Pakistan test-fires MRBM Hatf V (Ghauri)

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan today successfully conducted the training launch of Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM)Hatf V (Ghauri).

The launch was conducted by a Strategic Missile Group of the Army Strategic Force Command on the culmination of a field training exercise that was aimed at testing the operational readiness of the Army Strategic Force Command.

Ghauri ballistic missile is a liquid fuel missile which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads over a distance of 1300 kms.

The test monitoring of the launch was conducted at the National Command Centre through the medium of National Command Authority’s fully automated Strategic Command and Control Support System (SCCSS).

It may be recalled that the SCCSS enables robust Command and Control capability of all strategic assets with round the clock situational awareness in a digitized network centric environment to decision makers at the National Command Centre (NCC).

The test consolidates and strengthens Pakistan’s deterrence capability, and national security.

The President and Prime Minister congratulated all ranks of the Army Strategic Force Command on the excellent standard achieved during training which was reflected in the proficient handling of the weapon system in the field and the accuracy of the training launch

Felix Baumgartner, the man who fell to Earth

SIXTY-five years ago, Charles "Chuck" Yeager became the first man to break the sound barrier, in an experimental rocket plane.
Yesterday, on the anniversary of that supersonic breakthrough, an Austrian stuntman did basically the same thing - but without the plane.
As the amber of a desert sunrise faded to azure blue over New Mexico, Felix Baumgartner, a professional daredevil, strapped himself to a 50-storey-high balloon that would take him to the edge of space.
Hours later, he emerged from his capsule. He took a moment to survey the view the curvature of the earth, the patterns of continental weather systems. And then, from 128,097ft, or more than 38km up, he jumped into the record books.

Over the next few moments he demonstrated that a man in a $US200,000 pressurised suit can plunge through the stratosphere, accelerate to 1136km, free-fall for more than four minutes and live to tell the tale, speaking at a press conference. Preliminary readings also suggested that he had become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier.
As he fell through a near-vacuum, his handlers at mission control urged him to talk to them. It seemed, however, that Mr Baumgartner was left as speechless as his Earth-bound spectators. His silence was frightening: leading up to the attempt, he had battled panic attacks caused by bouts of claustrophobia in his suit. Ultimately, however, he achieved a set of landmarks unlikely to be outdone for generations. The previous free-fall record, of 102,800ft, had been set by Joe Kittinger, a US Air Force test pilot, at the dawn of the space age in 1960.
Mr Baumgartner, 43, accelerated from 0 to 1126kmh in less than 40 seconds, but at first he had no sense of motion. Mr Kittinger, 84, who acted as his mentor, described the sensation of jumping at such monumental, nearly airless altitudes as akin to "a state of suspended animation. No [sense of] acceleration, no movement, no noise, nothing. It was absolutely quiet, absolutely still, and absolutely horrifying".
As the air density increased closer to Earth, Mr Baumgartner slowed and stopped spinning, bringing forth cheers from his back-up team. He deployed his parachute at about 5000ft. Minutes later, he performed a perfect landing, triggering yet more applause. He had broken three records: the highest manned balloon flight; the highest altitude from which a man had free-fallen; the first supersonic free-fall.
The feat was truly death-defying. If his suit had malfunctioned, his blood might have boiled while millions watched on the internet. In short, for Red Bull, the drinks company that funded the venture, it was going to be one of the best, or worst, marketing stunts in history.
The day began with a series of nervous pre-dawn conferences between engineers, doctors and pilots responsible for avoiding disaster. Ultimately, the ascent included just one heart-stopping glitch, when a problem with Mr Baumgartner's visor risked aborting the mission.
"This is very serious," he told his handlers at mission control as he travelled upwards at close to 160kmh. "Sometimes it's getting foggy when I exhale."
For several agonising seconds, the technicians at mission control sat silent. At the request of Mr Kittinger, an audio feed from the capsule was shut off. Mr Baumgartner's mother, who had wept as her son ascended, was powerless to do anything but pray.
Then a small army of technicians scrambled to trouble-shoot the problem. When the time came, it was Mr Kittinger who talked "Fearless Felix" through the jump's final stages.
"Stand up on the exterior step but be sure to duck your head down as you go out that door," he said as his protege prepared to leap. As he paused on the ledge, Mr Kittinger added: "The rest is yours."
The jump organisers hoped to test whether parachuting from immense heights could prove a viable means of escape for the nascent commercial space industry. Those parsing the biometric data gathered during the mission included the US Air Force and Nasa. It was clear, however, that the objectives went beyond scientific discovery.
The mission was filmed by 20 cameras and generated global excitement, forcing the organisers to rebut claims that the primary objective was publicity. "This is a flight test programme, not a stunt," said Art Thompson, the project's technical director.
In Roswell, a flat dusty town best known as the site of a rumoured UFO landing in 1947, conditions had to be perfect. Last Tuesday, a gust of wind had twisted the giant balloon; the mission was abandoned and $US70,000 of helium was lost. The mission was left with just one back-up balloon. The hiatus that followed helped to highlight the scale of a stunt that was first dreamt of seven years ago. The balloon was the largest to have carried a man. The plastic from which it was made was a tenth of the thickness of a sandwich bag.
Mr Baumgartner, a former military parachutist who lives in Switzerland, was famous. In 2003, he became the first person to skydive across the English Channel. He also holds the record for the lowest base jump, 95ft, from the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. He plans to settle down to a quiet life - as a rescue helicopter pilot.

Pills to prevent HIV raise questions

 

NEW YORK: Various trials examining the use of anti-retroviral drugs in healthy heterosexuals as a way to prevent HIV have shown drastically different results, research showed.

The findings of three major studies in Africa, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, raise many questions about which groups would likely benefit and how to manage such treatments in the future, doctors said.

The approach is known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, in which healthy people take antiretroviral drugs -- the kind used to treat people with HIV -- in order to prevent getting the virus during sex with HIV-infected partners.

One study detailed in the journal which included heterosexual couples -- each with one HIV-positive partner, one HIV-negative -- showed a 67 to 75 percent reduced risk of getting HIV among uninfected partners taking the drugs.

The study, known as Partners PrEP, ran from 2008 to 2010 in Kenya and Uganda and included more than 4,700 couples. It randomly assigned the HIV-negative partners to once-daily tenofovir, a combination of tenofovir-emtricitabine, or a placebo.

Both treatments showed "significant" and a "similar magnitude" of protection for both men and women, the study said.

Adherence to the drug regimen was also high in this study, with 82 percent of samples from randomly selected participants showing detectable drug levels, and study authors estimating an overall 92 percent adherence rate.

Another study detailed in the journal however was stopped early in April 2011 because the group receiving the drug did not show any better level of protection than the group taking the sugar pill.

That study, known as FEM-PrEP, was a randomized trial of 2,120 women in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania.

Thirty-three women taking the drug became infected with HIV, compared to 35 taking the placebo.

The study also showed a much lower rate of adherence to the medication regimen (40 percent) and a much higher rate of reported side effects such as nausea, vomiting and kidney or liver abnormalities.

Since many of the women in the study reported viewing themselves at low-risk for acquiring HIV, this may have contributed to their failure to take the drug regularly, the study authors said.

A third study, called TDF-2, enrolled 1,219 men and women in Botswana, and showed that pre-exposure prophylaxis had an efficacy rate of about 62 percent in sexually active heterosexual adults.

Previous studies on men who have sex with men have shown that the approach could reduce transmission of HIV by 44 percent overall, though much higher success rates were seen in men who took the pills most regularly.

"Why the results differ across the various studies reported to date is unclear," said an accompanying editorial by Myron Cohen from the University of North Carolina and Lindsey Baden of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Learning more through future study is important because PrEP is increasingly being seen as a part of an integrated HIV prevention approach, they wrote.

Also, an advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration earlier this year recommended approving the first ever pill for HIV prevention. A decision is expected in September.

Therefore, doctors need to consider how to manage such an approach with patients, the authors said.

Questions to consider include which populations are best suited, when to start and stop treatment, how to avoid the risk of drug resistance, what long-term side effects may include, and how to make sure the treatment does not encourage risky behavior such as unprotected sex.

"Concern about the management of pre-exposure prophylaxis of HIV infection should not detract from the potential importance of the intervention," Cohen and Baden wrote.

"The health care provider who recommends pre-exposure prophylaxis needs a management plan that recognizes the effects of the intervention on the patient's sexual behavior, safety and well-being as well as the ramifications of the intervention for the health of the public."\

Internet doomsday virus fizzles out

WASHINGTON: The so-called Internet doomsday virus with the potential to black out tens of thousands of computers worldwide appeared to pose no major problems Monday after a temporary fix expired.

Security firms reported no significant outages linked to the DNS Changer virus, as many Internet service providers have either implemented a fix or contacted customers with steps to clean their computers.

The problem stems from malware known as DNS Changer, which was created by cybercriminals to redirect Internet traffic by hijacking the domain name systems (DNS) of Web browsers.

The ring behind the DNS Changer was shut down last year by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Estonian police and other law enforcement agencies, after infecting some four million computers worldwide.

Some 210,000 computers worldwide remained infected as of Sunday, including more than 41,000 in the United States, according to a working group monitoring the problem.

On Monday, temporary servers set up by the FBI to direct Internet traffic normally, even for infected computers, were shut down.

But security specialists said most Internet users and providers have had time to work around or fix the problem.

"Although it's not completely over, I think we can count case DNS Changer as a success story, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at the Finland-based firm F-Secure, in a Twitter message.

"Many global operators are keeping their DNS Changer victims online, even after FBI stopped," he said in a separate tweet.

Johannes Ullrich of the SANS Security Institute said that for computers running Windows, the computer "may actually revert to the default settings once the DNS server is turned off."

He added, that "if you used the bad DNS server, chances are that various entities tried to notify you. Google for example should have shown you a banner."

Additionally, Ullrich said the malware is "old enough where antivirus, if you run any, should have signatures for it."

Six Estonians and a Russian were charged in Estonia in November with infecting computers, including NASA machines, with the malware as part of an online advertising scam that reaped at least $14 million.

Because the virus controlled so much Internet traffic, authorities obtained a court order to allow the FBI to operate replacement servers until July 9.

The FBI, as well as Facebook, Google, Internet service providers and security firms have been scrambling to warn users about the problem and direct them to fixes.

FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said the temporary servers were indeed halted and that the agency had no reports of outages.

"I'm not aware of any problems," she told AFP.

"If members of the public are not able to use their Internet they should contact their Internet service providers."

The working group website said traffic directed to the servers that were under temporary control "will be monitored by several service providers and security organizations to insure they are not maliciously hijacked."

Experts said that if a computer is infected, they could still access the Internet by reconfiguring the way they access the domain name system.

Instead of entering an address such as ebay.com, they could use the underlying address, which is a series of numbers, said Marco Preuss of the Russian security firm Kaspersky on the company's Securelist blog.

"If you know the address of the server you can still use it instead of the name, e.g. 195.122.169.23 is 'securelist.com' but this is not an easy solution," he said.

Others with more technical savvy can also reprogram their computer's network settings, to access public DNS servers such as one operated by Google.

Yahoo!, Facebook resolve patent dispute

 

SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook and Yahoo! announced Friday they were launching an advertising partnership as the two tech giants settled a longstanding dispute over patents.

The deal includes "a patent portfolio cross-license" and will allow the two firms to "work together to bring consumers and advertisers premium media experiences promoted and distributed across both Yahoo! and Facebook," a statement by the companies said.

Black widow wins hot dog eating contest

 

NEW YORK: World champion hot dog eater Sonya Thomas crushed her previous record Wednesday in the annual showdown, wolfing down 45 dogs and buns in 10 minutes, to the cheers of an entranced crowd.

The 44-year-old "Black Widow," weighing in at 100 pounds (45 kg), said she achieved her goal of eating her age in dogs. The Korean-American, one of 14 competitors, beat her record from last year by five.

Thousands of spectators braved scorching temperatures to attend Wednesday's contest, held each year in a carnival atmosphere at Coney Island on the July 4 US independence day.

Men's champion Joey Chestnut earned his sixth consecutive Mustard Belt, putting away 68 hot dogs to tie his 2009 record and take home the $10,000 prize.

Chestnut, known as "Jaws," a 28-year-old, 210-pound (95 kg) Californian, beat his 14 competitors by a wide margin -- the second-place finisher ate a mere 52 hotdogs.

The separate women's contest was created last year. "It's good, because we have smaller throats, so we can't swallow as quickly," Thomas said before the competition.

When the Coney Island contest was first held 1916, the winner ate 13 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

Today, the "sport" of competitive eating has taken off in the US, with contestants gorging on hot dogs, chicken wings, hamburgers, crayfish, oysters or fruitcakes at a variety of events all year long.

China reports bird flu outbreak

 

BEIJING: Authorities in China's remote northwestern region of Xinjiang have culled more than 150,000 chickens following an outbreak of bird flu, officials said.

The outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu initially killed 1,600 chickens and sickened about 5,500, the agriculture ministry said late Monday.

In an effort to contain the disease, agricultural authorities quarantined the area and culled 156,439 chickens, according to the ministry.

The outbreak occurred on June 20 but was only confirmed as H5N1 bird flu on Monday, it said.

The ministry and state press did not specify exactly where the outbreak occurred, but said it happened at a farm run by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, described by state media as a semi-military government organisation of about 2.5 million people.

Xinjiang is a vast region bordering Central Asia and home to a population of about nine million ethnic Uighurs, a largely Muslim and Turkic speaking people.

China is considered one of the nations most at risk of bird flu epidemics because it has the world's biggest poultry population and many chickens in rural areas are kept close to humans.

The last reported outbreak in mainland China was in April, when about 95,000 chickens were killed in the northern region of Ningxia.

But last month a boy in the southern territory of Hong Kong was diagnosed with bird flu, the first human case there in 18 months. He lived in the neighbouring mainland province of Guangdong.

Samsung tablet hard to swallow in US

SAN JOSE: A U.S. judge on Monday rejected a request by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. to lift a ban on U.S. sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that competes with Apple Inc.'s iPad.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, granted Apple's request to halt sales of the tablet, which runs on Google Inc's Android, giving the iPhone maker a significant win in the tablet patent wars.

Samsung had asked the court to stay the injunction pending resolution of an appeal.

The district court is not the last chance for Samsung to get the injunction lifted. Samsung has also appealed to a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, which has exclusive jurisdiction over intellectual property disputes.

Samsung is also fighting an injunction issued by Koh on Friday against the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone.

Apple and Samsung, the world's largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging legal war in several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices.

Apple sold 13.6 million iPads in January-March to control 63 percent of the global tablet market, according to research from Display Search. Samsung sold 1.6 million tablets, giving it 7.5 percent of the market.

Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 11-1846.

Apple scores second legal win vs Samsung

SAN JOSE, California: A U.S. judge on Friday granted Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) request for a pre-trial injunction against the sale of Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's (005930.KS) Galaxy Nexus phone, handing the iPhone maker its second legal victory against Samsung in a week.

Apple and Samsung, the world's largest consumer electronics corporations, are waging legal war in several countries, accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices.

Friday's decision, by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, comes days after she also slapped a pre-trial ban on sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that runs on Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Android and goes toe-to-toe with the iPad.

The back-to-back triumphs - significant because pre-trial injunctions are rarely granted - meant Apple had a better week in court than last week, when Chicago federal court judge Richard Posner ruled the iPhone maker could not pursue an injunction against Google's Motorola Mobility, effectively ending that case.

"Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products," Judge Koh said in Friday's ruling.

Koh scheduled a hearing on Monday to consider whether to put the Galaxy Nexus injunction on hold pending appeal. And she said in court that she might rule on Sunday whether or to similarly put on hold the earlier injunction on the Galaxy Tab.

Apple has waged an international patent war since 2010 as it seeks to limit the growth of Google's Android system, the world's most-used mobile operating platform. Opponents of Apple say it is using patents too aggressively in a bid to stamp out competition.

Spokeswoman Kristin Huguet reiterated her previous statement, accusing Samsung of copying the look and feel of its products.

Samsung said in a statement that it is "disappointed" in the decision. "We will take all available measures, including legal action, to ensure the Galaxy Nexus remains available to consumers," the statement added

As a condition of the injunction, Apple was ordered to post a bond of more than $95 million, to secure payment of damages sustained by Samsung should the injunction be deemed a wrongful decision later. The order shall become effective upon posting of the bond.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-00630.

What Happens In An Internet Minute

What Happens In An Internet Minute

Over 40 Thousand Rockets blasting off from the wall of the Geffen(Los Angeles, USA)

Over 40,000 rockets blasting off from the wall of the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

On Saturday April 7, artist Cai Guo-Qiang marked the opening of his exhibition with "Mystery Circle: Explosion Event for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles"; a site-specific work created for MOCA.

CAI GUO-QIANG: SKY LADDER
On view April 8, 2012--JULY 30, 2012

Inside Foxconn: Exclusive look at how an iPad is made

Deadly Facts About Death

'Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives'. - A. Sachs

1. Each year about 56 million people die around the world.

2. 35 million of theses deaths are due to non-communicable diseases

3. 17.5 million deaths occur from cardiovascular or heart diseases.

4. 7.6 million deaths are due to cancer

5. 7.1 million people deaths are related to high blood pressure.

6. 4.4 million succumb to high levels of cholesterol.

7. 2.6 million deaths occur due to Obesity and its related problems like developing diabetes or high blood pressure.

8. Around 1 million people die from diabetes.

9. 465,000 women died due to breast cancer in 2007

10. 20,000 people in the world are daily dying due to cancer.

The 10 Most Educated Countries in the World In the past 50 years, college graduation rates in developed countries have increased nearly 200%, according to Education at a Glance 2011, a recently published report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD ). The report shows that while education has improved across the board, it has not improved evenly, with some countries enjoying much greater rates of educational attainment than others. Based on the report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 developed countries with the most educated populations. The countries with the most highly educated citizens are also some of the wealthiest in the world. The United States, Japan and Canada are on our list and also have among the largest GDPs. Norway and Australia, also featured, have the second and sixth-highest GDPs per capita, respectively. All these countries aggressively invest in education. The countries that invest the most in education have the most-educated people. All of the best-educated countries, except for the UK, fall within the top 15 OECD countries for greatest spending on tertiary ” that is, college or college-equivalent ” spending as a percentage of GDP. The U.S. spends the second most and Canada spends the fourth most. Interestingly, public expenditure on educational institutions relative to private spending by these countries is small compared with other countries in the OECD . While the majority of education is still funded with public money, eight of the countries on our list rely the least on public funding as a percentage of total education spending. The countries included here have had educated populations for a long time. While they have steadily increased the percentages of their populations with postsecondary educations, the increases are modest compared to developing countries. The U.S., Canada and Japan have had tertiary educational attainment above 30% since at least 1997. Poland, a recently developed country that is not on our list, had a tertiary educational rate of 10% in 1997. As of 2009, that rate had grown to 21%. These are the 10 most educated countries in the world. 10. Finland > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 37% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 1.8% (3rd lowest) > GDP per capita: $36,585 (14th highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 3.15% (10th lowest) Finland is a small country relative to the other OECD members. The share of its adult population with some sort of postsecondary education, however, is rather large. This select group is reaching the end of its expansion. From 1999 to 2009, the number of college-educated adults increased only 1.8% annually ” the third-smallest amount among all OECD countries . Finland is also one of only two countries, the other being Korea, in which the fields of social sciences, business and law are not the most popular among students. In Finland, new entrants are most likely to study engineering, manufacturing and construction. 9. Australia > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 37% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 3.3% (11th lowest) > GDP per capita: $40,719 (6th highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 14.63% (3rd highest) Australia™s population grew 14.63% between 2000 and 2009. This is the third-largest increase among OECD countries . Its tertiary-educated adult population is increasing at the much less impressive annual rate of 3.3%. Australia also spends the sixth-least amount in public funds on education as a percentage of all expenditures. The country also draws large numbers of international students. 8. United Kingdom > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 37% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 4.0% (9th highest) > GDP per capita: $35,504 (16th highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 3.47% (13th lowest) Unlike most of the countries with the highest percentage of educated adults, the UK™s educated group increased measurably ” more than 4% between 1999 and 2009. Its entire population only grew 3.5% between 2000 and 2009. One aspect that the UK does share with a number of other countries on this list is relatively low public expenditure on education institutions as a percentage of all educational spending. As of 2008, 69.5% of spending came from public sources ” the fourth-smallest amount among OECD countries . 7. Norway > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 37% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): N/A > GDP per capita: $56,617 (2nd highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 7.52% (14th highest) Norway has the third-greatest expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP, at 7.3%. Roughly 23% of that is spent on tertiary education . In Norway, more than 60% of all tertiary graduates were in a bachelor™s program, well more than the U.S., which is close to the OECD average of 45%. The country is one of the wealthiest in the world. GDP per capita is $56,617, second only to Luxembourg in the OECD. 6. South Korea > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 39% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 5.3% (5th highest) > GDP per capita: $29,101 (13th lowest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 3.70% (14th lowest) Korea is another standout country for its recent increase in the percentage of its population that has a tertiary education. Graduates increased 5.3% between 1999 and 2009, the fifth-highest among OECD countries . Like the UK, this rate is greater than the country™s recent population growth. Korea is also one of only two countries ” the other being Finland ” in which the most popular fields of study are not social sciences, business and law. In Korea, new students choose to study education, humanities and arts at the greatest rates. Only 59.6% of expenditures on educational institutions come from public funds ” the second-lowest rate. 5. New Zealand > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 40% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 3.5% (14th lowest) > GDP per capita: $29,871 (14th lowest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 11.88% (8th largest) New Zealand is not a particularly wealthy country. GDP per capita is less than $30,000, and is the 14th lowest in the OECD. However, 40% of the population engages in tertiary education, the fifth-highest rate in the world. The country actually has a rapidly growing population, increasing 11.88% between 2000 and 2009. This was the eighth-largest increase in the OECD. Part of the reason for the high rate of tertiary graduates is the high output from secondary schools. More than 90% of residents graduate from secondary school. 4. United States > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 41% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 1.4% (the lowest) > GDP per capita: $46,588 (4th highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 8.68% (12th highest) The U.S. experienced a fairly large growth in population from 2000 to 2009. During the period, the population increased 8.68% ” the 12th highest among OECD countries. Meanwhile, the rate at which the share of the population with a tertiary education is growing has slowed to an annual rate of 1.4% ” the lowest among the 34 OECD countries. Just 71% of funding for educational institutions in the country comes from public funds, placing the U.S. sixth-lowest in this measure. Among OECD countries, the largest share of adults with a tertiary education live in the United States ” 25.8%. 3. Japan > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 44% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 3.2% (10th lowest) > GDP per capita: $33,751 (17th lowest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 0.46% (6th lowest) In Japan, 44% of the adult population has some form of tertiary education. The U.S. by comparison has a rate of 41%. Japan™s population increased just 0.46% between 2000 and 2009, the sixth-slowest growth rate in the OECD, and the slowest among our list of 10. Japan is tied with Finland for the third-highest upper-secondary graduation rate in the world, at 95%. It has the third-highest tertiary graduation rate in the world, but only spends the equivalent of 1.5% of GDP on tertiary education ” the 17th lowest rate in the OECD. 2. Israel > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 45% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): N/A > GDP per capita: $28,596 (12th lowest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 19.02% (the highest) Although there is no data on the percentage of Israeli citizens with postsecondary education dating back to 1999, the numbers going back to 2002 show that growth is slowing dramatically compared to other countries. In fact, in 2006, 46% of adults ages 25 to 64 had a tertiary education. In 2007 this number fell to 44%. Only 78% of funds spent on educational institutions in Israel are public funds. The country is also only one of three ” the other two being Ireland and Sweden ” where expenditure on educational institutions as a proportion of GDP decreased from 2000 to 2008. Israel also had the largest increase in overall population, approximately 19% from 2000 to 2009. 1. Canada > Pct. population with postsecondary education: 50% > Avg. annual growth rate (1999  2009): 2.3% (5th lowest) > GDP per capita: $39,070 (10th highest) > Pop. change (2000  2009): 9.89% (10th highest) In Canada, 50% of the adult population has completed tertiary education, easily the highest rate in the OECD. Each year, public and private expenditure on education amount to 2.5% of GDP, the fourth-highest rate in the world. Tertiary education spending accounts for 41% of total education spending in the country. In the U.S., the proportion is closer to 37%. In Israel, the rate is 22%. In Canada, nearly 25% of students have an immigrant background.

1,000 Door Building by Choi Jeong-Hwa

“Doors”  is a ten-storey public art installation made from 1,000 reused doors by South Korean artist and designer Choi Jeong-Hwa. It was built in Soeul, South Korea back in 2009 and you could probably safely say that it holds the record for the most doors in a single building. I don’t know about you guys, but I would be scared just navigating inside it – one wrong door and you could end up flying.

Choi Jeong-Hwa in his interview to The Creators Project:

“In 1989. I couldn’t really draw so I didn’t think I could become a painter, but I really liked walking. So I used to walk between streets and narrow alleys and discover garbage piles and construction sites. I realized that “normal” people built and created things better than artists or professionals. Plus, what they were making was more natural. I decided against becoming an artist and decided instead to be an ordinary person who thinks like an artist”