Who says money doesn't grow on trees?

They say money doesn't grow on trees.

But it certainly appears to do so on the mysterious coin-studded trunks dotted around the UK's woodland.

The strange phenomenon of gnarled old trees with coins embedded all over their bark has been spotted on trails from the Peak District to the Scottish Highlands.

The coins are usually knocked into felled tree trunks using stones by passers-by, who hope it will bring them good fortune.

These fascinating spectacles often have coins from centuries ago buried deep in their bark and warped by the passage of time.

The tradition of making offerings to deities at wishing trees dates back hundreds of years, but this combination of the man-made and the natural is far more rare.

It used to be believed that divine spirits lived in trees, and they were often festooned with sweets and gifts - as is still done today at Christmas.

The act is reminiscent of tossing money into ponds for good luck, or the trend for couples to attach 'love padlocks' to bridges and fences to symbolise lasting romance.

Some pubs, such as the Punch Bowl in Askham, Cumbria, have old beams with splits in them into which coins are forced for luck.

There are seven felled tree trunks with coins pushed into them in the picturesque village of Portmeirion, in Wales.

Meurig Jones, an estate manager at the tourist destination, told the BBC: 'We had no idea why it was being done when we first noticed the tree trunk was being filled with coins.


'I did some detective work and discovered that trees were sometimes used as "wishing trees" .

Coins are hammered into trunks with rocks in the Lake District

Trees are traditional sources of good luck as deities were thought to reside in them

Why WOMEN Love to GOSSIP!!! :)))

"Pssssst! Did you hear what she said? He did what? How could she have said that?"

Whether it's a whispered conversation over coffee with a friend or a late-night telephone gabfest with your sister, gossiping bestows a feel-good aura on women who are feeling stressed-out, jilted or just having a bad day. And while it's been criticized as idle chatter, or worse, gossip is beloved by women everywhere.



If you're wondering just what women get out of dishing on others, and why it feels so completely satisfying, here are the top 10 reasons why women just can't stop themselves from indulging in one of life's naughty little pleasures.

1. Gossip gives women a feeling of fitting in with others. It's almost like telling a secret to someone else, which means that you trust the person you are talking to. "And that means you are forming a bond over gossip," says Diane Lang, MS, certified counselor and therapist and the author of Creating Balance & Finding Happiness.



2. Gossiping helps you make friends. "By gossiping and sharing dark secrets, you are actually helping to form friendships," Lang says.




3. Gossip reduces stress. For some reason, hearing bad news about other people actually makes us feel better. "It gives us a happy feeling to hear that our lives are better than we thought," Lang says. "When you hear someone got fired, for instance, it's not that you are happy about that. But we can compare ourselves to that person and feel like our lives are going in a good direction."



4. Gossip helps us process our experiences, says Irina Firstein, LCSW, a relationship expert. "Women have a need to share their experiences with another person, much more so than men," she says. "Gossip helps us dissect and digest what's happening with us."




5. Gossip helps validate our feelings. When you need validation for your point of view, it helps to go talk about someone who you feel has wronged you. It helps to say to the other person: "How could she do this?" "You are not looking for truth or for reality," Firstein says. "You just want to be reaffirmed, usually about upsetting things."

6. Gossip helps you deal with every day life. "It is a primitive coping technique," Firstein says. "If someone upset you, or you are jealous, gossip helps you sort it out."



7. Gossip is a great way to network. When done carefully, it can be a form of self promotion and can enhance your status at work, Lang says.



8. Gossiping is a learned trait that we observe in others and that we pick up as a way to feel good about ourselves. "You may have seen it in your parents, only they might have called it networking or said it was for work." Lang says. "By the time you were in middle school, you had observed that gossip looked like fun."




9. Gossip lets women dissect relationships with other women. "Men are focused on work and achievements, and just aren't generally that interested in relationship stuff," says Firstein. "Women like to digest all of the relationship that's going on with them and gossip gives them the opportunity."



10. Gossip makes us feel a little guilty, but it doesn't come with a motherload of negative guilt-producing angst. Like cutting a class to spend the morning in the park or eating a chocolate cupcake when we know we shouldn't, it's one of life's small pleasures, and one that we're not likely to give up any time soon.

Are you working too hard???

Check Your Self

Petrol prices hiked by Rs 3.14 per litre :-(

source : ET 15 SEP, 2011, 05.44PM IST, PTI

NEW DELHI: State-owned oil firms raised petrol prices by Rs 3.14 per litre as the rupee touched two-year low against the US dollar, increasing the cost of importing crude oil. The hike will be effective from midningt.

"Oil retailers are losing Rs 2.61 per litre or Rs 15 crore per day on sale of petrol. Together with local taxes, the hike needed to level domestic rates with international prices is about Rs 3 per litre," a top government official said.

IOC, BPCL and HPCL have lost Rs 2,450 crore this fiscal on selling petrol -- whose rates were freed from government control in June last year -- below the cost.

"At current rate, oil firms will accrue another Rs 2,850 crore of loss on sale of petrol, taking the total loss on a fuel that was freed from control, to Rs 5,300 crore for the full fiscal," the official said, adding, "Oil firms will have to take a call on raising petrol price soon."

Besides petrol, the three firms are losing Rs 263 crore per day on selling diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene below cost. Diesel is being sold at a subsidy of Rs 6.05 a litre, kerosene at Rs 23.25 per litre while domestic LPG rates are under-priced by Rs 267 per 14.2-kg cylinder.

"The industry lost around Rs 65,000 crore in the first half of the current fiscal on the three products and for the full year the revenue loss is estimated at Rs 121,571 crore at the price of Indian basket at USD 110 per barrel," said the official.

Indian Oil (IOC), Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) had last raised petrol price by Rs 5 a litre in May. Diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene price were hiked in June by Rs 3 per litre, Rs 50 per cylinder and Rs 2 per litre.

The government had in June last year decontrolled petrol price but continues to dictate diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene rates. However, petrol price has not moved in tandem with its cost, keeping in mind the government's concerns on inflation which climbed to 9.78 percent in August.

"The losses on the four products have meant that oil companies borrowed to meet even their working capital requirement," the official said.

The combined borrowing levels of the oil marketing companies has increased from Rs 96,700 crore in March 2011 to Rs 120,000 crore in August 2011. "The increase is mostly towards short term borrowings to fund working capital requirements," he said.

The basket of crude oil that India buys had averaged USD 85.09 per barrel in 2010-11. From April-September, it has averaged USD 111.64 per barrel, a 31 per cent increase over the last fiscal (2010-11).

The Indian basket of crude oil averaged USD 106.94 per barrel in August and USD 110.88 a barrel in September.

"Due to hardening of crude/petroleum product prices in the international market and depreciation of rupee viz-a-viz dollar, the under-recoveries of oil marketing companies have been increasing during 2011-12," the official added.

:-(

Lord of The Ring "Muhammad Ali" The Greatest

September 15 marks 33 years since Muhammad Ali vanquished Leon Spinks in an epic bout, becoming the first and only pugilist to win the lineal world heavyweight championship three times. In a life sparked with charm and controversy, fame and fallibility, the fighter who once answered to the name of Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr has become one of the most recognizable sportspersons of our time. Forget for a minute the present-day image: His tongue-tied, wheelchair-shackled frame, or that once-animated face turned wooden by Parkinson ’s disease. Forget his bragging and taunting. Forget the zealots who have (now that he is down for the count) gained the courage to attack him. In his time, Ali elevated boxing to a prime gladiator sport, not the brawling street-fighting nadir to which it has descended. Black. American. Muslim. The three prongs of his identity weighed heavily on Ali’s shoulders but he confronted and tamed his demons. The fighter who could “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee” once quipped bitterly, “Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up.”

September 15, 1978, boxer Muhammad Ali won the World Boxing Association Heavyweight title for a record third time, pummeling challenger Leon Spinks into submission at the New Orleans Louisiana Superdome. The fight was a rematch after Spinks’ victory over Ali in February that year. It ran into 15 rounds before 36-year-old Ali was announced the unanimous winner

Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17, 1942 to Cassius Clay, Sr, who painted billboards, and Odessa Grady Clay, a domestic help. The story goes that young Clay’s bicycle was stolen and he wanted to “whup” the thief, a remark overheard by Louisville police officer Joe Martin who coached fighters. Ali began to train with Martin and later with other trainers. After only five losses in 100 amateur bouts, and several titles, Clay represented the United States at the 1960 Rome Olympics and won gold in the Light Heavyweight category.



In his 1975 biography, Ali wrote that he threw his medal in the Ohio River after being refused entry into a whites-only restaurant. He was given a replacement medal while lighting the torch at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta

Cassius Clay (right) makes his professional boxing debut on October 29, 1960, in Louisville's Freedom Hall against Tunney Hunsaker, a part-time fighter and police chief of Fayetteville, West Virginia. All of 18 years of age, Clay won the six-round decision before 6,000 fans.

Cassius Clay points to a sign he wrote on a chalk board in his dressing room before his fight against Archie Moore in Los Angeles, November 15, 1962, predicting he'd knock Moore out in the fourth round, which he went on to do. The sign also predicts Clay will be the next champ via a knockout over Sonny Liston in eight rounds. The young boxer’s penchant for predicting the precise round in which he would knock out his opponent, and living up to each of his claims, was greeted with both adulation and derision by fans, rivals and media

On May 26, 1965 Muhammad Ali, then still answering to Cassius Clay, defeated Sonny Liston (left) after a one-minute fight.

Clay announced his acceptance of Islam the day after winning his celebrated 1964 bout with Sonny Liston, announcing that he would henceforth be called Cassius X. Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad gave him the name Muhammad Ali in a phone message broadcast on radio on March 6, 1964.

"Man, I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong," Muhammad Ali said in a press conference on April 29, 1967. This remark, and his resistance to being drafted to fight the Vietnam War, cost Ali his boxing license and titles. “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” he asked angrily. Ali appeared in colleges and universities to speak in support of antiwar protests. In 1971, the United States Supreme Court reversed his conviction and his titles were subsequently reinstated

Muhammad Ali watches as defending world champion George Foreman goes down to the canvas in the eighth round of their WBA/WBC championship match in Kinshasa, Zaire, on October 30, 1974. Foreman was counted out by the referee and Ali regained the world heavyweight crown by knockout in the bout dubbed "Rumble in the Jungle." The hulking Foreman had been a force to reckon with, having knocked out Joe Frazier after 95 seconds of the second round in January 1973 in Jamaica. The match was significant, for with this victory Ali regained all of his stripped titles

The October 1, 1975 “Thrilla in Manila” was the third and most celebrated bout between the two champions Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali. Each had won a fight against the other. The match, held in Manila and sponsored by Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos to draw international attention away from the martial law he had imposed in the country, invited huge attention. It ran into 14 rounds, sapping the stamina of both fighters, at the end of which Ali brought down a nearly blinded Frazier. After the match Ali announced, "He is the greatest fighter of all times,

Referees and officials break up a pre-match scuffle between Muhammad Ali and challenger Larry Holmes at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, October 3, 1980. Ali, who had returned from retirement after his victory over Leon Spinks in 1978, attempted to taunt and provoke Holmes. The match lasted ten rounds, and Ali did not answer the bell for the eleventh. The following year, Ali would lose his last match to challenger Trevor Berbick



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Dogs 'can sniff out cancer in stool

Melbourne, Feb 1 (ANI): Japanese scientists claim that a Labrador can detect bowel cancer in breath and stool samples with remarkable accuracy.





The research team, led by Hideto Sonoda at Kyushu University in ***uoka, Japan, says that the findings support hopes for an 'electronic nose' that could one day sniff a tumour at its earliest stages, reports ABC Science.





As part of the study, they used a specially trained female black labrador to carry out 74 "sniff tests" over a period of several months.





Each of the tests comprised five breath or stool samples, only one of which was cancerous.





The samples came from 48 people with confirmed bowel cancer at various stages of the disease and 258 volunteers with no bowel cancer or who had had cancer in the past.





They complicated the task for the eight-year-old canine detective by adding a few challenges to the samples, including samples from smokers or from subjects with other types of gut problems, which might have masked or interfered with other smells, but these did not interfere with the dog's olfactory accuracy.





Around half of the non-cancer samples came from people with bowel polyps, which are benign but are also a possible precursor of bowel cancer.





Six per cent of the breath samples, and 10 per cent of the stool samples, came from people with other gut problems, such as inflammatory bowel disease, ulcers, diverticulitis, and appendicitis.





In the study, the retriever performed as well as a colonoscopy, a technique in which a fibre-optic tube with a camera on the end is inserted into the rectum to look for suspect areas of the intestine.





It correctly spotted which samples were cancerous and which were not in 33 out of 36 breath tests, equal to 95 per cent accuracy, and in 37 out of 38 stool tests (98 per cent accuracy).





It performed especially well among people with early stage disease.





The researchers say that this study shows that cancer cells give off specific discernible odours as they circulate through the body.





Previous research has also found that dogs can sniff out bladder, lung, ovarian and breast cancer.





The study has been presented in the Gut, a British Medical Journal publication. (ANI)