As widely expected, Facebook has announced that it has passed the 500 million member mark.
) when we were getting started 6 years ago. I want to thank you for being part of making Facebook what it is today and for spreading it around the world.”
| Website: | facebook.com |
| Location: | Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Founded: | February 1, 2004 |
| Funding: | $836M |
Hot on the heels of the Coca-Cola Facebook scam, which promised to reveal the “truth” about Coca-Cola (but in reality simply aimed to get a hold of your personal info), are two more spreading via Facebook status updates.
 LONDON: A new ice cream van with tasty treats specifically for canines will have man's best friend howling with delight.Instead of offering the traditional vanilla whip cones topped with a flake, these frozen feasts contain gammon and chicken ice cream - complete with a crunchy canine biscuit bone. A team of scientists investigated the perfect combination of temperature, texture and taste, ensuring the treats would be delicious to dogs and completely safe. They came up with two flavours - 'dog eat hog world' - a gammon and chicken sorbet topped with a biscuit and served in a cone - and 'canine cookie crunch' - a combination of mixed dog biscuits and ice cream. The K99 van can be found in parks this summer and, rather than the traditional chimes, the van will be playing the theme tune to Scooby Doo. It makes its debut appearance at The Boomerang Pets Party in Regents Park, London, on Saturday. Spokesperson for The Boomerang Pets Party Sally Bezant said: 'Every year Brits consume an average of around 50 ice creams per person, with the majority of these eaten in the summer months. 'All the while, man's best friend has to make do with a bowl of water to cool down. And, with 10.5 million dogs in the UK, that's a lot of pets missing out.' 'With this is mind, The Boomerang Pets Party decided to take action and bring an ice cream to the dogs of Britain.' Head chef behind the K99's recipes Ceric Nale said: 'When it came to designing the recipes for the K99s, we wanted to make sure we had the most exciting flavour and texture combinations. 'After a lot of research, a gammon and chicken ice cream and a mixed dog biscuit ice cream were the clear winners, and we hope they'll be flavours dogs simply can't refuse.' Early results show that dogs have a big appetite for the novelty treats. The ice creams are available for a 99p donation to Berkshire Search and Rescue Dogs. |
 OTTAWA: First came BMI. Now comes hypertriglyceridemic waist -- a cheap and simple way to identify people at increased risk of heart attack due to excess abdominal fat, even if they do not look obese.In a study published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, researchers from Quebec City's Laval University are reporting that a large waistline and high triglycerides -- a type of blood fat -- substantially increase the risk of coronary artery disease in both men and women. Obesity has long been linked with a litany of health problems, but not every obese person has the same "metabolic abnormalities" associated with excess body fat, according to the research team -- a collaboration between investigators from Laval and scientists from the Netherlands and the U.K. When it comes to diabetes and cardiovascular disease, what matters most is abdominal fat. Abdominal, or "visceral" fat, is a deep layer of fat that wraps around internal organs, distinct from the subcutaneous fat just beneath the skin that you can pinch with your fingers. "In some people, the abdominal cavity is loaded with this visceral fat. But very obese patients could have a lot of total body fat without necessarily being abdominally obese," says Jean-Pierre Despres, director of research in cardiology at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute and professor in the faculty of medicine at Laval. Even waist circumference alone doesn't tell the entire story, because it doesn't distinguish between how much of the fat is visceral and how much is subcutaneous. Despres and his colleagues discovered a decade ago that people with excess visceral fat have elevated blood levels of triglyceride. The term "hypertriglyceridemic-waist phenotype" was born. The researchers thought it could be a useful and inexpensive way to screen people at risk of coronary artery disease and Type 2 diabetes. They looked at a group of 21,787 men and women, age 45 to 79, living in Norfolk, U.K., who are participating in a large study investigating cancer and nutrition. After an average of nearly 10 years of followup, 2,109 developed coronary artery disease. The rather unwieldy "hypertriglyceridemic-waist phenotype" is defined as a waist circumference of 90 centimetres or more, and a triglyceride level of 2.0 millimoles per litre of blood or more in men, and a waist circumference of 85 centimetres or more, and a triglyceride level of 1.5 mmol/L or more in women. In both men and women, a large waist circumference or elevated triglycerides increased the risk of developing heart disease. But the combination of the two was associated with the highest risk for both sexes. Among men, those with a hypertriglyceridemic waist had a 2.4-fold increased risk of developing coronary artery disease over the followup period, compared with men without the "phenotype." For women with the unhealthy high-waist-high-blood-fat combination, their risks for heart disease increased nearly fourfold. When the researchers controlled for smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and other more traditional risk factors, the risks for men increased by 28 per cent, and by 67 per cent for women. Despres said it doesn't take expensive testing to identify those at risk -- just a tape measure and a standard lipid test. A lipid test measures total cholesterol. It also measures the amount of fat in the blood -- triglycerides -- but Despres says doctors aren't trained to pay attention to triglyceride levels unless they're quite high. "We suggest that moderately elevated triglyceride levels, when combined with an elevated waistline, predicts excess visceral fat and heart disease," he said. Visceral fat cells flood the bloodstream with free fatty acids, which travel to the liver. "Impaired liver function due to liver fat accumulation is becoming a big, big issue in North America. And the liver is key here," Despres said. A liver loaded with fat is a "dysfunctional liver," he said, "releasing a lot of glucose in the blood -- increasing your risk of diabetes -- and a lot of triglycerides, leading to a lipid profile that will increase the risk of heart disease." Excess visceral fat also increases substances that contribute to inflammation in the body, increasing the risk of heart disease, he said. |
| Chopra researches for 'Silence' role |
 MUMBAI: Priyanka Chopra has reportedly planned to spend some time in a mental hospital while researching for a movie role.The actress, who is to play a mentally ill woman in Silence, is apparently visiting a number of institutions so that she can learn more about the disability she is portraying. "The film has already signed another leading heroine Katrina Kaif hence Priyanka was hesitant to take up the movie. However, after going through the script, Priyanka realised the importance of her character in the film and signed it. "She has preparing been for the role and is planning to visit some institutions," a source revealed. Chopra added: "I will start shooting for Anurag [Basu]'s Silence in January 2011 after completing Don 2. I am preparing for my role. I need to undergo training to perform the role perfectly. I am happy to get such a challenging role, which many of my age do not get." |
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 KARACHI: There will be not shortage of sugar in the country in next three months, Chairman Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Iskander Khan said.Talking to Geo News, Iskander Khan said sugar mills have seven to eight lac tonnes of sugar in stock. However, government should take timely measures for uninterrupted supply of sugar after three months. Sugar mill owners will help government in this connection. He said the import price of sugar is more than Rs.70/kg whereas sale of sugar at Rs.61/kg is not possible in ramzan. He denied the reports that sugar price will be reach to Rs.100/kg in ramzan. |
 LONDON: The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan led to a huge surge in the terrorist threat to the United Kingdom, the former head of MI5 said.Giving evidence to the official inquiry into the war, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the service struggled to cope with the number of plots in the aftermath of the invasion in 2003. She added: “Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a whole generation of young people not a whole generation, a few among a generation who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam.” She said many UK-born individuals were attracted to the ideology of al Qaeda after the invasion and added that the number of Britons who became involved in terrorist plots took MI5 by surprise. Manningham-Buller said the toppling of Saddam Hussein had enabled al Qaeda to establish a foothold in Iraq which it had never managed before. Manningham-Buller said there was clear evidence that Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war was a motivating factor in terrorist attacks on the UK. Manningham-Buller said MI5 was given a budget increase after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US and again in 2002, but still needed far greater resources as a result of the Iraq invasion. She suggested that the threat to the UK might have been reduced if there had been better plans for post-invasion Iraq. |
LAHORE: At least 19 people lost their lives in rain-related accidents, as driving rains are in progress in various parts of the country, Geo News reported Wednesday.
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KARACHI: The Meteorological office predicted cloudy weather for metropolis during next 24 hours whereas temperature lies between 33 C to 35 C. 
