From The Merchant of Venice (I, iii, 35-39)

And so we meet Shylock, one of the most fascinating and controversial characters in Shakespeare's canon. Some critics argue that Shakespeare's Shylock is a stereotype, a completely villainous Jew, reflecting the anti-Semitism of the times. Others contend that Shylock is a tragic figure. In this scene, we are introduced to him for the first time, as a moneylender to whom Antonio (the Merchant) eventually turns in order to help his friend Bassanio court Portia, a beautiful, wealthy heiress. Bassanio has invited Shylock to meet Antonio at dinner, an invitation that Shylock declines. He declares that he will do business with Christians but will not interact with them socially. Just then Antonio comes along, and in an aside Shylock talks of his dislike for him, as Antonio lends money without charging interest and thus competes with the professional usurers of Venice.

Joke of the day

A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead where driving down the road, when a cop starts to chase them.

They rush off and crash into the side of a barn, they immediately jump out of the car and hide under potato sacks.

The cop runs in after them, and the first potato sack he comes to the brunette is under. He kicks it and the brunette says, "MEEEEOOOOOOW," and the cop says, "Oh! It's just a stupid cat."

He then moves to the potato sack the redhead is under and kicks it. The redhead replies, "ROOF, ROOF," the cop, angry now, says, "STUPID DOG!!"

Then the cop gets to the potato sack the blonde is under, he kicks it with great force and the blonde screams, "POOOOOOTAAAAAAATOOOOOOO!"

The British Library

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest libraries. It receives a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland. The collection includes 150 million items, in most known languages. Three million new items are incorporated every year, which include manuscripts, maps, newspapers, magazines, prints and drawings, music scores, and patents. The library has a Sound Archive that keeps sound recordings from 19th-century cylinders to the latest CD, DVD and minidisc recordings. There are also 8 million stamps and other philatelic items. Some facts about the British Library:

- the entire collection requires over 625 km of shelves, and grow 12km every year
- if you see 5 items each day, it would take you 80,000 years to see the whole of the collection
- the earliest dated printed book, the Diamond Sutra, can be seen in the library's exhibition galleries alongside many other national treasures
- it has on-site space for over 1,200 readers
- more than 16,000 people use the collections each day
- online catalogues, information and exhibitions can be found on the library's website
- it operates the world's largest document delivery service providing millions of items a year to customers all over the world