Home remedies for a glowing complexion

Normal skin

* Extract the juice of half an orange or tomato, mix with two teaspoons of curd. Lightly massage onto your face in an upward direction. Let it dry. Then, wash your face with cold water and wipe dry. This will give your skin a nice glow.

* Rub the inner part of the skin of a papaya on your face. Let it dry. Then, wash your face with cold water and wipe dry. This will give your skin a nice glow.

Oily skin

~ Make a paste of 2 tbsp of wheat flour using as much water as needed. Apply on your face in an upward motion. Leave to dry. Then, wash with cool water and pat dry. This helps remove excess oil from your skin.

* Grind half a cucumber and squeeze to remove the juice. Apply the juice on your face and leave to dry. Then wash with water and pat dry.

For dry skin

* Mash half a ripe banana, add a teaspoon of honey and make a paste. Apply on your face. Once it dries, wash with cold water and pat dry.

* Make a paste of one teaspoon of malai, a pinch of turmeric and four to five drops of olive oil. Apply on your face, leave to dry. Wash with cold water and pat dry.

Combination skin

* Mix 3-4 tablespoons of  Fuller's Earth with 8-10 ground mint leaves. Freeze the pack overnight.

Keep outside for 10-15 minutes and then apply on your face. After 10-15 minutes, wash off and pat dry. It helps in cooling and cleansing your skin.

10 Tips For A Good Night’s Sleep Without Pills

1. Stick to a schedule. Mum was right when she set a time we always had to go to sleep as kids. Sticking to a schedule allows your body to set its internal rhythm so you can get up at the time you want, consistently, every single day. Also, make sure you try to keep the same schedule on weekends too, otherwise the next morning, you’d wake later and feel overly tired.
   
2. Sleep only at night. Avoid daytime sleep if possible. Daytime naps steal hours from nighttime slumber. Limit daytime sleep to 20-minute, power naps.
   
3. Exercise. It’s actually known to help you sleep better. Your body uses the sleep period to recover its muscles and joints that have been exercised. Twenty to thirty minutes of exercise every day can help you sleep, but be sure to exercise in the morning or afternoon. Exercise stimulates the body and aerobic activity before bedtime may make falling asleep more difficult.
   
4. Avoid eating just before bed. Give yourself at least 2 hours from when you eat to when you sleep. This allows for digestion to happen (or at least start) well before you go to sleep so your body can rest well during the night, rather than churning away your food.
   
5. Taking a hot shower or bath before bed helps bring on sleep because they can relax tense muscles.
   
6. Read a fiction book. It takes you to a whole new world if you really get into it. And then take some time to ponder over the book as you fall asleep. I find as I read more and more, regardless of the book, I get more tired at night and so find it easier to fall asleep. Different for others?
   
7. Avoid caffeine. It keeps you awake and that’s now what you want for a good nights sleep. We all know that.
   
8. Avoid alcohol before bedtime. It’s a depressant; although it may make it easier to fall asleep, it causes you to wake up during the night. As alcohol is digested your body goes into withdrawal from the alcohol, causing nighttime awakenings and often nightmares for some people.
   
9. Have the room slightly cooler. I prefer this to a hot room. I prefer to turn off the heat and allow the coolness to circulate in and out of the windows. If I get cold, I wear warmer clothes. It also saves on the bills as you’re not going to require the heat all night long.
   
10. Sleep in silence. I find sleeping with no music or TV on more easy and restful. I guess others are different, but sleep with no distractions is best for a clearer mind.

Tips When You Always Feel Tired

Oxygen is the thee most vital thing in having a brain get foggy or being tired all the time. The air we breathe is filled with sprays, smoke and what not. It’s the fresh air we need to get our body function. A good 20 to 40 minutes walk around some trees early in the morning is going to do the trick.

One of the other most important and major reason of being tired/lethargic or having a foggy brain is being DE-hydrated. Yes, a slight decrease in the intake or water than the normal makes you very tired. Water is the key ingredient that makes our body run smoothly and efficiently.

Minerals. Yes they are very important for a body to complete its normal functions. Since we do not eat with is rich with minerals itself. We have to make sure that we complete our dose of minerals regularly. Minerals like Magnesium, Salt and Zinc are very important for our body.

Vitamins are the next most important thing for us. They complete the cycle along with the minerals. minerals such as Vitamin C, B, A are good for the daily functions or the body.

Proteins come next in line. They are essential as well for the daily functions of the body. Proteins come in all form like eggs, cereals and meat.

Having a well balanced sleep is very important. 6-8 hours are usually enough for the body to rest and regain it’s energy.

It’s not possible to stay away from the daily grind of life, but it is possible to not beat your self for hours on it. Try to take a breather is you are having a difficult time at work/school or any other place. This will help you function better and will not try out your body.

Direct all your negative energies at the end of the day to some where positive. Play a hardcore game of tennis, or swim a few laps. These two activities are bound to help you relax and stay calm even when you are at the verge of explosion.

Try teaching yourself patience every now and then. Telling yourself to be calm and relaxed no matter what the problem will eventually help you learn. No matter what the problem or situation you will have your head straight and you would know what to do.

Lastly, start applying all these with yourself practically. Putting them off would only lead to having more mood swings, being tired all the time. Having less energy to work with or on something. Try and maintain a daily agenda of practicing. I’m sure once you start, you will notice the difference within a week.

100 Best Amazing facts

1. If you are struck by lightning, your skin will be heated to 28,000 degrees Centigrade, hotter than the surface of the Sun.

2. If you trace your family tree back 25 generations, you will have 33,554,432 direct ancestors – assuming no incest was involved.

3. The average distance between the stars in the sky is 20 million miles.

4. It would take a modern spaceship 70,000 years to get to the nearest star to earth.

5. An asteroid wiped out every single dinosaur in the world, but not a single species of toad or salamander was affected. No one knows why, nor why the crocodiles and tortoises survived.

6. If you dug a well to the center of the Earth, and dropped a brick in it, it would take 45 minutes to get to the bottom – 4,000 miles down.

7. Your body sheds 10 billion flakes of skin every day.

8. The Earth weighs 6,500 million million million tons.

9. Honey is the only food consumed by humans that doesn’t go off.

10. The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters.

11. A donkey can sink into quicksand but a mule can’t.

12. Every time you sneeze your heart stops a second.

13. There are 22 miles more canals in Birmingham UK than in Venice.

14. Potato crisps were invented by a Mr Crummy.

15. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in their correct order.

16. Eskimo's have hundreds of words for snow but none for hello.

17. The word “set” has the most definitions in the English language.

18. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating its letters is uncopyrightable.

19. Windmills always turn counter-clockwise.

20. The “Sixth Sick Sheik’s Sixth Sheep’s Sick” is the hardest tongue-twister.

21. The longest English word without a vowel is twyndyllyngs which means "twins".

22. 1 x 8 + 1 = 9; 12 x 8 + 2 = 98; 123 x 8 + 3 = 987; 1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876; 12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765; 123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654; 1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543; 12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432; 123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

23. The word "dreamt" is the only common word in the English language that ends in "mt".

24. Albert Einstein never wore any socks.

25. The average human will eat 8 spiders while asleep in their lifetime.

26. In space, astronauts cannot cry because there is no gravity.

27. Hummingbirds are the only creatures that can fly backwards.

28. An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

29. Cockroaches can live 9 days without their heads before they starve to death.

30. A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.

31. The lighter was invented before the match.

32. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up at the sky.

33. The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!

34. Scientists with high-speed cameras have discovered that rain drops are not tear shaped but rather look like hamburger buns.

35. The first Internet domain name ever registered was Symbolic.com on March 15, 1985.

36. When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone back in 1876, only six phones were sold in the first month.

37. Approximately 7.5% of all office documents get lost.

38. Business.com is currently the most expensive domain name sold: for $7.5 million.

39. In 2001, the five most valuable brand names in order were Coca-Cola, Microsoft, IBM, GE, and Nokia.

40. In Canada, the most productive day of the working week is Tuesday.

41. In a study by the University of Chicago in 1907, it was concluded that the easiest colour to spot is yellow. This is why John Hertz, who is the founder of the Yellow Cab Company picked cabs to be yellow.

42. It takes about 63,000 trees to make the newsprint for the average Sunday edition of The New York Times.

43. On average a business document is copied 19 times.

44. The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system in India, employing over 1.6 million people.

45. Warner Chappel Music owns the copyright to the song "Happy Birthday." They make over $1 million in royalties every year from the commercial use of the song.

46. All babies are color-blind when they are born.

47. Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.

48. Each nostril of a human being registers smells in a different way. Smells that are made from the right nostril are more pleasant than the left. However, smells can be detected more accurately when made by the left nostril.

49. Humans are born with 350 bones in their body, however when a person reaches adulthood they only have 206 bones. This occurs because many of them join together to make a single bone.

50. May babies are on average 200 grams heavier than babies born in other months.

51. Leonardo da Vinci was dyslexic, and he often wrote backwards.

52. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had only one testicle.

53. Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands. She was also the only Queen the United States ever had.

54. Rolling Stones band member Bill Wyman married a 19 year-old model Mandy Smith in 1988. At the same time Wyman's son was engaged to Mandy Smith's mother. If his son had married Smith's mother, Wyman would have been the step grandfather to his own wife.

55. There are 158 verses in the Greek National Anthem.

56. There are about 6,800 languages in the world.

57. There was no punctuation until the 15th century.

58. Children laugh about 400 times a day, while adults laugh on average only 15 times a day.

59. The coconut is the largest seed in the world.

60. There is cyanide in apple pips.

61. If you were to take 1 lb. of spiders web and stretch it out it would circle the whole way around the world!

62. If every person in China stood on a chair and jumped off at the same time...it would knock the earth off its axis!

63. A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!

64. The shortest war on record, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted just 38 minutes.

65. The Shell Oil Company originally began as a novelty shop in London that sold seashells.

66. The symbols + (addition) and – (subtraction) came into general use in 1489.

67. If you save one penny and double it every successive day, (day two you have 2 pennies and day three you have 4 pennies, and so on), by the end of 30 days you’ll have $5,368,708! (or £’s or whatever currency).

68. It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.

69. The best time for a person to buy shoes is in the afternoon. This is because the foot tends to swell a bit around this time.

70. The typical lead pencil can draw a line that is thirty-five miles long.

71. Due to precipitation, for a few weeks, K2 is taller than Mt. Everest.

72. Astronauts get taller when they are in space.

73. There are over one hundred billion galaxies with each galaxy having billions of stars.

74. The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.

75. A dog can hear sounds that are 100 times fainter than the faintest sounds that a person can hear. If a person can just hear a noise that is coming from 10 feet away, a dog could hear that same noise from 100 feet away.

76. If a sole (a type of fish) lays upon a chessboard it can change the colouring of its body to match the pattern of the chess board. The sole takes about 4 minutes to make the change.

77. Of all the animals on earth the mosquito has contributed to the deaths of more people than any other animal.

78. In the courts of the Roman Empire, instead of swearing an oath on a bible, men swore to the truth on their statements while holding their genitals. Hence the word 'testify', from 'testicles'.

79. The first soap powder, produced in 1907, was made with Perborate and Silicate - hence its brand name, Persil.

80. If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas and 8 Africans. Only 1 would own a computer.

81. All elephants walk on tiptoe, because the back portion of their foot is made up of all fat and no bone.

82. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.

83. Hawaii has the only royal palace in the United States.

84. Chicken liver can be used to change A type blood to O type blood.

85. It takes only 8 minutes for sunlight to travel from the sun to the earth, which also means, if you see the sun go out, it actually went out 8 minutes ago.

86. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.

87. An octopus has 3 hearts.

88. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

89. The hair on a polar bear is not white, but clear. They reflect light, so they appear white.

90. Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

91. The combination "ough" can be pronounced in 9 different ways; Read this: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

92. The blue whale has a heart the size of a small car and its blood vessel is so broad, that a person could swim through it.

93. A left-handed person finds it easier to open a jar than a right-handed person because they can supply a stronger anticlockwise turning force than a right-handed person. However a right-handed person will find it easier to tighten the jar up afterwards.

94. The orbit of the Moon about the Earth would fit easily inside the Sun.

95. A chameleon can move its eyes in two directions at the same time.

96. Typewriter is the longest word that can be made only using one row on the keyboard.

97. Because of the rotation of earth you can throw a ball farther to the west than to the east.

98. The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.

99. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

100. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar (euro, pound).

Giant rats eat two babies in South Africa townships in separate attacks

'I can't forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out' says dead baby's mother.The rats can grow up to three-foot long

Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was the victim of a giant
rat attack

Giant rats as big as cats have killed and eaten two babies in separate attacks in South Africa's squalid townships this week.
Lunathi Dwadwa, three, was killed as she slept in her parent's shack in the Khayelitsha slum outside Cape Town and another girl was killed in Soweto township near Johannesburg the same day.
Little Lunathi was sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor of her family's breeze block and corrugated iron home on Sunday night when she died. Her puzzled parents didn't even hear her scream.
When her mother discovered her lifeless body, she saw that her daughter's eyes had been gouged out.
Bukiswa Dwadwa, 27, said: 'I can't forget how ugly my child looked after her eyes were ripped out.
'She was eaten from her eyebrows to her cheeks, her other eye was hanging by a piece of flesh.'
Her father Mncedisi Mokoena said police told him: 'Nothing could have done that but rats'
And today police revealed that a baby girl died in the Soweto township when she was attacked by rats while her teenage mother was out with friends.
'We were called to the scene of the death of an infant due to a rat attack on Monday morning at around 9am,' said police officer Bongani Mhlongo.
'The mother of the child was arrested on charges of culpable homicide and negligence.'

Rats Eating Humans

The deaths appear to be part of a spate of deadly rat attacks in the country.
Last month, 77-year-old grandmother Nomathemba Joyi died after giant rats chewed off the right side of her face.

33-Ton Mall Aquarium Explodes, Sends Glass Shrapnel and Sharks Everywhere

Fifteen people were injured last week when a 33-ton aquarium exploded in the middle of a Shanghai shopping center. The injuries sustained are reported mainly as cuts from the shattered glass, and not from, as one would suspect, sharks. The aquarium was installed two years ago, and had been a popular attraction at the mall until it exploded, spilling fish, turtles, and sharks into the shopping center. That tends to drive down foot traffic.


The tank at the Shanghai Orient Shopping Center was seven meters long, three meters high, and had 15-centimeter-thick acrylic glass. An investigation is underway as to what caused the tank to burst, but it’s believed that a drastic drop in temperature was responsible. It can’t be said definitively if this was a deliberate attack by the sharks against mankind, but it clearly can’t be ruled out.

Of the 15 people injured, eight were customers while the other seven were employees of the shopping center including shop workers and security personnel. None of the human injuries were serious, but three sharks as well as dozens of fish and turtles died as a result of the tank exploding.

Interesting New Year Facts

Happy New Year

Probably the most famous tradition in the United States is the dropping of the New Year ball in Times Square, New York City, at 11:59 P.M. Thousands gather to watch the ball make its one-minute descent, arriving exactly at midnight. The tradition first began in 1907. The original ball was made of iron and wood and weighed 700 pounds; the current ball is made of Waterford Crystal, weighs 1,070 pounds, and is six feet in diameter. There are over 9,000 LED lights, but uses hardly any energy. The ball was not lowered in 1942 and 1943 due to wartime restrictions.

New Year is the oldest of all holidays, as it was first observed in ancient Babylon as many as 4000 years ago.


Celebrating New Year on January 1 is purely arbitrary, as neither it has agricultural significance nor astronomical. Many countries still celebrate it in spring, the season of rebirth of new crops.


The Roman senate declared January 1 as the New Year in 153 BC. Though even this date saw major tampering, it was Julius Caesar who again declared January 1 in Julian calendar as the New Year, in 46 BC.


New Years is still observed as the Feast of Christ's Circumcision by some denominations.

In various South American countries like Bolivia, Ecuador or Brazil, there is this tradition that has to due with yellow underwear. This means that you have to wear it immediately after midnight as it seems that yellow brings good luck. All women in Mexico who want to find their love in the new year have to wear red underwear.

In Denmark, it is a good sign when you find broken dishes in front of your door. Danish people specially keep a few plates that they break on New Year's Eve at their friends' doors. However, the tradition is no longer used.

In a small town in Chile, called Talca, visiting the graves of your dead relatives already became a tradition. On December 31, after dinner, a few members of the same family go to the cemetery, taking chairs and once they get there, they sit down and welcome the new year with all the dear ones that passed away. It is said that this tradition brings good luck. The tradition began in 1995 and now over 5,000 people have adopted it.

The first month of the year i.e. January has been named after God Janus (Latin word for door), in the Roman calendar. Janus is the God with two faces, one looking backwards and one forward, at the same time and marks the ‘spirit of the opening’


The Romans began a tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year's Eve, by giving one another branches from sacred trees, for good fortune. The gift phenomenon is prevalent from those times, till date.


January 1 was revived as New Year in 1582, by the Gregorian calendar and so celebrated by most of the countries till date.


New Year is celebrated like a festival throughout the world and everyone around is in festive mood, partying, singing and dancing to ring out the old year and ring in the new.

In Britain, when the Big Ben clocks strikes 12, everyone gathers around to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’, a Scottish song. It was written by Robert Burns in the 1700's, literally meaning "old long ago," or simply, "the good old days", to remember old and new friends.


It was once believed that the first visitor on New Year's Day would bring either good luck or bad luck for the rest of the year, depending on who he/she was.

Many cultures believe that anything given or taken on New Year, in the shape of a ring is good luck, because it symbolizes "coming full circle".


Many parts of the U.S. celebrate New Year by consuming black-eyed peas and other legumes, as it has been considered good luck in many cultures.

The tradition of making New Year resolution dates back to the early Babylonians.

People in Ecuador are used to make a scarecrow, which they dress up and fill it with newspapers and pieces of wood. At midnight, each family walks outside and burns the scarecrow. The tradition says that this destroys all the bad things that took place in the last 12 months and the new year can begin.


In Belgium, farmers are used to wish “Happy New Year!” to their animals in order to make sure that everything will work great in the new year.

Every Brazilian who wears white clothes on New Year's Eve will have a peaceful and successful year. Those who live next to the beach use to jump seven times into the waves, after midnight, and throw flowers in the water, while making a wish. It is said that this thing brings wealth.

The New Year in China, “Yuan Ti”, is celebrated on January 17 and February 19. One of the most interesting manifestations is the Lantern Festival, in the 15th day of the new year, when thousands of lanterns lightened will illuminate the path towards the new year.

Traditionally, it was thought that people could alter the luck they would have throughout the coming year by what they did or ate on the first day of the year. It has, therefore, become important to celebrate first day of the New Year in the company of family and friends.


The Spanish ritual on New Year's eve is to eat twelve grapes at midnight. The tradition is meant to secure twelve happy months in the coming year.

Who would be the first person to pass over the threshold of your home in the New Year? In England, one of the most interesting traditions is related to this specific aspect. English people believe that if the first guest is a tall man with dark hair, the new year will be full of happiness and achievements.


In Spain, the tradition says that exactly at midnight one should eat 12 grapes for each chime of the clock. The 12 grapes symbolize the months of the year and it is said to bring good luck and success in the new year.

In Japan, Buddhist temples ring their bells 108 times. This tradition is called 'joya no kane' which means “bell rings on new year eve's night.” The rings represent 108 sins, which is said people have in their mind and can commit. Listening to the 108 rings, the soul purifies.

In Sri Lanka, New Year's Eve is celebrated on April 13 or 14, based on the Hindu calendar. Sinhalese get their houses whitewashed and thoroughly cleaned to welcome the New Year. They light and decorate the house on the New Year's day as it is thought to be inauspicious decorating it before the New Year. Moreover, they prepare different sweets. The first dish they eat, which is also an old tradition of preparing Kiri Bhaat (milk rice) with rice from new crop. This is prepared by the father or the male head of the family.

Noisemaking and fireworks on New Year's Eve is believed to have originated in ancient times, when noise and fire were thought to dispel evil spirits and bring good luck.

Auld Lang Syne is sung at midnight to toast in the New Year. The song was composed by Robert Burns sometimes in the 1700's. The term means "old long ago" or "the good old days."