Knowledge Bank

History of Friendship Day

Friendship Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of August every year. A day dedicated to friends and companions, it's the time when you cherish the loveliest relationship you possess, the commitment which marks the foundation for all relationships. Though we celebrate Friendship Day each year, we may not be well acquainted with the background of the day. In fact, very few people are aware of the history and origin of Friendship Day i.e. how it came into existence. If you want to explore the background of the day, read on.

The tradition of celebrating Friendship Day started primarily in the West. In the year 1935, U.S Congress announced the first Sunday of August as the National Friendship Day. They realized the importance which friends play in each ones life and thus dedicated a special day for friends. The idea soon caught up in other countries as well, as even they realized the importance of honoring friends. Following the tradition, Friendship Day is today celebrated in by several countries across the globe.

In 1997, Winnie the Pooh was appointed as the world's Ambassador of Friendship. While the day officially came into existence in the year 1935, a glimpse into numerous folktales and mythological legends prove the importance of friendship since time immemorial. In Bible, the importance of friends is clearly visible from the Old Testimonial, when Abraham is referred to as the "Friend of God" and the relationship of Lord Jesus and his disciples in the New Testimonial depicts the value of friendship.

A wildlife presenter on the Discovery Channel

BEFORE:

After leaving school, he briefly considered joining the Indian Army and hiked in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal. Eventually, he joined the Territorial Army and, after passing selection, served as a reservist with the SAS in 21 SAS Regiment (Artists) (Reserve), for three years until 1997.

In 1996, he suffered a free-fall parachuting accident in Zambia. His canopy ripped at 16,000 ft, partially opening, causing him to fall and land on his parachute pack on his back, which partially crushed three vertebrae. He later said: “I should have cut the main parachute and gone to the reserve but thought there was time to resolve the problem”. According to his surgeon, he came “within a whisker” of being paralyzed for life and at first it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. He spent the next 12 months in and out of military rehabilitation.

AFTER:

In a showcase of what pure determination and hard work can do, on 16 May 1998 he achieved his childhood dream climbed to the summit of Mount Everest, 18 months after breaking three vertebrae in a parachuting accident.

At 23, he was at the time among the youngest people to have achieved this feat. This is the inspirational story of the amazing Bear Grylls. He is known to the world as a television presenter for the Discovery Channel, with his own show called Man Vs. Wild.

Inspirational & Successful People Who Did Not Let Failure Define Them

BEFORE:

Once, a young school boy was caught in a fire accident in his school and was assumed that he would not live. His mother was told that he was sure to die, for the terrible fire had devastated the lower half of his body. Even if he were to survive, he would be a cripple throughout his life.

But the brave boy did not want to die nor did he want to be a cripple. Much to be the amazement of the doctor, he did survive. But unfortunately from his waist down, he had no motor ability. His thin legs just dangled there, lifeless. Ultimately he was discharged from the hospital. But his determination to walk was indomitable. At home, when he was not in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair. One day, he threw himself from the chair and pulled himself across the grass, dragging his legs behind him. He reached the picket fence, raised himself up and then stake by stake, he began dragging himself along the fence, his resolve to walk undeterred. He did this every day, with faith in himself that he would be able to walk unaided. With his iron persistence and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability to stand up, then to walk haltingly, then to walk by himself and then to run.

AFTER:

He began to walk to school, then run to school, to run for the sheer joy of running. Later in college he made the track team.

In February 1934, in New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden, this young man who was not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who could never hope to run – this determined young man, Dr. Glenn Cunningham, ran the world’s fastest mile.

An epitome of the power of positive thinking and faith in one’s self, Glenn Cunningham continues to be an inspiration for many, and his story, a brilliant testimony to how one can bounce back even when all odds are stacked against one, to the extent that death seemed the preferable option.

10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day

1. Mental Stimulation
Studies have shown that staying mentally stimulated can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia, since keeping your brain active and engaged prevents it from losing power. Just like any other muscle in the body, the brain requires exercise to keep it strong and healthy, so the phrase “use it or lose it” is particularly apt when it comes to your mind. Doing puzzles and playing games such as chess have also been found to be helpful with cognitive stimulation.

2. Stress Reduction
No matter how much stress you have at work, in your personal relationships, or countless other issues faced in daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story. A well-written novel can transport you to other realms, while an engaging article will distract you and keep you in the present moment, letting tensions drain away and allowing you to relax.

3. Knowledge
Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. The more knowledge you have, the better-equipped you are to tackle any challenge you’ll ever face.
Additionally, here’s a bit of food for thought: should you ever find yourself in dire circumstances, remember that although you might lose everything else—your job, your possessions, your money, even your health—knowledge can never be taken from you.

4. Vocabulary Expansion
This goes with the above topic: the more you read, the more words you gain exposure to, and they’ll inevitably make their way into your everyday vocabulary. Being articulate and well-spoken is of great help in any profession, and knowing that you can speak to higher-ups with self-confidence can be an enormous boost to your self-esteem. It could even aid in your career, as those who are well-read, well-spoken, and knowledgeable on a variety of topics tend to get promotions more quickly (and more often) than those with smaller vocabularies and lack of awareness of literature, scientific breakthroughs, and global events.
Reading books is also vital for learning new languages, as non-native speakers gain exposure to words used in context, which will ameliorate their own speaking and writing fluency.

5. Memory Improvement
When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous things and can remember these things with relative ease. Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways)and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilizing moods.

6. Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills
Have you ever read an amazing mystery novel, and solved the mystery yourself before finishing the book? If so, you were able to put critical and analytical thinking to work by taking note of all the details provided and sorting them out to determine “whodunnit”.
That same ability to analyze details also comes in handy when it comes to critiquing the plot; determining whether it was a well-written piece, if the characters were properly developed, if the storyline ran smoothly, etc. Should you ever have an opportunity to discuss the book with others, you’ll be able to state your opinions clearly, as you’ve taken the time to really consider all the aspects involved.

7. Improved Focus and Concentration
In our internet-crazed world, attention is drawn in a million different directions at once as we multi-task through every day. In a single 5-minute span, the average person will divide their time between working on a task, checking email, chatting with a couple of people (via gchat, skype, etc.), keeping an eye on twitter, monitoring their smartphone, and interacting with co-workers. This type of ADD-like behaviour causes stress levels to rise, and lowers our productivity.
When you read a book, all of your attention is focused on the story—the rest of the world just falls away, and you can immerse yourself in every fine detail you’re absorbing. Try reading for 15-20 minutes before work (i.e. on your morning commute, if you take public transit), and you’ll be surprised at how much more focused you are once you get to the office.

8. Better Writing Skills
This goes hand-in-hand with the expansion of your vocabulary: exposure to published, well-written work has a noted effect on one’s own writing, as observing the cadence, fluidity, and writing styles of other authors will invariably influence your own work. In the same way that musicians influence one another, and painters use techniques established by previous masters, so do writers learn how to craft prose by reading the works of others.

9. Tranquility
In addition to the relaxation that accompanies reading a good book, it’s possible that the subject you read about can bring about immense inner peace and tranquility. Reading spiritual texts can lower blood pressure and bring about an immense sense of calm, while reading self-help books has been shown to help people suffering from certain mood disorders and mild mental illnesses.

10. Free Entertainment
Though many of us like to buy books so we can annotate them and dog-ear pages for future reference, they can be quite pricey. For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the countless tomes available there for free.
There’s a reading genre for every literate person on the planet, and whether your tastes lie in classical literature, poetry, fashion magazines, biographies, religious texts, young adult books, self-help guides, street lit, or romance novels, there’s something out there to capture your curiosity and imagination. Step away from your computer for a little while, crack open a book, and replenish your soul for a little while.

9 Study Tips That Will Help Students Study Smarter, Based On Science

1. Cap Study Sessions At 30 Minutes
Studying is most effective in small spurts of 20- to 30-minute sessions over a period of a few weeks. The synapses in the brain process less information more efficiently than giant chucks of information in one sitting.

2. Avoid Pulling All-Nighters
Prolonged nocturnal study sessions do more harm than good when it comes to cramming for a test. It’s closely linked to poor grades, lower reasoning skills, and a poorer memory. Just one all-nighter could negatively affect the brain for up to four days. Schedule study sessions for yourself at the same time day after day to train the brain to respond better on a regular basis.

3. Throw Out The Highlighter
Reading, highlighting, and re-reading a textbook doesn’t improve the brain’s ability to absorb information or link key concepts together. Flashcards serve as better memory reinforcement tools to spotlight the information that’s most important while making sure the brain doesn’t become distracted by superfluous facts.

4. Construct Goals
Instead of trying to study all of the information as it’s taught, focus on specific goals. For example, memorize how to use a specific chemical equation or how a certain country was established. Crossing off study goals helps to create a reliable and organized process of studying to help tackle the bigger key concepts.

5. If You Can Teach It, You Know It
Tutors have a certain advantage over their peers. When the brain needs to turn its gears and teach, it formats information in a more logical way in order to convey it back to an audience. Meanwhile, students who have to learn and process information for themselves receive it and don’t force themselves to enforce logic into the learning.

6. Practice With Practice Tests
By practicing the situation of test taking it helps the student acclimate to the situation of test taking, and more importantly, helps them identify gaps in their knowledge. Practice tests also make the testing situation more relaxing and boost confidence levels for the students, so when the time comes for the real deal they’re less intimidated.

7. Find Sacred Space
Designating a space exclusively for studying improves study performance. Also, collect all of the tools necessary for studying beforehand to remove any hurdles or distractions. The sacred space will prime the brain and rev it into study mode in a similar way as designated study times will.

8. Cut The Music
Those who study without music absorb information better than those who study with music. It may depend on what music they’re studying with because although rhythmic music such as rap disrupts the study process, other research has shown classical music helps people study.

9. Turn Off The Phone
From social media to text messages, the cell phone is riddled with distractions and has the potential to taint your sacred study ground. It’s difficult to focus when a phone is ringing, let alone when a phone is notifying you throughout a study session.

14 Interesting Facts about Dreams

Dreaming is one of the most mysterious and interesting experiences in our lives.

1. You Forget 90% of Your Dreams
Within 5 minutes of waking half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.

2. Blind People also Dream
People who became blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion.

3. Everybody Dreams
Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder). If you think you are not dreaming – you just forget your dreams.

4. In Our Dreams We Only See Faces That We already Know
Our mind is not inventing faces – in our dreams we see real faces of real people that we have seen during our life but may not know or remember. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces throughout our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during our dreams.

5. Not Everybody Dreams in Color
A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. Studies from 1915 through to the 1950s maintained that the majority of dreams were in black and white, but these results began to change in the 1960s. Today only 4.4% of the dreams of under-25 year-olds are in black and white. Recent research has suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switch from black-and-white film and TV to color media.

6. Dreams are Symbolic
If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. Whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.

7. Emotions
The most common emotion experienced in dreams is anxiety. Negative emotions are more common than positive ones.

8. You can have four to seven dreams in one night.
On average you can dream anywhere from one or two hours every night

9. Animals Dream Too
Studies have been done on many different animals, and they all show the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans. Watch a dog sleeping sometime. The paws move like they are running and they make yipping sounds as if they are chasing something in a dream.

10. Body Paralysis
Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep in adult humans typically occupies 20-25% of total sleep, about 90-120 minutes of a night’s sleep.
During REM sleep the body is paralyzed by a mechanism in the brain in order to prevent the movements which occur in the dream from causing the physical body to move. However, it is possible for this mechanism to be triggered before, during, or after normal sleep while the brain awakens.

11. Dream Incorporation
Our mind interprets the external stimuli that our senses are bombarded with when we are asleep and make them a part of our dreams. This means that sometimes in our dreams we hear a sound from reality and incorporate it in a way. For example you may be dreaming that you are in a concert while your brother is playing a guitar during your sleep.

12. Men and Women Dream Differently
Men tend to dream more about other men. Around 70% of the characters in a man’s dream are other men. On the other hand, a woman’s dream contains almost an equal number of men and women. Aside from that, men generally have more aggressive emotions in their dreams than the female lot.

13. Precognitive Dreams
Results of several surveys across large population sets indicate that between 18% and 38% of people have experienced at least one precognitive dream and 70% have experienced déjà vu. The percentage of persons that believe precognitive dreaming is possible is even higher – ranging from 63% to 98%.

14. If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.
This fact is repeated all over the Internet, but I’m a bit suspicious whether it’s really true as I haven’t found any scientific evidence to support it.

Top 10 Artists / Painters of all time

1. Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Renaissance painter, scientist, inventor, and more. Da Vinci is one of most famous painters in the world for his iconic Mona Lisa and Last Supper.

2. Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890). Dutch post-impressionist painter. Famous paintings include; Sunflowers, The Starry night, and Cafe Terrace at Night.

3. Rembrandt (1606–1669) Dutch Master. One of the greatest painters, admired for his vivid realism. Famous paintings include The Jewish Bride and The Storm of the Sea of Galilee.

4. Michelangelo (1475–1564) Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect. Famous paintings include his epic ceiling mural on the Sistine Chapel.

5. Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter. Famous paintings include Waterlilies, Women in Garden, and Impression Sunrise.

6. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish, modern ‘cubist’ painter. Famous works include Guernica and Bird of Peace.

7. Raphael (1483–1520) Italian painter. Raphael, da Vinci and Michelangelo make up the high Renaissance trinity. Famous paintings include Mond Crucifixion and The Wedding of the Virgin.

8. August Renoir (1841–1919) French painter, one of the early pioneers of impressionism. Also influenced by Italian renaissance. Famous works include Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette and On the Terrace.

9. Jan Vermeer (1632–1675) Dutch painter who specialised in genre painting – vivid depictions of still life. Famous paintings include View of Delft, Girl With a Pearl Earring, and The Milkmaid.

10. Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) French post-impressionist painter. Famous paintings include; The Card Players and Still Life with a Curtain.

HISTORY OF MUSIC
Music is a game waiting to be played.

Solo flute: 45,000 years ago

A recent discovery suggests that music is played much earlier than previously suspected -- and apparently by humans of a different species from ourselves. In 1995, deep in a cave in Slovenia occupied 45,000 years ago by Neanderthals, a flute was found. It was made from the leg bone of a young bear. Though broken at both ends, it still has four finger holes. In its prime it could produce at least four notes.

Simple whistles have been found earlier than this, capable of only a single note (two such whistles, made by modern humans perhaps 100,000 years ago, have been unearthed in Libya). But if accurately dated, this Neanderthal flute is by far the earliest known example of music.


Scrapers, roarers and rattles: from 12,000 years ago

Several primitive musical instruments, dating from about 12,000 years ago in the late palaeolithic period, have been discovered by archaeologists. They include scrapers, to produce a rhythmic rasping sound (the washboard of traditional skiffle is a scraper); and 'bull-roarers', consisting of a piece of wood which can be swung on a cord to make a loud vibrating sound from its passage through the air.

Natural rattles (for example gourds with their dried seeds inside) are also certainly used for music from the earliest times.


Woodwind and strings: 10,000-3000 BC

In the next 7000 years, up to the start of recorded history, many other musical instruments are developed. Trumpets from natural materials, such as the conch shell or the long hollow bamboo of the Australian didgeridoo, may have been introduced first as speaking tubes - enhancing or disguising the voice of the priest. Drums are mainly blocks of wood or stone. Hollow reeds of different pitch are bound together as panpipes, and flutes with holes are made in hollow cane, or even pottery.

Harp, lyre and lute: from 3000 BC

By the beginning of recorded history, in Mesopotamia in about 3000 BC, a sophisticated harp is in use; its form, in the shape of a bow, suggests its descent from the more primitive musical bow. The lyre, a portable version of the same kind of instrument (resting on the lap rather than the ground) evolves soon after.

By about 2000 BC a form of lute is being played in this same Middle Eastern region. A stringed instrument with a body as the sounding board and a long neck against which the strings can be pressed, the lute is the ancestor of the family which eventually includes the guitar (though the lute has a rounded back to the body).


Sounding brass and tinkling cymbal: 1500-1000 BC

The addition of metal instruments, made either of copper or bronze, completes the range available in classical civilizations. A copper trumpet of a simple kind is known in Egypt from about 1500 BC. Cymbals appear in Israel by 1000 BC.

The range of early musical instruments is most familiar to western readers through the Bible - from the harp-playing King David to the sounds of brass and tinkling cymbal criticized by St Paul - or through Greek myth, where Apollo is invariably associated with the lyre and Pan with the reed pipes. But the first society to make music a matter of state is further east, in China.

Chinese bells: from 1600 BC

Confucius selects music as his symbol of the harmony which everyone should strive for. In doing so he reinforces a long tradition in Chinese ancestor worship. Bronze bells are the preferred instruments in the ritual, and the Chinese skill in bronze-casting ensures that they are superbly made. Sonorous stone slabs and pottery flutes are also used. All have been found in tombs of the Shang dynasty (1600-1100 BC).

Plainsong: from the early Christian era

Apart from the few Greek fragments, the earliest music to have survived is the plainsong of the medieval Christian church. Given an official form in the 6th century, in the papacy of Gregory I, it is known now as Gregorian chant.

Its roots are very much earlier. It derives from the chants used for the biblical psalms in Jewish synagogues in the early years of Christianity. The first Christians are Jews, so they worship in the manner familiar to them. The Jewish liturgical signs, reminding worshippers of how the chant should go, find their way into the medieval church's Musical notation. And that, in turn, develops into the system by which music is written down today.

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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system. Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven.