Features

SAN FRANCISCO — Google unveiled changes aimed at making the leading search engine more visual and intuitive to the point that it can answer questions before being asked.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are core drivers of how Google will pursue its mission to organise the world’s information and make it accessible to anyone, search Vice President Ben Gomes said at an event in San Francisco.

The search engine focused strongly on mobile use and appeared to be growing more like Facebook, encouraging users to linger and explore topics, interests or stories with growing emphasis on photos and videos. Results will be increasingly personalised.

“Search is not perfect, and we are under no illusions it is,” Gomes recently said.

“But, you have our commitment that we will make it better every day.”

He described the latest changes as shifting from answers to journeys, providing ways to target queries without knowing what words to use and enhancing image-based searches.

Searching with pictures

Google Images was redesigned to weave in “Lens” technology that enables queries based on what is pointed out in pictures.

The Images overhaul includes carousels of online video clip highlights displayed with mobile search query results.

New Activity Cards will let users pick up searches where they left off, eliminating the need to retrace online steps.

The search engine will also let users create Collections of online content, and suggest related material that might be of interest.

A Google feed used by more than 800 million people monthly is getting a new name, Discover, and increased ability to offer people relevant information they are likely to want but have not thought to ask for yet.

The feature was described as “Google search helping you discover new things without a query”.

Google said it is also testing out an improvement to its job-related search results that will figure out what skills are needed for such posts and information about how to acquire them.

“Information and language are core to what we are as human beings,” Gomes said.

“Our work here is never done.”

Privacy and politics

Since being launched 20 years ago, Google has grown from simply a better way to explore the Internet to an online tool so woven into daily life that its name has become a verb.

Early days of search were about software matching keywords or precise phrases to content on web pages, with typos or imprecise queries destined to fail.

Google has consistently refined its search algorithm, which it keeps secret, and uses AI to understand what people are looking for online and to tailor results based on what it knows about users individually and collectively.

Google’s rise put it in the crosshairs of regulators, especially in Europe, due to concerns it may be abusing its domination of online search and advertising as well as Android smartphone operating software.

There have been concerns that parent company Alphabet is more interested in making money from people’s data than in safeguarding their privacy.

Google was under fire anew from privacy advocates for a change that automatically signs users into Chrome browsers on desktop computers when they sign into any of the company’s other services such as Gmail or search.

Chrome search data is not in sync with Google servers unless that function is enabled, the company said in an update to its policies.

Google is among the tech companies being called upon to better guard against the spread of misinformation — and has also been a target of US President Donald Trump, who added his voice to a chorus of Republicans who contend conservative viewpoints are downplayed in search results.

Google’s anniversary also comes with the rising trend of people engaging with the Internet through voice-commanded digital assistants, including one backed by the Silicon Valley giant.

Seattle-based Amazon last week sought to make its Alexa digital assistant and online services a bigger part of people’s lives with an array of new products and partnerships.

PARIS — From family and friends to strangers on the subway and public figures on 24-hour news cycles, humans recognise an astonishing 5,000 faces, scientists said on Wednesday in the first study of its kind.

Through most of history humans lived in small groups of a hundred or so individuals, a pattern that has changed drastically in recent centuries.

A study by scientists at Britain’s University of York found that our facial recognition abilities allow us to process the thousands of faces we encounter in busy social environments, on our smartphones and our television screens every day. 

“In everyday life, we are used to identifying friends, colleagues and celebrities, and many other people by their faces,” Rob Jenkins, from York’s Department of Psychology, told AFP.

“But no one has established how many faces people actually know.”

For the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Jenkins and his team asked participants to write down as many faces they could remember from their personal lives. 

The volunteers were then asked to do the same with people they recognised but did not know personally.

They were also shown thousands of images of famous people — two photos of each to ensure consistency — and asked which ones they recognised. 

The team found an enormous range of the number of faces each participant could recall, from roughly 1,000-10,000.

“We found that people know around 5,000 faces on average,” Jenkins said.

“It seems that whatever mental apparatus allows us to differentiate dozens of people also allows us to differentiate thousands of people.”

Never forget face

The team said it believes this figure — the first ever baseline of human “facial vocabulary”, could aid the development of facial recognition software increasingly used at airports and criminal investigations. 

It may also help scientists better understand cases of mistaken identity.

“Psychological research in humans has revealed important differences between unfamiliar and familiar face recognition,” said Jenkins. 

“Unfamiliar faces are often misidentified. Familiar faces are identified very reliably, but we don’t know exactly how.”

While the team said it was focused on how many faces humans actually know, they said it might be possible for some people to continue learning to recognise an unlimited number of faces, given enough practice. 

They pointed out that the brain has an almost limitless capacity to memorise words and languages — the limits on these instead come from study time and motivation.

The range of faces recognised by participants went far beyond what may have been evolutionarily useful: for thousands of years humans would likely only have met a few dozen people throughout their lives. 

Jenkins said it was not clear why we developed the ability to distinguish between thousands of faces in the crowd.

“This could be another case of ‘overkill’ that is sometimes seen in nature,” he said.

“The venom of some spiders can kill a horse, even though the spider has no need to eat a horse.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Alphabet Inc.’s Google on Tuesday unveiled the third edition of its Pixel smartphone, a Google Home smart speaker with a display and its first tablet computer as it makes a come-from-behind push into hardware. 

The company’s Android software has gone from being an also-ran to the brains of most of the world’s smartphones and Google topped Amazon.com Inc. in smart speaker sales in recent quarters. 

Pixel phones, though, have been a tougher sell, launching with glitches and garnering less than 1 per cent of the global market by shipments in Google’s first two years of trying, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. 

The Pixel 3, priced at $799, and a larger Pixel 3 XL, priced at $899, mark Google’s latest entries for a phone line-up it hopes will someday be as popular as Apple Inc.’s iPhone. 

The Pixel Slate tablet runs Google’s beefier Chrome OS laptop operating system rather than Android. It is priced at $599, aimed at competing with Apple’s iPad Pro. 

Shares of Alphabet barely moved on the announcements. Financial analysts said it is difficult to evaluate Google’s hardware business as it is overshadowed by profits from search ads. 

Google branched into hardware three years ago so that, like Apple, it could have full control of the performance of its applications and the revenue they generate. Other phone makers sometimes crowd out Google’s apps with their own or take a share of ad revenue, hurting Alphabet’s profits. 

Expanding geographic distribution should provide a small boost to the Pixel line-up. The Pixel 3 will launch in 10 countries, up from six for the Pixel 2 a year ago. New additions include France, Ireland, Japan and Taiwan. 

The Slate is available in the United States, the UK and Canada. 

A new artificial intelligence tool sure to generate buzz among consumers also could be helpful. The software, launching on US Pixels only, answers calls, requests information about the nature of the calls and shares it as text with the recipient. 

“We’ve built the first phone that can answer the phone,” Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president for hardware, told media on Tuesday. 

Ryan Reith, who leads device research at tech consulting firm IDC, said Google did not change enough in the Pixel 3 for it to stand apart from more well-known competitors. 

“Some of the stuff they are doing with software and artificial intelligence is certainly leading edge,” he said. “But as a lot of the technology advancements become more naked to the eye, it becomes that much tougher to sell.” 

Google shipped 2.53 million Pixel 2 and 2 XL devices through the nine months ended June 30, Strategy Analytics said. The first Pixel devices hit 2.4 million shipments in the nine months ended on June 30, 2017, the firm said. 

Limited adoption has reflected Google’s hesitancy to go as wide and big in distributing and marketing the Pixel as Apple, which launched its last two iPhone line-ups in about 50 countries. 

Going from a small experiment to a polished product that works in various languages and is backed by large sales, support and technical teams has been part of Google’s challenge. 

Last year’s Pixel 2 arrived with bugs that prompted user complaints about unwanted noises during calls, a crashing camera app and an unexpected screen tint. In response, Google doubled warranties to two years. 

The Pixel 3 faces continued limited sales in the United States since Google again signed an exclusive distribution deal with wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc. that means the device will get little marketing from other carriers. 

Google said it would augment distribution by opening two temporary stores in popular neighbourhoods of Chicago and New York on October 18, and putting up displays at US tech retailer B8ta and Goop. 

Google’s new smart speaker, which has a display to show visual responses to voice commands, mostly matches offerings from Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. 

Unlike its competitors, Google said its Home Hub, priced at $149, does not have a video conferencing camera. Home Hub is launching in the United States, the UK and Australia. 

The nod to privacy concerns comes as Google and other big US tech companies try to bounce back from recent data breach scandals. 

Amazon shipped 21.5 million smart speakers, including those with displays, in the year ended June 30, compared with 18.3 million for Google, according to research firm Canalys. 

Google said in a blog post on Tuesday that it recently delivered some Google Home speakers within 10 minutes of ordering using drones from Alphabet’s Wing. 

Shares of speaker maker Sonos Inc. were down 5.6 per cent on Tuesday.

Google faced a fresh privacy backlash Tuesday over a glitch that may have exposed data from half a million users, overshadowing the Silicon Valley’s launch of a new smartphone and other devices.

The Silicon Valley giant said Monday it shut down its Google+ social network for consumers after it found and fixed a bug exposing private data in as many as 500,000 accounts, but drew fire for initially failing to disclose the incident.

The revelation heightened concerns in Washington over privacy practices by Silicon Valley giants after a series of missteps by Facebook that may have leaked data on millions.

“In the last year, we’ve seen Google try to evade scrutiny — both for its business practices and its treatment of user data,” Senator Mark Warner said in a statement.

Warner said that despite “consent” agreements with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with Google and Facebook, “neither company appears to have been particularly chastened in their privacy practices”. 

“It’s clear that Congress needs to step in” for privacy protections, he added.

Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the latest breach suggests the FTC has failed to do its job in protecting user data.

“The Congress needs to establish a data protection agency in the United States,” Rotenberg said. “Data breaches are increasing but the FTC lacks the political will to enforce its own legal judgements.”

Senator Richard Blumenthal said the news shows that “to truly end this cycle of broken promises, we need a national privacy framework that protects consumers”.

Security researcher Graham Cluley said in a blog that “the big story is that Google knew months ago that user data had been exposed and chose to keep the fact quiet”.

“Did no one tell them that cover-ups are always worse than coming clean?” he added.

Princeton University researcher Arvind Narayanan noted in a Tweet that Google revealed a “vulnerability” rather than a data breach but he noted that “Google has no way to know if the vulnerability was exploited in the past — precisely because of [its] privacy by design.”

Drivers who hit the road on less than four hours of sleep are at least as likely to be involved in a crash as drivers who had too much to drink, a US study suggests. 

Brian Tefft, senior researcher at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, DC, reviewed data on more than 6,800 road accidents between 2005 and 2007 to study the effects of sleep deprivation on driving. 

“We really wanted to quantify” the relationship between how sleep-deprived a driver is, and “how much it affects their crash risk”, Tefft told Reuters Health by phone. 

As part of an earlier study, the drivers in these accidents had all been interviewed in depth by investigators from the US Department of Transportation. Tefft classified the drivers into those who were “culpable” for a crash and those who were not. 

Drivers whose errors, actions, or lack of actions, led to a crash were deemed culpable, whereas those involved in crashes caused by external factors, such as brake failure or poor infrastructure, were not. 

His findings showed that people who drove after getting less than seven hours of sleep were at higher risk for being culpable for the crash. That risk was greatest for drivers who slept less than four hours. 

 “The sharp increase in risk below four hours stands out,” the University of Pittsburgh’s Dr Sanjay Patel, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health in an email. 

“The odds of being responsible for a crash go up from 2.9-fold to 15.1-fold as sleep drops from four to five hours to less than four hours. But that... is not surprising given what we know about how decreasing sleep affects other aspects of brain function,” Patel said. 

Drivers who reported having slept for less than four hours had “crash risks” similar to what is been documented in drivers with blood alcohol concentrations (BAC) of 0.12 g/dL, Tefft notes in his report. In the US, driving with a BAC of 0.08 g/dL or higher is illegal, with lower limits for commercial drivers. Most of Western Europe and Japan have stricter limits. 

One weakness of the study is that it relied on drivers themselves to report how much they had slept. Another potential weakness is that other factors, like the presence of a sleep disorder, could contribute to crash risk. 

Also, Patel pointed out, “Drivers deemed non-culpable may still have been partially responsible for the crash — they [may have been] slow in veering out of the way of the culpable driver, for example.” 

Overall, 78 per cent of non-culpable drivers and 70 per cent of culpable drivers reported having slept for seven to nine hours in the 24 hours before crashing, Tefft reported in the journal Sleep. 

The study also found that drivers who had recently changed their sleep or work schedule had about a 30 per cent increase in their risk of causing a crash. 

“[This shows that] independently of the effect of sleep deprivation, disruption in the body’s internal clock can also increase one’s risk of causing a crash,” Tefft said. 

Drivers who spent less than four hours asleep in a 24-hour period are also at a significantly greater risk of being culpable in a single-vehicle crash than in one that involves another vehicle, the study showed. 

Single-vehicle crashes are more than three times as likely as multiple-vehicle crashes to result in fatalities, Tefft said. 

Data from the National Sleep Foundation show 60 per cent of US adults have driven while feeling drowsy and around 33 per cent have actually fallen asleep at the wheel. 

Benjamin McManus, a researcher in the Translational Research and Injury Prevention Laboratory at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, says Tefft’s study indicates sleep-deprived crashes are not all cases of “nodding off” or being “asleep-at-the-wheel”. 

“Judgement and decision making are highly impacted by poor sleep quantity and quality,” McManus said in an email. 

“With changes in the work economy and growth of ridesharing, we’re seeing a growth of a ‘gig’ economy where many work from home, work irregular hours, or work multiple jobs. [Data like this] may make the difference between recommendations of ‘you need a cup of coffee’ versus ‘you need a nap.’” 

First launched in2015, the Jaguar XE was intended to be the premium British automaker’s more accessible entry-level model that should also be more popular and attainable for drivers in highly taxed developing automotive markets.

Successor to the Ford Mondeo-based X-Type, the XE is an altogether different car rooted in Jaguar’s sporting heritage and designed with a modern flavour. An authentic rear-drive challenger to the German compact executive car troika of the Audi A4, Mercedes-Benz C-Class and BMW 3-Series, the talented XE also faces competition from cars like the Infiniti Q50 and Alfa Romeo Giulia.

Sporty yet supple

Contrary to any lingering stuffy misconceptions about Jaguar, the XE is a thoroughly modern and distinctly sporty saloon car priced to compete directly with rivals. Of the sportiest in its class, it is characterised by a combination of eager and adjustable handling and a supple and forgiving ride associated with Jaguar by those more familiar with the brand.

An ideal car for a thirty-something trading-up from a hot hatch or small sports car like a Mazda MX-5 or Subaru BRZ to something more grown-up, practical and premium for a young family, the XE delivers a similarly visceral drive and doesn’t skimp on the smiles.

The smallest of Jaguar’s saloons, the XE bears clear resemblance to the XF executive and XJ luxury model, and features similar lightweight aluminium-intensive construction and a swept back and seemingly ready to pounce sense of tension.

With slim, squinting deep-set headlights, broad and snouty wire-mesh grille, the XE has a dramatic demeanour, while its short front overhang, long bonnet and rakish roofline are distinctly sporting. At the rear, its high-set and short boot looks best with a colour contrasting to its lower black fascia insert. In black body colour, and with no contrast, the rear looks slightly compressed.

Eager performer

Powered by a Jaguar-modified version of Ford’s tried, tested and effective turbocharged 2-litre direct injection 4-cylinder Ecoboost engine, the XE, however, will soon feature the petrol version of Jaguar’s own new Ingenium engine line. Offered in different states of tune, the entry-level XE 20t 2-litre model develops 197BHP at 5,500rpm and 236lb/ft throughout a wide 1,750-4,000rpm sweet spot. 

Quick scrolling, responsive and with near imperceptible low-end turbo lag, the XE 20t is quick on its feet. Launching from standstill to 100km/h in 7.7-seconds, the 20t is capable of a 238km/h top speed, and can return restrained 7.5l/100km fuel efficiency.

Eager from low-end, muscularly versatile in mid-range and willing to top-end, the XE 20t is quick on level ground and remains confident on steep inclines. Its throttle control is uncharacteristically precise, delicate and responsive for a turbocharged car, and allows easy power modulation to accurately and intuitively balance the XE through cornering drifts.

However, there is slight overrun boost when at throttle lift-off from high revs and heavy load. Smooth, slick and responsive, the XE’s 8-speed automatic gearbox is happy to take multiple shift inputs in manual paddle shift mode, while shifts become more succinctly aggressive and gears can be held at redline in Sport driving mode.

Balanced and adjustable

Riding on sophisticated and sporty double wishbone front and integral-link rear suspension with fixed rate dampers, the XE achieves a commendable combination of ride comfort and lateral body lean control. With a slightly firm primary response over jagged road surfaces, the XE’s secondary responses are otherwise comfortable, smooth and absorbent. 

As speed picks up, the XE better still processes imperfections with a supple, fluent and textured manner. A lovely drive through sprawling, winding country lanes, the XE’s side-to-side motion is well controlled. And while there is slight vertical pitch on crests, rebound control and dips are processed with taut and settled control. 

Flowing and fluid through switchbacks, the XE’s suspension and steering work in brilliant harmony, with the latter being light, quick and precise. More so, its steering offers excellent feel and nuanced, textured fingertip feel for its segment, and is a joy. Balanced, eager, tidy and accurate into corners, with good front grip, the XE rear is meanwhile set-up for effortlessly easy and predictable drifts and slides. Best left on in normal driving or when storming through empty switchbacks, the XE’s drifts are reined in by stability controls, but are near telepathically intuitive with stability controls off through low speed snaking hill climbs.

Charisma and class

Great fun to balance with on-throttle control, the XE would further benefit were it to have a limited-slip rear differential. However, with stability control on low setting, it gives a taste of the beginning of a drift before brakes and power cuts manage a tidy cornering line.

Through hard driven, slickly paved switchbacks, its rear was a little fidgety and had an instinct to initiate unwanted drifts, unless one is late back on the throttle. That said, winter driving mode dulled throttle response for a smoother and more sure-footed drive, and newly paved roads provided more traction and more tenacious rear grip. 

Charismatic, classy and entertaining, the XE’s cabin has a sporty twin pod like design with a jutting high waistline. Design, ergonomics and seating position are attentively good, but firmer lumbar support on longer drives would be appreciated.

Materials include a mix of soft textures, good quality and hard-wearing leather, mixed with some hard plastics in the centre console. Front space was good, but the XE’s rear headroom and legroom isn’t really intended for tall and large passengers, who would be better served with an XF or XJ. Not the roomiest in its class, the XE does however have a generous boot.

Equipment levels are good, but the model driven notably didn’t have remote sensing door locks, and no blind spot warning, which would have been useful, if not necessary given the rakish roofline and Amman driver’s penchant for overtaking suddenly at either side. 

The tested car had over 15,000km and is presumably an often hard-driven customer demonstrator, the XE Prestige trim XE driven felt at its prime mechanically, and still fresh inside, but one row of console buttons felt a bit too firm to the touch.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Engine: 2-litre, turbocharged, in-line 4-cylinders
• Bore x stroke: 87.5 x 83.1mm
• Compression ratio: 10:1
• Valve-train: 16-valve, DOHC, variable timing, direct injection
• Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, rear-wheel-drive
• Ratios: 1st 4.71; 2nd 3.14; 3rd 2.11; 4th 1.67; 5th 1.29; 6th 1.0; 7th 0.84; 8th 0.67
• Reverse/final drive ratios: 3.3/3.42
• Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 197 (200) [147] @5,500rpm
• Specific power: 98.6BHP/litre
• Power-to-weight: 128.8BHP/tonne
• Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 236 (320) @1,750-4,000rpm
• Specific torque: 160Nm/litre
• Torque-to-weight: 209Nm/tonne
• 0-100km/h: 7.7-seconds
• Top speed: 238km/h
• Fuel economy, combined: 7.5-litres/100km
• CO2 emissions, combined: 179g/km
• Fuel capacity: 63-litres
• Length: 4672mm
• Width: 1850mm
• Height: 1416mm
• Wheelbase: 2835mm
• Track, F/R: 1602/1603mm
• Boot volume: 450-litres
• Unladen weight: 1530kg
• Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones, integral-link
• Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion
• Turning circle: 11.22-metres
• Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs/discs
• Tyres: 225/50R17
• Price, as tested (starting from): JD45,000 (JD38,000)

Sexual harassment and sexual abuse occur frequently and can harm physical and mental health, according to two studies from the US and Europe published in JAMA Internal Medicine. 

In one study, roughly one in five Pittsburgh-area women said they had been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted. These women were two to three times more likely to have high blood pressure, high triglycerides, poor sleep, depression or anxiety. 

In the other study, 70 per cent of male and female physicians in Berlin, Germany, said they had experienced sexual harassment or misconduct at work. 

“Experiences of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, unfortunately, are not uncommon,” said Rebecca Thurston, director of the women’s behavioural health laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre. “And these experiences have implications for not only job performance and quality of life, but also for mental and physical health.” 

Among the 304 women aged 40 to 60 who participated in Thurston’s study, 19 per cent said they had been sexually harassed at work and 23 per cent said they had been sexually assaulted. 

These percentages are lower than what’s been reported nationally, possibly because some women in the study did not work outside the home, Thurston said. The women were originally recruited for a study of hot flashes and atherosclerosis. 

Thurston’s team found that compared to women who had not been sexually harassed, women who had were 2.36 times more likely to have high blood pressure and 89 per cent more likely to have poor sleep. In newer findings presented this week at the annual meeting of the North American Menopause Society in San Diego, Thurston and colleagues reported that the likelihood of having high triglycerides was three times higher in sexually harassed women. 

Thurston suspects that being harassed kicks off changes in stress hormone levels, which ultimately impact blood pressure, triglycerides and sleep patterns. 

Similar results were seen among women who said they had been sexually assaulted. They were 2.86 times more likely to have clinical depression, 2.26 times more likely to have clinical anxiety and 2.15 times more likely to have poor sleep. 

Dr Mayumi Okuda, a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Centre in New York City, is not surprised by the findings. Research in children “shows that adverse childhood experiences are connected to so many things, such as high blood pressure, cancer, obesity”, said Okuda. “This shows that even adults will experience negative health consequences.” 

The German survey of 737 physicians found 62 per cent of men and 76 per cent of women had experienced some sort of sexual harassment in the workplace. While the idea of men being harassed may be surprising, certain types of conversations can make men very uncomfortable, said senior researcher Dr Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, a professor and chair of Gender in Primary and Transmural Care at Radboud University Medical Centre in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. 

For men, “the vulgar talk has to be specifically addressed towards you or an immediate bystander”, Oertelt-Prigione said in an e-mail. “The question in the questionnaire explicitly addressed this directionality. We are not talking about somebody telling a general vulgar joke to a group of colleagues.” 

Sexual harassment “is an issue for anyone in the workplace”, Oertelt-Prigione said. It flourishes in workplaces where there is a strong formal hierarchy, “where orders are generally given top-down with little opportunity for participation from employees”, Oertelt-Prigione explained. 

Lori Post, who was not involved in either study, suspects that if the questionnaire had been worded differently, Oertelt-Prigione’s study would have found an even higher prevalence of sexual harassment. “I believe the rate is closer to 100 per cent,” said Post, who is director of the Buehler Centre for Health Policy and Economics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. “The difference is in how often and how bad it is.” 

Post also believes Thurston’s harassment numbers might have been higher if the Pittsburgh team had not excluded women with heart disease from the study, since heart disease could be correlated with harassment. 

The solution to health problems related to harassment and abuse is to prevent these behaviours from happening in the first place, Okuda said. “There has to be a cultural shift away from condoning this kind of behaviour.” 

By Sheela Sheth

Food Expert

In my home country India, Borage, an annual brilliant blue bloom also known as a starflower, is used as a tea. This herb grows all over the world as an ornamental plant that attracts beneficial insects to preserve precious gardens. Let me share with you some of the uses and benefits of Borage, which I have discovered over the years.

Borage has popularly entered the herbal classification due to its rich aroma and cosmetic and curative properties. In India, we use Borage for consumption as the leaves are less fuzzy and its flavour resembles thyme and oregano. We use it to protect, nurse and enhance flavours and texture in plants like legumes, spinach, strawberries and tomatoes. The plant grows to a height of 60 to 100 centimetres tall, and its flowers turn from pink to blue when fully grown.

Flavourful herb: traditionally Borage was cultivated for culinary and medicinal purpose but today, it is commercially grown as an oilseed. I use it is either as a fresh or a dry herb and it has the freshness of cucumber and aroma of oregano, sage, thyme and mint. I often use it in cocktails, desserts and salads to complement taste and presentation. The flowers are often used for infusing teas due to its minty flavour. The Indian Borage is sharper in taste and its aroma could be mistaken for thyme or oregano, which is used for flavouring meat and fish. In South East Asia, it is used as a soup condiment.

Curative property: The Indian Borage has a host of health benefits which are a little different in appearance and taste than its counterparts. The fuzzy flowering plant adorned with purple blue vibrant colour is often mistaken for weed and pulled out by most gardeners. Its rich medicinal property has been known to be helpful for respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders. It also aids in overcoming cramps, colic and diarrhoea. The pulp of the leaves is often used to cure sores, psoriasis, herpes, insect bites, nail fungus, eczema to relieve itching and skin irritation. It is known to be rich in Omega 6 fatty acids.

Borage oil in cosmetics: Borage seed oil is one of the richest sources of gamma linoleic acid and is used in high-end cosmetic formulation. It is known to nourish and hydrate the skin besides being perfect for mature skin where regeneration of new skin cells is required. Borage leaves are used for making soap and are added to nourishing creams. At home, the paste can be used externally for skin conditions and a rejuvenating bath.

 Borage oil is not recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Be sure to consult your a doctor before attempting any herbal remedies.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

Elsewhere, Home

Leila Aboulela

London, Telegram, 2018

Pp. 216

Sudanese-British writer Leila Aboulela’s prose is so compelling because she is able to convey strong emotions and decisive moments in a very subtle way, using small details to indicate much larger changes or themes. This collection of thirteen short stories shows that she has had this talent from the beginning of her writing, for it includes her very first stories as well as recent ones. Most revolve around themes of faith, cultural differences and cross-cultural identity, as do her four novels. In her rendition, addressing cultural differences does not seem intended to pull people apart, but to help them genuinely understand each other. 

The title of the book, “Elsewhere, Home”, is a good example of expressing a larger theme in a lowkey metaphor. Most of the main characters in the stories either straddle two societies or are living in a country not their original one. Some are happy to have “escaped” Sudan or Africa, while others are lost or homesick or bored in the UK. Some no longer know where home is.

In one story, the relationship between a mother and daughter shifts as they travel from London for their annual summer visit to Cairo. In the UK, Nadia is embarrassed by her mother’s poor English and Egyptian ways. “But she could also change the lens and see what her mother saw.” (p. 4)

Preconceptions shift when a Scottish convert to Islam falls in love with a Sudanese woman in Edinburgh. She is surprised by his conversion: “She associated Islam with dark skin, her African blood, her own weakness. She couldn’t really understand why anyone like him would want to join the wretched of the world.” (p. 29)

Yet, another story reflects the lingering aftereffects of colonialism in how African students struggle in higher education courses in the UK for which they have had no preparation. The main character in this story is a female Sudanese student who does not jump at the chance to marry a foreigner.

Some stories contrast the devotion of recent converts to Islam with that of those who are born Muslim. Others are about the disappointments of Arab-British marriages, and the effects on their children, some of whom are raised without religion, but rediscover Islam as young adults.

Some characters are double migrants, manoeuvring between three totally different environments, like Yasir who has a Scottish wife and daughter in Aberdeen, works two-week shifts on a North Sea oil rig, and visits his mother and siblings in Khartoum. Others live alone in order to pursue a job offer. “It seemed that the fate of our generation is separation, from our country or our family. We are ready to go anywhere in search of the work we cannot find at home.” (p. 149)

Thus, Aboulela comments on the irony that pursuing higher education may improve one’s standard of living but at the expense of family ties. 

Some stories zoom in on women’s situation, like “Farida’s Eyes” when a brilliant young student almost fails before her father listens to the teacher who told him long ago that she needs glasses. In another, very complex story, a Sudanese woman must deflect her husband’s over- admiration of the West which amounts to self-hate. Her point of view is quite different. She always finds it difficult to return from visiting her family because “in Khartoum I felt everything was real and our life in London a hibernation”. (p. 86)

She misses “the essence of my country… Those everyday miracles, the poise between normality and chaos. The awe and the breathtaking gratitude for simple things”. (p. 98)

Another story points to the options open to women who do not get married before it is considered “too late”. Yet, another shows the pro’s and con’s of being the daughter of a radical feminist.

To put things in perspective, not every story revolves around cultural differences as defined by country. One story revolves around the failure of a marriage where the husband and wife ostensibly have similar cultural backgrounds. Another focuses on grief, yet another in the difference between an author’s progressive writing and her real-life personality. 

Although all the stories have social or spiritual themes, they are first and foremost literary, making their point via imaginative plots and flowing prose. Aboulela’s characters are very well-drawn. Despite the brevity of short stories, none of them are mere symbols of cultural traits. It is also inspiring how the conflicts in the stories are seen from both sides by virtue of the way the author charts the plots. The multicultural world she creates in her fiction is neither the nightmare depicted by racists nor the paradise promised by idealists. Rather, it is close to real life.

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have pinpointed what appears to be the first moon detected outside our solar system, a large gaseous world the size of Neptune that is unlike any other known moon and orbits a gas planet much more massive than Jupiter.

The discovery, recently detailed by researchers, was a surprise and not because it showed that moons exist elsewhere — they felt it was only a matter of time for one to be found in another star system. They were amazed instead by how different this moon was from the roughly 180 known in our solar system.

“It’s big and weird by solar system standards,” Columbia University Astronomy Professor David Kipping said of the moon, known as an exomoon because it is outside our solar system. 

Our solar system’s moons all are rocky or icy objects. The newly discovered exomoon and the planet it orbits, estimated to be several times the mass of our solar system’s largest planet Jupiter, are both gaseous, an unexpected pairing. They are located 8,000 light years from Earth.

Kipping and study co-author Alex Teachey, a Columbia graduate student, said their observations using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler Space Telescope provided the first clear evidence of an exomoon, but further Hubble observations next May must be used to confirm the finding.

The exomoon is exponentially larger than our solar system’s biggest moon. Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has a diameter of about 5,260km. The exomoon is estimated to be roughly the size of Neptune, the smallest of our solar system’s four gas planets, with a diameter of about 49,000km.

The exomoon and its planet orbit Kepler-1625, a star similar in temperature to our sun but about 70 per cent larger. The exomoon orbits roughly 3 million kilometres from its planet. The exomoon’s mass is about 1.5 per cent that of its planet.

Kipping and Teachey relied on the “transit” method already used by researchers to discover nearly 4,000 planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets. They observed a dip in Kepler-1625b’s brightness when the planet and then the exomoon passed in front of it.

The size and gaseous composition of the exomoon challenge current moon formation theories.

“You could argue that because larger objects are easier to detect than smaller ones, this is really the lowest-hanging fruit, so it might not be wholly unexpected that the first exomoon detection would be among the largest possible,” Teachey said.

The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.