-It is best to avoid hair colouring and ironing during the season. However, if that is next to impossible, at least avoid shampooing during the season.

-Massage the scalp using hot oil. You can either use coconut oil or olive oil for best results

-Do not wash your hair in hot water as it can increase the dryness of the scalp, resulting in flaking and scaling of the skin of the scalp. Use lukewarm water instead and shampoo hair only once or twice a week.

-Use a shampoo and a separate hair conditioner. And leave the conditioner on the tip of the hair avoiding the roots for at least 10 to 15 minutes to moisturise the hair and prevent hair fall.

-The stench apart, beer is a great hair conditioner and so is coconut milk. For a protein packed conditioner, mix eggs and yogurt and rub it into your scalp. Leave on for five or 10 minutes, then wash it off completely.

-A haircut doesn’t always have to lead to a new style. Trim off dead ends if your hair is too dry to rejuvenate your hair.

E-GOLD

The biggest advantage that investing in e-gold has over gold ETF is that it involves no management costs or other recurring expenses. So the product is a lot more cost-effective for people who have a long investment horizon.

The only charges involved are a one-time transaction fee of 2-3 paisa per gram and a brokerage fee of 0.2-0.3%. Both these charges are also levied in case of gold ETFs, but are much higher. E-gold can be converted into physical gold for quantities as small as 8 gm, while gold ETFs offer the option of physical delivery but only for a denomination of over a kilogram. Accumulating such a huge amount of gold is not feasible for small investors.

Besides, the delivery centres of the National Spot Exchange are located in 15 cities, while ETFs have only one delivery centre in Mumbai. E-gold can also be directly converted into jewellery through select, reputed jewellers that conform with the purity and transparency guidelines. The investor only has to pay for the making charges. The National Spot Exchange aims to bring all branded jewellers under its umbrella of empanelled jewellers within a year.

The liquidity in e-gold is also increasing phenomenally, with the current average daily turnover being Rs 200-250 crore compared with Rs 15-20 crore in case of gold ETFs. Liquidity is of utmost importance for a retail investor as it makes buying and selling more efficient by reducing the impact cost (which is the bid-ask spread). The impact cost for e-gold is only 10-15 paise, as opposed to Rs 4-5 in gold ETFs.

E-gold wins hands down against gold ETF. In India, the rural community and the middle-to low-income group have a tendency to flock to gold. For the typical Indian investor, e-gold is more suitable as it provides the option of delivering the yellow metal and, hence, bridges the gap between using it for investment and the traditional, auspicious reasons for buying it.

Unlike in gold ETFs, where prices are measured in terms of the net asset value, it is simple to understand e-gold because of the transparency in pricing. A small investor, who wants to accumulate gold for his daughter’s wedding or a festival, can easily do so through planned, monthly or weekly investment in e-gold. In this manner, he can also guard his investment against price volatility. E-gold has also been providing better returns than gold ETFs.

The primary reason for the differential is that in the case of investing in gold ETFs, there is a range of charges, such as management and advisory fees, marketing and distribution expenses, custodian charges and other operational expenses. The expense ratio of gold ETFs is around 1%. Apart from the charges, tracking error also brings down the returns of gold ETF’s a little bit.

Tracking error is a measure of how closely a portfolio follows the index against which it is benchmarked. A gold investor always aims to achieve returns in line with the ones provided by physical gold. While e-gold directly tracks the domestic, physical gold prices, gold ETF only mirrors them. Certain gold ETFs have the flexibility to invest up to 10% of the total net assets in money market instruments and this can lead to tracking error. Some ETF companies also invest in gold futures and in a basket of gold mining companies.

The earnings of a gold mining company may not reflect the price movement in gold, thereby reducing the impact of the price rise. As a result, the returns from ETFs may not be similar to those from investing in physical gold. The market-timing is another crucial factor that an investor should consider. One can trade in gold ETFs only till 3.30 p.m., while e-gold can be traded till 11.30 p.m., providing the investors greater flexibility and global cues while trading in gold domestically.

by the end of the year, the company said at a news conference at its San Francisco offices on We dnesday.

Google declined to name the cities, but it showed a demonstration of a 3D map of San Francisco, in which a user can navigate around an aerial view of the city.

“We’re trying to create the illusion that you’re just flying over the city, almost as if you were in your own personal helicopter,” said Peter Birch, a product manager for Google Earth.

Google’s head of engineering for its maps product, Brian McClendon, said the company was using a fleet of airplanes owned and operated by contractors and flying exclusively for Google.

Asked about potential privacy implications, McClendon said the privacy issues were similar to all aerial imagery and that the type of 45-degree-angle pictures that the planes take have been used for a long time.

Google has used airplanes to collect aerial photos in the past, such as following the 2010 San Bruno, Calif. gas-line explosion, but the latest effort marks the first time the company will deploy the planes in a systemic manner to build a standard feature in one of its products.

By the end of the year, Google said it expects to have 3D map coverage for metropolitan areas with a combined population of 300 million people. The first 3D cityscape will be available within weeks.

Google has for years operated a fleet of camera-equipped cars that crisscross the globe taking panoramic pictures of streets for its popular mapping service. The cars have raised privacy concerns in some countries.

In 2010, Google acknowledged that the so-called Street View cars had been inadvertently collecting emails, passwords and other personal data from people’s home wireless networks. Collecting the WiFi data was unrelated to the Google Maps project, and was done instead so that Google could collect data on WiFi hotspots that can be used to provide separate location-based services.

The forthcoming 3D city maps will be part of the Google Earth software app available for mobile devices such as smartphones based on Google’s Android software and Apple’s iOS software.

The company also announced a version of Google maps for Android smartphones that allows users to access certain maps without an Internet connection.

Shares of Google finished Wednesday’s regular session up 1.8 percent at $580.57.

Google’s announcement comes a week before Apple Inc’s developer conference in San Francisco, as competition between the two tech giants continues to heat up, particularly in the fast-growing mobile market.

Apple is planning to replace Google Maps as the built-in mapping service on its iPhone and iPad later this year with technology that it has created in-house, according to media reports. Apple could show off its new mapping software at next week’s conference.

Google’s McClendon said the company would continue to make Google maps services available as widely as possible, on “all platforms.”

In what appeared to be a veiled jab at Apple, he said the integration with Google’s search engine provides a mapping serving that is far more useful than a product that simply uses a “geocoder” — technology that uses geographic coordinates to create a digital map. Apple began to use its own geocoder technology for the Google-based maps on its smartphones late last year.

Google said on Wednesday that there are currently 1 billion monthly active users of Google maps services and that the Street View cars have driven more than 5 million miles (8 million km) Pho tographing streets all over the world.

Asked if Google had any plans to use unmanned aerial drones to gather photos for its 3D cityscapes, McClendon said it was an interesting question, but noted that drones were still being evaluated by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“That’s a larger can of worms that we’re not going to get into here,” he said.

“Our findings are statistically consistent with a head-on collision between the Andromeda galaxy and our Milky Way galaxy,” said Roelandvan der Marel of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.

The solution came through painstaking NASA Hubble Space Telescope measurements of the motion of Andromeda, which also is known as M31.The galaxy is now 2.5 million light-years away, but it is inexorably falling toward the Milky Way under the mutual pull of gravity between the two galaxies and the invisible dark matter that surrounds them both.

galaxy

“After nearly a century of speculation about the future destiny of Andromeda and our Milky Way, we at last have a clear picture of how events will unfold over the coming billions of years,” said SangmoTony Sohn of STScI.

The scenario is like a baseball batter watching an oncoming fastball. Although Andromeda is approaching us more than two thousand times faster, it will take 4 billion years before the strike.

Computer simulations derived from Hubble’s data show that it will take an additional two billion years after the encounter for the interacting galaxies to completely merge under the tug of gravity and reshape into a single elliptical galaxy similar to the kind commonly seen in the local universe.

Although the galaxies will plow into each other, stars inside each galaxy are so far apart that they will not collide with other stars during the encounter. However, the stars will be thrown into different orbits around the new galactic center. Simulations show that our solar system will probably be tossed much farther from the galactic core than it is today.

To make matters more complicated, M31’s small companion, theTriangulum galaxy, M33, will join in the collision and perhaps later merge with the M31/Milky Way pair. There is a small chance that M33 will hit the Milky Way first.

The universe is expanding and accelerating, and collisions between galaxies in close proximity to each other still happen because they are bound by the gravity of the dark matter surrounding them. The Hubble Space Telescope’s deep views of the universe show such encounters between galaxies were more common in the past when the universe was smaller.

A century ago astronomers did not realize that M31 was a separate galaxy far beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Edwin Hubble measured its vast distance by uncovering a variable star that served as a “milepost marker.”

Hubble went on to discover the expanding universe where galaxies are rushing away from us, but it has long been known that M31 is moving toward the Milky Way at about 250,000 miles per hour.

That is fast enough to travel from here to the moon in one hour. The measurement was made using the Doppler effect, which is a change in frequency and wavelength of waves produced by a moving source relative to an observer, to measure how starlight in the galaxy has been compressed by Andromeda”s motion toward us.

Previously, it was unknown whether the far-future encounter will be a miss, glancing blow, or head-on smashup. This depends on M31”s tangential motion.

Until now, astronomers had not been able to measure M31’s sideways motion in the sky, despite attempts dating back more than a century. The Hubble Space Telescope team, led by van der Marel, conducted extraordinarily precise observations of the sideways motion of M31 that remove any doubt that it is destined to collide and merge with the Milky Way.

“This was accomplished by repeatedly observing select regions of the galaxy over a five- to seven-year period,” said Jay Anderson of STScI.

“In the worst-case-scenario simulation, M31 slams into the Milky Way head-on and the stars are all scattered into different orbits,” said Gurtina Besla of Columbia University in New York.

“The stellar populations of both galaxies are jostled, and the Milky Way loses its flattened pancake shape with most of the stars on nearly circular orbits. The galaxies’ cores merge, and the stars settle into randomized orbits to create an elliptical-shaped galaxy,” Besla added.

The space shuttle servicing missions to Hubble upgraded it with ever more-powerful cameras, which have given astronomers a long-enough time baseline to make the critical measurements needed to nail down M31’s motion.

The Hubble observations and the consequences of the merger are reported in three papers that will appear in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Every man has, at some point or another, been given the spiel about the importance of foreplay. Over the years some learn to ace the art, while others still struggle with the basics. How little is too little? How does one know when it’s safe enough to move on to the bigger game? Is it really so essential to start with, every single time?

To make things easier, here are a few basic guidelines that will help you cover your bases and make sure you aren’t short-staffing your lady love.

Getting there
The thing is, unlike men, women and their emotional beings require a lot more ‘play time’ to get their engines roaring. It’s not just about starting slow or taking things easy, in order to produce enough lubrication required for intercourse, women’s bodies need help conjuring up the lust quotient. Emotional intimacy and closeness with their partner, which is cemented during foreplay, is the best way to set the mood for a long and fruitful session. While each woman is different, there are a few basics that work for most in general. Avoid rushing things and you should do just fine.

Talk and tease
You might be a hands-on kind of guy, but talking dirty is a great way to get your lady listening. Women respond differently to written and spoken words than men, which is why women’s erotica has the sort of readership it does. If you describe how you would like to touch her, with what intensity and in which direction, you’ll engage her mind before her body, which is exactly what you aim to do. She’ll be visualizing it eagerly and be ready before you know it. The beauty is in the details. As for touching her, avoid the obvious privates. Instead, try her erogenous zones – mouth, neck, wrists, inner thighs and back.

Build anticipation
You don’t always have to get into the driver’s seat only when you reach the bedroom. The thing about public display of affection is that it could be respectful, playful and deeply intimate without being overtly offensive. A playful tap on her bottom or a passionate kiss at the bar sets up the mood for what is to come, and gets her wildly interested much before you make it to the confines of your room.

Clothes aren’t essential
If you think only women can strip and put on a sexy show, you’re in for a surprise. Try your hand at seductively undressing yourself, unbuttoning one at a time. The idea is to tease and interest without being very aggressive or impatient. Music is usually a good aid if you feel too awkward and you can make things interesting by asking her to join you.

Slowly undress her as you both groove to the music. Steer clear of gangsta rap or Celine Dion tracks and stick to soulful serenades by Norah Jones or a breezy Jack Johnson for a spring in your step.

It’s all in the hands
While each woman may have her own special responses and preferences there are some moves that work on everyone. Once you’ve set the mood and you’re both in a comfortable state of undress, use your fingers to pleasure her privates in gentle, smooth moves. Nothing too brash or aggressive. Kissing, suckling, pecking and gently nibbling are all acceptable. Try and keep a tab on her responses and make your moves accordingly. Softly touching and caressing her clitoris should get the lubrication process started. Feel free to give her oral pleasure as well.

Take it easy
Soon enough her body language will tell you she’s ready. Parted legs, arching back, deep kisses are usually dead giveaways. This should be your cue. But do remember, like each woman is different her responses to your moves will vary, some might work with greater success than others. The idea is to seduce her into the game instead of pouncing on with action. You needn’t try all these together. In isolation or in combination of twos or threes will work wonders too. All it takes is a little dedicated attention.

The researchers, based in Haifa, Israel, said there were still many years of testing and refining ahead. But the results meant they might eventually be able to reprogram patients’ cells to repair their own damaged hearts.

“We have shown that it’s possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish that are healthy and young – the equivalent to the stage of his heart cells when he was just born,” said Lior Gepstein from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who led the work.

The researchers, whose study was published in the European Heart Journal on Wednesday, said clinical trials of the technique could begin within 10 years.

Heart failure is a debilitating condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood around the body. It has become more prevalent in recent decades as advances medical science mean many more people survive heart attacks.

At the moment, people with severe heart failure have to rely on mechanical devices or hope for a transplant.

Researchers have been studying stem cells from various sources for more than a decade, hoping to capitalise on their ability to transform into a wide variety of other kinds of cell to treat a range of health conditions.

There are two main forms of stem cells – embryonic stem cells, which are harvested from embryos, and reprogrammed “human induced pluripotent stem cells” (hiPSCs), often originally from skin or blood.

TISSUES BEATING TOGETHER

Gepstein’s team took skin cells from two men with heart failure – aged 51 and 61 – and transformed them by adding three genes and then a small molecule called valproic acid to the cell nucleus.

They found that the resulting hiPSCs were able to differentiate to become heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, just as effectively as hiPSCs that had been developed from healthy, young volunteers who acted as controls for the study.

The team was then able to make the cardiomyocytes develop into heart muscle tissue, which they grew in a laboratory dish together with existing cardiac tissue.

Within 24 to 48 hours the two types of tissue were beating together, they said.

In a final step of the study, the new tissue was transplanted into healthy rat hearts and the researchers found it began to establish connections with cells in the host tissue.

“We hope that hiPSCs derived cardiomyocytes will not be rejected following transplantation into the same patients from which they were derived,” Gepstein said. “Whether this will be the case or not is the focus of active investigation.”

Experts in stem cell and cardiac medicine who were not involved in Gepstein’s work praised it but also said there was a lot to do before it had a chance of becoming an effective treatment.

“This is an interesting paper, but very early and it’s really important for patients that the promise of such a technique is not over-sold,” said John Martin a professor of cardiovascular medicine at University College London.

“The chances of translation are slim and if it does work it would take around 15 years to come to clinic.”

Nicholas Mills, a consultant cardiologist at Edinburgh University said the technology needs to be refined before it could be used for patients with heart failure, but added: “These findings are encouraging and take us a step closer to … identifying an effective means of repairing the heart.”

seeking early resumption of the stuck housing projects. On April 10, the high court asked the NCR planning board to file a reply on the efforts to clear the master plan.

“The planning board today filed its reply and said it got a revised plan from Uttar Pradesh government only on May 1, which would be taken up for approval at the next board meeting on May 22,” said Vijay Singh, the petitioners’ lawyer. The matter will be heard next after May 22.

The high court in October last year ruled that land would remain with builders and farmers would get increased benefits. But the court also said that construction would not resume till the planning board approved the plan.

This has meant construction of about 2.5 lakh houses — 1 lakh of them already booked — remained halted for seven months.

Buyers hope the expected approval will solve their woes. The high court on Monday rejected petitions filed by the Greater Noida authority and farmers, both seeking a review on the court’s earlier order.

This order has meant the wait for dream houses might prolong further. Cases will now be heard afresh in the Supreme Court. Farmers of several villages have already moved the apex court. The authority said it would also follow suit soon.

Even if the NCR planning board approves Greater Noida’s master plan anytime soon, housing projects may not start. In the apex court, farmers will seek their land back. Hearing in the SC will take time and the case could go either way. The issue of master plan approval will remain relevant only when the apex court does not set aside land takeover land remains with builders.

Forget the boring kitchen or the bathtubs… think bizarre, out-of-the-box! Try out unexplored corners in your house, which you’ve have never earlier considered as apt places to enjoy a steamy sex session. From your storeroom to the dirty basement that you’ve never bothered to clean up to the garage that you thought was only meant for car parking – try out off-beat sex destinations and convert them into sensuous love dens.

Sex expert Dr. Deepak Arora agrees, “Whenever you experience a change in your life you feel more excited and the same holds true for sexual intimacy. Couples should keep changing the decoration of their rooms like lighting, placement of objects, wall colours, curtains etc to infuse a fresh feel every time they get intimate, as it boosts their sexual pleasure.”

Sex counselor Dr. Shivi Jaggi supports, “Taking of sex variations, a place can influence a couples’ pleasure quotient. Any place outside the stereotypical bedroom will help couples keep alive their sexual fire. The reason why they find hotel rooms more appealing than their bedrooms is for because it’s a new pleasure playground that takes their mind away from mundane domesticity and adds a zing of excitement. So, if they pay a little attention and experiment with the decor of certain places within their own homes, they can perform wonders in their sex life.”

So, the next time you plan an intimate session with your partner, try out these unexplored places within your house and see the heat of passion building like never before…

Garage Passion : Everyone loves a wild backseat romp, but it can get even wilder if you try sex in the garage. The dark ambiance and the rusty feel will surely build up the mood for a night of passion. Fun would be at its peak when you play love games of hide and seek behind the parked cars and let your partner look for you and thus build up your sexual mood. Alternately try a sex romp on top of your car. Dr. Jaggi explains, “In a garage, it’s the raw energy of the destination that adds to the pleasure and once you’re away from the comfort of your bedroom, this crude place is definitely racy and exciting. If you really wish to have a new-fangled change, you can specially design your garage to make it an apt place for sex.”

Word of caution: Make sure you do not make too much noise by pressing the car horn and disturbing your neighbours as they may interrupt your sexual act.

Arty Attic : An attic fills the space between the ceiling of the top floor of a building and the slanted roof, and they are known for being awkwardly shaped spaces with exposed rafters and difficult-to-access corners. So why not make the most of this neglected area in your house? Decorate it in an alluring manner to seduce your partner and during the act, try out new positions in accordance with the structure of the attic. Dr. Arora states, “Due to hectic lifestyles, couples have no time to maintain their attic space. But just devoting a single day to covert it into a lavish area to have sex can turn the heat on. Couples will surely leave their bedroom luxuries behind and have sex on rough surfaces like that of an attic.”

Word of caution: Since attics bear a slanted roof, ensure that you don’t get up much during the sexual act or else you’ll end up hurting yourself and spoiling the fun.

Basement Pleasure: While some convert their basements into an office area, others keep it vacant as a partying hall. But think of decking it up in a way to arouse your trigger zones. Try having a set-up that looks completely breath-taking with a spa setting or a club like scene with a pole dancing space. Such creations enable a prolonged foreplay, thus building the mood right for hot sex. Dr. Jaggi adds, “If resources allow, you can get a boring basement area revamped totally and make it an exciting place to enjoy sex with your partner. Right from assortments of scented candles, aroma oils, and sexual paintings to dim lights etc, liven-up this area with everything that act as perfect aphrodisiacs”.

Word of caution: Don’t be too loud with your moaning sounds, as the echoes in an empty basement can wake up the other members in your house.

Cosy Corridor : If you thought the corridor was just meant for kids to play during the day and the elderly to relax in the evening, think again! You can make the most of this zone during your moments of pleasure. Think of a converting your otherwise tedious corridor/balcony into a sex inspiring den. Place a cot adorned with satin sheets and scented flowers can act as an add-on. Dr. Arora suggests, “If you’re staying on the top floor of a high rise, then the balcony or corridor can be a perfect place to have sex. Remember, you’ve moved to the balcony because you want to enjoy the fresh air and have sex in an open area, so no curtains are required. Also, ensure there are no surrounding buildings at the same level as your balcony and if there are, then wait for mid-night, so you can enjoy the act in the dark.”

Word of caution : Ensure that your kids are carefully locked inside their bedroom on that night and do not get to witness your act in open. Beware of peeping tom neighbours.

Storeroom Surprises : Imagine how a broken table lying wasted in the storeroom can make for a wonderful base to get intimate with your lover. While in the storeroom, you can try being a little more creative by taking out antique items, sexual pictures, Kamasutra paintings etc and creating an atmosphere to arouse your partner. Dr. Jaggi shares, “Having sex in the storeroom is a welcome change. Having limited space, it usually stimulates sex in standing positions. The little spaces meant for ventilation allow some amount of light to enter the room, so it would be an excellent shift, as far as the surrounding is concerned.”

Word of caution: Clear the excess dust in the storeroom as it may cause discomfort for either of the partners.

Romantic Roof-top: Having sex in the open on your terrace can be awesome, provided you make optimum use of the space. It can be by arranging a candle-lit dinner for your beau or decorating the entire roof-top with flower strands reviving your first-night charm. Dr. Arora opines, “If the rooftop is too high from which noone can see you from the outside, it can be an experience to remember. To make it more arousing, you can have a roof-top garden, which will not only add to the sexual energy, but also let you enjoy the fragrance of the blossoms. The moonlight adds to the ambience.”

Word of caution: Your roof-top should be as private as your bedroom, so ensure there are not too many roof-tops adjacent to your terrace that may hinder your moments of passion.

There are different schools of thought on this topic. None has returned alive from the abode of dead to tell, “Where do we go after we die”. However, so many have formed a hypothesis by speculating and conjecturing even in the absence of any hard evidence.

After going through so many speculations, I have concluded that we go nowhere after we die. We do not even go back to our point of origin. We move forward in spirit towards a state of greater purification.

The soul dons the body for its own purification. The time we spend on this earth is just a part of the process. We come into this world not just to purify our souls, but the soul of our progenitors, the one who brought not only us, but of the whole generation before us. We happen to be just one of them.

What happened to those who came before us? Where did they go? Likewise, what would happen to those who would come after us?

A child is a living personification of two souls. Two souls, one from the mother and other from the father conjoin to become one. In womb, they become one body and one soul. Father’s seed determine that the child would be in a semblance of human and not any other. Mother bestows on the child a nature according to the purity she attains at the time of conception.

By the time we are able to reproduce, the nature determines to what extent our souls would attain the needed level of purity. The part in need of further purity we again pass on to our children. The part that would attain a sufficient level of purity remains with us. In our children, grand children, and great grand children the process of purification continues. The part of the soul, which attains a required level of purity, is skimmed as butter at the time of our death. Nature saves it in the memory of coming generation to serve as their conscience. It is the conscience, which gives humans a conscious awareness and the guidance.

Animals do not have conscious, but they have instincts instead. Human instinct is dormant in his nature. Instincts are painful experiences of the progenitors of time long past. In animals, the impulses rising from the instincts directly reach their nerve endings and make them act. In humans, the conscious intercept these impulses. These impulses reach the nerve endings only if conscious are unable to interrupt not otherwise.

We take birth, we live and we die for attaining a kind of conscious awareness, which we must pass on to next generation after we die. While our physical attributes incarnates into the body of our generation, our mental attributes as conscience plants itself in their memories. As our will come into effect after we die, likewise our will as conscious awareness comes into effect in the memory of our generation. The process continues until end of the age.

One kind of collective consciousness makes one group distinct from another. While one group turns into sentient beings, the other group turns wicked. When this happens, the wickedness would rise to unmanageable level. At this point, a woman purest and virtuous would give birth to a child with the collective consciousness of one entire generation. Around the same time there is another child born with the collective wickedness of the whole generation. Both are the living personification of good and Evil. The good triumphs over the evil and he ushers the world into a new era.

Thus, we see we go to live as our own children. While our physical being incarnates into the body of our children, our mental attributes resurrects in the body of a most virtuous person we know as avatar. Why, then the sages and learned told us that we go either to heaven or to hell? Heaven and hell abide in our memory. If those who live after us continue to praise and honour us, then we are in a state of eternal bliss. If they abuse and curse us, then we experience pangs of pain, which is akin to sting inflicted by thousand scorpions or similar to burring in fire. The place of eternal bliss is heaven and the other painful experience is hell.

The scientists headed by Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham, UK, have proposed that these life-bearing planets originated in the early Universe within a few million years of the Big Bang, and that they make up most of the so-called “missing mass” of galaxies.

The scientists calculate that such a planetary body would cross the inner solar system every 25 million years on the average and during each transit, zodiacal dust, including a component of the solar system’s living cells, becomes implanted at its surface.

The free-floating planets would then have the added property of mixing the products of local biological evolution on a galaxy-wide scale.

Since 1995, when the first extrasolar planet was reported, interest in searching for planets has reached a feverish pitch. The 750 or so detections of exoplanets are all of planets orbiting stars, and very few, if any, have been deemed potential candidates for life.

The possibility of a much larger number of planets was first suggested in earlier studies where the effects of gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening planet-sized bodies were measured.

Recently several groups of investigators have suggested that a few billion such objects could exist in the galaxy.

Wickramasinghe and team have increased this grand total of planets to a few hundred thousand billion (a few thousand for every Milky Way star) – each one harbouring the legacy of cosmic primordial life.

Their findings are published online in the Springer journal Astrophysics and Space Science.