Many Americans outside the Northeast weren’t much warmer. Even Tallahassee, Fla., saw temperatures drop to 25°F. Outside the US, South Koreans are seeing the lowest temperatures in almost a century, prompting the government to require public agencies to keep the thermostat set below 64°F to save energy.

Still, these temperatures are downright balmy when compared to some places on Earth. Here’s a list of sites that will make today seem like T-shirt weather.

4. International Falls, Minnesota

Widely described as the coldest city in the continental United States, International Falls, Minn, sits on the Rainy River, just across from Fort Frances, Ontario.

The town has long promoted itself as the “Icebox of the Nation,” but the trademark for this slogan has been repeatedly challenged by the town of Fraser, Colo. In 1986, International Falls paid Fraser to relinquish its claim, and then registered it as a federal trademark. Ten years later, the town forgot to renew the trademark, and Fraser tried to snap it up. A 12-year legal battle ensued, with International Falls prevailing in the end. Needless to say, relations between the two towns remain chilly.

3. Oymyakon, Sakha Republic, Russia

On February 6, 1933, a temperature of -90 degrees F was recorded in Oymyakon, the coldest place in the northern hemisphere and the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth.

Home to a few hundred people, Oymyakon’s single schools closes only when the temperature drops to 61 degrees F below zero. The city of Yakutsk, population 210,000 is a three day-drive away, and is the world’s coldest city. There, according to the BBC, residents leave their cars running all day. Visitors are advised not to wear glasses outside, as they may become difficult to subsequently remove.

2. Vostok Station, Antarctica

The lowest reliably-measured, naturally-occurring temperature on the Earth’s surface happened about 800 miles East of the South Pole and at an altitude of 11,444 feet, on July 21, 1983. There, temperatures dropped to minus 126.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

The site is Vostok Station, Antarctica, a Russian research outpost whose fields of inquiry include hot cocoa, fuzzy socks, and getting dressed very quickly in the morning. It is one of the most inaccessible and inhospitable places on Earth. Some 25 scientists live there in the summer, where temperatures get up to a relatively pleasant minus 25 degrees F. Only 13 or so remain there through the long winter, when the mercury plunges to minus 85 degrees F. (We mean that metaphorically, because mercury actually freezes solid at around 40 below zero.)

1. Up in the air

The earth’s coldest natural temperatures are occurring about sixty miles above your head, where temperatures can get as low as 146 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.

This is the top of the mesosphere – the layer of the earth’s atmosphere above the stratosphere. Being too high for aircraft but too low for orbiting spacecraft, the mesosphere is the least-understood part of our atmosphere. The coldest part of the mesosphere is the mesopause, the boundary between the mesosphere and the thermosphere.

Above the mesopause, solar radiation can push temperatures to over 2,700 degrees, although the gas molecules at these altitudes are so far apart that temperature cannot be measured in a conventional sense.

Getting a fresh start with the New Year is an artificial custom – you can begin to get the life you love and live it at any time you choose. But let the first couple of weeks of January 2012 be the starting point for a new you. Envision yourself at the end of the year and describe at least 3 achievements you would like to have achieved to make you feel that 2012 had been a successful one.

Maybe this year you are going to find work that you love. Or you may want to excel even more at the job you love. How about getting a good balance between your work and leisure time? What about galvanising your financial situation? How about finding and committing to a dream project?

How can you make the most of your life through the so-called credit crunch?

Get motivated right now to make the most of 2012 and indeed the rest of your life. Believe in yourself. Know that you can do and have anything you want. Ooze with self belief and others too will believe in you. Go all out for it in 2012!

Here are some tips to help you achieve your goals and to make 2012 your best year ever.

1.  Spend some quality time on your own and reflect on your goals in all areas of your life – short, medium and long term. Write these down – you increase your chances of materialising them, once written down. Be very specific, and as descriptive as you can.

2.  Write down your three main goals in big bold letters and hang up next to your bedside, in the kitchen, by your pc, etc. Having them visible like this keeps in the forefront of your mind exactly what you need to achieve by when, and what you must do to make it happen.

3. Identify quickly the key steps in the first three months of 2012 to move you towards your goals. Make the steps realistic for the time frame, but ones that stretch you at the same time. Track your progress on a regular basis, maybe on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

4. Create an action plan and take regular action. Start today and if possible, start right away. Take that first step – you will immediately generate a lot of enthusiasm & confidence in this and other areas of your life. Do not wait around to be inspired – just get on with doing things, even if it is a small step and that will lead to further steps.

5. Look at your life in a new way. For example, plan to make all the money you need in 2012 within the first six months. Develop a new theme for the year such as making it “debt free” or “most chilled out ever”. At the same time, ensure you give yourself enough nurturing time – book your holidays right now and plan to spend quality weekends with your loved ones.

6. Let go of things that drain you. Look at those situations, places, people or anything else that drain your energy, and eliminate them gradually.

7. Establish a support team around you. Make yourself accountable to someone who resonates with your goals and will support you in achieving them. Find like minded people – and develop powerful, supportive and energising relationships. This may require you to upgrade your friends and build new relationships.

8. Learn from your role models. Emulate those who have already achieved what you are aspiring to. Apply their lessons and principles to yourself, and thereby fast track your achievements in 2012.

9. Spruce up your image. Look at everything about you such as your clothes, haircut and other things about your personal brand. Start giving the impression of being successful and you will be during the course of 2012.

10. Keep your cool and chill out. You may get overwhelmed at times and find that there is just not sufficient time for everything. Review your commitments and priorities and refocus on the most important steps.

11. Celebrate your successes. Acknowledge yourself and know that you are doing really well. Reward and pamper yourself. Choose to celebrate in the best way for you.

12. Find ways to excel and to improve yourself. There are numerous self help resources around you such as books, magazines, websites and so on. Make 2012 the year that you evolve, grow and fulfil your potential.

Most importantly remember at all times to be kind and gentle with yourself in 2008. Have patience and let your life unfold like a budding flower. Laugh a lot – after all life is meant to be fun. Develop a sense of humour and do not take life so seriously.

It is never too late or too early to have a great year. Start 2012 the way you want to carry on during the rest of the year.

I wish you all a fabulous New Year. Make 2012 your best year ever. Get the life you love and live it – you know you deserve it.

Here are my final words for you to inspire you in 2012 – and for the rest of your life:-

“Remember that your life counts – and make it count. You are unique. There is no one like you on this planet. Never has been and never will be.

Do not sell your self short. Do not sell the world short. This is your life – love it, live it. One life, one chance – grab it.

Get the life you love – and live i

On 10 November 1975, while sailing on Lake Superior during a gale, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Canadian waters. At 220m long and 22m wide, this cargo ship was no minnow. But all 29 crew-members died without broadcasting a mayday and their bodies have never been recovered.

A US Coast Guard report claimed the tragedy was the crew’s fault for failing to secure covers on the huge hatches on top of the ship’s hold. But that conclusion has always been controversial; many fellow seafarers doubt the crew would have been so careless. And earlier this year, a documentary for the Discovery Channel, Dive Detectives, reached a different conclusion: that the Fitzgerald was unlucky enough to encounter a rogue wave – a wave so massive that it snapped the freighter in two while it was still on the surface.

Tall tales

Maritime history is filled with stories of monstrous waves that appear from nowhere. Legendary explorer Ernest Shackleton described an encounter with a huge wave during a voyage from Elephant Island in the Southern Ocean to South Georgia in the Atlantic in 1916. “It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big, white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for many days. I shouted ‘For God’s sake, hold on! It’s got us!’” Somehow the boat survived, sagging and shuddering under the blow.

Despite such tales, the existence of sudden monster waves has always been greeted with a degree of scepticism. After all, even if your seafaring witness isn’t prone to the odd exaggeration, judging the height of a wave by eye is extremely difficult. But 1995 marks something of a watershed in the history of rogue waves. On 1 January, the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea off the coast of Norway experienced a 26m wave – that’s roughly the height of a 10-storey building. And this time, it wasn’t measured by eye, but by an on-board laser device. This giant was more than twice the size of the highest waves around.

Statistics show that such terrifying anomalies should only occur once every 10,000 years. But in 2001, two European Space Agency satellites were used to survey the oceans. During a three-week period, the MaxWave project detected no fewer than 10 giant waves, all of which were over 25m high.

“Over the centuries, stories of rogue waves emerged where there were survivors,” says Craig Smith, author of Extreme Waves. “But it’s hard to tell the height of objects at sea, so a lot of things were dismissed as sailors’ exaggerations. But since the MaxWave project, there’s been a flurry of meetings and technical conferences around the world where people have been trying to look at the mechanisms involved.” In other words, rogue waves have become a science.

The need to know

Revealing the mechanisms behind rogue waves isn’t simply a matter of academic interest. “What’s surprising is that 50-100 ships go down every year. Of course, that isn’t all down to large waves, but a good fraction of it is and we rarely hear about that,” says Smith.

But researching these waves is frustratingly difficult – getting the right data being the fundamental problem. Wave researcher Professor Efim Pelinovsky at the Institute of Applied Physics in Russia is someone who knows that all too well.

Prof Pelinovsky collects data from North Sea oil platforms – when the companies are prepared to give it to him. Even then it’s not that simple. “We can’t reconstruct the history of the rogue wave because we have no measurements within a mile of the platform,” he says. As well as being huge, rogue waves are also fleeting, lasting just one or two minutes. So the chances of even capturing one on an oil platform’s sensor or a sensor-carrying buoy are slim to say the least. Another physicist, Eric Heller at Harvard University, says wave tanks don’t offer much help either. “You can create eddies and waves in a tank, but it would have to be pretty big to have enough eddies and a long enough run to see the effects you want to see. You might think, ‘well why not use shorter waves in a smaller tank?’ But then the capillary effect, the surface tension of the water, starts to dominate.”

As such, Pelinovsky collects data on rogue waves from wherever he can. “We look at anything that’s available,” he says. “We try to process all the information from newspapers as well as the BBC and CNN.”

But it’s here that a little scepticism comes in handy again. “In the media any big wave gets called a rogue,” says Chris Garrett, an oceanographer at the University of Victoria in Canada. “I’m sure you’ll have seen headlines like ‘cruise ship gets hit by rogue wave’. Well, the cruise ship was probably just in a place where it was extremely rough anyway.” The thing is, a rogue wave isn’t simply a big wave, like you’d get in any storm. It’s one that’s ‘freakishly’ big, towering above any of its neighbours.

The rather more precise, scientific, definition is a wave whose height is more than twice the significant wave height (the significant wave height being the mean of the largest third of waves). And it’s this ‘freakishness’ that makes them so dangerous. “Sometimes we have hurricanes and typhoons, but there are no rogue waves because all of the waves are very high,” says Pelinovsky. “It’s more important for us to look at waves that are two or even three times the size of the background waves. ”

If data’s scarce and wave tanks don’t offer much help, then surely the best approach is to determine where they’re most likely to occur and dip your instruments into the water there. And if there’s a world capital of freak waves, then that dubious honour has to go to the treacherous waters off Cape Agulhas, a rocky headland in South Africa. Here the waters at the meeting point of the Indian and Atlantic oceans have claimed a huge number of vessels and terrifying 30m walls of water have been reported.

Missing factors

Off Cape Agulhas, strong winds known as the Roaring Forties blow from east to west, producing waves that travel in the same direction. These then meet the Agulhas current running in the opposite direction. And it’s this clash, that’s thought to spawn rogue waves. But conflict between waves and a powerful current can’t be behind all rogue waves, as it’s a combination that’s not found at all locations where rogues have been confirmed.

In their quest for answers, physicists have found an excellent substitute for water – electromagnetic radiation.

Microwaves and light are waves and behave in a strikingly similar way to their counterparts in the sea. In one study, involving Heller at Harvard and researchers at the University of Marburg in Germany, microwaves were fired into a cavity inside two metal plates. Random currents in the sea were simulated by placing metal cones in random positions in the cavity. The team found that microwave hotspots emerged in the cavity and these ‘freak microwaves’ cropped up far more often than expected.

What it showed was that even in the chaotic conditions of the sea, with random currents and waves coming from more than one direction, the currents can still act like a lens, focusing the waves to produce larger rogues.

Advances in imaging technology are also allowing this to be studied in more detail. During the MaxWave project, the satellites were relatively ‘blunt’ wave-watching instruments. But today, the techniques have been honed, so the oceans can be studied in much greater detail (see ‘Wave hunting from space’, left). Dr Susanne Lehner, at the German Aerospace Centre, was instrumental in developing the techniques used to measure wave heights from radar data. “We could only observe wavelengths longer than 200m. Now we have much better resolution and can see how they are breaking and interacting with currents.”

When he’s not being a physicist at Harvard, Heller is sailing his 40ft yacht along the west coast of Canada up towards Alaska – an area he describes as having “lots of currents and lots of waves”. So, to him, the need for a clearer understanding of rogue waves is obvious. “We’d like to say that one day there’ll be a marine weather forecast that speaks of the probability of freak waves. But they will always be a statistical event, they’ll never be a certainty.” And our new knowledge of how ferocious the sea can be is prompting research into boat design.

But are rogue waves frequent enough to warrant this kind of forecast – just like you’d have for other sailing conditions? “I think they are devastating enough that you’d like one,” says Heller. “But whether it would actually affect a ship captain’s decision to go somewhere, I don’t know. The wind and rain are the same – people go out anyway, but you’d like to know if they’re likely and if you should wear a coat that day or not.”

adopted from FOCUS magazine

Perfluorocarbons
Remember that scene in The Abyss, before you fell asleep, when Ed Harris was put in a diving suit that was filled with pink goo that he then breathed? It turns out James Cameron wasn’t blowing pink goo-laced smoke up our ass; that stuff really exists. Perfluorocarbons are fluids that contain shitloads of oxygen, making it possible to breathe liquid. They originally tested it back in the 60s on mice, with a certain degree of success… sort of.
The mice ended up dying after being submerged in it for a few hours, possibly due to the horror of drowning, but not dying, while trying to scream in their tiny mouse voices. Rather than manning up to the fact that breathing liquid destroyed the mice’s diaphragms, the scientists blamed the deaths on impurities in the liquid.
What is it Used For?
Aside from slow, tortuous rodent murder, perfluorocarbons are used for ultrasounds, and even artificial blood. But before you go out and fill your pool with some for a leisurely four-hour swim at the bottom, be aware they are also awful pollutants.

Elastic Conductors
Odds are pretty good that some of you are reading this on an LCD screen while the rest of us are trying to make it out on the 13-inch monochrome monitor that came with our garage sale Commodore 64. But even with the LCD, some laptops still weigh over 10-pounds. And while that doesn’t seem like much, the level of muscle atrophy experienced by the average Warcraft addict makes that weight a thousand times heavier.
Elastic conductors are made of “ionic liquid” mixed with carbon nanotubes. We shrugged when we read that too, but scientists are very excited about it because you can run a current through it and it will stretch to double its original length, and snap back into place as if nothing happened. The point being you can wind up with the roll out, paper thin computer pictured above.
What is it Used For?
In addition to making screens that can be rolled up and stuck in our back pocket, a lot of scientists and doctors want to use elastic conductors to make flexible-lensed cameras… to be fitted to the back of the eyeball.

Non-Newtonian Fluids
A non-Newtonian liquid, in practical terms, is a liquid that turns solid when sufficient stress is applied. Like, say, the impact of feet:
They have the power to make dorks walk on water.
What is it Used For?
Our friends in the military want to use them for body armor. The idea is that the fluids will allow fabrics to be soft and supple, but harden on the impact of a bullet. It would be like wearing a Jell-O sweater that doubles as a bulletproof vest.

Transparent Alumina
You may remember from Star Trek IV that Scotty orders some transparent aluminum so that they can steal whales for the future (it made a lot more sense at the time). Anyway, in the movie the material baffled the present-day engineers he described it to, since it’s a miracle substance from centuries in the future.
In reality, transparent alumina has been around for a while. Originally, it was just boring old sapphires and rubies (both are transparent aluminum crystals), but as we have seen, mankind is not happy to let nature have the last laugh and we are now able to make transparent alumina, which is a clear metal that is as strong as steel. Our dreams of building Wonder Woman’s invisible jet have taken another glorious step toward reality.
What is it Used For?
The military (again) wants it for see-through armor, probably so that every time a soldier standing behind a clear wall gets shot at and flinches in life-flashing-before-the-eyes terror, his buddies are justified for punching him and calling “two for flinching.” Transparent alumina could usher in a new world where windows deflect bullets, or airplane windows don’t shatter when they hit a goose at Mach 4. The downside being that if they make car windows out of it, people who don’t wear their seat belts will no longer live the dream of being “thrown clear” of the accident.

Carbon Nanotubes
These things are a miracle material that will someday power our homes, launch us into space, and make love to us whenever and wherever we want. That last one isn’t planned yet, but it better be. Carbon nanotubes were the accidental leftovers of an arc-welder experiment, and they have nerds and scientists foaming at the mouth with their possible uses.
They are the strongest material ever found by mankind. Ever. A hair-thick strand can bear the weight of an entire car, assuming it wouldn’t cut straight through the chassis. Although that would possibly be even cooler than lifting a car with artificial hair.
There is the small, some might say major, issue that carbon nanotubes are only microns long, and pasting them together end to end has so far proven impossible. But physics can’t hold back mankind, and recently a New Hampshire based company made a man-sized blanket out of nanotubes.
What is it Used For?
So far, they have managed to make super-small computer processors and low-resistance circuitry. In the future, all bets are off. Everything from tiny supercomputers to even tinier, super-efficient batteries, to more efficient solar panels to paper-thin materials that can stop a bullet, to freaking space elevators.
Sunglasses hinges that never break, toasters that get the toast right every time, TV remotes where the numbers don’t wear off the buttons, ceiling fans that don’t vibrate. Bags of chips that never get stuck in the vending machine. Carbon nanotubes will solve it all.

Environmentalism in Islam
Choosing to practice the religion of Islam goes hand in hand with affirming a relationship with the environment. As part of ‘greening’ your faith, try going a whole month without extra “stuff”. No more packaged foods, less use of television and computers, no more cars and fumes, no more indulgent-consumption, nothing bought from a department store, nothing with an on and off switch. Try just letting go and disconnecting from material “things”.
The whole idea of being a Muslim “environmentalist” is founded on discipline. You are in control of what you use, what you eat, what you do, where you go, and what you affect. The boundaries of halal (lawful) and haram (prohibited) are there so we are not taking more than we ought to. So you have to ask yourself – what am I affecting and is it positive?

Top Tips For Greening Your Islam
“If any Muslim plants any plant and a human being or an animal eats of it, he will be rewarded as if he had given that much in charity.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari, 8:41)
‘Green’ is a relaxing colour that psychologically connects us to the green in nature – plants, growth, rebirth. By including more ‘green’ in your life, you automatically come to appreciating the ground. The same earth that will one day cover you after death.
Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a steward of the earth, who hugged trees and planted seeds. Eco-Muslims believe in water management, they do not excessively cut down plants and they reuse everything from fruit peelings (which makes great compost) to rain water (better plant nourishment).
n    Grow flowers in your back garden, start a community project and get your children involved. Herbs such as parsley and basil, and tomatoes and peas grow with little maintenance from a large pot or container
n    Check how much water you’re using for wudhu (ablutions for prayer) and reduce this amount. Prophet Muhammad only needed a potful for his wudhu so use less water
n    Sort your rubbish out into– recyclables, glass, uncooked food, and then bin or compost it. What you throw away is going to be dumped somewhere else, but by using less plastics and reusing paper and card, you’re creating less (or no) garbage for someone else
n    Ask your masjid committee to install low-energy light bulbs, use solar panels for lighting and to ask masjid-goers to recycle their rubbish in provided bins. Introduce more outdoor prayers for healthier minds and create a mini-garden for children – a greater incentive to attend the masjid
n    At home, break from your household routine to carry out community service in your neighbourhood, even if it’s just 5 minutes a day. Shop at charity stores to buy inexpensive things you need for your home and always ask yourself before buying brand new, “Do I really need this?” More often, the answer will be no.
By using less, we are actually gaining more. More appreciation, more understanding and more faith in Allah. I am The Eco Muslim, and I hope you can join me on this path. n

“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.”
Benjamin Franklin

What do you fear in your everyday life? One common answer would probably be to be criticized. To stand there and hear those words streaming out of someone’s mouth and feel stupid or feel rejected or like you are getting smaller and smaller.

Sometimes criticism can be too harsh and nasty. That part isn’t can be hurtful. But it is a part of life if you want to live your life your way. There is no magical protection from being hurt or feeling pain but these tips can help you to better handle criticism and sometimes to get something good out of it.

Don’t reply right away.

It is very easy to become riled up, angry or defensive when you receive some criticism. This is not a good position to be in to fire away a reply if you don’t want to wind up making the situation worse.

Rather work on keeping your self-esteem high. And to lash back at the critics or to not be the better person here can really hurt your self-esteem. It might feel good for a while to do so but it is a dirty high that comes with a hangover of feeling worse about yourself and subtle or not so subtle self-destructiveness.

So this is about your own well-being to a high degree. And try never to reply back right away. Instead look closer at the criticisms. If you receive criticism in real life try to at least take a couple of deep breaths to cool down just a bit and to feel more balanced before you reply.

Really listen to the criticism

Instead of attacking the other person for his or her words and building a hostile atmosphere try to calm it down. Try to remain level-headed, open and figure out how this message can help you.

Ask yourself questions like:

Can I learn something from this piece of criticism? Maybe there is something here that I do not want to hear but that could help me to improve?

Remember: the criticism isn’t always about you.

Some criticism is certainly helpful. Some isn’t that helpful or just simply attacks. What should you do then?

Well, remember that criticism isn’t always about you. It would be nice if all criticism one gets comes from level-headed place. But in reality people will have a bad day or week. Some will hate some part of their life. Some might not be all that well at this moment.

So they lash out at you to release pent up negative emotions. On your blog or maybe in school or at work. It’s not fun. But it happens.

To lessen the sting of this criticism or these attacks try to be understanding. Think that based on the message you got – often really angry or overly critical about some pretty minor thing – this person isn’t feeling too good right now and is overreacting or need to release some pent up emotions.

By understanding of this it becomes easier to just let such criticisms go instead of feeling bad or becoming angry too.

Reply or let go.

If you reply then try one or a few follow up questions if you think that could help you. And even when someone blurts out something not too constructive like “Your work/blog/product isn’t very good” you might want to ask a few open-ended questions to get more constructive information.

Questions like:

What part of it did you not like or did you not find helpful?

How can I improve it?

While replying to a critical comment try to keep your attitude positive and kind no matter what they have written. Thank him or her for what he or she wrote. You may add a question or two to get more clarification.

Sometimes it is better get back a much more level-headed reply where they actually help you to improve what you are doing and although you may still feel a bit hurt it also feels good to be the better person in this situation and to create a constructive conversation.

If they won’t answer your questions then they are probably just lashing out. And so it is time to let go.

Don’t reply to all the criticisms though. You have more interesting things to focus on.

Keep your daily balance.

This isn’t a step to handle one specific email, phone call or critical message. But it becomes a whole lot easier to handle criticism if you stay balanced in your daily life. Those messages seem to not be as hurtful, they don’t affect you as much or sometimes just roll off your back like water on a duck when you:

Work in a relaxed way. Extra stress makes you more susceptible to the negative messages and to overreacting to criticism.

Manage the 3 fundamentals. That means to eat properly, to get enough sleep and to work out a couple of times a week. Keeping the balance of your physical fundamentals make you mentally stronger too.

Keep the self-esteem up. Criticism can send you down a spiral of self-loathing and feeling lousy about yourself. Keeping the stress down and the energy-giving fundamentals up can help you to not wind up in such dark places. Keeping your own self-esteem up is also vital. A couple of basic things that will help you to do so is to behave in way where you do the right thing (like being the better person when replying to a critical email) as best you can, to appreciate yourself, your good traits and accomplishments and to forgive yourself instead of beating yourself up about stuff or holding yourself to impossible standards.

If you are traveling around the world, the problem you will face most is perhaps in having meal. The nature of food and cooking is somewhat different in almost all the countries. One of my friends went to USA in a study tour and lived with a family there. They asked my friend about our staple food and he said that it is rice. So, the family wanted to give him a big surprise by cooking rice in one of his daily meals. My friend was really astonished because they gave him nothing but a full plate of rice only, no curries were served!

A staple food is one that is eaten regularly and in such quantities as to constitute the dominant part of the diet and supply a major proportion of energy and nutrient needs. One of the important characteristics of staple food is that they are usually inexpensive and/or readily available. Also these foods supply one or more of the three macronutrients: carbohydrate, protein and fat. Staple foods are eaten everyday or every meal. The concept of staple food lies in ancient history. Usually the grains, tubers, legumes or seeds are considered as staple food and one main reason behind selecting these as staple foods is the easiness in storing for a long period of time without decay.

Most people live on a diet based on one or more of the following staples: rice, wheat, maize (corn), millet, sorghum, roots and tubers (potatoes, cassava, yams and taro), and animal products such as meat, milk, eggs, cheese and fish. A staple food does not meet a population’s total nutritional needs: a variety of foods is required. This is particularly the case for children and other nutritionally vulnerable groups.

Over the centuries, many wild plants were tried as food; some proved better than the others. Some became favorites of the people and were tried for cultivation. If we compare the crop plant and its wild relative, we can see that there are noticeable differences. These differences are not in the edible part alone. Thus, for example, the crop sunflower is bigger flowered, larger leafed and thicker stemmed than its wild variety. Have you noticed the firm solid heart of a cabbage? The wild ancestors of the cabbage have only loose leaves in the center. How have these changes occurred? Early farmers realized that there were always variations among a given species. They observed that bigger grains of wheat and larger groundnuts were possible. These changes in plants can occur because of two reasons, natural breeding between closely related species and changes (mutations) in the plant cells. A farmer would pick better plants and use them for replanting next time. So, through a slow process spread over years, crops were selected. In fact, some undesirable things were also removed from the plants. For example, earlier wild pears had spines and wild potatoes were bitter. Through crop selection, such varieties were eliminated. Modern agriculture is based on much faster ways of selecting the “better” varieties of crops for staple foods. This procedure is called `plant breeding’ and is based on earlier results of inheritance of plants.

Typically, staple foods are well adapted to the growth conditions in their source areas. For example, they may be tolerant of drought, pests or soils low in nutrients. Farmers often rely on staple crops to reduce risk and increase the resilience of their agricultural systems.

Of more than 50 000 edible plant species in the world, only a few hundred contribute significantly to food supplies. Just 15 crop plants provide 90 percent of the world’s food energy intake, with three rice, maize and wheat – making up two-thirds of this. These three are the staples of over 4 000 million people.

Roots and tubers are important staples for over 1 000 million people in the developing world. They account for roughly 40 percent of the food eaten by half the population of sub-Saharan Africa. They are high in carbohydrates, calcium and vitamin C, but low in protein. Since 1970, consumption of roots and tubers in the Pacific Islands has fallen by 8 percent, while cereal consumption jumped by 40 percent, from 61 to 85 kilograms per person.

Many countries are experiencing a similar shift away from traditional foods, but there is growing recognition of the importance of traditional food crops in nutrition. After years of being considered “poor people’s foods” some of these crops are now enjoying a comeback. Cassava, considered a minor crop at the turn of the century, has now become one of the developing world’s most important staples providing a basic diet for around 500 million people. Plantings are increasing faster than any other crop. Quinoa, a grain grown in the high Andes, is also gaining wider acceptance even outside of Latin America with the introduction of new varieties and improved processing.

Some selected food crops

1. Chinese-Japanese region
bamboo, millet, mustard, orange, peach, rice, soybean, tea

2. Indochinese-Indonesian region
bamboo, banana, coconut, grapefruit, mango, rice, sugarcane, yam

3. Australian region
macadamia nut

4. Hindustani region
banana, bean, chick-pea, citrus, cucumber, eggplant, mango, mustard, rice, sugarcane

5. Central Asian region
apple, apricot, bean, carrot, grape, melon, onion, pea, pear, plum, rye, spinach, walnut, wheat

6. Near Eastern region
almond, barley, fig, grape, lentil, melon, pea, pistachio, rye, wheat

7. Mediterranean region
beetroot, cabbage, celery, fava bean, grape, lettuce, oats, olive, radish, wheat

8. African region
coffee, millet, oil palm, okra, sorghum, teff, wheat, yam

9. European-Siberian region
apple, cherry, chicory, hops, lettuce, pear

10. South American region
cacao, cassava, groundout, lima bean, papaya, pineapple, potato, squash, sweet potato, tomato

11. Central American and Mexican region
french bean, maize, pepper/chill), potato, squash

12. North American region
blueberry, sunflower

The Suez Canal, located in Egypt, is a 101 mile (163 km) long canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Suez, a northern branch of the Red Sea. It officially opened in November 1869.

In addition to dramatically reducing transit time for trade worldwide, the Suez Canal is one of the world’s most significant waterways as it supports 8% of the world’s shipping traffic and almost 50 ships pass through the canal daily. Future plans for the Suez Canal include a project to widen and deepen the canal to accommodate the passage of larger and more ships at one time.

Suez Canal Construction History

Although the Suez Canal wasn’t officially completed until 1869, there is a long history of interest in connecting both the Nile River in Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. It is believed that the first canal in the area was constructed between the Nile River delta and the Red Sea in the 13th Century B.C.E. During the 1,000 years following its construction, the original canal was neglected and its use finally stopped in the 8th Century.

The first modern attempts to build a canal came in the late 1700s when Napoleon Bonaparte conducted an expedition to Egypt. He believed that building a French controlled canal on the Isthmus of Suez would cause trade problems for the British as they would either have to pay dues to France or continue sending goods over land or around the southern part of Africa. Studies for Napoleon’s canal plan began in 1799 but a miscalculation in measurement showed the sea levels between the Mediterranean and the Red Seas as being too different for a canal to be feasible and construction immediately stopped.

The next attempt to build a canal in the area occurred in the mid-1800s when a French diplomat and engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps, convinced the Egyptian viceroy Said Pasha to support the building of a canal. In 1858, the Universal Suez Ship Canal Company was formed and given the right to begin construction of the canal and operate it for 99 years, after which time, the Egyptian government would take over control of the canal. At its founding, the Universal Suez Ship Canal Company was owned by French and Egyptian interests.

Construction of the Suez Canal officially began on April 25, 1859. It opened ten years later on November 17, 1869 at a cost of $100 million.

Suez Canal Use and Control

Almost immediately after its opening, the Suez Canal had a significant impact on world trade as goods were moved around the world in record time. In 1875, debt forced Egypt to sell its shares in ownership of the Suez Canal to the United Kingdom. However, an international convention in 1888 made the canal available for all ships from any nation to use.

Shortly thereafter, conflicts began to arise over use and control of the Suez Canal. In 1936 for example, the U.K. was given the right to maintain military forces in the Suez Canal Zone and control entry points. In 1954, Egypt and the U.K. signed a seven year contract that resulted in the withdrawal of British forces from the canal area and allowed Egypt to take control of the former British installations. In addition, with the creation of Israel in 1948, the Egyptian government prohibited the use of the canal by ships coming and going from the country.

Also in the 1950s, the Egyptian government was working on a way to finance the Aswan High Dam. Initially it had support from the United States and the U.K. but in July 1956, both nations withdrew their support and the Egyptian government seized and nationalized the canal so passage fees could be used to pay for the dam. On October 29 of that same year, Israel invaded Egypt and two days later Britain and France followed on grounds that passage through the canal was to be free. In retaliation, Egypt blocked the canal by intentionally sinking 40 ships. These events were known as the Suez Crisis.

In November 1956, the Suez Crisis ended when the United Nations arranged a truce between the four nations. The Suez Canal then reopened in March 1957 when the sunken ships were removed. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Suez Canal was closed several more times because of conflicts between Egypt and Israel.

In 1962, Egypt made its final payments for the canal to its original owners (the Universal Suez Ship Canal Company) and the nation took full control of the Suez Canal.

Broken American Promise

The United States had initially promised Nasser $70 million to help build the first phase of the dam. The World Bank, controlled by the United States, had pledged a $200 million loan for the second phase. The pledges fell through when the United States declared, somewhat arbitrarily, that Egypt would not be capable of carrying the project to completion.

In reality, the United States was punishing Egypt for its arms deal with the Soviet Union as well as its refusal to join United States-led efforts to align Middle Eastern countries against the Soviet Union.

The Second Arab-Israeli War

Nationalization incensed the French and the British, whose citizens were the chief stockholders in the Suez Canal Company. Independently of the United States, France and Britain began military plans to retaliate against Egypt, massing troops on Malta and elsewhere. Then the two countries invited Israel to join the plans. On Oct. 29, 1956, Israel attacked, capturing most of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. Dwight Eisenhower, fresh from his reelection as president of the United States, pressured France and Britain to withdraw their troops, which they did–ending British and French colonialism in the Middle East.

That did not ingratiate America in Arab eyes. As Milton Viorst writes in Storms from the East , Washington seemingly failed to grasp the damage done by the Suez attack. In continuing to demand that the Arabs choose the West over Russia, it took a righteous gamble, and, measured by the response of the Arab masses, it lost. Woodrow Wilson had long ago abdicated his place as a hero among Arabs. Suez confirmed America, in Arab eyes, as the heir to the Western imperial tradition. Even today, with the Cold War long over, America has not reversed that perception.

The Suez Canal Today

Today, the Suez Canal is operated by the Suez Canal Authority. It begins at the Mediterranean Sea at Point Said flows through Ismailia in Egypt, and ends at Suez on the Gulf of Suez. It also has a railroad running its entire length parallel to its west bank.

The writer is a student of Department of Banking in the University of Dhaka

Mark Twain

Motivation can be a huge help for you to achieve what you want in life. But how can you find all that motivation you need?

Well, looking at timeless advice from time to time helps me. And in this article I’ll share four of my favorite timeless thoughts on motivation, four thoughts that motivate and inspire me.

Make a conscious choice.

“Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.”
Wayne Dyer

“I was thinking one day and I realized that if I just had somebody behind me all the way to motivate me I could make a big difference. Nobody came along like that so I just became that person for myself.”
Unknown

Help, accountability and motivation from others is always good. But in the end you to be able to rely on yourself. And there is really no escaping it, because as Dyer says, it’s always your choice what to do.

So you have to consciously choose to motivate yourself. You can do that by:

Doing what you really, really like to do. When you really like doing something then the motivation to do it comes automatically (most of the time). And when you really want something then it simply becomes easier to push through any inner resistance you feel. You are so motivated to achieve whatever it is you want that the risks you may encounter may be scary but smaller than your desire.

Make a list of upsides. Write down all the benefits you will get from achieving something, like for example getting into better shape or making more money. Save it and pull that list out of the drawer whenever your motivation is lacking and review it. Or put it somewhere where you will see it every day. This is a powerful way to reconnect with your motivation and reasons for taking action.

Compare yourself with yourself. Comparing what you have and your results to what other people have and have accomplished can really kill your motivation. There are always people ahead of you. Most likely quite a bit of people. And a few of them are miles ahead.

So focus on you. On your results. And how you can and have improved your results. Reviewing your results is important so you see where you have gone wrong in the past to avoid similar missteps further on. But it’s also important because it’s a great motivator to see how much you have improved and how far you have come. Often you can be pleasantly surprised when you do such a review.

But the most important thing is to take responsibility for your own motivation and feelings and not wait around for someone else to do it. When you do that you will most often find a way to get yourself to start moving towards what you want.

Walk your talk.

“Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.”
Vince Poscente

This is great tip. Whenever you don’t follow your own talk or just your inner rules of how you want to behave you tend to feel bad. Your esteem of yourself sinks and your motivation to get going does too.

So you have to be honest with yourself when you feel like you are out of alignment. You have to get up and get started again. When your talk and inner standards you have set for yourself align with what you do then you your self-esteem goes up.

You feel great because you are living like you deep down want to. And you are getting all these important things done and can enjoy the results. And then you want more of that good stuff, you sometimes feel so motivated that you can’t wait to get going.

This is not always easy. In the short run it’s often easier and less uncomfortable and scary to lie to yourself a bit and hold yourself back. But the rewards for walking your talk are big. Both on the outside and the inside.

Set big goals that really inspire you.

“Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to really keep us alive.”
Robert H. Schuller

Without inspiring goals you tend wander around aimlessly in a confused funk.

I think the most important thing about setting goals is to find goals that really inspire and motivate you.

What are your goals? As much as possible, you have to set the goals for yourself. Should and ought to-goals aren’t good enough. Or goals that other people have set for you.

Think about your goals. Think about who has set them. Then think about what you really want in life. Then set your own goals. Write them down.

I also don’t think one should be afraid of setting big goals. Set a big goal that inspires you even if it may seem a tad unrealistic at the moment. If you have too easily achievable goals then you may find that they don’t give you that motivational spark and drive. When you start to think a bit bigger then you get motivated and your mind starts looking for the solutions that will help you achieve that goal. Thinking too small can leave you with a “meh…” feeling or make you feel like you can do it later.

And a benefit of doing things this way – even if you don’t quite achieve your big, big goal or it takes a while longer than you may have hoped for – can be found in a quote from Les Brown:

“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars.”

Don’t get too hung up on being motivated to get started.

“The whole idea of motivation is a trap. Forget motivation. Just do it. Exercise, lose weight, test your blood sugar, or whatever. Do it without motivation. And then, guess what? After you start doing the thing, that’s when the motivation comes and makes it easy for you to keep on doing it.”
John C. Maxwell

Here’s another view on motivation. Maybe you don’t need it to get started? Maybe you can create it along the way?

Many times I have found it better to just do it and start working instead of trying to motivate myself to get going. At first what you do may suck quite a bit and it’s hard going. But after a while inspiration and motivation seems to catch up with you. Things start to flow easier and your work is of a higher quality.

And after you have kept going for a while you become more and more motivated. Because you start to feel like you can actually do this and you can keep going to achieve your goal. And now you are also walking your talk which boosts your motivation.

On some days you may not seem to be able motivate yourself into action. Even if you review your goals or reasons to achieve something.

That’s ok. You can still make a conscious choice based on what you know deep down is right and just start moving your hands and feet anyway. No matter how you feel inside, no matter what negative thoughts may be circling around in your head.

Try both to get yourself motivated before you begin and to just do it and find the motivation along the way. Try both ways and see what works best for you.

Sigirya – Sri Lanka

Sigiriya (Lion’s rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos), which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. The Sigiriya was built during the reign of King Kassapa I (AD 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World Heritage Sites of Sri Lanka.

Sigiriya may have been inhabited through prehistoric times. It was used as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 5th century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the Buddhist Sangha. The garden and palace were built by King Kasyapa. Following King Kasyapa’s death, it was again a monastery complex up to about the 14th century, after which it was abandoned. . The Sigiri inscriptions were deciphered by the archaeologist Senarath Paranavithana in his renowned two-volume work, published by Oxford, Sigiri Graffiti. He also wrote the popular book “Story of Sigiriya”.

Machu Picchu – Peru

Machu Picchu – is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Cuzco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472). Often referred to as “The Lost City of the Incas”, it is perhaps the most familiar icon of the Inca World.

The Incas started building the estate around AD 1400 but it was abandoned as an official site for the Inca rulers a century later at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Although known locally, it was unknown to the outside world before being brought to international attention in 1911 by the American historian Hiram Bingham. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction and, since it was not found and plundered by the Spanish after they conquered the Incas, it is important as a cultural site.

Dún Aonghasa – Ireland

Dún Aonghasa is the most famous of several prehistoric forts on the Aran Islands, of County Galway, Ireland. It is located on Inishmore at the edge of an approximately 100 metre high cliff.A popular tourist attraction, Dún Aonghasa is an important archaeological site that also offers a spectacular view. It is not known when Dún Aonghasa was built, though it is now thought to date from the Iron Age.T. F. O’Rahilly surmised that it was built in the second century B.C. by the Builg following the Laginian conquest of Connacht.

Dún Aonghasa has been called “the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe.”  The Proto-Celtic name, meaning “Fort of Aonghas”, refers to the pre-Christian god of the same name described in Irish mythology, or the mythical king, Aonghus mac Úmhór.

Maiden Castle – England

Maiden Castle

Maiden Castle is an Iron Age hill fort 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) south west of Dorchester, in the English county of Dorset. Hill forts were fortified hill-top settlements constructed across Britain during the Iron Age. The name Maiden Castle may be a modern construction meaning that the hill fort looks impregnable, or it could derive from the British Celtic mai-dun, meaning a “great hill”. The earliest archaeological evidence of human activity on the site consists of a Neolithic causewayed enclosure and bank barrow. In about 1800 BC, during the Bronze Age, the site was used for growing crops before being abandoned. Maiden Castle itself was built in about 600 BC; the early phase was a simple and unremarkable site, similar to many other hill forts in Britain and covering 6.4 hectares (16 acres). Around 450 BC it underwent major expansion, during which the enclosed area was nearly tripled in size to 19 ha (47 acres), making it the largest hill fort in Britain and by some definitions the largest in Europe.

Great Serpent Mound – USA

The Great Serpent Mound is a 1,330-foot-long, three-foot-high prehistoric effigy mound located on a plateau of the Serpent Mound crater along Ohio Brush Creek in Adams County, Ohio. Maintained within a park by the Ohio Historical Society, it has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of Interior. The Serpent Mound of Ohio was first reported from surveys by Ephraim Squire and Edwin Davis in their historic volume Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, published in 1848 by the newly founded Smithsonian Museum.

Researchers have attributed construction of the mound to three different prehistoric indigenous cultures. Based on the use of more advanced technology, including carbon dating and evidence from 1996 studies, many scholars now believe that members of the Fort Ancient culture built it about 1070 CE (plus or minus 70 years). There are still anomalies to be studied. Serpent Mound is the largest serpent effigy in the world.

Hadrian’s Wall – Scotland

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall is a stone and timber fortification built by the Roman Empire across the width of what is now northern England. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall in what is now Scotland. Hadrian’s Wall is the better known of the two because its physical remains are more evident today.
Opinions differ, but the growing consensus is that the Wall was built as a readily defended fortification which clearly defined the northern frontier of the Roman Empire in Britain (Britannia). It would also improve economic stability and provide peaceful conditions in the frontier zone.

Royal mounds – Sweden

The Royal mounds is the name for the three large barrows which are located in Gamla Uppsala, in Sweden. According to ancient mythology and folklore, it would be the three gods Thor, Odin and Freyr lying in Kungshögarna or Uppsala högar (from the Old Norse word Haugr meaning mound or barrow). In the 19th and 20th centuries, they were speculated to hold the remains of three kings of the legendary House of Ynglings and where thus known by the names Aun’s Mound, Adil’s Mound and Egil’s Mound. Today their geographical locations are instead used and they are called the Eastern mound, Middle Mound and Western Mound.

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