Category Archives: Desi Totkay

Four inventions of Abbas ibn Firnas

Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini (Arabic: أبو القاسم عباس بن فرناس بن ورداس التاكرني; c. 809/810 – 887 A.D.), also known as Abbas ibn Firnas (Arabic: عباس ابن فرناس) was an Andalusi polymath:an inventor, astronomer, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusi musician, and Arabic-language poet.He was reported to have experimented with unpowered flight. Ibn Firnas made various contributions in the field of astronomy and engineering. He constructed a device which indicated the motion… Read More »

Habits to Form Now for a Longer Life

Eating a nutritious diet and exercising regularly may increase your life expectancy. Other factors, like overeating and drinking more than a moderate level of alcohol, may increase your risk of certain diseases. Many people think that life expectancy is largely determined by genetics. However, genes play a much smaller role than originally believed. It turns out that environmental… Read More »

Famous historian Colonel Mark Wilks writes

This paper was delivered as the Loyola College Endowment lecture at the Tirunelveli session of the South Indian History Congress, January 30-Feb 1 2009. The author thanks Dr G Chandrika, Reader, Department of History, Pondicherry University, for making valuable suggestions.Mark Wilks (1759-1831) remains a curiously neglected historian of the early nineteenth century, a period that saw the emergence… Read More »