FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme.
FreeRice has two goals:
- Provide education to everyone for free.
- Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Freerice.com: Donate While You Learn
Freerice is a website where users play various educational, multiple-choice games in order to fight world hunger. For every question the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated.
FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme.
FreeRice has two goals:
FreeRice is a non-profit website run by the United Nations World Food Programme.
FreeRice has two goals:
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Top 10 Waterfalls Of The World
Following are top 10 tallest and greatest waterfalls which are really amazing with spectacular view. Millions of tons of water simply flows down and finally become part of river. These waterfalls due to their beauty fetch great audiences from across the world. Although, you can see waterfalls in almost all the hilly regions but these are truly best amongst all.
1. Gullfoss, Iceland: Gullfoss waterfall which is also known as “Golden Falls” is a splendid 32 meter high double waterfall on the White River (Hvítá). Being one of the most attractive tourist destination & largest in entire Europe, Gullfoss waterfall offers spectacular view especially in summers when the rain water and glacial runoff falls into river Hvita. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland.
2. Jog Falls, India: Situated on top of river Sharavathi, Jog Falls is the highest waterfall in India. Jog Falls fall from a height of 253 meters which is approximately 829 feet. It becomes visible only in Monsoon season and exceeds even Kaiteus Falls in terms of height and volume. Apart from rainy season you can see very little water fall.
3. Niagara Falls, Canada/USA: Niagara waterfalls attract more than 14 million visitors every year. Niagara Falls is one of the most popular waterfalls in the world. Niagara Falls is actually three different falls, the American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls and Horseshoe Falls. Horseshoe Falls is located on the Canadian side while the other are located in New York. With more than 14 million visitors each year it is one of the most visited tourist attraction in the world.
4. Huangguoshu, China: Huangguoshu waterfall is also known as Yellow Fruit Tree Waterfall , is one of the largest waterfalls in China and Asia located on the Baihe River Anshun, Guizhou Province. It is 77.8 m (255 ft) high and 101 m (330 ft) wide. The main waterfall is 67 m (220 ft) high and 83.3 m (273 ft) wide.
5. Blue Nile Falls, Ethiopia: Situated on Blue Nile river in Ethiopia, Blue Nile waterfall is also known as Tis Issat (”smoking water”) in Amharic. Nowadays, most of it’s water if diverted to power projects still it offers one of the most sought after waterfall view in entire Ethiopia which attracts huge visitors.
6. Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe: The Victoria Falls also known as “Mosi-oa-Tunya” meaning “The Smoke That Thunders” is located on the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. Victoria Falls is often called the largest waterfall in the world, although it is neither the highest nor the widest. It has a width of 1.7 kilometers (1 miles) and height of 108 meters (360 ft), roughly twice the height of North America’s Niagara Falls. In combined height and width Victoria Falls is rivaled only by South America’s Iguazu Falls.
7. Detian Falls, China/Vietnam: The Detian Falls is situated on the border between China and Vietnam. It is, in fact, the fourth largest cross-border falls in the world after Niagara, Victoria and Iguazu. Due to the various border conflicts between the two countries the area has only recently been opened to tourism.
8. Kaieteur Falls, Guyana: Kaieteur Falls is located on the Potaro River in the centre of Guyana’s rainforest. It is one of the most powerful waterfalls in the world, averaging 663 cubic meters per second (23,400 cubic feet per second). With a free fall height of 226 meters (741 feet) it is about five times higher than Niagara Falls and about two times the height of the Victoria Falls. While there are many higher falls, few have the combination of height and water volume.
9. Iguazu Falls, Brazil/Argentina: The greatest amongst all the waterfalls in the world, Iguazu falls system consists of 275 falls along the Iguazu River. The majority of the falls are about 64 metres (210 ft) in height. The most impressive of them all is the Devil’s Throat a U-shaped, 82 meter high (269 ft), 150 meter (492 ft) wide and 700 meter (2300 ft) long waterfall.
10. Angel Falls, Venezuela: Angel Falls or Salto Ángel is the world’s highest waterfall, dropping a total of 978 meter from the summit of the Auyan Tepuy, and with an 807meter uninterrupted drop. Because the falls are located in an isolated jungle region of Venezuela the only access to Canaima National Park, the gateway to Angel Falls, is by air.
1. Gullfoss, Iceland: Gullfoss waterfall which is also known as “Golden Falls” is a splendid 32 meter high double waterfall on the White River (Hvítá). Being one of the most attractive tourist destination & largest in entire Europe, Gullfoss waterfall offers spectacular view especially in summers when the rain water and glacial runoff falls into river Hvita. It is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland.
Do video games fuel mental health problems?
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – There might be trouble brewing behind the glassy eyes of kids who spend too much time and energy on video games, according to a controversial new study.
In the 2-year study of more than 3,000 school children in Singapore, researchers found nearly one in ten were video game "addicts," and most were stuck with the problem.
While these kids were more likely to have behavioral problems to begin with, excessive gaming appeared to cause additional mental woes.
"When children became addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got worse, and their grades dropped," said Douglas A. Gentile, who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University in Ames and worked on the study.
"When they stopped being addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got better."
He said neither parents nor healthcare providers are paying enough attention to video games' effect on mental health.
"We tend to approach it as 'just' entertainment, or just a game, and forget that entertainment still affects us," he told Reuters Health in an e-mail. "In fact, if it doesn't affect us, we call it 'boring!'"
But an independent expert said the study had important flaws.
"My own research has shown that excessive video game play is not necessarily addictive play and that many video gamers can play for long periods without there being any negative detrimental effects," said Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
"If nine percent of children were genuinely addicted to video games there would be video game addiction clinics in every major city!" he said in an e-mail, adding that the concept is not currently an accepted diagnosis among psychiatrists and psychologists.
Part of the problem, Griffiths argued, is that the new work may be measuring preoccupation instead of addiction.
In the study, teachers handed out questionnaires to students in the third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades, including questions about their gaming habits, social skills, school performance and depression.
The kids also answered ten questions to find out if they were addicted to gaming -- so-called "pathological" gamers. If they answered half in the positive, they got the label.
The questions included things like having neglected household chores to spend more time on video games, doing poorly on a school assignment or test as a result, or playing video games to escape from problems or bad feelings.
On average, the kids said they played about 20 hours a week. Between 9 and 12 percent of boys qualified as addicted in this study, compared to 3 to 5 percent of girls.
Of those children who started out as addicts, more than eight in 10 remained so during the study. "It's not simply a short-term problem for most children," Gentile said.
While the researchers didn't put a number on how many youngsters had mental problems, they did find that those who played longer hours, were more impulsive or had poorer social skills were at higher risk of getting "addicted" over the 2-year period.
Those who did become addicted reported increasing symptoms of depression, anxiety and social phobia.
Gentile said it appeared that unhealthy gaming habits were fueling the kids' mental problems, which then in turn might cause them to up their screen time and so forth. But he acknowledged his research didn't prove that point.
In an earlier U.S. study, he found that children who watched a lot of TV or played a lot of video games had slightly more problems concentrating on school work. However, that study couldn't prove that screen time was at the root of the narrowing attention span, either.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which published the new study in its journal Pediatrics, recommends limiting children's time in front of computers or TVs to 2 hours daily.
"One thing we have to bear in mind is that children playing video games for 2 to 3 hours a day is normal. It's displaced activities like watching TV," Griffiths said.
Still, he said a small minority of kids probably do suffer from true video game addiction, just as some people are pathological gamblers.
In general, Griffith advises that parents try to give their kids educational games instead of violent ones, encourage playing in groups, and follow the directions from the manufacturers, such as sitting at least two feet from the screen and not playing when feeling tired.
"I have three kids, all of who are the archetypal 'screenagers' who spend a lot of time a day interacting with technology" said Griffiths. "Basically, even when playing a couple of hours most days it is not impinging negatively on their lives."
In the 2-year study of more than 3,000 school children in Singapore, researchers found nearly one in ten were video game "addicts," and most were stuck with the problem.
While these kids were more likely to have behavioral problems to begin with, excessive gaming appeared to cause additional mental woes.
"When children became addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got worse, and their grades dropped," said Douglas A. Gentile, who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University in Ames and worked on the study.
"When they stopped being addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got better."
He said neither parents nor healthcare providers are paying enough attention to video games' effect on mental health.
"We tend to approach it as 'just' entertainment, or just a game, and forget that entertainment still affects us," he told Reuters Health in an e-mail. "In fact, if it doesn't affect us, we call it 'boring!'"
But an independent expert said the study had important flaws.
"My own research has shown that excessive video game play is not necessarily addictive play and that many video gamers can play for long periods without there being any negative detrimental effects," said Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University in the UK.
"If nine percent of children were genuinely addicted to video games there would be video game addiction clinics in every major city!" he said in an e-mail, adding that the concept is not currently an accepted diagnosis among psychiatrists and psychologists.
Part of the problem, Griffiths argued, is that the new work may be measuring preoccupation instead of addiction.
In the study, teachers handed out questionnaires to students in the third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades, including questions about their gaming habits, social skills, school performance and depression.
The kids also answered ten questions to find out if they were addicted to gaming -- so-called "pathological" gamers. If they answered half in the positive, they got the label.
The questions included things like having neglected household chores to spend more time on video games, doing poorly on a school assignment or test as a result, or playing video games to escape from problems or bad feelings.
On average, the kids said they played about 20 hours a week. Between 9 and 12 percent of boys qualified as addicted in this study, compared to 3 to 5 percent of girls.
Of those children who started out as addicts, more than eight in 10 remained so during the study. "It's not simply a short-term problem for most children," Gentile said.
While the researchers didn't put a number on how many youngsters had mental problems, they did find that those who played longer hours, were more impulsive or had poorer social skills were at higher risk of getting "addicted" over the 2-year period.
Those who did become addicted reported increasing symptoms of depression, anxiety and social phobia.
Gentile said it appeared that unhealthy gaming habits were fueling the kids' mental problems, which then in turn might cause them to up their screen time and so forth. But he acknowledged his research didn't prove that point.
In an earlier U.S. study, he found that children who watched a lot of TV or played a lot of video games had slightly more problems concentrating on school work. However, that study couldn't prove that screen time was at the root of the narrowing attention span, either.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, which published the new study in its journal Pediatrics, recommends limiting children's time in front of computers or TVs to 2 hours daily.
"One thing we have to bear in mind is that children playing video games for 2 to 3 hours a day is normal. It's displaced activities like watching TV," Griffiths said.
Still, he said a small minority of kids probably do suffer from true video game addiction, just as some people are pathological gamblers.
In general, Griffith advises that parents try to give their kids educational games instead of violent ones, encourage playing in groups, and follow the directions from the manufacturers, such as sitting at least two feet from the screen and not playing when feeling tired.
"I have three kids, all of who are the archetypal 'screenagers' who spend a lot of time a day interacting with technology" said Griffiths. "Basically, even when playing a couple of hours most days it is not impinging negatively on their lives."
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Unusual Upside-down Trees
If you look at these trees you will notice that something is not right. It looks like they are growing upside-down; the roots are seen up in the air, and not in the ground as they are supposed to be. The so-called Baobab tree grows mostly in Africa and Australia, but only in low-lying areas.
The legend about the tree says that god Thora dislike his Baobab that was growing in his garden, so he took it and threw it over the wall of Paradise so it landed up-side down on the Earth.
These trees can get amazingly high, up to 30 meters, and they have a trunk diameter up to 11 meters; that means that they are giant trees. African people love the Baobab trees because they can be used as shelter, water reservoirs or grain storage.
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