Woman made to parade naked for not working well in Pakistan
Lahore: A 28-year-old pregnant Christian woman in Pakistan was allegedly paraded naked for not working up to the expectation of her employer. The victim is a resident of Christian Colony Rana Town of Sheikhupura district in Punjab Province. She worked as a maid.
The victim claimed that she was made to walk naked for about half an hour for not up to the expectations of her employer. She said her employer’s son dragged her outside and tore her clothes with his four friends.
She said the culprits left her naked in the corner of the street where an elderly woman gave her clothes. She was later shifted to hospital by her relatives.
Flanked by her husband and other Christian leaders, the mother of four, said: “I was two-month pregnant and I lost my baby in the incident. Police are not arresting the accused. I will commit suicide if I am not given justice,” she warned.
Her husband said the police had registered a case against the accused after medical report confirmed five injuries of his wife. However, the police had refused to include Anti-Terrorism Act charges in the FIR as demanded by the victim. An FIR has been registered against Mobin Gondal and his four accomplices under various sections of Pakistan Penal Code, Station House Officer Rana Town Muhammad Khan told PTI. “We are investigating the claim of the complainant that his wife was paraded naked by the accused,” Khan said, adding the police is trying to arrest the culprits. Christian leader and Human Liberation Front head Aslam Sahotra warned the community would hold demonstrations across the province if the accused were not arrested. (PTI)
Rare first Shakespeare edition found in French library
Lille: A copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio, the first-ever compilation of the Bard’s plays published in 1623, has been discovered in the library of a small town in northern France, a librarian said on Wednesday.
One of the most valuable and coveted books in the world, the First Folio was uncovered when librarian Remy Cordonnier dusted off a book of Shakespeare’s works dating to the 18th century for an exhibition on English literature in the town of Saint-Omer near Calais. “It occurred to me that it could be an unidentified First Folio, with historic importance and great intellectual value,” he told AFP.
The copy of the book, which was published seven years after Shakespeare’s death, was authenticated on Saturday by First Folio expert Eric Rasmussen from the University of Nevada. “It is the 231st copy found in the world and the second in France,” said Cordonnier. The book, a compilation of 36 of Shakespeare’s plays, is in good condition but missing about 30 pages, including the title page, which could explain how it went unnoticed for centuries. Rasmussen wrote a book on the First Folio called “The Shakespeare Thefts” detailing his thrilling global hunt for what remains of the initial 750 copies of the book, a favourite for thieves across the centuries.
He describes “run-ins with heavily tattooed criminal street gangs in Tokyo, bizarre visits with eccentric, reclusive billionaires, and intense battles of wills with secretive librarians,” according to the publisher. Rasmussen’s book speaks of several First Folios which have had pages ripped out of them, and one with a bullet lodged in it. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, which houses the largest collection of Shakespeare material, says on its website that the First Folio is the only source for 18 of Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth, “which would otherwise be lost.” (AFP)
Kind of `bad behaviour’ that annoys most people revealed
London: A new survey has revealed few of the bad behaviours or habits with “using a disabled parking space without holding a blue badge” topping the list, which irritates people. Research by the Charities Aid Foundation found that failing to give up a train or bus seat for a pregnant or elderly fellow passenger is next on the list, the Daily Express reported.
Drivers who use a family parking space at the supermarket when they don’t have children also annoys people following with people jumping queues or walking past a mother carrying a pushchair up steps. The survey of 2,000 adults found most people are less than fond of those who wear headphones but play music so loudly through them that all those around them are forced to listen in. Drivers who use a family parking space at the supermarket when they don’t have children also make people infuriated along with people who press the buttons to make lift doors close quickly.
An act of rudeness that may apply most to students is eating someone else’s food from the fridge. Commuters resent those who plonk bags down on the seat beside them on a train then have to be asked to shift them to let others sit. While shoppers recognise what bad manners it is to chat away on a mobile phone while at a supermarket checkout. The poll was conducted ahead of “Giving Tuesday,” a global day which aims to encourage behaviour that is the opposite of bad manners. (ANI)
Astronauts’ poo can now be converted into fuel in space!
Washington: Indian-origin researchers have developed a new method that allows human waste in space to be converted into fuel that can be used to send future NASA spacecraft from the Moon back to Earth.
The process could also have applications on Earth, according to Pratap Pullammanappallil, a University of Florida associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “It could be used on campus or around town, or anywhere, to convert waste into fuel,” Pullammanappallil said. In 2006, NASA began making plans to build an inhabited facility on the Moon’s surface between 2019 and 2024.
As part of NASA’s Moon-base goal, the agency wanted to reduce the weight of spacecraft retuning to Earth. Waste generated during spaceflight is stored in containers until it’s loaded into space cargo vehicles that burn as they pass back through Earth’s atmosphere. For future long-term missions, though, it would be impractical to bring all the stored waste back to Earth.
Dumping it on the Moon’s surface is not an option, so the space agency entered into an agreement with UF for ideas. Pullammanappallil and then-graduate student Abhishek Dhoble accepted the challenge. “We were trying to find out how much methane can be produced from uneaten food, food packaging and human waste,” said Pullammanappallil.
“The idea was to see whether we could make enough fuel to launch rockets and not carry all the fuel and its weight from Earth for the return journey. Methane can be used to fuel the rockets. Enough methane can be produced to come back from the Moon,” he said. NASA started by supplying the UF scientists with a packaged form of chemically produced human waste that also included simulated food waste and packaging materials, Pullammanappallil said. He and Dhoble, now a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, ran laboratory tests to find out how much methane could be produced from the waste and how quickly. (PTI)
New method can turn sawdust into petrol
London: Your car may soon run on sawdust! Researchers have successfully converted sawdust into building blocks for petrol. Scientists at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium used a new chemical process to convert the cellulose in sawdust into hydrocarbon chains. These hydrocarbons can be used as an additive in gasoline, or as a component in plastics, researchers said. Cellulose is the main substance in plant matter and is present in all non-edible plant parts of wood, straw, grass, cotton and old paper. “At the molecular level, cellulose contains strong carbon chains. We sought to conserve these chains, but drop the oxygen bonded to them, which is undesirable in high-grade gasoline,” said Professor Bert Sels. The new method to derive these hydrocarbon chains from cellulose was developed by researcher Beau Op de Beeck. “This is a new type of bio-refining, and we currently have a patent pending for it.
We have also built a chemical reactor in our lab: we feed sawdust collected from a sawmill into the reactor and add a catalyst – a substance that sets off and speeds the chemical reaction,” said Dr Bert Lagrain. “With the right temperature and pressure, it takes about half a day to convert the cellulose in the wood shavings into saturated hydrocarbon chains, or alkanes,” Lagrain said. “Essentially, the method allows us to make a ‘petrochemical’ product using biomass – thus bridging the worlds of bio-economics and petro chemistry,” he added. (PTI)
The result is an intermediary product that requires one last simple step to become fully-distilled gasoline, said Sels. “Our product offers an intermediate solution for as long as our automobiles run on liquid gasoline. It can be used as a green additive – a replacement for a portion of traditionally-refined gasoline,” Sels said. “The green hydrocarbon can also be used in the production of ethylene, propylene and benzene – the building blocks for plastic, rubber, insulation foam, nylon, coatings and so forth,” Sels added. The research is published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science. PTI RCL AKJ RCL 11261220