The FESTIVAL of COLORS ? why colors ?.......HAPPY HOLI !!!

Holi is a spring festival also known as festival of colours. It is an ancient Hindu religious festival which has become popular with non-Hindus in many parts of South Asia, as well as people of other communities. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal, and other regions of the world with significant populations of majority Hindus or people of Indian origin. The festival has, in recent times, spread in parts of Europe and North America as a spring celebration of love, frolic and colours.

Holi celebrations start with a Holika bonfire on the night before Holi where people gather, sing and dance. The next morning is free for all carnival of colours, where everyone plays, chases and colours each other with dry powder and coloured water, with some carrying water guns and coloured water-filled balloons for their water fight. Anyone and everyone is fair game, friend or stranger, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. 

The frolic and fight with colours occurs in the open streets, open parks, outside temples and buildings. Groups carry drums and musical instruments, go from place to place, sing and dance. People move and visit family, friends and foes, first play with colours on each other, laugh and chit-chat, then share Holi delicacies, food and drinks.

Holi is celebrated at the approach of vernal equinox, on the Phalguna Purnima (Full Moon). The festival date varies every year, per the Hindu calendar, and typically comes in March, sometimes February in the Gregorian Calendar. The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair ruptured relationships.

There is a symbolic legend to explain why holi is celebrated. The word “Holi” originates from “Holika”, the evil sister of demon king Hiranyakashipu. King Hiranyakashipu had earned a boon that made him virtually indestructible. The special powers blinded him, he grew arrogant, felt he was God, and demanded that everyone worship only him. Hiranyakashipu’s own son, Prahlada, however, disagreed. He was and remained devoted to Vishnu. This infuriated Hiranyakashipu. 

He subjected Prahlada to cruel punishments, none of which affected the boy or his resolve to do what he thought was right. Finally, Holika – Prahlada’s evil aunt – tricked him into sitting on a pyre with her. Holika was wearing a cloak (shawl) that made her immune to injury from fire, while Prahlada was not. As the fire roared, the cloak flew from Holika and encased Prahlada. Holika burned, Prahlada survived.The day after Holika bonfire is celebrated as Holi.

In Braj region of India, where Krishna grew up, the festival is celebrated for 16 days (until Rangpanchmi) in commemoration of the divine love of Radha for Krishna, a Hindu deity. The festivities officially usher in spring, with Holi celebrated as festival of love. There is a symbolic myth behind commemorating Krishna as well. Baby Krishna transitioned into his characteristic dark blue skin colour because a she demon Putana poisoned him with her breast milk. 

In his youth, Krishna despairs whether fair skinned Radha and other Gopikas(girls) will like him because of his skin colour. His mother, tired of the desperation, asks him to approach Radha and colour her face in any colour he wanted. This he does, and Radha and Krishna became a couple. The playful colouring of the face of Radha has henceforth been commemorated as Holi. 

Beyond India, these legends to explain the significance of Holi (Phagwah) are common in some Caribbean and South American communities of Indian origin such as Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Over the years, Holi has become an important festival in many regions wherever Indian diaspora were either taken as indentured laborers during colonial era, or where they emigrated on their own, and are now present in large numbers such as Africa, North America, Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia such as Fiji.

Outside India it is celebrated in Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Fiji, Mauritius and Guyana.

This masters in musicology is the BRAIN BEHIND CAMERA PHONES and a pioneer in various upcoming technologies !!!!

Philippe Kahn (born March 16, 1952) is a technology innovator and entrepreneur, credited with creating the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks. Kahn's publicly transmitted birth-picture of his daughter of June 11, 1997 is the first one known. Kahn is also a pioneer for wearable technology IP. Kahn has founded three technology companies: Fullpower Technologies, LightSurf Technologies, and Starfish Software. He was also an early employee and later owner of Borland. Kahn is the author of several dozen technology patents covering wearable, eyewear, smartphone, mobile, imaging, wireless, synchronization, medical technologies.

Kahn has founded four software companies: Fullpower Technologies, founded in 2003, LightSurf Technologies, founded in 1998 (acquired by VeriSign in 2005), Starfish Software, founded in 1994 (acquired by Motorola in 1998), and Borland, founded in 1982 (acquired by Micro Focus in 2009).

Kahn grew up in Paris, France. He was born to Jewish immigrants of modest means. His mother was an Auschwitz survivor, violinist and lieutenant in the French resistance. His father was a self-educated mechanical engineer with a Socialist bent.

Kahn was educated in mathematics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland (Swiss Federal Polytechnic Institute), on a full scholarship and University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, France. He received a mastersin mathematics. He also received a masters in musicology composition and classical flute performance at the Zurich Music Conservatory in Switzerland. As a student, Kahn developed software for the MICRAL, the earliest non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor. The MICRAL is now credited by the Computer History Museum as the first ever microprocessor-based personal computer.

Under Kahn's direction, Borland became the first software company to offer domestic partners full benefits and a pioneer for gay rights in Silicon Valley. Kahn was a key speaker at the pivotal Gay Rights conference on the Apple campus on October 19, 1993.

Kahn was CEO of Borland from 1982 to 1994, when Borland was a competitor of Microsoft. Kahn was President, CEO, and Chairman of Borland and, without venture capital, took Borland from no revenues to a $500 million run-rate. Starfish Software was founded in 1994 by Philippe Kahn as a spin-off from the Simplify business unit from Borland and Kahn's severance from Borland; which was successfully acquired by Motorola for $325 million in 1998.

Kahn founded LightSurf in 1998 shortly after he had created the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks in 1997. The impetus for this invention was the birth of Kahn's daughter; he jury-rigged a mobile phone with a digital camera and sent off photos in real time. LightSurf was formed to take advantage of the explosive convergence of wireless messaging technology, the Internet, and digital media. LightSurf's core technology, the LightSurf 6 Open Standards MMS Platform, was a suite of hosted and managed MMS services that allowed users to capture, view, annotate, and share multimedia messages with any handset or e-mail address, regardless of device, file type, or network operator.

Fullpower, founded in 2003 and focused on the convergence of life sciences, wireless technology, accelerometrics, nanotechnology and Microelectromechanical systems, is well known for its MotionX Technology Platform. Fullpower is a leader in Wearable Technology. The MotionX technology Platform powers solution such as Jawbone UP, Nike and others. As of November 2013, Fullpower has been awarded 33 issued US patents covering wearable technology, sensor fusion and motion processors.

Because the iPhone from launch integrated a collection of sensors, Fullpower launched iPhone applications as a showcase and a validation of the MotionX Wearable technology platform. First introduced publicly with the launch of Apple's App Store in July 2008, the MotionX Technology Platform provides the underlying Wearable technology for the leading Navigation and Fitness Applications on the App Store. These include:

• Nike+ GPS, launched in September 2010, the leading fitness application on the iPhone and iPod Touch. MotionX provides the underlying technology for the Nike+ GPS Application. "We took great care in evaluating sensing technologies and found the MotionX Technology Platform to be superior," said Stefan Olander, Vice President of Digital Sport at Nike.
• MotionX-GPS Drive, launched in September 2009, the top-downloaded turn-by-turn navigation application for the iPhone.
• MotionX-GPS, launched in October 2008, the multi-sport and navigation GPS application for the iPhone.
• MotionX-24/7, launched in March 2012, MotionX's complete sleep and activity tracking and management solution.

The first wearable Sleep and Activity monitor based on the MotionX Wearable technology platform in the UP Band. In September 2011, the Jawbone UP band, a wrist-worn activity and sleep monitoring device powered by MotionX technology, was launched. The MotionX-24/7 Engine is at the core of the Jawbone UP and the Nike solutions.

Observing a date being associated with the LEGENDS in MEDICAL profession for their PATH-BREAKING WORK !!!

Emil Adolf von Behring (15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917) born Adolf Emil Behring in Hansdorf (now Ławice, Iława County), Kreis Rosenberg, Province of Prussia, now Poland. Between 1874 and 1878, he studied medicine at the Akademie für das militärärztliche Bildungswesen, Berlin. He was mainly a military doctor and then became Professor of Hygienics within the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Marburg. He and the pharmacologist Hans Horst Meyer had their laboratories in the same building, and Behring stimulated Meyer's interest in the mode of action of tetanus toxin. Behring was the discoverer of diphtheria antitoxin in 1890 and attained a great reputation by that means and by his contributions to the study of immunity. 

He won the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901 for the development of serum therapies against diphtheria and tetanus. At the International Tuberculosis Congress in 1905 he announced that he had discovered "a substance proceeding from the virus of tuberculosis." This substance, which he designated "T C", plays the important part in the immunizing action of Professor Behring's "bovivaccine", which prevents bovine tuberculosis. He tried unsuccessfully to obtain a protective and therapeutic agent for humans. He created an antitoxin.

Behring demonstrated that the injection of toxins was able to be transmitted to another animal by injections of a treated animal's blood serum and used as a means of effecting a cure. Behring died at Marburg, Hessen-Nassau, on 31 March 1917. His name survived with the Dade Behring, organisation, at the time, the world's largest company dedicated solely to clinical diagnostics, (now part of the Siemens Healthcare Division) in CSL Behring a manufacturer of plasma-derived biotherapies, in Behringwerke AG in Marburg, in Novartis Behring and in the Emil von Behring Prize of the University of Marburg, the highest endowed medicine award in Germany.

Waldemar Mordecai Wolff Haffkine (15 March 1860 - 26 October 1930) was a Russian Empire Jewish bacteriologist, whose career was blighted in Russia because "he refused to convert to Russian Orthodoxy." He emigrated and worked at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he developed an anti-cholera vaccine that he tried out successfully in India. He is recognized as the first microbiologist who developed and used vaccines against cholera and bubonic plague. He tested the vaccines on himself. Lord Joseph Lister named him "a saviour of humanity". He was knighted in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year Honours in 1897.

Haffkine focused his research on developing cholera vaccine and produced an attenuated form of the bacterium. Risking his own life, on July 18, 1892, Haffkine performed the first human test on himself and reported his findings on July 30 to the Biological Society. The scientist decided to move to India where hundreds of thousands died from ongoing epidemics. In 1983, he managed to vaccinate about 25,000 volunteers, most of whom survived. After contracting malaria, Haffkine had to return to France. In his August 1895 report to Royal College of Physicians in London about the results of his Indian expedition, Haffkine dedicated his successes to Pasteur, who recently had died. In March 1896, against his doctor's advice, Haffkine returned to India and performed 30,000 vaccinations in seven months.

In October 1896, an epidemic of bubonic plague struck Mumbai and the government asked Haffkine to help. He embarked upon the development of a vaccine in a makeshift laboratory in a corridor of Grant Medical College. In three months of persistent work (one of his assistants experienced a nervous breakdown, two others quit), a form for human trials was ready and on January 10, 1897 Haffkine tested it on himself. "Haffkine's vaccine used a small amount of the bacteria to produce an immune reaction." After these results were announced to the authorities, volunteers at the Byculla jail were inoculated and survived the epidemics, while seven inmates of the control group died.

By the turn of the 20th century, the number of inoculees in India alone reached four million and doctor Haffkine was appointed the Director of the Plague Laboratory in Mumbai (now called Haffkine Institute). Haffkine was the first to prepare a vaccine for human prophylaxis by killing virulent culture by heat at 60°C. The major limit of his vaccine was the lack of activity against pulmonary forms of plague.

Edward Donnall "Don" Thomas (March 15, 1920 – October 20, 2012) was an American physician, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, and director emeritus of the clinical research division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 1990 he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Joseph E. Murray for the development of cell and organ transplantation. Thomas developed bone marrow transplantation as a treatment for leukemia.

Thomas attended the University of Texas at Austin where he studied chemistry and chemical engineering, graduating with a B.A. in 1941 and an M. A.in 1943. He entered Harvard Medical School in 1943, receiving an M.D. in 1946. Dottie became a lab technician during this time to support the family, and the pair worked closely thereafter. He did his residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital before joining the US Army.

At Mary Imogene Bassett, he began to study rodents that received lethal doses of radiation who were then saved by an infusion of marrow cells. At the time, patients who underwent bone marrow transplantation all died from infections or immune reactions that weren't seen in the rodent studies. Thomas began to use dogs as a model system. In 1963, he moved his lab to the United States Public Health Service in Seattle. Thomas also received National Medal of Science in 1990. In 2003 he was one of 21 Nobel Laureates who signed the Humanist Manifesto.