SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, PUNEDECEMBER 20, 201516 TIMES TRENDSXIIXI

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Hitler only had one testicle, German historian confirms

Medical records appear to confirm that Adolf Hitler really did have only one testicle. German

historian Professor Peter Fleischmann claims to have discovered the results of a medical examination on Hitler after his arrest in 1923. The reports confirm that Hitler suffered from a birth defect known as “right-side cryptorchidism” — an undescended right testicle. The theory contradicts the belief that Hitler lost his testicle during the Battle of the Somme in the First World War, as well as contradicting his childhood doctor - who told American interrogators in 1943 that the Führer’s genitals were normal.

Nottingham named the UK’s ‘sex capital’ for students

With 1,477 users visiting daily, student dating and hook-up site, ShagAtUni.com, has revealed

Nottingham to be the UK’s ‘sex capital’ after analysing details of the university cities logging onto their website. The website said students from Nottingham didn’t appear to be too surprised when told they had been boasting on camera he had bedded a dozen students Nottingham, another said they have “heaps of parties” and “everybody gets super loose and it happens”.

It will soon be possible to regrow a lost tooth

We’re one step closer to being able to regrow a lost tooth, thanks to a new study showing it’s

possible to grow multiple teeth from a single root. These teeth can then be implanted to become fully functional. Thus far it has only been tested in rats, but it could lead to a potential revolution in human dental care.

Site offers $10,000 wedding gift to couples with a catch

The luxurious silk and tulle gown, sumptuous dinners for dozens of people and the eye-

watering florist’s bill makes a wedding an expensive affair. So, couples will likely jump at the chance to have $10,000 wiped off the bill by a US firm — but there’s a catch. Essentially inviting couples to bet on whether their marriage will last, wedding website SwanLuv will hand over the five-figure sum if the pair agree to pay all of the money back with interest if they get divorced. The website works using a cycle of money, with the $10,000 paid for by members who split up.

Andrew Griffin

Nasa has spotted a huge lightsaber cutting through space, in an area of space clouds where

new stars are born.The agency has released im-

ages of a bright, celestial light resembling the weapons wield-ed in Star Wars cutting through the darkness of space. Part of the image is obscured by a cloud of dust, but the image shows a newborn star shooting twin jets out into space, announcing its new birth to the universe.

Noting that the sight was “just in time for the release” of the film, Nasa described how the Hubble telescope had seen “what looks like a cosmic, dou-ble-bladed lightsaber”.

The vision isn’t in the “gal-axy far, far away” of Star Wars. It’s in our own Milky Way, and

was found about 1,350 light years from us.

The picture shows the light coming out of the Orion B mo-lecular cloud complex. That turbulent area of space is a kind of breeding ground for new stars, and it’s one of those that sent up the bright lightsaber into space.

The images from the Hubble telescope show superheated ma-terial spilling up and out of the star along an escape route. That material comes about because of the flattened disk that sur-rounds new stars, which then drops gas onto the protostar and causes it to engorge and then shot out its excess material across space.

Hubble was able to capture the images in infrared, which meant that it could see the bright material as it streamed through space. Nasa will hope to look in even more detail at

such jets when it launched the James Webb Space Telescope, which will have even better in-frared vision to allow it to see even more of the dust that sur-rounds stars as they form.

“Science fiction has been an inspiration to generations of scientists and engineers, and the film series Star Wars is no excep-

tion,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate ad-ministrator for the NASA Sci-ence Mission directorate. “There is no stronger case for the motivational power of real science than the discoveries that come from the Hubble Space Telescope as it unravels the mysteries of the universe.” THE INDEPENDENT

Lightsaber seen in spaceHubble Telescope spots newborn

star shooting twin jets in our galaxy that resemble the

legendary Star Wars weaponNaMo in Russia

Fun in maths

A Christmas Eve asteroid is scheduled to hurl past the Earth on Thursday. Named 2003 SD220, it was earlier thought to be about 11 to 2.40 kms long, but later estimates suggest its length to be about 2 kms. The viewing of the asteroid is possible only through a good, scientific telescope

To commemorate the 128th birth anniversary of renowned mathematician, Dr Srinivasa Ramanujan on Tuesday, CBSE has asked its schools to organise multiple activities related to mathematics. The idea is to help students to overcome the fear of mathematics by learning the subject in a fun manner

With over 400,000 drones expected to be bought in this holiday season, US’s FAA, in a bid to ensure that flyers operate them more responsibly, has made their online registration mandatory. The process will start on Monday. Drones bought earlier need to be registered within 60 days

PM Narendra Modi will take off for his first state visit to Russia on Wednesday. During his visit, vital

decisions would be made in the spheres of military and technological cooperation, nuclear

power sector as well as humanitarian ties

Eve asteroid

Flying safely

Star wars

CELESTIAL VISITOR: Star Wars’ R2-D2 attends the wedding of two fans from Australia at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles

THE FORCE AWAKENS: Nasa has released images of this celestial light inside a turbulent birthing ground for new stars known as the Orion B molecular cloud complex, 1,350 light-years away in the Milky Way

‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ will release in India on Friday. The seventh installment in the main Star Wars film series, stars

Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. It is set approx. 30 years after the events of ‘Return of the Jedi’

Rose Troup Buchanan

Women who have children in their thirties are more likely than mothers in

their twenties and forties to give birth to smarter and healthier babies, new analysis suggests.

Data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a long-running pro-gramme which tracks the devel-opment of 18,000 British children, was used to examine the impact of a mother’s age on their child.

Researchers at the London School of Economics established that children born to mothers in their thirties achieved the highest cognitive scores, outper-forming those children born to twenty-something-year-old moth-ers and just higher than mothers in their forties.

However, the research also established that women who gave birth in their forties did not play with their children as much as younger women — and their off-

spring were more prone to suffer from obesity.

“First-time mothers in their 30s are, for example, likely to be more educated, have higher incomes, are more likely to be in stable relationships, have health-ier lifestyles, seek prenatal care earlier and have planned their pregnancies,” LSE researcher Al-ice Goisis, told the Times.

Goisis, heading up the research published in the journal Biodemography and Social Biol-ogy, also said older mothers were less likely to smoke, more likely to breastfeed and more likely to read to their children.

LSE researchers did emphasise while their study included data from a large study, the number of mothers in their forties (just 53) examined meant more research was needed. The children were examined aged five. The average age of mothers in the UK has steadily risen from 24.5 in 1980 to 28.1 today. THE INDEPENDENT

Moms in their thirties more likely to have intelligent kids

THIS ICE HOTELIS HAUTEThe just-opened Swedish Ice Hotel boasts

dreamy jumping sheep tucking you into bed, a 1970s-inspired Love Capsule, and an imperial Russian-inspired theatre set, Labyrinth Saga. Annually, the hotel, that runs from December to April, takes 4,000 tons of natural ice from Sweden’s River Torne which is formed into the incredible edifice during a two-month construction

Source: Mirror | Photos: Asaf Kliger

FUR REAL: The Ice Hotel under the Arctic Skin design was put together by Rob and Timsam Harding from Spain

TRUNK CALL: A 3m tall ‘Elephant in the Room’ sculpture designed by AnnaSofia Mååg, carved from snow greets you the moment you walk in

Rose Troup Buchanan

The saying goes that horror films are blood curdling. Now, scientists believe they have

proven that the idea is true. A team of Dutch scientists set

out to discover whether being afraid can curdle the blood — an adage used since the medieval times.

As part of a study published in the British Medical Journal, re-searchers assessed the reactions of 24 healthy young adults as they were shown the horror film ‘Insidious’ as well as an educational film, ‘A Year in Champagne’. They found that the levels of protein rose significantly after watching the scary film.

On an average, there was a 11 IU/dl (International Unit/decilitre) rise in the protein factor VIII in their blood, which helps the liquid clot. Such a rise is associated with a 17% rise in the risk of venous thrombo-sis. But the evidence did not show that watching horror films could make a person’s blood clot.

Leader of the study Dr Banne Nemeth said, “The biological mech-anism of acute fear associated with an increase in coagulation activity is still to be unravelled.” THE INDEPENDENT

‘Horror films do make the blood curdle’

Times of India, Pune, December 20, 2015 Pp.16