Thursday, December 26, 2013

World's First ATM


AP
A girl puts her computer punch card into the slot of a money machine outside the Westminster Bank in Charring Cross, London, on Jan. 19, 1968


It might just be the best idea to come to a man in the bathtub since Archimedes' time. While taking a soak, inventor John Shepherd-Barron devised what is hailed as the world's first automatic teller machine, although his claim to the title is a matter of dispute. He pitched the device to the British bank Barclays. It accepted immediately, and the first model was built and installed in London in 1967. Though the machine used PIN (personal identification number) codes, a concept Shepherd-Barron also claims to have invented, it was dependent on checks impregnated with the (slightly) radioactive isotope carbon 14 to initiate a withdrawal, as the magnetic coding for ATM cards had not yet been developed. One other difference from its ubiquitous modern counterpart: it didn't charge a fee.
Source: http://content.time.com

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Lina Medina : Youngest mother in medical history



Lina Medina is the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days. She currently lives in Lima, the capital of Peru.
Medina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of five years due to increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, Peru, before the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Medina was pregnant.
Medina's son weighed 2.7 kg at birth and was named Gerardo after her doctor. Gerardo was raised believing that Medina was his sister, but found out at the age of 10 that she was his mother. He grew up healthy but died in 1979 at the age of 40 of a bone marrow disease.

Later life: Medina has never revealed the father of the child nor the circumstances of her impregnation. Dr. Escomel suggested she might not actually know herself by writing that Medina "couldn't give precise responses".
Although Lina's father was arrested on suspicion of child sexual abuse, he was later released due to lack of evidence, and the biological father who impregnated Lina was never identified. Additionally, there was no explanation of how a five-year-old girl could conceive a child.

In young adulthood, she worked as a secretary in the Lima clinic of Dr. Lozada, who gave her an education and helped put her son through high school. Medina later married Raúl Jurado, who fathered her second son in 1972. As of 2002, they lived in a poor district of Lima known as "Chicago Chico" ("Little Chicago"). She refused an interview with Reuters that year,just as she had turned away many reporters in years past.

Source: Knowledge Bank

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

World's first film with a single actor

Malayalam film 'The Gaurd' released in 2001 is the first film with a single actor. Actor Kalabhavan Mani is the lone actor in the film who plays the role of a forest guard. 
Hakim Rawther had written and directed the movie. Jointly produced by Sabitha Jayaraj and Kerela State Film Development Corporation
The film had 7 songs sung by the actor himself. Despite that it failed to get the entry at the Guinness World Records. 


Source: Wikipedia