Jail term, lashes for five Saudi men celebrating Valentine’s Day
A criminal court in Saudi Arabia has reportedly sentenced five Saudi men to various jail terms and public lashes for drinking and partying on Valentine’s Day.
While two of the five defendants were sentenced to ten years in prison and 2,000 lashes to be given in 20 parts in front of Al Nafoora market, two other defendants were handed seven years in prison and 1,500 public lashes each over 15 parts, the Gulf News reported. The fifth defendant was sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 public lashes.
The men were arrested alongside six women in a rented house in the city of Burayda, the capital of Al Qassim region in north central Saudi Arabia.
Smuggled bottles of alcohol, red roses, candles and heart-shaped items were seized during the raid by member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
The men, who admitted to charges of dancing, illicit relations with unrelated women and celebrating Valentine’s Day, will be barred from leaving the country for five years after serving their sentences in prison, the report added.
Meanwhile, the fate of the six women arrested during the raid is yet to be decided. (ANI)
Now, read comics etched on a strand of human hair
You sure must have got your name inked on a grain of rice at a tourist spot. But did you see anybody writing your name on a strand of hair?
Forget name, a team of artists and scientists has etched the world’s smallest comic strip on a single human hair.
Titled Juana Knits The Planet, the strip was created by German artist Claudia Puhlfurst then carved into the hair using a process called focused ion beam (FIB) etching.
This is part of the promotion of the upcoming Exceptional Hardware Software Meeting (EHSM) in Hamburg, Germany.
“A very sharp and high-speed jet of matter is produced and directed towards the hair to etch it – similar to a fine laser beam,” according to the project’s YouTube page.
Juanita, a ten micron-tall girl-turned-robot, is the star of Juanita Knits the Planet, the world’s smallest comic strip.
Each of the strip’s 12 frames measure in at around 25 microns.
A micron is one millionth of a metre. A typical human hair is anywhere from 20 to 200 microns in width, Discovery News reported. (IANS)
Selfies turning into dangerous addiction among teenagers?
Are selfies turning into an obsession too dangerous for teenagers to cope with? If we believe experts, adding social media to the already prevalent peer pressure is only increasing the pressure further up.
The use of social media can be a great way for teenagers to relate to their peers and to express themselves but “excessive internet use can have serious negative consequences,” Karrie Lager, a Los Angeles-based child psychologist, was quoted as saying.
In a recent survey published by CASA Columbia, a science-based organisation, researchers explored the relationship between teenagers, social media use and drug abuse.
The researchers found that 70 percent of the teenagers aged from 12 to 17 spend time on a social media site in a typical day, which amounts to 17 million teenage users.
Those that interact via social media on a daily basis are five times likelier to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol and twice as likely to use marijuana.
Forty per cent of these teenagers admitted to having seen pictures of people under the influence, and are four times likelier to use marijuana than those who have not scrolled through these images, a report in the Huffington Post said.
In another study by Harvard University’s psychology department, researchers found that self-disclosure was strongly associated with increased activation in brain regions.
“Rewards were magnified when participants knew that their thoughts would be communicated to another person,” the researchers noted.
Experts, however, clarify that additional research needs to be done before defining “social media addiction” as a distinct diagnosis. (IANS)
Extravagant demands of WC teams puzzles hoteliers
Brazilian hoteliers have reportedly been surprised by the ‘curious’ requirements of some of the 32 national teams participating in this summer’s FIFA World Cup. The cosseted footballers have reportedly sent a list of some of the weirdest demands to their hotels in Brazil ahead of the World Cup, which is due to start next month, and the hotels in 27 cities across nine states are experiencing an intense flurry of activity as they apply the final touches to some costly preparations.
According to the Independent, the Germans preparations are the most extravagant as their delegation has built its own training facility in the scenic village of Santo André in Bahia, and the headquarters for coach Joachim Low’s team is a gated community with 13 houses, 65 rooms, a football field and press centre.
Moreover, the French football federation has reportedly reserved all the rooms in the JP Hotel in Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo, and demanded that every player’s room is identical, down to the colour of the paint, and insisted that the bathrooms have two types of liquid soap, one for showering and the other to wash hands.
Meanwhile, Roy Hodgson’s England squad has made the fewest demands, requesting only to set aside one of Royal Tulip Hotel’s three restaurants for their exclusive use, give the footballers a dedicated video games room with three TVs and latest games and the sole use of gym and swimming pool for just several hours every day, the report added.
With all the other extravagant demands including the Algerians request for Koran by their bedside, the Uruguayans request for silent air-conditioning to ensure their players have a ‘peaceful and quiet environment’ and Ecuador’s request for daily deliveries of their local banana varieties; Brazil is busy with the preparations of the exclusive event that kicksoff next month, the report added. (ANI)
How to avoid losing your smart phone
Crooks aren’t to blame for most smart phones that go missing, but owners are, a new survey has revealed.
A staggering 70 per cent of people have lost a cell phone or other mobile device, according to a global study by Mozy, a Seattle data-protection firm. Only 18 per cent of those gadgets were reported stolen.
You can’t predict where or when you’ll lose a phone, but there are peak periods, according to Mozy: Commuter hours—8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.—are peak times. July and December are peak months. And Fridays and Saturdays are peak days, the Huffington Post reported. (ANI)