Before the advancement of modern medicine, renal failure was often referred to as uremic poisoning. Uremia was the term used to describe the contamination of the blood with urine. Starting around 1847, this term was used to describe reduced urine output, that was thought to be caused by the urine mixing with the blood instead of being voided through the urethra.[citation needed] The term uremia is now used to loosely describe the illness accompanying kidney failure

It’s all in the timing!

Mom-to-be Lily Allen is interviewed in the new issue of  and PerezHilton.com has anexclusive excerpt from the article.

Lily on her “I’m fat” blog from last year:
“In a way, that blog was a massive cry for help…I was like ‘Oh, God, I’m so tired, I feel so shit, everyone keeps writing how ugly I am…Can someone help me, please?’”

On the habit she has yet to quit, smoking:
“I love smoking…I don’t really want to say it, but I do.”

On her new body and exercise regimen:
“I’m fit now. I can do anything. I don’t feel completely knackered. I feel energized.”

On fitting into sample sizes:
“It’s not about losing weight, just about being fit…It can get you down, people trying to pull things over you. When it doesn’t fit, they give little sighs and- …Now that I do fit into those things, it makes me feel better, but actually it shouldn’t, really.”

On Britney Spears:
“I don’t think you choose for things to get like that.”

On celebrities as role models:
“I don’t understand putting famous people on a pedestal and making them into role models. Your mum is meant to be your role model, not famous people…They’re all on drugs and drinking a lot…completely the wrong people to look up to.”

On her relationship with Ed Simons and whether it has helped melt away the pounds:
“I’m certainly getting more exercise in the bedroom…So yeah.”

With the way Bipasha Basu [Images] and Saif Ali Khan [Images] are setting the screen afire with the teasers of their upcoming Race, we can’t help but stare.

So we put this question to you, dear reader: which recent film do you think had the steamiest, most sensual scene, and why do you feel that particular scene was as hot?

Rani Mukherjee and Karan Johar recently appeared on Shah Rukh Khan’s game show Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hai? While the duo did entertain one and all with their antics, they also managed to win Rs. 50 lakhs, which they will be donating to charity.

This is not the first time that Rani Mukherjee was seen participating in a game show. It may be recollected that Rani had earlier appeared along with Preity Zinta on a special episode of SRK’s Kaun Banega Crorepati. At that time also, the two beautiful actresses had won Rs. 50 lakhs and Mukherjee had donated her share (Rs.25 lakhs) to the Holy Family Hospital in Bandra, Mumbai, which was utilised in building ICU in the hospital.

Now the actress would be inaugurating the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) today and needless to say, the amount donated by Rani has indeed been used for a very noble cause.

Your IPL team has made it to the semi-finals.

Well, there were ups and downs when our team started out and I wasn’t sure where we were heading. I used to wonder what I was doing at the initial IPL meetings. So, I took the matter seriously and did my homework. I came out a winner finally. It feels good as I’ve worked very hard to get here.

• You seemed to be cheering Sachin Tendulkar even though he was in the opposite team…

Yes, I was. For me, it’s not about winning only. Both the teams played extremely well on Wednesday. I was so much on the edge of my seat that I nearly toppled over.

• Did you brief Sreesanth about keeping his temper in control?

No, I don’t instruct anybody. It’s not my job. We have a coach and a captain to do that. I don’t think it is right for me to intervene during matches.

• You’re the first woman from the entertainment business to have forayed into sports in such a big way…

Am I? Let’s see where we are headed. If my team wins the Cup, then I can proudly say yes, I’ve done it. It hasn’t been easy. I have put in a lot of effort to get players from different countries together, it signifies true sportsmanship. Looking back, I don’t know how we managed to do it. Now, when we’ve made it to the semi-finals, what we really want is the Cup.

• Have you personally gained from the whole experience?

I’ve learnt a lot about cricket. I feel very nervous during the matches though. Our team has had a good overall performance. I’m proud of them. Yuvraj has been an outstanding captain.

• The general consensus is that Ness and you managed to get the best IPL team…

We have the most balanced team. We also wanted a young and India-heavy team. People think that we have a glamorous team. But, our prerequisite was talent and the glamour is just an add-on element.

• What is it like to have Shah Rukh Khan as a competitor?

I don’t see him as competition. He’s a colleague and a dear friend. IPL is not about Shah Rukh or me. We are not playing on the field anyway.

I used to wonder what I was doing at the initial IPL meetings. So, I took the matter seriously and did my homework - Preity Zinta

ABC’s “Good Morning America” revealed the “Seven Wonders of America” during the morning broadcast. The show assembled a panel of experts to choose the seven destinations, which included man made as well as natural wonders. The panel included Annie Griffith Belt, National Geographic photographer; Brent D. Glass, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History; Michael Roberts, executive editor of Outside Magazine; Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist, Patricia Schultz, author of “1000 Places to See Before You Die in the USA and Canada,” and Pauline Frommer, creator of the Pauline Frommer Guidebooks.

The list goes as follows:

1.The National Mall & Memorial Parks, Washington DC
2.The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
3.The Grand Canyon
4.The Beautiful Badlands
5.Saturn V : The Moon Rocket
6.Golden Gate Bridge
7.New York City

TOUTED AS a do-or-die game for the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team, the locals knew before the game got underway that they would be in for a rude shock. The Bollywood franchisee Shahrukh Khan preferred to remain away, the stands wore a deserted look and the body language of the KKR players said it all.

They knew, like the spectators, that they were licked before the first ball was bowled. The jazzy dresses, the theme song, the special outlets for selling KKR mementos have all come to a naught. Some of the TV channels, normally bubbling with excitement at the prospects of a nail biting finish and redeeming of the lost image of the home team, had relegated the game to the back-burners.

The Rajasthan Royals won the toss and sent in the KKR to bat – Shane Warne probably took the decision after seeing the dark clouds overhead. He wanted to play it safe, should the Duckworth-Lewis system (D/L system) be called up once again. However, the Kolkata players were extra cautious and, in the bargain, could not post even 150 runs. Whatever 147 runs they eventually put up, with the contributions by a couple of unknown youngsters, were certainly insufficient.

The Rajasthan team romped home in the 17th over with Yusuf Pathan and Mohammed Kaif putting on 81 valuable runs in record time. The doors to enter the last four is now more or less closed and a distant dream for the KKR. They cannot hope to fight it out now for a semi-final berth.

Rumours are floating around about the differences of opinion between SRK and Sourav Ganguly. It seems that the problems began right from the time of purchasing (not selecting) the players in the auction. The recommendations of Ganguly were not accepted by SRK while the players who SRK bought were not the ones Ganguly wanted.

Moreover, KKR was the only team that had to pay entertainment tax to the West Bengal government – none of the others had to shell out this extra expense. SRK had requested Ganguly to ask the Chief Minister to reconsider this decision but he did not oblige even though his relationship with the CM is quite amicable.

The last straw was probably the match with the Chennai team – SRK had suggested that the KKR should field first, but Ganguly went ahead and batted. This led to frayed tempers in the dressing room. After the loss, there were heated exchanges between the two. At the end, it turned out to be a fight over two independent power centres.

SRK being the celebrity that he is, will not let this loss affect his thinking. He is a more experienced man now and the next round of the IPL might see him handle the issues differently and with more maturity. His problems are similar to the ones faced by Vijay Mallya – his Bangalore team did not live up to his expectations and he will also pursue other options in the second round

Prices are quoted in US dollars per gallon for regular unleaded. 

Oslo, Norway 
$6.82 

Hong Kong 
$6.25 

Brussels, Belgium 
$6.16 

London, UK 
$5.96 

Pune, May 19 (IANS) Noted Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar died Monday at his residence here after prolonged illness. He was 80 years old.

Family sources said Tendulkar died at about 8 a.m. He had been unwell for the past two months.

A Padma Bhushan awardee, Tendulkar was best known for his plays “Ghashiram Kotwal” and “Sakharam Binder”. He was also awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship for lifetime achievement.

In 1977, Tendulkar won the National Film Award for his screenplay of Shyam Benegal’s movie “Manthan”. He also wrote the screenplays for other critically acclaimed films like “Nishant”, “Akrosh” and “Ardh Satya”.

Parinda adds:

Vijay Tendulkar had been suffering from Myasthenia Gravis and been in hospital for five weeks. Vijay Tendulkar was father to television actress-social activist Priya Tendulkar who died in 2002.

New Delhi, May 19 (IANS) Air Deccan has been asked to pay compensation of Rs.25,000 to a customer who had booked three low-cost air tickets nearly six months in advance but was informed later that the flight had been cancelled.

The Delhi state Consumer Commission has also asked Air Deccan to deposit an equal amount with it as part of the Legal Aid fund.

Justice J.D. Kapoor held the airlines guilty of falsely informing the consumer that his flight booked six months in advance under a promotional fare scheme has been cancelled as the Bombay-Delhi flights were not operational from May 1-31, 2007. The airlines had also claimed that the consumer himself cancelled the tickets and asked them for compensation.

The complainant, Ajay Goel, said on April 27, 2007, that he verified Air Deccan’s flight cancellation and found it to be untrue. He claimed the lower value tickets of Rs.300 he had purchased were cancelled on the flight in lieu of the more expensive tickets costing Rs.7,650.

The court turned down the Air Deccan plea that it has the right to cancel flights under circumstances beyond its control like meteorological conditions, mechanical failure, staff or employee strikes, wars, disturbances, labour difficulties or others as in the present case not a single circumstance existed for cancelling the flight.

Justice Kapoor observed that whenever a service provider wants to take advantage of the circumstances permitting it to delay, cancel or change the schedule of the flight, the onus is heavily upon it. Otherwise, it is bound to compensate the consumer for wrongful cancellation or wrongful delay.

He observed that service providers like airlines little realise that their inefficiency, casual or cavalier attitude towards passengers causes immense mental agony, harassment, emotional suffering and physical discomfort to passengers as they are left stranded for hours and when the consumers ask for refund, the airlines make them run from pillar to post and offer them half the price of the ticket.

Ajay Goel had booked a return ticket for himself and his two relatives under a promotional fare scheme Nov 12, 2006, in which the basic fare was less than Rs.300. On April 26, 2007, the day of his flight, he received a call from Bangalore saying that their flight had been cancelled.

On enquiry, he came to know that the flight was operational.

It is believed that there is something eerie about a sprawling VIP bungalow in Tughlaq Lane, New Delhi.

Over the years, many of its high-profiled occupants have succumbed to cancer, according to numerous media reports.

Justice M Srinivasan was amongst those who had resisted the rumours and decided to move into the Tughlaq Lane house.

However, he died of cancer after shifting to the ill-fated house. The former Chief Justice of India, YK Sabharwal, who also had a stint at the same residence, lost his wife during their stay there. A media report also claims that Justice RV Ravindran’s in-laws passed away soon after shifting there.  Even his daughter developed a cancerous growth on her tongue.

Another resident, Justice Ashok Bhan had discovered that his wife contracted cancer soon after shifting there, prompting him to vacate it right away. A lot of people, who had been offered the house, declined to take possession because of the fear factor. 

Some occupants even tried making changes in their way own way. After consulting Vastu experts, they even resorted to closing a particular room, but in vain. However, the security attaché related to the current occupant Gen Nirmal Chander Vij, rubbished these stories, stressing that all the earlier deaths imputed to that house could be a mere coincidence. Gen Vij, who took over as the Chief of Army Staff from General S Padmanabhan on Dec 31,2002, is known as Indian Army’s most consummate strategist and a Kargil war hero.

On promotion to the rank of commander, Vij served as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Southern Command. During that tenure, he had personally supervised the rescue and relief operations in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Gujarat.

As DGMO, Vij also conceived Operation Khukri to rescue trapped elements of the Indian peace keeping contingent, which was part of United Nations force in Sierra Leone. It was during his tenure as commander of India’s only Dimapur-based counter insurgency corp that the United Liberation Front of Assam militants started surrendering in big numbers, which rendered the movement virtually ineffective.

A valiant person like Gen Vij certainly has kept all the stories about the ‘infamous’ dwelling under wraps. But how the house could have such a large number of cancer victims could never really be explained.

An Indian student at the University of Leicester is making waves with his research on mobile signals that has implications for countries with long coastlines such as India.

Salil Gunashekar, who graduated in Physics from St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, has completed his doctoral study on mobile signals and will present key findings of his research at a public lecture on June 5.

His study discovered a particular window of time when mobile signals and radio waves become stronger, allowing them to be clearer and travel greater distances.

The research, examining the signal strength of radio waves travelling over the sea, identified late afternoons and early evenings in spring and summer as a time when enhanced signals occur.

The research has implications for the design of cellular telephone networks operating in marine and coastal regions.

“In today’s world, radio waves are an indispensable means of communicating information without wires from one place to another, be it for radio broadcasts or cell phones, television transmissions or airport radars,” Gunashekar, who is now a post-doctoral research associate in the Radio Systems Research Group of the university, said.

When radio waves travel for long distances over the sea, their strength can be affected by the weather. The constantly changing weather conditions over the sea mean that marine and coastal environments, in particular, are prone to unusual atmospheric phenomena that enable radio waves to travel longer distances and have higher strengths than expected, he said.

Los Angeles, May 16: John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic “Barbarella” and a lovesick Russian seaman in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” has died. He was 70.

Law died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home, said his daughter Dawn Law. The cause of death was not announced.

With his vivid eyes, blond hair and imposing physique, Law was much in demand by filmmakers in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

He gained wide notice in 1966 with Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner and Theo Bikel in “The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,” Norman Jewison’s Cold War comedy in which a Soviet submarine runs aground off a peaceful New England island town.

He played the sweet Russian youth who falls in love with a local American girl in the film, which was nominated for four Oscars including best picture, actor (Arkin) and director.

French director Roger Vadim put Law’s looks to good use in his 1968 science fiction film, “Barbarella,” which starred Vadim’s wife at the time, Jane Fonda, as a sexy space traveler in the faraway future. Law wore wings to portray Pygar, a blind angel.

“I’ve had more kicks out of playing far-out things,” Law told the Los Angeles Times in 1966. “It’s like putting on a funny face and going out in front of people and going, ‘yaaaaaa.’”

Messages left Thursday for Fonda’s New York publicist were not returned.

Law was World War I ace Baron Manfred von Richtofen in the 1971 “The Red Baron” and Charlton Heston’s son in “The Hawaiians,” a 1970 sequel to “Hawaii,” based on James Michener’s sprawling novel.

In Otto Preminger’s 1967 film, “Hurry Sundown,” he was a war veteran struggling to preserve his farm against a land speculator played by Michael Caine. Fonda played Caine’s wife.

He continued his career in a variety of U.S. and foreign films and television over the past 30 years, including appearances in “The Young and the Restless” and “Murder, She Wrote.”

Law was a California native, born in 1937 to actress Phyllis Sallee, and her husband, a police officer. He told the Los Angeles Times he did some extra work in films as a child. He said he put acting ambitions aside in his teens, but his interest was renewed in a college drama class.

He worked in the theater in New York for a while before breaking into the movies, spending some time in the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, whose directors included the great Elia Kazan.

Bureau Report