Indian women have been raised to believe that fairness is beauty, and this has given rise to a vast and ever-growing skin-whitening industry, which is now encouraging women to bleach far beyond their hands and face.
The desire for lighter skin is nothing new in India. For centuries women in South Asia have been raised with the belief that a fairer complexion equates to beauty.
That the industry should reach a new low, excuse the pun, has reopened the age old fairness debate.
Should such products be on sale? Is applying bleach to your skin healthy, and what are the psychological effects on girls who are told they’re only pretty if they’re paler?
For centuries women in South Asia have been raised with the belief that a fairer complexion equates to beauty
But, despite repeated concerns, the lightening industry is booming, and diversifying. One market research firm even reported that more skin lightening creams are sold in India than Coca Cola.
The market, which initially focused on beauty conscious women, is now pitching to men too.
“The first fairness cream that fights sweat” read the large white letters on a bus stop billboard.
It was accompanied by a photo of one of Bollywood’s actors of the moment, John Abraham, his chiselled face promising fragrant fairness to all who buy the product.
If those variants weren’t considered enough, you can also find deodorants for fairer underarms and talcum powders for whiter skin.
Advertisers specializing in this field, must spend hours devising new campaigns for their products.
“Do you think twice before wearing certain clothes because they don’t seem to suit your body’s uneven skin tone?” asked one half-page advert in a respected newspaper.
“Notice how the color of your hands is different to the color of your face?” asked another.
It seems illogical that such prejudices should continue to exist in modern day India, but they do.
One wannabe actress said she failed to get parts in films because directors bluntly told her she was too black.
You only have to look at posters and ads in India to see glamorous Bollywood stars who, thanks to a bit of graphics software, have dramatically lighter skin tones – with others going the whole hog and endorsing the products.
These are the stars who are worshipped by so many in India, and if many of them are complicit too, then it’s fair to assume that this industry will only continue to grow.
Venus has put on a spectacular show for skywatchers by moving across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth.
Venus transit was a very rare astronomical event that would not be seen again for another 105 years.
Observers in north and central America, and the northern-most parts of South America saw the event start just before local sunset.
The far northwest of America, the Arctic, the western Pacific, and East Asia witnessed the entire passage.
While the UK and the rest of Europe, the Middle East, and eastern Africa waited for local sunrise to try to see the closing stages of the transit.
Venus appeared as a small black dot moving slowly but surely across the solar disc. The traverse lasted more than six and a half hours.
Some of the best pictures of the event were provided by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which studies the Sun from a position 36,000 km above the Earth.
“We get to see Venus in exquisite detail because of SDO’s spatial resolution,” said agency astrophysicist Dr. Lika Guhathakurta.
“SDO is a very special observatory. It takes images that are about 10 times better than a high-definition TV and those images are acquired at a temporal cadence of one every 10 seconds. This is something we’ve never had before.”
Many citizens keen to observe the transit first hand attended special events at universities and observatories where equipment for safe viewing had been set up.
In Hawaii, one of the best places to see the whole event, the university’s Institute of Astronomy set up telescope stations on Waikiki beach.
“We’ve had 10 telescopes and the queues have been 10 deep to each telescope all day long,” said the institute’s Dr. Roy Gal.
“It’s a great opportunity to get people excited and teach them stuff. I was hoping for a big turn-out, and it’s been fantastic,” he said.
Venus transit was a very rare astronomical event that would not be seen again for another 105 years
Joe Cali viewed the transit on the edge of the Outback in New South Wales, Australia, another ideal vantage point.
“It is exciting. It may look like just a black dot on the Sun but if you think about it, it’s one of the few times you get to see a planet in motion,” he said.
“But we’ve been improving our chances by connecting with the Shetland Islands and the people up there have done rather better than we have. We’ve been seeing the transit through [a feed] of one of their telescopes,” he explained.
Scientists observed the transit to test ideas that will help them probe Earth-like planets elsewhere in the galaxy, and to learn more about Venus itself and its complex atmosphere.
Venus transits occur four times in approximately 243 years; more precisely, they appear in pairs of events separated by about eight years and these pairs are separated by about 105 or 121 years.
The reason for the long intervals lies in the fact that the orbits of Venus and Earth do not lie in the same plane and a transit can only occur if both planets and the Sun are situated exactly on one line.
This has happened only seven times previously in the telescopic age: in 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004.
The next pair will not now occur until 2117 and 2125.
The phenomenon has particular historical significance. The 17th- and 18th-Century transits were used by the astronomers of the day to work out fundamental facts about the Solar System.
Employing a method of triangulation (parallax), they were able to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun – the so-called astronomical unit (AU) – which we know today to be about 149.6 million km (or 93 million miles).
This allowed scientists to get their first real handle on the scale of things beyond Earth.
Modern instrumentation now gives us very precise numbers on planetary positions and masses, as well as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. But to the early astronomers, just getting good approximate values represented a huge challenge.
This is not to say the 2012 Venus transit was regarded as just a pretty show with no interest for scientists.
Planetary transits have key significance today because they represent one of the best methods for finding worlds orbiting distant stars.
NASA’s Kepler telescope, for example, is identifying thousands of candidates by looking for the tell-tale dips in light that accompany a planet moving in front of its host sun.
These planets are too far away to be visited by spacecraft in the foreseeable future, but scientists can learn something about them from the way the background star’s light is affected as it passes through the planetary atmosphere.
And observing a transiting Venus, which has a known atmospheric composition, provides a kind of benchmark to support these far-flung investigations.
Researchers also took a close look at Venus itself during the transit, used the occasion to probe the middle layers of the planet’s atmosphere – its mesosphere.
They were looking for a very thin arc of light, called the aureole, which can only be seen when Venus appears to just touch the edge of the Sun’s disc at ingress and egress.
The brightness and thickness of the aureole depends on the density and temperature of the atmospheric layers above Venus’s cloud tops.
Observations of the aureole were being combined with data from Europe’s Venus Express spacecraft in orbit around the planet to provide information on high-altitude winds.
The Venusian atmosphere experiences super-rotation. That is – the whole atmosphere circles the planet in four Earth days, on a body that turns around just once in 243 Earth days.
Ashton Kutcher made his anticipated return to Punk’d on Sunday with a trick on Kim Kardashian, with the help of her sister Kourtney’s partner Scott Disick.
Ashton Kutcher had big things planned for Kim Kardashian and said: “Kim, you’re about to learn what a real reality show looks like.”
Kim Kardashian and Scott Disick were at a gas station when they encountered an actor pretending to be a huge fan, who excitedly snapped photos of himself with each of the famous faces.
When Scott Disick returned to the car, he discovered his wallet was missing and attempted to chase the fan, however he left the gas nozzle in the car and as he drove away, there was an explosion.
Kim Kardashian quickly grew anxious and said: “OK, something weird is really going on.”
Ashton Kutcher made his anticipated return to Punk’d on Sunday with a trick on Kim Kardashian, with the help of her sister Kourtney’s partner Scott Disick
A man then came over to shout at the pair for blowing up his car and Kim Kardashian’s fear was evident as she said: “I am literally shaking.”
The police arrived and handcuffed Scott Disick despite his and Kim Kardashian’s protests that the fan stole the wallet, and Kim dashed off to the car to call Kourtney and fill her in.
Meanwhile the fan was upset and comes over to shout at her.
At first she was apologetic but when he said: “I’m a huge fan of yours. Not anymore,” Kim Kardashian simply shrugged.
After Kim Kardashian found the wallet in their car, Ashton Kutcher arrived and the reality star took it all in good humor.
Earlier in the show, Drake showed a different side to himself when he faced what he believed was an earthquake.
Ashton Kutcher admitted he has always wanted to put the MC in such a scenario and in order to make sure Drake would be there, he arranged a hoax meeting with the Vice President.
The funnyman said: “We’re gonna shake things up for Drake a bit. I highly anticipate Drake urinating; he might scream a little bit.”
Drake was in the car with actors pretending to be the Secret Service and was clearly scared when everything suddenly began to shake.
He said: “That is no joke,” before adding: “That’s my first earthquake ever.”
But Ashton Kutcher wasn’t done with the pranks and several fake aftershocks occurred, leaving Drake terrified.
Things quickly worsened for the star as strangers piled into the car despite Drake’s protests, and he got into a screaming match with a couple.
Drake was on the brink of tears when Ashton Kutcher came running in.
While Drake’s mood quickly lightened, he told a giggling Ashton Kutcher: “Yo, that s***’s no joke. So we don’t get to meet the vice president? I called my mum and everything.”
He then admitted: “I said very early on in my career that this is such a sign of feeling like you really accomplished something when Ashton decides to punk [you].
“So today is a semi-feeling of accomplishment, but at the same time, f*** you. I do not appreciate that at all!”
At the end of the episode, Ashton Kutcher said: “I feel like it’s complete. Everything I learned from Beyoncé to Kanye to [Justin Timberlake] and everyone we did before, it all built to this moment.
“It’s been a good year. I feel like the Drake bit completed a cycle for me. It might be time to put the old hat away and call it a year.”
Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda leader, was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan on Monday, a US official has confirmed.
US officials said Abu Yahya al-Libi was the target of an attack which hit a volatile tribal area of Pakistan’s north-west, killing 15 suspected militants.
There has been no confirmation of his death from sources in Pakistan.
According to officials, he played a critical role in the group’s planning against the West.
“There is no-one who even comes close in terms of replacing the expertise al-Qaeda has just lost,” the US official said.
The official added that al-Qaeda’s leadership “will be hard-pressed to find any one person who can readily step into [Libi’s] shoes”.
Washington believes that following Osama Bin Laden’s death last year, Abu Yahya al-Libi, an Islamic scholar from Libya, became al-Qaeda’s second-in-command after Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda leader, was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan on Monday, a US official has confirmed
Abu Yahya al-Libi had gravitas as a longstanding member of al-Qaeda’s leadership, the official said, and his religious credentials meant he had the authority to issue fatwas and provide guidance to the Pakistan-based operation.
Analysts have said that he was in charge of day-to-day operations in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
He was reported killed in a drone strike in Pakistan in 2009, but it turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
Pakistan’s frontier tribal region is considered a hub of activity by al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and it is very difficult to verify information from the region.
Reporters are prevented by the authorities from travelling to the area.
There are no further details explaining how US officials are certain that Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed by the drone strike.
In Monday’s strike, two missiles were fired at a suspected militant compound in Hesokhel, east of Miranshah – the main town in the volatile tribal region of North Waziristan.
The first missile struck the compound, killing three militants, Pakistani security officials said.
A second missile then killed 12 more militants who had arrived at the scene, they added.
It was just the latest assault after a recent surge of attacks in Pakistan – there have been eight drone strikes over the past two weeks.
It sparked anger in Pakistan and the foreign ministry lodged a formal protest with Washington’s deputy ambassador to Islamabad, Richard Hoagland.
Islamabad has called for an end to drone strikes, and today the government issued a statement saying they represented a “clear red line for Pakistan”.
Tension between the reluctant allies has been intensified by a dispute over Pakistan’s closure of supply routes to NATO troops in Afghanistan, after a NATO air strike along the Afghan border killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Many observers believe the attacks have been a means of applying pressure on Islamabad after a deal to reopen NATO supply routes fell through.
But drone strikes have increased in frequency since President Barack Obama took office in 2008 and hundreds of people have been killed.
The dead include senior al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, as well as an unknown number of other militants and civilians.
The US does not normally comment on individual drone operations, but this strike came after it emerged in the New York Times that the US president personally approves or vetoes each drone strike.
Sho Yano, a 21-year-old man from Chicago, who began college at age nine and medical school three years later, is about to become the youngest student ever awarded an M.D. by the University of Chicago.
Sho Yano, who was reading at age two, writing at three and composing music at five, will graduate this week from the Pritzker School of Medicine, where he also received a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology.
He earned his undergraduate degree from Loyola University at age 12, finishing in three years and graduating summa cum laude, the Chicago Tribune reported on Sunday.
The average age of students entering medical school in the U.S. is 23, and there were schools that refused Yano admittance because of his age.
School officials worried that the rigors of medical school would hinder Sho Yano’s ability to have a normal adolescence.
“I never understood that,” Sho Yano said.
“Why would being allowed to challenge yourself be considered more damaging that being totally bored?”
The University of Chicago admitted Sho Yano in 2003.
“I remember interviewing him … this nice, polite, 11-year-old boy, dressed in a little suit,” said Dr. Joel Scwab, a professor of pediatrics who was on the admissions committee.
“He was never going to be among typical 11-year-olds, where his mother would drive him to Little League. He was going to be a doctor.”
Sho Yano, who was reading at age two, writing at three and composing music at five, will graduate this week from the Pritzker School of Medicine
Just the same as Doogie Houser, star of an ABC television comedy series of the same name. Played by Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Houser is a 16-year-old doctor, Princeton graduate and unmistakeable genius.
Like Doogie Yano struggled with some discrimination because of his age.
“Kid’s would shout things like <<go back to elementary school>> on campus” Sho Yano told ABC.
Sho Yano’s school made some accommodations because of his age. Unlike most students, who begin their Ph.D. training after their second year of medical school, Sho Yano began his after his first year.
That way, he was about 18 when he began his second year of studies toward his M.D., which includes interacting with and examining patients.
Sho Yano, who is an accomplished pianist and has a black belt in tae kwon do, told the paper he hopes his graduation will silence those who questioned his developmental aptitude when he entered medical school.
He is currently preparing for his residency in pediatric neurology, which he became interested in pediatric neurology while doing a rotation at LaRabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
“I really liked not just taking care of kids, but the way the whole team worked together,” he said.
Genius, seemingly, runs in the Yano family.
His sister, Sayuri, is his only sibling, also a prodigy and his closest confidante.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in biology from Roosevelt University in 2010, the 15-year-old is now at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in violin performance.
Sho Yano has been a college student for 12 years, but it’s only recently that he looks as if he belongs, blending in with students in a Hyde Park coffee shop.
The wisecracks that come with being a college pre-teen have passed, and Sho Yano is looking forward. The University of Chicago holds its graduation Saturday.
Luka Rocco Magnotta, the Canadian porn actor wanted for the murder and dismemberment of his lover, has told a judge he will not fight his extradition from Germany, prosecutors say.
Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, appeared in a Berlin court to have his arrest confirmed, a day after he was detained.
Canadian authorities are preparing papers to request his extradition.
Police detained him in an internet cafe in Berlin after an employee recognized his face from a newspaper.
Luka Rocco Magnotta is suspected of killing Chinese student Jun Lin, 33, in Montreal, and posting severed body parts to political parties in Canada.
“He said he would not fight the extradition,” Martin Steltner, a spokesman for the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, told AFP after the hearing on Tuesday.
The extradition process could take months, but Martin Steltner said it “will be easier and will be faster” now that Luka Rocco Magnotta has said he will not oppose it.
Luka Rocco Magnotta has told a judge he will not fight his extradition from Germany
Police say Luka Rocco Magnotta flew from Montreal to Paris on 26 May, eventually travelling by coach from France to Germany.
Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafreniere said investigators were extremely relieved and pleased about the arrest.
“We said from the beginning that the web has been used to glorify himself and we believe the web brought him down,” he added.
“He was recognized because his photo was everywhere.”
Luka Rocco Magnotta was picked up in the cybercafe in Berlin’s Neukoelln district, where he had reportedly been reading articles about himself.
“A colleague recognized him from his photo because he’d just read the newspaper,” the cafe owner told the Associated Press news agency.
The employee, Kadir Anlayisli, ran outside and flagged down a passing police van.
“He came in with glasses on, he took his glasses off and talked to me in French,” Kadir Anlayisli told AP.
“I looked at him and thought I knew him from somewhere, because I read newspapers every day. I was perplexed and thought I should look at him again, and when I watched him, he was checking the same web page that I had just checked.”
Kadir Anlayisli then stepped out of the cafe, on Berlin’s busy Karl Marx Strasse, and stopped the police van, telling the officers inside: “I have someone here you might be looking for.”
Police said there had been no struggle when Luka Rocco Magnotta was arrested at 14:00 local time on Monday.
Confronted by seven police officers, Luka Rocco Magnotta “tried at first giving fake names”, police spokesman Guido Busch said.
“But in the end he just said: <<You got me>>.”
Kadir Anlayisli recalled: “At first they [the police] asked him for an ID.
“Then they searched him. Well, then they showed me the <<thumbs up>> to show me that it was the right one. I was relieved.”
The suspect had reportedly worked as a bisexual porn actor and model.
Jun Lin, who was from Wuhan in China, had been enrolled as an undergraduate to study engineering and computer science at Concordia University in Montreal.
Zoya De Frias Lakhany, 21, a fellow Concordia student in some of Jun Lin’s classes, said he had been an excellent student who was shy and humble. She said she had cried all weekend after hearing about his death.
“He was happy here, he would take pictures of the snow and post them,” she recalled, quoted by AP.
“He was sweet, never complained and smiled all the time.”
Investigators say a video posted online, in which a man apparently uses an ice pick to kill another man, is believed to show Jun Lin’s murder.
Luka Rocco Magnotta faces charges in Canada of murder and threatening Canadian politicians.
Authorities believe body parts sent through the post belonged to Jun Lin. A foot was received by the headquarters of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in Ottawa on 29 May. A hand was found on 29 May in a parcel addressed to the office of the Liberal Party in Ottawa.
Barnes & Noble has apologized to Dr. Omar Amin who was kicked out of one of its stores for browsing the children’s section on his own.
Dr. Omar Amin, 73, from Scottsdale, Arizona, said he was asked to leave after a female shopper told a worker she felt uneasy about his presence.
Dr. Omar Amin, who is a world-renowned researcher of infectious diseases, said he was buying books for his two grandchildren.
“This is an insult to all men not just to me,” he told Azfamily.com.
“I left the store. I was upset like hell because I’ve been so insulted and humiliated in public for the charge of being a man.”
In a complaint to the store Dr. Omar Amin wrote: “I did not break any rules. There was no sign posted that said men are not allowed in the children’s book area.”
He said he had been looking for books for his five and seven-year-old grandchildren when his phone rang.
Barnes & Noble has apologized to Dr. Omar Amin who was kicked out of one of its stores for browsing the children's section on his own
Dr. Omar Amin sat on the floor by the store’s windows so he could talk to his friend, which he did quietly, he said.
But a store worker interrupted the call and told him to leave, he said.
Dr. Omar Amin said he was humiliated when the employee “escorted me out as a potential sex offender”.
He is reportedly now considering legal action following the May 4 incident.
Arizona State University law professor Charles Calleros told the Arizona Republic that Dr. Omar Amin could have a case for gender discrimination.
If women without children are allowed to shop in the children’s section, “then we arguably have gender discrimination”, he said.
Barnes & Noble vice president Mark Bottini released a statement on Monday apologizing to Dr. Omar Amin.
“We want to apologize to Dr. Amin for a situation in which Dr. Amin was asked to leave the children’s section of our Scottsdale, Arizona store,” he said.
“We should not have done so. It is not our policy to ask customers to leave any section of our stores without justification.
“We value Dr. Amin as a customer and look forward to welcoming him in any of our stores.”
Dr. Omar Amin, the director of Parasitology Center Inc. in Scottsdale, wrote to Barnes & Noble to complain.
“It’s not enough. I want my honor restored,” he told msnbc.com.
“I want to walk back into the store with my head held up high. I did not break any rules. My pride has been scratched.”
Mariah Carey and husband Nick Cannon posted some intimate family photos to the website they set up especially for their twins Moroccan and Monroe.
One of the sweet snaps showed Mariah Carey, 42, cuddling up to the one-year-olds in a pool.
Mariah Carey had one arm wrapped around daughter Monroe while the other held onto Moroccan, who was floating in the water.
The singer looked relaxed and blissful as she closed her eyes and sported a huge smile for the shot.
Meanwhile Nick Cannon posted an adorable photo of Moroccan, who is nicknames Roc, to his Twitter as well as the website.
The image seems to show the tot following his dip in the pool, as he stands clutching onto the railing of the steps leading down to the water.
Mariah Carey had one arm wrapped around daughter Monroe while the other held onto Moroccan, who was floating in the water
Roc is sporting a white towelling robe with the hood up and Nick captioned the photo “Roc big pimpin in Italy!”.
And the picture is made even more cute thanks to the fact the robe is too big for him, and falls to the ground.
The trio are currently in Italy where they have been enjoying some fun in the sun, but Mariah Carey’s husband Nick Cannon has stayed behind in the US as he is currently hosting America’s Got Talent.
It hasn’t been all fun and games for Mariah Carey in the European country though, as she was also spotted hard at work while on a photo shoot in Capri last week.
Hutton Gibson, the 93-year-old father of actor Mel Gibson, has filed for divorce from wife Teddy Joye Gibson after ten years of marriage.
Hutton Gibson has filed documents citing irreconcilable differences as the reason behind the split from Teddy Joye, who is said to be in her 70s.
The couple married in 2002, two years after the death of Mel Gibson’s mother, Hutton’s first wife Anne.
Hutton and Anne Gibson had 11 children between them and he now has 50 grandchildren.
According to court documents, Hutton Gibson is asking his estranged wife to pay legal fees and also is asking her for spousal support.
Hutton Gibson, the 93-year-old father of actor Mel Gibson, has filed for divorce from wife Teddy Joye Gibson after ten years of marriage
Hutton Gibson’s lawyer, Fahi Hallin told RadarOnline: “I’m hoping this divorce won’t be contentious. I’m not at liberty at this time to discuss why my client has decided to file for divorce, or why he is seeking spousal support.”
A devout Catholic, Hutton Gibson has been the subject of criticism for his controversial views on the Holocaust.
During an interview with the New York Times back in 2003, Hutton Gibson questioned how the Nazis disposed of six million Jewish people during World War 2.
“Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,” he said.
“It takes one litre of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million.”
An Austrian crematorium officials have blamed a deceased woman’s obesity for causing a fire which had to be tackled by firefighters.
Graz firemen were covered in thick sticky soot as they tried to prevent the blaze from taking hold of the building.
The case has been widely reported in Austrian media, including in the ORT, and has ignited calls for a weight limit on bodies to protect against future fires.
Some countries such as Switzerland and the UK already have facilities which cater for extra large bodies, in line with the growing trend of expanding waistlines.
An expert report on the Austria fire has revealed that the woman being cremated weighed more than 200 kg – or 31st 7 lbs – and her size had caused the oven to overheat.
An Austrian crematorium officials have blamed a deceased woman's obesity for causing a fire which had to be tackled by firefighters
The press reports state that the filter temperature reached 300 C and officials realized there was a problem when thick black smoke started billowing into the building.
The device was immediately switched off but by then there was already a fire in the filter.
Firemen whose clothing was left covered with a layer of greasy black soot were snapped as they tackled the difficult to extinguish blaze in special breathing gear to avoid breathing in the fumes.
In the end they had to bring the fire under control by sending a blast of water in through the vents used to clear the filter. Repair work took several days during which time the crematorium was out of action.
Firemen said that after reports of similar problems at other cemeteries not only in Austria but also in Switzerland, officials were now are considering a ban on larger bodies.
Graz based fireman Otto Widetschek said: “Crematorium officials need to be more responsible and not just automatically put everybody in to be cremated.”
He said that in Switzerland there were moves now to make sure that XXL bodies were routinely shipped to a special crematorium able to deal with the extra heat caused by larger bodies.
Kim Kardashian tweeted a picture of herself aged 7 that is displayed in her grandmother’s children’s clothing boutique in San Diego.
Kim Kardashian, 31, star wrote: “Look at the photo on the wall in my grandmas store Shannon & Co! I was 7yrs old.”
The reality star is almost unrecognizable as the fresh-faced little girl with not a scrap of make-up on and wearing a simple knit jumper.
Kim Kardashian is in San Diego with her family filming scenes for their reality show, and spending some quality time with Kris Jenner’s mother Mary Jo.
She also posted a picture of herself with Grandma MJ.
Kim Kardashian tweeted a picture of herself aged 7 that is displayed in her grandmother's children's clothing boutique in San Diego
Mary Jo’s boutique is located in La Jolla, in San Diego. MJ’s daughter and granddaughters followed her into the retail business, opening SMooch children’s boutique in Calabasas followed by their multiple DASH stores.
Later on, the family including Kourtney and Khloe, Rob, Kris and Mason, headed for a meal together.
Kim Kardashian changed from a black dress into a white lacy top with voluminous black trousers for the outing.
Pregnant Kourtney Kardashian wore a strapless maxi dress, white blazer and straw hat, and clutched son Mason’s hand as they left the restaurant.
Sister Khloe wore over-the-knee boots and skinny jeans, a white blazer and a skull scarf.
Khloe Kardashian had been living in Dallas with her husband Lamar Odom up until April before returning to Los Angeles and has been spending time catching up with her close-knit family.
She tweeted yesterday: “Road trip to San Diego!!!!! With all of my sisters!!! MJ time!!!”
Her younger brother Rob was also there, wearing a see-through blue jumper over a white vest and gave his mother Kris Jenner his arm as they walked to their car.
The family is busy filming the latest series of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which is currently airing on US TV.
Soy supplements have little or no benefit for global cognition of healthy postmenopausal women, shows a new study conducted by the researchers of Stanford University School of Medicine and of the USC Keck School of Medicine.
Overall mental abilities, learning, thinking or memory skills do not appear to be ameliorated by taking daily isoflavone-rich soy protein, according to the research published in the June issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Trying to find new strategies to improve cognitive function in aging, the scientists conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blind trial. National Institutes of Health-sponsored Women’s Isoflavone Soy Health Trial was done between 2004 and 2008 to determine the effect of soy isoflavones on the progression of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and, secondarily, the effect on cognition.
The senior investigators in the Women’s Isoflavone Soy Health Trial include Wendy Mack, PhD, professor of preventive medicine, and Howard Hodis, MD, professor of medicine, with the USC Keck School of Medicine. Other researchers from USC and the University of Hawaii Cancer Center also contributed to the study.
The work was funded by the National Center of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the Office of Dietary Supplements and the Office of Research on Women’s Health. Solae LLC, based in St. Louis, provided study products without charge.
A total of 350 healthy postmenopausal women, aged 45 to 92 years, were enrolled and 313 of them were included in intention-to-treat analyses. Neuropsychological tests were given to the participants at the start and at the end of the study.
They received either daily 25 g of isoflavone-rich soy protein, comparable to that of traditional Asian diets, or a milk protein-matched placebo. This study was larger and longer than any previous trials on soy use.
After two and a half years, there was no statistically significant between-group difference in global cognition change from baseline (0.42 for soy supplements, and 0.31 for placebo-treated groups).
“There were no large effects on overall cognition one way or another,” said Dr. Victor Henderson, lead author, professor of health research and policy and of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University in California.
However, women in the isoflavone-treated group had a greater improvement in visual memory (memory for faces).
This observation could be important, but “the finding needs to be replicated in future studies,” Dr. Victor Henderson said.
“For healthy postmenopausal women, long-term dietary soy isoflavone supplementation in a dose comparable to that of traditional Asian diets has no effect on global cognition but may improve visual memory,” the authors wrote.
In the same time, the study should not discourage women who take soy supplements for other purposes.
“I don’t think they should be disappointed at all. They should be pleased that there aren’t negative effects on overall cognitive function and that there are potential gains in aspects of memory. If a woman enjoys eating soy and if there may be other health benefits, she should keep doing what she’s doing,” Dr. Victor Henderson said.
More study is needed for women of reproductive age and for men because the cognitive effects of soy isoflavones might differ, he said.
Although healthy postmenopausal women appear to have no cognitive benefits from soy supplements, soy could be a good addition for some people diets.
Soy supplements contain isoflavones, an estrogen-like compound.
Isoflavones might be able to improve overall brain function, it has been thought. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory, is rich in estrogen beta receptors, and isoflavones can activate these receptors. Some women choose to take soy supplements as an alternative to estrogen.
A previous study, published in a 2004 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a trial which lasted twelve months and involved Dutch women, showed “no significant effect on cognitive endpoints” from daily intake of soy protein.
Also, there were randomized clinical trials on soy’s effect on mental abilities of women that have shown conflicting results regarding its benefits and risks. Improved cognition was seen in some findings, but other research suggested that soy could harm memory.
In the same time there were some worries that soy may increase the risk for breast cancer survivors (due to estrogen-like effects), but new research has partially eased those concerns. A study of women with history of breast cancer suggested those who took high quantities of soy supplements were 25 percent less likely to have a cancer recurrence.
Studies on this subject have generally shown conflicting findings on the role of soy in alleviating hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, as well in lowering blood pressure or in preventing osteoporosis (bone loss), or in slowing the progression of atherosclerosis, by lowering high cholesterol.
However, some people may benefit from taking soy supplements, because of soy compounds (high protein, fiber and low fat), scientists said.
Scientists have found that mosquito’s tiny, low-weight body, is the key to its ability to survive flying in the rain.
A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology filmed the insects as they collided with raindrops.
This showed that their bodies put up so little resistance that, rather than the drop of water stopping in a sudden, catastrophic splash, the mosquito simply combined with the drop and the two continued to fall together.
The team reports their findings in PNAS.
Scientists have found that mosquito's tiny, low-weight body, is the key to its ability to survive flying in the rain
As well as helping explain how the insects thrive in damp, humid environments, the research could ultimately help researchers to design tiny, flying robots that are just as impervious to the elements.
“I hope this will make people think a little bit differently about rain,” said lead researcher David Hu.
“If you’re small, it can be very dangerous. But it seems that these mosquitoes are so small that they’re safe.”
Dr. David Hu is interested in understanding completely the “tricks” that insects use to survive being so small.
After repeated attempts at what he described as the most difficult game of darts ever, he and his colleagues managed to hit flying mosquitoes with drops of water and capture footage of the result.
Each droplet was between two and 50 times the weight of a mosquito, so what they saw surprised them.
Describing the results, Dr. David Hu cited the Chinese martial art of Tai chi.
“There is a philosophy that if you don’t resist the force of your opponent, you won’t feel it,” he explained.
“That’s why they don’t feel the force; they simply join the drop, become one item and travel together.”
When a moving object crashes into another, it is the sudden halt that produces a damage-causing force. For example, when a car hits a wall at 30 mph, the stationary wall and the car have to absorb all of the energy carried by that moving car, causing a great deal of damage.
The trick for a mosquito is that it hardly slows the raindrop down at all, and absorbs very little of its energy.
Surviving the collision though, is not the end of the drama for a tiny insect. It has to escape from its watery cocoon before the droplet smashes the insect into the ground at more than 20 mph.
This is where the insect’s body, which is covered in water-repellent hairs, seems to give it another crucial survival technique.
Every mosquito studied in this experiment managed to separate itself from the water drop before it hit the ground.
Willow Glass, a new type of flexible ultra-thin glass has been unveiled by Corning, the company that developed Gorilla Glass.
Willow Glass can be “wrapped” around a device, said the New York-based developer Corning.
The glass was showcased at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week, an industry trade show in Boston.
Besides smartphones, Willow Glass could also be used for displays that are not flat, the company said.
But until such “conformable” screens appear on the market, the glass could be used for mobile devices that are constantly becoming slimmer.
“Displays become more pervasive each day and manufacturers strive to make both portable devices and larger displays thinner,” said Dipak Chowdhury, Willow Glass programme director at Corning.
Willow Glass can be "wrapped" around a device, said the New York-based developer Corning
The prototype demonstrated in Boston was as thin as a sheet of paper, and the company said that it can be made to be just 0.05 mm thick – thinner than the current 0.2 mm or 0.5 mm displays.
The firm has already started supplying customers developing new display and touch technology with samples of the product.
The material used to make Willow Glass is the result of the firm’s glassmaking process called Fusion.
The technique is melting the ingredients at 500 C, and then producing a continuous sheet that can be rolled out in a mechanism similar to a traditional printing press.
This roll-to-roll method is much easier and faster for mass production than the sheet-to-sheet process normally used to make super-thin glass, the firm said.
In future, Willow Glass may replace the already widely-used Gorilla Glass, found on many smartphones and tablets.
At this year’s CES trade show in Las Vegas, Corning unveiled Gorilla Glass 2, said to be 20% thinner than the original product but with the same strength.
The first-generation of Gorilla Glass, launched in 2007, has so far been used on more than 575 products by 33 manufacturers – covering more than half a billion devices worldwide.
It was first spotted by the Apple founder Steve Jobs, who contacted Corning when the firm was developing the screen for its first iPhone in 2006.
Willow Glass is not the first attempt to produce a futuristic flexible display.
During the past few years, scientists around the world have been working with a material called graphene, first produced in 2004 – a super-conductive form of carbon made from single-atom-thick sheets.
In a separate project, scientists from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University, Canada, and Arizona State University’s Motivational Environments Research group, created a millimetres-thick prototype flexible smartphone in 2011, made of a so-called electronic paper.
The scientists said they used the same e-ink technology as found in Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader, bonded to flex sensors and a touchscreen that interpreted drawings and text written on it.
“This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper,” said one of the researchers, Dr. Roel Vertegaal.
“You interact with it by bending it into a cell phone, flipping the corner to turn pages, or writing on it with a pen.”
Syria has decided to expel the ambassadors of several Western states, a week after governments around the world expelled its top diplomats.
The envoys of the US, UK, France and Turkey were among 17 diplomats designated “personae non gratae”.
President Bashar al-Assad blamed “foreign meddling” for Syria’s divisions in a speech on Sunday.
The move came as activists said at least seven people had been killed in violence across Syria on Tuesday.
Syria has decided to expel the ambassadors of several Western states, a week after governments around the world expelled its top diplomats
Four civilians were killed overnight in a “huge military operation” in Kafrouaid, a village in the Jabal al-Zawiya area of the northern province of Idlib, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Troops and pro-regime militiamen backed by tanks were also reported to have stormed the town of Kfar Zita in the central province of Hama, and killed two rebel fighters in the Mediterranean port city of Latakia.
Several villages south-west of the central city of Homs earlier came under intense army artillery- and mortar-fire, leaving three people dead, according to the Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist network.
Swiss researchers suggest that taking iron supplements may help some women with fatigue even if they are not officially anemic.
A severe shortage of iron is the most common cause of anemia resulting in lethargy, weakness and feeling faint.
A study of 198 women, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, showed iron pills may also help those with moderately low iron levels too.
Taking too much iron, however, can be dangerous.
Swiss researchers suggest that taking iron supplements may help some women with fatigue even if they are not officially anemic
The researchers looked at reproductive age women, between 18 and 53, as menstruation is known to lower iron levels.
They said unexplained fatigue was a common problem in doctors’ surgeries, but it was as yet unknown whether iron supplements could help these women.
Nearly 200 women reporting fatigue, with no medical explanation, took part in the study. Half were given 80 mg oral iron tablets every day, while half were given sugar pills.
Medical “fatigue scores” were recorded before treatment and after 12 weeks of taking the medication.
One of the researchers, Dr. Bernard Favrat from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, said: “We found that iron supplementation for 12 weeks decreased fatigue [scores] by 50%.
“Iron deficiency may be an under-recognized cause of fatigue in women of child-bearing age.
“For women with unexplained, prolonged fatigue, iron deficiency should be considered.”
The Queen’s Jubilee celebrations are to conclude with a glittering procession and service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Prince Philip is still in hospital with a bladder infection and will miss the final events marking the Queen’s 60-year reign.
A service at St Paul’s Cathedral will be followed by a carriage procession and, weather allowing, an RAF flypast.
Queen Elizabeth II recorded a message of thanks to the nation ahead of a star-studded concert at Buckingham Palace on Monday.
The two-minute message, filmed in her private apartments at the palace, will be broadcast at 18:00 BST on radio and television in the UK and across the Commonwealth.
Crowds have started building up outside St Paul’s and Buckingham Palace, which the Queen will leave at 10:15 BST in her state Bentley for the service.
The fourth day of celebrations will be a more formal affair, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, giving a sermon in front of the Royal Family and leading national figures.
Prime Minister David Cameron will lead the large representation from the government at St Paul’s alongside diplomats and foreign leaders.
After the service, the Queen will attend a reception at Mansion House – the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London. The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall will attend a similar event at the Guildhall.
The Queen's Jubilee celebrations are to conclude with a glittering procession and service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral
A City of London Livery companies lunch at Westminster Hall will follow, after which the royals will take part in a carriage procession through Whitehall.
Guests will dine on salmon, followed by Welsh lamb, grilled Isle of Wight asparagus, Jersey Royal potatoes and chocolate delice, bread and butter pudding and berry compote with apple sauce.
Personnel from all three armed services will line the streets for the procession, and the King’s Troop will fire a 60-gun salute.
As the royals arrive back in the forecourt of Buckingham Palace, there will be a guard of honor. They will then gather on the balcony to watch a fly-past of World War II aircraft and a display by the Red Arrows.
Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry are among the royal family members involved in the events.
Forecasters say the weather in central London will be cloudy and dry at first, with a top temperature of 14C, but there may be outbreaks of rain in the afternoon.
Prince Philip, 90, will remain under observation at King Edward VII Hospital in London, where he was taken on Monday as a “precautionary measure”.
In December, he was treated at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge for a blocked coronary artery.
At the concert on Monday night, attended by 12,000 people, Prince Charles paid tribute to his mother, describing her as “mummy” and a “very special person”.
But he added there was a disappointing edge to the night.
“The only sad thing about this evening is that my father couldn’t be with us because, unfortunately, he was taken ill,” Prince Charles said.
Take That star Gary Barlow, who helped organize much of the concert and sang a duet with Cheryl Cole, said the prince’s illness was “sad, really sad”.
Robbie Williams opened the show with Let Me Entertain You and was the first to perform for the Queen when he sang big band classic Mack the Knife. Other performers included Kylie Minogue, Jessie J, Annie Lennox, Sir Tom Jones, Madness, Stevie Wonder and Sir Cliff Richard – singing a medley of his songs from six different decades.
The concert was brought to a close by Sir Paul McCartney who played hits including Magical Mystery Tour, Let It Be and a rendition of Live and Let Die, complete with fireworks and pyrotechnics.
After the show, the Queen pressed a diamond-shaped crystal into a pod, igniting a beacon in The Mall to mark her 60 years on the throne. It was one of more than 4,000 lit across the UK and the Commonwealth.
President Vladimir Putin is beginning a three-day visit to China, with energy and foreign policy expected to dominate the agenda.
The Russian president said ahead of the trip that he wanted to further boost booming bilateral trade, which reached $84 billion last year.
The Syrian crisis is also expected to be discussed during the talks.
Russia and China have resisted Western pressure to remove President Bashar al-Assad from power amid ongoing unrest.
China’s envoy to the UN, Li Baodong, has described Syria as one of the most pressing issues on the agenda of the Security Council.
Beijing currently holds the council’s rotating presidency, and Li Baodong urged all parties to immediately implement the peace plan of UN envoy Kofi Annan.
President Vladimir Putin is beginning a three-day visit to China, with energy and foreign policy expected to dominate the agenda
Syria’s rebel Free Syrian Army said on Monday it was no longer committed to the nominal ceasefire.
Spokesman Sami al-Kurdi told Reuters news agency the FSA had begun attacking soldiers to “defend our people”.
Vladimir Putin will hold extensive talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao later on Tuesday.
The Russian leader is taking to Beijing six cabinet ministers, the head of gas giant Gazprom and other energy companies.
Some 17 major business and trade deals between Russia and China are expected to be signed in Beijing, Vladimir Putin’s aides say.
But it remains unclear whether this will include a long-awaited gas agreement that would allow Moscow to supply some 70 billion cubic metres of gas to its neighbor.
Latest reports suggest that pricing disagreements remain between Russia, the world’s biggest energy producer, and China, the largest consumer of energy.
On the eve of the visit, Vladimir Putin told China’s state media that he wanted to increase bilateral trade to $100 billion in 2015 and $200 billion by 2020.
He said the target could be achieved “ahead of schedule”.
On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin will meet Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, who is tipped to be the next premier, and Xi Jinping, who is expected to become next president after a stage-managed leadership change later this year.
While in China, Vladimir Putin will also attend a regional security summit on Thursday.
Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth in a more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22.00 GMT on Tuesday.
The transit is a very rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be witnessed again until 2117.
Observers will position themselves in northwest America, the Pacific, and East Asia to catch the whole event.
Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth in a more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22.00 GMT on Tuesday
• Times for the start of Venus transit will vary by a few minutes depending on one’s location
• The timings given here are calculated for a viewing position at the Earth’s centre
• Venus is seen to first touch (1) the edge of the Sun’s disc at 22:09 GMT (23:09 BST)
• It is completely on the disc (2) by 22:27 GMT (23:27 BST). The transit lasts over six hours
• Come Wednesday by 04:31 GMT (05:31 BST), Venus is touching the disc’s far side (3)
• At 04:49 GMT (05:49 BST), Venus has left the disc (4). The next transit is on 11 December 2117
Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth in a more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22.00 GMT on Tuesday.
The transit is a very rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be witnessed again until 2117.
Observers will position themselves in northwest America, the Pacific, and East Asia to catch the whole event.
METHOD 1: Cut two holes in card for binocular eye-pieces. Push card onto binoculars and fix with tape. Block one lens (with lens cap, for example). Holding binoculars at waist height, angle towards Sun – do not look through them. Move binoculars around until card shadow minimized on viewing surface (piece of white card best). During six-hour transit, move set-up to follow path of Sun across sky, for example by mounting it on tripod or chair.
Observing the Sun with the naked eye or telescope, camera or other optical device, will seriously damage eyesight and may lead to permanent blindness
METHOD 2: Take piece of stiff card and pierce with pin. Hold it up and, looking away from the Sun, adjust angle of card until shadow minimized. Pinhole will project image of Sun into middle of shadowed area. Place another piece of card under shadow and adjust distance to get best picture – more distance gives larger but fainter image. Hole must be clean and as small as possible.
WARNING: Never observe the Sun with the naked eye or telescope, camera or other optical device. Doing so will seriously damage eyesight and may lead to permanent blindness.
Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth in a more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22.00 GMT on Tuesday.
The transit is a very rare astronomical phenomenon that will not be witnessed again until 2117.
Observers will position themselves in northwest America, the Pacific, and East Asia to catch the whole event.
But some part of the spectacle will be visible across a much broader swathe of Earth’s surface, weather permitting.
Venus will appear as a tiny black disc against our star, but no-one should look for it without the proper equipment.
Looking directly at the Sun with the naked eye, or worse still through an open telescope or binoculars, can result in serious injury and even blindness.
It is recommended people attend an organized viewing event where the transit will be projected on to a screen; or they can visit one of the many institutional internet sites planning to stream pictures.
Venus transits occur four times in approximately 243 years; more precisely, they appear in pairs of events separated by about eight years and these pairs are separated by about 105 or 121 years.
The reason for the long intervals lies in the fact that the orbits of Venus and Earth do not lie in the same plane and a transit can only occur if both planets and the Sun are situated exactly on one line.
This has happened only seven times in the telescopic age: in 1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004.
Venus is set to move across the face of the Sun as viewed from Earth in a more than six-and-a-half-hour transit, which starts just after 22.00 GMT on Tuesday
Once the latest transit has passed, the next pair will not occur until 2117 and 2125. Most people alive today will probably be dead by then.
The phenomenon has particular historical significance. The 17th- and 18th-Century transits were used by the astronomers of the day to work out fundamental facts about the Solar System.
Employing a method of triangulation (parallax), they were able to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun – the so-called astronomical unit (AU) – which we know today to be about 149.6 million km (or 93 million miles).
This allowed scientists to get their first real handle on the scale of things beyond Earth.
The first person to predict a transit of Venus – the 6 December, 1631, event – was Johannes Kepler, but he died before it occurred.
Jeremiah Horrocks, the young English astronomer, was probably the first to record the phenomenon when he and his friend, William Crabtree, made separate observations of the passage on 24 November, 1639.
By the time the transits of 1761 and 1769 came around, they had become major scientific events. Expeditions were despatched all over the globe to get the data necessary to calculate the AU.
One such expedition was undertaken by Captain James Cook, whose epic voyage in the Endeavour took in the “new lands” of New Zealand and Australia.
Modern instrumentation now gives us very precise numbers on planetary positions and masses, as well as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. But to the early astronomers, just getting good approximate values represented a huge challenge.
This is not to say the 2012 Venus transit will be regarded as just a pretty show with no interest for scientists.
Planetary transits have key significance today because they represent one of the best methods for finding worlds orbiting distant stars.
NASA’s Kepler telescope, for example, is identifying thousands of candidates by looking for the tell-tale dips in light that accompany a planet moving in front of its host sun.
These planets are too far away to ever be visited by spacecraft, but scientists can learn something about them from the way the background star’s light is affected as it passes through the planetary atmosphere.
And observing a transiting Venus, which has a known atmospheric composition, provides a kind of benchmark to support these far-flung investigations.
But Venus itself will come in for scrutiny. Scientists will be using the event to probe the middle layers of the Venusian atmosphere – its mesosphere.
They will be looking for a very thin arc of light, called the aureole, which can only be seen when Venus appears to just touch the edge of the Sun’s disc.
The brightness and thickness of the aureole depends on the density and temperature of the atmospheric layers above Venus’s cloud tops.
Observations of the aureole will be combined with data from Europe’s Venus Express spacecraft in orbit around the planet to provide information on high-altitude winds.
The Venusian atmosphere experiences super-rotation. That is – the whole atmosphere circles the planet in four Earth days, on a body that turns around just once in 243 Earth days.
The A-list concert for Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is taking place outside Buckingham Palace.
The event kicked off with the Massed Bands of the Household Division playing for the 12,000 ticket holders and the thousands more on The Mall in London.
Pop star Robbie Williams then took to the specially-constructed stage around the Queen Victoria Memorial.
Stevie Wonder and Sir Paul McCartney are among the stars who have yet to perform before the Queen and other members of the Royal Family.
The Queen was not present for the first 90 minutes of the concert, taking her seat in the Royal Box at 21:00 BST.
The evening will end with the Queen lighting one of 4,500 beacons across the world marking her 60-year reign.
The concert is being broadcast live on BBC One and BBC Radio 2 in the UK and to millions around the world.
It is a joint venture between the BBC and Gary Barlow, who co-wrote Sing, the official song for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Stevie Wonder and Sir Paul McCartney are among the stars who have yet to perform before the Queen and other members of the Royal Family
Robbie Williams was followed on stage by Black Eyed Peas star Will.i.am, his fellow Voice judge Jessie J and boy band JLS.
Gary Barlow then took to the stage himself to perform a surprise duet with Cheryl Cole.
Next on the bill was Sir Cliff Richard, who performed a decade-straddling medley of hits and his 1968 Eurovision track Congratulations.
Singer Grace Jones surely deserved some herself for performing Slave to the Rhythm while spinning a hula hoop around her midriff.
The world of classical music has been represented by Chinese pianist Lang Lang, US soprano Renee Fleming and English tenor Alfie Boe.
Other artists who have performed include Annie Lennox, Ed Sheeran and Sir Tom Jones.
Dame Shirley Bassey performed Diamonds are Forever, while Kylie Minogue – dressed as a pearly queen – was joined by street dance crew Flawless.
She was followed by Sir Elton John, who sang such tracks as Crocodile Rock and Our Song in a sparkly pink jacket.
Later pop veterans Madness will perform Our House from the roof of Buckingham Palace – the same place that Queen guitarist Brian May played the National Anthem during the Golden Jubilee concert in 2002.
Between the music acts, hosting duties are being handled by Rob Brydon, Miranda Hart, Lenny Henry and Lee Mack.
The Duke of Edinburgh is not attending the event after being taken to hospital with a bladder infection.
“We all wish him the best for a speedy recovery,” said Sir Paul McCartney.
“I hear it’s not too bad.”
Speaking backstage, Sir Cliff Richard said he had enjoyed a “fantastic” view while performing on the £200,000 ($320,000) stage, designed by world-renowned architect Mark Fisher.
“When I looked down The Mall, the crowd seemed to go all the way up to the Admiralty Arch,” he said.
Musician and presenter Jools Holland was similarly enthused following his appearance.
“The memory I’ll have was the feeling of love off all the people,” he said.
“It’s a great unifier for everybody all over the island.”
Scientist Fusa Miyake from Nagoya University, Japan, studied the growth rings of two trees dating back 1,200 years and discovered that an explosion of epic proportions occurred between 774 and 775AD.
However, there is no record of something happening in our skies in that period – except perhaps for one tiny, obscure account by a 13th-century historian.
The problem is that there should be a record.
If this was a supernova – a star exploding deep in space – we should either be able to spot the remains with modern telescopes, or find visual accounts in the written accounts of Chinese and European historians.
To get the technical details out of the way first: Trees capture particles from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, and one particle that gets buried within the annual growth rings is carbon-14.
Carbon-14 forms when cosmic rays – generally caused by massive solar flares, or by supernovae – interact with nitrogen and oxygen in our atmosphere.
Fusa Miyake studied the growth rings of two trees dating back 1,200 years and discovered that an explosion of epic proportions occurred between 774 and 775AD
In the two cedar trees – and doubtless many other tree records from the period – there was a giant increase of 1.2% of carbon-14.
In comparison, the annual variation of the captured isotope is just 0.05%, making this more than a 20-fold increase.
In recorded history, at least two supernovae have exploded in the skies visible from Earth, their light travelling across light-years to hit the eyes of humans.
In 1006 and 1056, two stars went nuclear – at least, the light from their deaths arrived on Earth in those years.
Both explosions resulted in “stars” that were visible in the daytime for weeks afterwards, and were recorded around the world.
Yet even such giant events, which impacted on those who saw them enough that the records survive to this day, were not powerful to result in much of a variation in the carbon-14 levels.
So the 774AD explosion must have been on a scale much bigger.
But if a supernova had exploded of a force even just equal to the other two witnessed supernovae, we should be able to witness gas remnants – the corpse of the star – in space. But there is nothing in the skies to suggest this.
The only contemporaneous record is from a 13th-century English chronicler, called Roger of Wendover, who, according to New Scientist, is quoted as saying: “In the Year of our Lord 776, fiery and fearful signs were seen in the heavens after sunset; and serpents appeared in Sussex, as if they were sprung out of the ground, to the astonishment of all.”
This lends itself to just one other possibility, that of a solar flare. But if that was the case, it would be the biggest solar flare ever recorded by our sun.
And if that had occurred, it would have seriously hurt or even entirely destroyed our ozone – and at the least leaving traces that we could identify more than 1,000 years later, let alone leading to reports from all the chroniclers of the age.
Researcher Igor Moskalenko, an astrophysicist at Stanford University, California, who has followed the case but is not involved in the original study, says: “I cannot imagine a single flare which would be so bright.”
Instead, he offers his own hypothesis: “It may be a series of weaker flares over the period of one to three years.”
Other tree rings have also implied something big happened in the mid-770s, this time in the UK.
Researchers from Queen’s University Belfast, UK, also found the carbon-14 increase – but they have yet to publish their work.
Daniel Baker, a space physicist at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Boulder, Colorado also told New Scientist: “The work looks pretty solid – Some very energetic event occurred in about 775.”
Kris Humphries has been spotted on a lounger in Miami Beach with his rumored new flame, a woman who had long black hair and an hour-glass figure.
Kris Humphries, 26, and Kim Kardashian, now dating rapper/producer Kanye West, are in the middle of a contentious divorce after their blink-and-miss 72 days of marriage.
Although a bit heavier than the 31-year-old Kim Kardashian, the mystery brunette nonetheless looked very similar to her as she frolicked in a pink two-piece bikini.
The anonymous lady, who had a tattoo on her back, fussed with the bottom of her bathing suit after taking a dip in the Atlantic Ocean.
Kris Humphries has been spotted on a lounger in Miami Beach with his rumored new flame, a woman who had long black hair and an hour-glass figure
Like Kim Kardashian, the brunette knew how to accessorize. She carried a pricey Gucci hand bag and wore trendy white sandals.
Before the quickie wedding, Kris Humphries dated Bianka Kamber, a 28-year-old Canadian nurse, who was also full figured and dark haired and considered a “dead ringer” for Kim Kardashian.
Kris Humphries had met Bianka Kamber in a Toronto nightclub in 2008, but broke with her when he met and married Kim Kardashian last year.
There were rumors Kris Humphries had reconciled with Bianka Kamber after his divorce, but they seem unfounded.
Painted as a “husband from hell” by the Kardashians, Kris Humphries – unlike Kim – hasn’t been quick to join the dating pool again.
Aside from romp at the beach with the woman and some other friends, Kris Humphries has been keeping a low profile.
In fact, according to his Twitter page, he’s been home watching a lot of television.
“Watching Seinfeld until I pass out,” he tweeted on May 31.
Hours earlier, Kris Humphries wrote: “When does Season 2 of Homeland start?”
