Picture of the Month

Blind Man's Bluff

An Arab on Arabs

Brilliance CT 256-Slice Scanner from Philips Gets to the Heart of the Problem

Philips recently unveiled their 256-slice scanner that renders 3-D images of the body like never before. The $2-million Brilliance CT machine can capture the body's skeleton, organs and blood vessels in the minutest of detail, and was unveiled recently in Chicago, at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting.Philips' scanner can give a patient a full body scan in less than a minute — and exposes them to 80 per cent less radiation than a traditional X-ray machine. The machine scans the body as well as rotating around it, sending out 256 pulses every one-third of a second. It is so powerful that it can capture an unblurred image of an entire heart in less than two heartbeats.The machine could prove useful in the battle against cancer. As well as picking up tumors in the body, the scanner should be able to show medics how the disease spreads and new patterns of abnormality.

BBC Sez Smellable Internet on the Way

The solution to the Internet addicts is on the way, and should be here by 2015. According to the BBC a South Korean company is claiming that the Internet will be able to deliver smell data by 2015. Why will this be the ultimate medicine for Internet addicts? Because they will be forced to smell the people and things they look at on a daily basis. I don't even want to imagine what kind of foul stenches the Internet could produce on any given day and I don't even want to know why a smell-o-net would need to be available by 2015. Smells like a turd covered in burnt hair—name that movie!

BBC also predicted that by 2012 batteries in mobile phones will last perhaps two months between recharges.

The experts taking part in the survey said that by 2018 robots will be routinely carrying out surgery.

The long-range predictions in the survey came from interviews carried out with about 3,500 technology experts in South Korea.

The country has long been known for its dedication to hi-tech.

Net-using citizens enjoy some of the highest speed broadband connections in the world, widespread high-speed mobile networks and the country's education system makes extensive use of the net to teach and track pupils' progress.

The hi-tech panel behind the report believed that, by 2015, the net will be used to deliver data about smells to a fragrance cartridge sitting next to a computer or other device accessing the net.

By 2015 the report suggests that soldiers will wear bulletproof and waterproof battle dress that can also change its appearance to match its surroundings.

Available soon after, by 2018, will be robots small enough to swim along blood vessels in the human body finding, probing and healing any health problems they come across.

Eyelash Growing Drug Will Cure That Baldness Around Your Eyes

If you've ever worried about the inadequacy of your eyelashes, the company that brought you Botox now has a serum to make them longer and fuller. The source of its power: repurposed glaucoma meds.

Allergan will introduce the lash growing drug, named Latisse, at the end of the month. It'll be used to treat “eyelash hypotrichosis,” that life-threatening condition where you look in the mirror and huffily remark that your eyelashes just aren't full enough to flutter properly.

Clinical trials found that Latisse increased “overall eyelash prominence as measure by the Global Eyelash Assessment” by at least one point on a four point scale. That's right, there's a Global Eyelash Assessment scale. God, I love the beauty industry.

Japanese Doctors Using Wii Fit to Help You Stop Being Fat

Nintendo has partnered with NEC, Panasonic and Hitachi to put together a system that actual doctors will use to check up on actual patients, using a Wii Fit.

The add-on is a special channel for the Wii, called the "Health Checkup Channel", that provides two-way communication between doctors and their patients. For the doctors, the system is essentially a readout of whatever information Wii Fit collects, presented over time and in the context of the patient's medical history, which I would assume he or she would be privy to. For the patient, the experience is much like the vanilla Wii Fit, except with a real-life doctor feeding you personalized guidance.

Inkjet Cartridges To Save Your Kidneys

Sometimes it's hard to remember that inkjet printers are good for anything other than ripping you off, but news today from HP's own intellectual property czar may change that: the technology that regulates the precise mixture of pigments down to the last picoliter will soon make home kidney dialysis machines more accurate by regulating mixtures of dialysis fluid with similar accuracy.

People with kidney problems often have to undergo dialysis treatments several times per day, so doing so at home is a necessity; unfortunately, home dialysis is prone to errors because the dialysis solution must be mixed precisely, often at varying concentrations. The HP-licensed inkjet tech will allow for dialysis solution to come in easy-to-swap cartridges that handle precise mixtures automatically. OK, you're off the hook for now, HP. For now.

The Street Acrobat

Nuclear Physics

Treadmill

Amazing DSI Brain Scanning Visualizes Your Mind's Inner Workings In 3D

What's that monkey thinking about when he's mushing down that banana or tossing feces at you? Well, you're looking at it—this is a map of where a macaque's thoughts live. It's made possible by new 3D visualization algorithms developed by neuroscientists at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston which render a brain's billions of individual neuron connections in full-color 3D, with each visible strand representing several tens of thousands of the too-small-to-image neural pathways. It's all done by simply applying new processing to existing MRI scan data, and thankfully, it works on human brains too.

The tech, called diffusion spectrum imaging, takes current data from MRI scans and analyzes it for the passage of water molecules along the individual neuron connections in the brain. It then processes it to spit out the 3D maps. It's possible to do on live subjects (like the human brain image above), but more detail can be achieved by scanning non-living samples for up to 24 hours.

Doctors are using the new images to better understand our brain's infinitely complicated wiring, and to avoid important neural nets during surgeries.

Philips iPill Senses Location in Body, Delivers Doses to Precise Spots

Philips' Intelligent Pill is a robotic capsule that can carry out a number of advanced medical functions, such as knowing its location in the body. According to Reuters, the pint-sized devices measures acidity and temperature in the stomach, determines it's position in the stomach, and knows whether or not it should release its dose of medicine. Making use of a microprocessor, wireless radio and battery, along with a pump and a deposit for the drugs, the pill could greatly help patients with disorders like Crohn's disease; because the iPill can deliver drugs to a more exact spot, less drugs would be required (leading to less side effects). Researchers say the prototype is ready for mass manufacturing.

Capshell Texts Grandma If She Doesn't Take Her Medicine

Medication adherence is a legitimate issue, especially in the older population. And the Capshell concept, a system that tracks how often patients take their medicine, gets it about half right.

Basically, the Capshell dispenses individual doses of medicine upon request. These doses are both tracked for study by a doctor at a later date (to see if the patient is taking their medicine) and monitored by a system that will automatically text message a patient that forgets to take their pill.

Oh, and it looks super cool and glossy, featuring a neat slide-out cartridge design that eliminates the pain of turning child-proof caps—a few points that make it a bit different than competing products already on the market.

But the Capshell is ultimately a pretty superficial attempt at dealing with medication adherence. Taking medicine at the right time is only a small part of the real problem. For instance, did the patient take their medicine with food when they weren't supposed to? Is the patient supposed to take the pill twice daily, but only in the presence of symptoms? Did the patient even take the medicine at all, or did they just open the container?

Essentially, there are a multitude of ways that, seniors especially, don't take their medicine properly. And this system deals with one on them. Sort of.

Why right-brainers will rule this century

From Ophrah.Com

Author Daniel Pink: Right brain skills will be crucial in coming age
Those skills include design, storytelling, empathy, creativity
Says left-brained skills --accounting, computer programming can be outsourced
Says it's harder to outsource creativity such as design and storytelling.

(OPRAH.com) -- Your left brain is logical, linear, by-the-numbers; the right side is creative, artistic, empathetic. Oprah Winfrey talks with Daniel Pink about his groundbreaking book, "A Whole New Mind", and explores how right-brain thinkers are wired for 21st-century success.

The best part: Anyone can tap into the right mind-set.

Pink, a former chief speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, presents a convincing argument that our country is entering a new era -- the so-called conceptual age -- during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial than traditionally left-brained skills such as accounting and computer programming.

While the latter skills are readily outsourced, transformative abilities such as empathy and creativity are crucial in a new age "animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life," he writes.

Because I've always been a right-brain kind of person -- more of an inventive and empathetic storyteller than a linear, logical number cruncher --this book really spoke to me. Now, you know what happens when something new excites me: I want to share it with as many people as I can.

In June 2008, I was invited to Stanford University to give the commencement address (my goddaughter Kirby was among the graduates).

After finishing Daniel's book, I ordered 4,500 copies, one for each student in Stanford's class of 2008. I wanted to present them (along with another of my favorites, Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth) as graduation presents. For four days straight, a team of people tied ribbons around the books, which were waiting on their chairs.

When we sat down in the studio in Chicago, I told him the story of my ribbon assembly line. "That's the kind of work we typically try to outsource!" Daniel joked. In "A Whole New Mind," he explains that one of the trademarks of the Conceptual Age is the outsourcing of traditional white-collar jobs such as law, accounting, and engineering to less-expensive overseas workers, particularly in Asia. But as he points out, you can't outsource creativity.

Feel left out? Fear not, Daniel says: He has identified six right-brain-associated aptitudes that he believes anyone can develop, and tells us how we can use these skills not only to stay competitive in the workplace but to improve our lives and our world.

Winfrey: Let's start with the bold statement you make on the cover of your book: Why will right-brainers rule the future?

Pink: In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.

What's important now are the characteristics of the brain's right hemisphere: artistry, empathy, inventiveness, big-picture thinking. These skills have become first among equals in a whole range of business fields.

Winfrey: Does this mean that left-brainers are going to be out of work?

Pink: Not necessarily -- but it does mean that people like me have some work to do. I happen to be extremely left-brained; my instinct is to draw a chart rather than a picture. I'm trying to get my right-brain muscles into shape. I actually think this shift toward right-brain abilities has the potential to make us both better off and better in a deeper sense.

Winfrey: You write that after living through the agricultural, industrial, and information ages, we've entered the conceptual age, in which creators and empathizers will lead. How have what you call the three A's -- abundance, automation, and Asia -- ushered in this new era?

Pink:In the same way that machines have replaced our bodies in certain kinds of jobs, software is replacing our left brains by doing sequential, logical work. And that brings us to Asia, to where that work is being shipped. In Asia you have tens of millions of people who can do routine tasks like write computer code. Routine is work you can reduce to a spreadsheet, to a script, to a formula, to a series of steps that has the right answer.

Winfrey: So you suggest that right-brain aptitudes, when complemented with left-directed thinking, can result in a whole new mind. Because we've entered a conceptual age, where meaning and harmony, design and purpose are going to be more significant to the world than formulaic thinking and activities. After I read your book, I thought, 'This is my time.'

Pink:That's how a lot of people have responded: that the world has come to them. In this country, the "smart" people have these logical, linear abilities, while right-brain people are often seen as flighty, spacey, artsy-fartsy.

Winfrey: They're viewed as being "woo-woo."

Pink:Yes, exactly! I'm not much of a woo-woo guy, so when I used my left brain to look at the facts, it became clear that the scales are tilting. My generation's parents told their children, "Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class."

But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate.

Ultimately, here's what is heartening: The right brain is finally being taken seriously. The Dalai Lama is doing joint projects with neuroscientists. People like Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor [the Harvard-trained brain researcher who chronicled her stroke in the book "My Stroke of Insight"], who have incredible street cred in neuroscience, are offering their stories.

Winfrey: So what advice do you give kids who are in school?

Pink:Ultimately, it's about following your intrinsic motivation. What are you here to do? What are you uniquely good at?

Winfrey: Let's talk about a right-brain ability you think we should all develop.

Pink:I'd say "design." Design is the ability to create something that has significance as well as usefulness. Even hospitals are bringing in designers to redo waiting rooms.

A young designer in New York re-created the prescription bottle because she noticed that her grandparents were getting their medications confused. She put the medicine's name in large type at the top instead of the doctor's name, and Grandpa gets a green band on his medicine bottle and Grandma gets a yellow band so they can see the difference more clearly. That's an example of how design can literally save lives.

Winfrey: How do we begin to create more design in our lives?

Pink:Carry a notebook and write down examples of good and poor design. After a week, you'll begin to realize that nearly everything is the product of a design decision. The type of lid you put on the cup of coffee you bought this morning was a design decision. So were the shoes you're wearing.

Winfrey: Another right-brained skill you talk about is "story."

Pink:We live in a world where facts are everywhere. If we wanted to know the gross domestic product of Ecuador, my kids could find that online in 15 seconds.

What matters more now is the ability to put facts into context and deliver them with emotional impact. And that's what a story does. We have in our head something called story grammar.

We see the world as a series of episodes rather than logical propositions; when your spouse asks, "How was your day?" you don't whip out a PowerPoint presentation and a pie chart. Instead, you narrate: "First, this happened, and you'll never believe what happened after that...," and so on.

In our serious society, storytelling is seen as being soft. But people process the world through story. Companies are now using a product's backstory as a way to differentiate items in a crowded marketplace.

Winfrey: Of course, I have a great affection for story because I make my living telling others' stories. Story is a way to build connection.

Pink: Amen. That's why business schools are slowly starting to recognize the power of narrative -- if you want to lead an organization, you have to be effective in creating a compelling vision with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Winfrey: Tell me about the skill you call "symphony."

Pink:Symphony is the ability to see the big picture, connect the dots, combine disparate things into something new. It's a signature ability that is a great predictor of star performance in the workplace. Visual artists in particular are good at seeing how the pieces come together.

I experienced this myself by trying to learn to draw. The teacher showed us how to see proportions, relationships, light and shadow, negative space, and space between space -- something I never noticed before!

In one week, I went from not knowing how to draw to sketching a detailed portrait. It literally changed the way I see things; now I view the world in a much more holistic, symphonic way.

Winfrey: What about the right-brain ability you mention in your book, "play"? I've got to get better at play.

Pink:Me too. One aspect of play is the importance of laughter, which has physiological and psychological benefits. Did you know that there are thousands of laughter clubs around the world? People get together and laugh for no reason at all!

Winfrey: Isn't it kind of pitiful? You don't have anything really to laugh about so you go to a club, you have a meeting to laugh?

Pink:That's what I used to think, too. And so I went to a laughter club in Mumbai. It was 6:30 in the morning, on a muddy soccer field. About 40 people gathered around a woman, who said, "Ho-ho-ha-ha-ha, ho-ho-ha-ha-ha, ho-ho-ha-ha-ha." Everyone repeated after her. And I sat there thinking, 'This is the freakiest thing I've ever seen.'

Winfrey: "Ho-ho-ha-ha-ha"?

Pink: I realized that it's not about laughing at a joke; it's about the physicality of laughing. It's laughter yoga, or a kind of meditation. Even as the left brain is thinking, 'What the heck are you doing?' the right brain says, 'Be quiet -- this is cool.' So I started doing it.

Winfrey: It's nearly impossible to say "ho-ho-ha-ha-ha" and not at least smile! Let's move on to another right-brain skill you mention in your book: "empathy."

Pink:Empathy is about standing in someone else's shoes, feeling with his or her heart, seeing with his or her eyes. Not only is empathy hard to outsource and automate but it makes the world a better place.

Winfrey: Yes. And finally, there's the capacity you call "meaning." Isn't meaning the common denominator of human experience? Over the years while doing my show, I've learned that we all want to be validated, to know that what we say matters, that it means something. We all want to feel as if our lives have been significant and purposeful.

Pink: This is why I think baby boomers are going to do something quite spectacular. They say, "Sixty's not old. Oh, I've got 25 years left."

Then they look back 25 years and say, "Holy smokes, that sure happened fast. Are the next 25 years going to happen as fast? And if they are, what's my legacy going to be? When am I going to live my best life? What kind of imprint am I going to leave on the world?"

Roughly 100 baby boomers turn 60 every 18 minutes in this country. Imagine the collective force of that. So I think that this widespread search for meaning is one of the most important things going on in American life today.

Surf

These incredible images of waves were taken by the number 1 photographer of surf: Clark Little. He has dedicated his life to photographing the waves and has published a selection of the best images of his career. He captures magical moments inside the "tube", as surfers say.

Sam

Turner Brown

Skinny little white guy goes into an elevator, looks up and sees this
HUGE black guy standing next to him. The big guy sees the little guy
staring at him looks down and says: "7 feet tall, 350 pounds, 20 inch
private, 3 pound testicles, Turner Brown."

The little guy faints and falls to the floor. The big guy kneels down
and brings him back to life, shaking him. The big guy says:
"What's wrong with you?"

In a weak voice the little guy says, "What EXACTLY did you say to me?"
The big dude says: "I saw your curious look and figured I'd just give you the answers to the questions everyone always asks me..... I'm 7 feet tall, I weigh 350 pounds, I have a 20 inch private, my testicles weigh 3 pounds each, and my name is Turner Brown."

The small guy says: "Turner Brown?!...Sweet Jesus, I thought you said,
"Turn around".

The FAO Schwartz Piano

Mexican Lion

The owner in Mexico was tired of thugs breaking into his shop so he came up with this idea. Shaving his Lil Bebee to make it look like a Lion..

Scientists pinpoint fats danger

Scientists have identified a genetic mechanism which appears to determine which fatty deposits in the arteries have the potential to kill us.

Most of these plaques pose no risk to health, but a minority burst, forming blood clots, which can cause heart attacks or strokes.

A Columbia University team pinpointed a gene which seems to make plaques more vulnerable to rupture.

The American study appears in the journal Cell Metabolism.

Fatty deposits begin to form in the arteries of most people in their teens, but the vast majority are harmless.

However, it is thought that around 2% of plaques have the potential to burst.

This can lead to the development of a clot, which can restrict blood supply to the heart or brain, with potentially grave consequences.

Scientists believe one of the key factors determining whether a plaque will burst is the make up of its inner core.

The inner core of plaques vulnerable to rupture often contains a lot of dead cells.

These cells release substances that can weaken the surface cap of the plaque, making rupture more likely.

The Columbia team identified a gene thought to play a key role in the build up of these dead cells.

The researchers bred mice prone to develop plaques, and fed them a high-fat diet for 10 weeks.

The animals which lacked the key gene tended to produce smaller plaques, and to show markedly lower levels of cell death and plaque degradation.

The gene in question produces a protein which plays a central role in a mechanism used by the body to kill off cells that are damaged and unhealthy.

This mechanism key to ensuring our tissues remain in good working order.

But there is some evidence to suggest that the process may sometimes become too aggressive, and may lead to problems such as neurodegenerative diseases and diabetes.

And the latest study suggests it may also turn benign plaques potentially deadly.

Lead researcher Dr Ira Tabas said that previous research had suggested that this mechanism might be involved in plaque rupture, but the magnitude of the effect uncovered in the latest study was a surprise.

He said: "The fact that we were able to isolate one gene encoding one protein with such a profound effect on plaque necrosis (death) was a big surprise."

Dr Tabas said the finding raised hopes of new drugs which could act on the key gene, or the associated mechanism, to cut the risk of dangerous plaques.

"Just about everybody in our society has atherosclerosis (thickening of the arteries) by the time we reach 20," he said.

"So the wave of the future in treating atherosclerosis will be in preventing harmless lesions in young people from becoming dangerous ones, or soothing dangerous plaques so they don't rupture as we age."

Alasdair Little, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This is a very interesting biological study to identify why some plaques that cause coronary artery disease may lead to a heart attack and others do not.

"However, many more years of investigation and study will be needed before it informs clinical practice for the treatment of heart disease."

The Little Girl versus Jay Leno

This Is How Your Bags & Shoes Are Made

The Lifetime Ban

Starbucks Logo & The Egyptian National TV

Valerie O'Neil, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said that the logo is an image of a "twin-tailed siren" (the siren of Greek mythology). The logo has been significantly streamlined over the years. In the first version, which was based on a 16th century Norse woodcut, the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully visible double fish tail. The image also had a rough visual texture. The siren has been likened to a Melusine. In the second version, which was used from 1987-92, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly. In the current version, used since 1992, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. The original "woodcut" logo can still be seen on the Starbucks store in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and on both the House Blend and Decaf House Blend packaging.

At the beginning of September 2006 and then again in early 2008, Starbucks temporarily reintroduced its original brown logo on paper hot drink cups. Starbucks has stated that this was done to show the company's heritage from the Pacific Northwest and to celebrate 35 years of business. The vintage logo sparked some controversy due in part to the siren's bare breasts, but the temporary switch garnered little attention from the media. Starbucks had drawn similar criticism when they reintroduced the vintage logo in 2006. The logo was altered when Starbucks entered the Saudi Arabian market in 2000 to remove the mermaid, leaving only her crown, as reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning column by Colbert I. King in the Washington Post in 2002. The company announced 3 months later that it would be using the international logo in Saudi Arabia.

The Indian Airforce

Splendid Work In The Skies!!!

Obama 100 day special

An old priest who for years had faithfully served the people of the nation's capital, lay dying in the hospital. He motioned for his nurse to come near. "Yes, Father?" said the nurse. "I would really like to see Barack Obama and Joe Biden before I die," he whispered. "I'll see what I can do, Father" replied the nurse, and she respectfully forwarded the request to the DNC and waited for a response.
Surprisingly, soon the word arrived. Obama and Biden would be delighted to visit the priest. As they made their way to the hospital, Obama commented to Biden, "I don't know why the old priest wants to see us, but the media coverage will certainly help our images." Biden agreed.
When they arrived at the priest's room, the priest took Biden's hand in his right hand and Obama's hand in his left. There was silence and a look of serenity on the ancient cleric's face.
Finally Biden spoke. "Father, of all the people you could have chosen, why did you choose us to be with you as you near the end?" Taking a deep breath, the old priest painfully replied, "I have always tried to pattern my life after our Lord and Saviour."
"Amen," said Obama. "Amen," said Biden. The old priest continued, "He died between two lying thieves and I would like to do the same."

The MOGS Indo-Israeli Gynecological Endoscopy Workshop & Conference

The MOGS academic year began with a memorable and hugely successful event. Our first academic event -The MOGS Indo-Israeli Workshop on Gynecologic Endoscopy was held on 25th & 26th April 2009 at ITC Grand Central, Parel, Mumbai. This was organized by the MOGS Team 2009-10 headed by Dr Gautam Allahbadia (President, MOGS 2009-10) (yours truly) and Dr Ashwini Bhalerao-Gandhi (Secretary, MOGS 2009-10). Dr Sulbha Arora and Dr Reena Wani worked hard as Program Conveners to make the conference a grand success. Here I must mention that the Congress/Workshop planning was entirely Sulbha's baby & was done with pinpoint precision. Yashesh Shah from Drake Medical (Distributors of Richard Wolf GmBH, Germany) and his excellent team of engineers really worked on this project like possessed men. All the instrumentation was pre-approved from the Israeli surgeons in Tel Aviv & the missing instrumentation was especially flown in from the Richard wolf head-offices in Germany. Gurunandan Masurkar & his AV Medicon engineering team laid down a fibre-optic cable between KEM Hospital Gynecology OR and the Banquet Hall at ITC Grand Central. The trial run was made on Friday to rule out any bloopers on the workshop day.

The Pre-Congress Workshop on Saturday 25th april 2009 was conducted at the KEM Hospital with the support of the entire Gynecology Department headed by Prof SV Parulekar. The Coordinators for the Workshop were Dr Anahita Chauhan and Dr Niranjan Mayadeo. The Operating Team included Dr Motti Goldenberg & Dr Chen Goldchmit from Israel as well as Dr Rajendra Sankpal, Dr Pritesh Naik, Dr Vivek Salunke & Dr Ameya Padmawar from Deccan Fertility Clinic & Keyhole Surgery Center (Richard Wolf Center of Excellence for Gynecological Endoscopy), Shivaji Park , Mumbai. Surgical procedures were demonstrated by the operating team and relayed live to the attending delegates at ITC with a one way video link & a two way audio link.. The same procedures were also relayed simultaneously to the KEM Main Lecture Theatre for the benefit of post graduate students & the KEM Faculty. We are grateful to Drake Medical & Richard Wolf for undertaking the entire sponsorship for this cutting edge CME program. The morning live surgery session at ITC Grand Central was ably chaired by Dr Kiran Coelho, Dr Makrand Masrani and Dr Swati Allahbadia . The post-lunch live surgery session was chaired by Dr Sudhir Gokral, Dr Kevin Quadros and Dr Sudha Tandon. Almost the entire gamut of Gynecological Endoscopic Surgical cases were demonstrated by the Indo-Israeli team. Ovarian Endometrioma Excision, Adhesiolysis, Laparoscopic Hysterectomies, Lap Myomectomies, Hysteroscopic Adhesiolysis, Hysteroscopic Myoma Resection and Hysteroscopic Tubal Recanalization amongst other diagnostic cases were demonstrated via a digital beam to ITC Grand Central which is almost a kilometer away from the OR. The Israeli team felicitated the Head of Dept., Prof SV Parulekar for having hosted one of the most successful & flawless workshops for the MOGS (see Video). One must mention the generous & unstinting support from the Director & Dean, Seth GS Medical College & KEM Hospital - Prof. Sanjay Oak. With such a young and dynamic Director of Medical Education, I'm sure KEM Hospital will be a role model for other Medical Institutions in the country! The best part according to me was the live interaction between the surgical team and the discerning audience!

The Workshop/Conference had an attentive "glued-to-the-seat" 150+ delegates and 22 post graduate students. The Scientific Program covered varied topics & interesting cases of Gynecologic Endoscopy; and the contents were highly appreciated by attending delegates.The conference on Sunday, 26th April 2009 started with a session on Invited Videos. International and national experts enthralled the audiences with their expertise. Dr Pritesh Naik's video was one of the highlights of this session.The official Conference inauguration began with the President's Introductory speech followed by the National anthems of both countries. This moment brought tears to many eyes & there was a strange surge of pride running through the hall hearing & watching the Jana Gana Mana first & then the Hatikva! Im sure the Israeli duo were moved by a hall full of Indian Medical Professionals standing alongside them honoring both the countries for this joint continuing medical education mission.

The MOGS Indo-Israeli Keynote Address was delivered on 'Modern Endoscopic Management of Asherman's Syndrome' by Dr Chen Goldchmit, President of the Israel Society of Gynecologic Endoscopy.

This was followed by an interesting Panel Discussion on Complications of Gynecologic Endoscopy moderated by Dr Rajendra Sankpal. The panelists were Dr Motti Goldenberg, Dr Chen Goldchmit, Dr Prakash Trivedi, Dr Pritesh Naik, Dr Vasant Kawade, Dr Kiran Coelho and Dr Kusum Zaveri.

Invited Lectures were delivered by Dr Mufazzal Lakdawala on 'Stretching the Limits of Laparoscopic Bariatric Surgery'; Dr Ravi Ramadwar on 'Pediatric Laparoscopy: Sky is not the Limit' and Dr Rajendra Sankpal on 'Laparoscopic Myomectomy: When do you call it a day?'. Seeing is Believing - We had focussed on videos in this meeting & we had a veritable feast. The MOGS will now be offering the Workshop & Congress proceedings on sale in India & abroad. Proceeds of the same will be used for charity.

Post Lunch there was a Competitive Video Session in two halls simultaneously. Eight-minute videos with finished soundtracks pertaining to Gynecologic Endoscopy were presented by various speakers and judged by a panel of four experts in each hall. All the videos presented were of excellent quality making it a tough competition. The three award winning videos were presented by:

1st - Dr Makrand Masrani - Lost & Found Department of Operative Laparoscopy (41.50/50)
2nd - Dr Nagendra Sardeshpande - Laparoscopic Correction of Uterine Inversion (39.25/50)
3rd - Dr Kundan Ingale - Role of Endoscopy in Genital Tuberculosis (39.00/50)

Makarand walked away with a hand-engraved silver plaque presented by our Israeli Duo - Motti & Chen.

The coup-de-resistance was the much-awaited MOGS Dr Subhash J Penkar & Dr Marie Pereira Silver Jubilee Oration which was delivered by Dr Motti Goldenberg, recipient of two Golden Hysteroscope Awards at the International Congress of Gynecologic Endoscopy. The subject of his oration was 'Hysteroscopic Resection of Intramural Myoma'. The wonderful talk with the rarest of rare videos was enjoyed by all.

Eleven pharmaceutical and instrumentation companies exhibited stalls during the conference. The Banqueting facilities were appreciated by one and all. The famous Bukhara & Peshawari cusine took even the most hardened-conference-attendees by surprise. The food was outstanding. Our kudos to the ITC Grand Central team - in particular Mr Zubin Songadwala (GM) and Mr Vishrut Gupta who is coordinating all 7 academic events this year for MOGS!