INSURANCE

Insurance is the business of protecting the economic value of an asset. An asset is defined as something which generates income to its owner.An asset can be lost or destroyed due to various reasons: like floods, fire, riots, death, etc. They are called hazards or perils. More often than not, the loss of an asset will result in the complete ruination of the owner.Even though Insurance cannot physically protect an asset, it can compensate the economic loss arising out of an unexpected occurance of an event. Perils are therefore unexpected occurences of events and risk is the possibility of damages arising out of peril.

The damage may or may not occur, which means, when we use the word risk, there is an element of uncertainty. Insurance guards against such uncertainties, properties and people are exposed to. It therefore goes without saying that if there is no risk, there is no need for insurance. In other words, it is an element of uncertainty which creates the need for insurance. Risks cannot be prevented or avoided; so they are transferred to an insurance company. By availing insurance, the individual transfers his responsibility of continuous generation of income even in the event of his death to an insurance company.Only economic consequence can be insured. Examples of non-economic losses are love and affection, sentimental attachment and creative abilities.

One of world's most complex math problems solved by an Indian

Computer scientist Vinay Deolalikar claims to have solved maths riddle of P vs NP - one of the world's most complex and intractable mathematical problems. Deolalikar, said that he has proven that P is not equal to NP. The solution, if right, would earn him 1 million dollars as prize money. P vs NP is one of the seven millennium problems set out by the Massachusetts-based Clay Mathematical Institute as being the "most difficult" to solve. Deolalikar claims to have proven that P, which refers to problems whose solutions are easy to find and verify, is not the same as NP, which refers to problems whose solutions are almost impossible to find but easy to verify.

For instance, calculating how to accommodate 400 students in 100 university rooms. The Clay Mathematical Institute says, "To complicate matters, the Dean has provided you with a list of pairs of incompatible students, and requested that no pair from this list appear in your final choice.

"This is an example of what computer scientists call an NP-problem, since it is easy to check if a given choice of one hundred students proposed by a co-worker is satisfactory (i.e., no pair taken from your co-worker's list also appears on the list from the Dean's office), however the task of generating such a list from scratch seems to be so hard as to be completely impractical.

"Indeed, the total number of ways of choosing one hundred students from the four hundred applicants is greater than the number of atoms in the known universe. "Thus no future civilisation could ever hope to build a supercomputer capable of solving the problem by brute force; that is, by checking every possible combination of 100 students.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/one-of-worlds-most-complex-math.html

Abandon Earth or face extinction: Hawking

The human race will become extinct unless it leaves Earth and colonises space within the next two centuries, according to Prof Stephen Hawking, the world's most famous astrophysicist. In an interview with the portal 'Big Think', professor Hawking has said he's an "optimist" but the next few hundred years had to be negotiated carefully if the human race is to survive.

Professor Hawking has warned that mankind was entering "an increasingly dangerous period of our history". "Our population and use of the finite resources of planet Earth and growing exponentially along without technical ability to change the environment for good and ill. But our genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts that were a survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years let alone the next thousand or a million. Our only chance of long term survival is not to remain on Earth but to spread into space.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/abandon-earth-or-face-extinction.html

$35 Computer

India's Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has 'launched' a $35 computer. The touch-screen, Linux-based device looks iPad-inspired. It emerged from a student project with a bill of material adding up to $47, a price that the minister wants to bring down to $10 'to take forward inclusive education'. It promises browser and PDF reader, wi-fi, 2GB memory, USB, Open Office, and multimedia content viewers and interfaces. The device has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science and is named as Sakshat tablet, and is aimed to be released by 2011.

http://science-tech-update.blogspot.com/2011/04/35-computer.html

Why do we dream?

Thu, Jul 15, 2010

Scientists may have uncovered why we dream - it could be a crucial tool for sorting and filing information and discarding mental trash, says an Australian researcher. "It's a way of allowing your brain to recover and consolidate all the memories and activities of the previous day, like filing time," The Daily Telegraph quoted Prof Drew Dawson from the Centre For Sleep Research at the University of South Australia, as saying.

If we give someone a complex new task to learn and we let them sleep but don't let them dream, they're almost as bad the next day as if they didn't sleep at all. Prof Dawson said: "Your brainwaves while you're dreaming actually look very similar to your brainwaves when you are awake." This has led some scientists to theorise that dreaming is an evolutionary survival mechanism, which helps keep our brain alert. Prof Dawson said: "It might prevent you getting so deeply asleep that you would be vulnerable if you needed to wake up quickly." Brainwave tests on animals demonstrate all mammals dream, however, whether dogs and cats and other species actually have visual dreams is impossible to know.

Prof Dawson said: "It's reasonable to think they probably do, but we don't know for sure." Sleep and fatigue expert Dr Stuart Baulk believes humans were essentially paralysed when they entered dream sleep, with muscle tone changing to prevent the body moving around. Occasionally, some people experienced "sleep paralysis", where they woke and were fully conscious but still paralysed and seeing dreamlike images.

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World's first flying car

Thu, Jul 1, 2010

World's first flying car, that was caught in a legal snarl in the US, has been given the green signal. It is developed by Boston-based Terrafugia Transition. The car-cum-plane vehicle called 'the flying car' has got the waiver on its weight from the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) making it a reality.

Under FAA rules, the flying car -- categorised as a 'light sport' aircraft -- was required to be strictly under 1,320 pounds in weight. But with the addition of car safety features such as airbags, crumple zones and a safety cage, the vehicle overshot the weight-limit. Costing about $200,000, the flying car will travel up to 725 km in the air at a speed of more than 115 km per hour.

Fuelled by gasoline, it will have front-wheel drive on the road and a propeller for flight. With its wings folded, it can be parked in an ordinary car garage. It says tests have shown that the vehicle can drive, fly and switch from being a plane to a car in just 30 seconds.