WWW

World Wide Web has many connotations and interpretations. For some, the web is a medium of free expression and for others it is something that merits censorship. But Sir Tim Beners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, in 1998 said “the Web is an abstract (imaginary) space of information”.  However, Sir Tim’s proposal was initially rejected by his boss at the Swiss Physics laboratory, CERN. It wasn’t accepted until he proposed the three technologies HTML (HyperText Markup Language), URI(Uniform Resource Identifier) and HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol). The web was built on the foundation of these three, and they still remain in the use. In the beginning, the webpage were static, read-only text pages. Images world open in another browser window. Its changed when the first user-friendly browser Mosaic was launched. It provide to be critical in the explosion of web. The pages looked better with inline images and it had most of the features that is seen today in a browser. A URI bar, back and forward buttons were first introduced by Mosaic. Netscape Navigator came much later and turned the web on its head. However, what made the World Wide Web even more attractive was that CERN waived its royalties in 1993. This paved the way for innovation and made the web what it is today. 

EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

The tasks of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and of the eurosystem are laid down in the Treaty establishing the European Community. They are specified in the Statute of the ESCB and of the European Central Bank(ECB).

The primary objective of the ESCB shall be to maintain price stability and support the general economic policies in the Community with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community. The  ECB also responsible for framing and implementing the EU's economic and monetary policy.

The European Central Bank (ECB, based in Frankfurt, Germany) manages the euro - the EU's single currency - and safeguards price stability in the EU.

These institutes are said to be supranational. Now the question that comes to mind - why these institutions are called supranational ?

The supranational nature of European institutions is due to the independence of the institutions vis-à-vis the mamber states. In other worlds, the European institutions pursue the common European interest. The European Commissioners, the mambers of the European Parliament (EP), the employees of the European Court of Justice and the officials of other European institutions all have a European mandate. The are supposed to deal with the matters submitted  to them and the staff under them without taking any account of their own country of origin.

But, it is believed that the European institutions suffer from 'democratic deficit'. This is the result of various factors, they are complex ways of decision making; the decision-making mechanism still being tilted too much on the side of the Council (the member states ) and the Commission; the power of European Parliament still being limited, as compared to the that of the Council; the unanimous vote method in many fields, which allows one country to block common decision so as to hold on to a decisive advantage; A communications policy that has long been deficient and directed downwards from on high (the "top-down"method) rather than from the ordinary person towards the European institutions ("bottom-up") and lack of transparency. But that dosn't mean that the institutions a such don't have sufficient democratic legitimacy. The process of European Integration has been envolving continuously right from the outset.  

WATER

we drink it, swim in it, wash ourselves with it, use it for cooking; in fact it constitute up to two-thirds of our bodies as well-indeed, no substance is as familiar to us as water. And yet this colourless, odourless fluid continues to puzzle science with its unexpected behaviour. 

water happens to be one of the smallest molecules known to us-just two atom of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Practically no chemical compound has a lighter and simpler-and yet no substance affects our planet as powerfully as this one does. It influences our weather and climate, is able to carry away high hills, carve out colossal canyons, flood might oceans and cover the land in thick sheets of ice.

And of course, without it there would be no life of any kind on earth. This colourless liquid is present in every organism-two-third of the human body is made up of water. Human can go several weeks without food, but will die in a few days without water. The same applies to most plants and animals. Whether they are bugs, birds or bunnies, trees, mushrooms or bacteria, water keeps the entire biological cycle in motion. Even the spiral DNA molecule would collapse instantly without this fluid.

water is so omnipresent that even those who have no idea whatsoever of chemistry are usually familiar with its formula H₂O - two atoms of hydrogen (H) combining with one atom of oxygen (O). And yet, this substance that we take for granted is anything but simple. Water is a curious paradox: a material that has been researched so extensively that data on it could fill entire libraries, but it also continues to present science new mysteries to puzzle over.

For this little molecule never quite behaves like other chemically comparable substances. Over the centuries researchers have discovered over 70 strange properties (called anomalies) of the H₂O molecule. To unlock its last secrets, scientists have now brought out the big guns: they are putting water under extremely high pressures, bombarding it with high-energy X-rays, forcing it through pipes 7,500 times narrower than the finest blood vessels, and simulating its behaviour on super computers.

The singular properties of this colourless, odourless and tasteless liquid are critical to many processes on our planet. If H₂O molecules looked even a tiny bit different, earth would be a lifeless desert. we all exist only because water has several special features. The most important of these are:

1. Water occurs on earth as a liquid.

2. It evaporates at a boiling point of 100^o C

3. When liquid H₂O freezes into ice, it expands.

4. Water is a perfect solvent.

5. The simple structure of this substance plays a major role in the complex biochemical processes of the body.

After centuries of research  we would like to believe that we know everything about this compound. But, as the renowned scientific journal Nature declared some time ago, "No one really understand water."