Your smile is in your genes!

Interesting! http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061016/full/061016-2.html

Trust-Mart to Wal-Mart and The New Chinese Consumer

One billion, three hundred million customers: It's a number that has captured the attention of every company in the world that wants to do business in China. Indeed, it’s world's largest consumer market. But the question is: Who are these consumers? How much money do they have? What do they want to buy? What motivates their purchases? What are the peculiarities of the Chinese consumer? China is home to 1.3 billion people, but only about 400 million are in urban areas. In urban areas, incomes have been growing at the same rate as GDP -- about 10% annually, adjusted for inflation -- in recent years, while incomes of rural people rise only 1% a year(Wharton Publication). Middle Class growth is driving factor for companies investing in China. Wealthier people are becoming richer and poor people are not getting poorer. More and more people are entering into lucrative middle class range. Middle-class and affluent consumers spend much of their discretionary income on items that will help them rise in stature compared to their neighbors. For these consumer Brands are important.

Will the resent news ofWal -Mart acquiring Trust-Mart in china help Wal-Mart? I doubt! Companies that will benefit most of this consumer boom would be Brand names like Proctor and Gamble, Starbucks, McDonald's etc. In Retail market space, Best Buy and Toys ‘R’ Us could be potential winner. Buying Trust-Mart may not make much difference to Wal-Mart situation.

It all came down to Lawyers

Is AMD inferior to Intel? Yes it is. Not technologically, but in business and marketing. AMD is been around for some time now. Many still think that AMD is inferior technology then Intel. Well, that not true at all. Infect AMD is tough competitor to Intel, and have slightly superior technologically. Techies have done fantastic job at AMD, but poor marketing team could not still convince people about their superior technology.

Intel is playing all kind of tricks so that big personal PC vendors all over the world produce PCs with only Intel chips. They give huge discounts to such vendors. Recently Gateway switched to all Intel like Dell. It’s all because of failure of AMD marketing. AMD could not create market for its products.

AMD has better technology and economical, but still very few wants to buy their chips. What else can be said about incompetent AMD management? Since they could not market there product well, they turned to Lawyers for help. Nine-ten men and women wearing black robes will decide fate of AMD. Funny!!!

Remember the days when Netscape and Microsoft (IE) war was going on? Netscape won the court case but Microsoft won the war.

Sad part is that tons of money will go in fat wallet of these lawyers, instead of better chip research.

Super Humans : What created them?

Do you wonder why some people have HIV virus in their blood but do not get AIDS? Key is having delta-32 mutation, a genetic mutation that is passed to their children. Mutation in general refers to malfunction of gene. But sometimes this malfunction is good. As in the case with delta-32 mutation. History goes to epidemic in Europe (1347-1350) known as Black Death (Bubonic plague or some other virus). Almost one quarter of people died and it’s believed to have modified European gene pool. Higher number of survivors developed a mutation called delta-32 (CCR5-delta 32 mutation) and their children still carry it today. An estimated 10-12% of European white population have this mutation and are immune to HIV.

Both Plague and HIV target same cells in human body (WBC) and uses same channel to enter the cell. Delta 32 mutation prevents pathogens to enter into host cells and human with this mutation became immune to AIDS, even though HIV is present in the body. Recent studies have shown that these people are also resistant to smallpox as well. Indeed they are super humans in this regard. But be careful, these super human can still pass on HIV to others.

Some people still not convinced that Black Death was because of Bubonic plague. (http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521801508) . If it was indeed plague, how it spread so quickly? On an average 2 miles a day. Observers at the time, do not mention rat’s at all. Was it something else? Some kind of Virus? Medieval descriptions of the Black Death - where dark spots appear in the skin - sound more like viral hemorrhagic fever, similar to modern day Ebola. Evidence comes from village of Eyam (in England), where Black Death suddenly struck this tiny village in September 1665. The town's rector persuaded the villagers to quarantine themselves to prevent the disease from spreading through the region. During the period of isolation, food was left for the villagers at a well on the parish boundary high up on the hill above the village, and paid for by coins which were dipped in vinegar to disinfect them. It seemed to work, because none of the surrounding areas were affected by the Black Death. Unfortunately there were no blood tests in those days to prove what caused the Black Death. In 1996 studies by NIH shows high number of deta-32 mutation in descendents of Eyam. According to Duncan and Scott(University of Liverpool) viral haemorrhagic fever in Europe caused Black Death.

A Wish

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls; ...
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit; ...
Into that heaven of freedom,
my Father, let my country awake.

-- Tagore Rabindranath in Gitanjali